Thankful

It's been a week this concert, and I'm still living off the high of the fun music, the friendly faces, and the deep sense of connection with the audience, with the music, and with God that I felt as we played this show.

So, thanks. Concerts don't happen without people to attend them. Art isn't really complete until it's shared, and, in that sharing, new meanings and layers are added to that art. This idea is especially true with live music. Any given performance could vary wildly from night to night, and a huge source of that variation is the energy the performer receives from the people in attendance. Last week, we fed off your amazing, supportive energy, friends, and it made for a great show.

Special thanks to Nick Mungia for playing drums with us; to Terry Fansler, David Naugle, and Philip Mitchell and to Dallas Baptist University for hosting and making the event possible; to the band for their hard work and practice; and to our faithful companions -- my mom and nephew -- for giving of their time and energy. You all rock.

--Christine

5 songs of thanks

This morning I'm thankful for a lot of things: that there's no school or work for me today, that I'm about to cook a whole lot of delicious oatmeal butterscotch cookies, and that Christmastime is upon us. And those are just the shallow things. Here are a few songs that express my thankfulness:


1. "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty," a 17th century hymn that never fails to remind me of my reasons for thankfulness with lines like, "hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been granted in what He ordaineth?" and "Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee." This version, by Christy Nockels, is my favorite.





2. Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke," which reminds me of how grateful I am for the musical greats who have gone before: "Basie, Miller, Satchmo, And the king of all Sir Duke/ And with a voice like Ella's ringing out
There's no way the band can lose..." Plus, there's no better song to dance to.




3. Gungor's "You Are the Beauty," which praises God for gifts like "music," "flavors," "breath, and sex, and sight." The song then moves into a fantastic jam (this live version rocks) that displays just how much reason we have to be thankful for music.




4. Led Zeppelin's "Thank You." This super-romantic song is the perfect way to tell someone you love how much they mean, all while getting to rock-out as you tell them.

5. Bing Crosby singing "Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)." This one reminds me of all my blessings, puts me in the Christmas spirit, and puts me to sleep. (I don't know whether or not that's a compliment, but it's true.) In college, the Sunday night after our big Christmas concert, the whole music department would gather in the choir room to watch White Christmas on a big screen with lots of hot cocoa and other goodies and, of course, lots of singing along. It's one of my favorite college memories -- and yet another thing for which I am very thankful.

Giving thanks for Coffee

It's November 13, so I'm 13 days late at jumping on the facebook bandwagon of posting something I'm thankful for each day of November. Instead, I'm going to dedicate my remaining November blog posts to the theme of giving thanks. Today is simple: I'm thankful for coffee and for my sweet husband who has been getting up earlier than me all semester to make it. In the fall, he spices the coffee with cinnamon, nutmeg, and sometimes ginger, putting the spices right in the coffee grounds before it's made, and it is the perfect way to wake up on a chilly morning like this one.

Coffee has been my fuel of choice since college. I like it unsweetened, with cream, or with a delicious flavored creamer (today it's pumpkin spice). My favorite everyday coffee is Chock full of nuts, which we buy in huge containers from Tom Thumb, the only place around here that carries it. My favorite special coffee is Lavazza Espresso, or if I'm in the mood for a really dark, smoky, kind-of chocolat-ey roast, Starbucks' Verona Blend. My favorite espresso beverage is a perfect Italian cappuccino, which is not easy to find with that just-right-balance of espresso, milk, and foam. I've had particularly good ones at Coffeehouse Cafe, Buon Giorno Coffee, and the Pearl Cup. I also have pretty good luck if I order a short cappuccino at Starbucks. It's not on the menu, but if you request it, they will make it, and it has the same amount of espresso as the tall, but a better milk-to-foam-to-espresso ratio. My favorite fancy Starbucks beverage is a raspberry mocha. If they ever discontinue the raspberry syrup I will be a sad girl.

I love coffeehouses, too. I've been enchanted with them since high school; I thought they were so cool -- meccas for intellectuals, students, journalers, and book worms. And musicians, of course. I couldn't wait to be the featured performer at a coffeehouse, playing gentle, folk-y music, passing the hat in the old-school, Bob Dylan style. Looking back on my almost 15 years playing music in coffeehouses, I've been welcomed by all sorts of local shops, and seen more closings of truly great coffee shops than I'd like to count. Some that stand out in my memory are three excellent Fort Worth Coffeehouses that are now no longer with us: four-star coffeebar, Eurotazza coffee, and Panther City Coffee. Eurotazza stands out for actually paying its musicians (no wonder they had to close :( ) But all these wonderful establishments paid in coffee, which, as I've already made clear, I love. I especially enjoyed Panther City because I would take home a pound of delicious, house-roasted coffee at the end of the gig and enjoy it for a couple more weeks.

So I'm thankful for coffee, and I'm even more thankful for the people who make it -- like my sweet husband, my local baristas, the deacon at church who gets the coffee going before anyone walks in, and my mom, whose coffee habit taught me to associate a good morning with the funny little sounds of a drip machine and the smell of coffee floating down the hall. Being thankful for coffee is more than being thankful for a shallow creature comfort; it's about being thankful for the people and experiences that go along with that morning, afternoon, and late-night-study-session beverage. If, like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, I have "measured out my life in coffee spoons," I can also count up the deep and lively conversations, the Scrabble games, the open mic nights, the finished papers or projects, the late-night movie screenings, the early-morning church services, or the quiet afternoons reading a book or having a heart-to-heart that were enlivened or made possible by coffee.

So this Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for coffee -- by having it in my traditional Thanksgiving manner: poured over a giant scoop of homemade whipped cream, paired with some pumpkin pie, while catching up with family as the Cowboys play in the background. Happy Thanksgiving.