Monthly Archives: December 2022

By Davya Flaharty & Matthew Hammond

Davya’s Great Uncle Howard invited us to sing at his active retirement community in Vacaville (SW of Sacramento). He sweetly purchased a dozen poinsettias which decorated the top of the baby grand piano in the dining room where we were to set up for the concert. Uncle Howard and his fellow residents seemed quite excited that we came!

On arrival, one of the guests began to belt out Amazing Grace.  How did she know it was a part of our set list?  What an awesome way to be welcomed! Matthew has his own version of Amazing Grace that he composed on the piano. It will be on our upcoming duet album Love Only Grows (which you can pre-order here).  Of course, this time around we knew we had to sing the original version of Amazing Grace on guitar first so our audience could sing along with us. They had already proven themselves to be a vocally robust group. We followed it up with Matthew’s version so they could hear a very different version. Matthew likes to make the point that there is always room for new melodies that breathe depth and soul into the older songs and hymns. We can’t wait for you to hear our duet version we recorded in St. Louis with Matthew on piano and a gorgeous string quartet arrangement by Peter Stevens. It is so powerful! 

The rest of our set list included most of the songs from the Love Only Grows album plus a few of the latest songs that we’ve composed together with some of our Hymn Writing Workshop participants from this past August . The biggest hits among these recent compositions were The Sustaining Infinite and Let Go, Let God  (you can hear our latest versions that we recorded with Karen and Dale in Dallas right here) These songs have very catchy refrains that you can sing like a favorite prayer over and over again. The residents caught on quickly and sang along with such gusto! We could tell they were very grateful for the Christian elements of our repertoire.

It’s our hope that with every concert and hymn sing, our audience feels the presence of the divine in the music that we sing TOGETHER, not just with each other as a duo, but with everyone who joins us in this form of musical communion. We’re quite clear that it is not our aim to perform or even entertain. We’re here to be a creative and inspiring reminder; our music a catalyst that re-opens hearts and minds to God’s tender love for each and every one of us. Each of us is a vessel for Divine Love if we allow ourselves to be.  

With this in mind, our mission statement for our Love Only Grows Music Ministry has been refined to reflect this:

Our mission is to share the transformative power of singing our prayers together — to reach sincere seekers of Truth wherever they are and support them in rediscovering their wholeness.

Amen!

by Matthew Hammond

When Davya and I first conceptualized the November Love Only Grows Tour in California, we wanted to make sure our music was being shared and experienced by a wide array of spiritual thinkers and seekers. How perfect that our very first concert in California was at an inter-faith meditation center nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. 

Inner Path Yoga & Meditation Center in Nevada City offered a meaningful music space on a cool, crisp Friday evening on November 11th, a national holiday.  Known as Veterans Day in the United States, it is known elsewhere in the English-speaking world as Remembrance Day, where on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month back in 1918, the guns fell silent after 4 brutal years of relentless fighting. At this moment in history — 11 am on November 11th — peace finally won the day. An armistice was declared and with it came a long overdue end to the awful conflagration that in future years became known as World War I.  Here we are now, 100 years later, and 11/11 has been transformed into a day of not only commemorating those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice of their mortal lives, but also a day celebrating our devotion to more peaceful ways of living and being in this world and the unity of all brothers and sisters within the human family. 

With the significance of 11/11/22 firmly in heart and mind, Davya and I were joined by the luminous singer-songwriter and healer, Suzanne Mikula, to offer songs and spoken verses devoted to the underlying, essential unity of all humankind as children of the One Creator. Wherever we travel to sing and share our music ministry, we love sharing the stage with local musicians. These amazing women and men are the troubadours and healers rooted in the local scene that we’re blessed enough to visit for a brief moment in time. We’d be missing out if we didn’t find a way to collaborate and share that synergy with the community. In fact, we feel as compelled to support these artists and their essential work as anyone else that we’re called to serve.

Suzanne not only has the voice of an angel, she writes gorgeous melodies that you will catch yourself singing over and over again. On the afternoon of the 11th,  we had only a few hours to rehearse with Suzanne and prepare for the evening concert. It felt so seamless the way our three voices blended together — as if we had been singing together for far longer. This is the way that Divine Love works, isn’t it? When it’s meant to be — “where two or more are gathered…” — there is a natural synergy. You come to realize that harmony is the rule, not the exception in all of existence. Harmony is the Law of the Universe, and without it, not one iota of creation, including us, could exist. When you embrace this truth as an actual state of being rather than just a pleasant sounding metaphor, your life begins to open and expand into the expression of wholeness and unconditional love it was meant to be. Speaking of being in harmony with the Cosmos, here is our warm-up session before the concert singing to one of my piano instrumentals I use for vocal tuning.

We had a rather ambitious 19-song set list planned. With original songs such as This Moment, Love Only Grows (the title song of our upcoming album and the name of our music ministry), Let Go / Let God, The Sustaining Infinite, O Dreamer, A Love Song like You, Amazing Grace (with a new, original melody) and I Am Loved (Suzanne’s latest, greatest song), there was a definite theme of “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” ( 1 John 4:16) With this as our foundation, how can we not deepen our sense of unity with our fellow offspring? In the words of Paul, “For in Him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’” (Acts 17: 28)

I’ll leave you with one, final capstone to this notion — the reality of our being, actually — that our unity as fellow offspring of God is forever intact and indivisible. Mary Baker Eddy had much to say about this topic, including this revolutionary statement: “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfills the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;'” (Science and Health: p.340)  Can I have an Amen! 

Thank you Nevada City for your soul and beauty and for the distinction of being our first concert date in the Golden State. Thank you Suzanne Mikula for your hospitality and grace and for lending your transcendent voice to our Love Only Grows ensemble!

For those of you who have never been to Nevada City, it’s one of the historic centers of the California Gold Rush and one of the most charming towns you will find in all of California. While I spent half a day with my family in Sacramento (my wife Elizabeth and our 3 children lived there between 2015-2020), Davya and our Love Only Grows co-managers Karen and Dale McMullen had a chance to watch the Hallmark movie The Christmas Card, which was filmed in Nevada City. It’s a sweet story about a soldier serving in Afghanistan (speaking of Veteran’s Day on 11/11!) who receives an anonymous Christmas card that helps him get through the rest of his time overseas. He visits the town where the card was sent from and — spoiler alert — coincidently meets the woman who wrote the letter. You may be tempted to write it off as a “sentimental Hallmark film,” but each of us has at some time in our lives experienced this kind of serendipity. In fact, we at Love Only Grows believe wholeheartedly in following the “still, small voice” of Divine Mind that leads us exactly where we need to go next. So, with that in mind, you may want to add The Christmas Card to your Christmas movie watch list. At the very least, you’ll get a good cinematic tour of the picturesque town that hosted us on the first stop of our California Tour.