Real Blogging

Look at me doing real time blogging...

Today I packed up my car and dog and drove up to Boulder where I got a hair cut and checked out a cool new coffee shop on Pearl Street. I fixed some broken links in the online store and did some last minute correspondence, then went to my chiropractor, Dr. Zach, who I miss now that I live two hours south of Boulder. Then I had a great house concert with my friends Chris and Esther Cummings...super fun. Esther made chocolate covered strawberries, hummus, and spice cake among other yummy things. People from the neighborhood made up the majority of the group. I left Neve (my great dane) with the Cummings, and am crashing at my dad's house. Tomorrow morning I fly out of Denver and will spend the day getting to Princeton where I'll work with some other artist before the start of Envision!

Life is good...for those of you who knew I was having some health problems a month ago, I am doing really well. I did a yoga intensive/nutrition program post-tour, and learned a ton. Now I just have to figure out how to maintain everything while I travel. I did learn I have quite a few food allergies. Oh well...step by step...and I found really yummy gluten-free cookies at Whole Foods that I am packing on this trip.

Store Updated!

Good news friends! We have redesigned the store...or rather, we have received some incredible help from a friend. So, the store now utilizes a shopping cart, allowing you to combine multiple CD's, or digital AND physical in a single purchase. AND, you can use Google, Paypal, or credit cards to pay! I hope this makes it easier for everyone to purchase here (we do get a much larger percentage when you buy at restorationvillage.com) and please refer your friends!

Tracy Invited to Present at Envision 08!

As I mentioned before, I definitely want to unpack the fullness of the Spring tour a little bit more before plowing into the next thing, but this is really exciting. Envision is a gathering at Princeton of some amazing people, some I have met, some I have not. I met a woman named Lisa Harper at one of the last EMC gathering, hosted by the Latino Leadership Circle in the Bronx. Lisa heads up New York Faith and Justice and also is facilitating the creative teams at Envision. So, I was thrilled she invited me to be part and share some songs in the plenary sessions. If you're curious, check out the website. If you are a college student, you can apply to receive credit for attending! More to come...

The End of Tour

Well, we made it through. Actually, we not only made it, but we grew and saw hope. It was incredible. And as we parted ways after our last event together in Goshen, there was a bit of celebration, a bit of sadness, and lot’s of hugs. Of course I realize this doesn’t bookmark the end of some big event, but maybe it is an exhale. I (Tracy) practice Bikram yoga. It is a series of postures with rest in between each posture. Some of the postures are quite challenging and get the muscles twitching. However, exercise scientist have studied the body and found it is actually working the hardest and gaining the most benefit from the practice during the resting periods of the last two postures. In other words, if you don’t rest, you don’t get all of the benefits!

Brian, Linnea, Eric and I were talking about this over milkshakes in Goshen. We all want to reap the benefits, and hope others do as well. For those of you who caught one of the gatherings, do not forget to go to everythingmustchange.org and start adding content. For those of you who don’t know about the site, it won’t be officially launched until the fall, but it is just some of the fruit that has come from the relationships and connections during this tour.

There is rumor we might be doing a few Everything Must Change events in 2009…If you think your community might want to host, please contact Linnea Nilsen-Capshaw at info@deepshift.org. Thank you all who participated! I will be posting some deeper and much more detailed reports and thoughts on the tour, but wanted to at least start here. Brian posted some thoughts as well on his website, brianmclaren.net.

The Work of the People

This film was created by Travis Reed, a film and friend maker. Travis and I spoke by phone and found we have some very dear mutual friends in Brazil. This video was actually shot in Curitiba, Brazil. Dago Scheilin, a friend and fellow musician also did some of the video work and Claudio Oliver, who is speaking in the video, is also a friend and teacher. We are delighted we got to collaborate through Travis's work and friendship. The song in the video is "Come Out" from the new EP, Fill the Fields. Travis has used some other material from me in videos as well. You can check out all his work and resources at www.theworkofthepeople.com.

Reflections on the "Everything Must Change" Tour

When I started the tour, I had big plans to stay balanced, journal regularly, do my little yoga routine every day in the hotels, not over eat, and email on the planes. It wasn’t a complete loss…I did manage to go on walks regularly, and I kept up with a few friends, and I made a lot of new friends. But things never quite work out the way you plan.

It’s not just that the schedule gets twisted into the unexpected…like when you have to stay overnight at the Dallas airport because of a snow storm…in March. Or, when communication goes haywire with the local musicians and they show up ten minutes before the whole things starts. No, it wasn’t just the schedule that twisted into the unexpected, it was also the marvelous finding of friendship, and the deepening of mysterious things; Jesus.

The single biggest thing I notice…my heart seems to have grown in its capacity to love people. This is not to be confused with the capacity to do more things and visit more people in the course of a year…but my heart has expanded in its capacity to love. That is, I believe I love people more deeply. I care about people more than I did before. I’m interested in an individual’s story more than I was before. And it wasn’t any one thing…it was a transformation that transpired over a journey, with people that included joy and hard work, hearing really hard stories, and being inspired by really hopeful things, and Jesus. I’m especially grateful for Pam and Roger and Thai food in Florida…and Jay and Rick and Salmon in San Diego, Greg, the Aussie who walked around Green Lake with me in Seattle while it rained, and Vince, the dirty gospel piano player who added kindness and soul to the gathering in the Bronx.

When you’re heart expands for other people, frustration in your own life seems to dwindle. I have a great life, a wonderful life. But I have more dreams that have yet to begin. Different parts of my heart, that have laid dormant for a season, were re-ignited. The wonderful thing is that the flame added a different kind of passion to the work I have felt called to all along…I see there is more, it goes deeper, I am called to greater sacrifice, and the hope is more powerful than I believed.

And songs…there are new songs flowing out of my life, and songs that have yet to form. And I feel more encouraged than ever to be a songwriter…I am a songwriter. And I am interested in the music of peace movements and the music that flows out of and catalyzes transformation. I am interested in the songs other people write. I am excited to be a songwriter.


Each gathering was broken into five sessions. The over arching question was, “what does the message of Jesus have to do with global crises?” The Saturday morning session started us off by considering “which Jesus” we believe in. Brian gave a wonderful teaching about Jesus taking the disciples to Cesarea Philipi and then asking them “Who do you say I am?” He dug into the reality of the disciples to help us understand more fully what they might have meant when they used the words they did. He exegeted different passages and compared them to commonly known Roman inscriptions of the day. It was wonderful. We started on one list…and nearly everyone could identify with one or several of the following:

The Cute Baby Jesus
The Warrior Jesus
The Private, Personal Jesus
The Prosperity Jesus
The Fire Escape Jesus
The Second-Coming Killer Jesus
The Institutionalized Jesus

And as he spoke and shared, we moved towards one single answer for who Jesus is:

The liberating king who healed the sick, released people from the oppression of evil spirits, gave sight to the blind, gave hearing to the deaf, fed people for free, brought peace and calm to a turbulent storm, gave life to the dead, healed a paralyzed hand, empowered the lame to walk, included the excluded, confronted the hypocrites, turned the tables, died on Caesar’s cross, rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit.

It was the kind of message and Truth that continues to grow…so that even on the tenth time I heard the story…I was brought to tears. And I knew things were changing in me, or deepening.

So, for those of you, my friends, who try to keep up with me, I just say thank you. It was a great many different things that led me to this last season and I am so grateful. And, thanks to the team…Brian, Linnea and Eric, and so many other volunteers that I met along the way. Thank you to you, my friends. Shalom. -Tracy

Here is a link to Brian's Reflections

Here are some links to people who blogged during the events in different cities:

Eli Renner blogged in Charlotte

Jeremy Del Rio in The Bronx

Compassion Plug

Hi all. Tour is still moving full force. I've been under the weather for several days. I thought I would take the opportunity to update the blog. I've been wanting to plug Compassion International for awhile online. I've been sponsoring children for eight years and it's amazing. I've had the opportunity to visit one, Allison in Bolivia as well. I used to advocate regularly for compassion during concerts, and now am happy there are more online resources. This is a beautiful video Compassion put together, and if you want to meet some children right now who you can be in relationship with and help, click HERE. Blessings, Tracy