I have thought often of posting in the past...month, gulp...but I have so many irons in the fire at the moment that I just couldn't capture the thoughts at the moment.
So I thought I'd give you a little update on something that started well over a year ago...
I am going to Israel at the end of next month.
Can I just pause a moment and let that sink in? It just doesn't...compute....
It's another DIVE trip. I went to the DIVE School back in 2014, when I was in a rather limbo spot. It was an amazing week and was the first time I'd been away from home for that long without really feeling like I'd been gone forever. It went by so fast and I was getting so much poured into me that it felt like it existed outside of time. And I got encouraged that I had songs to write.
So I came home with a personal challenge...there was a DIVE songwriting conference happening about a year later, so I told myself if I could come up with one song a month in the next year I could go to that conference.
And I did it. I had twelve songs on paper by the end of September 2015. Some were pretty lame...er, needed more work...but there were two or three that I really thought had potential. I went to the conference, shared the last song I wrote, really badly as 1)it's nearly outside of my vocal ability anyway and 2) it was a cappela and I need help staying in the same key and 3) I'm not accustomed to singing solo. And the song, which I had such belief in, was judged 'dated'; someone said it sounded like an 80's rock opera. ONE solitary person said she could imagine Jesus Culture doing it. So it wasn't entirely shot down, lol, and there was an acknowledgement that there were some good phrases and word pictures in it. But overall the result was, well, I can't sing good enough to share a song and I don't play an instrument and so, I need help.
I was encouraged to pick a few of the songs...maybe even just one...and share them with some folks on our ministry team at church. Maybe even purchase some time from one of them in order to get a good critique on the song and some solid help in developing it.
But I'm not after writing songs for the Christian music industry; I wanted to write songs for our house. What would be the point of investing money in a song that I'm not going to peddle elsewhere? But I did share some of the songs with folks on our ministry team.
Crickets, y'all. Crickets.
The songwriting, lacking any kind of demand on it, has kind of faded, although I have written one or two more and have bits and pieces of potential songs in my notebook.
But I was writing this thing on the blog about Transitions...and found myself wandering off into fictionalized versions of the stories. I edited that out, well edited MOST of it out, of the posts and put it into files on the computer.
Then I started writing a piece about Sarah and Hagar. I saw it as a two-woman play, with them each relating bits of their story in turn, but the rough story arc took on its own life and I'm not sure I have a play now.
And that's what I was working on in fall of 2017, when Rita announced she would take a tour group to Israel in May 2018. I watched the promo video and thought, oh, in my dreams... and promptly forgot about it. About 6 weeks later, in the choir room between services, one of the young ladies who had also been to Dive caught me. 'Are you going with Rita?' she asked.
Well, our head intercessor's first name is also Rita, so my immediate thought was that she was taking a group somewhere...maybe IHOP or something...but I hadn't heard about it. Seeing my puzzled expression, my young friend added, 'To Israel?'
Oh, yeah. That. Ha, ha, I wish.
But it made me think and I came home and watched the promo video again. And this time, when I watched it, Rita's vision of doing creative things rather than just jumping on the bus to go to the next spot hit me. What if...I could stand where Abram stood looking over the Jordan Valley when he saw it full of sulpherous smoke, wondering if Lot made it out alive? Something jumped inside of me and I thought...this is my trip. And I signed up.
Well, it got postponed from last year to this year...but it's paid off, I have all my plane tickets and...it's going to happen. The night before I purchased my tickets to get from the Rocket City to our departure point at JFK, I went through my DIVE cards again...the results of the prophetic exercise all DIVE classes do on Sunday. I had forgotten the details of them, but there was one that had made us all laugh when I got it.
I quipped, 'Oh, maybe that's a date night w/ my hubby at PF Chang's,' but the young lady that wrote that card caught me later and said, 'No. I saw feet on the tarmac. It's a trip.'
So after I booked the tickets I looked to see which continent Israel is considered to be in; the Middle East is 'Intracontinental' and is in Europe, Asia and Africa. But Israel is considered to be in ...you guessed it...Asia.
So. I'm going with no agenda, really, except to re-ignight the creative, which has fallen kind of asleep. And this is my prayer, which are the lyrics from the song I sang so badly at the songwriter's conference:
Can these dry bones live? Can these dry bones live?
It's such a dismal sight -- bones all bleached and white
But the question comes to light, can they live?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.
We prophesy to the dry bones, we prophesy to the dry bones
We prophesy, we prophesy,
'Live, in Jesus' name! Live, in Jesus' name! Live in Jesus' name!'
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.
Can these dead dreams breathe? Can these dead dreams breathe?
The spark has long grown cold, they're all stale and old
We have not been told, can they breathe?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.
We prophesy to the dead dreams, We prophesy to the dead dreams
We prophesy, we prophesy,
'Breathe, in Jesus' name! Breathe, in Jesus' name! Breathe, in Jesus' name!'
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.
Can this mute hope sing? Can this mute hope sing?
Its voice has long been gone, shutters closed and drawn
Forgotten every song, can it sing?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.
We prophesy to the mute hope, we prophesy to the mute hope
We prophesy, we prophesy,
'Sing, in Jesus' name! Sing, in Jesus' name! Sing, in Jesus' name!'
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.
We will live, we will breathe, we will hope in You
With Your life, Your breath, Your song! (repeat ad lib)
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.
