Category Archives: Inspiration

Work in Progress: ‘More of You’

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One of the songs I’ve been working on over the last month or so finally took its first baby steps this week. The half-chorus I had now has its second part (I think):

More of you, less of me
That’s the way it ought to be.
Fill me Holy Spirit, let me be your light,
shining like a candle in this cold, dark night.

Atticus 2007
Atticus at about a year old, taking some baby steps 🙂

Aww…

Really, though, they’re just like babies in many ways, “my” songs. 😀

I’m very attached to them, very sensitive about them, and very protective over them just like I am my babies.

And I’ve also come to know more and more that they aren’t my own production.

While my babies came to me via God and man, my songs are pure gifts from God (no matter how I’ve distorted them in the past by not acknowledging their origin or seeking to retain their original value).

I think the main inspiration for this piece of a song came from what our priest, Father Charles Breindel, said was his chosen Bible verse, John 3:30:

“He must increase; I must decrease.”

Kevin’s brought it up many times since, especially when I’ve been in a whiny mood. 🙂

(And I promise to send the audio as soon as I figure out my WiFi issue… It’s really sweet, sweet like I used to avoid like crazy.)

UPDATE:
Wow. 2010. It’s been five years, but I’m adding a recording of this sweet little chorus.

I found this file when I was sending all of my Voice Record files to Dropbox, so I’d have room to record an interview for my grad class, so it’s probably not the one from way back then, but who knows. I’m not sure why Voice Record made it into a video (MP4); maybe I did something wrong. Regardless, it plays. 😉

And…I haven’t made any further progress on it, but I still sing it a whole lot in the car (which is probably where all of the background noise in this recording is coming from).

Poem: With a Thousand Smiles

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I used to avoid rhyme in my poems like cliché. 😀 Not anymore.

monarch
Creative Commons License photo credit: jay~dee

With a Thousand Smiles

I sat staring through the window: The cars and trucks raced past,
beyond the still, familiar, near: the bush, the trees, the grass.

Just then, I saw a butterfly that made me think of you.
It fluttered ’round the sticker bush, and back again, it flew.

Its yellow path was crooked; its plan and aim, obscure.
There was no smoothness in its flight; its jerks and sputters blurred.

For all their fragile beauty, I thought, butterflies could not compare
to the hawks I saw this morning, circling so high up in the air.

In grace and form and line, soaring, the hawk is beauty defined.
And when I think of hawk, a hookéd beak is not what comes to mind.

Just then, that yellow butterfly flew behind the bush, out of sight
And, to spite me, angled upward to the sky in fast, straight flight.

© 2010 Jo Hawke

My husband, the hero :)

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Letter from lady about Kevin fixing her tire

The Piedmont Shopper letter from the lady whose tire Kevin changed. 🙂

About a month or so ago, Kevin dropped me off at school like he normally does on the mornings he doesn’t work (so we can spend just a few more minutes together…aww…), and before he got down Central Blvd. a bit, he’d passed a minivan with a Sacred Heart School (our church’s school) sticker on it and a lady sitting by herself inside it.

He couldn’t just let that lady sit there, he said, and no one else was stopping. So he made his way around a few cloverleafs and pulled in behind her. The tire was busted, so he offered to change it and wouldn’t accept any money for doing so. His good deed for the day…

Well, he hadn’t gone a fraction of a mile before he noticed another vehicle stopped on the other side of the street, its tire blown, as well. An older lady was in this one, and nobody was stopping. Well, what do you think he did? Yep, he pulled around again and changed her tire too!

He told me later (when he called to let me know what had happened, so I wouldn’t worry in case anyone told me they’d seen our van on the side of the road…aww…) that he thought he might have to get mean with this lady because she didn’t want to take “no” for an answer in the giving-him-money-for-his-time-and-all department. But she finally did. And, on a side note that proves the title of this post even further, Kevin asked me not to tell anyone about this when he called. He said he didn’t do it for the fame. I, of course, told him I couldn’t agree to that. 😉

Okay, so flash forward a few weeks. Donna, a science teacher at my school posted on my Facebook wall, wanting to know if my husband was the one the lady had written the letter about. I had no idea what this was about, so Donna posted a link to the local Piedmont Shopper and told me what page to look on. There it was: A Kind Deed. 🙂

Here’s the text, in case for some reason you can’t read the image:

A Kind Deed

Recently, as I was returning home, a tire blew out just as I was leaving Riverside Drive and entering 86 S. I sat there for 10-15 minutes attempting to reach someone (by phone) to assist me. Many cars just zoomed past me.

Then a nice young man stopped and asked if he could help me. He changed the tire and absolutely refused to accept any money stating that he would not be a Christian if he had passed me by knowing that he could help.

Thank you, Kevin Hawke [sp fix], for your kind deed. There should be more like you.

Bobbi Renn

Thank you, Mrs. Renn, for taking the time to share this story with everyone who reads it. I pray that it will inspire others to spread kindness wherever and whenever they can. 🙂