It's Been a While

I'm not really much of a blogger and I guess that's evident in the fact I haven't been here for some time. The fact is that I have this other site, www.robhalligan.co.uk, facebook, twitter, a facebook band page... and being a musician rather than a slick, organized, technical kind of guy, things inevitably give.

I tried syncing facebook and twitter but as I tweet a lot, facebook followers don't appreciate the twittering as much as tweeters.
In the end, blogs suffer and facebook suffers. I'm sure there's ways for selectively syncing it all up and over the next few weeks I'll try and get my head around it all.

I'm in the studio today, half way through recording my next album, tentatively titled 'Another Fine Mess'. I'm not a studio musician. I find the recording process excruciating and aside from the actual play and record, I find it baffling when people tell me that it's an amazing creative process. The editing and tweaking and fine tuning... aagghh!
So I've sung and played and now the amazing Graeme Duffin is working his magic interpreting my ideas to an audible offering that resembles something vaguely pleasing to the ear.
There's been a couple of highlights. Leaving Coventry at 4:30am meant I saw the sun rise over the hills of the lake district.
I got to play a couple of great guitar as well. The first was a Fender Baritone Special. It gave the song a bit of a Richard Hawley vibe, something that we didn't intend but wont complain about. The second was a beautiful Gretsch Chet Atkins (G6120) that I played before on "Across The Miles".
So, the day's finished, one song is just about in the bag. Two more days studio work this week and then some live shows.

It's My Birthday

My 11 year old son presented me with a train this morning. It's made entirely of liquorice.
I am very partial to liquorice, in fact, when we get to heaven, liquorice will be the main course of the marriage supper. At least it should be.
This was the best gift I had. It far outstripped the other stuff, even though the other presents were all very nice. But the thought that went into it and the creativity and time (and the liquorice) topped everything.
When we got married, my wife and I had a load of wedding gifts from family and friends. Money, bikes, kitchen and household things. But the best gift back then was a shoe box with some nice coffee, some liquorice and a couple of other small nick-nacks and a letter. Again, it was the thought and love in the box and the letter that hit home.
It's nearly christmas and people are going mad buying up the entire retail stock of the city centre, getting things that people don't need or even want and finding themselves stressed and in debt.
A lot of Christians will say that the greatest gift ever was the the gift God gave the world of His only son. Others will say it's the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross.
I'd say the greatest gift is the challenge given by Jesus to lay down our life, to love until it hurts, to forget ourselves to death and follow Him where-ever. That's the one that says we can have an eterity with God as our friend. We could have it without the birth, death and resurection of Jesus but it' the invitation to follow Him that is the best. It's that gift that leads to everlasting life.

Who am I?

For a number of reasons this has been the best and worse weekend of my life. We're now on Wednesday and it's still very much the best and worse.
No detail but I've been sorting out stuff that reaches back a few years, stuff that has been incredibly painful to deal with and stuff that has hurt other people.
I'm reading the Irresistible Rovolution at the moment. It's an OK book. I'm not as taken on it as I thought, but the vision and challenge behind the words and story of the Simple Way can't be ignored.
Last night during our church house-goup's 'Agape' meal we asked what attracts God's blessing.
After listing a load of stuff that God has led us into as a church such as community, covenant and celibacy I realised that these things, although important can just become dead monuments if we don't live dangerously within them. So we listed a bunch of things that could lead us to 'life on the edge'.
But that (for me) missed the point as well. This weekend I have been dangerous. I've dug about in the past and dealt with things that have caused a lot of pain. It would have been so much easier to let things lie.
This morning I felt pretty crap again and I said to my 8 year old daughter, " What do you think God would say if he was here now? I think he'd tell you that he loves you, even more than I do and he wants you to trust him".
"Yeh", she said and went back to her porridge and syrup.
"Is the porridge good?"
"Yeh."
I made my son toast and my wife tea. They both said it was good.
I sat at the table for a while on my own and tried to hear God.
"You know" He said, You made porridge and toast and tea good for your dearest ones. Well, I'll make things good for you. I love you. Don't worry. "

Dad again

This thing with the BBC has bought a few things to the surface.
As part of the interview, the guy has had this idea to show some old family snaps of me and Dad. I look throught he photo album and I found one picture. In 32 years I onle have one photograph to prove that me and Dad ever knew each other.
Sometimes I wish I could step back in time and change a few things.

The Scandel...

'the scandel of God's silence in the most heartbreaking hours of our journey is perceived in retrospect as veiled, tender Presence and a passage into pure trust that is not at the mercy of the response it receives.'
Brennan Manning

Fatherhood

I've just spent an hour talking to a guy from BBC1 about Fatherhood. I'm being interviewed soon for Songs Of Praise, they'll be filming a video for one of my songs and talking to me about my Dad, the Fatherhood of God and what I'm like as a Dad or somthing like that .
It's all come up at a rather interesting time.
Last week a horrible thing happened with the one person that I look up to as a father figure. I hate it when things happen between us because they tend to be built so much on misunderstanding. But when feelings run high on both sides of a relationship, whatever kind of relationship, it's hard to talk about those things together.
That's probably all it needs, a talk.

My relationship with Dad only began to florish when we talked through some of the 'issues' we had with each other. Before that we had learned to live with them, or rather live around them, avoiding the No-go areas at all costs.
As I talk about it more, only now six years after Dad died, am I seeing so much in me that needs addressing, healing, mending.
Talking to the BBC man I realised that my relationship with God as a father has run parralel with my relationship with Dad. As God has taught me stuff I've got closer to Dad. When dad died, God carried on regardless, forcing issues that needed dealing with and letting me take them out on Him.

Another Gap but hey....

As I've said on the mayspace whatsit, I'm trying to gear up for this US trip. I have to start by saying I'm really greatful to AL at Lamppost studios for having me over to record butaside from that, I find it tough leaving my family at home and jetting halfway around the world to record.
You know, part of me realises the incredible privilage that I have to do this. How many people get to work doing the thing they love and having the trips abroad etc. It's cool as well, sharing some of your experience through music and knowing that God has a hand on it all the way - kind of makes it beter and worse.
I constantly do the 'I'm no good to do this' thing. I think people look at me as some kind of together christian dude that has the right things to sing about and talk about, a good and stress free home life and a life that rocks. I don't. If I let myself go I can really trash myself, listing the short-comings, hypocrosies and lies that I can let take over sometimes.
When I'm OK I tell myself I'm just how David was.
I have a couple of new songs to record and , like my songs often do, they have the same theme. I need a pure heart, the guts to run the race and the will to fight. Sometime I sing that all I want is Jesus and then get screwed up because it's not all I want. But then, I want it to be all I want. and that's where the desire starts.
Work on it.

Drop It

I've struggle over the last couple of years to let things go. Stuff I've done, places I've been in my thoughts, and recently it's become a real barrier to me in finding my way as a christian. Kind of like every time I pray I get to this part where I want to say sorry, repent or wheter, I guess striving to get there, wherever there is.
The other noight was a bit of a turning point tho. No big bangs or thunderclaps mind you.
I was praying and got to thinking about where I was at and I went to go back to the things I'm hung up about and they weren't there.
All there was was this picture in my mind of me and God walking away and leaving it all behind. It had been dropped. I tried to look at it, visualise it or whatever but all I kept seeing was the backs of me and God walking away. And I realised for the first time in 18 months that God still loves me.