My Father’s House

I must go and build for you a mansion

Someday I will return to take you there

You’ve never seen or heard, you can’t imagine

The wonders of this place that I’ve prepared

Forever you will be, living there with me

I am going to my father’s house, yes I am going to my father’s house

 

And there is neither Jew nor Greek nor Gentile

But all one body under the same Lord

Together we must carry forth this kingdom

With hearts and hands and minds in one accord

So then as sisters and brothers

Be faithful to this cause

For we are family in my  father’s house, yes we are family in my father’s house

 

And I will be with you until the end of time

You’ll never have to do this all alone

Just be ready when I come again for you

To take my children to their rightful home

 

Where there will be no pain, no grief, no sorrow

For pain and death have all been done away

The dark is gone, the night is surely over

There is only one bright eternal day

So seek not treasure here, but fervently prepare

And I will see you in my father’s house, yes I will see you in my father’s house

I will see you in my father’s house, someday…

 

Story of the song(My Father’s House): I was 21, living on the big island of Hawaii. I was a bass player, and beginning guitarist, but did not know I was a songwriter. Had prepared a song to sing at Kohala SDA church and when I got there the accompaniment tape that I thought was in my glovebox, was not there.  I had read John 14:1-3 that morning and this chord progression had been circling in my head for a couple weeks. Wrote the song in the parking lot, practiced it once, went inside and sang it. This is the first song I wrote and I thought it was a fluke at the time. Didn’t expect any more to come along.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Here I Am

It’s not my aim to make you stand up and repeat after me

It’s not my goal to make you give up everything you believe

I’m not trying to make you give up all your plans

Came here to show you, to make you understand

 

Here I am, anytime you need me, child

Here I am, if you can’t find your way home

Here I am, and if you ever got a problem, now

Here I am, you won’t have to be alone

I’m standing by anytime that you need me

So just reach out and hold my hand

No need to look any further, no

Here I am

 

I realize that you’ve been in this situation before

And every single time you fall I know it hurts even more

I’m just trying to love you, to make you realize

Darkness is daylight just the minute that you open up your eyes

 

Here I am, anytime you need me, child

Here I am, if you can’t find your way home

Here I am, and if you ever got a problem, now

 Here I am, you won’t have to be alone

I’m standing by anytime that you need me

So just reach out and hold my hand

No need to look any further, no

Here I am

 

Story of the song (Here I Am): I was living in Los Angeles, we had one car between me and Suzanne. I rode the bus to work. I’d been feeling distant from God for a couple weeks. Sitting on the bench at the bus-stop, I asked Him about that. And what I heard was, “I’m right here, haven’t left…”

Then I look up and the words on the side of a bus catch my attention, some billboard for something or other, but the bus is directly in front of me and I see the words “Here I Am.” I wrote the song when I got home. Didn’t like the song, so I crumpled it up and tossed it. Suzanne liked it and I think she fished it out of the trash and showed it to me like a year later and said “I like this one.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________

You Don’t Know Me

Tell me that I’m goin’ crazy

Tell me that I’m wrong

Tell me that I’ll never make it, and leave before too long

Tell me that I ought to quit and it’s time to let it go

Tell me it’s impossible

Never done before

 

But you don’t know me

No you don’t know me

 

Maybe if you take the time and maybe if you look

Maybe you will find the answers written in a book

Maybe if you saw my face, then you’d understand

That in reality the face of God has become the face of man

 

But you don’t know me, no you don’t know me

 

When I am hungry, when I’ve got nothing to eat

Will I find comfort in you, will you put shoes on my feet?

And when we meet face to face, will you recognize me?

 

Maybe if you saw my face, then you’d understand

That in reality the face of God has become the face of man

Maybe if you saw my face, then you’d understand

That in reality the son of God has become the son of Man

 

But you don’t know me, no you don’t know me

Said you don’t know me, no you don’t know me

 

Story of the song(You Don’t Know Me): Megan Schoenbachler is an amazing photographer. She had just returned from a photo-trip to South America, and showed me a picture she took there, was it in Peru or Bolivia? I can’t remember. It’s on her website, in the “moments” section. A silhouette on mountaintop, shot from above the clouds. Then she showed me some of the music she’d brought back from her trip and it was full of pan flutes. Something in the pan flute and this photograph spoke to me and started me thinking. Then my mind flashed to chapter 19 of Luke’s biography of Jesus, verse 41.  I imagined him up on this mountain in South America and a melody began to form to the sad story of this man who could have saved everyone, had they recognized him. “If you had only known what would bring you peace…but sadly, you don’t know me…”

Then I thought about how we find ourselves taking on a difficult challenge. A tough career, like singer/songwriter, an improbable or impossible marriage, pick any of several insurmountable odds. I heard the voices that tell us, “you really ought to let it go.”  And I thought, if ever a man took on something impossible, it was this man two thousand years ago who gave up his own unblemished life in trade for criminals who didn’t even recognize him. And do we recognize him today in the homeless, the forgotten, the discarded, the marginalized?

I used the pan flute voice on my keyboard to get the whole thing started and after the angst began to get a hold of me, it turned into a more guitar-driven song, and eventually the pan flute faded out of the song altogether, but that’s where it started.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Gethsemane Blues

I’ve been praying for the strength to do the things I know are right

It’s getting heavy, this cup that I must drink tonight

I hear the whispers, they say a friend of mine will turn me in

Under the pressure, I feel the ocean water crashing in

But if there’s any way around it

Do you think maybe this time we could let it pass?

 

I’ll face tomorrow

You lead, I’ll follow

And I’ll walk this road alone

I’ll go through it

Your will be done

 

My boys are sleeping

They couldn’t stay awake to watch my back

The shadow’s creeping

Seems to me even the moonlight’s turning black

Even the angels, they couldn’t hold the tide against the flood

Stinging raindrops, I think my sweat and tears have turned to blood

Still, if there’s any way around it, do you think maybe this time we could let it pass?

 

I’ll face tomorrow

You lead, I’ll follow

And I will walk this road alone

I’ll go through it

Your will be done

 

Story of the song (Gethsemane Blues): Day before Easter Sunday, maybe 2002 or 2003, somewhere in there. Pastor Dan Bumstead asks me if I have a song that might work for the Easter service. I don’t often write against a deadline, but I say I’ll at least give it a shot. So I started thinking about Sunday morning, Jesus coming back from the dead, that’s a pretty amazing picture and all that, but no lyric is coming to me. I can tell I’m trying too hard to make something happen. Then, randomly or not, my mind returns to a class at PUC, “Life and Teachings of Jesus 101,” taught by Roger Bothwell. I remember how we went through the week of crucifixion and how Thursday night in the garden really impacted me. It was a point of no return, a moment of decision, a setting of the face toward destiny. And when all turned on a knife’s edge, we were saved by the word “never-the-less.” 

Again, Luke’s biography of Jesus, chapter 22 this time, verse 42. This sucks, it hurts, I want out, I’d like to quit, I can’t take this anymore and then…NEVERTHELESS.

And the music changes. And you grab the arms of your chair a little tighter, cause now it’s on.

This is one of the first songs for which I saw the scene in my mind and then simply wrote descriptions of what I was looking at. It was like watching a movie.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Bring IT On!

I say it with conviction, cause I know the way things ought to be

Here is my prediction, this time you won’t get the best of me

All your crafty schemes to steal my dreams

To make me run away and hide

I’ve fallen for a million more

But not this time

 

Bring it on, bring it on

Bring it on, bring it on

 

Entirely surrounded, a danger and a threat on every side

You might have me confounded, if mercy hadn’t opened up my eyes

I see hillsides fill with chariot

The mountains are my warrior

I see the vast majorities are on my side

 

So bring it on, Bring It On

Bring It On, bring It on!

 

Story of the song (Bring It On!): I was fed up with the devil taking from me and ripping me off and destroying my dreams. Fact is, he doesn’t have the power to destroy me, only to feed me lies and illusions that get me to destroy myself, but I’m not gon’ preach right now. So here I am, early 2003, the Lord’s told me I’m gonna lose everything precious, including Suzanne, and I know there’s a storm coming.

So I figure I can go hide or I can stand up and fight. Well, I suck at hide and seek. So I wrote this song.  And I got my behind kicked. Seriously. Lost everything the Lord told me I would and other stuff I didn’t even realize I even had or it was possible to lose. I stopped singing this song. The backlash on this thing scared me.

See, I wrote it out of James 4:7, which says, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Problem is that I didn’t read the whole verse. “Submit yourself completely to God, THEN…resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  Took a few years of watching the game tape to notice the difference between me when I first wrote this, and David when he issues a challenge to Goliath. I  was standing on my own; he was standing in the name of the Captain of host of the armies, whom your enemy has defied. So read the whole verse, submit first, then resist.

And yes, I will be singing this again.

______________________________________________________________________________

Persuaded

I don’t know why good people have to suffer

I don’t know why little children have to die

I got twice as many questions, half as many answers

And so many reasons I don’t pretend to understand

But I know who holds my hand

 

And I’m persuaded that He is able

To keep my life until that day

Yes I’m persuaded that He is able to keep my life until that day

 

I don’t know why we keep on hurting one another

I don’t know why we keep on building up these walls

Every now and then I get depressed about the pictures in the paper

Lingering questions, tugging on my soul

But still I know who’s in control

 

And I’m persuaded that He is able to keep my life until that day

Yes I’m persuaded that He is able to keep my life until that day

 

And no height, no depth, there is no power can separate me from his mercy

Not my past, nothing to come

In the midst of all my questioning

The thing I know for sure

 

Is that I’m persuaded that He is able to keep my life until that day

Yes I’m persuaded that He is able to keep my life until that day

 

Story of the song (Persuaded): I read 2 Timothy 1:12. And I thought, in the face of all the pain and suffering in the world, all the broken relationships and despairing hearts, at some point I run out of explanations that suffice. At some point there’s too much horrific suffering, for me to offer anyone a tidy 3-point conclusion. For what I do understand, and I am a reasoning man, I am persuaded by evidence that Jesus is who he claims to be. For what I do not understand, I am persuaded by trust, by faith. Sooner or later, we come to the bridge of trust, and we cross it or we don’t. These are the thoughts that came to me as I wrote this song.

_____________________________________________________________________

What Is Man?

Who do you think that I am

And why would you make a plan

Sometimes I don’t understand

Just who you think that I am

You make me feel like a man

When you offer your hand

I’m doing all that I can

To be who you think I am

 

What is man? What is man?

What is a man?

 

You were my friend from the start

Even when we were apart

I’m gonna give you my heart

I just wanna be where you are

And you will know that it’s true

In everything that I do

I do it only to prove

That I’m devoted to you

 

What is man? What is man?

What is a man?

 

Clearer and clearer I see

Your love intoxicates me

Rivers that flow to the sea

Flow on indefinitely

I want you to know for sure

That since you came to my door

Everything I was before

Your love has made me much more

 

What is man? What is man?

What is a man?

 

Story of the song (What is Man?): January 6 was the date, I don’t remember the year, I think it was 2002. I was heading out the door to meet producer Billy Oskay at the Big Red Studio, that was the name of the place. It was big. It was red. It was an amazing studio. The day was going to cost a hefty chunk of money. I felt guilty investing more in this elusive music that had not paid us money in return. I felt guilty that the woman I loved couldn’t get new shoes. Forget shoes, we couldn’t pay the electricity bill and here I am taking money to the studio on another of my wild goose chases. As I’m heading out the door, cash in hand, I asked her, “Why are you still here, after all the difficulty and hardship? I mean, I keep trying at this music thing and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere and here I am, at it again. Why are you still with me?”

She said, and I’ll never forget it: “I see who you’re going to be. I know who you are…”

I was heading up the freeway and that thought just kept recycling in my mind. “Who does she think I am?” Whoever she thinks I am, he must be someone worth staying around for. Whoever he is, she’s willing to endure some hard times to be with that guy. I wish I was that guy, the one she thinks I am. And then I thought of David’s question to the Lord in Psalm 8:4–What is Man, that you even bother thinking about him?

And I wondered if God’s response might be similar to Suzanne’s: “I see who you’re going to be. I know who you are…”

Another song written while driving. Turns out I’ve written quite a few of them in the car.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Wings

Sometimes I get weary and my strength is gone

Troubles against me and I can’t hold on

But no matter how the winds blow or the waters rise

I remember what he told me

And my fear subsides

 

He said that I would fly on the wings of an eagle

Walk and not faint

Run and never get weary

He’ll renew my strength

He promised I would fly on the wings of an eagle

Walk and not faint

Run and never get weary

He’ll renew my strength

 

So when your heart is hurting and you can’t even breathe

Spirit is willing

But you’re tired and you’re weak

Don’t let yourself worry

Do not be afraid

Just remember what he told you

Remember what he said

 

He said that you would fly on the wings of an eagle

Walk and not faint

Run and never get weary

He’ll renew your strength

He promised you would fly on the wings of an eagle

Walk and not faint

Run and never get weary

He’ll renew your strength

 

Fly, fly…

 

Story of the song (Wings): I was working in the keyboard department at Guitar Center Hollywood. Patrick Ross was one of my co-workers. He came in one Monday morning and said, “I got some music that’s for you.” He’d been sequencing on his keyboard and the chord progression was this one, and for some reason he thought I should be the one to find the lyric to it. As I listened, Isaiah 40:31 is what I heard, so that’s what it became. Many a tough day later, the Lord would remind me of this song. The music you write or sing or listen to, will come back to visit/haunt you.

______________________________________________________________________

Sophia

Early in the morning she walk the streets now

She will give a light to the one she meet

Anything she say it will be the truth now

Maybe today the one she meet is you

Anytime she speak you must hear the sound

Anything she tell you

You write it down

 

Sophia come a’walkin

My child hearken unto wisdom

Sophia come a’walkin’

And write her words upon your heart

 

Lonely is a town that she doesn’t visit

Lonely is a man that she does not see

She talk to beggars, she talk to princes

She don’ play no games of political

Money and power they come behind her

Follow her footsteps, they lead to life

 

Sophia come a’walkin’

My child hearken unto wisdom

Sophia come a’walkin’

And write her words upon your heart

 

Story of the song(Sophia): Another visual songwriting experience. I saw this one like a video in my mind and simply followed the main character around. She was a beautiful woman, veiled. I could see her eyes and they are amazing! She walked through a city with narrow high-walled streets. Doors to dwelling places opened right off the cobble-stone street. Everything seemed drab where she had not yet walked, then sprang to colored life as she passed by. Every so often she would stop and knock at a door, or hail an early morning venturer. Some would light up at her greeting; others would shy away and some would run indoors and lock themselves away from her.

Proverbs 8 personifies Wisdom calling out to people, asking to be heard and welcomed.

Sophia is the greek word for wisdom.

_________________________________________________________________________

Do You Hear What I Hear (written by Noel Regney and Gloria Shane Baker)

Said the night wind to the little Lamb

Do you see what I see

Way up in the sky, little lamb

Do you see what I see

A star, a star, twinkling in the night

With a tail as big as a kite

With a tail as big as a kite

 

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear

Ringing through the night, shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear

A song, a song, high above the trees

With a voice as big as the sea

With a voice as big as the sea

 

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king

Do you know what I know

In your palace warm, mighty king

Do you know what I know

A child, a child, sleeping in the night

He will bring us goodness and light

He will bring us goodness and light

 

Said the king to the people everywhere

Listen to what I  say

Pray for peace, people everywhere

Listen to what I say

A child, a child, shivering in the cold

Let us bring him silver and gold

Let us bring him silver and gold

 

Story of the song (Do You Hear What I Hear?): I didn’t write this, but it just felt good to me and Tom got permission to do it, so we did. Thank you to the publishers for allowing us that permission.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Calling It Joy

 

I got a feeling in my soul

And I don’t know what I’m gonna call it

Never felt like this before

But it’s creeping through my bones

And it seems like I can’t find my way to my pain anymore

O, So I’m calling it joy

Yes, I’m calling it joy

 

We did not come here to just survive

I know we were meant to come alive

 

I got a rhythm in my stride

And the beat that I’m dancing to makes me feel like I’m alive

Something like fever burns inside

You can tell by the smile on my face and the light in my eyes

O, that I’m calling it joy

Said I’m calling it joy

 

We did not come here to just  survive

I know we were meant to come alive

No we did not come here to just survive

I know we were meant to come alive

 

Story of the song (Calling It Joy): It had been a long dry spell. Not only was I not writing music, but things were so wrong inside I wasn’t even hearing music. That never happens to me. It had been about 90 days at this point, when it broke. I wrote three songs on this day in 2004. Sweet Lover, Sophia, and then this one, Calling It Joy. I had my subaru wagon full of donuts I was selling for a fundraiser, and I had my guitar as I walked back and forth on the sidewalk in front of a pizza place in Mcminnville. And by the end of the day, this song had landed. Lately (2011) I’ve been performing it with the Humlie Trio and I’m very much enjoying the ways the groove is developing. It’s about joy that’s past description, and stronger than circumstance.

____________________________________________________

 

This next song (Sit For A While)  is a work currently in progress in August/September of 2011. Follow and support it, please, at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lennox/sit-for-a-while-music-video

 

____________________________________________________

Sit For A While

 

Well, I’m driving through the rain and my thoughts are coming fast

Wonder if this morning might be better than my last

Running out of time, be to work in a minute

Looking for a window cause I want to find you in it

 

And sit for a while

Wish that I could sit for a while

 

So now I’m pulling in to work and my thoughts get interrupted

Got to get my mind all focused and productive

Big old stack ‘a deadlines, counteroffer re-signs, conferencing the phone lines

And I’m going outta my…mind

But I got to get a message to the fellas in IT

Sounded kinda harsh but it wasn’t what I mean

See this new thing they installed’s just been locking up my screen

And I wonder what you’d do if it was you instead of me

Glance up at the clock and it’s 11:45

Keep my mouth shut twenty minutes, there’s a chance I might survive

This is not the morning my boss would understand

Some things I cannot handle, cause I am just a man

 

I got to sit for a while and just learn how to trust you and everything

Sit for a while and just learn how to trust you and everything
Well now my body came back from lunch but my spirit didn’t wanna

Think I saw it flying down the street around the corner

Maybe you could pick it up after I get out of my job

Reset to this morning back to where we let it off

See I’m trying to get my head around this intimacy and closeness

But it’s really  new to me so I been taking smaller doses 

Than your book here recommended

Hope you’re not offended

Got one life to live and I don’t really want to spend it

Following a God I cannot see, ain’t never met you

We at least been face to face well then I never would forget you

I remember that you told me you would always have a plan

I remember that you carry universes in your hand

And I might not make my deadline, but at least I’ll understand

That you are the Omega and I am just a man

 

I got to sit for a while and learn how to trust you and everything

I got to sit for a while and just learn how to trust you and everything

 

Story of the song (Sit For  A While): I left my job in December of 2010. I did this because I believed God had told me to do that. So I get to January and I’m like, “Ok, now what?” And He’s like, “sit with me for a while.”

I’m thinking, “are you kidding me right now? We got to do stuff and make stuff and promote stuff and market stuff and tell everybody and do everything!” 

And He’s like “there will be time. Sit with me. First you have to learn to trust me.”

This song is the story of my last day at work, December 22, 2010. I began it as I drove to work that morning and finished it in January of 2011 with the memory of that day and all the other last days on all the other jobs over the last 20 years.