Journal entry August 29, 2004. It's time for an update. Let's see it's only been..... how many years? No excuses. Surely not laziness. Other priorities perhaps???? No matter, I'm taking care of this today!
I still hold down a full time music teaching position and two part time jobs. I have my main "gig" at the Santa Ana Unified School District as a music specialist. My part time positions are at Calvary Church in Santa Ana as a worship leader and as a worship music "consultant/mentor" for a high school group at another church in Orange County.
My daughter Cami is now five, and my son Keith is eight. They both play piano and in addition my son plays violin and drums. I have committed to giving them a music lesson everyday - which takes a total of about an hour.
Nancy and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last March. Which is cool! She continues to be a strong source of stability and strength in my life.
Fortunately, I get enough time off as a music specialist to write music - which as many of you know, is my "passion." I've written quite a few worship songs that we currently do at Calvary Church. I hope to do a "proper" recording of them someday, but I don't know when I'll get around to doing that. If it is meant to be, then I'm confident that the Lord will open up the door. In the mean time, I'm content just to share them with the congregation at Calvary
Many of you may have read on the site about a song I wrote for a little girl named Samantha Runnion. In brief, Samantha was abducted in front of her home in July of 2002. They found her dead the next day on a trail in the local mountains. Her abduction, death and the circumstances surrounding it shocked everyone - including yours truly.
While sitting at my piano one night writing what I thought was the beginning of a cool worship song, I was given "Marching orders" to write a song as a tribute to Samantha. In a few days I penned "Pretty Little Sky" - which was Samantha's nickname. Bob Hartry, Paul Dexter, several local musicians and I did a recording of the song and sent it to Erin Runnion (Samantha's mother) in March of 2003.
The intention of the song was to serve as a tribute to Samantha and to do my part to show that her tragic death affected me and so many other people. The result is Erin Runnion's organization, the Joyful Child, has kind of adopted "Pretty Litte Sky" as the official song to honor Samantha. I have preformed it twice at two art festivals they held in July of this year and last year.
Musically, it is probably one of the best songs I have ever written. Emotionally, it tore me a part to have to write a song about a little girl that was just a few years older than my Cami. I don't understand why this happened to Samantha, and to some many kids in our country and around the world for that matter.
Nevertheless, many good things have resulted from the death of Samantha. One being the implementation of the "Amber Alert." You can read more about Samantha and the Joyful child organization at: http://www.thejoyfulchild.org.
Though not on the same emotional level as "Pretty Little Sky," an independent film maker in San Diego recently used several of my songs in a movie called "Proctor." The opening night of the release brought a much larger crowd than expected and he is looking at getting national distribution. You can find out more about the movie at: http://www.proctorthemovie.com.
Okay, that's it for this "Altar Boy." Lord bless and do remember you are loved!
Michael W. Stand