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Hello and welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. Thank you for listening. Now before we jump into today's conversation, Michael's hard at work this week at the apprentice gathering in Wichita, Kansas. And we hope to have some great news and conversations to share with you next week. But Michael actually sent me a text today and said that he ran into a woman at the conference from Chiang Mai Thailand, who's a big fan of the podcast and says that it has helped her spiritually while she serves in Asia. We'd love to know you're out there, especially those on the other side of the world. Hello Chiang Mai. If you're listening today, and the podcast has been a blessing, feel free to drop a comment or two in Apple podcast reviews, or send us an email at info at restoring the soul.com I'm excited to introduce today's conversation. As Michael spends time with a good friend, singer and songwriter and Nicola horn. It's been said that music in itself is healing. And if you have attended a surfing for God intensive weekend, you may be familiar with Andy's music, as he's been a guest an ally in restoring hearts, and his weapon is indeed a melody. But if you're not familiar with his music, we're going to kick off and close today's podcast with a few songs from Andy. In just a moment, you'll hear not too late from the album fault lines and will conclude with the secret from the album room to breathe. You can find Andy's music and all the usual places and if you'd like to learn more about him visit Andy Gullah horn.com You're so good. You can have the stone age's. falsework grumble keeps me up is only partly because I feel the tree no there is no inlet it's gonna take the listener to snap to snap to snatch snatch because big thank you oh yeah you don't need matches breakneck speed so you can see bridges snatch snatch snatch snatch snatch too Dad has a strong grip there's nothing like the power the head of God can bring that's how I can tell you with it ready to change your snare to for the truth this time It's not too late. For me, it's not too late for apology, not too late to complete, to face all the fallout. To understand grace is more than a concept, Julian is then up to the depths of where you are retracing your steps to what end goal of horn Welcome to restoring the soul, we're already chuckling before this starts, thanks for having me. Well, we've tried to do this a couple of times with false starts. And a couple of those have been face to face. And one was a technological failure on my part. But I'd like to just start by having you share a little bit about who you are and what you do as a songwriter. Yeah, originally a Texas boy and moved to Nashville 25 years ago, because I loved writing songs. And imagine that I would, I wanted to write songs for other people, so that they would go out and do all the work. And I would just get money in my mailbox. And then I wrote for publishing companies for a while and realize that nobody else is going to sing my songs. So I have the singer myself, and started traveling around and playing my own songs, and then realized that I really loved doing that. And I've been doing that ever since most of my time, is on the road, playing different shows or conferences, or retreats, or whatever. And I'll still write with other artists. And that pretty much takes up all my time. Well, that in my three kids and my wife, yeah, and you're, you're deeply committed to them, as I know, but you also spend a lot of time on weekends on the road. And you have kind of a unique focus, where you've performed in a lot of big venues, like Red Rocks, which is for many performers kind of a dream, but you also do a lot of smaller gigs. And you work a lot with retreats, and sometimes with different ministries around recovery. So tell me about that. And how that happened? Well, I think I don't know exactly how it started. I like to think it's, well, I would say my top demographic are our therapists. And I think the reason why therapists sometimes like my music is because I'm using their language because I've had to have a lot of therapy myself. So just gets infused into the songs. And so one therapist might hand it off to another and like, I think maybe you heard about my music throughout, maybe I don't, I don't even remember. Yeah, literally through al Andrews, and then through Nate Larkin. And then Ian cron, and I were having a conversation. He goes, dude, you need to you need to meet Andy cola horn, and then we finally met at the thalamic s conference. Oh, yeah, that's right. And so they're things like that, where? Well, number of people would say, Hey, I'm doing this conference, or I'm doing this retreat, and I was going to use one of your songs in the context of the retreat, but would you be interested in coming? And I always say yes. And started saying yes, a long time ago. And I find myself at a lot of retreats like like, the fabulous one that that you're part of there in Colorado, where I kind of go to play songs, but I love being in the recovery world and the therapeutic world. And it's good for me. And so playing songs just becomes a small part of it. I like participating. And so before I knew that I was doing a lot of things and in the recovery world or the therapy world. And I never had a five year plan for my music. I just figured I would write the songs that I'm writing and see what doors they open and then just kind of try to walk through them when they're open. And I never imagined there'd be like a addiction circuit. But I'm glad that I found it. Yeah, and in some ways, it's kind of under the radar where a lot of the concerts that you do and the performing they're not, you know these big publicly unannounced things like I get emails from different Christian promoters and things like that, where you know, the latest greatest person is that Marina. And again, although you've done some of that yours is more under the radar, which I think is really kind of cool. It's pretty fun. I think my music works better in a more intimate personal setting. And I also like being able to get to know people I'm playing songs for so that I know what to play. And so when most people look at my schedule, a lot of people will say, Oh, it looks like you're not doing much music anymore. Oh, my goodness, I've been traveling more than I ever have. It's just not. They're not normal shows that I would publicize and say you can come buy a ticket for. But I do love those those smaller, smaller places to play music, because hearing the stories, and getting to know people, and then playing sauce for them, it's just, it feels so much better to me. You mentioned that you played our weekend, the surfing for God, weekend intensive. And I think you've been there for maybe six of those weekends. And you are just a really, really crucial part of that. But there's not a week, or a couple of weeks that go by that myself or one of our therapists doesn't use one of your songs, or recommend one of your songs as an assignment. When people are here from day to day, just because you do really right to the heart of people and anybody's listening. And they're a therapist, a caregiver, spiritual director. And these music is is really profound for that. And with your permission before and after this interview, I want to play some clips of songs. Sure, as long as it's not stuff you've recorded on your phone. It makes me kind of feel like Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon saying, hey, and I think we have a clip here for the audience. But it's gonna be that kind of a thing. And I also want to say in terms of your involvement on the weekend, you know, you come and your brother and a colleague to myself, and so many of the staff that are there to serve people. And it's almost like a surprise when you do music. And it's always cool to see, when men will say, Oh, you know, this guy was just sitting having a conversation with me at dinner, or he was leading my group. And, you know, I didn't know that. It was Andy, Gullah horn, the singer songwriter, which is really fun, because you are somebody with a big impact in the music world. But you're just a normal guy. And that's the best thing about you. Well, thank you. Thanks for saying that. And I know that we're speaking about you being under the radar. But I also know that you have a lot of respect from musicians and songwriters in Nashville and around the country. Well, I mean, I guess that's debatable. Well, and if listeners could see the video that I'm watching right now, you're blushing, you've got, you've got this Aw, shucks kind of thing. I have been Nashville is a really great music community. And, you know, if you stick around long enough and try to write songs, that will stick around too, then you make some really good friends. I'm really grateful for that. He told me about how your first ever gig think you were 16 years old. If I remember the story correctly. You actually played with Willie Nelson. And you showed me a picture of it because I didn't believe it. It's a weird story. But I started playing guitar in high school. And learned pretty quickly because I played piano when I was when I was really little. So I had a musical background. And then just got the bug to play guitar in high school. And I learned a bunch of country music. That's all I listen to. So I could play a bunch of country songs. And there was a woman who used to work with my dad who had a country cover band that she was in. And they were playing some event at a fire hall outside of Austin. And she asked if I wanted to come play rhythm guitar, and I said sure. So that was my first gig and I went, and I was just playing acoustic guitar for all the country songs they're playing. But it was right by Willie's ranch. And it was his birthday. And he just walked out. We're playing in the kind of the garage or the fire hall and people were dancing in the driveway. And when he walked up, and he knew the lady who was a singer, and they asked him to play some songs, and he ended up playing for a very long time. And so then I was just there playing guitar with Willie Nelson. It was a great photo op. It was a lot of fun. And but it wasn't like I met him and we became friends. He would just tell me what key each song was in. And then at the end, I said thanks willing, he says thank you that Was it? What was it like, at that age first gig to be standing on a, you know, stage or floor with Willie Nelson. I mean, it's pretty cool. I felt that it was. It was a pretty cool thing. But I also knew Oh, man, it's gonna be all downhill from here. It's horrible. Yeah, it's all downhill from here. That's yeah. Yeah. You don't want to peak too soon. Yes. So that's really peaking too soon. We could go through a list of artists who after their their first gig, it went all downhill from the you know, one of the things I love about you, Andy, and I saw this from the very first moment we met face to face is that you have a very unorthodox way of kind of seeing life. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about your songwriting, is that you you, you see things and you can put words to things in a way that most people don't. But when they hear it, they go, oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's something I can relate to. But you know, you're a bowler, and you're a badminton player, very competitive one. And then you just, you just have different ways of responding to, for example, even Christian Fellowship. So tell me the story, what you've called before the High Five story, because I think this is a picture of just kind of how you do life. There's a friend of mine named Gabe Scott, who's also a musician. And he's been on this tour with me, they've been a part of for the last 17 years called Behold, the Lamb of God is Andrew Peterson. So wonderful singer songwriter. He started that 20 years ago. And so we'd be on the tour every December. And I'm kind of the activities director. It's not like a paid position. It's just that I like activities. And so I direct activities. And Gabe is also competitive and likes playing sports and that kind of thing. So we would always play games and sports throughout the whole tour. And then at the end of every tour, we would say, hey, we need to hang out more the rest of the year. And then we would go our separate ways. You'd be playing guitar for somebody, and I'd be on the road and we wouldn't see each other again for 11 months. And then we'd be sad that we didn't hang out the rest of the year. So after a number of years of making empty promises of hanging out, I just had this idea. One night at a party we were together, that he told me that he moved a mile and a half from my house. So I suggested that that was going to text him later that that week. And we would leave our houses at the same time and walk to the middle point and give each other a high five and then walk back home. And then I told him if we did that once a week for 10 years, then we could probably make it on our wife's favorite TV show, which was CBS Sunday Morning. And he was up for it. So we started that week, we just you know, on a Wednesday, I just texted him and we walked in the middle point is a park called severe Park here in Nashville, Tennessee. And we give each other high five and talk for like three hours then walk back home. And then we had to cut down the three hour talking time. But we've been doing that every week for about five and a half years. And it really has become some people laugh when I say this and I halfway laugh when I said it's become one of the more important spiritual disciplines in my life of walking for 30 minutes just to give this guy a high five and sometimes we'll talk sometimes we'll shoot baskets there at the park. It kind of four years ago, we we discovered that on Monday mornings at that park at the in the gym, they play badminton. So we had this 86 year old man teach us how to play badminton. And we've been playing it ever since. It's amazing to me how much that has transformed my life. Not only is he and my life a lot more now, when we see each other multiple times a week. Really just knowing that there's another person who literally walks through the snow sometimes, just to give you a high five. It doesn't make good in my life. So just to be clear, because you talked about how sometimes you'll shoot baskets or do bad metal and I like how you pronounce it with the end badminton, which is the pronunciation that sometimes are more often than not, you'll just walk for 30 minutes meet in the middle of this mile and a half. Give each other a high five and kind of turn around. Yeah, that's the silent high five, which I think the first time we did a silent High Five was maybe a month into it. When we discovered it takes a lot of time to walk 30 minutes and then talk for you know, two hours. So we were just too busy and said hey, I don't have time to talk But we devised this plan where we would get to the middle point and pass each other and walk 20 paces and turn around, and then give each other five and not say a word. And that one? Well, at least the first time, it felt like that was pointless walking there, I remember being really down on it on the way there thinking, why am I even doing this, this is stupid. There's no way I'm gonna do this for 10 years. And the whole point is to spend time with my friend and I don't get to spend any time with him, I'm just giving him a five and walking back home. And after giving him the five, I just felt I could feel immediately how purposeful it was. It's just the intention, and the showing up and showing up over and over again over a long period of time. And that's just a good example of the way that it's invaded my life. And I think in especially in terms of recovery, that's one of the most important things for me in my life, having kind of showing up again, and again, again, and again, over a long period of time. Just being consistent. Yeah, it makes me not to have to make it religious. But it makes me think of the whole idea of being faithful in small things. And now I can so easily underestimate how small things done again and again, really matter, especially relationally. Yeah, I mean, for me, I like to think I was always the kind of guy who would think oh, this is the kind of man that I want to be I want it wouldn't be awesome to have a story where I walked in gave a friend a high five every week for 10 years. But I can never get started and do it. Like, what that takes is actually the first week of walking mile and a half of doing it. And then the second week, and actually, I remember after we had we had a the first year we had a bunch of guys come and walk with me and some some guys walked with gave us kind of a celebration of the first year. Actually, our friend Kurt Thompson, was there for the first anniversary high five. I remember, the week after the year, I was like, Oh, man. Now nine years left, this is gonna be hard. So there definitely seasons where it's like, oh, I can't believe this is getting way harder to do. And now five and a half years it, it really just feels like it's part of my life. And you're right not to, you know, have to put a spiritual point on it. But it reminds me of I was in my mind, I always go back to this time, maybe 16 years ago, when I went to go see a spiritual director. I was going through a lot of hard things in my life. And I decided that because these hard things, I was ready to be a spiritual grown up. I always wanted to do things like have a quiet time or read the Bible or pray, you know, do things that real grown up to do. And I sucked at it really bad. And I went to the spiritual director who I loved. He reached out to me in the middle of this hard time said, Hey, would you like to come? Talk with me? And I was like, Well, I'd love to. And I went, and I expected to tell them, you know, everything that's going on in my life. And then for him to take me under his wing and make me a spiritual Jedi like he was. And so he listened to me say that I wanted to do all these, you know, spiritual disciplines. And after he listened to me, he said, Well, do you? Do you like reading? I said, No, I fall asleep. Every time I start reading. It's not just the Bible. It's everything. I just don't like reading. I can read. I'm literate, but I don't like. And then he said, Well, do you like getting up early in the morning? I said, No, I hate getting up early in the morning. That's why I'm a musician. And then he told me that his greatest spiritual discipline was walking his dog on the golf course because he loved walking his dog on the golf course. And so he just told me, you need to just find something that you really love to do. Like that really brings you joy, and trust that God will meet you there. No, don't do it the other way around. And I remember as a 20 something year old, I don't remember how old I was thinking that was just a cop out that I was going to, you know, decide that what I really love to do was, you know, play blackjack and God's gonna need to meet me there, which he told he could but you know, years later, with things like the high five I look back, and with badminton, it was my bowling league and these kinds of things. Those things really bring me joy and I see the way that God has met me there and has not just made my life better, but made me more interested in a deeper relationship with him. My guess is that you Don't spend that 30 minutes walking, thinking about God the whole time or that that's even your intention. But it's the act of doing it. That is a rhythm and a ritual that's meaningful. Totally. Totally. It just kind of seeps in. To me the spirituality just kind of, it's not Yeah, it's not an intentional, spiritual discipline like, oh, this morning, you know, I'm gonna do the sign of the cross and walk out the door, and, you know, pray the rosary, on the way to high five. It's just like, doing that. And the experience of it is spiritual, to me. And it's good for my soul. Which brings up this whole beautiful, wide topic of how everything is spiritual. And you mentioned Andrew Peterson, because of you, I was able to get his there's a book that I think Doug McKelvey is the name I'm looking over here. Yeah. And so Andrew and his rabbit room organization, Andrew wrote the preface to every moment holy. And all of our staff got that to go through for 2020. And Andrew, wrote this phrase, in the preface, where he said, there are no unsafe sacred places, only sacred places and desecrated places. And the walk is sacred, It's spiritual. Definitely. It also reminds me of our relationship with God, where over the last several years, more and more of my prayer life, when I said, I don't really have much of a prayer life has deepened through silence, and through not saying anything. So when you talk about the walk, and then the silent high five, in particular, that, that God is there giving us the high five, whether we're performing or doing anything, you know, profoundly spiritual, as we might typically think of that. And that oftentimes, the most intimate kind of thing is silence. I found that to be the case, for me, I mean, even thinking about going to that spiritual director, years ago, I think that the kind of relationship with God that I was longing for, and I thought I would get by, you know, checking off the boxes of having a quiet time in this way, or whatever I learned from, you know, Christian camps growing up. I feel like I have, I'm closer to that end, not end result, but like, kind of a real experience in relationship with God. And it didn't come from any of those things. For me. It came from participating in what's happening in my life and trying to walk through life. Awake, not sleep walking. But also Yeah, you're right, the silence the walk, the 30 minutes of walk there and back. Sometimes I might be thinking about something in particular. But just being there, and being in my body, and doing something that love or playing badminton for two hours, that's just, you know, he's there to, and it brings joy. I love how you mentioned being in your body, you know, walking badminton, there are physical, and we're both learning. And we've talked about this about how spirituality really is embodied. Yeah, I mean, definitely, that has definitely been my experience, because especially coming from a place where I felt like anything spiritual is just what I think, or what I say. And moving away from that, to a more embodied version of it, it also kind of takes the pressure of controlling my spirituality out of my hands. What do you mean by controlling your spirituality? I think that's important. I think as Oh, if I think these right, theological thoughts, or if I say the right prayers, or if there's some way for me to figure out mentally, how to get from point A to point B, whether that's, I mean, closer to God, which I don't, I don't even know exactly what that means. But it's kind of, to me, it's a surrendering of figuring out, as one of the things I love about the 12 steps is accepting that my thinking is broken. And so I can participate in something that's already happening. And I can surrender versus trying to, you know, where it's all about me trying to figure it out or have the right thoughts or, or have the right words. I can just move out of my head. Not Not that, like, you're my mind has nothing to do with it. But it's not all in my head. Yeah, that it actually becomes experience. Hey, before we wrap up, I want to come back to what you said about being awake. That's a big word for you. That's a word that I've used more and more in terms of my growth and trying to learn what it means to be a relatively healthy human. What does it mean for you to be awake? And to wake up? And why is that important? First of all, from a songwriting standpoint, which is what I love to do, and what I feel like, in some ways, I'm put here on earth to do. Talking to songwriters, one of the biggest pieces of advice or things I would say is, the job of a songwriter is to not sleepwalk through the world. So from a songwriting standpoint, it's just paying attention to the conversations around me and, and looking for, whether it's watching TV, or hearing conversations, walking down the street, listening for the conversations for something that might be for me, in there that I can phrase, it would stand out, and I can say, oh, that I really liked that phrase, I wonder if I can turn it this way or use it, you know, if I was gonna write a song about that, what would it be? So just always looking for lines for songs, just kind of walking through the world, always paying attention. But then outside of the songwriting world, that's what it is. It's like, it's an expectation that there's something for me here and what I'm doing, whether that's, you know, at church, or at a retreat, or bowling, or whatever it is, it's just this, trying to walk through life with with an expectation, there's something for me here, that that I'm looking for. And if I want it happens, or I experience it, it's going to change me. So yeah, that's the blocking kind of being aware is, you know, it's not like, I'm actually just vegging out or something like that. But to me, the opposite of being aware, or what sleepwalking would look like is just to assume that there's nothing for me here, I'm just going to go through the motions with zero expectation of being changed by what I'm doing. I love that. It's more than just that Sleepwalking is depressed or numb. But it's really about awareness and attentiveness. And then as you talk about, that, there's something for you, it's this anticipation and expectation of receiving good things. I experienced that every time. I'm on restoring the soul searching for God weekend, where, you know, I've been there a few times before, I know, kind of what happens there. Every time. It's like, the first time kind of going with the expectation that who knows what it's going to be? I don't know what it's gonna be. Yeah, it could be a conversation with somebody else on staff, or somebody who's attending the weekend. God always shows up, and to kind of, I get really excited about that, just kind of showing up, like, I don't know what it's going to be, but it's going to be something. There's something for me here, and I'm going to be part of something. And there's just an excitement to it. That's cool. Well, I I want to be more that way. And that's one of the reasons I enjoy being about you being with you is I want to be more like that. So we need to wrap up and I can't wait to see you in about five weeks in Colorado. Thank you for the gift that you bring to the world of music and songwriting. And Andy Gullah horn.com As your website tells all about your music, but thanks for your time today brother. Thank you back when Charlie was a boy somebody with a long list of unwritten so he dad for you carry the life silver dog in the park cried out force broom to breathe. What is prayer just darkness was like rain far too. Early to grow. Roos kept digging deeper to wrap their arms around his soul. I love that secret that boss became a myth he was too strong surrounded by a wife and friends knew everything about him because the truth was that double edged sword someone else's new is friends with Listen buddy knows that they could understand the way the secret and the man on the sidewalk is a single blade of grass from filing me when that Greg became Kenyan was was passed upon of coverage so we're known for familiar place to char is said the series is freedom was hammered to a dark room walk through see new carrier secrets to the grave was impossible to do. Secrets carry so thank you for listening to another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. What we're all about is helping couples and individuals get unstuck. You know how some people go to counseling or marriage therapy for months or even years and never really get anywhere? are intensive programs help clients get unstuck in as little as two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com