Nashville Video Shoot

On a beautiful drizzly day last week in Nashville my daughter Abby and I wandered into old abandoned warehouse filled with. broken windows, decaying brick walls, dripping pipes and rusty machinery. It all spoke of ruin and decay and was the perfect backdrop for the theme of this song, so we decided to stay a while and capture the moment.  

"All we have is here and gone/When the day is done/Only love lives on" 

Starting the New Year With a Limp

In some ways 2014 was a year of loss.

I was still grieving the passing of my dad to cancer in 2013 when we lost my brother in July of 2014 to an unexpected tragedy. I lost my baby girl to Nashville—she heard the sound of music and opportunity call her name, and left home to follow it, hundreds of miles away. I watched as some of my dearest friends mourned the loss of a beloved mother, a wife of twenty years, a career they’d had for decades.

Loss changes you. You have to adjust to being a different ‘you’. A broken you. A you that’s missing a limb. A you that’s wrestled with God and now has a permanent limp.  A you that had the rug pulled out from under you, that free-fell backwards with no one to catch you.

Maybe, like me, you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, relationship, or dream. But you’ve also been grieving the loss of who you were when that loved one, relationship or dream was alive. The end of it feels like the end of you. You can’t seem to care like you used to. Laugh like you used to. And God knows, trust like you used to.

But your heart still pumps blood through your veins, you still take air into your lungs. And you don’t know it yet but pain is doing a work in you that only it can do. Because in order to fully embrace the fragile, tenuous beauty of the present you have to fully experience the agonizing loss of what once was and is now gone. I believe all that is tender and precious in this life becomes more so as we recognize how easily it slips through our hands.

You’re still here. And what remains is a you that has less to lose and more to give. A you that is more finely-tuned  to others’ suffering. A you that persists like a flickering flame in a windstorm in spite of every reason not to. A you that knows how to lean in hard to the faith you claim. A you that has a deeper capacity to suffer, and so to love.

Here’s to starting the New Year with a limp. Here’s to a new you.

Prepare Him Room : Staci Frenes 2014 Christmas Message

Like Mary and Elizabeth, sometimes we are interrupted and called upon by God to believe Him for the unexpected and the miraculous. Will we respond with obedience? Will we make room for His life and His plans to grow in us, even when it costs us something?

Join singer/songwriter and author, Staci Frenes, as she explores the Gospel of Luke’s account of Mary and Elizabeth, and encourages us through stories and songs to prepare Him room this Christmas season.

Dec 4-6  Brentwood, CA
Dec 7     San Carlos, CA
Dec 14   St. Paul, MN
Dec 21   Tracy, CA

Wildflower Gathering Launch! Oct. 10th, 2014

wldflower-header.png

Staci will be the featured artist on October 10th at the launch of the first ever Wildflower Gathering , an evening of creativity, art, music, and great food at The Funky Barn near St. Paul, MN.

These one-of-a-kind events are designed to inspire and recharge our creativity, feature guest artists from a variety of fields including musicians, painters, photographers and others. Staci will be speaking on cultivating a creative life from her new book, “flourish” and playing music from her latest CD, “Everything You Love Comes Alive.”

The night begins with a wine and appetizers reception from 7:30 to 8pm, after which Staci will share her message and music. The  evening ends with s’mores around an old-fashioned bonfire just a few steps outside the barn.

Any and all are welcome, and we encourage you to share this event with friends! We suggest you reserve your spot before October 3rd in order to take advantage of the discounted rate of $25, which includes a free CD of Staci’s latest CD. After October 3rd the cost will be $30. 

Please make your payment via our PayPal account below, and when you check out be sure to enter the email address where you’d like us to send you details:

 
 

You’ll receive an email from us with the address and all other pertinent information within 24 hours of payment.

Ray's Tree

I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. – Painter Andrew Wyeth

Ray and my dad shared a love of travel and photography over the course of their 50+ year friendship. At the beaches where they camped they often found washed up pieces of driftwood that made for great photos. Some of the smaller and more interesting pieces they’d sometimes bring home. One of these pieces of driftwood they’d brought home looked like a miniature tree with several intricate branches that split and forked near the top into even smaller branches—as thin as twigs.

Soon after my dad passed away, Ray, a painter and a sculptor as well as a brilliant photographer, started working on that piece in his studio. He treated it with protective varnish to keep it from cracking or splitting, then he mounted it onto a thick slab of black marble for balance and stability. He painstakingly attached a small clear crystal bead to the tip of each delicate branch until the whole tree was covered with them.

I wish you could see this tree sculpture in real life—it’s a gorgeous work of art. It stands about two and a half feet high on my mom’s mantelpiece; the little crystal tips catch light from all over the room and reflect it back in exquisite patterns.

Ray said he wept while attaching the beads; each one was like a treasured memory of my dad. The sculpture was a gift of inexpressible love–for my mom, and for my dad, too I believe. My mom received this gift like grace—an undeserved act of selfless love—and it heals a tiny part of her broken heart whenever she looks at it.

In our creativity, I believe there’s a sacredness—an eternal element—to the things we do that involve pouring out our gifts for others. We give all we have and all we are to the creative work because we know it is our best and deepest expression of love. When we create for the sake of comforting or encouraging or bringing beauty into someone else’s life, the work we do stretches beyond the finite boundaries of what we’d imagined for it.

Excerpted from my book “Flourish” 2014

Ripple

I saw A Chorus Line this weekend at the Santa Rosa Community Theater. It was performed by a summer repertory group of college students from all over the country. We were there to see our daughter Abby’s friend from high school. They went their separate ways after graduating; Abby is following her musical path to Nashville, and Jilly to Boston Conservatory to pursue musical theater.

“Showbiz Jilly”, as we endearingly call her,  in our humble opinion, outshone everyone yesterday on that stage. But in truth all of the kids sang and danced their hearts out. Live musical theater revives my faith in humanity and the arts. Real people with uniquely different voices, performing big song and dance numbers with a live orchestra. No auto tune. No celebrity judges. It was refreshing and inspiring to see young artists growing into their own.

Siting in that dark theater I thought about all of the people who’d invested in the lives of this young cast: parents who recognized and encouraged their child’s talent, teachers who taught and steered them into new directions, coaches,  mentors,  dance and vocal instructors. Each one watering, nurturing, developing, shaping the tender shoot of talent. And here they were, stretching and sprouting and blooming in all their golden top hat glory.

Here’s what I know: There’s a ripple effect to the time and love and talents we invest in people. We may never know how far reaching or deep the ripple extends, but it will continue to move in waves to places unknown. Some of the kids on that stage will go on to do incredible work that the world will appreciate and find beauty in. Here’s to the first few pebble-throwers in the soul of a child.

Quote from my upcoming book, Flourish (formerly “Sowing Seeds of Love”)
Photo by Abby Frenes Photography

Your One Wild and Precious Life

There’s a man who lives in a small house near me, and I can see his backyard from a path I walk most days when the weather’s nice enough. Last summer I watched him cultivate a vegetable garden, starting with tiny green shoots in neat rows that grew to abundance in a few weeks’ time. He was quite the skilled gardener; he knew where to plant the tall leafy plants so they’d have room to spread out without blocking the sun from the ones that grew closer to the ground. He shored up the tomato plants when they started to droop, kept the weeds out, and watered everything regularly throughout the hot summer.

His four little children joined him most days, digging, planting and watering alongside him, but mostly laughing and playing on the swings he’d made and hung from tree branches nearby. At the end of the season, the crop he yielded was impressive: tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, corn, squash, carrots and more. No doubt his family enjoyed the fruit of his labor, and probably shared some with friends and neighbors. But I think the greater reward was the time they spent together. The kids learned about gardening but mostly I think they just loved being outside with their daddy. And he was clearly delighted having them play and help. The garden wasn’t just work; it was a joy for all of them.

I saw a metaphor in this scenario. We are this father, day after day, planting, watering, working our own gardens with the talents and tools we’re given, not out of drudgery, but for the joy of doing things we care about with people we love. Tending this garden well requires nothing less than our full selves—brain, heart, body—poured out into the life and loves that are ours. But the rewards—the joy, the deep joy—are worth the toil.

It was all right here in this little garden. The simple, profound, beautiful question asked of us by Parable of the Talents, which poet Mary Oliver poses in this way: What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

-excerpted from my upcoming book, Sowing Seeds Of Love releasing Fall 2014.

A Poem + Thoughts on A Father’s Legacy

My dad passed on January 29th of lung cancer. This is us last November,  just after he was diagnosed. (I think we have the same smile.) He went quickly, only 3 months from diagnosis. None of us was ready for it.

Early on when we knew his time with us was going to be so short, I became overwhelmed with thoughts of how I might help him through this impossibly difficult journey he was facing. I knew it wasn’t an end; it was a passage–a transition, the Hospice doctor called it–but I was afraid for him, anxious that he wasn’t ready yet and might need something more. Something that maybe I could give him. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I visited him every day, and kept looking for some task or duty I could perform that might help ease his passage. Nothing other than just being with him seemed right.

I did, however, decide to put some of my thoughts in writing and read them aloud to him. It seemed so small and insignificant, compared with the hugeness of what he was facing, but I did it anyway, reading my poems to him when he was still coherent and “with us.” I thought there would be time for more, but he became too ill, then left us more quickly than we imagined he would.

This one was his favorite. I wanted to post it here to share  some of the wisdom, compassion and generosity of heart that he sowed into my life.

passage

what can I give you for this passage
this cold, unfamiliar, necessary journey
to your new self
your new home
dear father
except what you have already given me?

can I offer words of comfort–
“do not fear”
for the dark nights ahead?
the same ones you spoke to me
a thousand childhood nights
at my bedside
your gentle, warm hand
resting on mine,
to chase away the demons.

can I offer wise counsel–
“let’s think this through”
for the uncertain decisions along the way?
the insightful perceptions you shared with me
at countless forks in my early roads
sitting across from me at the kitchen table
your calm, patient voice
bringing clarity
to ease my anxious thoughts.

can I offer two strong hands—
“it’s no bother”
to help with your burdens?
like your hands,
that lifted, moved, carried
my heaviness over the years
without complaining
to make my weight bearable

can I offer lessons—
“there is good in this, too”
on the most brutal and senseless days?
lessons you taught me
during storms too dark to see my way through
your presence and love
steady as the ground under my feet
to reassure me all would be well

surely all that a daughter has
to give her father
is what he has so generously
and freely
given her

1.06.13

Picasso's Blues

I took an art history class at UC Berkeley as part of my undergraduate degree in English. It was a popular class, several hundred students, and we met in a large auditorium with the professor lecturing from the stage while we looked at slides of art.  It was fascinating; I loved entering the auditorium and waiting for the lights to dim, the projector to hum and the screen up front to fill with works of art as diverse as the prehistoric cave paintings at Altamira to the French impressionists.

I learned a bit about Picasso’s blue period in that class. Between 1901 and 1904, following the suicide of a dear friend, Picasso painted only in blue and blue-green tones, most of the subject matter somber and gloomy. Many of the paintings were rejected by the public at the time—people thought the work was too depressing. By 1905 he’d moved into his rose period, but some of the blue period paintings would later become his most sought after and valuable work. The ones I saw left an impression on me as a college student sitting in that dark auditorium, trying to understand the complex heart of this great artist, grateful that from this painful season of grief he left this haunting body of work to the world of art.

It occurred to me that when we’re beside ourselves with grief—or joy, or love or despair—it’s then that we want most to find a way to express it. To share the depth of that emotion or experience with someone else. The search for our own authentic form of expression in any given moment is also the search for who we are in that moment, and what we want to share of ourselves with the world. Picasso’s work during that season of his life emerged in blues and greens, mirroring the despair he felt at the loss of his friend.

In his book, Telling Secrets, Frederick Buechner writes,

I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God’s thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us … I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self – painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit.

I hear that creative call in my “deepest self,” and my need to answer it is as necessary as my need to breathe. Since I’ve been able to form words and hear melodies, I’ve wanted to give them shapes and rhythms and create songs. I’ve never understood where it came from, exactly. Neither of my parents is particularly musical, and although my mom had piano lessons as a kid, she’ll be the first to admit she can’t carry a tune to save her life. But I could, and I sang all the time when I was a little girl. I sang along with the radio in the car, I made up songs and sang them into my hairbrush in front of the bathroom mirror; I convinced my sister (who absolutely hated to sing) to do duets with me at family Christmas gatherings. (Forgive me, Heidi, I was answering my creative call.)

When we think of creating in terms of giving voice to an expression deep inside of us, we begin to understand that it is essential and natural to our existence. That “artists” aren’t just the handful of people among us who work in recognized artistic fields—dancers or painters or musicians.  But that within each of us is an expression of creativity that is uniquely ours, God-given and God-breathed; it wells up from our truest selves and gets released in as many different ways as there are personalities and DNA sequences. The writer finds expression in her novel, the teacher in his lesson plans, the athlete in her performance individually and as part of a team.

When we create, whatever the medium or context, we are pressing the seal of our unique imprint into the clay of our own lives. Painting a diverse canvas with our own color, shape, texture. Not just a single hue, but a vast ocean of variation and nuance—each one adding to the beauty that is the whole, yet each as distinct as a brush stroke. Answering your own call to create contributes to the beauty of this divine work of art that is all of humanity.

(excerpted from my upcoming book, Sowing the Seeds of Love: Cultivate Your Creativity

Living Beyond Your Walls Conference with Kelly Minter and Staci Frenes
Crosswinds Church in Dublin, CA
Saturday, October 5th  9am-3:30 pm   Cost: $40 (includes lunch)

Staci will be performing songs from her latest release, Everything You Love Comes Alive, at Crosswinds Church in Dublin, CA, joining speaker Kelly Minter, who will be teaching from her latest series on the book of Nehemiah. Click on the poster below for registration and information.