Yes, it’s true! So excited! That’s all I have time to say right now. More soon. Right now… we have a show (actually a weekend of shows) to do… Soundtrack CD will be available online soon… Break a leg, everyone!
Read More »Looking back on this fall’s touring season, a common thread that comes to mind is “singing songs of peace.” On one hand, I think of Ephesians 6:15 – “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” On the other hand, I am also mindful of Jeremiah’s warning about about those who “have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying “Peace, peace” when there is no peace…” (Jer 6:14). I hope that my traveling and singing/speaking/leading is closer to the first, but in my “line of work” I always need to pay attention to the possibility of falling into the second… Here are just a few “singing songs of peace” snapshots from the past few months: Singing “A God Who Makes Friends”at the Wild Goose Festival (Aug 8-11, Hot Springs, North Carolina) with the children’s program, getting the kids in pairs and singing to/with each other along with a cooperative hand-clap rhythm… and later hearing of a woman who stood and watched with tears in her eyes, saying how this scene gave her a renewed sense of hope for the world. (My hope too was fed at this event, hearing from folks like Nadia Bolz-Weber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the Indigo Girls and many others.) Singing “New World Coming” with a fascinating-and-a-bit-puzzling gathering of people in Orwell, Ohio, who are mostly refugees and exiles from the Amish communities in that area. Getting to know these folks, and hearing their reflections on their experiences and deep hurts from their “peace church” upbringing, was a new and sobering experience for me. At the end of our time together, the pastor/leader of this community called me back to the front and said “We’re going to sing that song again – and this time _______ will do some free-style rap for the verses”… so there we were, in a shed in the middle of Amish country, rapping and singing our hearts out, expressing our yearning for the fulfilment of the various prophetic visions of the “peaceable kingdom” that our world so badly needs. Singing “Peace Be With You” at the Stouffville Peace Festival, celebrating and bearing public witness to the “peace church” heritage and history of this community… in the face of attempts to falsify that history in pursuit of rather different agenda (as I reflected in a blog post about Stouffville’s military parade last year). Singing “When You Learn to Follow Jesus (You Will Act a Little Strange)” at a congregational retreat in Washington DC… the epicentre, of course, of the most massive military force in human history. Writing/recording/teaching/singing the songs for “Selah’s Song” – an “original folk musical” in collaboration with Theatre of the Beat, and a songwriter’s dream in many ways… as it is (among other things) an extended reflection on the potential of something as apparently powerless as a...
Read More »Greetings, all! Just wanted to let you know that there’s lots of writing going on – just not here. There are multiple projects on the go – some small(ish), some rather large indeed. I’ll be pulling back the veil on some of these projects over the next while, and will be posting updates here as they gradually become “public” and begin to see the light of day… Stay tuned! Carry on…
Read More »In the midst of my spring tour (Harleysville, Pennsylvania last weekend, Laurelville PA this weekend, some stops in Indiana and Illinois in a couple of weeks), planning for the fall tour is underway as well… and… I am delighted to report that I have been invited to perform at this year’s Wild Goose Festival, August 8-11 in Hot Springs, North Carolina. This festival is a kind of cousin to the legendary Greenbelt Festival in the UK, which has been running since the 70s. Speakers at this year’s Wild Goose Festival will include folks like Philip Yancey, Brian McLaren, Phylis Tickle, Jonathan Wison-Hartgrove, and many others… and musicians will include The Indigo Girls, The Lost Dogs, and many, many more… I am anticipating an extending touring season, potentially in both Canada and the USA, come fall… so if you’d like to explore possibilities for a visit to your area, please send me an e-mail and let me know. See you on the...
Read More »Over the past while I have found myself writing in some different modes, and some of that writing is starting to appear in public. Here’s an article I wrote for Canadian Mennonite magazine – “Hearing Jesus as Songwriter.” And here’s a more ambitious piece – a 33 page booklet that is a bit of a study of how Jesus is portrayed as interpreter of Scripture in the Gospel of Mark. That piece is now available here… and there may well be more on its way in a similar vein… Not to worry – there’s still some songwriting going on too, but it hasn’t been as consistent or disciplined lately. That said, the backlog of “songs to write” has been steadily growing… there have been a few new songs lately… I expect that, before too long, there will be some more songwriting that will “break the logjam” that’s been building up… Stay...
Read More »In May 2011 I was invited to help plan and lead worship at a global ecumenical conference on mining, organized by KAIROS Canada. They have put together a powerful video with excerpts from the various speakers, interspersed with the refrain of a song that I wrote for the conference. You can watch or download the video here. This theme song is drawn from Leviticus 26 – a text that makes a vivid (even shocking) connection between human obedience to God’s ways (commandments, statutes, ordinances) and the health of the land. When we sing the refrain of the song (“I will remember the land”), we are singing the words that God speaks in Lev 26:42. The broader context of those words is this: the commandments in the preceding chapter (Lev 25) are all about how to deal with land/property (“sabbatical” year of rest for the land, “jubilee” year of re-distribution of land, issues of debt, servanthood, redemption of servants, etc.). Lev 26 then carries on with a description of ecological health that is described as resulting from obedience to God’s commandments (Lev 26:3-13), followed by a vision of ecological destruction resulting from disobedience (26:14-33). One way or another – whether humans implement it appropriately or not – “the land shall enjoy its sabbath” (26:33-39). And then the text describes the possibility of changed human attitudes and behaviour: “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors… if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I WILL REMEMBER THE LAND.” (Lev 26:40-42, emphasis added). I thought it was particularly striking to put these words of Yahweh – “I will remember the land” – to a traditional Andean Cueca rhythm and chord structure… a land that has a long history of mining and exploitation not just of mineral resources but of the people who have lived there and still live there. (I spent 4 formative years, age 12-16, living in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in the heart of the Andes mountains.) For us to sing these words together, to an Andean rhythm, in the context of a global ecumenical conference on the impacts of mining, struck me as a powerful thing. During the days of the conference I circulated around, talking to as many people as I could, asking them how we would sing these words “I will remember the land” – in their own native language. These conversations inevitably resulted in fascinating debates and conversations about what exactly the words should be, as each language and culture has its own way of articulating the nuances of these things. Which word – of the multiple options that are possible in each of our tongues – should be used to say “remember”…? To...
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