Music is a universal language  

With music you can transform your thoughts, your hopes, sadness, happiness, success and love into the world. There is so much you can project with music.

Music connects the artist with the audience, in turn connecting different cultures, religions, old and young, sick and healthy. Every style of music is like a beautiful pallet of colors an artist uses to paint his masterpiece. Whereas no color or brush stroke on a canvas can be missed, no note of music or word can be missed when an artist sings. Quite often songs are a mirror of what defines us as artists. Praise and worship songs bring to a religious service another level of feeling. It can heighten our emotions making us feel even closer to our God. I know that when you are in a venue that brings together people from different places and different cultures, music has the ability to transcend the boundaries of our differences. When I sing in an arena in front of many, I sometimes think about all who are out there in the audience and how I want to reach and touch every one of them. I know that sometimes, and actually very often, we do not know who is standing next to us, and we think it does not matter because we have come to enjoy the music.

But think about how after one song, we all become united as one. This effect and this miracle is what enriches my desire to always want to be able to bring people from all walks of life together. Music is such an important art fortouching and uniting us.

I know that a song can follow us the whole day; even our whole life. Who has not gotten a song stuck in their head? I know that when we fall in love, we will remember a song that was part of the start of that relationship. Music touches our soul and for many of us is part of the fabric of our lives.

But music is also only as good as the lyrics for the message we artists want to convey. They can be constructive or they can be damaging. We have to take responsibility for the messages we bring to people. We have to always consider the impact we are creating.

Everyone has a right to bring whatever message they like. Yes, we do have a right to be heard but not when it reduces the value of another human being. No one has this right. We have no right to dis-empower another. Remember, what we bring to our children we also bring to our society. We should aspire to create things of beauty  that carry a lasting positive value for our world. 

For myself, I prefer to be remembered for the good and beneficial contributions I en-devour to bring into this world, and that I have effectually ministered life, love and encouragement to others.   Music is a universal language - let's turn guns into guitars. Let's stand united for positive changes like we do for those moments we stand together for music. Let's make this world a better place to live for everyone.