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At Midnight on Christmas Eve
There is an old legend, which I heard growing up in Southwestern Virginia, that at midnight on Christmas Eve, God gives the animals the gift of speech because they were so kind as to share their home so that Jesus would have a place to be born. I wondered what the animals might talk about, so I wrote this song. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Bill the Bullfrog (Melody)
I'm not sure how this song came to be, except that I was thinking about a second song about nature to write for the children. There are some bullfrogs around Mary's Lake, and they sing their "harrumph" song now and then. So, I just started thinking about these big old frogs, sitting by the water morning until night. I read that they will eat just about anything they can get into their big mouths, including flies, of course. And in the evening, their big bass song has a loveliness about it. What name would I give this creature but "Bill"? DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Bill the Bullfrog (Piano Version)
This is the same song as the one above, but with music written for the piano. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Care for the Earth (Melody)
This song emerged as a kind of theme song for my new songs for children about nature. It works for the older ones, as well. I was driving home one September evening, at the end of a long journey. The sunset was glowing softly, shedding a rosy light over the rolling Kentucky hills and farmlands. These simple words came to mind: Care for the earth. Then, care for the sky. And care for the creatures, like Bill the bullfrog. We need to care for each other if we are going to make it as a human family. And we also need to care for our own lives, take care of ourselves in mind, body, and spirit. Everything that we enjoy, that gives us pleasure and delight, that sustains our lives, we have to care for and make sure it is all here for those who come after us. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Care for the Earth (Piano Version)
This is the same song as the one above, but with music written for the piano. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Children Welcome
This song is based on Jesus' teachings that the Kingdom of God belongs to children, and on his welcoming of children in spite of his disciples' objections. It was the theme song of the first Children Welcome Conference held in Indianapolis in 2000, sponsored by Disciples Home Missions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The refrain is often sung in Disciples congregations as part of the children's sermon or moment in Sunday worship. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Christmas Time Is Near
One morning close to Christmas, when I was serving Antioch Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in Lexington Kentucky, I was driving to work. The highway between Lexington and Paris, Kentucky runs through the most beautiful part of the Kentucky's "horse country". There was a light snow falling, and I spied some horses trotting through a field along the way. By the time I got to the church, which is out in that lovely countryside, I had the beginnings of a song that put the birth of Jesus in a Kentucky setting. It is, thus, my Kentucky Christmas carol.
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Cloud Song
We all love clouds. They give us pleasure and peacefulness as we contemplate their changing shapes and hues, as we watch them season to season. So, I thought there should be a song about clouds. And it ended up with the clouds singing it themselves, with us singing along. I think the feel of the song is just about right for us to float along with the clouds. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Come to the Water
This piece was inspired by Isaiah 55, in which God invites all who are thirsty to come to the water and drink, and to eat their fill, even if they have no money. It is a lovely and powerful expression of God's unconditional love. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Dragonfly Song (Melody)
Since moving to Loretto, Kentucky, I started going to the Loretto Child Care Center and the Loretto Head Start Program. I take my banjo or guitar, and sing with the children, teaching them new songs and singing songs they already know. I also spend much time in the fields and around Mary's Lake at the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse. These two experiences, with children and with nature, inspired me to write some new songs for children. The first was "The Dragonfly Song", since I have a great love for dragonflies, and during the summer they are plentiful around the lake. I love to sit and watch them fly in all directions. But sometimes, they just "stop and look around" with their amazing eyes that can see 360 degrees around them. Aren't we a bit like dragonflies, too? We can be very busy, going this way and that. But don't we also sometimes need to "stop and look around"? DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Dragonfly Song (Piano Version)
This is the same song as the one above, but with music written for the piano. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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God is Dwelling in Us
I was asked to write a song for a youth group that was going on a summer work trip. What came out was a song based on Paul's words about God dwelling in us as we live the life Jesus called us to live. I wrote it in a "work song" form, a call-and-response, so that a leader could sing out the first line, the group sing the second line, then all join in the chorus.
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Great Cloud of Witnesses
Based on Hebrews 12:1, this was written in memory of Hannah Herward, Covenant Member of the Church of the Covenant, who died in August 2010. It was also written for Sandy Fisher, Covenant Member and director of Chrysalis Interfaith Retreat Center. Sandy worked closely with Hannah in Hannah's final weeks to plan a children's butterfly garden, which is Hannah's parting gift to the community. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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How Gentle the Rain
I wanted to write a song for children about the rain. It turned into a song about the rhythm of the day and night, and of growing things. When you sing it with children, you can sing the first line of each verse, and the children can sing the second line with you. That way, you "line out" the song for them. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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If You Trust in God
The only piece I've written based on the Book of Proverbs. A commission from Gretna Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Gretna VA, on the occasion of their 100th anniversary in October 2011. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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My Master Went to Be Alone
This is a hymn for Lent that I wrote in the early 1980s. For a few years, I had been going to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky for silent retreats. The monastery is famous because of Fr. Thomas Merton, who was a monk there until his untimely accidental death in 1968. These retreats formed the beginning of a deeper and more consistent spiritual life. At the abbey, there is a stone lintel, which then was above the doorway into the guest house. The guest house itself was the former entrance for novices, those entering monastic life. Merton writes about this lentil in his autobiographical Seven Storey Mountain, and the effect on him of the words engraved on it: "God Alone". During those years, I thought and reflected a great deal on what it means to live one's life centered on "God alone." The hymn arose out of those reflections. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Peace I Leave With You
This hymn was written as a response to Jesus' words of peace to his disciples in John 14, which are put into the refrain. The verses speak of this peace in relation to our personal life journey, our relationships with one another, and the healing of our lives in community. The hymn can fit well just about anywhere in worship, including as a Communion / Eucharistic hymn. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Quiet, Quiet, All is Quiet
I wrote this as a meditation on the love of God incarnated in Jesus, but is also meant to be incarnated, embodied in us, as well. It was written on the 25th anniversary of my marriage to Kaye.
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See in This Bread
While on retreat at the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse in Kentucky, I was challenged to write a new song that I would sing at Mass the next day. As I took a long walk, some words of Thich Nhat Hanh about the Christian Eucharist and mindfulness became the inspiration for this Zen / Christian communion song. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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The Greatest Things
The theme of "the greatest things in life are free" was behind this song, I suppose. Yet I was just thinking about all of the things around us that are simply there for us to enjoy, aspects of the world that sustain us physically, emotionally, spiritually. We are surrounded by a world that can uplift us when we think we're all alone. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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This Our Joy
Words by Joshua Abraham Heschel prompted this hymn: "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." It is an expression of the joy we find in simply being and living as we were created to be and live. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Why Did God Make the Gnats?
When our son Kent was about six or seven years old, he and I were out in the yard throwing a baseball. It was in the summer, in Lynchburg, Virginia, where there are always hordes of gnats filling the air. A gnat flew into Kent's eye and bit him. As I tried to get the gnat from his tear-filled eye, he said to me, "Dad, WHY did God make gnats?" I guess he figured that since I was a minister, I should know such things. Also, he was demanding that God answer for creating things that hurt. Later that evening, I started writing a song about it. Maybe we don't know why there are things in the world that cause pain, and we just have to learn to live with it. Meanwhile, there is much, maybe more, about life that makes us glad to be alive. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF
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Winds of Change
I wrote "Winds of Change" April 16, 2007, the morning after a terrible spring storm, and the wind was still wild. I was staying at a friend's lake house at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. The electricity was off, and public radio on my battery-powered radio was a little scratchy out there, but I could make out reports coming from Virginia Tech, where 32 students and faculty died in a mass shooting. I kept working on the song, and by the time I finished, it had a whole new meaning for me. DOWNLOAD the Sheet Music PDF