My Letter from the Pope

From visiting foreign countries (including the USA), to writing encyclicals, to canonizing new saints, Benedict XVI was busy during his relatively brief pontificate.  

During the past 8 years, his presence as the head of the Roman Catholic Church made a direct impact on my life.  In particular, his sentiments about meeting the truth through beauty have shaped my career path. 

More than anything, his humility is striking. 

I was at a hotel in Wisconsin when I heard the news.  The Holy Father was stepping down from his role as the Pope.  Someone in a TV interview that morning expressed how rare it is for anyone to willingly give up power.

This quote in the New York Times from Pope Benedict's last audience gracefully echos of real virtue.  

"To love the church also means having the courage to make difficult decisions, bearing always in mind the good of the church and not of oneself." 

Although he was referring to the church in this quote, I could easily insert someone else's name.  For instance, "David."  If I think about this in light of loving my husband, it is a compelling challenge. 

"To love (David) also means having the courage to make difficult decisions, bearing always in mind the good of (David) and not of oneself."

Food for thought for this dreamer.  Speaking of dreams, a couple years ago, I received a once-in-a-lifetime letter from Pope Benedict XVI.  

I had recently released my CD "Living His Story."  Jay Round, my producer, told me his friend Mic Carlson was traveling to the Vatican for an audience with the Pope.  Jay gave Mic a copy of my CD to bring to the audience, along with a letter from me asking for an apostolic blessing.  

Not long after Mic's trip to Rome, I received an official-looking letter in the mail.  It was from the Vatican, expressing Pope Benedict XVI's thanks and blessings!  David kindly scanned it so you can see for yourself.

Check it out. 

Have you heard that the Pope has an iPod?  Maybe my CD made it onto his playlist. 

In case you use iTunes, also, I'm including a link to a free podcast I gave a few years ago about the Holy Father.  In the interview, I describe how my music, ministry and marriage would not be the same without him. 

Good bye, Papa Bene.  Thanks for beng an image of servant leadership.  God-speed and enjoy the peace and quiet. 

Amanda

You might be from Wisconsin if...

Hello!

We just returned from our mini-tour of Wisconsin.  I loved it.  David and our kids came along, and we stayed with friends and extended family most of the trip.

I performed several concerts, mostly near Green Bay and Milwaukee.  I hope to return this summer for more events in more cities.

I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I’m a Wisconsin native.  Based on real encounters with fellow Cheeseheads, I compiled a list of indications that you, too, might be from America’s Dairyland.

You might be from Wisconsin if...

• Someone tells you she eats French toast with cheese, and your response is, “Weird.  I’ll have to try that!”
• You repeatedly remark how nice the weather is when it is sunny and over twenty degrees.
• After shoveling through two feet of snow to get to your grill, your wife calls out the window, “You’ve grilled in colder weather!”
• Customized ads on YouTube try to sell you the perfect pairing of chocolate and cheese.
• “Packer colors!” is your first comment when your tan-colored dog gets into a can of green paint.
• You saw the power outage during the Super Bowl as the perfect opportunity for the Packers to storm the field, capture one of the teams, and win it all.

Go Pack Go.  Next football season is only 7 months away. 

Amanda

P.S. David and I were featured on the cover of Grand Rapids FAITH Magazine this month!  Here’s in the link to read, “The Author of Every Love Story.”  

An Epiphany

Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential
meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace 
occurrence or experience.

(Thanks, Dictionary.com) 

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I think it is best to be specific in prayer.

Last year, I hoped God would give me the answer to some important questions for Christmas.  The answer finally came this Christmas.  

For the past couple of years, I have been wrestling with the role of faith as an artist.  Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the artist’s “great responsibility to communicate beauty (Meeting with Artists, 11/21/2009).”  Many of the Church documents talk about the importance of true art.

I appreciate the vote of confidence.  But I wonder what it means for me specifically.  And am I a “Catholic artist” or an artist who is Catholic?

That’s the question I hoped God would answer last year.  Instead, He gave me more time to ponder. Finally, this Christmas Season it dawned upon me after I tucked our daughter in for the night.  The answer is (drum roll, please): both, and.  

How Catholic is that?  Our faith is full of mind-boggling paradoxes, like how we describe Jesus Christ:

True God, True Man

Word made Flesh

The Beginning and the End

The First and the Last

I suppose being a “Catholic artist” and an artist-who-happens-to-be-Catholic isn’t so baffling.  It is not the black-or-white answer I anticipated, but I tend to overanalyze.  (I’m writing a song with that title, by the way.) 

Apparently, I need to relax.  Sometimes God might call me to stand under a spotlight and speak about the beauty of Catholicism.  At other times, He might lead me to sing some love songs with the love of God in my heart.  In both circumstances, I live out my vocation as an artist, embracing my responsibility to communicate beauty.

I’m grateful to begin 2013 in the beauty of a simple epiphany.  It was worth the wait.

After Christmas Mass with the fam!  Photo courtesy Deanna Rae Photography 

Happy New Year from my family to yours!

Amanda, David, Jamal & Chiara

Giving Thanks

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

For anyone reading this outside of the United States, you should come visit for a wonderful holiday next year. How awesome to have an entire day set aside for giving thanks to God as a nation.  Lots of other traditions surround this day, like family gatherings and eating turkey.  My personal favorites are also watching football and having my first glass (or two or three) of eggnog for the holiday season.  

This year, we took a caravan to Chicago: my husband, our two kids, plus my parents and my six siblings all piled into a 12-passenger van together for the 6-hour round trip.  We celebrated with my dad's side of the family.  He is one of 14 siblings (no, 14 was not a typo)!  As you can imagine, there were many aunts, uncles, and cousins around.  We returned to Michigan that night, followed by other celebrations with David’s side of the family on Friday and Saturday.  

Last Sunday, David and I drove down to South Bend, Indiana with our daughter, Chiara, for my concert at Holy Cross College.  Our son Jamal stayed in Michigan at my parents’ so he could run, play, and do all sorts of fun, toddler stuff while we were away.  Friends of ours live in the area, so they hosted us and watched Chiara so we could focus on my performance.   

The quick overnight trip was a great opportunity to share my music in a ministry setting, meet some awesome students from the Mission Team of Holy Cross College, and reconnect with other friends from Notre Dame University.  Not to mention, it was an exciting time to visit the Notre Dame campus with their undefeated football team heading to the National Championship.  Driving back to Michigan after a week of travels, I felt overwhelmingly privileged.

Overall, I am thankful for so many blessings at the start of this holiday season.  There are too many to list.

Briefly, I would like to focus on the success of our recent Kickstarter campaign.  It is thrilling to begin work on my newest recording project, knowing that hundreds of people are supporting me each step of the way.  Last week, I signed the contract to officially begin recording with ICON Studio Productions.  This week, David started prepping my Advent/Christmas CD’s to mail out as the first wave of our Kickstarter rewards.

In the lyrics of Josh Groban, “There’s so much to be thankful for.”

Peace!


Amanda

Must Be Nice

Last month I ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund my fifth CD, entitled, "Interior Gaze."

So far, I have posted the background stories and lyrics for 5 of the 10 new songs from the album.  Here is the story of another new song, "Must Be Nice."

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A comedian once said you should marry someone you don’t like... That way, when your spouse is angry, you won’t care!  I say, I am glad I married the person I like the best in the world!  However, it does allow for major heartbreak.  My husband and I have an amazing relationship, but it is not problem free.

We have emotional problems.  David feels loved when the house is clean.  I feel loved when I receive lots of affirming touch (not to be confused with erotically-charged touch).  I am not naturally tidy; David is not naturally touchy-feely.  So, if we do not work hard at speaking the other person’s “love language,” one of us tends to feel unloved.

We have intellectual problems.  In addition to the whole male/female dichotomy, we think about the world very differently.  David thinks: graphs, words, details!  I think: movement, color, big-picture. Without consulting the other, we normally come up with two different answers to the same question.

We have spiritual problems.  We each tend to put the other on a pedestal...you know, where God deserves to be!  Guess what happens when our flaws flare up unexpectedly.  It is disappointing, let me tell you.

Lastly, we have physical problems.  Many times physical limitations present temptations not to love the other in the best way possible.  Like this morning when I snapped at David because I felt fatigued.  In the words of Christ, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” -Matthew 26:41

I think the core of our problems is delicately described by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.  In his book, “Three to Get Married,” he wrote the following:

In all human love it must be realized that every man promises a woman, and every woman promises a man that which only God alone can give, namely, perfect happiness. One of the reasons why so many marriages are shipwrecked is because as the young couple leave the altar, they fail to realize that human feelings tire and the enthusiasm of the honeymoon is not the same as the more solid happiness of enduring human love.

Here is the good news: for each of our problems, there is a solution!  When we demand the answer from each other, we end up disappointed.  But when we seek the solution together by turning to God in prayer, our problems are always solved (though not always immediately) by the remedy of a deeper love.

In closing, I will share the link for the lyrics: CLICK HERE.  If you sense raw, newly-wed angst in my words, don't worry.  Does our marriage have problems?  You bet it does.  But working through those problems in prayer together, we continually discover a more enduring love.  

That, my friends, is solid happiness.  

Amanda