Lowana.

Today in my teenage angst, I declare myself as Lowana's biggest fan. This is my friend Lowana Porter and her husband Steve. She also goes by Lowana Wallace but that's when she's being a rock star. I came to know Lowana when I was eighteen, through her music. Her first album consists of epic songs of piano and voice, penned by her hand. At a certain point in my life, these songs were more than affective and changed my perspective of the world. A couple years later I began to attend the college that she was employed at. It was a little like working at the coffee shop your favorite movie actor frequents. You see him and serve him and try to stay cool but all the while you're secretly fawning in admiration. A couple years after that, my mom became her boss. A step in the right direction. Then I got a job next to her desk. Because my mom is awesome, we would mostly talk about her. Then we started talking about school. Then I told her I knew all her songs and secretly loved her. She was awkwardly flattered but didn't dwell on it. 

Over the past three years we've become really good friends. We have a lot in common. We love Wes Anderson, Feist and CBC Radio. We like to drink wine and watch Seinfeld and talk about the frustrating complexities of what God has called us to do.

This is Lowana's little boy Felix Ignatius. Lowana and Steve have awesome tastes in baby names. He is about as awesome as his mom with a lot of his dad's awesome mixed in. He's another big part of our relationship. Or at least he has been for the past year as that's how old he is. He just had his first picture taken with Santa. It's awesome. The best part about Lowana and Felix is the reality of their relationship. Lowana's graciously allowed me to see the difficulties of motherhood while also enabling me to be a part of the joy of God's creation in Felix. This is a pretty big gift that I hope to take with me into my own motherhood someday. 

Like I said, Lowana is a rockstar. She has two albums. They are amazing. One is songs based on her life and spiritual experiences. Her musicality had incredible depth, as does her lyricism. Then she put out a Christmas album which is a compilation of fun arrangements of Christmas carols and hymns. Both of the albums are available on cdbaby and iTunes. Click for the First album and the Christmas album. I highly recommend them. And if you got iTunes gift cards for Christmas like I did, you're all set! 

At the beginning of December, Lowana did a concert and some guys made a video. My friend Chris engineered this. He has some pretty mad skills. Here's this video. It's so fun. I love it. AND, Lowana, I love you. Thanks for being so wonderful. 

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