WHAT SHOULD JESUS COST? (2025-12)

Tomorrow is our grandson Walter’s birthday, so Dave and I visited a couple thrift stores looking for vintage vinyl LPs for our ten-year-old audiophile. While at one of the stores I noticed an awfully nice, good sized Jesus in the collectable section behind the counter. I set my eyes on him, pondering what I could use him for. First thought… the neighborhood nativity. “He’s a bit big for that,” Dave noted, though he agreed with me that this was an awfully nice Jesus.

As is often the case when I discover something uniquely cool, I’ve been thinking about that Jesus since we left the store, having that internal debate about whether or not I should have grabbed him. Besides pondering where I could use him, I’ve been thinking about that sticky price tag attached to his leg. A little voice in my head keeps asking me, “What should Jesus cost?”

I’m aware of the concept that what Jesus offers us comes free, with no strings attached. That’s grace. I can buy the concept that he offers us his redeeming power without charge. That’s from His perspective.

But from mine, it’s a little, or a lot, more confusing to me. I have a gut feeling that I need to apply some work to get what I hope for out of my relationship with him.

My brother George is a scientist. He taught me about the Law of Entropy, which basically represents that in this earthly realm everything is headed toward chaos. Things, by nature, will fall apart. The thing that will bring it to order is an exertion of energy, in scientific terms known as “work”. Basically, it takes effort to keep everything from falling apart. So, for me to live in this earthly state and have a relationship with a godly being, I think I need to provide the work. (It feels a little easier to just resign ourselves to chaos, doesn't it?)

Many Christians believe otherwise; that we cannot earn any of what Heaven has to offer, that grace implies no accountability. That’s OK, I agree we get to figure this stuff out ourselves with our innate right to choose. But for me, my current thinking/feeling is that there needs to be a measure of effort on my part for me to acquire the traits of Christ. There's a bit of resistance training involved.  

For example, I know if I want to accompany myself on guitar, I need to learn the song, know the chords, practice enough to switch between those chords and get my fingering right on both hands for chording and picking. I curl the palm of my left hand toward my eyes and note the calluses on my fingertips. Pressing my flesh into those metal strings daily has earned me these protective coatings. The repeated struggle has facilitated the reward. If I want to be a Christian, I need to make an effort to learn the “Jesus chords”, and what other sacrifices it will cost me to make him mine. I’m already His. I don’t earn my way to Him. But it takes me some work to make Him mine.

Why, one might ask, would I even want to make Him mine? That’s the daily question I need to answer. It’s the question I choose to answer. The asking of the question is pivotal for me. It’s kind of like when I make a list of things I need to do on a Saturday morning, I may not follow the list, or even look at it again, but the making of it places the thoughts in my head and increases my odds of accomplishing the tasks.

So, I ask myself, “What would I pay for Jesus?” How much is too much? And do I really want Him in the first place?

For me, the part of my self-definition that includes the word "Christian" is up there in the rankings. You know how some words, when you search them in the Dictionary, have 5 or 6 different meanings, some of them nouns, some adjectives or verbs, etc.? When I’m done, and people try to describe me to others, I want “Disciple of Christ” to be right up there. That moniker explains an awful lot without having to use words.

First, it would confirm that I trust we are of divine origin and have a relationship with our creators. Then it would indicate that there is a pattern established that I believe will lead me to internal peace, if not happiness. When I ponder what character traits I want to have, they pretty much align with the ones our records of Jesus indicate he has. He is firm in his devotion to his God, so much so that when you speak of one you could say the same about the other. He is a lover of his fellow beings, to excess. He even begged forgiveness for the people who took his life, because they surely did not understand the gravity of their actions. He has perfected empathy. He is the very soul and source of empathy. He embraces the balance of justice and mercy. He is strong, and tender, kind and exacting. He’s just the coolest, finest, warmest, most loving and I adore him. That’s the kind of person I want to be remembered as. The more I follow him, the more I like myself.

As a Christian, I understand that I am his. He paid for me, so to speak, and he will carry me across the finish line when my own legs give out.

I’m really grateful to be his.

I guess it’s my turn to decide what I’m willing to pay to make Him mine.

See that guy in the red?
That's me.

SUCCESS (2025-11)

My friend Emily texted me tonight:

“My kids are loving guitar… Tom is hoping to make it to Mary’s level soon. She’s motivating him to catch her. Haha. He just told me if he practices an hour a day he can do it. LOL.”

Mary is Tom’s little sister, but she’s been playing longer, and was pretty committed. But now Tom is catching fire.

Emily added:

“He came home tonight and announced he’s the best guitar player ever.”

I replied with one of my favorite sayings:

CONFIDENCE IS REMEMBERED SUCCESS.

We walk a fine line, when helping someone learn something new, between giving them assignments we think they can do well and challenging them in order to help them improve. It’s the age-old struggle of parents, managers and teachers.

Parents, here’s your reminder to offer your kids opportunities to feel successful, without being overly patronizing. And then be careful about being too gushy about it… unless you haven’t been giving them enough love… then gush-on! In general, they will feel their own reward for success. Acknowledge it so they know you see it, too.

And one more thing; give yourself opportunities for success. Confidence will follow.

Tom owning his instrument.

EINSTEIN CALENDAR (2025-10)

In honor of Albert Einstein’s birthday yesterday, I thought I’d share some of the artwork from our family calendar from 1994. Yes, I still have our 1994 calendar, for two reasons:

1. It serves as a simple journal of what was happening in our household thirty+ years ago. 

2. I thought, and still think, the quotes from Einstein represent some of  our own basic beliefs.

There’s also the fact that the photos of the man himself are fabulous. 

In the olden days, before we all carried little computers in our pockets, we had to resort to pen and paper to keep us on track. In those days I also used a rudimentary palm pilot for the most important things I had to remember. I’m using the word palm in literal terms, with messages written pen to flesh. I have a stack of wall calendars that remind me how many activities we drove our kids to, how many PTA and Songwriter meetings, and how many singing engagements I had at such a ridiculously busy time of my life. Some years the dates were filled with studio sessions. Those were the years I was recording albums. Likely no one but me would find such a rush of memory in these physical calendars.

Scanning the pages of this year in our lives, I am struck by how poignant these words of Albert Einstein are for our current times. The political and governmental tsunami that has come upon us here in America has me and those I love stunned. The leadership of our country has nurtured a spirit of divisiveness rather than unity, a vibrating undercurrent of fear, and an unravelling of the chords that have woven the fabric of our country with the rest of the world. We’ve set money above morals and most disheartening to me is how people of good conscience celebrate our sword wielding leadership for their haphazard methods of tearing down. I see history reliving itself. Soon we will have sold ourselves for a mess of pottage.

For his 70th birthday, Einstein hosted refugee children
orphaned in the concentration camps of WWII.

NIGHT OWLS (2025-9)

It’s awesome to get old. I’m serious. Well, not everything about it is great, but some parts are cool. For instance, if you don’t have to get up for work its dandy to sleep in. This establishes a new freedom which allows the instinctive night owl in some of us to spread its wings and take flight. It’s a thing.

Last night I was texting my sister Libby in the wee hours (even though she had to work today.) We were both wondering how our Kate was doing in her perpetual all-nighter endeavor to complete her doctoral dissertation. We texted back and forth:

“Have you heard from Kate?”

“No, and I don’t want to disturb her train of thought. But I also want to make sure she’s ok.”

“Me, too.”

Then our texting, the best method of communication when others are sleeping, morphed into other worries, frustrations and disappointments. We both ended up in a funk.

So, at 3:30 am, in the middle of a snowstorm, I picked up Libby and we drove to 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee. Libby doesn’t even like Slurpees.

It kind of snapped us out of our funk. Afterwards we drove through the streets and cul-de-sacs in our neighborhood to see if anyone else might be up. The two of us know whose lights were on at 4 am, and we’re not spilling the beans, but we suspect they are kindred souls.

It stands to follow that this afternoon I couldn’t keep my brain focused or my eyes open as I attempted to do my daily Lent writing exercise. Just as my eyes were rolling back beneath my sinking eyelids, a message came up on my phone, mysteriously, I might add. It said that today was World Sleep Day. It was a sign from the Heavens, and I did obey

After my restorative nap I shifted by writing focus (not unusual) and searched “World Sleep Day.” (sponsored by medical sleep studies) There came, with that research,  additional search options, including National Napping Day. That seems a little redundant today. I missed it anyway, since it was last week.

That search brought up, for unknown reasons, National French Fry Day. Sadly, we have to wait until Friday, July 11^th for that one. Put it on your calendar.

I clicked on info about where to get free French fries on National French Fry Day and someone had left this comment:

Seriously folks, don’t you think we know that? Occasionally some of us need a means to snap out of it.

For those of our neighbors who had lights on in their houses in the wee hours of the night; We’ll meet you at the new Kaysville Jack in the Box, open 24 hours, for fries at 4 am on July 11^th. Lucky for us, it’s right across the street from 7-Eleven.

WANT ME TO HIT YA? (2025-8)

Our Kate.

Our daughter Kate is in those last few difficult feet before the finish line in the race to her PhD. It’s been an unexpectedly hard race. She signed up for a steady long distance run, straightforward and evenly paced, but they somehow put her in the hurdles instead. She didn’t register for hurdles. Nonetheless, that’s where she ended up. It’s a long story that involves being part of the 3% of applicants who were selected for a difficult program at NYU, her advisor – after two years into her four year program studying how the brain works - quitting to join Google, the University shutting down her lab and program, having to decide whether to quit or go through the intense process of applying again for another program, being admitted for a second time to a doctoral program, moving, starting all over again, a worldwide pandemic shutting everything down, including the border she had to cross to get to her school in Canada from her home in New York. Really, if you hadn’t lived it with her you might not believe it. Anyway, having resisted an intense pull to quit altogether, she is approaching the finish line in the submission of her Doctoral dissertation. I'm surprised she's still upright, though since we are so far away it may literally be that she is crawling on her hands and knees to push herself to the finish line.

She's exhausted. First, she lives 2,139 miles away and is doing this thing without the comfort of her inner circle. We have to blow her kisses and cheer from afar. We send Uber Eats occasionally, and prayers daily. She’s been pulling all-nighters for a week, taking two hour naps between writing and editing. She’s at the deadline and trying to push through. Libby, Dave and I have been texting her to try to lighten the air a bit. It’s a fine line, cuz we also don’t want to distract or be a bother.

This morming Libby sent these two texts, in honor of our mom, Kate’s Gram, whom she adored:

1. Want me to hit ya?
2. I’ll ask Gram to send sprinkles.
   
   
   

Libby was Mom’s companion for the last portion of her vibrant life. Mom wasn’t one to miss out on something meaningful. Libby drove a lot, with Mom in the passenger seat. We can’t even count the number of trips between Utah and California. Right about the middle of Nowhere Nevada Mom would look over at Lib, determine she was tired (after driving eight hours straight) and announce, “You awake? Want me to hit ya?”  If she actually ever did, you would surely be wide awake! But just the suggestion was enough to snap you out of a daze.

As for the sprinkles: Whenever any of us were struggling, in Mom's later years when she was resigned to her bed or her recliner because her legs no longer worked, she would lift her arm out from under her warm blanket, curl her fingers in toward her thumb, then flick them out toward you, sending Good Luck Sprinkles. We think she really did have magic in her fingers. When the stars come out at night now, we think she’s sending sprinkles still.

So, here’s to Kate today. She's a determined soul. I anticipate we will sometime in the next while receive a text that she has pressed “send” and her final draft will be out of her hands. 

Now, Mom, can you send some sprinkles to ther Doctoral Committee, in whose hands the work of the last many years of our girl rests? Or, if its absolutely necessary, maybe even hit them?

Kate and Gram, old pals.

Gram, Libby and Kate at Kate's college graduation.

Kate created a nose warmer for Gram one winter.

MUSIC IN THE SPOKEN WORD (2025-7)

I was texting back and forth with friends who serve with me in the Primary organization of our local LDS congregation. We work with kids up to 11 years old. Jacey, one of our dynamic music leaders, arranged for us to take the older kids to this week’s Sunday morning performance of Music and the Spoken Word featuring the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Texting is awesome, but tricky. I have a tendency to send texts without checking them first. The little critter hiding in my iPhone thinks it knows what I am saying even if I’m not saying it. Sometimes he’ll flip a word just before I send it even if I do check what I’ve written. I’ve found that my odds of getting things to come up more accurately increase if I speak my texts into the phone’s microphone rather than risking the use of my chubby klutzy fingers. The text I sent this morning interpreted my speech to say Music in the Spoken Word rather than Music and the Spoken Word.

The difference between those two teeny words “in” and “and” are pivotal. Analyzing it took my thoughts to my years of learning and teaching songwriting. One of the first messages I try to offer students is the basic understanding of the innate musicality of common speech. There is lilt to our voices when we speak. Most people don’t pause to think about it. But if you’re trying to write music to a lyric, the simplest and usually most effective way to find fitting melody is to speak the lyric and see where the voice takes you. Try writing a little tune to the phrase you speak. Your voice will rise and fall as you speak. It will hang on accented syllables longer. If you can make the music you write kind of match that melodic and rhythmic pattern, you’re often on the right track.

For instance, the other day I taught one of my guitar classes how to play Imagine, by John Lennon. Try speaking the opening sentence. Then try singing it. He has given the timing to the phrase, as it is spoken, completely to the music.  I’ll capitalize the words that carry extra weight in the conversation:

WHAT would you DO if I SANG out of TUNE, would you LAUGH and then WALK out on ME?

There is music in the words.

RAINdrops on ROSEs and WHISKer on KITtens. BRIGHT COPper KETtles and WARM WOOLen MITtens. Speak it, then see how well the music fits into the syllabic weight.

There is music in the words. 

If a musical phrase puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable it will sound unnatural and up goes a red flag of unbelievability. In critiquing songs there will inevitably be some song where the emphasis is on the wrong syllable... Sy-LAB-le...SYL-a-ble. 

Find the music in the speech, put it in the melody, and you’re on the right track.

So, there’s today’s lesson in songwriting. It’s not always the case, but it’s a pretty safe exercise to look for the music already inherently born in the lyric.

Indeed, there is music IN the spoken word.

(now somebody get the message to Artificial Intelligence.)

ITS SUPPOSED TO HURT (2025-6)

Yesterday I stood before my class of beginner guitar students and asked:

“Do your fingers hurt?”

This was their second class. One week before I had taught them about their instrument and how to tune it. I showed them how to hold it, and how their left hands were becoming clamps on the neck of the guitar. I showed them how the thumb becomes one side of the camp, and the fingertips become the other. They curled their hands around the long wooden necks of their instruments, pressing with their fingertips to make certain strings shorter and therefore higher pitched. I watched, knowingly, as they struggled to manipulate their instruments and their hands in this new task. It’s sort of like coaxing a baby to crawl. I taught them a fingering exercise and one chord.

“Ten minutes…” I asked them them, “Can you give ten minutes a day to play this on your guitar?”

We begin with tiny habits.

I knew their fingers would hurt. There’s a fuzzy gray line between effort and overwhelm. Our attention span as a culture is rapidly decreasing. On top of that, I recognize the need to create opportunities for success when we are trying to help someone through something difficult and initially unfulfilling. These first few weeks of guitar require a good measure of hope to get through, because the actuality of playing is next to nil. It’s this way with so many new experiences.

So, I asked my students yesterday if their fingers hurt, and about half of them said yes. 

“Good,” I said, “that’s how I know you’ve been playing. It’s supposed to hurt.”

I told them that eventually it will hurt less. 

“Calluses will help harden that soft flesh on your fingertips. You can either go scrape them against a sidewalk repeatedly to get those callouses, or you can play your guitars.”

I rub my thumb over my own calloused fingertips, thinking of my history with them. When I am not playing regularly, the callouses peel off the soft undamaged cells growing underneath. I press my thumb into each fingertip, registering the pain from overuse during the five classes taught yesterday and the preparation for each of them. 

This morning I listened to an article in Wayfare Magazine, one of my favorite publications for thought-driven members of the LDS faith. The article was centered on the concept of fasting. The aspect that struck me at the moment was how fasting invites us to feel vulnerable before God and offers a reminder that we have hope in feasting with Jesus Christ after our absence from his presence. I was reminded that it’s supposed to hurt. 

When I know something is supposed to hurt I emotionally open the door and invite it in rather than planting my feet in front of me like a girl on a roller coaster anticipating the big downhill slide. The pain becomes an integral part of the exercise. I actually become curious about it, first flirting with it, then welcoming it, then fully embracing it as part of the union of my soul. 

Each morning, for the last twenty years since I had Guillain Barre Syndrome, I awaken with a reminder that I live with pain. My first thoughts, after rising from the dream state, is how my legs burn the cold burn that feels like frostbite. I begin rolling my feet and tightening my muscles. Twenty years of this and I still think that things like this will wake them up. Thenb, fully awake now, I remind myself that the pain reminds me that I am alive, that despite the bearable pain I can still function and, though it isn’t pretty, I can still walk. In ward choir last Sunday our director requested we stand longer than most of us geriatric singers find comfortable. It may be good for our diaphragms but its pretty hard on our legs. We continued to stand for the closing prayer. Because of the lack of balance and adequate neurologicval signaling between my feet and my brain, I cannot close my eyes and bow my head and keep by balance. So I have to either pray with my eyes open or hold onto something steady so I don’t fall over. Inevitably, as I stand in prayer, realizing I have to do it differently than I used to, I am reminded that this is good pain. The pain means I survived.

I can see our Holy Makers figuratively standing before our Winter 2025 class of Human Existence 101. We are all complaining to each about how hard the assignments are. They know how awesome it will be for us eventually. But right now our poor fleshy fingertips are killing us! 

They look at us, smile their knowing smiles, reminding us that the early part of the process is hard:

“It’s supposed to hurt.”

But it won’t last long. The music is worth it.

WHELMED (2025-5)

Our friend Brian is the definition of a real catch. He’s kind, charming, brilliant, insightful, devoted and good looking, besides being super accomplished but not particularly impressed with his own notable accomplishments. He’s had a stellar career as a well-respected attorney in New York, but decided after his wife was killed in a tragic hotel fire that he would focus his energy and talent in more eternal areas. So, after raising his young sons, he went back to Yale Divinity School and earned his Master’s Degree in Divinity. He now serves as Chaplain in a New York Hospital. He’s exactly the kind of person I would want to comfort and advise me if my family and I were in some sort of medical crisis. He has maintained his good humor through all the muddy waters his life experience has thrown him into.

A good handful of years ago we were visiting with him and other buddies from Dave’s years at Yale. Sitting at one of those old worn wood tables, sprawled in the dimly lit dining room at the Yale Club of New York, we got to chatting about his comings and goings. It had been a number of years since his wife had died. 

“How’s your love life?” I asked.

“Well, I recently dated a most charming woman. She’s widowed as well. I really liked her, and thought we were quite well suited for each other.”

“And…?” I queried, “what happened?”

He waved his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders.

“She found me resistable.”

I giggled.

Her name was Katie Couric. Yes… THAT Katie Couric, the former sweetheart of Good Morning America. She’s happily married to someone else now.

The idea of being resistible took my mind to other terms based on root words rarely used without their modifiers.

I got to wondering if there is such a word as “whelm”. We speak of being overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but I don’t remember hearing people use the term whelm in conversation.

Google Search.

Indeed, there is a “whelm” in the dictionary. It means:

To be engulfed or buried.

In fact, overwhelm is a bit redundant. I guess being engulfed wasn’t enough to really hit the emotional mark. It used to work, centuries ago. A ship was merely whelmed at sea. Basically, it sunk. 

The concept of making the worst even worse, or conversely the best even better, reminded me of the day I was sitting in the recording studio with my friend Mark Stephenson, who engineered and produced the last four or five albums I recorded. The way it goes is that an artist will lay down a track or multiple tracks, give a listen, sometimes sit on it for a while, then go back in and fix what needs fixing or re-recording. I had come back in to re-record part of what we had called the final track. I chuckled, in an attempt to overcome my embarrassment that “final” wasn’t really final.

“Oh, this isn’t anything,” Mark assured me, “I have another client whose files look like this:

Raw track. Edited track. Final Track. Final Final track. Gold Final Track. Platinum final Track. True Final Track. True Final Track 2. True Final Track (for real), Really True Final Track. Absolutely true final track.

Poor Mark. We artists must whelm him. Like, super-duper over the top ridiculously massively totally overwhelm him with our expectations. Such behavior must make us totally resistible.

MY MOTHER, THE STEAM ROLLER (2025-4)

There's an image in my mind that bubbles up regularly. It's kind of a "mind reel", like a mini-movie that plays in my head. It's become a reel because the human attention span seems to be getting shorter and shorter. We are down to little snippets.

Here it is:

It’s Sunday morning. I can smell the distinctly musty-humid scent that comes when we open the glass double-doors to the lobby of the Pleasant Hills Chapel of our little Branch-turned-to-Ward in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Our mother walks in, followed by her three young daughters: Ann Marie, Cori and Libby. I’m the middle one. We waddle behind her like little ducklings, our feet flipping swiftly under us because we are late. (It’s a generational flaw.) The organ is playing the opening song. Or maybe even the Sacrament Hymn. Brother Johnson, who seemed to me to be 100 years old but was likely in actuality ten years younger than I am now, sits in the back and comments as we pass:

 “Here comes the steam roller.”

I feel heat rising inside me as we walk up to our regular pew, glowing red as it reaches my head.

I feel sad that calling our mother a steam roller was something in Brother Johnson’s personal history and a defining portion of my memory of him.  What he did not pause long enough to realize, in his misuse of an ability to make comment, was that the woman who had not only forced herself out of bed, made herself presentable, and provided presentable dress for her daughters… had fed and provided shelter for those daughters… had purchased not only the car but the gas to get to church and driven them all there herself, had done it all on her own, without the aid of the father of those girls… this woman essentially had to become a steam roller to survive. The four of us man-less females put our shoulders back and walked up the aisle of our little chapel worthy of everything the Lord had to offer. Mom knew that. She taught us that. But some others didn’t know it … or hadn’t been taught.

Our blessed faithful mother, a rebel soul from the start, never left us. She had her flaws. We all do. But unlike the man who chose to drive away from our home and never return, she never left us. Even when her spirit took its flight, and she was gone from sight, she never completely left us. 

She remains… not only in her daughters, and their daughters, their daughters and the daughters to come, but also in her sons, and their sons. She bled onto us, and we are bathed in her, similar to the way we are bathed in the blood of our Savior. They both liberated us in their own way. I don’t mean, in any way, to lower the majesty of our Lord and Savior and his blessed atoning sacrifice. But I do mean to raise the divine feminine to the level of reverence for which I believe it was designed. It begins with respect then moves on to reverence.

Respect is a formal way of showing consideration and tolerance for others. Reverence is a feeling of profound awe and respect that comes from within. 

Respect women, who have been unduly and unrighteously oppressed for most of human history. Then when you have mastered respect, move on to reverence. It’s higher level thinking and higher level feeling. 

Gratefully, the father of my children and resident of my heart has made me feel not only loved but also revered. No wonder my mother loved him as much as I do. He reveres me, and also revered her the way she should have been revered, if for no other reason but the divine nature with which she came at birth.

Thank you, Mom.

Thank you, David.

Happy International Women’s Day

Whispering confidence into her great-grandaughter.

My safe place.

My true loves.