My last couple of days

I am OD-ing on orange soda.

I had to stay in town last night, because I had to lay down some guitar tracks for our church's Christmas CD. My wife and younger daughter went up to the cottage, and my older daughter and I are holding down the fort.

The studio work only took about an hour. I was asked to lay down a Stratocaster guitar sound (of the Stevie Ray Vaughan sort) on O Holy Night. I just love O Holy Night, I have to say. It is such an inspired hymn, and the fellow who is getting to sing this song is a wonderfully soulful singer. One of the reasons that I enjoy gospel and CCM singers so much is how much soul goes into the singing of hymns and praise music. In an era with so much synthetic music, it is one of the realms of music where the singers aren't put through the auto-tune pitch control to fix their singing - you don't need to, when a joyful noise is at hand! Michael W Smith, John Michael Talbot, Hillsong ("Shout to the Lord") - I just love them. And I cannot picture any of them lip-synching.

After the recording was done, I headed to the church for a party. Our associate pastor is leaving for another church, so they threw him a party that was I guess a sort of surprise party. The theme was country hoe-down, so I square danced half the night. My music group's fearless leader managed to secure tickets to the event before it sold out, so I got to hang out with friends. There's nothing I hate more than being a wallflower, but I really am something of an introvert when my wife is not around.

Today, I may fiddle around in the recording studio. We live on the edge of the greeenbelt, a huge swath of untouched forest that surrounds the city. I may go out into the woods, walk, and think. I find that I am just not right unless I spend my weekends in the woods.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I was thinking about this - although there are always people trying to scare the crap out of us all (I am thinking specifically of the latest videos released by Al Qaeda), we cannot live our lives in fear. I refuse to. I know, too, that I am accountable for the time I spend in fear, because it is time not spent enjoying God's good gifts, and it is time not spent devoted to the love of my family, my friends, people I meet, and even God. But I'm still checking all the Halloween candy tomorrow. ;-) You know, I have to, um, prudently taste test some of it. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Peace be with you.