Essays

My Queen and muse tells me, “You’re always rearranging space in your head.” She’s right, and while such information would ordinarily be considered “personal business,” I’ve now discovered a public forum for all such mental wranglings and public notices are warranted. Certain there is nothing new under the sun, my writing will likely appear as nothing more than reshuffled furniture, rearranged space. Deserved criticisms not withstanding, I find myself content, standing on the edge of this digital feather, fully “expecting to fly.”

A Craft of Compulsion – “If writing were only about crafting sentences, words into paragraphs, paragraphs into arguments, it would have little fascination for most. The real joy comes from making things from words, bringing something out of nothing, invisible thought into the world of time and space.” [more….]

American Taliban – “O.K., all right, let me say at the outset that this is going to be pure rant. The mobilized mingling of politics and religion, are you kidding me? What wonderful fodder. Freeing myself from the shackles of balance, I unleash my bias. Liberating!” [more….]

Appointed to Sigh – “The best any of us can do in those moments is to “weep with those who weep.” Tears have their own language and they spoke volumes that day. People do not grieve for monsters; we grieve for loveliness lost and that sudden vacuum pulled at every soul gathered.” [more….]

Being Crippled for Fun and Profit – “Years ago when people would make comment about my prosthesis or the way I accomplished something mundane, I’d tell them my next trick was going to be juggling knives while drinking water. Unable to leave well enough alone, I just had to up the anty by telling them I was, in fact, thinking about writing a book called, ‘How to Be Crippled for Fun and Profit.'” [more….]

From Where I Now Stand – “While I am neither called nor qualified to be a critic of Contemporary Christian Music, I don’t think myself too far off the mark when I wonder if this is what Jesus had in mind.” [more….]

Jesus Music – “Within a few years the raw, rock ‘n roll sound birthed by bands like Agape and the All Saved Freak Band ran into the early Gate-keepers of the newly forming CCM industry. In the early 1970’s, good folks like Ralph Carmichael and Billie Ray Hearns fixed the trajectory of the emerging music and the evangelistic fervor with which it all began was no longer part of the equation.” [more….]

The Big Handover – “For most of us, it’s not death that concerns us, it’s the act of dying. Uncertain of when ‘dying a noble death’ became part of our consciousness, dying with grace and dealing with its lingering impact are the dual challenges faced by all of us. Grace in the storm is not intuitive.” [more….]

This Long Road Home – “Each of us remains in process, on This Long Road Home, eventually finding our satisfaction and peace in the rest that time brings. Made of dust we are yet designed for things that are higher – things that tend toward nobility of character, clarity of vision and purity of purpose. But it’s far too easy to give up on those purposes, to burn out early, once we’re comfortably distanced from the idealism of our youth.” [more….]

Weapons of Mass Destruction – “As I’ve aged I’ve discovered it advantageous, perhaps even “grown up,” to keep my passions on a short leash. That’s not so easy when it comes to the subject of handguns in America. Realizing my opinion of anything doesn’t really count for much, I yet feel the need to ‘prophesy to the wind,’ to bring my personal passion to the page.” [more….]

When Words Fail – ” I was trying to remember the last time I did anything for the first time.” Doctor Richard Fratianne, a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Trophy, founder of Cleveland MetroHealth’s Burn Care and Level 1 Trauma Center, had been first at many, many things that matter. But, to quote Monty Python, this was something “completely different.” This caused him some concern. This was the first time he would expose his soul with his music,….” [more….]

When Someday Comes: Memoirs of a Survivor
[Awarded Honorable Mention for the Best Autobiography of 2011 by the New York, London, Hollywood and New England Book Festivals]

“When Someday Comes: Memoirs of a Survivor is the autobiography of one of America’s earliest pioneers in the musical expression now known as Contemporary Christian Music. Written as a record for his children and grandchildren, When Someday Comes winds through a childhood of abandonment and crime, the violence-plagued demonstrations of the 1968 Democratic Convention, 10 years in a Christian cult that took the lives of three people, electrocution with 27,000 volts of electricity, the shotgun-shooting death of his oldest child, falling from grace as an ordained clergyman and the long road to physical, spiritual and emotional healing. A cautionary tale for our times, When Someday Comes remains a story of hope, a contemporary tale of ‘beauty for ashes.'”

Distributed by Baker-Taylor Books, When Someday Comes is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Click here for a .pdf of the book’s Prologue