In His Own Words - June 1, 2002

Dear Friends,

It has been quite a while since i have written into the website. It might seem like i have dropped off the face of the earth. However, the past few months have been packed full of developments that have me really excited about what the future holds. I am looking forward to where Jesus might be taking me and how God might be moving through these new situations.

I have spent the first part of the year working on the recording of my third record, Without Looking Down. It is scheduled to come out in September through Spindust records. Spindust is a new label that is distributed by Word. It is a blessing to encounter a company like Spindust, founded by Ray Boltz, that has a like-minded vision. I am fortunate to have their support and am excited about our new relationship.

To coincide with the release of the record, the Without Looking Down Tour will begin in late September and continue through the fall. The band that i am blessed to play with (Brad Layher, Cobra Joe Curet, and Jeff Weiss) will all be part of the tour, just as they were a part or the recording. We have been talking about how excited we all are to play the new songs this fall.

Once again, the record was produced by Mark Robertson and mixed and engineered by Jordan Richter. They continue to astound me with their talent, loving and giving attitude, and willingness to do great work. I am thankful and I believe this record is the best representation of me yet.

This summer, we will be playing some concerts together as a band and i will also will be playing some solo concerts from time to time. And then in July, the first single from Without Looking Down, which is being determined as we speak, will be released to radio.

For the time being, I am just trying to live as human of a life as I possibly can. Not human in the sense of having a license to sin and the freedom to do as I please, but human in the sense of being like Jesus. He took on the form of being human and drank the cup fully. Jesus was fully human and did not allow sin to taint his humanness. Unfortunately, i do.

Our unrelenting longing, our unmet hunger, and unrealized desires are all distinctly human. It is these that make us who we are. It is these that cause us to understand that our completeness will only come from God.

I am not content to sit there and allow the longing to grow and the hunger to gnaw at me and turn my attention towards God, who completes my incompleteness. I am not humble enough to be poor in spirit. I am not contrite enough to let myself remain empty so that the light of the world can shine through me.

Instead, I clutter myself in an attempt to numb the hunger and put an antiseptic on the longing. My life becomes filled by useless entertainment, useless achievement, and useless business. In short, i guess that all would be called sin. Not that it is awful, but because it comes between me and God. It gets in the way of my being human, of being what god created me to be.

If I could become poor in spirit, if I could remain empty, then the true light of the world could shine through me and I, literally, would never walk in darkness, as scripture promises. No longer would I inhibit the light from shining on my path by being so cluttered that i cast a shadow over the path the light is trying to illuminate.

So, in the time being, I am trying to live as humanly as possible, as God created me to live. Yes, I want to be fully human because i want to be like Jesus.

Peace of Christ,
Mitch