prayers, thoughts, hopes & happenings.
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.
A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of man is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.
I’m influenced by the records that influenced [my peers]. I know that if it were not for Jim James I probably wouldn’t be listening to Marvin Gaye as much as I am now. I’ve always loved his famous songs, but Jim James has inspired me to dig a little deeper. There is a lot to be found… If [my record] sounds like the Beatles, it’s probably because for the last 15 years I’ve been listening to all the people who influenced them. People like Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Everly Brothers. I am very influenced by the people who influenced my influences, and I am influenced even more by the people who influenced them.
