Yuri Yuan (Chinese American, 1996–), Norwegian Wood, 2020. Oil on canvas, 63 × 73 in.
This painting by New York–based artist Yuri Yuan shows a woman in a belted brown trench coat, her back to us, standing at the edge of a frozen pond. A small gust of snowy wind whips her hair and scarf. Though her face isn’t visible, she appears to be deep in thought.
Reflected on the pond’s surface is a man dressed in black. We don’t see his physical form, and his features are indistinguishable in the mirroring ice. Who is he? Does he wish to speak to the woman? Does he come with news, or an invitation, perhaps? Or simply to wait with her in silence?
There’s a mystic quality to the image that’s heightened by the incongruity between the environment and its reflection. In the upper left, the trees are barren and dusted with the white of winter, and indeed the woman is dressed for the cold. And yet in the trees’ reflection in the pond, they are in full foliage, leafy green, as if it were summer.
It’s as if two worlds are converging here in this wood. Or the woman foresees, with the eyes of her spirit, a lushness that has not yet come to pass.
Notice how the snowbanks piled up along the water’s edge could almost double as clouds, particularly in the bottom left, where the white mass meets the sky’s reflection. The heavens and the earth becoming one.
I chose this image to kick off the Advent season (which begins tomorrow) because it captures the sense of longing that the church leans into most especially during these four weeks, but also the sense of promise, the possibility, that’s just as characteristic of the season. In the eschatological reality that Israel’s prophets foresaw, the barren becomes verdant and the dead come to life. “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom” (Isa. 35:1).
Strangely, Norwegian Wood is a painting of both absence and presence, distance and nearness.
If you like, imagine Yuan’s mystery man as God coming close—which is what the Incarnation is: God coming closer than close!
What invitation might God have for you this Advent? What heartache from the past year, or even further back, do you need to bear to the Healer? What hopes do you need to speak out loud?
We wait, we hope We yearn, prepare For who or how or what or where? Maybe the changing of the tide Maybe the turning of someone’s eye Maybe the falling of the snow Only heaven knows What happens when God comes close
We wait, we hope We yearn, prepare For who or how or what or where? Maybe the healing of a heart Maybe reunion of a drift apart Maybe a child’s coming home Only heaven knows What happens when God comes close
We wait, we hope We yearn, prepare For who or how or what or where? Maybe the song, a place to belong Maybe some faith, just a touch of grace Maybe love, it’s rarely what we think of Only heaven knows What happens when God comes close
This is the first post in a daily series that will extend to January 6. You are welcome to subscribe via email or RSS, but posts are optimized for viewing on a web browser. (And note that Gmail sends WordPress posts to your Social tab, unless you create a filter to tell it otherwise.) Links will be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
William L. Hawkins (American, 1895–1990), Nativity Scene, 1987. Oil on canvas, 48 × 48 in. Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey.
1.“Remembering that it happened once”by Wendell Berry: For the last forty-plus years, Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry has been writing what he calls “Sabbath poems,” which emerge from his spiritual practice of walking outdoors on Sundays without any to-do’s. “I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays,” he says, “and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration.” This Sabbath poem from 1986 explores how the sacred permeates the mundane and how Christ is, in a sense, always being born. For an SATB choral setting by Doug Brandt, see here.
Source: A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997 (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1998); compiled in This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2014)
2.“BC:AD” by U. A. Fanthorpe: Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (1929–2009), CBE, FRSL, was an English poet who is well loved by both critics and the general public. She was also a practicing Quaker. Each year she wrote a new Christmas poem to send to friends, of which “BC:AD” is the best known. It considers Jesus’s birth as the pivotal point in history, dividing time into epochs, into “before” and “after.” At this nativity, kairos invaded chronos—and we’re still singing about it millennia later.
3.“Making the House Ready for the Lord”by Mary Oliver: For many of us who succumb to cultural pressures, December is a time of rushing around, making sure the house is decorated like a magazine, the Christmas cards sent out, the cookies baked to perfection, the gifts individually selected and bought and wrapped. But in all this flurry of activity, are we missing “the better part” (Luke 10:42)? The speaker of this poem, Martha-like, is busy making preparations for Jesus, who’s coming to visit, but as she’s cleaning, outdoor critters keep popping in. At first she bemoans their presence—they’re not on the guest list!—but eventually she comes to accept, even welcome, them, surrendering her fussy desire for orderliness to a charitable embrace of whatever is. And on another level, this poem is about how all of creation longs for Christ (Rom. 8:19–22); the animals, too, want to see him, want to join the party.
5.“Second Advent”by Anya Krugovoy Silver: Memorializing a friend (Ishiuan Hargrove) who died of metastatic brain tumors, “Second Advent” unsettlingly combines stark hospital-room and anatomical language with language that is soft, gentle, lyrical. Recounting one of Ishiuan’s several neurosurgeries, the poet remarks how her head was nimbed by surgical lights and then swaddled in gauze. The title refers to Ishiuan’s waking up on the second Sunday of Advent, but also to the hope of Christ’s second coming, when pain, disease, and sorrow will be done away with. Anya Silver was herself a cancer patient, an experience she wrote much about in her four volumes of poetry, before dying of breast cancer in 2018.
Source: Second Bloom (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017)
6.“The Nativity”by Henry Vaughan: “Peace!” rang the angels’ song the night of Christ’s birth—and yet what irony, that he who came to bring peace was himself no beneficiary of it in this life, being born among animals in a borrowed stable, then made a refugee, then later disbelieved, betrayed, mocked, tortured, and crucified. The darkness that bred such unwelcome of the Son of God still persists—violence, ignorance. Referencing the Genesis 1 creation narrative as well as the journey of the magi, the poem ends with an invocation for God’s light to manifest once again, leading us to Christ.
Source: Thalia Redivina: The Pass-Times and Diversions of a Countrey-Muse (London: Robert Pawlet, 1678). Public Domain.
7. [little tree] by E. E. Cummings: One of E. E. Cummings’s earliest published poems (it came out in the January 1920 issue of The Dial), “little tree” was intended to appear as one of five “chansons innocentes” in Cummings’s first book of verse, Tulips and Chimneys, but his editor, Thomas Seltzer, cut it (along with sixty-five others!). In it a young child consoles a recently felled evergreen tree—enlisted for the holiday festivities—with promises of glory and love. Though it runs the danger of being read as twee, Cummings remained fond of the poem and even had it printed and sent it as his family Christmas card in 1960, two years before he died.
8. “Messiah (Christmas Portions)”by Mark Doty: The speaker of this poem is unexpectedly transported by a local community choir performance of Handel’s Messiah. He marvels at how these ordinary, flawed neighbors of his can produce such beauty with their collective voices. The last line is probably a reference to the accompagnato and air sung by the bass toward the end of the oratorio, taken from 1 Corinthians 15:51–54—about how we will all be changed in a moment at the last trump, and the corruptible will put on incorruption.
9. “What the Body Knows” by Jean Janzen: The anonymous scribes and illuminators of the Book of Kells spent countless hours copying and beautifying God’s word amid Viking raids. In this ekphrastic poem, Jean Janzen reflects on the Gospel-book’s five whimsically painted folios of Luke’s genealogy of Christ, commenting on the continual inbreaking of God into our world and the “wild safety” of God’s love.
10.“Confession”by Leila Chatti: The Tunisian American poet Leila Chatti was raised by a Muslim father and a Roman Catholic mother, and both religious traditions have shaped her faith and her writing. Islam and Christianity hold many sacred figures in common, including Mary (Maryam), whose conception and delivery of Jesus (Isa) are narrated in the Quran 19:16–34. Chatti confesses to being more compelled by the Islamic characterization of Mary as grunting and sweating in the pangs of labor (in contrast to Catholic teaching, which says her birthing experience was effortless, her contractions painless, though the Bible itself doesn’t specify). Chatti finds comfort in picturing Mary not as someone exempt from the effects of the fall and set apart on a pedestal of supreme virtue, but as one who suffered the same physical and emotional toll as other childbearing women—and who probably did have the occasional selfish thought, which, in moments of intensity and vulnerability, she deigned to vocalize!
11. “Two Carols”by Evelyn Underhill: An English Anglo-Catholic writer and mystic, Evelyn Underhill meditates in this double poem on how Christ set foot on the long, hard road we travel to be a balm for our wounds and those of the earth. The epigraph to part 1 is from the Latin Vulgate of Song of Solomon 2:12: “The flowers appear on the earth.” What follows are several Catholic titles for Mary: rose without thorn, queen, generatrix. The epigraph to part 2 is a quotation of Romans 8:22: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” The refrain, Dominus tecum!, translates to “The Lord is with you!,” words spoken by the angel Gabriel to Mary and, by virtue of the Incarnation, to all humanity. The other Latin phrases translate to “He who is in the heavens,” “A King is born,” and “Let the kingdom come!” Adveniat regnum!
Source: Immanence: A Book of Verses (London: J. M. Dent, 1912). Public Domain.
12. “The Christmas Babe”by Fr. John Banister Tabb: Written by a Catholic priest from Virginia, this simple quatrain marvels at the paradox of God’s simultaneous largeness and smallness.
Source: Poems (London: John Lane, 1894). Public Domain.
13.“Snowflakes” by Jennifer Grotz: When the world is viewed through a sacramental lens, we recognize God in commonplace wonders like falling snow, and such things can be a sort of wordless prayer that we offer back to God through our enjoyment of them.
14. [The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman]by Emily Dickinson: In these two compact stanzas, Dickinson reflects on how kind Jesus was (an understatement!) to have made the far journey to Bethlehem, “a rugged billion Miles” from heaven, especially in the cold month of December, all “for little Fellowmen.” She refers to him as “docile”—obedient, submissive—harking to Philippians 2, to his yielding to the will of the Father in the Incarnation, taking on human limitations, suffering, and death for the life of the world.
15.[Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest](Holy Sonnet No. 15) by John Donne: A self-address to the soul, this poem by the English poet-priest John Donne, first published in 1633, two years after this death, celebrates the Triune God’s salvific workings: we’re adopted by the Father, redeemed by the Son, indwelt and regenerated by the Spirit. The closing couplet, referencing the imago Dei, packs a wallop: “’Twas much, that man was made like God before, / But, that God should be made like man, much more.”
Source: Poems (London: M.F. [Miles Fletcher], 1633). Public Domain.
16. “The Little Towns of Bethlehem”by John Terpstra: All over Canada, Christ is being reborn this Christmas, in the sense that the Story has taken root, is retold, and continues to have impact. The speaker imagines the Christ child “wrapped in cast-off flannel” in a boxcar stopped on the tracks in Esther, Alberta, or feeding at his mother’s breast in a broken-down car on the shoulder of a road in Englehart, Ontario—actual sights that one might encounter today. Localizing the Story can help us to see it afresh, and to see the sacred humanity of families experiencing homelessness or other hardships.
17. “Song of the Shepherds” by Richard Bauckham: Richard Bauckham, FRSE, FBA, is best known as a biblical scholar—he’s one of today’s tops, in fact—but he also writes poetry! (I featured one of his poems last year.) In this poem, the shepherds on Bethlehem’s hillsides recall an ancient tale about the stars singing at the creation of the universe, which they thought merely a poetic embellishment, until they experienced something of the like for themselves: “a song of solar glory” eclipsing the lesser lights and exorcising the dark, creating the world anew. Unforgettable.
18. “Those Magi”by Kathleen O’Toole: What exactly were the magi seeking? What compelled them to leave their treasure behind in that cattle shed? Whence their strength to defy Herod? Besides musing on these questions, the poem also contains a passing metaphor that I found striking and new: cow breath as incense.
19. “Carol of the Brown King”by Langston Hughes: Tradition names one of the wise men who visited the Christ child “Balthazar” and says he’s from Africa. Langston Hughes, a preeminent poet of the Harlem Renaissance, exults that there was “one dark like me—part of His Nativity.” This poem is included in Hughes’s musical play Black Nativity and is one of six Nativity poems by Hughes that make up a children’s book illustrated by Ashley Bryan.
20. “Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter, 1993”by Jane Kenyon: I couldn’t find the particular church mosaic program that Kenyon is writing about, but here’s my interpretation. Set inside a Serbian Orthodox church during the Bosnian War, this poem imagines a mosaic of Christ Pantocrator hovering in the dome, lamenting the violence that goes on beneath. Under the gaze of the I AM is another mosaic, portraying Jesus’s birth, but also, in a way, Mary’s, as she herself is being reborn in Christ, her mind increasingly shaped in accordance to his. Nativity icons often show Mary framed by a red blanket that she’s reclining on at the mouth of a cave, which Kenyon reads as embryonic.
21. “Breath” by Luci Shaw: This poem reflects on the contraction of the infinite God who breathed the universe into existence into a finite human being needing oxygen, who, as is foreshadowed at his birth, will finally ex-pire (“breathe out” his last) on a cross before entering his “next dark cave,” a prelude to resurrection.
22.“Mary’s Vision”from medieval Ireland: Mary foresees the future suffering of her infant son and dialogues with him about it in this poem translated from Middle Irish by Eleanor Hull (the same woman whose versification of a medieval Irish lorica, working from a translation by Mary Elizabeth Byrne, gave us the hymn “Be Thou My Vision”!).
Source: The Poem-Book of the Gael (London: Chatto & Windus, 1912). Public Domain.
23.“Joseph at the Nativity”by Tania Runyan: Staring at the “shriveled pod” that Mary just birthed, Joseph grapples with his complicated feelings—doubt, embarrassment, jealousy, helplessness, confusion, pride—and with figuring out what role he should play in the life of this child going forward.
24.“Waiting in Line After Christmas”by Sharron Singleton: (Scroll down to fourth poem) Rather than exchanges of refunded money for unwanted items, Singleton ponders what a mutually life-giving exchange of intangibles might look like.
25. “Burning the Old Year”by Naomi Shihab Nye: Through the act of forgetting, we must destroy the worthless trivialities of the year, and we must let that which is solid, that which matters—the “stones”—be revealed and remain.
Jackson Beardy (1944–1984) was an Anishinaabe artist born on the Garden Hill Reserve in Manitoba. He belonged to the Woodland school of art [previously], adopting its distinctive style of Indigenous expression characterized by thick black outlines and vivid, compartmentalized color. His paintings draw on Ojibwe and Cree oral traditions and often express cosmological and spiritual concepts.
Beardy is one of twenty Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1975 to convey the Christian message using whatever idiom they wished. Beardy chose to portray the Virgin Mary pregnant with the Word, the sun’s fire pouring into her and yet she is not consumed. He provided the following artist’s statement:
It is my personal belief that a messenger from the Great Spirit came to earth in the form of His image after Him through a virgin birth in unrecorded history. Through this man, knowledge was passed on to man from the Great Spirit. Many of the teachings of this man have been kept by word of mouth through the ages by the elders of all tribes.
We see the virgin mother-to-be holding on to an embryo connected to the sun symbol (the Great Spirit) [center] who has deemed it necessary to send his messenger to his people. The mother is also connected to Mother Earth, who is nursing her [see the breast shape below]. She too is connected by a lifeline to the sun symbol. Around her are all the orders of creatures who come to see the messenger. He is born to explain their existence, [to restore] harmony between humanity and the elements, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
On the other side of the sun symbol we see an elder in prayer, ritually offering a bowl filled with sacred things. You can see the sun symbol is resting on his hunched frame, bearing him down with doubts, fear, depression, and all the ills of his time, his back to the very miracle he is praying for. It will take time for all to fully comprehend this phenomenon which has come to pass.
The four semicircles represent the elements of the air: snow, rain, tornadoes, heat. The moon [the blue circle] is painted above the elder. We regard the moon as our Grandmother who keeps vigil over all creatures during the night.
Though titled The Nativity, the painting is actually a prebirth scene, as Jesus is still in utero. Beardy shows the Christ child taking root in Mary’s womb (having been conceived by the power of the Great Spirit) and growing to full term as people and animals alike long for his arrival. They groan, they watch, they wrestle and seek. Creator Sets Free—as the First Nations Version of the New Testament translates the name Jesus—is almost here.
(Note: There’s a flipped version of this image floating around online. I confirmed with the CCCB that the file posted here, which I licensed directly from them, represents the correct orientation.)
Leaning into that Advent yearning, here is a performance of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” in Ojibwe—“Ondaas, Ondaas, Emaanooyen”—performed by E Halverson:
Now, I have a crowdsourcing request: I am searching for Advent or Christmas songs originally written in Indigenous Canadian or Native American languages, preferably by an Indigenous person. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments below, or in an email. Thanks!
Before I launch into the Advent content, I want to alert newcomers to, and remind old-timers of, my Thanksgiving Playlist on Spotify (introduced here), which is revised and expanded since last year. You can get an overview at this blog post. From Destiny’s Child to Yo-Yo Ma, Meister Eckhart to Mister Rogers, there’s a little something for everyone, I hope. And exemplifying the global nature of Christianity, there are songs in Hebrew, Luganda, Zulu, Swahili, Yoruba, Spanish, French, Hawaiian, Arabic, Korean, and Tamil.
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ESSAY: “All Creation Waits” by Gayle Boss: In the northern hemisphere, Advent is accompanied by a deepening of the dark and cold. In her bestselling and wholly unique Advent devotional, All Creation Waits, Gayle Boss provides twenty-five reflections that detail how wildlife—turtles, loons, black bears, and so on—adapts to these changing conditions. Animals know that the darkness is a door to a new beginning, and we would do well to embrace this wisdom. In the book, each day’s reading is paired with a woodcut illustration by David G. Klein.
The year of the book’s 2016 release, On Being published the introduction on its blog, where Boss answers, “Why animals for Advent?” and describes some of the inspiration behind and framing of the book. This year Paraclete Press released a hardcover gift edition with a new introduction and afterword.
Woodcut by David G. Klein, 2016. In All Creation Waits, Gayle Boss tells a story of how one year, a week into Advent, she found a manger in the woods, which local children had filled with hay for the animals, then shelled corn.
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SONG: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”: There are hundreds of arrangements and recordings of this most beloved Advent hymn. Last year I featured two that I particularly like, and I think I’ll start a trend on the blog by doing the same at the beginning of each Advent—sharing two new renditions of the song.
>> Anna Hawkins.Anna Hawkins is a singer-songwriter of Irish heritage living in New Zealand. In her version of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” from her album Divine (2015), she sings the first verse in Hebrew, honoring the lyrics’ rootedness in the Hebrew scriptures. The music video was shot in Israel (cinematography by Michael Hilsden from Aspiring Productions). [HT: Global Christian Worship]
חזור חזור עמנואל ופדה אסירי ישראל שבגולה נאנחים עד כי תבוא בן- האלוהים ,שמחו! שמחו! עמנואל יבוא לכם בני ישראל
Chazor, chazor Immanu-El Ufde asirei Israel Shebagola ne’enachim Ad ki tavo Ben Elohim Simchu, Simchu, Immanu-El Yavo lachem bnei-Israel
[English translation:] O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel
>> CeCe Winans, arr. Alvin Love III.CeCe Winans is a gospel legend. On Something’s Happening! A Christmas Album (2018), she collaborated with her son, Alvin Love III, who wrote the lush orchestral arrangements and produced the record. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” opens with a celesta, which sounds like a music box or twinkling stars and has long been associated with the supernatural. The accompaniment is played by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Tim Akers.
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VISUAL MEDITATION: “I Corinthians 7:29-31: God Only Knows” by Lynn Miller: Rev. Dr. Lynn Miller is an author, ecclesiastical artist, workshop leader, and Presbyterian minister who holds a BFA in graphic design, an MA in art history, an MFA in creative writing, an MDiv, and a DMin. From 2014 to 2021 she ran the blog Art&Faith Matters, curating a diversity of images based on the liturgical calendar. In this post she guides us in looking at the surrealist painting At the Appointed Time by Kay Sage, which features a mysterious, draped figure or object and lines receding toward the horizon. “What do you see in the painting? What do you think about what you see? What do you wonder about this painting?” She posits a number of possible interpretations.
Kay Sage (American, 1898–1963), At the Appointed Time, 1942. Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 99.1 cm. Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey.
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PODCAST SERIES: “Whispered Light: Advent Reflections on Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell” by Matt Simpkins: In this four-episode podcast series from December 2020, Rev. Matt Simpkins, an Anglican priest and musician from Essex, explores the four themes traditionally contemplated by Christians during Advent—death, judgment, heaven, and hell—through four old American folk songs. He performs the songs, giving their history and using them as a launchpad for spiritual and theological reflection, which also integrates discussion of the Psalms. He addresses misconceptions about these “last things,” tracing the thread of hope and redemption that runs through them all. Just twenty to thirty minutes each, the episodes are available on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube (links below).
Episode 1: “O Death” (aka “A Dialogue with Death”)
The season of Advent begins Sunday, November 27, this year and is followed by the Twelve Days of Christmas, culminating on Epiphany, January 6. During these six weeks I will be publishing daily posts, each centered on a visual artwork and a piece of music that I hope will promote contemplation and prayer around the seasons’ themes, around the narrative of Christ’s coming. If you’d like to receive these posts in your inbox, enter your email address on the Subscribe page. This will subscribe you to the blog as a whole, but you can always unsubscribe afterward if you want to stick around for just this one series.
Some people erroneously consider Advent to be simply an extension of Christmas. Not so! The two seasons are, of course, related, but Advent is a four-week period that focuses not just on Christ’s first coming and the signposts leading up to it, but also his second, as well as his coming, as Spirit, into our hearts, lives, and communities. It is an opportunity for us to lean into the deep longing we feel for God’s presence.
“Advent is a season of hope,” writes the Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, “and part of practicing hope is noticing where we need it”—so many of the Advent selections have a tone of lament. But still others are celebratory, marked by a joyful anticipation of the new dawn and all that it will usher in.
Included in this year’s edition of the Advent-Christmas series are a community art project in Lima; a jazz setting of a poem by Malcolm Guite, plus settings of Emily Dickinson and George MacDonald; ancient hymns from Prudentius of Spain and Ephrem of Syria; an antiphon by Hildegard of Bingen that references Mary as the New Eve; a light installation in an abandoned warehouse in Malaysia; a South African Nativity linocut with native wildlife; a Chinese watercolor on silk of the Annunciation to the Shepherds; a parable-inspired spiritual with roots in Jamaica; an acoustic-folk adaptation of Hannah’s song, a likely influence on Mary’s Magnificat; and more. The assurance that “All shall be well,” popularized by Julian of Norwich, bookends the series.
Oh, and there will be a “prelude” post on November 26.
Bridegrooms and oil lamps, clouds and snowdrifts, trumpets and butterflies, rivers and stairs—these are some of the images, verbal and/or visual, that we’ll encounter as we journey from Genesis to Revelation, from humanity’s fall and God’s covenant with Abraham to the incarnation of the promised Savior to the new heavens and the new earth, where that Savior reigns in love over all the redeemed.
Many of the songs will be drawn from my two Spotify playlists:
I look forward to walking with you all through this wonder-full, ancient, ongoing Story that enfolds us.
—Victoria
P.S. Want a better sense of what to expect before sharing or subscribing? You can peruse last year’s posts here and here.
I am committed to making all Art & Theology content free for everyone, but that means my income takes a hit. I have been working on this series since August, saying no to some paid freelance offers to make it happen. If you find the posts meaningful and it is within your means, would you please consider donating whatever amount you feel the product is worth? (You can use the form below, or PayPal.) I will also include a donation link at the bottom of the final post, if you’d rather wait and decide then. Thank you!
Mikael Owunna (Nigerian American, 1990–), Lébé and His Articulations, from the Infinite Essence series, 2019. Dye sublimation print, 60 × 40 in. (152.4 × 101.6 cm). Edition of 3 + 1AP. [for sale]
O Lord!
Thou hast given me a body,
Wherein the glory of thy power shineth,
Wonderfully composed above the beasts,
Within distinguished into useful parts,
Beautified without with many ornaments.
Limbs rarely poised,
And made for heaven:
Arteries filled
With celestial spirits:
Veins, wherein blood floweth,
Refreshing all my flesh,
Like rivers.
Sinews fraught with the mystery
Of wonderful strength,
Stability,
Feeling.
O blessed be thy glorious Name!
That thou hast made it
A treasury of wonders,
Fit for its several ages;
For dissections,
For sculptures in brass,
For draughts in anatomy,
For the contemplation of the sages.
Whole inward parts,
Enshrined in thy libraries,
Are:
The amazement of the learned,
The admiration of kings and queens,
The joy of angels,
The organs of my soul,
The wonder of cherubims.
Those blinder parts of refined earth,
Beneath my skin,
Are full of thy depths,
For:
Many thousand uses,
Hidden operations,
Unsearchable offices.
But for the diviner treasures wherewith thou hast endowed
My brains,
My heart,
My tongue,
Mine eyes,
Mine ears,
My hands,
O what praises are due unto thee,
Who has made me
A living inhabitant
Of the great world,
And the centre of it!
A sphere of sense,
And a mine of riches,
Which when bodies are dissected fly away.
The spacious room
Which thou has hidden in mine eye;
The chambers for sounds
Which thou has prepar’d in mine ear;
The receptacles for smells
Concealed in my nose;
The feeling of my hands;
The taste of my tongue.
But above all, O Lord, the glory of speech,
whereby thy servant is enabled with praise to
celebrate thee.
For
All the beauties in heaven and earth,
The melody of sounds,
The sweet odours
Of thy dwelling-place.
The delectable pleasures that gratify my sense,
That gratify the feeling of mankind.
The light of history,
Admitted by the ear.
The light of heaven,
Brought in by the eye.
The volubility and liberty
Of my hands and members.
Fitted by thee for all operations,
Which the fancy can imagine,
Or soul desire:
From the framing of a needle’s eye,
To the building of a tower;
From the squaring of trees,
To the polishing of kings’ crowns.
For all the mysteries, engines, instruments, wherewith the world is filled, which we are able to frame and use to thy glory.
For all the trades, variety of operations, cities, temples, streets, bridges, mariner’s compass, admirable pictures, sculpture, writing, printing, songs and music, wherewith the world is beautified and adorned.
Much more for the regent Life,
And power of perception,
Which rules within.
That secret depth of fathomless consideration
That receives the information
Of all our senses,
That makes our centre equal to the heavens,
And comprehendeth in itself the magnitude of the world;
The involved mysteries
Of our common sense;
The inaccessible secret
Of perceptive fancy;
The repository and treasury
Of things that are past;
The presentation of things to come;
Thy Name be glorified
For evermore.
For all the art which thou hast hidden
In this little piece
Of red clay,
For the workmanship of thy hand,
Who didst thyself form man
Of the dust of the ground,
And breathe into his nostrils
The breath of life.
For the high exaltation whereby thou hast glorified every body,
Especially mine,
As thou didst thy servant
Adam’s in Eden.
Thy works themselves speaking to me the same thing that was said unto him in the beginning,
WE ARE ALL THINE.
Thomas Traherne (1636/37–1674) was a country priest from England whose devotional writings, both prose and verse, are remarkable for their spiritual intensity. He wrote rapturously about the goodness, love, and mercy of God and the glories of God’s creation. He is sometimes classed as a Metaphysical poet, though his poems read more like Walt Whitman, with their long catalogs and ebullient joy. Traherne is most celebrated for his Centuries of Meditations, a collection of theological reflections that wasn’t published until 1908.
VIRTUAL ARTIST RESIDENCY: 2023 Inbreak Residency: Led by Dea Jenkins, the organization Inbreak, which promotes social healing through the arts, is hosting its third annual (virtual) residency, open to US-based artists of any discipline interested in exploring the intersections of art, faith, and race in the United States. The residency provides a collaborative environment and opportunities for artistic development and creative leadership growth, with group workshops, group feedback sessions, studio visits, and a curriculum featuring a curated selection of viewings, readings, and dialogue prompts. It culminates in a live or virtual exhibition.
Applications are due by November 20, 2022; you are required to submit work samples, an artist statement and/or short bio, and a community-focused project proposal. Four applicants will be selected for the 2023 cohort, which runs from January to May, and each given a $500 stipend.
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SONG: “Lux Aeterna”: “Lux Aeterna” (Eternal Light) is the Communion antiphon for the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. The traditional Latin text has been set to music by many composers. Recorded at All Hallows’ Gospel Oak in London in May 2021, this performance by the Gesualdo Six is of the setting by Spanish Renaissance composer Cristóbal de Morales. I share it in anticipation of All Saints’ Day on November 1.
The lyrics translate as follows:
May eternal light shine upon them, Lord, with your saints forever, for you are good.
Grant them eternal rest, Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them, with your saints forever, for you are good.
The video came out of the Interfaith Sacred Art Forum and the Sacred Art in Collections pre-1900 Network, both launched last year as part of the National Gallery’s Art and Religion research strand. In their inaugural 2021–22 season, the theme was “Crossing Borders,” and they have used two paintings in the museum’s collection as a foundation for wide-ranging events and activities. The theme for 2022–23 is “The Art of Creation,” and the two paintings around which conversations and activities are based are Rachel Ruysch’s Flowers in a Vase (1685) and Claude Monet’s Flood Waters (1896).
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VIDEO: “Introducing Annie Dillard” by Tish Harrison Warren: In this video from the Trinity Forum, Anglican priest and writer Tish Harrison Warren introduces the forum’s fall reading, the Pulitzer Prize–winning classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1975) by Annie Dillard. The book comprises Dillard’s evocative reflections on her time spent wandering about and observing the lively woods, creeks, and natural world of Virginia’s Roanoke Valley while she convalesced from illness.
“She [Dillard] has taught me, in the words of Eugene Peterson, to pray with my eyes open,” Warren says. “She has taught me to notice God at work in the world in ways that I wouldn’t.”
I hear Dillard quoted all the time, but I’m embarrassed to say that I have not yet read this quintessential book of hers! Though I do own it. I have now pulled it off the shelf and put it in my “to read imminently” stack. 😊
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VISUAL MEDITATION: “The Taste of Palestine” by Meryl Doney, on the art of Sliman Mansour: Sliman Mansour is a Palestinian Christian artist whose work centers on the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. This ArtWay article is a great, concise introduction to his work, spotlighting four of his paintings: Picking Olives; The Flight to Egypt; Hagar; and The Holy Family in an Olive Grove.
Sliman Mansour (Palestinian, 1947–), The Flight to Egypt, 1984. Oil on canvas.
Last month my friend Becky Hadeed, food photographer and creator and host of The Storied Recipe podcast, released an episode called “Honoring the Women of Palestine,” where she interviews Mai of Almond and Fig. Mai discusses growing up in Palestine and shares some of the ways she seeks to connect with her Middle Eastern heritage from her kitchen in Chicago.
WEBSITE LAUNCH: The Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts: From a September 20 press release: “The Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts is pleased to announce the debut of our new website, fsa.art. Complementing in-person programming in Charleston and New York City, fsa.art functions as FSA’s online curatorial wing. It hosts both commissioned and curated content as well as a selection of features spotlighting significant artists, scholars, exhibitions, and publications from recent decades. We hope this site will be a valuable and inspiring resource that fosters dialogue, community, and innovation in the field of spirituality and the arts.”
FSA is “devoted to nurturing connections between spirituality and contemporary art. . . . By encouraging a mutual flow of creativity and faith from both artists and scholars, we hope to initiate fresh channels of spiritual enrichment from new depths of artistic expression. Nurturing innovative and experimental collaborations between a wide range of communities, we aspire to integrate estranged voices together in a spirit of harmony, openness, and inquisitiveness.”
At the heart of their programming is their annual series of residencies, open to visual artists, performers, composers, choreographers, curators, writers, and theologians. Visit their website to find out more, and follow them on Instagram @foundation.spirituality.arts. Below are four artworks I’ve encountered through their social media postings.
Tom Kristen (German, 1968–), Gemeinsam (Together), 2019. Jewish Synagogue and Community Center, Regensburg, Bavaria. Photo: Marcus Eben. Floating above the center’s atrium, this gilded bronze spiral text is taken from Rose Ausländer’s poem “Gemeinsam”: “Vergesst nicht, Freunde, wir reisen gemeinsam. . . . Es ist unsre gemeinsame Welt.” (“Don’t forget, friends: we travel together. . . . It is our common world.”)Bill Viola (American, 1951–), Still from Catherine’s Room, 2001. Color video polyptych on five flat panel displays, 18:39 minutes, performer: Weba Garretson. Photo: Kira Perov, courtesy Bill Viola Studio.Anila Quayyum Agha (Pakistani American, 1965–), Intersections, 2013. Lacquered wood and halogen bulb, 78 × 78 × 78 in. (cast shadows: 43.5 × 43.5 × 16 ft.). Installation view at Rice Gallery, Houston, Texas, 2015.Lee Mingwei (Taiwanese American, 1964–), Our Labyrinth, 2015–present. Photo: Stephanie Berger. In this performance work, single dancers, dressed in floor-length sarongs and wearing ankle bells, take turns sweeping a mound of rice in patterns on the floor in a designated gallery space. This iteration from 2020 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a collaboration with choreographer Bill T. Jones, and the performer in the photo is I-Ling Liu. [Watch on YouTube]
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LECTURE: “The New Visibility of Religion in Contemporary Art” by Jonathan A. Anderson: Religion is becoming more visible in contemporary art and more discussable, says artist, art critic, and theologian Jonathan Anderson in his September 17 talk sponsored by Bridge Projects in Los Angeles. Danh Vo, Kris Martin, Andrea Büttner, Deana Lawson, Arthur Jafa, Genesis Tramaine, Hossein Valamanesh, Theaster Gates, Zarah Hussain, Francis Alÿs, Louise Bourgeois, Sol LeWitt, Sean Kelly, Gerhard Richter, James Turrell—these are just some of the many contemporary artists who have engaged substantively with religion in their work, either through form or content or through the ways in which they frame the work’s central questions. Curators and art historians are recognizing this more and more, and it’s being reflected in exhibitions and scholarship. Anderson highlights several such instances from the past two decades, celebrating religion’s increased visibility but also pointing out where there’s room for improvement. The talk starts at 6:36:
At 28:58, Anderson outlines four interpretive horizons, or fundamental hermeneutics, within which religion is becoming visible, intelligible, and meaningful in contemporary art: anthropological (31:00), political (37:43), spiritual (42:51), and theological (48:42). He discusses the problems and possibilities of each—ways in which it has been productive or insightful, and ways in which it’s limiting. The fourth horizon, the theological, is the least developed in the art world and the most contested, he says.
He concludes,
A more concentrated and well-developed mode of theological inquiry has much to contribute to the history, theory, and criticism of contemporary art without being reductive, but instead opening much of what’s going on in contemporary art. And so going forward, I do envision a mode of study that keeps all these horizons in view, and a mode of discourse that keeps all these horizons in view, while especially developing the potential for the modes of critical writing capable of addressing theological conceptualities, genealogies, and implications that are in play in so much of the art being made today. And that involves thinking better from both directions, developing concepts and capacities—skills, really—where art criticism might operate with a more agile, historically sensitive understanding of religion and theology (a richer theological intelligence), and theology might operate with a more agile, historically sensitive understanding of art and criticism (a richer art historical intelligence, or visual intelligence).
The last half hour is Q&A. What he says at 1:03:59 is fascinating! If you enjoyed this talk, check out, too, the one he gave ten years ago, “The (In)visibility of Theology in Contemporary Art Criticism,” which I published detailed notes on and which became a chapter in the book Christian Scholarship in the Twenty-First Century: Prospects and Perils, edited by Thomas M. Crisp, Steve L. Porter, and Gregg A. Ten Elshof.
As a side note, Anderson teaches two courses at Duke Divinity School, where he is a postdoctoral associate in the DITA program: “Contemporary Art and Theology” and “Visual Art as Theology.” The latter looks at the history of primarily Christian art as a domain of primary theological reasoning and biblical commentary, done in visual-spatial terms rather than in verbal-written terms. His hope is that divinity students—future biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, etc.—will become more literate in the visual-spatial forms of theology. I mention this because it’s what I’m about too!
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PODCAST EPISODE: “Jacquiline Creswell: Curating in Sacred Spaces,”Exhibiting Faith: Hosted by critic and art historian David Trigg, this is the first episode of a brand-new podcast about the intersection of art and faith, featuring a range of guests for whom those two elements have played a significant role. First up is Jacquiline Creswell, a visual arts adviser and curator who has, since 2009, organized more than forty-five exhibitions in sacred spaces. She has been central to the development of the visual arts programs at Salisbury, Ely, and Chichester Cathedrals. She discusses some of the projects she has worked on and how they’ve been received by the congregation and the wider public, how the setting of an artwork can alter its meaning and the way people engage with it, the logistical challenges of placing art in historic churches, and more.
I was interested to learn that she is from a Jewish background, even though most of her jobs have been with Christian institutions. Check out the eight objectives she lists on her website, which have guided her curatorial work and which I find exciting; the first is “To present artwork which is engaging, that encourages a spiritual response and may at times challenge conventional perceptions.”
Nicholas Pope (British, 1949–), The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit By Their Own Lamps, 1996, installed 2014. Thirty-three figures in terracotta, metal, wick, paraffin, and flame. Trinity Chapel, Salisbury Cathedral. Photo: FXP, London.Jayson Haebich (born in Australia, living in Hong Kong and London), Star of Bethlehem, 2016. Interactive laser installation at Salisbury Cathedral, England.
New episodes of Exhibiting Faith are released once a month. The second (and latest) episode is an interview with Dubai-born, Birmingham-based textile artist Farwa Moledina, whose Women of Paradise (2022) scrutinizes the portrayal of Muslim women in the canon of Western art. Moledina also discusses her experience of Ramadan during lockdown and how it resulted in By Your Coming We Are Healed (2020), two sufras (floor mats for communal dining) made up of photographs of plated dishes submitted to her by participants in the virtual iftars she hosted, arranged according to Islamic design principles of symmetry, abstraction, and recurrence.
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SHORT FILM SERIES: At the Threshold: Theology on Film, dir. Sean Dimond:At the Threshold is the latest project from UNTAMED, a documentary film studio in Seattle that “pursue[s] stories of spiritual and narrative depth, with a bias for hope, risk, and redemption.” Filmed in Belgium, Germany, and the UK, it profiles six Christian theologians from Europe, each one humble, open-hearted, and reflective.
“The Open Narrative of Love” with Lieven Boeve, Leuven, Belgium: Boeve reflects on how God interrupts people’s self-enclosed stories. Christianity, he says, is itself an open narrative, not a closed one, and it leads us not away from the world but right into it. One of the filming locations in this short is a rural landscape in Borgloon where Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout van Vaerenbergh built Reading between the Lines, an open-air chapel created to imagine a church inseparable from the world around it.
“The Greater Part” with David Brown, St Andrews, Scotland: Brown talks about prayer, the Bible as part of a living tradition, the church’s call to be creatively other, and the only time he ever saw his father cry. He also cites some of the poets, novelists, and composers/singer-songwriters he admires.
“The Radiance” with Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Muenster, Germany: “The fractcal structure of religious diversity” is of deep interest to Schmidt-Leukel, a Christian who draws insights from Buddhism and who was criticized by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger for doing so.
“Danseuse” with Ann Loades, Durham, England: A feminist theologian, Loades is one of only two people ever to be awarded a CBE for services to theology. The Christian tradition is responsible for the devaluation of women, she says, but that tradition also contains resources for its own transformation. She also discusses dance as prefiguring the resurrection body.
“To Imagine That” with Garrick Allen, Glasgow, Scotland: Allen sees the book of Revelation as being about how to live in a system that is unjust. “This is John’s response to an oppressive system, and it gives us space to rethink what a just system would look like in our world—to begin to imagine that.”
“Begin with the End” with Judith Wolfe, St Andrews, Scotland: “We have to take seriously the claim that we do not yet live in the world as it will be, and as we will be, and that we have to live towards an eschaton, a presence of God in the world, which is not only not yet apparent, but is not even comprehensible to us. So how do we live authentically in this life?”
From the studio: “Theology offers a home for the vast and the intimate. No question is foreclosed. Visually immersive, poetic, and global in scale, these narrative and theological short films invite viewers into a conversation about life and its limits which is as vibrant as it is challenging. This series isn’t about promoting theological ideas we necessarily agree with, but rather we are exploring the connections between vulnerable life, big questions, and the diversity of theological work being done today. It’s not that we are on the threshold of discovering God, but that perhaps God is already on the threshold of our lives, knocking to enter through our wounds, deepest desires, and questions.”
Update, 10/27/22: Two weeks after this article was published, Tokens Show rebranded and relaunched with a new name, No Small Endeavor; learn the inspiration behind the original title here, and the reason for the change here. Their mission remains the same but with a renewed commitment to greater diversity of guests, and their new tagline is “Exploring what it means to live a good life.” They also announced that starting in 2023, their radio show will be nationally syndicated.
“Public theology” is a term I’ve been seeing more and more—in people’s professional titles, in books, in taglines, etc. Public theology is theology that talks with and not just to society, write Sebastian Kim and Katie Day in their introduction to A Companion to Public Theology (2017); it ventures outside the ivory tower and the walls of the church, engaging issues of common interest to build the common good. It’s incarnational and touches all aspects of life, which means it’s interdisciplinary, addressing economics, politics, healthcare, criminal justice, the arts, and so on.
One media entity that does public theology really well is Tokens Media, which encompasses live events (Tokens Show), a podcast, a radio show, and online courses. Sponsored by Lipscomb University in Nashville with funding from the Lilly Endowment and the John Templeton Foundation, the shows are hosted and produced by Lee C. Camp, a professor of theology and ethics at Lipscomb.
Tokens Show blends music, theology, comedy, and social issues, bringing together a host of talent and thought from the local Nashville scene and the country at large for evenings of conversation and fun. See a trailer below, followed by a blurb from the Tokens press materials.
Called Nashville’s best variety show, our philosophical and theological events imagine a world governed by hospitality, graciousness, and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder, and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy, and peace-making. We exhibit tokens of such a world in music-making, song-singing, and conversations about things that matter.
Unapologetically Christian but casting a wide net, Tokens Show spotlights poets, pastors, theologians, ethicists, historians, singer-songwriters, psychologists, journalists, politicians, activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and other scholars and practitioners. Its long list of distinguished guests includes James Cone, Rachel Held Evans, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf, Francis Collins, Jim Wallis, Tracy K. Smith, Keb’ Mo’, Christian Wiman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Walter Brueggemann, Amy-Jill Levine, Willie James Jennings, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Barbara Brown Taylor, Ricky Skaggs, Over the Rhine, and many more.
Tokens was launched in February 2008 as a quarterly event, generally held in Lipscomb’s Collins Alumni Auditorium, with its annual Thanksgiving show, a major bash, held at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium since 2010. (This year’s is November 20—and I’ll be there! See more info at bottom of post.) The Tokens house band, the Most Outstanding Horeb Mountain Boys, consists of much-sought-after Nashville session players Byron House (upright bass), Pete Huttlinger (guitar), Aubrey Haynie (fiddle, mandolin), Chris Brown (drums), and Buddy Greene (harmonica, vocals), led by music director Jeff Taylor (piano, accordion).
Sojourners magazine praised Tokens Show for its substantive entertainment and overall playful tone:
If A Prairie Home Companion ever moved south and got religion—or at least went to divinity school—it might look a lot like TOKENS. While Camp and his cast deal with theology, they are after something bigger—glimpses of God’s action in the world . . . tokens of grace. . . . Camp knows the power of a pregnant pause, and how to switch from a song about environmental degradation to a radio skit without missing a beat. And the cast never seems to take itself too seriously.
One of Tokens Show’s regular segments is “Class and Grass,” where the house band plays a medley of classical music and bluegrass arranged by bandleader Jeff Taylor. For example, for Tokens’ 2019 Thanksgiving show, Taylor built a ruckus-raising medley around “Orange Blossom Special,” a fiddle tune from the 1930s named after a luxury passenger train of the same name, weaving in excerpts from Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5, Bizet’s “Habanera,” Offenbach’s “Galop infernal,” and Rossini’s William Tell overture:
For their 2018 Thanksgiving show, they mashed up the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts” with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and “Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?”:
“Für Elise and the Prophetic Imagination,” from “The Prophetic Ethic” show on June 6, 2014, features jazz, tango, and bluegrass variations on Beethoven’s famous, posthumously discovered bagatelle:
And the “Class and Grass” segment of Tokens’ April 13, 2010, show, “Back to Green,” combines a piano piece (anyone know what this is? Bach? Mozart?) and “Billy in the Lowground,” a popular fiddle tune among Kentucky musicians that has been known in Scotland for centuries:
Though several musical styles are represented on the Tokens stage—bluegrass, country, gospel, folk, blues, rock, classical—bluegrass predominates. Here’s a bluegrass version of the African American spiritual “My Lord Is a Rock in a Weary Land,” led by Buddy Greene:
And “Crying Holy Unto the Lord,” a song by Irene Amburgey that’s performed here by Bryan Sutton and Company:
One of the show’s past musical guests was Nefesh Mountain, a Jewish bluegrass band fronted by married couple Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg. Here they sing “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Esa Einai,” an original setting of Psalm 121:1 (“I lift my eyes to the mountains . . .”) in English and Hebrew.
Tokens Show also regularly features hymns, a significant part of Christian heritage, especially in the US. In the following video, Audrey Assad describes growing up in a Plymouth Brethren church that forbade the use of musical instruments but placed a high value on four-part a cappella singing. She then leads a vocal quartet in one of my favorite hymns, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” (the other singers are Michael Gungor, Buddy Greene, and Lee C. Camp):
Here’s an instrumental bluegrass hymn medley comprising “Where the Soul of Man Never Dies,” “Are You Washed in the Blood,” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”:
For some hymns, the audience is invited to sing along, as with “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” featuring soloist Jason Eskridge:
The show highlights new musical works as well, like singer-songwriter and upright bassist Scott Mulvahill’s “The Lord Is Coming”:
And Gungor’s “God and Country,” an antiwar anthem performed by Michael Gungor, Audrey Assad, and friends:
From their “Singing Down the Pain” show, I learned that the tune of Elvis’s “Love Me Tender” was taken from the American Civil War ballad “Aura Lee,” adopted by soldiers on both sides. I also learned about a historic music-sharing experience that happened outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on December 30, 1862, when, on the eve of a major military battle, Confederate and Union brass bands exchanged songs, Battle of the Bands–style, across enemy lines. Winding down, the Confederates started playing the familiar “Home, Sweet Home,” and the Union joined in, with soldiers from both North and South singing in unison their mutual longing for home.
Despite this bonding, the Battle of Stones River commenced early the next morning, resulting in 24,000 casualties.
As you can see from that video, Tokens Show is largely story-driven.
It occasionally features spoken-word pieces, as in their October 4, 2016, episode, “God Songs.” Leslie Garcia, one of Camp’s students at the time (now a digital product designer in New York), delivers a poetic reflection on the Latin American immigrant journey, drawing on her own family history. It opens, “My mother came to this country in the back of a pickup truck . . .”
Real-life questions and issues are met with the best of theological reflection at Tokens events, with Camp as emcee providing the connective tissue that links the various acts.
One thing I like about Tokens Show is how it recognizes the complexities of American Christianity’s past and present, painting neither as entirely good or entirely bad. It addresses some of the lamentable aspects of US and church history and culture, but it also speaks hope, confronting these realities with gospel truth so that we might humbly allow that truth to drive us to confession, action, and anticipation. And while it does acknowledge the ways in which sin has marked systems, it also celebrates those places within those systems where virtue or redemption can be found.
Tokens Show has a healthy relationship to tradition, which for them is a wellspring of creativity. In terms of music especially, Tokens showcases vibrant works from earlier eras but also, often, innovates on them or draws them into new contexts. In their theology, too, they adhere to the orthodox creeds while being open to what happens when those traditional tenets of belief are brought into so-called secular arenas of contemporary life, further unfolding their meaning. In the root sense of the words, Tokens is both conservative and progressive—conserving what’s worth conserving, leaving behind what’s not (such as cultural accretions that diminish the gospel), recovering and progressing toward the good, semper reformanda.
While some of the song selections may prompt nostalgia for some, Tokens Show is not all warm and cozy. There can be a bite and a challenge as we hear wrenching personal stories or encounter new facts. Tokens does not shy away from provocation for God’s sake. But it is to the show’s credit that the tone is never haranguing, always invitational.
The gospel calls us out of our bubbles and into the world. Our faith should have an impact on how we think about public issues and relate to others in the public square. Tokens Show models this kind of engagement.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when live shows had to be shut down, Tokens launched a podcast, its first episode airing May 21, 2020. Its tagline is “Public theology. Human flourishing. The good life.” Even though live shows have resumed, the podcast continues to be active. I have enjoyed every single episode, but let me share just a few in particular:
>>“The Making of Biblical Womanhood: Beth Allison Barr,” June 3, 2021: Controversially, historian Beth Allison Barr defines “complementarianism,” the theological view that promotes male headship and female subordination, as “Christian patriarchy.” Hear her unpack that and other ideas from her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth in this episode. She offers a unique reading of 1 Corinthians 14 (bringing it into conversation with ancient Roman law codes); reminds us of the oft-neglected Romans 16 (which names a woman apostle and a woman deacon, among other early church leaders who were female, though several English translations obscure the fact); notes how the 1980s revival of the Arian heresy coincided with the explosion of “biblical womanhood”; and shares her and her husband’s personal connection to the topic in their ministerial life.
Shorter interviews of this nature also take place during the live shows, even though this blog article highlights the music.
You can subscribe to the Tokens podcast through the app of your choice, and episodes (audio only) are also posted on YouTube, though there’s a bit of a lag there. You can also find video excerpts from Tokens events on the Tokens YouTube channel.
Their annual Thanksgiving show this year is “No Small Endeavor”—Sunday, November 20, 7:30 p.m.,at Ryman Auditorium—with musical guest Johnnyswim, a husband-wife folk duo comprising Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano. As I mentioned, I’ll be going; I paid $137 for two tickets last week, including taxes and fees, and it looks like the house is already more than half-full. (There is also a $20 virtual option available, or a $47 virtual membership that gives you streaming access to four shows.) It will be my first Tokens Show and my first time in Nashville, and I’m making a long weekend of it with my husband. Let me know what we should do/see there, and if you have any tips on where to stay. We’re not country music fans, but bluegrass, gospel, blues, and folk—yes, please! We’re foodies too.
Besides catching one of Tokens’ live events, if you live in the Nashville area, you might also want to tune in to their radio show, which airs Sundays at 2 p.m. Central on WPLN Nashville Public Radio.
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: October 2022 by Victoria Emily Jones: This month’s thirty-track assortment includes the jaunty “Now I’m on My Way” by Howard Smith and Frederick D. Fuller, performed by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir under the direction of Carol Cymbala, and the recently released “Good Tree” by the Hillbilly Thomists, a bluegrass band of Dominican friars.
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GOSPEL PERFORMANCE: “I’ve Got the Joy / It Is Summertime in My Heart / Give Me Oil in My Lamp” and “Do Lord” by The Four Girls: Did you know that Hollywood Golden Age actress Jane Russell was part of a traveling gospel music quartet, The Four Girls? In 1954, a year after starring with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she sang this medley on an Easter Sunday broadcast alongside fellow group members Connie Haines, Beryl Davis, and Rhonda Fleming (replacing Della Russell), who were Baptist, Episcopalian, and Mormon, respectively. Quite the interdenominational group! All four were active in the Hollywood Christian Group, founded in 1947 by Henrietta Mears.
That choreo, haha! And boy are they aggressive in their evangelism/catechesis of that little girl in the last number!
The Four Girls grew out of an impromptu performance at a fundraising event for St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Los Angeles in fall 1953. A representative of Coral Records was in the audience, and he signed the women immediately. Their recording of the spiritual “Do Lord” sold over 2 million copies.
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I get a kick out of Jack Black’s hammy character performances, especially the ones that involve singing. In each of the last two movies I saw him in, he plays a strangely likeable Christian criminal based on a real-life person.
In the dark comedy Bernie (2011) by Richard Linklater, Black plays Bernie Tiede, a small-town Texas mortician who befriends a wealthy widow but, when the emotional toll of her possessiveness and persistent nagging becomes too much, ends up killing her. The opening credit sequence (which comes after a scene of Bernie teaching a class, with great tenderness, on how to prepare a deceased body for viewing) shows him driving in his Lincoln Town Car, jamming to the Florida Boys’ “Love Lifted Me” on the radio. Millennium Entertainment has released a singalong version on YouTube, featuring a take from the movie with added lyrics and a bouncing Jack Black head!
Six years after this Golden Globe–nominated performance, Black starred in The Polka King (2017) as Polish American polka legend Jan Lewan, who was imprisoned in 2004 for running a Ponzi scheme. Although he’s a con artist, the movie portrays him as sympathetic—bright-eyed, kind, gentle—and devoutly Catholic. (Yes, he really did meet the pope!) The end credits feature Black as Lewan singing “Thank You So Much, Jesus,” written by Stephen Kaminski, Maya Forbes, and Wallace Wolodarsky for the movie. The repeated “dziekuje” is Polish for “thank you.” Enjoy the accent.
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SONG: “Morning Star Rise” by Josh White: Josh White is a singer-songwriter, the founding pastor of Door of Hope church in Portland, Oregon, and cofounder, with Evan Way, of Deeper Well Records. In the early 2010s he formed the neo-gospel collective The Followers, and encouraged one of his parishioners, Liz Vice, to get involved as a vocalist. She is featured on Deeper Well’s first record, Wounded Healer (2012), including on the song “Morning Star Rise”—performed live in 2012 in the video below, with White on lead. (Vice is on the left; Holly Ann is on the right.)
White recognized Vice’s musical talent and wrote a batch of songs for her to record on her own, which became her debut solo album, There’s a Light (2015)—an immense hit. Yay for pastors who notice and nurture the gifts of their people!
Art & Theology 