Friends, just sending another reminder that I do not use blogger anymore. I switched to wordpress. If you want to keep up, you must resubscribe here:

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2373100&loc=en_US

I'm blogging as I tour this month, so I hope you'll follow me!

-Tracy

Hi Friends,

Thanks so much for subscribing to the blog. I have switched over to Wordpress because there are some more powerful tools I can use, which hopefully means some more frequent and interesting posting going on! So, to keep getting your email alerts, you need to resubscribe. You can do it by clicking this link now:

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2373100&loc=en_US

I'm also in the process of archiving past articles and resources and categorizing them. If you have your own ways of setting up blog feeds and subscriptions, here is a direct link to the new blog that feeds into restorationvillage.com:

http://restorationvillage.wordpress.com/

Finally, I also send out email newsletters every 1-2 months with Constant Contact. They are pretty with full color layouts and pictures, and I encompass more of the season than the blog posts. If you just can't get enough, here's the link for that one:

http://visitor.constantcontact.com/email.jsp?m=1100365236458

Love you guys,
Tracy

Hi friends. Well, after a last minute surgery last week, I'm feeling remarkably well. I'm amazed actually at how fast we can heal. This is the free mug you get from Boulder Community Hospital if you get surgery. ANYWAY...I'm just very grateful that I'm feeling good and ready to play and sing with my friends Todd and Angie from Portland. We'll be doing Agents of Future songs and some Restoration Project Songs.

If you're in Colorado, I hope you can make it to one of the shows. Todd and Angie are amazing and you won't be disappointed. Here are the details:

Thursday, Aug 21
397 All Sky Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80921
7pm suggested $10 donation

Friday, Aug 22
1120 Northfield Rd
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
7pm suggested $10 donation

Saturday, Aug 23
111 Canon St
Lafayette, CO 80026-1605
7pm suggested $10 donation

I'm reposting this video of a house concert I did in Juarez last year. My friends from Dios Con Nosotros were able to visit Colorado Springs this past weekend and we spent some wonderful time together. However, many of you might be aware of the increasing violence and economic problems in Mexico. Juarez in particular has been suffering and recently became the most violent city in the world as murders rose to about 10 per day. The violence is mostly due to the drug war happening between three different cartels. You can find many articles online including THIS ONE from npr.org.

My friend Claudia (born and raised in Juarez, but fluent in English) sent me this in an email before she came to visit:

"My parents business is broke and Luis is out of work. The financial world there is a saying that says that if the U.S. gets the flu, Mexico gets pneumonia. And that is what is happening over here. There is a huge domino effect on our economy because of the possible recession, gas prices etc... A lot of factories have shut down and many businesses are broke, including my parents. The good thing is my dad is retired and getting a monthly check.

Right now it kind of feels like everything is messed up. We are not sad or depressed or anything. We are hopeful, trying to discern the will of God. Please be praying for Juarez too. Since February there have been 467 drug related murders (over 500 now since the first of the year). These murders are happening in broad daylight in the middle of high traffic streets. Three men were killed last week outside of our neighborhood. So this has brought a lot of despair to the city and the people are in a general hysteria."

By a miracle my friends, Claudia and Luis, and the Pastors of Dios Con Nosotros, Manuel and Lola, were able to come for the weekend. They visited some Spanish speaking congregations in Denver and Colorado Springs and spent a day with me and some other friends. We spoke about things going on in the city and every time Claudia started to talk about the violence, or the arson, Lola's eyes would well up with tears. Manuel is more stoic, but far from unmoved. At one point, while about 7 of us were having lunch at a local cafe, he pulled the label off of the Odawalla lemonade he was drinking. He said he like to pull the labels off of things. He spoke in metaphor and prose about the need to see people's essence apart from title. "Now Juarez has won the title of most violven city in the world," he said. "But this is just another title distracting people from presence of God."

We spoke about what we could do together and what it means to be people of Peace, and friends across borders. So, right now I am planning on visiting my friends over labor day weekend. I will travel with a few others and we will manifest a higher reality, by having a concert, a party, and maybe planting a garden.

Please do pray for the city, and for our dear friends. And if you feel moved to give, you may donate through the partnership page here at restorationvillage.com. Please indiciate "Juarez" and I will include it in an offering for Dios Con Nosotros.

Hey friends, The Other Journal just posted an interview they did with me over the winter. Its posted at theotherjournal.com.

Todd and Angie on Fill the Fields

Hi everyone,

I am dedicated to getting better at this...I apologize for three entries all at once. I've been moving all week (same area, different house) and today in my office, managed to fall asleep for over an hour. I have just been exhausted!

Todd Fadel (Agents of Future) is a very talented producer and has encouraged me in different ways. He also has been working with my friend Aaron Strumpel on some pretty incredible material. Anyway, Todd and Angie sang over "Fill the Fields" awhile back as I was considering some extra vocal harmonies. It is just a fun b-sides now, but I thought I would share in anticipation of their coming. Enjoy!

Hey Friends,

If you live in Colorado, you definitely want to mark your calendars. Todd and Angie Fadel will be coming out in August and we are doing house concerts together in the Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs areas. VIEW THE CALENDAR for details. Todd and Angie are amazing songwriters and creatives. You can also check out Agents of Future on MySpace.

Hey friends. There is still time to decide to come next week and be part of the art intensive in Minneapolis. However, if you can't make it, I will be doing a concert, open to the public at the fall out on Wednesday night, July 16 at 7pm. The evening sessions are actually all open to the public (donations accepted at the door). Then, I'm sure I will play a set during the ARTFEST Saturday in addition to the evening finale which begins at 8pm. So hope to see you there!

www.sourcemn.org

Hey friends. I'm excited to be going to Puerto Rico in August. If you are in Puerto Rico and want to know what is happening, email Angel Huertas at april_afternoon @hotmail.com!

There are many more photos from last years Art Intensive and Artfest in Minneapolis here: www.sourcemn.org. But I am writing to remind everyone that you can still register for this year's Art Intensive and Artfest, July 14-20. The Art Intensive is for everyone from film makers to musicians to leaders who just love art and want to see different possibilities of how it might be a fruit and catalyst for restoration and community. $150 covers food and housing for the week and if you do happen to be an artist or performer, you will also get a slot at Artfest on Saturday. Source, the host community has links to the Northumbria monastary in England as well as the 24-7 international network. Their mission is simply to be a friend and voice for at risk youth and urban subcultures in the city.

I will be speaking, leading worship and performing through out the week as well as teaching a songwriting track. I will be joined by my good friend Linnea Spransy, who graduated from Yale with a masters in paint. Her work can be found in galleries around the world and she is part of the 24-7 boiler room in Kansas City.

More information can be found at sourcemn.org and here are some QUICKLINKS for you:

ART INTENSIVE INFO AND SCHEDULE

DOWNLOAD THE APPLICATION

Hey friends. I read a blog post recently commenting on the singability of Restoration Project songs. I was flattered to be the topic of conversation, and thought I would respond a bit here. Historically no, I have not been concerned about writing "singable" songs in the sense that people could just know the melody and words and sing them together at will. I love singable songs...but I have always been more concerned with authenticity and unique perspective, and...I am a live performing artist and I weave songs in and out of stories and poetry. So, being a worship songwriter is actually a little newer to me. It was actually groups like COTA in Seattle that first started using my songs in their own gatherings. Lacey Brown, the then worship leader at COTA would send me an email every couple of months asking for the chord charts to a certain song. COTA was actually using songs from "Sobering" (2004) which, as an album, lands way outside the radar of industry standards. I was flattered and encouraged that the songs I shared so passionately were indeed resonating with communities, and also impressed that the group would take the time to learn some more complex songs.

In 2006 I release "Worship," which actually is not that much different lyrically and structurally then my other work. It is still very people focused and poetry driven. The difference was my perspective while writing. I had been through a pretty intense restoration process of my own, and some of the unexpected fruit was coming into a much deeper understanding and theology of worship. I did create that project wanting it to be a resource and offering to the communities I worked with, but knew it would be challenging lyrically. I mentioned recently at Princeton that though many worship industry standards are based in scripture, which is awesome. However, I have observed that some scripture seems to be a little more marketable than others. And just as the Psalms speak always of specific events and people groups and historical happenings, I think at least SOME of the music we sing should include those things. So I put the words "AIDS" into a couple of songs as it is a pressing crises of our day and I also based most of the songs in scripture as well. Songs like "Run to the Mountan" and "The Kingdom" were also shared at the 2006 MSA gathering and I have since learned that songs from that project have been sung by small groups around the country and even translated and sung in parts of Africa and South America.

Song For a Revolution of Hope, however, was a collaboration with Brian McLaren. Brian actually wrote most of the lyrics. I co-wrote and co-produced and did a lot of arranging. While we were recording the project, it was primary in Brian's heart that the songs be singable. He wanted to resource the Church with new kinds of songs. So, we did work extra hard, despite some pretty complex lyrics, to make it singable. Our success is debatable, however I have since led every single song on the album in the context of live worship, and even songs like "Atheist" have worked really well in the right situations. The two spoken word pieces, "Let's Confess" and "11-57" still have incredibly singable choruses and work really well in a liturgical call and response method.

My latest electronica EP...well...maybe not that singable if you download them and try to learn them...I describe it as contemplative electronica. But, I am a story teller and a journey facilitator in worship. So if you invited me to lead the songs in your living room, and I told you the stories of Rwanda that led to me writing "Come Out," you might find yourself singing along in the chorus anyway.

So, here's an unverified list of the most singable songs by album if you're interested. Chord Charts are posted in the download section.

Sobering:
-Arise
-Work it Out

Worship:
-Bring Me Some Peace
-Run to the Mountain
-All the Way
-I Am in Love
-The Kingdom

And all songs from "Songs For a Revolution of Hope."

You might not be able to make me out in the picture, but I'm the one right between John Perkins and Jim Wallis. Yeah. Fun times. Anyway, after the Envision gathering ended, a group of Theologians stayed at Princeton to work through all of the dialogue and panels and make a declaration. I said Amen to it. It was actually a very diverse group of speakers and leaders. If you want to see it, here is the LINK. You sign it by posting a comment.

As I alluded to in the previous post, I did write an essay, a loose response on the panel about post-colonialism. I call it "Post-Colonialism and Songwriting." I'm actually starting to contribute to "The Other Journal," a publication of Mars Hill Graduate School. I'm considering submitting a better version of this, so you could help me out by giving me some feedback...mainly, did you reap anything from it at all? Thanks friends! Here's the essay:

It is good to be a songwriter. I just returned from Envision, a gathering at Princeton University where theologians, activists and leaders of all kinds gathered and dialogued with the goal of uniting the church and moving more deeply into the public square. Some of my own living heroes were in attendance like John Perkins, and some friends I have not been able to connect with in quite sometime like Shane Claiborne. There were also a slew of people who had influenced me greatly through their own journeys and books, people like Ruth Padilla DeBorst and Ron Sider. I, along with about 500 others, listened to them speak. We listened to panel discussions and response panels to speakers, and I got to share songs. I play a lot of house concerts...DOWNLOAD THE REST

Hey all,  I just returned to Colorado after about a week in Princeton preparing for and participating in the gathering, "Envision 08."  I am in the midst of a deeper response to the panel on post-colonialism and will post it in the next couple of days, but here's a little video someone put together of the first afternoon.  More to come!

Look at me doing real time blogging...

Today I packed up my car and dog and drove up to Boulder where I got a hair cut and checked out a cool new coffee shop on Pearl Street. I fixed some broken links in the online store and did some last minute correspondence, then went to my chiropractor, Dr. Zach, who I miss now that I live two hours south of Boulder. Then I had a great house concert with my friends Chris and Esther Cummings...super fun. Esther made chocolate covered strawberries, hummus, and spice cake among other yummy things. People from the neighborhood made up the majority of the group. I left Neve (my great dane) with the Cummings, and am crashing at my dad's house. Tomorrow morning I fly out of Denver and will spend the day getting to Princeton where I'll work with some other artist before the start of Envision!

Life is good...for those of you who knew I was having some health problems a month ago, I am doing really well. I did a yoga intensive/nutrition program post-tour, and learned a ton. Now I just have to figure out how to maintain everything while I travel. I did learn I have quite a few food allergies. Oh well...step by step...and I found really yummy gluten-free cookies at Whole Foods that I am packing on this trip.

Good news friends! We have redesigned the store...or rather, we have received some incredible help from a friend. So, the store now utilizes a shopping cart, allowing you to combine multiple CD's, or digital AND physical in a single purchase. AND, you can use Google, Paypal, or credit cards to pay! I hope this makes it easier for everyone to purchase here (we do get a much larger percentage when you buy at restorationvillage.com) and please refer your friends!