Twenty years ago John had a job compiling a new liturgy. Contacting hundreds of  songwriters to garner permission was tedious work, resulting in at least one hymn that has the lyrics included but not the notes. This was during the transition between when churches turned a blind eye to annoying details like copyrights, and the intention to respect ownership. Having been composers ourselves for most of our lives, I have witnessed the evolution. 

Our music has never been profitable. There were brief spurts of time over the years when I imagined it bringing in royalties, but such marketing was not in the cards for us. Plus we scrambled to keep up with the technology. Our first releases were on cassette tapes, hastily made with one take. Then there were actual recording sessions, in New York and New Mexico that birthed better quality. CDs came along, and lasted until they didn't, and now our music floats inside that intangible cloud in the sky, such that I mostly can't find it. 

The whole escapade of writing, and sharing the songs that have shown up between our ears has been a spiritual trek. It is tempting to grab credit for a song that came through my fingers, but that is eerily similar to claiming ownership of my internal organs. Sure, they are "mine" in the sense that they keep me alive. But did I do diddly squat to generate them? 

There are glorious moments when I hold no strings on these songs. It has been a source of joy for us to discover them, and certainly when we sing them. But I aspire to be like the birds outside my window, whose melodies are a gift to anyone willing to listen. 

"A heavenly angel understands stealing to mean giving ourselves credit for what belongs to the Lord and claiming his righteousness and worth as our own." Sacred Scripture 67, Emanuel Swedenborg