Keep the Faith

Dear Music Family,

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my last few newsletters have all followed a theme. The stories and pictures that I’ve shared with you have been framing the various aspects of the work that I do as musician, storyteller, and cultural ambassador. I started by telling you about the beginnings of my folk music career and how that journey has connected me to people throughout history in the building of community. Next I wrote about my work in schools as an educator, teaching students and staff about the Underground Railroad, the Modern Civil Right Movement, and how music informs and inspires our lives in the present day. The most recent newsletter highlighted the work I’m doing with Greg Greenway helping audiences face the challenges of race and diversity with Deeper Than the Skin.

I thank you for taking this journey with me, and I’m so grateful for your support both in your comments when we meet and for inviting me into your communities as we all work to make our world more as we believe it should be. Looking back at these posts, one word seems to rise that connects and encompasses them all, and that word is FAITH.

Not faith in the sense that drove my mother to take us to church on every possible opportunity in my childhood years (over the protests and whining of my sister and I), but faith in the sense of HOPE. It comes as no surprise to those of you who know me that the work I do is deeply rooted in the history and the spirit of the songs I write and the songs that I choose to sing.

One of my great joys is to be invited into churches, synagogues, and faith gatherings across religious lines. I love doing concerts, delivering sermons, leading workshops, and seeking connections through music that encourage dialogue and hope.

After so many of these gatherings, people come up and say, “I feel inspired, I feel some hope. But what can I do?” I often share the words of theologian Howard Thurman, who said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

For me, music is the source of life and hope. It is my gift and it brings me alive day after day. It’s the gift that I’m blessed to share with you.

In peace, love, and hope,

Reggie