FREEBIRD! Let me explain (updated 1/22/2018): at General Assembly in Louisville in 2013, despite terrible cell reception, many attendees endeavored to live tweet the events as they unfolded. On Friday morning, we sang Blue Boat Home. Friend and colleague Hannah Roberts made a comment to her friend Meredith Lukow, who tweeted: … because like “Freebird” by …
I’m sure there is someone who loves this piece. I’m sure there is someone who isn’t bothered by gendered language. I’m sure there is someone who thinks four verses makes a chant. I am not that someone. Children of the Earth, we have come to sing to each other, Sister to Brother, songs of our …
So… I have thoughts. In no particular order: Jim Scott does like a long verse, doesn’t he? (No judgment, really, just noticing that his song make for long hymns.) It took three phrases to become a Jim Scott song, because he has a signature style – and then it’s very much a Jim Scott composition. …
In this exciting episode: Jason Shelton did a great innovative thing and I just had to go and innovate it further. This may be one of my favorite liturgical pieces – a chorus by Jason Shelton to make new the stunning piece by Sophia Lyon Fahs that most of us use at Christmastime, often on …
I am torn this morning between heartbreak and duty: my duty to myself to follow through on this spiritual practice and write something – anything – in response to the day’s singing; my heartbreak over yesterday’s death of one of my cats, a 15 year old black cat named Chelsea who was found dumpster diving …
For a long time I loved this one. I thought it was a great creative, artsy way to think about our lives. But when you sit down and really think about it – the initial metaphor, the remaining lyrics – yeah, not so much. Here are Jim Scott’s lyrics – the chorus of a longer song …
I want to start with a word of gratitude for the STJ hymnal commission, who thought to include some short responses in this slim volume. It would have been easy to only include bigger songs and hymns, but they knew (probably because most of them were music directors themselves) that we needed fresh music to …
Lord, the days are hard. No sooner do we wrap our brains around one major news story than another one, or ten comes barreling down on us. What we need is something warm and loving and sweet. Sometimes it’s a sweet song that is just what the doctor ordered. And to be honest, there isn’t …
One late December day in the mid 1990s, my partner Trish and I got in the car and drove from our home in Durham, NC, to spend Christmas with my family in Round Lake, NY. The drive is long – about 13 hours – and was usually broken up by little side trips to historic …
What is old is new again… Back in March, we sang these words, written by English poet Rachel Bates. We know the hymn from STLT as When Windows That Are Black and Cold – a misleading title, which I note in the post about it. We sang it to Danby, a lovely Ralph Vaughan Williams …
There’s a thing that’s been happening in our congregations that is reflective of what’s been happening in our society: anxiety. Anxiety about the current administration – its real and sustained attacks on our principles and the real and sustained traumas we are experiencing – spill over from our personal lives into our houses of worship. …
In 1991, even as my life was falling apart after a messy breakup, I was welcomed into a community of singers known as the Common Woman Chorus. Started by a delightful woman named Eleanor Sableski (may she rest in peace), who was also the music director at Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham, North …
I don’t know if it’s still true, but I remember in high school learning a bit about quantum physics – enough at least to know that physicists at the time weren’t sure if the universe is made of particles or waves. (Google suggests that there’s now an uncomfortable acceptance of a duality, but that’s a …
More than once during my years at Union Theological Seminary, I said to myself “what is my life even like?” because of some improbable experience or another. To be clear, I didn’t choose to go to Union because of the possibility of meeting important or famous people;- I went because of the possibilities awaiting me …
As I have mentioned before, I love an Alleluia. And as I have mentioned before, I love music in 5, whether it’s 5/4 or 5/8, as we find here. And as I have mentioned before, I am a huge fan of composer Tom Benjamin. So there’s not much left to say, except this is a perfect storm …