Iona Calls it Quits

Around the time I turned 40, I was despairing of being able to find truly satisfying contemporary music to listen to. I had been listening to (mostly) rock for three decades, and was finding both new and old rock music increasingly unbearable, both musically and, especially, lyrically. Sometime during the autumn of 2000, I stumbled across an interview with Rick Wakeman where he was asked what his favorite Christian band was. He answered that his favorite band at that point, without qualification, was Iona. I thought that was a pretty good recommendation,...

Raphael’s Journey

Music loving Pro-lifers might want to check out the latest solo album from Iona’s Joanne Hogg, entitled Raphael’s Journey. For those not familiar with Ms. Hogg, she is an angelic-voiced Irish beauty who has been the lead vocalist for the Contemporary Christian band Iona since its inception in 1989. Iona falls into more or less the same genre as bands like Clannad or Eden’s Bridge: playing ethereal, Irish-flavored pop, mixing traditional instruments and themes into the standard rock band ensemble. But when Iona rocks, which is not infrequent, they rock wi...

More Hope, Less Stress: Better Living

Today was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. I’ve been fittingly pensive and reflective lately, almost to the point of feeling haunted. This is a time of year that used to fill me with energy, but these days seems more likely to leave me thinking about lost opportunities. I became starkly aware last night, while driving downtown to teach my CCD class, of how short a fuse I was on, and how much stress I was feeling. That’s not a good thing for me, and I quickly had to coax myself back off the ledge. Thinking about how to go about lowering my stress ...