Chords for All Sons & Daughters - Poets & Saints

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ I was reading a book by Madeline LaEngle called Walking on Water, and she was quoting this
stage play, Our Town.
_ And in the play, there is an interaction between [Cm] two characters, and one character says,
Does anyone ever truly experience life as [Eb] they live it?
Essentially, who lives in the moment? _ _ _ _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
The response was, nobody does.
[Eb] _
Saints and poets do, maybe, some of them. _
LaEngle goes on to [Cm] talk about this grouping, this pairing of two people, of poets and saints,
and [Eb] that they have this way of living in the present moment.
And [Cm] that _ [Ab] landed on me in a really crazy way, where I was like, wow, I've been influenced
by both poets and [Bb] saints my whole life.
We talk about the music that we grew [Cm] up on.
_ _ What if [Gm] we explored some of these stories, and we wrote [Ab] songs that corresponded with [Bb] people's lives? _ _ _
And [Cm] like anything that God has a hand in, it became a much bigger story than what we [Ab] anticipated. _ _
_ _ It quickly became evident to us that this project [Cm] would be more than just writing songs,
and it turned into a [Bb] trip, and it turned into, what if we just [Ab] brought some of our favorite people along?
And I think at the essence of that, it was, how can we use [Cm] this trip to study these people's
lives [Bb] more intimately?
So not just learning about them, but really [Ab] being in the places that they lived, and [Bb] gathering
pieces of their [Cm] story through their [Ab] experience.
It's almost seeing things as they would have seen [Gm] them.
_ _ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Really [Em] wanted to capture the sounds of the [C] places that we went.
_ _ [G]
We talked about it at one point of actually [Em] recording while we were over [C] there, and we
were like, man, we really [G] just want to experience the trip for what it is, and then [Em] come home,
bring our [C] stories home, and then write the songs.
_ _ [G] We gathered all these sounds from all kinds of places, and [Em] we brought it home, and we
just started writing [C] the songs.
_ One of [Am] the coolest ones being [Em] at Omaha Beach, _
[C] collecting _ the sounds [G] of the ocean.
We [G] got back here, we started working on the first song, Heaven Meets Earth.
We [Em] started talking about [C] creation being [G] spoken and sang into existence, and what it might
sound like, and [Em] I just remembered that ocean [C] sound. _
_ [G] When it started to play, we could start to hear this faint [Em] heartbeat.
The [C] wind had just hit the [Am] microphone, and it created this [Em] heartbeat in the actual [C] sample.
And so that is the actual drum [G] beat that we began to build off of for Heaven Meets Earth.
[Em] _ _ It [C] was just unreal to see [G] how things kind of came out of these sounds.
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ We brought along a few of our friends.
We said, hey, could you just do some research for us?
Could you find one really human element of each of these stories, and give us something
to explore each morning?
So when we pull into these cities, would we have already read something about their story
[F] and found a way to connect with [C] them?
_ _ [Am] And so as the conversation progressed, [G] it turned into, well, let's [F] make a documentary.
_ [C] And then we thought, what if more than [G] a documentary, we could use it as an example for small groups
[F] to learn about these people?
_ [C] _ _ _ _ [G] _
The small group curriculum is a [C] seven-day, seven-week study that we [G] compiled of the poets
and saints that we studied [C] on this trip.
[F] Being in a small [C] group setting, it has been [Am] so life-changing [G] for us.
_ _ [F] In this series, [C] you're going to get a [G] participant's guide that goes with the entire thing.
There's scripture [Am] to read.
There's [F] songs to listen.
[G] There's writing prompts.
[C] There's things that are going to [Am] challenge you and push you in [F] ways that you haven't been pushed.
[G] It's a way to start a conversation [F] about a bunch of people who had [C] really crazy lives,
that's [G] not unlike our own, and that hopefully gets the ball rolling on [F] some conversations
that make a [C] difference in your own story. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
In conjunction with the record [G] and the curriculum, [C] the participant's guide, the DVD, our pastor,
Jamie George, came with us on the trip, and he said, wouldn't it be really cool if I [Am] could
document the whole experience in book format?
[G] There are moments, there's stories, there's insight into what we [C] experienced while we
were there, and then there's deeper detail of each of these [Em] people's stories.
_ We hope this project, [Am] in its holistic form, the participant's guide, [G] the DVD curriculum,
the book, and the album, _
[C] really [F] addresses all the senses, like that you [Am] have this holistic
[G] experience not only with your mind but with your [C] heart, that it's [F] broader, that it's deeper
and [Am] richer than anything [F] you've experienced.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _