Saturday, March 21, 1998

Trip to the Holy Land provides inspriation for author, singer

By Dave Ferman / Knight Ridder Newspapers

Some trinkets, presents for others, a lot of photos, maybe a little sunburn -- such are the things most people bring back from vacations.

When author Sigmund Brouwer and contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Cindy Morgan came back from their two-week trip to the Holy Land in June 1997, they carried their souvenirs inside them -- in the form of inspiration and, they say, a new understanding of the life and death of Jesus.

The couple, married since 1996, went home to Alberta, Canada, and worked. Sometimes Brouwer would come out of his library to show Morgan snippets of what he was writing; sometimes she would play him one of the songs she was composing.

In the end, three projects grew out of that visit: Morgan (the Gospel Music Association's New Artist of the Year in 1994) emerged with a CD, "The Loving Kind." And Brouwer, known for novels such as "Blood Ties" and "Double Helix," wrote two books: "The Weeping Chamber," a novel that looks at Simon of Cyrene (who briefly carried Jesus' cross), and "The Carpenter's Cloth," a collection of vignettes and essays.

All three projects concern the last eight days of Jesus' life.

"You read in the Scriptures that Jesus was a man of peace, who cared for the downtrodden," said Morgan, who has had numerous top 10 contemporary Christian singles and toured with Michael O'Brien, Petra and Steven Curtis Chapman. "Being there, it's just something you feel. It's so powerful."

Morgan had written about half the songs for "Kind" ny last spring. Brouwer, on the other hand, had done nothing to prepare for writing the books, although he knew he wanted to write a novel about Jesus' ministry in a way that people familiar with the story could appreciate.

"And when I woke up on the third day, I remember saying, ÔI've got it,' " he says. "I saw it in my mind: to compress the novel into the last eight days. It was so real."

Brouwer decided to tie in the story of Simon with the crucifixion because of the sense of mystery about him.

"In literary terms, we know so little about him," he said. "So we can speculate about his background. What would it do to a person to carry Jesus' cross? We all have burdens, and when we look to Jesus, it transforms us. I see a lot of Simon in all of us."

When they returned home, the songs and books came quickly; Brouwer worked on both books at once.

"As I'd write a scene in the novel, things would occur to me and suggest writing things in the other book," he said.

Hearing Morgan's songs, he said, "brought me to different emotions; they'd let me understand what I was writing at a different level." With Morgan, seeing the snippets of her husband's work in progress subtly altered her writing.

"His inspiration is different from mine," she said. "He has a different perspective on how things could have been and what it could have looked like."

In the end, "Kind" includes overview songs that look at Jesus' persecution and death, while stopping along the way to include several songs written from different perspectives. The title track is written as Peter addressing Jesus, and "Take My Life" is written from the perspective of Mary Magdalene.

"These were people we'd heard so much about, and we can relate to them," Morgan said. "I can relate to Peter and how he loved Jesus but turned away from him. And Mary was looking for unconditional love; there are so many people that feel they're not worthy of that."

Morgan and Brouwer are touring in support of the projects -- sometimes together, sometimes separately. The experience of being in the Holy Land, they agree, will forever affect them.

"In a lot of religious circles, the message of Jesus has been turned into codes and regulations," Morgan said. "But his teachings are really all about love. And that's what I walked away from the trip with."

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(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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