Track One: “Revival”: This was my first attempt at recording improvisation and although it was a little rough, its wildness reminded me of the excitement of revival. Kind of like the wildness of God’s heart, totally pure but far from tame, I can see why He is called the Lion of Judah. A little heavy-handed as God’s sovereignty often makes our suffering seem, we know He could help us avoid it, but God is concerned with our character more than our immediate circumstances. Metaphorically, only extreme hot or cold bring revival. Excitement brings its hope or frustration brings us to our knees(and back to prayer and thus back to revival).

Track Two: “Now Looking Forward”: I can kind of hear the title sung in this piece so be on the lookout for it being worked into a song sometime about the hope of Heaven while waiting for God’s return.

Track Three: “Dawn Breaking”: This one gives me a peaceful feeling like the beginning of a new day with the excitement of nature just getting going and knowing, ”This is the day the Lord hath made.” So I rejoice and will be glad in it whatever it brings for He will make it all right because even now the future is in His hands already.

Track Four: “Dying to Live”: I named the album after this piece because it reminded me of coming out of a dark place into living for God. It is a process, but there is joy in it with the challenges and a sense of the glory of God coming even if it is hard now. I’ve seen my living for Him, and loving the way He loves, heal the relationships in my life and it puts us in a position to receive God’s blessings. God might be unchanging, but our prayers definitely change the way His plan affects us regardless of whether they ever change Him.

Track Five: “The Reign Washing My Sin”: This starts with the somber sound of reflection about sin and reminds me of a letting go of pride in order to have Jesus’ blood shed on the cross wash all sins clean. I don’t have the means to put the glory of this transformation and God’s gift of making it possible into the form of sound the way this should come across. Yet, I felt peace from this piece, especially when it started pouring rain outside while I played as you may be able to hear in the recording. God reigns in Jesus to overcome the fear and pain of the cross and eventually brings the rain of God’s blessing of providing an awesome Heaven for us.

Track Six: “Believing in Time”: Faith is giving our lives to God for Him to strengthen and guide us to be merciful and loving and do goodness while forgiving us of our mistakes. Believing in God in the Biblical sense is not simply knowing He is good, but making a decision to follow His goodness. Belief is often watered down into just knowing God is good and that he wants to bless us. Everyone including demons knows that a God would be like that, but faith is trying to follow the father of all creation by seeking God’s help, not just knowing God is good. Otherwise, we do what our limited minds think goodness is instead of the goodness of the infinite Creator God. This warped idea of goodness is why even Nazis in World War II wore Christian crosses but acted nothing like what Christ was about.

Track Seven: “Is That You, Lord?” This reminds me of the angst of not knowing whether something in our life is of God or of the Devil when it comes to direction and purpose.

Track Eight: “Call It All Joy!”: Sometimes joy is hard to feel, but the sort of forced major tonality of parts of this piece reminded me that even if I have to just force calling all things joyful I can because I know no matter what happens the rewards are going to come for every experience where I follow Jesus. I like being able to tell the Devil, “The more pain I feel, the more gain I receive.” And God says it's true.

Track Nine: “I Give You My Peace”: We cannot have peace on our own. Only God can give it to us. But Jesus says he gives His peace to us if we choose to follow Him. Sometimes this peace is during other types of pain as peace of mind, but eventually, God says it will only be Heavenly peace.

Track Ten: “Moses’ Veil”: This piece makes me think of the veil of Moses and how it was something he was wearing because of the reflection of the glory of God fading on his face from having seen God’s glory pass by from behind a rock when God revealed it. The dissonance was in how it hid the glory that shone on his face to keep others able to look at him. Even the best of God’s chosen sometimes try to make the focus be on ourselves instead of on God’s glory because we don’t trust He will provide everything we need or we think he would not give us His best for us. He says no matter what it seems like, He is always giving the best for us according to what we need most. Even the pain in some way is for each of us to have our best future.

Track Eleven: “Calming the Storm”: I had fun discovering another storm happening while I was enjoying resting in my musical inventiveness and no sooner had I heard the thunder than the storm ended. It was as though the creativity was akin to Jesus (what a surprise as He is the Creator) so much so that the storm seemed to be calmed just by fitting the music into a response to it, as it felt so much like it fit together. Originally I thought of the whole ministry of Jesus in relation to this piece, but the boat ride with the disciples in Mark 4:35-41 fits best with waking Jesus and having Him calm the storm by me unifying with Him in creativity.





This is the second of the two albums of improvised finger-style guitar pieces I recorded during five years of performing live improvisation and classical music at support groups I was facilitating at Moses Cone Behavioral Health Hospital almost every week from 2013 to 2018 while working for the Mental Health Association of Greensboro. This experience made it possible to record 22 tracks at my home studio which I then edited and engineered myself. This second album titled “Dying to Live” comes from the place of trying to surrender my will to Jesus Christ’s will and dying to self (or ego) to live in Him. This is a struggle everyone must make to find eternal peace. Since beginning to implement this idea into my own life many things have improved in my life and these two albums and a third on the way have come out of the process of renewing my mind and listening to His guidance in my life and in my music. This process of renewing the mind by asking God to enter into our life regenerates our soul. Also, it can give us strength and peace we otherwise could not have. I hope you enjoy the results of it in this album! This album uses a tuning system found to be a way God heals and purifies our bodies partially through the purification of water in our bodies (google healing frequencies for more info). We’ve probably all experienced music making us feel better, but now scientists are discovering that it is doing even more for us than we thought. But, in the Bible, negativity and evil spirits were removed through David playing the harp for King Saul, so just like with the world being round or the universe expanding (found in Job 26:10 or Isaiah 40:22) the Bible shows that God’s wisdom is one step ahead of man’s. May His wisdom speak to you like music and may this album bring you joy and healing from God! Peace.