“Our Shalom” was born in the busy summer of 2009. Summer is always crazy for us with 8 weeks of camps stacked back to back. We usually have a day or 2 in between each camp to drive to Nashville and do laundry and rush to the next group. This particular weekend we were staying at the same location in North Carolina for 2 weeks back to back. Conor Farley at Centricity emailed and said he had scheduled a writing appointment in Nashville that Saturday afternoon with Stu Garrard (Stu G).
I’ve been a fan of Christian music for long before I was ever a writer and have watched Stu G’s work as guitar player for the band Delirious for years. I drove the 5 hours to Nashville, had 2 hours to write with Stu and drove 5 hours back to North Carolina. Needless to say, that experience in the middle of what is already an intense summer schedule left me scattered and ill prepared for creative output.
When Stu and I got together on couches in the Centricity offices we started by passing some ideas back and forth. I was desperately scanning my writing journal for song ideas and found some notes I had scribbled down while listening to drummer/producer Paul Mabury speak at a writer’s retreat earlier in the Spring. In a vain attempt to convince us to quit trying so hard to impress the world with our talent, Paul had given us a rabbinical definition of the Hebrew idea of peace, shalom: nothing missing, nothing broken. I was struck by the simple symmetry of the idea, perfect peace, nothing missing, nothing broken.
The idea seemed to resonate with Stu and as he began to lazily strum the acoustic in his hands these words melted over me. What I needed most in those frantic days was BIGGER than peaceful circumstances. I needed, we need, an eternal peace that is evidenced by wholeness, not threatened by chaos, and always resulting in unhindered praise of the One who is our Perfect Peace, Our Shalom.