Write About Jesus Workshop

DECEMBER 21 - One of the things I like most about writing a musical is the opportunity to write the narration or sometimes the drama that goes with it. I enjoy the study, the planning, and the creative work of helping listeners get more enjoyment from the songs by helping them understand their context and how they fit into the narrative in a certain way. For many of the musicals I wrote with Russell Mauldin before 2020, there was one narrator whose voice was heard. His name was David Ford, and you’ll hear him at the beginning of today’s song. We laughingly called David the “voice of God” because of the beauty and depth of his booming bass voice. He had more than just the sound of his voice going for him. He always caught the vision of what I was trying to do with the narration, and he had an incredible ability to express the emotion of every line as well as a great sense of timing. Besides that, David had graduated from Baylor University (my husband’s alma mater) AND he was a St. Louis Cardinals fan. It was inevitable that we would get along great. How I loved working with him. Both David and his wife passed away during the Covid pandemic, and I sure do miss him.

“Heaven and Nature Sang” was written with Kenna West and Leonard Ahlstrum for a musical that Kenna wrote for Word Music. I was excited to write about the wonder of heaven and nature joining forces to sing about the birth of Jesus. Somehow I think the reverberations of those songs still exist in the universe somewhere.