NOTE: This book has been revised to include 5 new songs since it was originally compiled in 2015. It was reproduced under that name of SONGS BY A DIVINE NATURIST CHRISTIAN in 2018. This book is available, but the author suggests ordering the revised and updated version. Francis William Bessler calls himself a divine naturalist, reflecting his firm belief God is in all things and all people. From this simple but profound premise, it follows God is present in all of us. We are all divine-but some of us don't know it just yet.
Joyful Happy Sounds! is a collection of 197 songs written over the course of a lifetime. Bessler's compilation includes songs written for Master of Your Own Fate and Feeling Free, two self-published cassette collections of commentary and music from the 1980s. Additionally, Joyful Happy Sounds! includes lyrics from Summer Town, a musical screenplay Bessler wrote centered on a fictional town of divine naturalists.
Bessler's lyrics reveal a fascination with the divine, nature, and the simple pleasure of living. The songwriter is unafraid to challenge traditional religious notions, including the demand that faith be independent of understanding and Jesus was a Jewish messiah. Bessler's thoughts on sin and divine judgment are equally thought-provoking.
But Joyful Happy Sounds! doesn't only contain theological arguments. Bessler's songs are a celebration of life-and a rousing declaration of humanity's divinity. These are, indeed, songs of joy and happiness.
About the Author: Francis William Bessler was born on December 3, 1941, the seventh of Leo and Clara Bessler's eight children. He was raised Roman Catholic on a small farm outside Powell, Wyoming.
Bessler spent six years studying for the Catholic ministry, beginning with Latin studies at St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, in 1960. He then entered St. Thomas Seminary in the fall of 1960.
Bessler loved his seminary years, but in the spring of 1966, the Rector of St. Thomas, one Father Danagher, told the young man his thinking "was not that of a Catholic priest." Bessler's dogma professor went further, labeling him a heretic for insisting faith must be subject to understanding-a belief Bessler maintains to this day.
More information about Bessler and his life is available at www.una-bella-vita.com. Father Danagher was right, but that doesn't mean Bessler's insistence that faith requires understanding is wrong.
