Discover Your Unique Voice

As I have shared in previous blogs music fulfills me. In honor of my dad on this Father’s Day I am so thankful to him for giving me my first guitar when I was just 9 years old. That has resulted in a lifelong Source of joy and fulfillment in my life. And thankfully through the years of trial and error I have found my unique voice expression.

As a singer and songwriter, I have tried many different styles of music in the quest to find my own “personal sound.” As with most people just starting out in their creative pursuits, I originally found myself imitating the styles of others, hoping to find my own niche in the process. Seals and Crofts, John Denver, The Eagles, America, and Bread were some of the early influences on my taste in music. (Can you tell how old I am?!)

However, as helpful as it may be to learn the style of others, I have concluded that even the best imitation is not as good as the original. So, be yourself! Anything else is a sure prescription for more loose ends.

When I was recording the song “Hide Me in the Shadow” on my Carry Me CD, (found on I-Tunes) I felt as if I finally had “found my voice.” Although there were many other good songs on the CD, something special happened in the recording studio when I sang that song. It tapped into my bloodline going back generations. In that magic moment, it was as if I had a taste of my destiny. I found myself thinking, this is the kind of music I was born to sing! It felt as though I had finally “come home” to my true self.

What style of music is this song? It’s hard to categorize. It could be described as contemporary, folksy, alternative or Irish/Celtic. Even though the style may seem a conglomeration of genres, it is the real me! I am almost three-fourths Irish.

. “By the way, I recently found out that I have a famous song writer in my family, James Francis McHugh. He wrote music for Broadway and Movies in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Wow!”

When we “find our voice”—something we really enjoy doing—it’s likely that others will enjoy it, too. “Hide Me in the Shadow” has been one of my CD’s most popular songs on radio stations across the country. Some of the other tracks on the project are arguably better songs, but “Hide Me in the Shadow” has had an extraordinary impact because of the way it resonates with who I am.

What about you? Have you found your voice in life and discovered what you were designed for? I love this quote from Olympic gold medalist, Eric Liddell, whose story is chronicled in the movie “Chariots of Fire”: “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Eric had found his place in this world, and as a result, he experienced God’s favor.

As my friend Kathrine Lee likes to say, “Live YOUR life—not someone else’s! The more you get to know your Designer, the more you’ll discover your design.” Doesn’t this make sense? Your Creator is your Designer, and you should let your Designer also be your Definer!

What about you?

Describe a time in your life when you felt truly alive and able to fully express who the Designer created you to be.

Don't Let The Marching Band Stop Your Concert

Don’t Let the Marching Band Stop Your Music

As I thought about June’s Life area of focus in The Source, Balance & Fulfillment I wanted to write about music which brings great fulfillment to my life. I love it even when there are mishaps.

I have had the wonderful privilege of performing in concerts from the east coast to the west coast and even as far as the nations of Haiti and New Zealand. But I’ve never experienced such a fiasco as the day my daughter and I were doing a concert at Freedom Park, near where we live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.

There had been heavy rains for days, and the stage was surrounded by mud. We had no time for a sound check, and it probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway, for the sound man seemed to have no clue about how to work the sound board. Two other volunteer soundmen tried to help him throughout the concert, but all this did was make the sound levels change during every song. For half the concert, the only sound was coming out of the monitors, not the main speakers.

I should have known we were in for a bad afternoon when a marching band strutted right past our stage during one of the first songs, completely drowning out our performance. If this wasn’t bad enough, they marched back the other direction toward the end of our concert. I’ve seen concerts with annoying distractions like crying babies humming amplifiers, but I’ve never before had to compete with a marching band.

That wasn’t all. When it seemed that we were finally gaining some momentum with our songs, the electricity suddenly went out. We had to sing a capella for a while, and when the electricity returned, our CD player had switched to the next song on the sound track! What could we do? We rolled with the punches, and started singing the next song. Later we learned that the electricity went out when a man from the booth next to us got angry and started switching the circuit breakers on and off.

This terrible experience was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that one of my daughter’s best friends had come to watch our concert. Finally, when I broke a string on my guitar, my daughter had seen enough. She walked off the stage and vowed never to sing in public again. After a minute or two, she had cooled down enough to come back on the stage—but it was a concert neither of us will ever forget.

What lessons can be learned from our disastrous concert? We had practiced. We had good songs. We came to perform our best and connect with those who came to the concert. Yet everything seemed to unravel.

If you’re anything like me, your pride gets hurt when things don’t go your way. You want to succeed…to look good…to impress people! But I love what Winston Churchill discovered about the pathway to true success: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm…Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Sometimes a marching band—or some other distraction—can mess up your day and spoil your “success.”  

But the next time your success gets interrupted, take my advice: Keep right on singing, and soon the distraction will march away.

What about you?

•             Share an experience in your life when uncontrollable events conspired to interrupt or change your plans. How did you respond?

Hatfields & McCoys a Family Feud

The History Channel’s "Hatfields & McCoys" miniseries has been a launching pad for my cinema therapy this summer. I have found myself haunted by the 3-part series, which I have already watched 3 times this week. Starring Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton and Tom Berenger, the three-episode show marks the History Channel's first scripted miniseries.

The Hatfield-McCoy saga (1863-1891) involves two feuding families along the West Virginia-Kentucky border along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by "Devil Anse" Hatfield (Kevin Costner) while the McCoys of Kentucky were under the leadership of Randolph "Ole Ran" McCoy (Bill Paxton). These men were close friends until near the end of the Civil War, when they returned to their neighboring homes—Hatfield to West Virginia and McCoy across the Tug River in Kentucky. But a number of events lead to increasing tensions and resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare between their families—from land disputes to kidnappings and murder.

Those involved in the feud were descended from Ephraim Hatfield (born c. 1765) and William McCoy (born c. 1750). The feud has entered the American folklore lexicon as a metaphor for any bitterly feuding rival parties. More than a century later, the story has become a modern metaphor for the perils of misplaced family honor, unforgiveness and vengeance.

Starring Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton and Tom Berenger, the three-episode show marks the History Channel's first scripted miniseries.

As I replay scenes in my mind, I can’t help but ask "why"? How did it come to this senseless hostility and bloodshed? Couldn’t something have been done to avert the savagery?

Monday's premiere episode introduced viewers to the main characters and showed the incidents that initially sparked the feud. It also chronicled the love story between Roseanna McCoy (Lindsay Pulsipher) and Johnse Hatfield (Matt Barr).

A series of random events caused the conflict to steadily intensify. Asa Harmon McCoy was murdered in January 1865 by one of the Hatfield relatives. At another point, the Hatfields and McCoys went to court because of disputed ownership of a pig. Along the way, numerous family members were killed or disabled by the growing violence. The legal system was virtually powerless to bring order or justice.

The feud provides us with important lessons as we deal with the prickly people in our lives today. The anger between the Hatfields and McCoys seems crazy…ridiculous. Fighting over a pig? You’ve got to be kidding. Killing just to uphold your family’s "honor"? Get over it.

But offenses are bound to happen in any of our lives. How are we to handle them? It sure helps if we forgive "early and often." The longer an offense is allowed to fester, the more irrational and irreversible it becomes.

Who has offended you, my friend? Who do you need to forgive? How can you sow love and blessing where there has been hurt and cursing?

Tomorrow can be different because of the choices and steps you take today.