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The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Category: music

I Will Go – Available Now!

My life, your life, has been preserved until this moment
for one reason.


That it might be given away.

While there is life and strength in you,
          While you are young and brave, and beautiful,

Go.


Go pour out every drop on thirsty ground 
where no flowers grow, but seeds lie dormant.


From its first heartbeat this project has been woven with your prayers, enabled by your gifts, inspired by your friendship and filled with your favorites.

And it’s all been such a gift to us, we can’t stand the thought of ending the giving.
And we’ve decided there’s no reason to.

This CD is a bit different… Longer, yes. Filled with nominations, yes.
But more than that, squeezed out of hearts that are being wrung with longing to see dark places lighted with the Glory of God…

Hearts thankful beyond words for the inspiration of the soldiers young and old actually holding the torches.
They’re our heroes. And some of their names can’t appear in print.
But this CD is dedicated to them.

And we give thanks for them, but we want to do something a bit more.
So a dollar from every disk goes to Karen Outreach. (www.karenoutreach.org)
Forever.

That’s our little part.
If you’d like to send a dollar too, use the second paypal button when you order. We’ll send $2.

But don’t just buy the CD and sit and listen and smile and say “that’s sweet.”
Go get on your face and ask to be broken and spilled out.

Then we can call this project a success.

______________________________________________

p.s. Thank you isn’t enough. 80 plus songs later, we have fodder for lots of dreams. And we wish we could sufficiently thank everyone that took the time to nominate songs. We still have the list….. 🙂
But I promised that your names would go in a hat, and a dozen of you would get free copies. So if your name is listed below:

1. Don’t order a copy. It’ll just come in the mail. (better email me at seannebblett[at]gmail[dot]com to give me your address though.

2. Order a copy anyway. We’ll send all 15 dollars to Asia…

Maria Adams

Esther Collier
Luther Coram

Christina Ford

Emily Heagy
Beth Johns

Lydia Keener

Cami Martin
Hope Montana
Libby Orthman
Allie Westermeyer
Sophia Wichmann

Sign Here Please

“By signing, I would have been giving away comprehensive and exclusive rights to all of my music, everywhere in the universe, for perpetuity! No!”

We still laugh every time we remember it.
Our incredulous friend-since-childhood, turned celebrity and world traveler. And us.

We’d just finished sharing a stage. And now under discussion was the paperwork so often required for such appearances…

– – –

Comprehensive, exclusive, universal… For perpetuity.
My rights.
Sign here please.

I bristle. Don’t you?
The last thing I want to do is give up my rights.

But do I really have any?
Oh yes, “We hold these truths to be self evident…”

But on the cosmic stage…

On the cosmic stage, I’m a criminal. And I already gave my rights away.
But I still claim them. My right to myself. My right to my powers. My right to pleasures…
It’s all death. And they’re not even really mine…
I don’t even have the right to life.

Unless Jesus Himself gives me His.
The right to His power, His pleasures, His life… Himself.

It’s crazy. But He offers it anyway.
And so we trade.

That’s when I sign away my claims to myself.

Sign here please.

You bet.
My rights, comprehensive, exclusive, universal, for perpetuity.
I release my claims to myself.

Christ claims my powers, my gifts, my breath,

I claim Christ.

Until Next Time…

Mics and pop filters, and preamps slide back into their boxes,
until next time.

They’ve been out, waiting for the “All Clear” from Mastering… just in case.

And now with the Master and the artwork set to meet at the replicators early next week, their job is finished for a time.

Once again our hearts overflow with gratitude…
Once again this project has taken on the pathos of the season slipping away, and the joyful anticipation of another on the horizon.
Once again God has proven Himself faithful through the hands and feet and prayers of people like you.

But this one’s a little bit different.
It’s a plea.

A dollar from every disc goes to a cause we love.
Just which, you’ll have to wait a wee tad longer to find out. 🙂

Pre-orders opening soon…

The Gift of a Song

It was more than 25 years ago that my brave mother and father decided that their boisterous urchins would learn the art of song…

And we sang alright. Wailed, in fact.

Lots of times…

And the noises could hardly be called music at first.

But we’ve fallen in love now… And we wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Maybe that’s why our house is full of boisterous urchins from across the county every Tuesday.
(If you telephone, don’t do it on that day.)

Not really.
We think they’re angels… 🙂

Spring Recital – on the lawn
neighbor girl
They don’t all fit in the living room any more…
teacher’s violin
unfortunately, photographer doubling as pianist, the performance photos are thin.
that’s the musical genius behind Sweetwater Musical Institute. 
love that hair!
Kirsten
refreshments
neighbors and beyond…
Laurie
more neighbors

Designs of Grace

The day closes on hours of setup and sound checks. Tomorrow the real work begins… Mean time, miracles on the instruments are in full swing. The lost voices are mended, or mending. (how could they do otherwise, after prayers from 4 continents?)

I patter around the studio after the troop has gone upstairs, capturing these sights in the silence. The stack of preamps brings a smile to my face.

Grace Design.

Naturally. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

We Never Would Have Guessed…

We never would have guessed…
We’ve laughed, and cried, and struck palms to foreheads over the songs you love. All 83 of them.
They’ll never fit on 5 CDs, but we’re going to start.
In one month.
Start praying for us… 🙂

Because We Love the Songs You Love. [Next CD Project]

Quiet, I watch jays and juncos flutter through freshly fallen snow in search of seed.
I hear in their contented chirps a song I’ve been learning over months of treasure hunts my own–
His way is peace… and perfect freedom.
I heard the same thing in the summer when the birds sang at dusk as well as dawn
(We’ve got a few lessons to learn.)
We do a fair bit of singing in this house. (epic understatement.)
And not because it’s always sunny… 
It’s because it fills our sails for the storm. 
Actually, when we’re all together on one level, 2 minutes is often the most we go between snatches of some sonnet.
And that is grace to us… Because we also often feel like we’re sailing high seas in half a cider barrel a piece. 
Oh, we’ve swallowed our share of salt water to be sure… 
But we’re learning to laugh at the waves. 
And somehow, these cider barrels are proving unsinkable.
But see, that’s why the song means so much to us…
_ _ _
So we’ve got a question. Next month marks a year since I Cannot Tell was tracked in our basement studio. And next month, we will be recording again… We’ve got a list of songs our hearts love to sing, but we want to hear the list your hearts love.
And they could be songs you’ve heard us sing, or favorites we’ve never heard before…
Just do one of three things. 🙂
1.)  Comment on this blogpost with your requests/suggestions
2.)  Post a comment in Google+ with the same (if you’re reading from there)
3.)  Drop us an email at thenebblettfamily[at]gmail[dot]com
As a little thank you, we’ll put your names in a hat and when the CD is done in a few months time, we will give away a dozen copies. 

Behind the Scenes…

I promised weeks ago I’d post clips of our CD recording, because so many of you prayed…

Well, I just did.

Not here though.

Here.

Drop by and see us. 😉

Love is Life…

When we get to Heaven, come find me in the library at the University of the Universe…
I’ll be studying two things: 


Love, and music…




“Love is oneness– oh, how sweet
   To obey this law,
The unlovely we may meet
  Need our love the more.
Make us one, O love, we plead
With men’s sorrow and their need.


We are one in needing love,
  (Let us true love show)
Only love’s sun from above
  Makes our spirits grow.
‘Love us!’ this is our heart’s need,
‘Let us love’ –and live indeed!


We are also one in this, 
  We must love or die,
Loving others is true bliss,
  Self-love is a lie!
Love of self is inward strive, 
Love turned outward is true life.


Let us love and fruitful be,
  Love is God’s own breath,
Love will kindle love and see
  New life born from death.
Nowhere is a heaven more sweet
Than where loving spirits meet.”


Mountains of Spices: pages 46-47 

My Prayer — A Sample

My Prayer is well on it’s way… Here’s one sample. 
Owing to the fact that no one song provides a comprehensive statement of character as far as the whole project is concerned, the choice was not so easy… 
…In the end, all I can tell you is that this song will be on the disc, along with a bunch of others that don’t sound anything like it…