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After her sister & I went to see Wicked for her birthday back in February, Katy fell in love with the soundtrack. Knows every word. I looked around and saw that they were doing the play in Nashville & took Katy as part of her Christmas gift. She said at intermission, “I told myself i was going to mouth the words to all the songs so i wouldn’t disturb the people around me but i just couldn’t take my EYES off the stage! i was just too interested!” All the thanks i needed, right there.

We stayed in a hotel overnight and went to the historic Rhyman Auditorium-the “Mother Church” of country music-and the home of the original Grand Ol’ Opry where my grandfather played the upright “bass fiddle” for Pee Wee King. He is standing with it in the 1942-43 cast photo that Katy is pointing to in the photo above.

They have a nice little “recording studio” set up in the auditorium and Katy sang Amazing Grace with a nice little gospel style accompaniment.

My grandfather also had many stories about honky-tonkin’ on Music Row! One of the favorites for he & his buddies was Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge right around the corner from the Rhyman. So…Katy & I went and had a coke & listened to the guy play for a few minutes around 11am.

Wonderful memories…hope as many for her as for me.

no one has ever denied that my mother and father have a very unique relationship. they were high school sweethearts, married very young and had me. they divorced when i was five…and it wasn’t like it was all “ok, well this didn’t work so you go your way and i’ll go mine”…no. it wasn’t really a pretty split. but sometime not long after that my mother decided it wasn’t going to work for me to have everyone hating and stuff so she and my then very young step-mother worked it out. then they went past that and became really great friends. mama always said she didn’t want to give up all the wonderful people in my dad’s family, so she just DIDNT. i don’t blame her, they are pretty cool.

fast forward 35 years…MANY more very cool people all having a great day at the farm together. in-laws and out-laws, married and single, very young (the youngest this year was 2 months) and very old (my grandmother is 84). forgiveness and grace is a wonderful thing.

since being back home at Frazer, i seem to be getting lots of good chances to be a drama queen. guess they recognize that i can do that easily. ha. anyway, for easter they chose a willow creek piece with the leper (played by Robert Suttle), the rich young ruler (Jason Morgan) and…a-hem…the woman caught in adultry. i’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t the easiest role i’ve ever played. apparently i was convincing, too. one of anne louise’s friends sitting next to her in the audience leaned over and asked her “wow. did that really happen to your mom?” yeah. uh-huh. anne louise and katy both got to be a part of making the whole experience pretty moving.

the next weekend on easter sunday i opened the contemporary service with a monologue taken from the gospel accounts of mary magdelene and the women meeting Jesus after the stone was moved that morning.

i also recently got a chance to do the “Five Before” which are our video announcements played 5 minutes before the service starts each week. that was lots of fun. i usually do live stuff and being in front of the camera was a different experience.

its a cool thing to be at a place where someone needs me to act. never really thought i’d have a chance to do much of that again and its a lot of fun for me. i mean, for real, go God, huh?

A few folks went to The Pub to help me celebrate my 40th. I had a great birthday and i feel the same as i did when I was “only” 39!

I was thrilled to be a part of a wonderful Happy Birthday Celebration for Jesus at Frazer this year. So unique. So wonderful. New music guy, Wayne Sigler, ROCKS. Met some wonderful new friends during rehearsals 2 nights a week for the 2 months before. It was a terrific experience and we performed for 4000+ people in two performances. Pictured below are me with my co-players; Debbie and Allen Peavy, Alyssa Boyd, Ken Roach, Lauren Webster, Janet Gipson, Owen Corothers, Jerrod Dorminey and Mike Bright.