It's been five years since Carolyn Arends last made a "regular" album, 1999's This Much I Understand, her final studio project with Reunion Records. Not that she's disappeared. There was a greatest hits CD (2000's Seize the Day and Other Stories), an all-acoustic album (2001's Travelers), and a parenthood project (2002's We've Been Waiting for You). And then there's parenting itself, an adventure that often causes Carolyn and husband Mark to consider the cost—to children Ben, 6, and Bethany, 3—of carrying on with her music career. Fortunately for fans, the award-winning singer/songwriter keeps making more music—including her latest independent project, the marvelous Under the Gaze. We caught up with Arends recently, and our conversation covered everything from the new album to balancing family and music, from her friendship with Rich Mullins to her fascination with Narnia—particularly one certain lion who is definitely not tame, but undeniably good.

What do you like most about being an independent artist?

Arends: I went indie because I was hoping to find a more family-friendly way to do this. Now I can set my own timetable without a whole company depending on the choices I make. That freedom is really nice.

Some artists quit music when starting a family. Did you think about it?

Arends: Actually, at least every Tuesday I think that! It's a constant evaluation. I love the music. But my kids are a greater passion, far more precious than the music. Trying to do both is an enormous challenge. Mark and I sit down every few months for kind of a state of the union address: Is this working? Do we need to tweak it? Are the kids paying too much of a price for it? I know they do pay a price, but there are also a lot of benefits. There's all this analysis and prayer and biting of nails. But we seem to have found a rhythm that works.

What does making music do for you, and for your listeners?

Arends: People have asked, "When were you called into music ministry?" I always say that I do it less because of a sense of calling and more because I can't help myself. It just seems to be hardwired into my DNA. This is how I process things, how I explore the world and especially my relationship with God.

And it does seem to be of some use in the kingdom. It's so cool to tell my own story and watch the way it intersects with other people's stories. It blows me away that something I write in my living room can become part of someone else's life. I've heard of people who play my music when their babies are born—talk about being invited onto some holy ground. Or people who say, "We used this song at my dad's funeral because of how it symbolized his life," or "We used this at our graduation." It just blows me away.

Let's talk about Under the Gaze. You do all of your own production now, right?

Arends: Yes. Under the Gaze is my seventh project, so hopefully I've started to figure out how to do this. I started out working with Brown Bannister, and if you're going to go to producer school, that's a good place to start. But I've learned over the years that somewhere inside is this little voice that knows if the musical choices you're making are right. When you're hunting for something, this little barometer inside will tell you when you get there. Sometimes you need another producer to help with that, or sometimes the straightest line is to just chase it yourself.

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.

On most tours, there's kind of a hierarchy. The first opening act gets a little bit of lights and a little bit of sound. The next act gets more lights and sound, then the headliner gets all the lights and all the sound. But Rich just didn't have the time of day for that kind of stuff. Everybody got the same thing. He came out every night, usually after having just had a run, kind of disheveled, and said, "Hey, everybody there's a girl name Carolyn Arends, and I want you to meet her." He just made it so easy for me. He was so selfless.

I thought the world of him. And I was a little bit scared of him. Yeah, he was intense, and he didn't hide how he felt about anything. There were some definite rough edges. But he truly was a man after God's own heart. He just honestly didn't have the energy to cover up the imperfect parts of himself while he was in that pursuit. And that really challenges me, because I think of all the energy I put into keeping a nice spin on things and covering up the things of myself I'm less than proud of. But Rich honestly didn't have time for that.

When you asked me if there were moments I didn't seize, I wish I had seized more moments with Rich before he died. But I can still see Rich's influence on me, both in terms of the way he did this thing called being a singer/songwriter, and also in terms of the way that he perceived God. I've sometimes had people tell me, "I see you as sort of a female Rich Mullins." That's a very big compliment to me. I would never say that's what I'm trying to do; I'm trying to do what Carolyn Arends is supposed to do. But if people see a link to Rich, that always feels good to me.

Your new song "Not a Tame Lion" is full of references to Narnia's Aslan. Was Narnia part of your life as a child?

Arends: Yes. I was a totally bookish kid. I read all the Narnia books, and what has stuck with me about Aslan is that line, "Of course he's not safe. He's not a tame lion. But he's good." I love that image for God.

When we talk about knowing God, there's a side that is revelation and a side that is mystery. I was raised on the revelation side—learning the things about God that are revealed to us in Scripture, in nature, and in each other. But there is also the mystery side. There are things we're not meant to know yet. There's that joke when somebody wants you to tell them a secret, and you say, "Well, I could, but then I'd have to kill you." So there are those things about God that would kill us, just because they are too wonderful—and we, in our present finite state, could not contain them.

C.S. Lewis really helped me not to be threatened by the mystery side of God. I grew up thinking I should understand it all. But Lewis was one of the people who helped me embrace the mystery side—like Paul in the Romans 11 doxology passage, where he says there's so much more. How great is it that God is unfathomable, and that there is so much more to come? That line in Narnia is just the perfect embodiment of those ideas, and representing that side of who God is. So, thank you, Lewis. Thanks, Clive Staples!

Under the Gaze is available at carolynarends.com. Arends will also soon release her first Christmas album, Christmas: An Irrational Season, also available on her website. For more information about Carolyn, including past interviews and reviews, you can also check out our artist page for her.

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