Vocal

 

BEAUTIFUL SOUND – words & music L. Metz – Where I live, Springtime brings a phenomenon which inspired this song.

 

THAT’S JUST RETAIL – words and music L. Metz – Among my ‘starving artist jobs’ have been several in retail. What I enjoy most about retail is meeting and helping people. In 2 of my retails jobs (the health food store and the Nat’l Park) I’ve loved what I was selling. But issues arise, so many issues, and that’s when we simply say “that’s just retail.” It was at just such a time that this song bubbled up in me!

COULD’A BEEN A BUDDHIST – words & music L. Metz – Really?  Could I have been a Buddhist?  I thought I was a Christian!  I am, but I find that so many of my lifestyle choices seem kind of ‘Buddhist’ – things like reverencing life in all of its forms, caring for the environment, keeping a healthy diet.  These things don’t define my faith, and ultimately for me they are simply ‘Jesus things’, but still I ask the question “Could I have been a Buddhist?”

Theologically, the answer is yes and no.  Free will says yes, I ‘could’a been a Buddhist’ or anything else I might choose to be. Predestination says no, it was decided a long time ago… predetermined from the foundations of the world what I would become.

I actually believe both.  Mind-twisting perhaps, but I accept it as one of the great mysteries of faith. A favorite expression in divinity school was ‘it’s not either/or, it’s both/and’. I think that applies here.

This song was really fun to write and I believe it covers both options. These lyrics sum me up pretty well. As my dear friend Janice, who helped me record it, says “This song is so you!” Perhaps so. I especially love the bird who finessed a beautiful duet with me in the first strains of the song.