Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wed Nov. 30 - What's Gonna' Sing Now? (Delta Spirit)




'The years are not coming the way I thought they would
I'm hoping and waiting for something to sing
Like the angels in heaven, the bones on the street,
Hoping for love to find a new voice,
The song that needs singing has already been sung before

                 - Delta Spirit, "People Turn Around"


I love it when the lyrics of a song surprise me.  Sometimes I listen just enough to think I know what a song is about, but just like realizing as a teenager that Salt n' Pepa's "shoop" was not a dance move, there are songs that aren't as obvious as they seem.

People Turn Around by Delta Spirit


I have been sure for years that this Delta Spirit song was a call to repentance.  'People turn around' sure sounds like Biblical-style repentance to me, but that's only part of the story.  Certainly there's brokenness, desperation, drug-use and violence in this song, but there's also suffering and loss, terrible surprise and loneliness.

'The bones on the street' is the line that catches me off-guard.  The speaker is 'hoping and waiting for something to sing' and looks to angels and bones for the cue. It makes me wonder: There is terrible violence that occurs in our streets every day; if the bones of the victims were left in their place, would they begin to "speak?"  To sing?  What if hymns of truth-telling or praise began to pour from the bones in mass graves now hidden beneath layers of time and our determination to forget?  

The call to "turn around" in this song isn't just a call to repentance, it's also a call to listen.

It makes me think, too, of our own bones, their aches and longings: we are all 'hoping for love to find a new voice.'  In this time of Advent, we remember and await the Love that definitively came in Jesus, but it can be hard to hear that love in our daily lives.

"Then [God] said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.  They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' ... This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel... I will put my Spirit in you and you will live..."              - Ezekiel 37:11-13

We rightly search for ways in which Love continues to find a new voice among us.  Maybe it will be the bones of the dead, the silenced and the forgotten, who first teach the words.  Maybe it will be the broken stones in the street, the moss in the shadows and the abused, abandoned lands that carry the harmony.  And maybe we will be surprised by the humming of our own bones in response.

Hey, People, turn around: did you hear that?  What's gonna' sing now?

May our ears be sharp and our feet be drawn toward the voices that are singing us back from the precipice of loss and violence -- the voices that are singing us home.
                                     - Anna

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tues Nov 29 - New Redemption Song (Over the Rhine)

   
My ancestors knew how to sing songs that would heal people. The people, I am told, would call on the gods who would teach them the song that was needed to heal an ailment, the land, the community. I frequently mourn this missing piece of my heritage, lost to generations of slavery and forced relocation.  I long for it most when I encounter brokenness for which I have no words - let alone songs - to mend.

   When I hear today’s song selection, I think of my ancestors and am captured by the idea that God could teach us a song for redemption. And on days when I am waiting, when I am telling the truth about this world, my heart longs for such a song, to sing into the disappointed silence and the broken dissonance around us.

My mouth hungers for new words, my soul sighs for the release of a melody,
Lord, give me a song!

A song to tap the toes of the old, to sway the hips of the young.
A song for the darkness and one for the cold.
A song to hold the deep sorrows.

One to sing to the mama whose son never came home
and one to wrap round the teenager who sleeps at the train station.
Teach me the lyrics to ward off evil and those that soften the hardest of hearts. Sing me the harmony that obliterates the disease of greed and the one that roots out those internalized tentacles of inferiority.

Give me a rhythm that keeps the collective memory of the peoples’ strength and an accompaniment to nourish the tender sprouts of our dreams. It is too long since we have sung together, too long since we have sung for healing, too long since we have sung redemption.


"New Redemption Song" by Over the Rhine.  
Forgive the overshare at the beginning of the video, but I love her comment about this being a blessing song.

We long to sing Lord, give us the song.

The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness, will renew you in love; God will exult over you with loud singing.    -Zephaniah 3:17
                                                    -Lindsey

Monday, November 28, 2011

Mon Nov 28 - All We Can See Is... (Black Star)




Maybe Advent is best understood at night, sitting with the streetlit world, hearing ambulance sirens as we watch and pray. Likewise, maybe the story of Advent is best understood starting not with the promises of Isaiah, but with its anguished cries to God:



"Your sacred cities have become a desert... and all we treasure lies in ruins.  
After this, O LORD, will you hold yourself back?
Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?"        
Isaiah 64:10-12


'Respiration' by Black Star feat. Common:        (lyrics: here)
**Advisory: Some strong language. Clean version and pretty sweet orig. music video HERE


'Respiration'  is about telling the truth from your corner of the world.  I especially love its intro about taggers (graffiti-ers) talking about their aerosol work: on two cars they've written,

"ALL YOU CAN SEE IS... CRIME IN THE CITY."

On this end of Advent, our job is to tell the truth about the world and cry out to God about a Creation gone terribly awry.  As Kara Root, preacher at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian, stated this week: "Advent begins with a great cry of disappointment."  Disappointment in ourselves, certainly, but also in the world and even in God.  

During Advent we boldly name our disappointment and pain, knowing that God is NOT ultimately absent or unmoved.  God is here - even as God is still coming.  Because of this, as Kara stated, we can "stand bravely with our broken hearts and the broken hearts of the world... waiting to be mended."

How do we speak our broken hearts in these coming days?  What do you see even from your limited perspective that still needs voice and naming?

In the darkness of a very real night, may we boldly tell the truth about our world and hold out our lives to God.

                                                 - Anna

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Sunday Nov. 27: One Day (Matisyahu)

“For [all] creation waits in eager longing…” Romans 8:19



            Advent means “coming.” We wait for the advent of many things. We wait for the advent of world peace, we wait to be reconciled with that relative we have not spoken to in so long, we wait for our healing to come, we wait for an end to violence on our streets, we wait through the loneliness of lengthening winter hours... we wait to feel loved, to be better, to encounter the Divine; for freedom from fear, for acceptance; to be heard, to feel safe, to have enough. We wait.

            It is part of our human condition: people from all walks of life wait for - long for - healing, peace, safety, love. This waiting necessitates some sense of hope; for Christians this hope is rooted in the promised return of Christ and the redemption of the world. But that comes a little later. For now, at the onset of this season, when we reflect on what is coming/what is not yet here, let us pause at the waiting, and wonder together: what does our waiting have to teach? What may we glean from the practice of waiting?

            As we listen to this heartsong of hope from an Orthodox Jewish man, what does it means to wait together with all creation? For what are we waiting?

For what are you waiting this Advent season?

May we wait in the darkness of these shortening days, dreaming together of the coming light.
                                                  - Lindsey

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Welcome to the Advent Music Project

Welcome to the Advent Music Project --


We'll be celebrating the 28 days of Advent (and the 12 days of Christmas) with a song a day, giving all of us five good minutes to think about the different meanings of Advent, what we bring to this season, and how we are waiting, hoping and in need of grace in our own lives.

Advent is an old tradition with new roots in the Protestant community.  For a long time Protestants considered special church seasons to be "too Catholic," but with the increasing pressurizing and commercialization of the holiday, many began to see the benefit in taking time not just to celebrate Christmas, but to figure out WHY we do it.  **Spoiler Alert**: it's not for the gifts, the mistletoe or the roasting chestnuts.  (*tear*)

So here we're trying to get back to the source of Advent: the yearning for renewal, the need for God's presence, and the promise that God, was, is and will be healing creation back into wholeness.  Advent isn't just to remember the birth of baby Jesus, but to "hope forward" for when Jesus will come again in triumph to reconcile all things.  A lot of progressive Christians don't like the phrase "Second Coming" because it's been hijacked by a very different theological mindset, but that's what we're talking about: God's promise that we are not abandoned to work out history by ourselves, that God's ultimate purpose for creation is exuberant wholeness, and that Jesus is more than just a nice idea.

This project started from our own hunger for different music to mark the season than the tin-can pop-style carols piped through the mall speakers.  We still love a good dance-off to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," but know that Advent is about something deeper.  So while the Advent Music Project starts with sharing music that matters to us, we're really hoping to start a conversation: so what news clips, songs, quotes, ideas, and connections are you making around these themes?  Share with one another and us!


We'll be exploring a whole range of songs and musical styles
, from roots and rock to hip-hop, folk and jazz.  Many of the songs will still "feel" similar, though, with themes of brokenness and waiting, need and hope.  These are the core ideas of the season, and we'll continue to use them as touchstones even as occasionally we may veer off to explore a more upbeat thought or idea.  If you don't like the song one day, just check back tomorrow; hopefully we'll all walk away from this project with a few new thoughts, and a few new songs to add to our idea of what Mr. Stevie Wonder calls, "What Christmas Means to Me."  
Blessings in this season of darkening days, and may your walk be marked by the coming Light.  Peace.

                                        - Anna and Lindsey