Sarah Mac

Let’s be honest. If you’re good you’re good. Sarah Watkins is great. She is in the other room in my studio and she is “fooling around” on her fiddle/violin while Jonny gets the tones set to record her on a cd by our friend Hillary Watson and I am playing studio hostess just so I can listen in. I’ll grab tea, water, honey or whatever I need to just to be able to be an observer to what is the beauty of her playing. You may ask yourself “Who is Sarah Watkins?” She is one third of the band Nickel Creek. Lets just assume for your benefit that you have heard of and love this band. Their “Why should the fire die?” cd is one of my favorites and is a cd that I need for those moments when driving through the mountains, curling up inside when outside it is snowing, or I’m just feeling nostalgic about my country roots. So here I am…an observer. Just being in here has made me reflect about other times I have gotten to be an observer to musical beauty that has impacted me. I remember going to a Muse concert in 1999 just after their 1st cd was released in the U.S. They weren’t very well know here yet so they were playing in a very small club and I got to be abnormally close to such an extrememly talented band. One day they would be filliing up huge arenas and $50 tickets would only get you a seat in the nosebleed section. So here I am watching and wondering how they are going to pull off the things on their record with just the 3 of them. Also, one of their big songs at that point was a song that had an important piano part in it and this night there was no piano seen on the stage to be played. I think one of 2 things is going to happen and I’m not happy about either of them. 1. They are going to play the piano part on tracks (this means that no one in the band will be playing them but the piano part will mysteriously come out of the speakers from an unknown source). I know that if this happens then the huge amount of respect that I have for them will take a beating. When I go pay money to see someone perform live I don’t want them to play to their cd. I have the cd at home already. I came to see them pull off what is on the cd. So then I’m thinking the other option is 2. They just will play the song without the part. This will be a bummer because it is a huge hook in the song but it will be preferable to tracks. So here comes the song…what will it be? What kind of band are they? Lead singer stands with his electric guitar held high and starts playing the very difficult classical sounding piano piece on his guitar. Of course, this is what a real band does. They don’t fake it, they don’t abandon it they brainstorm and figure out a way to do it. Oh I was all smiles and excitement. They are the real deal and I was getting to observe. Another of my favorites was sitting in a club in San Diego and watching Patty Griffin sing like I had never heard someone sing live before. Sure she sings the roof off on her cd but now days I know the tricks that producers can do in the studio to make someone sound like they can sing when in fact they really can’t so I wasn’t getting my hopes up. So she begins…and proceeds to sing the roof off of the club. I am sure at that moment that the clubs walls had never heard such real honest singing. Her voice perfectly colors and compliments her every word. Each and every huge note was hit perfectly in pitch as well as passion. It was an evening, and this is rare, that I left feeling that her amazing vocals on her cd had actually been topped by her vocals live. Thank you Miss Griffin for letting me be an observer. So how about you? Where did you have one of these moments? How did it impact you and encourage you in this wonderful thing called music?

I’ll admit, my studio rocks. Not only does it have an amazing view but it also has the best mascot

I’ve started gathering, sorting, grouping, cutting, chopping, ditching, adding, completing, and compiling songs that are going to be on my upcoming cd. At first I thought I had about 30 songs to go through and choose from but I eventually found another folder I’d forgotten about on my computer with another 20 songs. So here I’ve sat in my living room deciding which ones should be heard? Which ones say what I think needs to be said? Which ones say it best? Sometimes it can be difficult looking at all of these little pieces of my heart in song and cutting but I know that there are songs that are just for me. Songs and words that I needed to put onto paper in order to better process the things I am learning. I have made a plan to help myself not get overly attached to a bad song I’ve written. I know there is no benefit to recording a song that only has meaning to me. To help with this I’ve devised the plan to write about whatever it is I’m thinking about, or learning, multiple times. For instance, on my last record I wrote a song called “More Than Hands.” This song is deeply personal to me because it was written after a very tragic time in my life. My heart had never been so heavy or burdened and I knew that the song that represented this time in my life would need to be just right. So I wrote and wrote. I think I ended up writing 10 songs that no one will hear before finally stumbling upon this one. I remember having the lyrics and idea for it come to me on a plane (this is always the worst time to have a song idea come because I can’t grab my guitar and get it worked out and my husband gives me a weird look and says “Are you humming?” oops!). After the plane ride I then had a 2 hour drive to my hotel. By the time I got to the hotel I quickly grabbed my guitar and told my husband “gotta go in the other room for a while!” The song poured out. I had it written beginning to end in probably 20 minutes. I sat there with tears in my eyes and smiling because I knew, this was the one. This was the best representation of what I wanted people to hear when I talked about this tragedy that happened in my life. I have learned that I’m not the only one who repeatedly writes out of the same experiences. When I read in the Psalms I see how David does the same thing. His son Absolom conspired against him and David had to flee his own city to save his life. It was while he wandered in the wilderness with his people that he wrote many psalms from this trial, Psalm 3, 4, 11, 26 and 23. Although all of them are beautiful cries from His heart, it is Psalm 23 that has touched people throughout history in a huge way. Thank goodness he didn’t stop at just writing Psalm 3 or 4. I’m thankful that he kept sitting down and singing again. Capturing what the Lord was saying so that we could know that “The Lord is our shepherd [and we] shall not want….” I am encouraged by this thought and know that as I go through my songs, I don’t have to feel pressure. If I don’t have the songs yet, I can keep on writing till I get it just right.

I am attaching the lyrics to More Than Hands below since I wrote about it above. Also you can go to my music page and listen as well.

More Than Hands
Sarah MacIntosh

These are more than hands
My feet have been called out
The message in my heart
I’ll live and breathe, and shout

These are more than words
Our praise is not our own
The melody we know
We love to sing Your song

We are His people
We are His nation
We are the voice
Of this generation

Holy Holy
Lord God almighty is He
We know who you are!

This is more than life
We’re bought we’re restored
You died our souls to save
Your Spirit found it’s home

You’re the Name above all Names
You’re the High and lifted up
You’re the King above all Kings
You’re the reason we cry out!
Adoni! Emmanuel!
Jehovah-Rapha! Elohim!
El-Shaddai! El-Olam!
Standing shouting we will sing!

Holy Holy
Lord God almighty is He
We know who you are!
Worthy worthy
You reign in Majesty
We know who you are!

I can look back over my life and see multiple times where I would find myself waiting in anticipation for something. As a child, I can remember waiting for Christmas or my birthday. As a teen I can remember waiting for graduation day. As a married adult I remember waiting on my husband to come home from touring. The first couple of years of our marriage we were in two different bands and traveled separately from each other. It was during the year when my husband was doing most of the traveling that I found myself constantly counting the days till he would be back home. I had a routine. There was the deep cleaning of the house to make sure that it was spotless for him to walk into, I would shower and get ready in my cutest clothes so that I was looking my best for him, and then I would find myself outside in the dark waiting for the headlights of his car to come over the hill to our house where I would run to greet him with hugs and kisses, smiles and laughing. It is with this remembrance that I read Matthew 24 and 25 about the return of Jesus,

Matthew 25
“1 Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3 Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5 But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. 6 And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ 7 Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ 12 But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”

Matthew 24:27-31
27 For as the lightning lights up the entire sky, so it will be when the Son of Man comes….30 And then at last, the sign of the coming of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the nations of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man arrive on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send forth his angels with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

ARGHHHHH! just re-reading these scriptures now makes me excited. It was after reading these scriptures that I decided i needed to sit down with my guitar and get out my thoughts about them. First of all let me describe how my writing process normally goes.

1. Read/Hear/See something that really moves me.
2. Light comes on in my head
3. Thoughts start swirling around making normal life a little difficult because i am distracted.
4. Get a grip on what my thoughts are on the subject.
5. Sit down (usually with my guitar. Sometimes I don’t have access to it and have to do without) and start putting words on paper. This usually happens very quickly because I am excited.
6. Melody usually comes with the words and a song is born!

Ok. So now that I’ve laid out the songwriting format let me talk about the thoughts that i couldn’t get out of my head about these scriptures. I kept imagining a valley full of people with tents and bonfires. More people were adding to the large number of people already gathered every day. Everyone facing towards the horizon. You could hear an excited murmur and people singing with anticipation. I decided I wanted to write the song they were singing, from the perspective of a person telling someone who doesn’t know the Lord, about why they are there. Here is that song:

Sunshine
Sarah MacIntosh

Verse 1:
It’s flowers, they’re roses
It’s simple I know
Start making your list stand in line and wait for the show
I’ll be at the door
You can stay here with me
Because when He comes, there’ll be no alarm we’ll just be free

Chorus:
I want to wait for the Sunshine to take me away
I’m happy to leave
It’s better than stay
Meet me I’ll show you the place where the dusk fades away
No longing for me
I’ll be there someday

Verse 2:
The camp goes for miles now
It’s growing each day
The waiters, the watchers, the listeners, the keepers and me
We meet when it’s dark
A short time until break
Weeping and crying will soon change to laughter and glee

Outro:
We wait for the Sun, we wait…

The other day I was driving my daughter to the store and feeling a bit guilty, knowing she has a crazy cold that manifests in crazy coughing fits and raging rapids style runny nose.  This means that one very unfortunate shopping cart would be covered by my daughters cold germs and could possibly eventually find themselves on some otherwise healthy childs hands soon making them sick.  Try as I might to disinfect the cart with the Clorox wipes the store provides I have no doubt that I will be receiving very harsh “why would you bring your sick kid in public?” looks at the store and would just have to quickly get the basic necessities and jet.  I am imagining the dirty looks I will be receiving, while I drive, and I start thinking about all of the people who go to work, church, shopping, etc. with contagious sickness.  As an under 2 year old child my daughter is unable to take any medication to “mask” her sickness.  If it was an adult with the sickness they would be able to pop a decongestant, cough suppressant, multi-symptom pill an no one would be the wiser but the truth is the sickness is still there.  Now I admit they wouldn’t be sneezing the sickness everywhere but it would still be in them, moving perhaps a little more stealthily from an eye rub to a handshake.  The unsuspecting recipient of the germ would still get infected and eventually spend 1 to 2 weeks with a cold that they didn’t know how they got.  This made me think about our spiritual lives.  My daughter is so young that she doesn’t know how to properly cover up her misbehavior yet.  When she is angry she throws herself to the ground.  When she is touching something she is not supposed to she makes direct eye contact with me as she says “no, no” and still grabs it.  Not an adult.  We have gotten good at “masking” our sin.  Our gossip we mask with a few words of  “I’m just telling you this so we can pray for her.”  Our gluttony we mask with “This is something I deserve.”  Our insecurity we mask by judging others.  By making our ways and ourselves better than them and theirs. In fact a little “Christian-ese” is used to mask the sickness that is the lack of a personal relationship with God.  Unfortunately the metaphorical multi-symptom pill will only mask so much.  The sickness of lack of belief, complacency, insecurity, lack of love, selfishness, self righteousness, etc. will eventually seep out an infect those around.  My self-pity would eventually encourage your self-pity.  Then we could sit for months and waste valuable time focused on ourselves instead of loving others and focusing on them.  I want to stand before the Father with an unveiled face just as Moses did and since He is here, a present God already before me, then my un-masking should be right now and every day…

so here i am…in my kitchen. just spent who knows how long working on this blog page and im hoping i havent messed something up. i have no qualm with someone telling me that i am not a computer genius…in fact im sure there are many 10 year old little kids who couldve done what just took me hours and had it finished in 20 minutes. oh well…ill stick to what i do. i write and i sing. i read and i ponder all so later i can write and sing. this is a revolving door that i love being stuck in. yes sometimes it makes me a bit dizzy but boy does it make me smile. ive found out lately that twitter is just not enough words. recently my husband told me that it was hard to read one of my tweets because i had shortened words so much that you could harldy tell what the original word was. oh well, maybe that was just pushing me here. to this blog. im glad it did.