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Still, making an album is such a collaborative process. I could never do it by myself. It's all about the collaboration, the musicians you bring in. Being in the studio might be my favorite part of the whole process. It's like a coal miner with the hat and the light, just chipping away at all the junk until you find diamonds. That's so fun.

What's the thinking behind the title, Under the Gaze?

Arends One enduring theme in my music is the idea that you can't compartmentalize life. All of it belongs to God, and what we do with it is our gift back to God. There is no detail that he's outside of. I have to keep remembering to see all of life that way and not create these little compartments, the things I think God is privy to and the things he's not—or the things that should matter and the things that don't. It all matters; it's all sacred.

For some people, depending on their perception of God, the word gaze feels like "scrutiny" or "glare." But I think of it as a really warm image, like gazing into someone's eyes, or a lover's gaze—though I'm not casting my relationship with God in those romantic colors. But it's just this idea that he wants to watch over us, all the time, forever. That's the kind of affection he has for us, and, to me, that's just a massive idea. And so I finally sat down and wrote that song, and it almost instantly felt to me like, Okay, this is what this album is. It's all under his gaze.

And that thought gave me a green light to explore anything I want on the record, because it is all sacred. It gave me freedom to go a lot of different places—even musically. So if I want to go bluegrassy over here, I can. If I want to be springy piano-ey over there, I can. It's all part of it. It's all sacred.

The opening song, "This Is the Moment," reminds me of "Seize the Day," probably your most popular song ever. Are you the type of person who seizes every moment?

Arends That's another theme I keep coming back to in my music, the thought that if God is in every moment, then every moment is precious. We can't sleepwalk through life. We've got to realize what a gift every day is. I think I keep coming back to that theme because I'm kind of lousy at it. I've always been a daydreamer, kind of missing what's going on around me. But I'm trying to challenge myself on that all the time, especially with my kids, to be here, now, with them. I know that's kind of a New Agey kind of phrase: "Be here now." But it's true. I have to constantly remind myself, Come on, pay attention. This stuff right now is the gold.

Yeah, there have been missed opportunities—chances to know a friend better that I've taken a bye on, and then regretted it, and other situations where I should have gone for it and didn't. There's an actual spiritual discipline of remembering your death. That sounds morbid, but I don't think it is. I think that remembering that we're just here for a little while is a great way to recognize that these aren't minutes we get to spend casually.

That truth really hit home when your friend Rich Mullins was killed in a car crash in 1997. You mention Rich in the new song, "Great Cloud of Witnesses." Tell me about your friendship with him.

Arends: I was a big fan way before I knew him. So when it was time to sign my record deal, I had three offers, but I went with Reunion because Rich was there. On my first record, we asked him to play hammered dulcimer on "The Power of Love." He came by, and he was just so unpolished and down to earth and real—and a little bit scary in his unpolishedness. But I was just thrilled to have him there. And then I was offered to be the first opener on the tour with him and Ashley Cleveland. I thought about that for 1.2 nanoseconds and said, "Okay!" I did a ten-week tour with them, 53 cities in ten weeks.

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