Spirit in Action
Jim Scott - A Song for the Earth, A Prayer for Peace
Jim Scott: is, perhaps, best known for the many years he was part of the Paul Winter Consort. He tours widely as a solo act and his music frequently excites the listener, delicately, to care for the Earth and strive for Peace. He's a pedigree Unitarian-Universalist.
- Broadcast on:
- 21 Dec 2008
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear that as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - We've got a musical treat for today's Spirit in Action program. His name is Jim Scott and he's a singer songwriter in town for a concert sparing me the trouble attracting him down by phone. Jim is best known perhaps for the years he performed as part of the Paul Winter concert. I invited Jim to join me for Spirit in Action because so much of his music blends social action, environmentalism, and peace work with his Unitarian Universalist spirituality. In fact, some of his songs are in the UU hymnal and in many other places. I feel quite fortunate to be able to grab Jim Scott for a Spirit in Action interview while he's here in Eau Claire. Jim, I'm so glad you could join me today for Spirit in Action. - It's nice to be here, thanks. - A lot of your music is very spiritually in tune, spiritually focused. And there's also a significant layer of activism. I guess being connected with Unitarians, which I guess you are, I don't know that for sure, but I think that the two are wolfing together in the same way that they are for me as a Quaker, that your beliefs, they need to be lived out in the world. Did you start with Unitarians way back or are you Unitarian born and raised or did you grow into it? - I like to say I'm old enough to be one U before the two U's got together. The Unitarian Universalist tongue twister came together. The two churches merged in 1960. I started at the Universalist Church of Norwell, Massachusetts. And just last week I played in Norwell at the UU church down the street from there and got to remember all of that stuff. And at that point, I wasn't so aware of the history, certainly as a little kid. I wasn't aware of the history of the human rights and labor and all kinds of things. The Universalists had a long history with activism, with suffrage, equality, racial, things, all of that. But I'm proud of all that now. Then I do recall my dad telling me when I was little, it was explaining to me that a loving God, however we, if there is one, however we see that, we believe that a loving God would not sentence people to an eternity of damnation. And there is no hell in the Universalist belief. You make that for yourself, is the way the Universalists would put it, I guess. And somehow you got involved in activism along the way. Were you raised to go on protest marches, be part of the civil rights movement? Was that all part of your childhood? It was in a way, I'd say, probably I got as much from TV I think many of us did in the 60s. We felt we were right there, but of course we were seeing it on TV sometimes. But my family certainly had a history of some of that. My dad was an activist. You did mention to me earlier, Jim, that you did do your turn in the army. How did that come about? I think coming from this kind of peace and justice-centric religion that you grew up in, maybe you would have been less disposed to join the military. I think I kind of got swept into it at a moment. I went to Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. And we did sit on the, some of us sat on the front porch sometimes and played folk music with guitars and stuff. But that really wasn't, I don't think it was even much respected at a school like that, but classical music or jazz or other forms of high music were being studied in a sort of rarefied atmosphere there. So I often say it took me years to undo some of that and just be the guy who was willing to bring a guitar somewhere and sing songs. And one thing led to another meeting this or that, folk singer, you know, luminaries, Pete Seeger and certainly others inspired me to this idea that it's a tradition that we're carrying on, of singing. It's a health practice, it's a peace practice for communities, for families to sing together. But the army, to give back to that thing, I ended up in the army band 'cause a lot of people who went to a school where you'd end up with a degree in music. It was kind of a known thing that you could go audition for one of these army bands and particularly the Washington bands. We seemed to pour graduates of Eastman and schools like Indiana and university and other great music schools. You know, if you had a degree from there, you could go audition for one of these bands and you could probably get in and you'd get a job. They give you a letter that guarantees you hope. You'll go through basic training and then you're gonna play guitar. And I got in this jazz band and it was a great learning experience for a couple of years. It was a big band that we generated a lot of our own music, arrangers in the group. Me included, wrote a lot of stuff for the band and so I played army issue electric guitar and went around to high schools, colleges, prisons, parks. That was what we did. But what's the purpose of that kind of music? If you're in the army, is it supposed to be, you know, a marching tune like Susa and you're supposed to get people marching down to the recruiters office? I have thought of that a whole lot and maybe if I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now versus, you know, where I was then, I might not have chosen that or I might have chosen more activist path. But at the time it was, I was feeling like I still had a lot to learn and there were great musicians that I knew that were doing just that. I thought, well, this can't be that terrible place to be. And I know it's a soft recruiting tool in a way to go out there and play. The band is out there playing. Well, we weren't going around saying join the army. We weren't going around saying war is a good thing. At the time, I talked to people who were conscientious objectors and said, well, how does that work? Do you think we just shouldn't have police or we shouldn't, you know, intellectual discussions like that? And I was at a place where I thought I believed that but I'd been told by people how difficult it was going to be to get a conscientious objector status or, you know, all the trouble you could go through. And here was maybe a little bit of a cop out, I guess, that here I'm going to be playing guitar or whatever it might have been that I'd end up doing music in the army. I knew I definitely didn't want to go, have to make the choice of killing people. So I was pretty clear about all of that. But I guess if I had maybe been around the right people, which I wasn't at the time, I might have done something differently. But, you know, I thought of it as a public service vehicle in a certain way. It changed my life in high school that the Boston Navy Yard Band and the Coast Guard Band came and played at my high school. And I remember being, I can still remember those concerts, that they were real professional musicians and it was exciting and it didn't make me want to join the army. I was a musician and I saw real musicians playing. So it was really this great education. And as I was going around to high schools, doing that with the army band, I thought we were doing the same. If we'd had to do, you know, a join the army and patriotic something, I might have felt differently about it. And I'm not opposed to the patriotic, but I've pondered about what was the music that Hitler was using to march the people off the war. You know, it definitely can be used that way. Music, art can be perverted into a tool for war and for hate. And a song could be telling us that we're the chosen few and so on and I'm not a singer of those songs. Well, what direction did you go? You got out of the army and somehow you got to a place where today I'd describe it as you've got a very spiritually based music for healing between people and with the earth. How did you get there from the army? Well, I got out of the army early to go back to school and I got a graduate assistantship to lead the jazz band and teach guitar as a grad assistant at University of Maryland. So I was back in the classical music world again and began to make a living by just playing music in nightclubs and playing in bar bands and all of that and played every different kind of music there too, which was good training. I even wrote some jingles and radio thing that played, did studio work mostly around Washington DC and just trying to be a professional musician. And in that time I was seeing this happen, that happen. There were big piece marches, you know, getting to see Peter Yarrow and Pete Seeger and Odetta and other folks like that. Those folks that influenced me a lot to, wow, this is exciting. I love what they're doing and they're expressing this stuff or singing those songs that I kind of knew from childhood or carrying on this tradition. I loved it and I decided that worked better for me. And at a certain point, there was actually a commercial, a political commercial that I could have been paid a lot of money to do the music for. And I actually just said, no, I can't do that. I'm not gonna help that cause. About what year are we talking about, 72 or three? And I was still, I'm old, but I was still a kid then. And I was starting to make the choices. This doesn't make sense to me. And post Vietnam, Watergate, all of that. I found it somewhat hard to live in the world. I knew other veterans that either had become rabid piece activists, educating for peace or other, at least one or two. I knew directly that we're struggled with being homeless or not working drug addiction, other stuff like that. 'Cause the army in that era was just dumping people out on the street. So I knew I had certain animosities to work out at that point about all of that. And drove me into writing some songs that were more activist and more outspoken. But it was actually the Paul Winter Concert. I, playing in bars and all of that. I kind of got rescued by the Paul Winter Concert. I had decided to go back to school and had enrolled at Berkeley College of Music in Boston. When I heard that Paul Winter was looking for a guitar player and I sent an audition tape and nothing happened. It was later that I actually got to meet him in person and we think struck up a connection right away. And I liked what we were doing. We were doing some music that had significance. Some social, political stuff, particularly about the earth. And Paul was at that time, I think, growing into doing much more environmental, ecological messages. And it's a good trick to get ecological messages into mostly instrumental music, where we did have the song Common Ground as the title song of an album. But that album had some songs and instrumental music of a number of different world cultures and then had the voices of animals. A wolf and a whale and an eagle. The wolf actually howls the melody that becomes the melody of the song. Or the whale melody becomes the melody of the song. So the animal is actually composing a bit of this piece. That was a mixture of songs and instrumentales. Though as we went on the Winter Consort did a lot of predominantly instrumental music. And I was still thinking I was a guitar player particularly. Though Paul did encourage me to sing more songs. And he'd say, sing that song about such and such. You know, go out and start the second set and just sing a solo song. That was fun. So he was really setting me up to get out on a stage with thousands of people and do that. And the song Common Ground sold a lot of albums and wasn't a single. But it was almost a hit song. You know, that is still something. I still love to sing it. Ivan Leince wrote the melody. Beautiful Samba tune. So that was, it wasn't my song. But it's sort of become my song over the years. Well, we probably should listen to it. Since it's one that you've been passing on to the world. The song is Common Ground. And it's by my guest for today's song of the soul, Jim Scott. Voices are calling round the earth. Music is rising in the sea. The spirit of morning fills the air. Diding my journey home. Where is the path beyond the forest? Where is the song I always knew? I remember it just around the land. In the village, the music never ends. In a circle of friends. In a circle of a sound. All our voices will make. When we touch, Common Ground. Somewhere is the melody we need. There is a certain harmony. Even a rhythm in the trees. In a song that we've always known. As every pro comes to its end. So every path must cross again. Now I'm returning to my heart. Now I'm returning to my heart. Back to the song that is our own. In a circle of friends. In a circle of a sound. All our voices will blend. When we touch, Common Ground. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Voices are calling around the earth. Music is rising in the sea. The spirit of mourning fills the air. Guiding my journey home. Here is the path beyond the forest. Here is the song I always knew. Remember it just around the bend. In the music of the village never end. In a circle of friends. In a circle of sound. All our voices will blend. When we touch, Common Ground. Music is rising. In a circle of friends. In a circle of sound. All our voices will blend. When we touch, Common Ground. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. This song for the Earth. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. Music is rising. That was Jim Scott, a song for the earth, one that he did back with the Paul Winter Concert Days and one that he still cares for with him. Jim, if people hear that song, what's the change that you would hope that they might do in their lives? I hope there are songs of mine that are more outspoken, I say, world saving, take your medicine kind of songs that maybe preach a little bit more, you know, we need to do this and so on. I think it's also important just to celebrate what is beautiful, what is amazing, what is fragile about this whole thing and a song that just holds up that beauty or celebrates that ideal is a better motivation than a harangue usually. And for me, a more timeless kind of thing. I have many friends of great songwriters that I know of that write topical songs and will even toss off a song that's good for a few months about something current and really contemporary and I don't do that too much. I think the songs are more long term philosophy and I don't have songs railing against the current administration or something that's more about human nature would be the way I would express the same thing. So I guess if they hear this song and they understand both something about the beauty of the earth, the living body that we live within and about our nature and how we deal with the other living beings that we come face to face with, I suppose that's one step towards getting us to, I guess, be accountable for our actions. You mentioned that you were inspired by Pete Seeger and like folks, people out there engaging with the audience, getting the audience to sing, putting words in their mouths maybe. Certainly environmental is kind of a safe, unifying issue where there are also things about the hot button issues of the day that you started singing out about, maybe peace and nuclear other things like that. Now that you mention all this, Pete Seeger certainly was an influence and one of the songs on our list here to cover is a song that I wrote after a rally that was in New York City where I saw Pete Seeger do the magic that he does and we actually played with him, some of the members of the Winter Concert at the time. He knows more about music than he lets on. He dashed off a quick little lead sheet to a song for us all and I kind of knew it but the other folks, the cellist and the oboist and the group, you know, oh that's the, okay, and they could play along with him but he'll talk like every man in such a wonderful way and he's got a song for just what ails you all the time. Oh, you need a song about that, okay, he can do that and I thought that particular day it was hot, we walked a long way up Riverside Drive into Riverside Church and I'd say, and it was New York, what can I say, I think a lot of the people were generally in a grumpy mood and it seemed that we needed the cheering up that Pete Seeger was able to do at that time and he lifted people up and I thought we need a song like a keep on keeping on song. I said in the song it says I know we all get tired, it was a rally about the nuclear plant just up the Hudson River from New York and safety issues about, you know, certainly some people saying we should just close it down, all of that and I thought we need a song that says still the sun will shine, the sun solar power is still the sun will shine long after those nuclear things are gone, those human things, still the sun will shine and don't worry, the winds and the tide will change just as the moon will surely turn from full to old to new to again, the pendulum swings keep on going, we can make the changes, so that's, it's got references to nuclear and toxic and other things like that in the song but a healing message I hope and I'll keep on keeping on as much as I said. Chemical miracles make their way to the mother's breast, but the fortunate inherit poisons while famine threatens all the red, oh there's so many people suffering back against the wall, sometimes it makes me wonder is there any hope for us all, but what I want to say to you tonight is just that I know we all get tired, sometimes you feel like giving up a fight and waiting for the world to expire, but still the sun will shine, and the winds and the tide will change just as the moon will surely turn from full to old to new again. They say it's just a peaceful atom, with energy that knows no season, yet the tiny plutonium particle takes another life without reason, no smoke rises from the cooling towers oh how can we make them see, that the promise of a greed fulfilled will not be had for free, but still the sun will shine, and the winds and the tide will change just as the moon will surely turn from full to old to new again. [Music] The rich devour the poor, for sure the strong believe they will survive, but what price to feel secure, and must it cost so many lives, all sorts and deflouches, but when we have the choice, we cry for peace, let me prepare for war, will no one hear our voice, but still the sun will shine, and the winds and the tide will change just as the moon will surely turn from full to old to new again, but still the sun will shine, and the winds and the tide will change just as the moon will surely turn from full to old to new again. [Music] That was Jim Scott's song, "Still the Sun Will Shine" and we can be thankful for that much of a promise, and it is hard when we get lost in all the mess that's around us and all that needs to be done in a kind of surprising way, it's healing to realize how powerless we are and that there are bigger forces at work. You're in the military, Jim, when you came out of the military did you want to sing peace songs right away, when did you transition to the point where you could be singing songs about peace? We sang peace songs in the military, and maybe it's worth mentioning, I said before, I really don't get on the subject of the army, that's ancient history for me now, but it was a learning experience to be in the army band, but the people I knew that were in the army around Washington DC, I didn't know anybody, that war war was a good thing, or even I didn't hear much of anything that was pro-Vietnam, as a matter of fact, most of the military people I knew said, oh it's a big mess, if you end up going there to take care of yourself. In the long run, there are people, and I admire them greatly, who are willing to do what they do for the cause of peace, or to be a policeman, or whatever that is, to be a warrior, I can admire that, but I didn't hear anybody say good stuff about that, and people weren't talking about the glory of it at all, I never heard anything like that, and certainly not the people I was around, many of us went to the big demonstrations in Washington, you just wear civilian clothes, you're still a US citizen, you're allowed to express yourself, we would be advised, you don't wear your army uniform down to the demonstration, but you're allowed to go on your off time, and I mention that because many people might not know that, it really was a pretty divisive time, I know families that were divided between the real peace-knit kid on one side, and the kid who goes into the military on the other side, and all kinds of good ideological arguments over the dinner table, I'm sure, things that divided families, and hate even is not out of the question there, and great misunderstanding, but almost anybody I knew, they're obviously for peace, maybe our methods are different, and that's the problem for me, is when we start talking about the goal of peace, people say, oh yeah, I agree with that, that's why we have the peacemaker missile, and what I've learned to put into my art now, and to put into my rap about it, is AJ Musti's famous saying there is no way to peace, but peace is the way, that peacemaker missile is not the way for me, the military now is not the military solution, the war solution is not the way for me now, the way is by starting with peace, the peace is the way, I had said to you before we started this interview, I took a long, it was a long journey to come from the rarefied atmosphere of a music school and all of that, to being a guy who was willing to just bring the guitar, to help be a cheerleader for peace for one thing or another, and I got enamored with that, I was so moved by the folks who went on the Great Peace March in 1986, and I don't want to claim that I was on the whole thing at all, but let's make sure we say that, I didn't go on the whole nine month walk across the United States, that was called the Great Peace March, but I was so taken by these people, when I met them, 650 people walked the whole way, 15, 20 miles a day, camping, going through town, cities, over mountains, deserts, you know, walking symbolically, of course they were support vehicles and all of that, but I played concerts a few times along the way for these people, and I was so taken, I had to walk some of the time, and so I wrote the song, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", walking down the street in Baltimore, one week before the end of the Great Peace March, walked from Los Angeles to Washington DC, back there in 1986, I was walking along with people who were singing old Beatles songs and other stuff, and there was, you know, the stretch to mile down the street, we don't all sing one song, this group is singing this, and this group is singing that, and songs move you along, and sometimes people are walking in silence too, of course, but a good four-four walking song was, this little mantra came to me, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, kind of like, ain't nothing but a party or something, you know, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", and the more I thought about it, it had a ring, not the goal of peace, you know, over yonder, after a while, over Jordan, you know, gone to live with Jesus, "Nothing But Peace", didn't have the word "now" in there, but "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", said that to me in a way, and then the verses evolved about, "We can't just do this once in a while, got to do it all the time", so it's a walking, a peace march song, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, said, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, "Well, I'm full of such mixed emotions right now", "I've got to say it to someone", "We've got to do this more than just holidays", "Got to be in a quarter-long run", for the long run, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", "Nothing But Peace Is Enough", for me, "I can weapons of war, be weapons of peace", "We are fighting in a different fashion", "We do our working for peace through strength", "But our strength is in our compassion", "In our compassion", "So the process of peace you take", "So the process by me", "So the process by me", "So the process of peace you take", "Well, the going is easy, the going is tough, but more of the world we are reaching", "To the makers of war, we say we've had enough", "It's only peace we are teaching", "We are teaching", "We are teaching", "We are teaching", "We are teaching", "We are teaching", "Nothing But 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good man Nothing but me Still good man Nothing but me Still good No No No I also tied that in with some real life experience with more than one person that I know that lives in this privileged wealthy country of the United States and lives in a war zone A war zone perhaps in their own mind or a war zone in their own family and so this song sings of that And the song is? The song is called "I Am Waiting" and we'll see it's not me waiting I'm playing a role I am waiting for Jim Scott I am waiting in the silence I am waiting for the dawn I am often found in reverence Though from many sources strong It is not mine to fight for justice For it will not be one this day I am peace and I am waiting For the lost to find their way You'll not find me set in judgment of the vain or of the weak But I rise to meet the weary with the solace that they seek Still I have not met the hungry Yours drew wealth among the poor I am peace and bring but mystery And the patience to endure I cannot save the suffering from their anger and their pain Only open doors of insight So the hearing comes again To the proud I am elusive To the humble I am near May the broken rise and look beyond The trappings of their fears I am found among the seasons All of death and spring's rebirth As we land less their momentum As the turning of the earth All are welcome in my presence For only love can tolerate I am peace and for the harvest I have planted and will wait That was I am waiting, Jim Scott's my guest here today For spirit and action And peace has been waiting a long time I wonder how many of our listeners know the old Greek play Lissa Strata 500 BC We are waiting for peace And certainly with the recent election Some of us have hopes that we are going to take another step closer to that Well I think we have time for one more song, Jim Where shall we go for our closing song? Well this is a bit of a folk process Stealing a piece from here and putting it together into a song Something I haven't really done that much But learning from Pete Seeger Who would take the words of this and put that with the melody of that And change it around even Beethoven Taking "Why did he take that folk song for the theme of the ninth symphony?" It wasn't something I had done, I just always thought Well I should just write a new thing But this just came to me kind of backwards What is the refrain of this song? Was a Russian melody that we'd done with the Paul Winter Consort And it's a Russian derivation, I'm not exactly sure about it But the words in English just bugged me They were not a complete sentence, they mixed singular and plural And they said "if" and then they never said "what?" after that So I just thought I have to fix that And then I got carried away And I like to say in a rush of irrational exuberance I added two verses to the song So that now that 16 bars of the Russian melody Is the refrain of the song And it kind of slipped from Russia to Brazil Not sure how that happened I believe the song when you were doing it with the concert Was "Him for the Russian Earth" What do you call your song? Yeah, we named it "Him for the Russian Earth" at that time Paul had made a trip to Russia And this Russian melody came to us I believe Susan Osborne brought the song And we learned it that day And just made a quick arrangement of the song So it was starting from that that it evolved And I've always loved the melody And now it's become half of my song Called "May your life be as a song" My wish for you as now we part Is for greater peace to fill your heart With dreams as vast as starry space So heard an anger no no place May truth be shared and wounds be healed And joy for living be revealed Through every fate and circumstance May whole bleed weary steps to dance And may your life be as a song Resounding with the dawn To sing awake the light Then softly serenade the stars Ever dancing circles in the night May fears be turned with keen insight To wisdom for what's just and right Where sorrow grows compassion strong And pains will pass before too long May the bounds of our diversity Serve a richer harmony May courage hold your hearts so true To smile on love when it smiles on you May your life be as a song Resounding with the dawn To sing awake the light Then softly serenade the stars Ever dancing circles in the night [music] May your life be as a song Resounding with the dawn To sing awake the light Then softly serenade the stars Ever dancing circles in the night May your life be as a song Resounding with the dawn To sing awake the light Then softly serenade the stars Ever dancing circles in the night May your life be as a song Resounding with the dawn To sing awake the light Then softly serenade the stars Ever dancing circles in the night [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] That was May your life be as a song Another wonderful song by Jim Scott And he's doing a concert at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation here in Eau Claire And you can look for him soon I'm going to have him back soon as a guest for my song of the soul I want to thank you so much for joining me and I want to free you to go over to perform another concert real soon Please come back soon, Jim Well, thanks, Mark. It's been a pleasure and let's head for the concert. Thank you That was my guest for today's Spirit in Action, Jim Scott And you can find out more about him on his site, JimScottMusic.com The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is Spirit in Action With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone With every voice, with every song We will move this world alone And our lives will feel the echo of our healing You