An Award for Contemporary Christian Song!

An Award for Living Waters!

Yes, Living Waters has won the 2017 Radio Music Award for "Best Contemporary Christian Song", for our recent song, "Do What He Tells You to Do". It is given out by the Indie Music Channel in LA, and our song got featured on their site as a result of this. We qualified for the award, because our song was played on Adoration Radio and some other small stations. One person - one whom I happen to deeply respect! - said he listened to it 15 times in a row! Guess it's good. Here it is on YouTube and Spotify



Do What He Tells You to Do on "Alive Again" EP - Spotify

Peace & Love & JOY!
Mark LaJOIE!

The Great Mercury Chill: A Faith Story!

The Great Mercury Chill: A Faith Story!

This is just an example of a '70 Marauder; mine is long gone!

The big early chill we are going through around here has brought to mind an amazing faith story that happened to me that bears re-telling. It involves not only low mercury, but a Mercury...the car.

Back in 1983 I was driving around my first car. It was big, bright red boat of a car, a 1970 Mercury Marauder; it had a 390 V8 engine that guzzled gas at probably less than 10 miles per gallon. The wooden bumper fell off in the street in Natick, so, up in Maine, my dad made a new one from mill steel; he had to rig struts going up to the middle of the vehicle because the whole back was so rotted out there was nothing to attach to. Well! That bumper was something! If anyone had rear-ended me with that steel bumper? they would have totalled their car!

This was back in the days when Living Waters was in full concert swing, but before we had moved into the 505 Pleasant band house. I was working at the detox in those days (plus many other endeavors!). It was Christmas Eve, and I decided to drive home to see my mother in Augusta, Maine. (I probably had a back seat full of dirty laundry! Bad boy.) I was going to leave detox in the evening and drive straight through. One problem: it had gone deadly cold! The temp had gone many degrees below zero, plus more from the wind-chill. But, I didn't give it a thought and set out. By the time I got to the Maine Turnpike, there was absolutely NO ONE on the road except me. (It was only later I figured everyone had been strongly warned NOT to go out. It was one of the coldest nights in history!) After awhile, the engine started to lurch and whine. It would slow down, stutter, speed up again and act erratically. Pumping the accelerator did nothing to help. [By the way, the explanation for this is that the gas line was FREEZING SOLID!!] I began to feel an immense fear. If I stalled, I knew it was so cold that I would die very quickly. And, as I said, there was not a soul anywhere.

I began to pray urgently for help from my guardian angel. (I've said for years I must have several big fat guardian angels looking out for me! I really should have been dead several times.) I remember calculating how far it was to the next rest stop in Gardiner, and it was too far for me to make it. But, suddenly, I was there pulling in. I pulled right up to the gas station and stalled out for good there! The guys in the gas station had to use a blowtorch to thaw out the generator so they could give me a start and fill me up. I ran it for a good while and then made it all right the next short distance to Augusta. I really believe some special angelic help saved my life there, or so it would seem.

Now, here' s the rest of the story! Many years later, I used to read stories to my students from the book "Where Angels Walk" by Joan Wester Anderson:

For years, I read the story in the book by the author about her son's angel encounter that led here to write the book in the first place. Her son was driving home Christmas Eve with a buddy when the car started to stall, chug & surge in the freezing cold. It totally died, and then a tow truck came out of nowhere and brought them to his friend's house, without leaving a trace, not even tire marks. Well, believe it or not, I never made the connection between this and what happened to me until many years of reading the story. Finally, I said, 'wait a minute! that's what happened to me!'. Well, at last, it occurred to me that what happened to her son took place on December 24, 1983, the very same night I had experienced the very same sort of thing! That really validated her story in my mind, let me tell you!

So, if things get really dangerously cold in your heart and life, ask the Good God and his angels to help you warm up...and come alive!

Peace & Love & JOY,

Mark LaJOIE! of Living Waters

https://www.reverbnation.com/livingwaters/song/18794218-song-of-love-rough-demo

https://www.reverbnation.com/livingwaters/song/21697149-alive-again

Giving Thanks Through Teaching and Song!

Giving Thanks Through Teaching and Song

by Mark Lajoie, Theology Teacher
(An article for "Guertin Pride" about Mark)

“Thanksgiving”. That word means so much to me, as to faith, as to my band, and as to my school.

When I was a teen, I was such a sad case in so many ways, but the Lord saw my poverty and reached out to me in my need. Our Mother, Mary, and her Rosary saved my life and gave me joy and a purpose in faith & music, mostly through a young group of friends who became my band and my faith family, Living Waters. (I also became an academic who loved research, learning, and teaching.) Here is a song that Mike and I wrote together, around the summer of ’78, in which the ‘thanksgiving’ just poured out of me. Click to listen: “Song of Love”. Many years of great music, faith, and friendship followed.

I continued to grow and experience so much! As time went on, I got married to Julia from the band, had kids and, late in the game, I began to teach Theology to high school kids, which seemed so perfect for me. Then, in 1999, I lost my job and most everything, and we had to leave the place where we were living immediately, with nowhere to go and a newborn baby! The mover we contracted to store our stuff took one look at our stuff and drove away, leaving us in an impossible quandary. I called my best friend in the band, Chuck Rossignol; within an hour, almost the whole band family showed up with two moving vans and moved our stuff into WHY storage in Nashua and got us set up at the Residence Inn in Merrimack! You cannot buy friendship like that; I am forever grateful for this kind of love they have always shown. Every Thanksgiving I truly celebrate how many blessings like this we have received from this group!

Around this time, I interviewed at Bishop Guertin and I was amazed at how active the service club and campus ministry was, how alive the spirit was, how perfectly the Brothers seemed to fit my own background and temperament. I prayed and prayed I could get in there – and the Lord heard my plea! I was SO happy and thankful! I told everybody that I felt I had ‘landed POW! right in a pot of jam’! I got up at the Faculty Meeting in the A/V Room and said ‘I LOVE this place!!. (Coach Mac used to make fun of me for this, but I would just say, ‘well, it’s TRUE’. It STILL is true!) It has been over 18 years and I know how blessed I am to be here. Here is a recent song I wrote to express this! Do What He Tells You to Do Video

This all fits our Catholic faith here at BG. A sacrifice of thanksgiving is what Abraham sought, the bread & wine offered by Melkizedek. Eucharist means, “thanksgiving” or “Good Gift”. We could not get a better gift than our Risen Lord truly present with us at Mass and in our life of faith and charity. I have been able to experience this fully in my band and in the wonderful school known as Bishop Guertin High School!

My band gave a song to Pope John Paul II, and, in recent years, we have won awards, thrived on line and worked on new recordings. You can read some of the stories of our band on our official blog AND you can listen to the music we have produced for over 40 years on Spotify and other streaming services. Here are some links below!

Living Waters Blog

Living Waters on Spotify

Living Waters on ReverbNation

My most recent work: Light of the World DEMO