Dear Friends,

I hope this special message finds you in good spirits, despite the spiritually debilitating and degenerating world situation. This is a personal message from me to you about a personal matter which I hope you will take in the affectionate manner in which it is intended.

Every so often — very rarely, in fact — I create an update which focuses primarily on fundraising. Usually this is because of some necessity (or more than one) which has arisen, or because of the needs of a particular project. This time, it is both.  

The Diakrisis Project website is used to an increasing extent but very, very, rarely does anyone “drop me a cent”. That’s okay because those 18 books (available here: https://diakrisis-project.com/category/books/ ), and nearly 700 articles are freely given. In the last twelve months, there have accrued almost 29,000 views from 10,200 visitors from 77 countries. The figure goes up each year.  

As you may know, for my living I rely entirely on what used to be known as “patronage” (via donations or sponsorship) on a voluntary basis. The great composers, poets and artists of the world lived like this. It was considered the norm. Even Jesus and His inner circle of disciples lived from such patronage (Luke 8:1-3). I follow in those footsteps. Thankfully, each month my rent is paid and my weekly food bill gets covered by regular patronage. I am so very grateful for this. But it is the other expenses which can stretch things and for which I have to find extraordinary patronage, such as the gas bill, many software subscriptions, home internet, mobile phone, printer supplies, stationery, etc. I do not travel anymore. I do not drive a vehicle but I cycle everywhere. It’s free! I live a very frugal life, do not drink alcohol or smoke (obviously!), do not go out “on the town”, etc. Only occasionally I go out to a café where I can work in a different environment for a change. Anyway, without labo(u)ring this any longer, if you feel that you can make some contribution — however small — I would be very grateful. You can do this by clicking on the “PayPal Donate Now” button on this website where it gets processed as a donation (which involves less expenses) rather than a business transaction. Or you can use my PayPal email address, which is alan-morrison@outlook.com . Thank you in advance. But no pressure. This is all voluntary and I’m simply sharing to see what flies. It will be God who gives the increase or not, according to His will. 

That takes care of the ‘necessities’. Now to the project… 

As you may know, I have been moved (plus it has often been suggested during the last few years) to make another music album, the title of which is now “The Battle for Everyone’s Heart”, which seems more robust and is also the title of one of the proposed tracks. I have made three previous music albums between 2010 and 2016, all of which were produced in or near Stockholm, Sweden, where I lived off and on for a number of years, performing many concerts there, including at the Göta Lejon Theatre, the Södra Teatern, and also at the Malmö Festival. These were during a somewhat fallow spiritual period when I was going through much testing and questioning on a “bypass”, on the “outer ring road” of spirituality, after 25 years of studying, pastoring and running an online ministry. This “bypass”, this sojourn on an “outer ring-road”, had primarily been caused by disillusionment with the “churchianity” scene due to the large number of unpleasant, hard-hearted, mendacious characters I had encountered during a decade as a pastor, and then after that there was all the dishonest backbiting and outright lies which I encountered during my internet ministry from 2000-2010. I found the way back into “town” from that outer ring-road in 2017-2018 (when I wrote my 672-page spiritual autobiography “Narrow Gate ~ Pathway Strait”, and you can click on that title to go there) and since the last album in 2016 I have written around 200 songs. They are in a very different mould to my previous three albums, and a number of the tracks have returned to my more simple “folkie” roots. Lyrically, the 12 songs that I have chosen out of those 200 are essentially poems, many of which carry a strong spiritual core but some are also heavily focused on social justice, political hypocrisy/corruption, peace, self-awareness, personal sanctification (aka personal spiritual growth), anti-war messages, and the need to be a spiritual counterculture maverick in a mad, mad world (the song on the album, “Let’s Rock the Boat” openly expressing that very idea). Some of the songs are quite outspoken, but in a world such as this, one has to be.🙃

I see this album very much as an extension of what I write under the moniker “Diakrisis”. The songs are meant to be inspirational and profound and lend themselves to being in the backdrop of your life, resonating lyrically and verbally, as they are and do in mine. Thus, I would regard them as hymns of a sort and spiritual songs, along with being designed to encourage deeper thinking on many issues. It will be a book in musical form and I place as much importance on it as any other piece of literature that I have written. Music can operate at a level which is a layer deeper than literature.

Because I have determined that this will be my final musical statement in album form, and because of the nature of the songs — which are more intimate, intensely personal and demand engagement — I am planning to completely bypass physical media and give this 12-track album away digitally as a free gift to the world, accompanied by specially-designed album art, lyrics and credits in a PDF eBook.

I had thought of producing the album myself, recording it on my laptop, but after listening repeatedly through the 12 songs that I propose to put on there, I realise that they deserve far more than I could give to them in that medium. Some of them will need quite unusual arrangements if they are to be of maximum value. I have therefore been contacting local music producers (of which there are many as it is a very creative area) and I met with one last week, where I was able to get a ballpark figure idea of what the project would involve for recording, mixing and mastering, along with hiring musicians (some of whom apparently may be willing to play for free because of the nature of the album and the fact that it will be distributed as a gift). I am therefore currently trying to raise a budget and exploring creative means to cover the costs. I am no stranger to raising funds in this way, which I did for my previous albums except one which was funded by a label.

Anyway, if perchance you feel you would like to support this project in any way, please just let me know your intentions, so we can chat about them, but do not send anything yet, as I would prefer that any offerings went directly to those involved in the production rather than into my own personal financial channels.

I hope that you will give your consideration to the material that I have put forward in the above paragraphs. Regardless of that, I am deeply grateful for your presence in general and for your reading of my work and also of this message!

Love & Blessings from me,

Alan