All Along

(Gonna be a good day)
I'm looking, longing
For what I thought I knew
Reaching to take hold
Of that which pulled me through
A chasm plunging deeper
Than maybe I had realized
There's more to uncover
It's time to rediscover

A Lord, a Maker
My Savior still today
Or maybe even more so
As I have gone my way
He watches and He waits as I
Wander in the sight of grace
Somehow still a seeker
Sometimes even growing weaker

Yet all along You remain my song
And I remain your poetry
Written for the ages
All along your Spirit breathes strong
And while I wonder where it blows
You turn the pages
You're turning over pages

(Strength coming my way)
I've found You and I'll find You
Again only this time much more
A brand new place I've never been
The same place where I was before
A place where faith grows deeper
Than maybe I had realized
What started as a seed is now
More than I would ever need

And all along...

All along You remain my song
And I am your poetry
All along your Spirit breathes strong
And now again I see:
You're turning over pages
Turning right over pages
Blowing over pages

Love Of My Life

You are the love of my life
The day to day joy in my life
Carrie, my heart trusts in you
And I lack no gain ‘cause you are my wife

Houses and wealth come from fathers
Inherited comforts to own
But the greatest blessings have no price
A good wife comes from God alone

What is in our days ahead?
Only our dear Lord can say
Let’s just put our trust in Him
And enjoy each other all the way

An excellent wife is a crown
Adorning the head of her man
Carrie, I feel like a king
You’re a beautiful woman and I’m a happy man
You’re an excellent woman and I’m a happy man
You are my woman and I, I am your man

Limber Pine

High and dry and windy barren ridges
May not seem the choicest place to grow
But there the Limber Pine you'll find
Its own monument to why
It grows greater than the trees below

The worldly greenhouse grows us all up nameless
Do Christians seek to rise above
The comfort-goal that leads to weakened sameness
Instead to live uniquely in God's love?

Limber Pine, you grow
Places few would choose to go
You just take it nice and slow
I would like to be
Steadfast like that mighty tree
So I'll take it patiently
And count it all joy (count it joy)
Count it joy (count it joy)
Count it all joy when the trials come to me

Pain no more must be destructive
And it need not come as a surprise
The weather we once cursed is now constructive
And makes us strangely stronger and wise

Limber Pine, you grow...

You can believe yet still hide in the valley
Even though the Lord would have you know
The grace that saves you is also the power to sanctify
So choose this day where you will grow
Choose this day where you will grow

Limber Pine, you grow
Places few would choose to go
You just take it nice and slow
Wouldn't you like to be
Steadfast like that, that mighty tree?
So try to take it more patiently
And count it all joy (count it joy)
Count it joy (count it joy)
Count it joy when the trials come
Count it all joy...

Autumn (Instrumental)

Praise Your Name, Jesus

Should I lie and say there is no sin?
Or should I emphasize some power we have inside?
If we say we are so good when we just reach within
Then it's for nothing that Jesus died

I praise Your name, Jesus
You have justified me, I am someone new
Praise Your name, Jesus
You have sanctified my life for You

Or should I tap into some cosmic crystal fantasy?
Channel MacLaine and say that God and truth is me and you?
Well it's a lie, and surely Shirley isn't free
And this Age, well it's nothing new

Praise Your name, Jesus (I praise You)
You have justified me, I am someone new (I thank You)
Praise Your name, Jesus (I praise You)
You have sanctified my life for You

Or should I be a kind of Pharisee?
Sing these words and carefully hide my pride?
Is my righteousness defined by what you see?
No, 'cause Jesus weighs the spirit deep inside

Praise Your name, Jesus (I praise You)...

(Hallelujah)

O Lord

O Lord, how could it be
That You made Yourself empty?
O Lord, You suffered loss
And hung upon that cross

I did it out of love, you see
That you might be set free

O Lord, you're at my side
And in You I can confide
O Lord, in every way
You're blessing me this day

I do it out of love...

I do it out of love...

O Lord, as I press on
Please make me strong
O Lord, that I won't fear
I ask that you'll be near

I'll do it out of love...
I'll do it out of love...

Your Breath Is Mine

I behold your beauty
The harmony, variety
And marvel at your mystery
Yet how You are still speaking clearly

To be with You, my Father
The joy of fellowship divine
And walk with You, my Jesus
In pathways of your own design
To live with You, my Maker
You breathe, and your Breath is mine

I receive your peace
A life made new, in cleansing dew
And offer back all You are giving
A life for You, a life worth living

To be with You...
You breathe, and your Breath is mine

In You I live and move and have my being
Breathe in me, breathe in me, breathe in me
In You I live and move and have my being
Breathe through me, breath through me, breathe through me
In You I live and move...

Breathe through me, breath through me, breathe through me

The Artist

The mountains and the hills are my friends
The river rushing by with no end
And the One who made them all
Can make our things seems so small next to them

As the sun comes up, the early glow
The clouds join in and make the morning flow
All the colors take their bow
Sometimes I'd rather not know how

Did it happen randomly?
Oh no, the Artist said to me
The majesty is my work it's true
Lakes beneath the sky, and you
And if you'd look that way at man
Then you would understand
That people, though they may seem small
They are by far the greatest works of all

And the trees, oh I know, they can sing
Keeping tempo to the pulsing of the wind
And how I'd love to be up there
And with that eagle share the air and ride the wind

And flowers, they are a sight to behold
'Cause they were used to paint that meadow gold
And it suits me just fine
If that sunset just wants to take its time

Did it happen randomly?...
And if I'd look that way at man
Then I would understand
That people, though they may seem small
They are by far the greatest works of all
Yes, you, you and I, though we may fall
We've got to understand
The Artist loves us all

Anything Creek Road

Dry places give way
to where the waters run
Sated trees shade the sun
Planted by the One who gives life
Breezy trance as willows dance
Grasses glow green
Water over speckled stones
Stunning scene in my mind

I'll walk along, craft my song
Along Anything Creek Road this day
Feeling inclined to ease my mind
Find Anything Creek Road, and say
I could run, ride, or drive
But this works out just fine
It's best never a straight line on this road

Dry places give way...
Rooted in the One who gives life
Breezy trance as willows dance...
Persistent scene in my mind

I'll walk along, craft my song...
I could run, ride, or drive
Instead this works out just fine
Never a straight line on a good road

Friend I See In You

A pouring rain (of emotion)
Of emotion
As we start to say goodbye
A stinging pain (inside my heart)
Inside my heart
It makes me want to cry

We have the Way (and the Life)
The Truth and the Life
And we have lived abundantly
But can we say (this is hard)
That it isn't hard
To leave this family?

But Jesus is our King
So we have everything
In treasures up above
Great measures
Of his abundant love

A scorching heat (can I speak?)
A parched emotion
The well is running dry
Feeling incomplete (in the false world)
Out in the false world
When for it I should cry

But Jesus is our King...

Chard Berndt, acoustic guitar [AG], voice [V], acoustic fretless bass [AB], electric guitar [EG]
percussion (cajon, some requinto) [P]; Other contributors as listed.

ALL ALONG (2013, 2023) F# (E capo 2) [4:28]
  AG, V, AB, EG (rec. Jun/Jul 2024)

LOVE OF MY LIFE (1991, 2023) G (DGDGBD) [3:31]
  AG, V (rec. Jun 2024, Jan 2025)

LIMBER PINE (1989) G [6:16]
  AG(2), V, Carrie Berndt: Voice (rec. Jun/Jul 2024)

AUTUMN (1986, 2023) B-E [4:25]
  AG, AB (rec. Nov 2024, Jan 2025)

PRAISE YOUR NAME, JESUS (1989) A [4:52]
  AG(2), V, Carrie Berndt: Voice (rec. Sep/Nov 2024)

O LORD (1987) Am-A [3:53]
  AG, V, EG, P (rec. Jul 2024)

YOUR BREATH IS MINE (2006) Bb-G (G-E capo 3) [3:59]
  AG, V, AB, P (rec. Nov 2024)

THE ARTIST (1986) C [6:03]
  AG, V, AB, P (rec. Apr/Jul 2024)

ANYTHING CREEK ROAD (2021) Ab (G capo 1) [3:58]
   AG, V (rec. Nov 2024, Jan 2025)

FRIEND I SEE IN YOU (1990) G [5:37]
  AG(2), V, AB, Robert Moore: Harmonica, Carrie Berndt: Voice (rec. Jul/Sep/Nov 2024, Jan 2025)

All Along

Growth in life is not linear, but rather wavy and seasonal; also, it is different for the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional.  I hope that my life is evidence of Proverbs 4:18, "...the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day", and Psalms 92:14, "They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green."  I know that I must prioritize the spiritual, the hub of my soul. Yet even when I have done so, that planting or watering has brought no immediate harvest; "...only God gives the growth." (1 Cor. 3:7)

Ultimately, though, as a disciple of Jesus, the trend is upward, superimposed among setbacks (internal and external) and surges. Holiness is the trajectory for "those who walk on the way; even if they are fools they shall not go astray." (Isaiah 35:8b)  My soul is a work in progress, fashioned in the mind of its Creator.  We are his workmanship: poema, poetry (Eph. 2:10), and He is word-smithing us obsessively for time and eternity.  Some paradox persists in the process (when reflecting on it from the human point of view), which I allude to in the song.  What pleases me most in these lyrics, however, is the optimism that has sprung up in me increasingly since I wrote this in 2013.

Love Of My Life

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." (Proverbs 18:22).  This song was inspired by my wife Carrie, and selected phrases in the Book of Proverbs that exalt a good woman like her.  I played it for her at Thanksgiving prior to our third anniversary, and I am still, and even more so, thankful for her today.

Limber Pine

In one of five summers at Camp Perkins, Robert Moore and I zipped away most weekends for hiking & climbing adventures.  We headed out with urgency on Friday afternoons after an exhausting week as camp counselors, getting rejuvenated strangely by epic physical efforts in the Sawtooth or White Cloud Mountains, returning just in time for the next week's "scoop" meeting.  This was a formative season, getting in shape spiritually even more so than physically, which is saying a lot for that period of relative youth.  We shared an inspired dialogue that led to us starting a backcountry ministry program the following year, which continues today as "Ridges".

The Limber Pine and its counterpart, the Bristlecone Pine, provided one of the many strong metaphors that we understood as "parallel ridges" in the mountain range of our lives.  We wanted revelation from God's Word, the Bible, for sure, but we also sought passionately for the Spirit to speak to us through Creation, which He spoke into existence.  So, this song is motivated by Psalms 19, "...Day to day pours out speech...There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard...", and specifically by the charge in James 1:2-4 to consider trials (of all kinds) as joy, to regard their perfecting purpose to the soul above their discomfort, pain, or annoyance.

The song got its final touches as my wife of less than a year worked out the harmony and we decided on the call-and-response refrain. "Limber Pine" was a song we sang often for friends along with a few others of mine that featured her voice, with "Leather and Lace" thrown in there occasionally because we didn't mind pretending to be Don Henley and Stevie Nicks.  I didn't want percussion or bass on this, but added a second guitar to give it a more bluegrassy vibe.

Autumn (Instrumental)

An homage to my perceived aura of what was then my favorite season.  Since then, summer won over my heart, but when summers became too busy, autumn was again back on top.  That being said, I recorded it over a few extremely bleak winter days.  Regardless, the seasons circle around with elegance and I admire this very concept and construction more than any single season anyway.

This was originally just a solo guitar piece, and a bit thin in places.  So as I have grown to love composing for the acoustic fretless bass, I realized that it would voice a melodic counterpart and provide a full composition.  The whole "A" side is generally mellow, so no instrumental respite was required, but here you have it.

Praise Your Name, Jesus

Shirley MacLaine's popularity is dated, as is my reference to New Age spiritualism.  This remarkable actress was then a revered celebrity spokesperson for spirituality—but you may substitute whoever fits the bill today.  Such ideas remain embedded, such as in Hollywood's version of Buddhist-styled enlightenment—as I say in the song, "nothing new".  Biblical Pharisees aren't in the news cycle these days either, but pharisaical pride is still the cancer it has always been.  So the messengers are dated, but everything is current.  Concerning enlightenment and pride, the profound need-to-know is this: Jesus, "The true light, which gives light to everyone..." (John 1:9a) "...emptied himself...being born in the likeness of men...humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:7-8).

Back when I wrote this, I learned to "slap" harmonics, which introduces some unpredictability that isn't necessarily problematic, and it felt to me like the guitar was responding in counterpoint while being played.  I also played around with thumping on strings, as some bassists and "percussive fingerstyle" guitarists such as Michael Hedges had been doing.  When recording this I went all in on these, the primary guitar carrying the song with thump-and-slap, picking and strumming only in the transitions.  I added a second guitar to add color and fill space, triad picking with some inversions.  The choruses, though of the same progression, have sonic and melodic variation, the most important of which is Carrie's background vocals.

O Lord

The lyrics of "O Lord" reiterate a theme found strongly in several of the songs on Transformed: that God is present, faithful, active, and transformational—even in my life!  It's wonderful to hear these verses about past, present, and future from the future point of view, many years after writing the song.  That past and past's present is now extended and more significant.  That future is here and continues forward.  The prayer and proclamation ring true.  "I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken..." (Psalm 37:25a).

Originally I would bust this out at full volume, but I realized for the recording that it would benefit by progressing from a tight, percussive, palm-muted first verse through a more opened-up second verse, and then a full strum to take it home.  Adding cajon, some challenging and quick (to me) electric guitar work, and modifying the bridge chords and timing (including two 5/4 measures) elevated it from a song that I was going to nix to one that I chose for a single release—a personal psalm made available on my 57th birthday.  And the album needed this energy to kick off the "B" Side.

Your Breath Is Mine

Biblical Psalms often jump around in point of view, which I like: speaking to God, about God, speaking of what God says or would say, talking to God's people, or talking to oneself...but if "O Lord" is my lively personal Psalm, then "Your Breath Is Mine" is it's complement, both that it's tender and all voiced from me to God—a worshipful prayer.  The Holy Trinity is referenced clearly in the choruses: Father, Son (Jesus) and Spirit (Breath).

Originally I had no key change during the last section, but I wanted to increase the closing intensity of that repeat by taking it up more than a step, yet not a full octave.  I decided to transpose down a step-and-a-half, to the major 6th, and then sing an octave higher, over some slight harmonic variations in the music.  Both repetition and change can partner well together—as per the lyric "...the harmony, variety".

The Artist

I finished my undergraduate degree in a town where many insisted that a human growing in the womb wasn't yet a "life".  At the same time, these impassioned voices actively protested the use of fetal pigs for medical research.  Warped perspectives emerge when the wonders of creation are reduced to unpurposed naturalism.  "Nature" in the past was often accompanied by "...and nature's God".  It makes me sad when nature is exalted with the exception or demotion of humankind;  Similarly I've been disappointed to hear followers of Jesus downplay stewardship of nature, or by assumption disregard the soul- (nephesh) or spirit- (ruwach) life present in many of God's creatures.  We have opportunity to better know God by beholding His works.

To fully grasp this planet's point, we need to value all creation and humankind's supreme status in it, as the final and crowning creation to whom it was gifted.  The writer of Hebrews quoted from Psalm 8 when he wrote "What is man, that you are mindful of him...You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet." (Hebrews 2:7-8a)  We must value each other, impassioned by God's lofty evaluation.

In the lyric "All the colors take their bow / Sometimes I'd rather not know how", I'm not claiming to understand the natural workings of a sunrise.  Sure, I have studied electromagnetic radiation, refraction and reflection, water droplets, the atmosphere, and so forth, but no, I don't really get it; nobody really does.  The sentiment, rather, is that I want to enjoy such things viscerally, appreciating the love and wisdom of God in nature regardless of His intelligent mechanisms.

Originally I skipped the first part of the bridge the second time through; Here I chose both times to include the four lines "Did it happen randomly?" through "Lakes beneath the sky, and you", with that line now changed from the previous "I made the lakes, the sky, and you".  I've tweaked some of the phrasing melodies from the original as well.

Anything Creek Road

I replayed the sentiment of "The Artist" here, the basking in worshipful appreciation of nature, but this time around (35 years later!) I went for a lighter, blissful vibe.  Here, I didn't write so much about nature or my place in it objectively, but rather about my subjective enjoyment of it.  Now when I play or hear this, it's a self-reminder to be in the moment, free of anxiety or regret.  You might identify some James Taylor influence in this one, both melodically and in the lyrical cadence.

Friend I See In You

I close this collection with my most emotionally deep and broad song, containing thankfulness, emptiness, nostalgia, longing, despair, hope, mourning, conviction, and proclamation.  At times the intensity of something negative, difficult, even evil, reveals the intended glory and fullness of that thing untainted.  The fallen and twisted things show us that the ideal is real, even though not normally realized.  I was blessed to be a part of an epic ongoing effort, a ministry in which we did realize; we got a taste and a glimpse of Who Is and what will be.

I am surprised that back then I wrote this musically: it has a certain pocket and movement unique to anything I was doing.  I had forgotten how difficult the song was to play and underestimated the challenge of multi-tracking the parts I had in mind.  Although I have written some melodic rhythmic and lead electric parts for this and the coming collections, this is the only song on Transformed with acoustic lead solo parts.  Given their importance in my life, and its transformation, it is fitting that this is one of the songs with Carrie's voice that also features Robert Moore on harmonica.  As for the title, I originally had another verse that was early omitted, which included the lyric "I pray to Jesus / Who is the Friend I see in you".

Robert & Rebecca Moore made my long-awaited first studio album possible when they brainstormed building a recording studio on their property which would be available to me.

I was motivated to do reconstruction of the old outbuilding, pleased that they funded it, and super blessed to use the space and the equipment.  Yet I also took delight in their excitement, feeding on their generous vibe.

Thank you, Robert & Rebecca, for your kindness, friendship, and energizing appreciation of my music.