Joel and Luke from For King & Country have been pretty busy the last few years. Their latest album came out in 2014, with great songs like “Fix my Eyes,” “Shoulders,” and “Priceless.”
Since then, they’ve played more than 300 shows all across the globe. If that wasn’t enough, they also produced, directed, and starred in their own movie, Priceless.
But in this new year, Joel and Luke have a new message for their fans:
“There we were in the rolling hills of Kentucky, surrounded by nothing but trails and nature. My wife gave me a beautiful gift this Christmas – 3 days away at a silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani. It’s interesting, isn’t it, the idea of noise in everyday life? Here we found ourselves eating in silence, walking through the woods feeling the sunshine on our face a bit more, seeing the starkness of winter in front of us, hearing the breeze in our ears, with this absence of talking. And I had a bit of a revelation, that after 151 shows last year and 158 the year prior, filled with wonderful memories and moments seeing and meeting you, it’s still quite easy to lose yourself in it all. It’s easy to run away from the silence. And yet for 3 days, we found ourselves doing just the opposite – running into the quiet and embracing it.
If I have one resolution in 2017, it would be to dive headlong into the beauty of being still and realizing that it’s not the quantity of one’s actions or engagements or performances, but the quality of this life journey we’re all on.
We’re so pleased to ANNOUNCE that we’re in LA to officially begin writing and recording our new record! And with it, this truth is something I will take with me in every area of life and restoring. I hope in 2017 it will be something you will carry with you, as well. To be still and know that God is God, and that no matter what life brings us, success, failure, loss, or plenty, that it’s in the quiet moments, the still moments that we find the trueness of who we are.
I’ll leave us with a quote from Thomas Merton, one of the monks from the Abbey:
“There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act…”
Love to you,
Joel (& Luke)”
