In 1992, Bob Sorge, pastor and renowned worship leader at the time, loses his voice after an operation to remove an ulcer from his throat… When “why me? why now” doesn’t cut it…
Category Archives: Music
The Watches of the Night
CALLING YOU HOME – Alberto Rivera
YouTube Soaking Playlist
YouTube soaking playlist. A collection of restful, reflective pieces that draws me closer into God’s presence. Includes some Vineyard, Jesus Culture, Rivera, Delirious, etc and some spoken word accompanied by soothing instrumentals. The songs are different from what you hear in the Soaking.Net playlist. This YouTube playlist was compiled and put together by Katherine Walden of I Lift My Eyes Ministries.
Creation Calls — are you listening? Music by Brian Doerksen
The Bride in the River of Life
Arts and the journey to wholeness
Healing is a strong dimension of my experience with music and the Arts. Arts are a canvas for the soul, where emotions, ideas and inspirations can be projected, even randomly, meditated upon and often somehow deciphered, at least by some part of us, as dots are connected.
Where artistic exploration joins with a personal journey of discovery of our hidden selves, Arts reveal the human soul and its experience of life. This website is here for all to draw from. It represents a sum of ideas and thoughts, artistic works, experiences about life and creativity, as well as a number of creative works I (and my wife Kimberly) have done so far: music, writing and graphics.
Past events are still with us today as they contributed to form who we are. They have given us insight, strength, wisdom, love, self-esteem, a sense of identity, etc. However, certain traumatic events have overloaded our emotional tank and most of those have been stored in regions of our being and seem all but forgotten. As we continue living, there is a constant flow of energy diverted toward that pocket of stored emotions to keep it from coming to the surface and overwhelm us again. Rather, what worked then, is put to work every time this memory surfaces: shock, agony, anger, bitterness, rage, hate, unforgiveness, etc. These are often expressed through addictions, self-destructive behavior, toxic relationships, physical sicknesses and health conditions, depression, lack of boundaries, manipulation and control, criminal activities, etc.
Then one day, out of the blue, someone says or does something and we catch ourselves in the act of having again the same inner dialogue. Only this time, it is more than rambling, it is revealing, as we speak we become aware of something very wrong with us. We can become acquainted, according to life’s seasons, with these fragments of our selves that are not integrated, but are lingering at different points of interruption. This systemic denial is a defense mechanism that should have been temporary. But a great number of sicknesses and health conditions can be directly related to past unhealed traumas. Unhealed because our response to them was interrupted, because we had probably had more questions than answers, more pain than we could endure, and surviving the moment was everything. Revisiting these can be a major key in opening the door for healing of our body and soul.
The sacred blessing of creativity
There is enough noise around us in our cities and our media, as well as visual stimuli and chaotic soundscapes that invade our homes and workplaces. And anywhere we go there is a radio station playing music and there’s no way to shut it off… too many voices speaking out to us, uninvited, arrogant and boastful, mechanically enticing us with words and images. They vie for our attention, our devotion, our time and resources.
Because Arts call forth that which is most alive in us, the natural and the spiritual, connecting us to the essence of who we are, and because it bypasses any barrier and touches the very skin of our souls, arts are used by the powers of this world to try and inlfuence, even shape the masses in a way that is predictable and yeld a world that will function in the way they want it to. If they could. And so artists are the ones hired to create the marketing tools of what we now culturally refer to as “the Matrix.” While our culture is a testimony to the mind-boggling talents we are blessed with, it is also a landscape wherein the heart and soul of most of the work we are exposed to is designed to illicite a response from our heart that will make us reach for out wallet and assent.
I would argue that this is basically violating an unspoken oath that artists should be aware of, if they would but turn their heads away form the voices that keep enticing them to serve a system that is heartless, cold and calculating. The sheer power and the edge inherent to art and artistic ability calls the artist to a level of accountability: “Not only do we have gifts, we are also a gift to our people.” There should be integrity…