Sojourner Songs Book Launch

As promised, here’s the final book trailer (featuring music from Sandra McCracken).

My gratefulness runs deep today on this last day of the book launch. There are so many of you who have encouraged me to continue writing, who have spread the word, and whose lives are a testament to grace. Thank you!

Thank you, especially to Gary Leonard (the Moody Radio legend), who is graciously bringing these poems to life with his sonorous voice. You are a good and generous man!

And that, my friends, is the surprise I’ve been waiting to share: Sojourner Songs is being turned into an audio book. I plan to release it this summer! Stay tuned.

The Lord be with you on this journey.

Buy the Book:

Visit the Book’s Web Page:

Tomorrow’s the last days of this book launch! Tomorrow, I reveal the final book trailer. Tomorrow, I let you run with it from here. But today, I share a poem brimming with gladness. Psalm 118:24 inspired me to write this poem and it is a fitting poem to celebrate the past nine days! Enjoy.

“I Cannot Stop My Singing Heart” from Sojourner Songs: Poems
read by Gary Leonard

I cannot stop my singing heart
today
it leapt out of bed
into a day
new-graced

smell the crushed grass
beneath these feet
pine pollen
feel
wind stroke
like a daughter’s fingers
on my face

I can’t decide
which is decked more glamorously
the poplar
or the aspen
groves
or the finch
splashing
along the rocky shore
glancing up
to measure my intent
and welcome
me
into the dance

like you my love
dappled
freckled fair
priceless pearl
bright-eyed beloved

today
is God-made
I cannot stop this singing heart

 

CLICK HERE to find the audio version online.

BUY YOUR COPY HERE.

VISIT THE BOOK’S MAIN PAGE.

It’s graduation season! Sojourner Songs is a great gift for graduation.

What better gift than a collection of poems for meditation along the journey of life? Buy your copy today. Just CLICK HERE.

“Life and Live” from Sojourner Songs: Poems
read by Gary Leonard

Today, I celebrate language:
words
and the gaps between them;
meaning
and the silence in between.
I celebrate nouns and verbs.

Life is a noun, like bird.
Live is a verb
for those who look up
and read the noun in the sky
and follow it
until evening.

 

CLICK HERE to find the audio online.

Here’s another book trailer and a huge thank you to all who have made this book launch so much fun!

Thank you for sharing your excitement with others. Thank you for telling me how much these poems have touched you. The reviews on Amazon are already piling in and they are staggering in their praise. Thank you!

Many of you are asking how you can help promote the book. There are many ways, but here are several starter ideas:

Buy some copies for those whom you love.

Write a review on Amazon.

Go to the book’s main page (see below) and share with your social network of choice.

 

Click HERE TO ENTER THE BOOK’S OFFICIAL WEB PAGE

Ready to buy your copy? CLICK HERE.

Today is Memorial Day, a day for remembering.

On this Memorial Day, I remember a woman whose charm was matched only by her sincerity. She loved me through my rather gangly, pretentious, and lurching teenage years. Her joy was gratuitous and her love was generative: it birthed love in those whom she loved. At least that is how I remember her. A simple woman. A glad woman. A Mary kind of woman in a Martha world. She went to be with her savior at age 37, on July 7, 1996. She went home before we were ready to say goodbye.

Here’s to Julie (and her family and friends who lean forward into eternity, anticipating a joyous reunion).

 

“Julie” from Sojourner Songs: Poems
read by Gary Leonard

I remember the squat, white house
and the steps,
and the peeling paint on the porch,
and the piled dishes in the kitchen sink,
and the half-cut tomato on the counter,
where Julie lived.
The house with a permanently opened door.
The house patched together over a hundred years.
The house with nothing to boast of
except for Julie
who shared her small plate of chicken,
who offered a little beauty,
who gave some time,
while songs leapt
out of
her pockets
to sing in the eaves
of my heart
like goldfinches.

An obscure house
on a forgotten street
in a small town,
but there were few places I’d rather be
than in the house
where Julie lived
and laughed
for me.

 

CLICK HERE to find the audio version online

Want to watch the book trailers? CLICK HERE

Today is our second day to celebrate the upcoming release of Sojourner Songs!

I hope yesterday’s trailer got you excited to get your own copy and spread the news. Today’s gift is the audio version of “Bright Fire,” the first poem of the book and the poem from which I chose the book’s title. It is a meditation on the great salvation of our God. Enjoy.

 

“Bright Fire” from Sojourner Songs: Poems
Read by the incomparable Gary Leonard

I sat on stone
and waited.
I wept into wind
alone.

Indefinite gloom loomed
until I saw him, my liberator,
running, singing.
His song lifted my soul high,
soaring with wide wing,
stirred by Hope.

Sing to me, O my troubadour.
Let your songs echo
in the halls of my loneliness,
even my shame,
so that I may sing back
and, perhaps, learn by heart.
Perhaps.

Graced is the man who locks eyes with you,
who does not dodge the reckoning.
He shall walk on water,
though it swells.
He will not loiter with the proud,
nor relish the shim-sham dance
of the damned.

Your works, O Lord, astonish me!
You, composer, conductor, star.
You, a kaleidoscope of love.
You are my horizon and my here.
You are the moon to the tides of my heart.

You gather glory,
a bright fire,
and light up this dreary day-to-day.
You invade my valley of dry bones
singing a song of healing,
great God!

This is the glad refrain of my dreams;
this, the theme of my sojourner songs.

 

If your media player doesn’t load, you can CLICK HERE to find the audio version.

Ready to buy your copy? CLICK HERE

Want to watch the trailers? CLICK HERE