Singing New Songs

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee There are some songs that follow you as you wend your way through different parts of life. Songs that are significant at key moments and keep popping up, as if they are there as a reminder to take notice of what you are experiencing.  There is one song that I first met years ago and which I have gone on to sing hundreds of times in different versions  and which has often marked an important moment in life. No matter  how many times I sing it, never loses its signficance.  This song is  Time to Say Goodbye , by  Francesco Sartori and Lucio Quarantotto. I first heard it in 1997 when I was staying with a close friend who was living in Germany at the time. It was a huge hit there, sung by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, and was played everywhere. I remember heading back to my home in France and making a beeline for the shops (because we didn't do streaming or downloads or, frankly, even internet then!) and buying the...

As you will know by now - from my Blog's name, if nothing else - I was a singer before all of this newness started. If you want an idea of the kind of thing I did, take a look at this  (but please don't feel you have to!). At work in a recital in Southern France in 2014 This was a real job, which took time and effort. I worked hard to keep my "instrument" in shape and have lost count of what I have spent on coaching over the years; I made sure I looked the part; and I studied for qualifications in both performance and teaching so I had credentials. I wasn't a big star and was by no means the best professional singer but I was (and continue to be) grateful to God for the gift of a voice I can use and that other people seem to enjoy hearing. As I mentioned in a blog post last year , as I began to explore my call to ordination, it felt right to lay down any active pursuit of performing.  I don't regret this one bit but it has left me with a bit of a g...

I have never been diving but, at the moment, I feel like a deep-sea diver, who has spent a reasonable amount of time under pressure in the deep - I am slowly resurfacing, taking time to get used to normality again and thinking of the wonders that I have just experienced. I knew that Advent and Christmas time would be busy in this new life of mine but nothing had completely prepared me for the extent of the stretch and the sense of eyeball-bulging tiredness that would be the result. I left for a week-long college residential just as Advent was starting and, thanks to the shortest-possible Advent (what with Christmas Eve actually being the 4th Sunday in Advent), came back to full-swing preparations for Christmas services and events. Since then it has been a rollercoaster ride of services, school assemblies and carol services, community and churches-together events, whilst trying to organise family things and plan ahead for next term! By the time I got to lunchtime on Christmas D...