TJ Hirst

Read Part I in this series.

Even on the ordinary days of Courtney King Walker’s life, her creative side comes out. Creativity helps her discover how to organize her life, get chores done or help her children. She creates in the garden and in the kitchen. And she creates music.

Music is definitely the most creative part for me—playing songs that come from the heart. There’s creative parts of me that I can’t explain. It’s coming from the Spirit, the connection to God. All of my songs are something I feel strongly about. They are unique, personal thoughts that come out of trying to understand the world around me.

When she reads the scriptures, she receives a powerful feeling about Jesus Christ and how He loves little children. Her LDS perspective shows her that babies are perfect and do not need baptism as infants. Christ’s invitation in the New Testament of the Bible and in the Book of Mormon to bring the little children unto Him became the basis for her song, Little Hands, Little Feet.

Listen to it here:

Little Hands, Little Feet, copyright 2001 by Courtney King Walker, all rights reserved.

I thought of the little children as His allies. I have a hard time believing that the little children didn’t feel his divinity. He always called them to Him. They were always following Him and wanting to go with Him. I can just imagine these little connections happening.

The little children in the song follow Christ through his earthly ministry and to his crucifixion. Courtney wrote and recorded this song at the same time as His Eyes. Courtney plays the piano and Jill Thompson and Linda Stewart sing vocals. One of the most touching parts is when they sing about Christ’s resurrection:

Then the sun shined His light
and awoke the world from night.
As we wiped the tears from our weeping eyes,
we looked for a sign.

Little Hands, little feet, they did say.
He is gone away, despite your faith,
But then He stopped and He looked my way

“The children knew he was alive more than the adults,” Courtney said about these words. “And He answers the silence, ‘Come Unto Me.’ “

The repetition of the words “Come Unto Me” invite all who listen—not just the children—to come unto Christ. Originally, she titled the song Come Unto Me, but her friend and vocalist, Jill Thompson, convinced her that the title should be Little Hands, Little Feet.

The little hands and little feet of four children fill the Walker home. In raising them she has learned the need to balance songwriting with mothering so that neither suffers.

Writing music is something that takes patience and quiet. I have to let my barriers down and let the Spirit guide me. With babies you have to stop for a time. Right now is the season for children. I can’t get the good inspiration I need for writing music or being a mom if they are in conflict.

She remembered an experience when she was in the process of writing a song. It was the middle of the day and her children were around her at the piano, wanting to play along with her. She felt frustration toward them and realized, “If I am yelling at my children to write a spiritual song, I am missing the point.”

So, she lives her life in sequential phases. For some time she was in a creating phase when she wrote a lot of music. She composed primarily at a keyboard for several hours in the evening when she could be alone and quiet. She put on headphones to tune everything out except the spiritual connection she was seeking. In that way, she took what was in her head and expressed herself.

For now, she has written the words she needs to say, and she’s moved into a new phase in which she is taking it in, learning and absorbing. She is grateful for her roles beyond songwriter as woman, wife and mother to find ways day-to-day to apply that continuing creativity.

Fulfilling The Desire to Create is Part II in a series from an interview with Courtney Walker. Read Part I here. TJ will publish more of Courtney’s words and songs in Everyday Biography, next Wednesday, July 16. Little Hands, Little Feet is copyrighted by Courtney King Walker, 2001, and downloads may not be sold or used without permission. You may contact Courtney by email at walkerfamily5 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Ingenuity: n. 1. Inventive skill or imagination; cleverness. 2. Imaginative and clever design or construction.

Our home sits on unique triangular-shaped, one-acre lot with a steep hill and undeveloped forest. We chose it because we could position the house up high to take in the views but also enjoy the trees. We built the home right at the front of that pie shape and left the woods natural.

When we were at my parent’s farm, Grandpa loved showing us his planned projects to improve their property. We also took a short hike through a state park that everyone loved.

When we returned home, I wondered aloud with my 11-year-old son, NH, if he wanted to build a hiking trail through our forest to a fire pit/campsite and make a nature loop back to the house.

He’s nurturing that idea as his own summer project with research on the Internet, sketches and notes the site plan, and initial marking of where the trail will go. I love to see his mind catch hold of this idea and know that he is old enough and skilled enough to carry it through with our help. Now, he’s the leader on this one, and we will post his progress along the way.

My 9-year-old daughter’s story of the fish—or something—that got away:

I was fishing on my grandparent’s pond, off the dock. I swung my fishing pull into the pond. I was pulling it back in very slowly. Suddenly I felt a very strong tug, and it kept going all over the place. I was going to let go of my rod. My sister tried to help me, but she couldn’t. It was too strong. My grandma came to help me, too. It felt really heavy, and we saw a creature swimming at the end under the water. When finally we pulled it in, the hook and the bait had been taken off!

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

I am busy reading and writing toward better eating habits, even while I am away visiting at my parent’s family farm. How are you doing on the June Reading Challenge to be more aware of what and how much you eat?

Now that I recognize and record what I am eating, I need a little push to change what I eat. At lunch I read the serving size for baby carrots and realized I would need to eat 10 carrots. While that would only equal 40 calories, in my mind that was a lot of chewing. I put five on my plate. So, now, I introduce the third challenge in my healthy eating plan for June:

Eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables per day for one week.

This challenge is inspired by my children’s participation in the Dole 5 A Day Live show in Mrs. Vanvickle’s 3rd-grade class at Lowell Elementary School. Each of my three children starred in this eat your fruits and vegetables skit as Bobby Banana, a salad sister or an announcer. The catchy songs (we even sing them together at home) and presentation motivate me every time I see it to really try to eat my five fruits and vegetables.

You can listen to the Salad Sisters singing from the salad factory here.

Eating 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day provides a variety of health benefits. Fruits and vegetable are rich in vitamin C, vitamin A, fiber and other nutrients and contain hundreds of phytochemicals. Along with physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight, eating 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day promotes good health and reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
Dole 5 A Day Facts

The Dole Food Company is a founding member of the National “5 A Day for Better Health Program” and its 5 A Day website has some great printable resources for families, including a 5 A Day Challenge Chart, which I am going to use to track my progress.

Do you want to Try It With Me?

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

Our neighbors borrowed our three children and took them
for the Minnesota version of an after-dinner drive.
And here’s what they saw:

Loons, the Minnesota state bird

Inchworms that blow off when the boat goes fast

And another loon.