Tag: mourning

Americana, Children, Country Music, Death, Family, Folk, folk music, Gary Furr music, Grief, hope, Memory, Music, Songwriting, spirituality, Story, Theology, Theology and Life, Tragedy3 Comments

From Here to Okay

Gary Furr

This song speaks for itself. It came to me during the summer. The hook was a quote from a news story at a disaster scene, but my mind was on people I loved and knew who lost children. Their stories are the most courageous I have ever met. That they still have any faith at all after such losses is perhaps the closest to real miracles we ever see. It’s such a long, hard road. In my vocation I traipse alongside unimaginable losses, but children are the hardest from my perspective. It is the loss of love so intense, the … Continue reading From Here to Okay

America, Culture, Death, death, Family, Family, Grief, hope, Theology, Theology and Life, Vestavia HIlls Baptist Church2 Comments

Memorial Day

Gary Furr

On Monday, Memorial Day 2007, Vickie and I went to American Village to attend the Gold Star Memorial Service in the chapel for fallen servicemen and women who have died since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have begun.  I went because my friend Marynell Winslow, with whom I collaborated on a song about her fallen son Ryan (which many of you heard last November when she and George came to our church on a Wednesday evening around Veteran’s Day).  It was sung beautifully at the beginning of the service by a talented young soloist from Nashville. Later, family members … Continue reading Memorial Day

Calling, Christianity, church, Citizenship, Covid-19, Death, Faith, fear, Grief, Hope, humanity, pandemic, Sickness and Health, spirituality, Theology2 Comments

The Grief Among Us

Gary Furr

  My daughter is an executive coach and a counselor and sent me an article this week in the Harvard Business Review titled, “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief,” by Scott Berinato. It is well worth reading because it connects to something around the edges of this pandemic that we bypass in the adrenaline rush to survive and find answers. Meanwhile, fear and panic, the threats of economic ruin and the very real terror of possibly passing a disease on unwittingly to others has weighed on us all. Business owners who were riding a wave of prosperity a short time … Continue reading The Grief Among Us