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Carrie Newcomer is a Grammy acknowledged, Emmy awarded artist with 20 nationally released albums including A Great Wild Mercy, The Beautiful Not Yet, The Point of Arrival, Until Now, The Geography of Light & The Gathering of Spirits. She has three books of poetry and essays including her most recent Until Now: New Poems. Carrie has been featured on Krista Tippett\u2019s On Being, PBS Religion & Ethics. She is the recipient of the Shalem Institute Contemplative Voices Award and holds an honorary degree in Music for Social Change from Goshen College. She is a voice for progressive spirituality and respected in the world of America and progressive folk music.
\u201CTo my mind - a writer\u2019s mind - Carrie Newcomer is much more than a musician. She\u2019s a poet, storyteller, snake-charmer, good neighbor, friend and lover, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace.\u201DPulitzer Prize winning Author Barbara Kingsolver
Hi Folks. I\u2019ve decided to create a space for folks who are moved by music, poetry and art, who are living in process, who are worried about the brokenness of the world and wondering how to live humbly, courageously and compassionately in such beautiful and messy times.
This will be a place where we can consider how in divided times we still connect as human beings and ponder something luminous in our daily lives. We\u2019ll not blink the hard stuff here, but this will also be a place we can together ponder hope as a renewable resource and what it means to live into our next growing edge.
And\u2026this is a safe and welcoming space. People who visit this community treat one another with decency and respect. We can disagree, but always with dignity and open heartedness, because I want us all to be able to show up authentically - and safely.
I\u2019ll be sharing new music, poetry, videos, reflections, photos about art, life and the spiritual thread that pulls through our daily lives \u2014 basically thoughts and topics viewed through the sensibilities of a Midwestern folksinger with Quaker leanings who still believes in the beauty that shows up everyday in this broken world. Of course, there will also be photos of my dogs!
It will include new and older demos, videos, Song Labs (talking about and teaching my songs), sheet music, poetry reading, writing prompts, online supporting subscriber concerts and content and more fun stuff I\u2019m coming up with all the time.
All over the world the Spirit is moving
All over the world as the prophets said it would be
All over the world there's a mighty revelation
Of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea
All over this land the spirit is moving
All over this land as the prophets said it would be
All over this land there's a mighty revelation
Of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea
All over the church the spirit is moving
All over the church as the prophets said it would be
All over the church there's a mighty revelation
Of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea
All over us all the spirit is moving
All over us all as the prophets said it would be
All over us all there's a mighty revelation
Of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea
Deep down in my heart the spirit is moving
Deep down in my heart as the prophets said it would be
Deep down in my heart there's a mighty revelation
Of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea
This is the 34th time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together 8 years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been saving for a long time.
One of the things about the Presidency is that you're always somewhat apart. You spend a lot of time going by too fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people through tinted glass -- the parents holding up a child, and the wave you saw too late and couldn't return. And so many times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well, maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
People ask how I feel about leaving. And the fact is, ``parting is such sweet sorrow.'' The sweet part is California and the ranch and freedom. The sorrow -- the goodbyes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again -- and in a way, we ourselves -- rediscovered it.
The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82, to the expansion that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made a difference. The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created -- and filled -- 19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in and said, ``My name's Ron.'' Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback -- cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began.
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