Sandy and Elsie and I stayed at Holden Village for a very snowy week in February, 2015 for the Snowdance Film Festival. Ash Wednesday fell halfway through the festival, and we boarded the bus to return home after a beautiful First Sunday in Lent service. Elsie and I had joined the choir for the week, so we'd been fully immersed in Lenten music, and I was so moved by the beauty and simplicity of the Lenten music at Holden, that  I wrote For Heaven’s Sake during the first days upon our coming home to Seattle.

I returned to Holden the very next weekend for a Folk Music Festival, with this brand new song tearing at my soul. I joined a songwriter's workshop on the last morning of that festival and I shared my freshly-written song to that small group of musicians. I'm still surprised at myself for introducing the song to them, as it is such a personal song, more of a prayer than a hymn. It felt right though. We were sitting in  Koinonia, in the space where so much soulful Lenten music had washed over me in the recent weeks. We had a conversation afterwards that leaned toward the technicalities of song writing, but several comments still stand out in memory of people who were moved by the piece itself.

I’ve sung it in church once more to date, during our Good Friday evening service a few years ago at First Covenant Seattle. The service consisted of a series of readings and musical pieces alternating along the path towards the cross. I sang For Heaven’s Sake, alone with guitar, to several dozen of my dearest family and friends toward the end of that solemn journey. It was dark and quiet and holy, with candles burning. As I was singing, it felt as if I'd entered into a prayer.

~ Christopher Brown

A note regarding the photography on this page: all of the images originate from one iPhone snap I took from the gallery at Saint Mark's Cathedral, in Seattle, where I currently serve as videographer.