SPIRITUAL FOCUS ON MUSIC January 16, 2006 Issue

LETTING GOD SPEAK THROUGH THE MUSIC

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

SHEPHERD IS ONE OF THOSE CDs about which you can say, without the slightest insult to those involved, that the story behind its creation is as good as the entertainment it offers.

The tale goes something like this: At a time when he is going through a "hard patch" in his personal life and in his career, desperately needing to regroup mentally and spiritually, one of America's best guitarists—a successful songwriter, performer on stage, radio, and television, and a popular teacher at Berklee College of Music—is invited by a New York producer to be the featured artist on a CD recording of ten hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal.

The guitarist has never seen the Hymnal, knows nothing about Christian Science, and cannot imagine how he could even think about such a project in the midst of an 18-month national tour with the Broadway musical Mamma Mia. But he does think about it, praying that God will use him in a way He chooses. He asks God to make him an instrument of His peace; to help him sow love in the world, and replace doubt with faith and despair with hope (see "The Peace Prayer of St. Francis").

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