Baroni Bloggin’

The latest podcast is from a Night of Worship in Greece. This place is very special to me.

I have many friends there, and memories of powerful times in the Lord. The inspiration for my FingerPaintings piano instrumental series was born in Athens, (I tell a bit of the story during the podcast), and, in fact, because of what happened during that first time of flowing instrumentally, I have tried to give God an opportunity to “speak” through a spontaneous keyboard song almost everywhere I go. You can here an example of that in this latest podcast as well.

This particular night I started the spontaneous song in a waltz feel. It wasn’t premeditated. I just began to play what I heard in the Spirit. I also wasn’t planning on speaking during the music, but after a while I spoke what I feel the Holy Spirit had given me. It seems to be an interpretation of the music.

I believe this podcast will encourage you like it seemed to encourage those precious people in Glyfada. You will also get a feel of what it’s like for us to be in a country where translators are needed. (Thank you Martha!) 

God invites you to join the dance!!     

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Audio Podcast 03 - Glyfada Christian Center, Greece

This podcast was recently recorded at a meeting at Glyfada Christian Center in Athens, Greece (April ‘06) and features a spontaneous song of the Lord that will encourage you. You can listen to it HERE or download the latest Baroni Bloggin’ podcast on iTunes.

Hello friends of davidbaroni.com

Just wanted to give you a quick “heads up” that the web maestro has begun installing soundtrax to most of my songs for quick, easy, and inexpensive MP3 downloads at the music store.

Just go to the home page, click on music store, then click on soundtrax on the left side of the music store homepage.

Many of the trax (original artist studio masters) give you a choice between “band only” and “trax with backround vocals”.

We have some titles up and running now, with many more to be added. Soon we will link the trax with a downloadable single that will serve as a demo of the song. In the meantime, if you order a soundtrack and need a copy of the song MP3 to use as a demo, just email us  david@davidbaroni.com and we will send you an MP3 demo FREE for being some of our first soundtrax customers.

Check ‘em out and tell your friends!

Ciao,

David Baroni 

P.S.  These soundtrax are for live performances only. To record projects using these soundtrax please contact rita@davidbaroni.com

James Taylor has it. Stevie Wonder has it. Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell ooze with it. The deft and creative touch of pianists Lyle Mays (with the Pat Metheny group), and arranger/composer/conductor Dave Grusin sparkle with it. Violinists Itsak Perlman and Isaac Stern and Mark O’Conner have it. Take 6 musical arranger Mervyn Warren has it.

Musical genuis? Yes to all of the above but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about authenticity. That quality of honesty and realness that comes through in the songs that are written and sung and the notes and phrases that are played.

In Mississippi (where I am from,) we call it “playing by heart”. It’s more than just the ability to play by memory or by ear, indeed some in the above list don’t play much, if any, of there own compositions… ah, but the interpretation, the rendering is priceless, heartfelt, real… authentic. If art doesn’t move the artist, it won’t move anybody else.

I love the authenticity of the moviemaking Coen Brothers, Ethan and Joel (O Brother Where Art Thou?, etc.). The same note of reality and honesty is sounded by novelists Dean Koontz and Pat Conroy.  They write “real” stuff, even if it’s mostly fiction. It is a reality that only comes from acknowledging that there is something, Someone, much bigger that ourselves. 

I have met a few people like that in the “worship world”.

The example that comes to my mind first is Kent Henry. A pioneer in contemporary praise and worship and the prophetic song, Kent is always the same… on the platform and in person. He is a wonderful, wild, discerning man of God who is an encourager and is passionate. He sometimes wears red tennis shoes and fatigue army shorts in fancy churches, not to show-off or as part of his “act”, Kent just knows that God looks at his heart, and that a lot of times Christians take things like our outward appearance way too seriously!

So why write about authenticity? Because it is such a valuable and unfortunately rare thing… in the world and in the church.

Why did Taylor win American Idol? (Sorry international readers.) I don’t think it was his vocal ability, I think it was because he so obviously loved doing what he was doing that it made almost everyone else like it (and him) too. That is a kind of authenticity.

When someone finds the courage to be who they are, whether pastor, worship leader, songwriter, plumber, doctor, mom or politician, there is an attractiveness about that person that transcends his or her ability and appearance. In fact, what we all long for in life is to know who we are, to be that person and to love and accept ourselves.

The music business (and the movie business and the publishing business) wants to put most artists (or actors or writers) in one of a few select pigeonholes in order to more effectively mass-market that person. The temptation for the creative person is to lose one’s self in the process. 

I contend that the ultimate success is to be who you are and if that is a songwriter, musician, worship leader, preacher, actor, novelist… whatever, if you have authenticity (and, let’s get real, a modicum of gifting in that field) you will be successful.

Jesus said, “If you lose your life for my sake you will find it.” I don’t think he meant that we were to die to who we are- I think He meant to surrender our control of our lives to Him. Indeed, it is my conviction that the only way a person can truly find himself, be himself, is to find out Who God is and how much He loves us.

I am encouraged that I am seeing a cry for realness in my daughters’ generation. A lot of them don’t have the cultural/religious baggage that some of us in my generation have. Style is not nearly as important as substance to this godly generation. They can spot the posturing and people-pleasing religiousity a mile away and it makes them want to run from it. It makes me want to run from it too, and get rid of any that is left in me!

God, deliver us from a world and a religious system that wants to put us all in our cozy boxes with neat labels on them. Teach us that we shine with your love and glory simply by being ourselves. Help us live in authenticity! 

To love is to risk.

When we pour out love to someone, we risk not being loved in return. In other words, when we love unconditionally, (which is the only real love), we risk rejection.  Someone has said, “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” I agree, yet the pain of unrequited love makes me wonder sometimes about the truth of that saying.

There is a victory that only comes with vulnerability. When betrayal happens to someone, it never comes at the hand of an enemy. Betrayal, by it’s very definition, must be from a friend, a spouse, a spiritual leader, a co-worker, a child, someone that is close to the one betrayed. That is why few things in life are as painful as betrayal.

When betrayal occurs, the tendency of the one betrayed is to start building a wall of protection around the heart. If a pastor hurts a congregant, whether intentionally, (or more often,) unintentionally, the person offended is less trusting than he or she was before the hurt. If another offense comes, the wall of protection (mistrust) grows higher.

In my life, I have built a protective wall around my heart without even realizing it. I was hurt by someone and did not like the pain I felt. Pain hurts!! I went years in a kind of spiritual numbness. I loved God and somehow believed He loved me, but I was basically going through the motions of life, and didn’t know why I felt numb and vaguely (and sometimes acutely) dissatisfied with life. 

One day my wife Rita and I were driving home from a conference when I saw a flock of birds flying south for the winter. The beauty of the sky and the sight of the orderly yet uninhibited birds left me breathless with gratitude at being able to see such a sight.

In that simple moment I heard the Lord speak to me, not audibly, much louder!

He said, “David, I have let you see, really see this sight to show you something. In your desire to protect yourself from pain, you have protected yourself from Me, from really living, really loving. in order to appreciate the sunrise, you must go through the long dark night. Don’t be afraid, I am with you even there.”

I got it! Love broke through with an answer to my discontent. Thriving is much better than surviving, even though sometimes surviving is the best we can do. The night will end. The sunrise turns the black to gray, then to a faint blue, then to pink-tinged, and finally the orange and crimson and blue and green of a new day. 

So, like George Bailey at the end of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, I said to the Lord: “I want to live again!” Somehow I sensed that He would give me grace to forgive, even forgive myself- and to begin to trust again.

If I never knew sorrow, I could never be comforted- I wouldn’t know healing if I never felt pain.  Slowly but surely, like a bitter cold Winter entering into the protracted birthpangs of a radiant Spring, I begin to give myself permission to feel again, to trust again, and yes, to be hurt again… somehow knowing that no matter what, I was “accepted in the Beloved” with the grace to take the risk of Love.

“THO YOU SLAY ME” 

I have been buliding a fortress for my flesh

Tried to make it strong so I wouldn’t be invaded

Life that once flowed through me so freely and so fresh

Is stagnant now and fervent love has faded

In this prison of protection and pride

I’m so lonely I’m the only one inside

How could I be so foolish after all You’ve been to me

Help me cast aside these chains of my self-sufficiency

Give me back the trusting heart that sets me free

Tho’ You slay me, Tho’ You lay me in the dust

Tho’ You slay me, still in You Lord I’ll trust

Tho’ no fruit be on the vine or ox in the stall

I’ll never regret giving you my all

Just like Isaac did to Abraham I’ll trust

Tho You slay me

(David Baroni: from the CD “Holy Desperation”)

Just got back from a Worship Institute in Kiev, Ukraine. This beautiful city, independent from the former U.S.S.R. for just 15 years, has many believers in Christ that are passionate about God. It was wonderful to worship with them in the conference and see the ardor with which they pour out praises to God.

Though the economy is growing, a lot of the people don’t have that much in the way of material things; maybe that is one reason they seem so undistracted when it comes to worshipping the Lord.  The guilelessness and unpretentiousness were refreshing, especially when so many in Europe and America seem so jaded and cynical.

It has been quite a busy season of iternational travel for me. 4 weeks in Greece, Austria and Italy and then the recent week in Kiev. Both adventures were great and now I am ready for a bit of rest.

I will endeavor to update this blog more frequently now that I will have more time to do so. Be watching for some exciting additions to the web-site… more on that later.

Thank you for your interest, for your web-orders and for your prayers. We need each other!

In His Love,

David Baroni

God has called you into an eternal adventure of intimacy with HIm through Christ! An adventure is not just the happy ending, it’s the storm and the swells that come over the boat, it’s the dragons that must be slain and the damsels in distress to be rescued. I don’t want to be content just to be in the inn at the harbor sipping my drink in my rocking chair, just content to be safe… I want to regale young whippersnappers with my exploits, and more importantly the in-the-nick-of-timeness of God.

I have a dream: One day, a long time from now, ancient David and Rita are sitting on our porch in our Grammaw and Grandpa rocking chairs gazing at the beautiful sunset. We are holding hands and filled with memories and gratitude… for each other, our children and grandchildren, memories of good times, tough times, sad and happy occasions. We are content, not just because our earthward journey is nearly over, but because, by the grace of God we found the will to not just survive, but LIVE!

I saw a movie poster recently that said something like this: “Every man dies, but not every man really lives.”

There is a scripture that says that “He (Christ) by His death delivered those who all their lifetime were in bondage through fear of death…”

Have you taken a risk lately? Are you passionate about living?  How is your gratitude level? Jesus said: “If you lose (surrender control of) your life for My sake, you will find eternal life.” He also said that He has come that we would have life and have it more abundantly!

The song of the month this month is special to me… check it out at the music store!

Here are the lyrics:

“Into the Wild”
Words and Music/ David Baroni / Kingdomsongs/ BMI/ CCLI