Tag: African American spirituals

Roundup: Jazz Vespers with Ruth Naomi Floyd, Psalm 90 set to Celtic tune, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

ARTWORK:

Dyer, Cheryl_Rattlesnake Master
Cheryl Dyer, Rattlesnake Master, 2021. Collage / mixed media, 34 × 18 in.

In this piece, lettering artist and calligrapher Cheryl Dyer of Omaha takes Psalm 90 (traditionally read on Ash Wednesday) as her subject, embellishing excerpts with watercolor and other media. Rattlesnake master is a perennial herb of the parsley family native to the tallgrass prairies of central and eastern North America.

+++

ARTICLE: “The Vindication and Blessing of Lent” by the Rev. Dr. Michael Farley, Modern Reformation: I also sometimes receive pushback from others in my Reformed Christian circles for my observance of Lent. I appreciate Farley’s response to such concerns, explaining why he finds Lent—and the liturgical calendar as a whole—biblically, theologically, and practically compelling.

Note: If you’d like a new devotional booklet to work through this Lent that is broadly Reformed and that combines scripture readings, prayers, songs, art, and other elements, I recommend the Daily Prayer Project’s Living Prayer Periodical, which, full disclosure, I had a hand in producing. New for this year’s Lent edition, we’ve added a special page spread for each day of the Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The cover image is of a thirteenth-century Armenian khachkar from the Monastery of Gosh and is one of eight featured artworks inside (three accompanied by written reflections, three by visio divina prompts). If you want to receive a copy by the start of Lent on Wednesday, order the digital version; otherwise, expect a few business days for shipping.

Lent LPP

+++

SERMON: “Seasons of the Heart: Preparing for Lent” by James K. A. Smith: Last February, Jamie Smith preached on Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 and John 16:12–15 at his home church, Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He talks about seasonality—how we creatures experience time in seasons, both personally and collectively—and encourages us to ask, “When am I?” Along the way he references Gustavo Gutiérrez, Rita Felski, and Bruce Springsteen. Below is a transcription of 23:42 onward, which I find so resonant. To receive the full force of this conclusion, listen to the whole sermon.

God has more to say to us in his word that we haven’t yet got. There is something in us, for us, in the word that we hear over and over and over again, and the way that we will get to the place of receiving it is precisely by giving ourselves over to the seasons in our lives and letting God do the work in us so that we get new ears, because we have new hearts. This is one of the reasons why . . . repetition is at the heart of the spiritual life. It’s exactly why we keep repeating the liturgical seasons over and over again. Why? Because every single one of us is a different person every time Advent arrives. Every single one of us has undergone something every single time Lent rolls around again.

And so as we’re preparing for Lent—this season of repentance, this season of encountering our mortality—again, I want to encourage us to ask: When am I? When are we? What am I going through? What season am I in? And then from that place, come to Lent with expectation. What does God want to say to me in the now that I find myself? What are you newly ready for because of what you’ve come through? What can Jesus say to you this year that he couldn’t tell you last year?

So many of you are mourning. And the journey of Lent is really a journey of yearning for resurrection. But it passes through the valley of the shadow of death. Unapologetically. And the psalmists’ cries that you’re going to hear in Lent, maybe this year they’re going to give voice to a cry of your own that you didn’t have before. The experience of being bereft on Holy Saturday is going to hit some of you in a way it never has before this year. But maybe that also means that Easter dawns for you in a way it never has before.

Friends, maybe some of you feel, to go back to Ecclesiastes, that it’s a time to build and plant. Because you’ve come through the season of tearing down and uprooting. Maybe this Lent you feel like you’re finally in a place where you can be vulnerable to a God that you finally learned is compassionate, who loves you all the way down. This is a season to build, to plant.

Friends, maybe some of you feel like it’s the time of giving up and throwing away. There is a time for everything, the Teacher tells us. There’s a time to give up, there’s a time to throw away. But maybe it’s precisely what you need to let go of that has been blocking your ability to experience God’s incessant, steadfast, always love.

Whenever you are, whatever season you find yourself in, God has good news to share with you. That’s what we can rely on. No matter what season you’re in, the God who is eternal—the same yesterday, today, and forever—has always a word of good news, because he is always the God with us. He is always Emmanuel. And so this Lent and Eastertide, maybe this is the year you finally get God’s song. You finally hear the song of new life. And friends, I hope you hear that God is singing to you.

+++

VESPERS SERVICES AT CALVIN UNIVERSITY:

I’ve just returned from another inspiring Calvin Symposium on Worship, so grateful for all the gifts and wisdom that were shared. There’s much I could say, but one thing I discovered was how much I loved participating in Vespers, a short evening worship service consisting of scripture readings, prayers, and song (vesper in Latin simply means “evening”). It’s not something that’s regularly offered in my (Presbyterian) tradition, at least not near me. Here are three of the Vespers services that took place this week at Calvin, the latter two at which I was present:

>> Celtic Vespers: “Psalms of Healing and Hope for a Troubled World,” led by Kiran Young Wimberly and The McGraths: This service of psalms set to Celtic melodies was led by Kiran Young Wimberly and The McGraths (a Northern Ireland–based group that performs and records together), Mary Beth Mardis-LeCroy (violin), and Brian Hehn (piano). Since Ash Wednesday is this coming week, I’ll draw your attention especially to “From Dust We Came (Psalm 90)” (see timestamp 15:28), which uses the eighteenth-century Irish tune CASADH AN T’SÚGÁIN. Plus, another highlight for me: “Love and Mercy (Psalm 85),” set to the eighteenth-century Scottish tune LOVELY MOLLY (39:55)—I’ve added this to my Advent Playlist! For more info about the musicians and their work, see https://www.celticpsalms.com/.

>> Jazz Vespers: “Lament as Worship,” led by Ruth Naomi Floyd and her jazz quartet: Ruth Naomi Floyd is a phenomenal jazz vocalist, composer, and fine-art photographer. This liturgy that she crafted and presented is so moving. In her thoughtful selection of readings, Floyd brings a James Baldwin poem into conversation with Psalm 42:7–11 and even includes an amusing proverb from Chinua Achebe’s novel Arrow of God. She also adds a visual element: black-and-white photographic portraits she shot, which were displayed on slides during each segment (not all of them are featured in the video recording).

The musical performance, I hardly have words for. All I can say is, it was utterly engrossing. The expressiveness of Floyd’s voice is unmatched, carrying such pathos. I couldn’t pick a favorite song, but the opening spiritual, “Trouble So Hard” (11:37), hit me forcefully. The first verse talks about a mountaintop experience of spiritual ecstasy (“getting happy” refers to being filled with the Spirit), and that’s contrasted in the second verse with a descent into the valley of deep suffering and grief. The refrain asserts to God, seeking divine consolation, “Oh Lord, trouble so hard,” and then testifies that only God truly knows our troubles. Also take note of the concluding song, “Press On” (34:31), an original Floyd composition whose text is taken from the writings of Frederick Douglass, part of a larger body of work that has been recorded and will most likely be released by the end of this year, Floyd told me; see https://frederickdouglassjazzworks.com/.

The amazing instrumentalists are James Weidman (piano), Keith Loftis (saxophone), Matthew Parrish (bass), and Mark Prince (drums).

>> Choral Vespers: “Christ, Holy Vine, Christ, Living Tree,” led by David M. Cherwien and The Choral Scholars: Led by the West Michigan chamber ensemble The Choral Scholars and organist/pianist David Cherwien, this service centers on botanical imagery of Christ and his people—such a generative idea! I enjoyed singing Gerald Cartford’s responsorial setting of Psalm 141:1–4a and 8 (see timestamp 12:48); the refrain is “Let my prayer rise before you as incense; and the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (the plant connection is that incense is derived from fragrant gum resins, i.e., tree sap). Also, this was my first time hearing Elizabeth Poston’s “Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree” performed live (20:48), and the first time its words truly registered with me.

+++

PRAYER-POEM: “Marked by Ashes” by Walter Brueggemann: “. . . On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you—you Easter parade of newness. Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us, Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom . . .” This prayer by the Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann, from his book Prayers for a Privileged People (2008), is ostensibly for any ol’ Wednesday in the church year, but it could be used, with one small elision, for Ash Wednesday itself. I love how it reads Easter backward into Lent, recognizing that the fruits of Christ’s resurrection are borne all year round.

P.S. This year, Ash Wednesday falls on February 14, Valentine’s Day. It did too in 2018; read the poem by Luci Shaw that I published for that occasion.

Christmas, Day 5: Poor Little Jesus

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: Our Lady of Humility by Allan Rohan Crite

Crite, Allan Rohan_Our Lady of Humility
Nuestra Señora de Humildad / Our Lady of Humility by Allan Rohan Crite

Allan Rohan Crite (1910–2007) was a Boston-based African American artist best known for his religious paintings and drawings, many of which place holy personages among everyday people in Boston’s South End. He was Episcopalian.

On using Black figures to narrate biblical stories, Crite said,

I used the black figure in a telling of the story of the Lord, the story of the suffering of the Cross and the whole story of the Redemption of Man by the Lord, but . . . my use of the black figure was not in a limited racial sense, even though I am black, but rather I was telling the story of all mankind through this black figure. (quoted in Julie Levin Caro, Allan Rohan Crite: Artist-Reporter of the African American Community, p. 20)

The image above, which I found years ago at the now defunct brushesandpigments.com with very little captioning info, sets the Nativity in an urban neighborhood. Sitting on a stoop, Mary bends her head down to look lovingly at her son Jesus, cradled in her lap. The banderole at the bottom reads, “Nuestra Señora de Humildad / Our Lady of Humility.”

As indicated by the inscription, this pen and ink drawing belongs to a type of iconography especially popular in the fifteenth century, showing Mary sitting on the ground or on a low cushion, usually holding the Christ child in her lap. The word “humility” derives from the Latin humus, meaning “earth” or “ground.”

I’m not sure why Crite uses Spanish here—whether he spoke it as a second language, or had Spanish-speaking neighbors, or was working on commission—but I do know he visited Mexico and Puerto Rico. 

LISTEN: “Poor Little Jesus” (aka “Oh, Po’ Little Jesus”), African American spiritual

Oh, Po’ Little Jesus.
Dis world gonna break your heart.
Dere’ll be no place to lay your head, my Lord.
Oh, Po’ Little Jesus. (Hum)

Oh, Mary, she de mother.
Oh, Mary, she bow down an’ cry.
For dere’s no place to lay his head, my Lord.
Oh, Po’ Little Jesus.

Come down, all you holy angels,
Sing round him wid your golden harps,
For someday he will die to save dis worl’.
Oh, Po’ Little Jesus. (Hum)

>> Sung by the Morehouse College Glee Club, arr. Leonard de Paur, on New Born King (1999):

>> Sung by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band, arr. Andrew Watts, on Carols and Capers (1992) (the video below is a live performance from 2004):

>> Arranged and sung by Rev Simpkins (Matt Simpkins), with Martha Simpkins, on Poor Child for Thee: 4 Songs for Christmastide (2020):

I find this spiritual so moving. The five-part harmonies—or even just the two parts in Rev Simpkins’s version—are lush and carry such pathos.

From his humble beginnings in a Bethlehem stable to his ignominious death on a Roman cross, Jesus was no stranger to want and sorrow. He wasn’t impoverished, but he wasn’t wealthy; he had a simple upbringing in the small town of Nazareth. His mother probably longed to give him more than she could. She understood in part the hardship of his calling, knew the rejection he would face—and so she sings, “This world’s gonna break your heart.”

Jesus spent three determinative years of his adult life as an itinerant preacher, traveling from place to place and reliant on the support of others; as he told a scribe who aspired to follow him: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:19). That ministry culminated in false charges, abandonment, and a public execution.

The Incarnation required vulnerability on the part of God. God chose to make himself susceptible to hurt by entering fully into the life of human struggle. But out of the hurt and struggle that Christ endured came salvation.

“Poor Little Jesus” seeks to stir up pity for Jesus’s plight. Underlying that pity is a thank-you: thank you, Jesus, for taking on our flesh and dealing with our sin, so that we might be free.

The spiritual is not to be confused with another spiritual of the same name (recorded, for example, by Odetta) that goes, “It was poor little Jesus . . . didn’t have no cradle . . . wasn’t that a pity and a shame?”

This post is part of a daily Christmas series that goes through January 6. View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.

Advent, Day 17: Yonder Come Day

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Be attentive to this [God’s message] as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

—2 Peter 1:19b

LOOK: Bridge of Glory by Nicholas Roerich

Roerich, Nicholas_Bridge of Glory
Nicholas Roerich (Russian, 1874–1947), Bridge of Glory, 1923. Tempera on canvas, 82 × 163 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York.

LISTEN: “Yonder Come Day,” African American spiritual | Performed by the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter’s in the Loop, dir. J. Michael Thompson, on Music for Advent II (2005)

Yonder come day, day is a-breakin’
Yonder come day, O my soul
Yonder come day, day is a-breakin’
Sun is a-risin’ in my soul

This spiritual originated in the nineteenth century in the enslaved Black communities of St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia. Daybreak here can be read as a metaphor for salvation, happiness, death/beatification, or possibility. The latter was an especially common application, as the song was typically sung at Watch Night services, a New Year’s Eve tradition of Christian prayer, worship, song, and dance lasting from around 7 p.m. until midnight.

Recorded in 1963 in Los Angeles, the performance below is from the short film Georgia Sea Island Singers (1964), available on the DVD The Films of Bess Lomax Hawes (2003) and streaming on Kanopy:

The singers are, from left to right, John Davis, Bessie Jones, Emma Ramsay, Henry Morrison, and Mabel Hillary. They sing these lyrics:

Yonder come day
(O day)
Yonder come day
(O day)
Yonder come day
Day done broke
Into my soul

Yonder come day
(I was on my knees)
Yonder come day
(I was on my knees)
Yonder come day
(I was on my knees)
Yonder come day
Day done broke
Into my soul

. . . I heard him say . . .

. . . It’s a New Year’s day . . .

. . . Come on, child . . .

In 2016, Paul John Rudoi arranged “Yonder Come Day” together with “Hush, Hush,” “Steal Away,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” creating a medley of spirituals in which “Yonder” is the through line. The medley is performed in the following video by the University of Oregon Chamber Choir, featuring soloist Alexa McCuen:

The coming of Christ is often described as the rising of a new day. That goes for his first advent in Bethlehem; his second, future advent; and his advent in the human heart, as people receive him and are flooded with spiritual light. “Yonder Come Day” is an apt song for remembering with gratitude one’s own conversion, that moment when Christ came to you and transformed you from the inside out.

This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.

Advent, Day 9: Lamps

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: Look forward to the coming of God by Stanley Fung

Fung, Stanley_Look forward to the coming of God
Stanley Fung (馮君藍) (Chinese, 1961–), 期待上帝 (Look forward to the coming of God), 2002. Digital print on Hahnemühle fine art paper, 100 × 67.5 cm. [for sale]

LISTEN: “Keep Your Lamps,” African American spiritual | Performed by Cantus on That Eternal Day (2010)

Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burnin’
Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burnin’
Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burnin’
For this ol’ world is almost gone

Brothers, don’t get weary . . .
This ol’ world is almost gone

Sisters, don’t stop prayin’ . . .
This ol’ world is almost gone

Christian, your journey soon will be over . . .
The time is drawing nigh

Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burnin’ . . .
The time is drawing nigh

This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.

Roundup: Kristin Asbjørnsen interprets the spirituals, photos from Skid Row, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: July 2023 (Art & Theology): This month’s Spotify mix that I put together for you all includes a Shona worship song from Zimbabwe; “Adonai Is for Me,” a song in Hebrew by Shai Sol; a Black gospel rendition of the children’s classic “Jesus Loves Me”; a new setting of the Lord’s Prayer by Jon Guerra; a composition for clarinet and piano by Jessie Montgomery, written in April 2020 to try to make peace with the sadness brought about by the pandemic-prompted quarantine orders; a country-style setting of Psalm 121 by Julie Lee; and a benediction by Bob Dylan that I heard Leslie Odom Jr. sing in concert recently—its refrain, “May you stay forever young,” is not an anti-aging wish but rather a call to childlike faith, wonder, and curiosity in perpetuity.

The playlist also includes the following two songs.

>> “Come Go with Me”: A lesser-known African American spiritual performed by the Norwegian jazz singer-songwriter Kristin Asbjørnsen, from her excellent album Wayfaring Stranger: A Spiritual Songbook. She describes the spirituals as “existential expressions of life: songs of longing, mourning, struggling, loneliness, hopefulness and joyful travelling.” This particular one is about walking that pilgrim path to heaven, a path on which Satan lays stones to obstruct our progress but which Jesus, our “bosom friend,” clears away.

>> “Love, More Love”: A short Shaker hymn that opens with a common Shaker greeting: “More love!” “Our parents above” refers, I believe, to the elders of the faith who have passed on. The hymn uses horticultural imagery to describe the qualities of communal love—something planted and grown, becoming stronger and fuller and more beautiful as it is nurtured.

Love, more love
A spirit of blessing I would be possessing
For this is the call of our parents above

We will plant it and sow it
And every day grow it
And thus we will build up an arbor of love

The Shakers are a Christian sect founded in 1747, but because celibacy is one of their tenets (and thus they cannot rely on procreation for the community’s continuation), there are only two Shakers left: Sister June and Brother Arnold, who live in Dwellinghouse, Maine. But there has long been a historical interest in Shaker religious culture and aesthetics—which is why, for example, the Enfield Shaker Singers was formed, to preserve the hymnody.

+++

INTERVIEW + PHOTOS: “Photographer Shows the Raw, Unflinching Reality of Life on Skid Row”: For the past decade, anonymous street photographer Suitcase Joe has been spending time on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, a neighborhood inhabited by the largest unhoused community in America. He slowly developed trust and built relationships with the people in that community, learning more about their stories, and they granted him unprecedented access to their daily lives, allowing him to capture them on camera. Hear him talk about the experience, and about misconceptions people tend to have about those experiencing homelessness, in this interview, which also includes a sampling of photos. Even though the headline hawks “Raw!” and “Unflinching!,” I was more struck by how the photographs show experiences of joy and friendship.  

Photo by Suitcase Joe
Photograph by Suitcase Joe, Skid Row, Los Angeles

To find out ways to help meet the needs of those living on Skid Row, visit https://suitcasejoefoundation.org/.

+++

POEM WITH COMMENTARY: “The Rungs” by Benjamin Gucciardi, commentary by Pádraig Ó Tuama: Each week on the Poetry Unbound podcast, Ó Tuama reads and reflects on a different contemporary poem. In this episode’s featured poem, “a social worker holds a group for teenagers at a school. They only half pay attention to him. Then something happens, and they pay attention to each other.” The poem is from Gucciardi’s latest collection, West Portal.

+++

ARTICLE: “Dool-Hoff: A Dutch Maze with New Jerusalem at its Centre (1705)”: The Public Domain Review is always uncovering unique, amusing prints and other artistic and literary curiosities from centuries past. Here they look at an early eighteenth-century religious maze published in Haarlem, Netherlands, whose pathways are filled with didactic verse, some leading to dead ends but others leading to heaven at the center.

Dool-Hoff (Dutch maze)
Dool-hoff (maze), signed by the Dutch Catholic printer Claes Braau, 1705. Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

+++

SONG: “Home Inside” by Valerie June, performed by the Good Shepherd Collective: This Valerie June cover is sung so gorgeously by Sowmya Somanath with Kate Gungor, Bea Gungor, Jayne Sugg, Liz Vice, and Diana Gameros, and John Arndt accompanies on piano. It premiered in Good Shepherd New York’s March 12 digital service. The song is a prayer for belonging more fully to ourselves, to God, and to this earth; its speaker asks that she might be sensitive to the divine breath in all living things, and be soothed and refreshed by that great stream of water that flows from God’s heart. (Reminds me a bit of Universal Jones’s “River”!)

Here is the original recording by Valerie June.

“Fisk Jubilee Proclamation” by Tyehimba Jess (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments
Jessica Lynne Brown

mother emanuel ame church, charleston, sc, 1822: cross-ankle church, palmetto, ga, 1899: green leaf presbyterian church, keeling, tn, 1900: red top church, hopkinsville, ky, 1915: first baptist church, carteret, nj, 1926

Fisk Jubilee Proclamation

(choral)

  O sing unto the Lord a new song . . . (Psalm 96)

O, sing . . . undo the world with blued song
born from newly freed throats. Sprung loose from lungs
once bound within bonded skin. Scored from dawn
to dusk with coffle and lash. Every tongue
unfurled as the body’s flag. Every breath
conjured despite loss we’ve had. Bear witness
to the birthing of our hymn from storied depths
of America’s sin. Soul-worn psalms, blessed
in our blood through dark lessons of the past
struggling to be heard. Behold—the bold sound
we’ve found in ourselves that was hidden, cast
out of the garden of freedom. It’s loud
and unbeaten, then soft as a newborn’s face—
each note bursting loose from human bondage.

Fulton Street M.E. Church, Chicago, IL, 1927: Second Baptist Church, Detroit, MI, 1930: Macedonia Baptist Church, Egg Harbor City, NJ, 1935: Mount Methodist Church, Henderson, NC, 1940: Negro Methodist Church, Loganville, GA, 1947

Source: Olio by Tyehimba Jess (Seattle and New York: Wave Books, 2016). Illustration by Jessica Lynne Brown, from Olio, p. 5. Used with permission. View the book page.

+++

Hear Tyehimba Jess introduce and read his poem at the New York State Writers Institute in this video from 2017:

+++

“Fisk Jubilee Proclamation” by Tyehimba Jess is the first in a heroic crown of sonnets from Jess’s second poetry collection, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Olio. A crown of sonnets is a circular sequence in which the last line of the first sonnet becomes the first line of the second sonnet, the last line of the second sonnet becomes the first line of the third sonnet, and so forth, until eventually the last line of the last sonnet becomes the first line of the first sonnet. What makes Jess’s crown “heroic” (part of the form’s technical name) is that it comprises fifteen sonnets, and the final one is made up of all the first or last lines of the preceding fourteen, in order. Quite the feat!

With this heroic crown, Jess honors the Fisk Jubilee Singers from the historically Black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, a choral ensemble established in 1871 and still active today. Fisk was founded after the Civil War to educate freed men and women and other young African Americans. To raise money for the new school, music professor and treasurer George L. White formed a small choir of nine students to tour the United States. Their repertoire was the spirituals they and their parents sang on the plantations, songs that were rarely known at the time among northern white audiences—such as “Go Down, Moses,” “Steal Away to Jesus,” “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” and “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” to name a few. The Fisk Jubilee Singers are credited with spreading and popularizing this uniquely Black American art form over the country and world.

Fisk Jubilee Singers (original)
The nine original Jubilee Singers, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, ca. 1871. From left to right: Minnie Tate, Greene Evans, Isaac Dickerson, Jennie Jackson, Maggie Porter, Ella Sheppard, Thomas Rutling, Benjamin Holmes, Eliza Walker.

Their first eighteen-month stint took them to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washington, DC. Then in 1873, they toured Great Britain and continental Europe, performing for Queen Victoria and other prominent figures.

The name of the group comes from Leviticus 25, where God mandates that every fifty years, the enslaved are to be set free: “And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family” (v. 10).

The Fisk Jubilee Singers took up God’s call to proclaim liberty far and wide, and they did so through their song. Written in the singers’ collective voice (hence the “choral” headnote), “Fisk Jubilee Proclamation” opens with an epigraph taken from Psalm 96:1: “O sing unto the Lord a new song . . .” (emphasis mine). The first line plays upon this biblical line by substituting three words that rhyme with the ones displaced: “O, sing . . . undo the world with blued song.”

Their song is blued because it was born out of deep suffering. And with it they undo the world—they open up those who were formerly closed off against them. They unravel racist stereotypes, asserting their sacred humanity.

They sing as an act of defiance. Whereas their enslavers had demanded them and their parents to be quiet and would often beat them into submission, now they are unapologetically loud, unbeaten—their words, like them, set free. They own their voices, which embody a range of nuance, from strong, vigorous, and sharp to soft and smooth. Tongue-tied no more, they burst loose from bondage with their new song of freedom. An unfurling of their body’s flag.

Fisk Memorial Chapel tympanum
“Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee” (Isa. 60:1). Tympanum, Fisk Memorial Chapel (built 1892), Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. This chapel is the home performance site for the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

The poem is full of b alliteration: blued, born, bound, bonded, body’s, breath, bear, birthing, blessed, blood, behold, bold, (un)beaten, bursting, bondage. This letter is what’s known as a plosive consonant, because it makes a small explosive sound as you say it. Such an effect reinforces the idea of eruption.

Jess describes the choir’s singing as an act of childbirth, the hymn that has lain within them finally emerging, through painful labor, for all to hear. That hymn is “scored”—in the sense of its music being written on the page, but also bearing the marks of the slaver’s lash, that trauma, that story of violence and oppression, passed down to new generations. The “worn” in “soul-worn psalms” also has a double meaning, in that the singers wear their souls on the sleeves of their songs (or, the songs are dressed in soul) but also they are soul-weary.

Concurrent with the rise and ongoing performances of the Fisk Jubilee Singers were frequent attacks on Black places of worship. As the singers were spreading beauty and hope through the spirituals, white terrorists were spreading ugliness and hate. To remind readers of this context, Jess provides a litany of church names and dates across the top and bottom of the page of each Fisk Jubilee sonnet, indicating Black churches that were burned down, bombed, or sites of other kinds of racially motivated violence. In the back of the book Jess includes this note “On the Fisk Jubilee Choir testifying through fire . . .”:

The names of our burned and bombed black churches enfold the spirituals sung by our Jubilee choir. Inside each flame burns hum, prayer, and holy book. Each hymn inhabits heat and smolder; each biblical spark is kindled with story. There is no complete record of all such attacks upon the black congregational body, no complete accounting of all the pulpits, pews, and psalm books rendered into fire—these 148 stand in testimony to all the unnamed churches lost to arson and TNT, the slats and nails and sweat that doubled as schoolhouse and underground passageway, the pyres of pine and oak and cedar steeples that sheltered baptisms and home-goings, the silent crucifixions curled into ash. The AMEs and the Graces, the Tabernacles and all the many Firsts; the hand fans, tambourines, mourner’s benches, and collection plates; they rise in smoke like the songs that soaked through them and up to heaven’s blued, eternal door. (221)

The litany traces an unbroken line of violence from 1822 to 2015 and, true to the sonnet corona form, highlights a tragic circularity: Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, is the earliest African American church to suffer arson that Jess found record of in his research, and that same church was the target of a mass shooting on June 17, 2015, which claimed nine victims. (Tomorrow is the eighth anniversary.) This murder occurred while Olio was in production with the publisher, and Jess knew he had to add it to the end of the poem sequence.

Despite such assaults on their dignity and personhood, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have always continued to praise, and that is their glorious legacy. They’ve carried forward the joys, sorrows, and faith of their community in song. The final, extraordinary poem in Jess’s Fisk Jubilee sequence is titled “We’ve sung each free day like it’s salvation.” It ends like this: “We’ve smuggled faith from slave shack to palace, / boiling the air with hallelujah’s balm— / each note bursting loose from bondage / to sing unto the world a new song.”

I wholly commend Olio to you, which is the most inventive volume of poetry I’ve ever read. It took Jess nearly eight years to write, and given its irregular nature, I imagine it also took a while for the designer and production team at Wave Books to work out! An olio is a miscellaneous mixture of heterogenous elements, a hodgepodge, but also, as an early page of the book notes, “the second part of a minstrel show which featured a variety of performance acts and later evolved into vaudeville.”

Part fact, part fiction, the book examines the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers directly before and after the Civil War up to World War I, in “an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes defeated attempts to minstrelize them,” as the publisher writes. It includes, for example, transcripts of interviews conducted by the fictitious Julius Monroe Trotter with an array of people who knew the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. It also includes syncopated sonnets (a form of contrapuntal poetry), which can be read up, down, diagonally, or interstitially—listen to Jess read and explain, for example, the sequence he wrote on the conjoined twins Millie and Christine McKoy, where the form stands in for the corpus of the sisters to represent their interconnected but independent narratives. But even for just the fifteen Fisk Jubilee sonnets alone, ten of which are in the voice of each of the original nine singers and their (white) conductor, the book is worth the price.

[Purchase Olio on Amazon] [Purchase Olio from Wave Books]

To learn more about what went into writing the Fisk Jubilee sonnets, read Jess’s blog post for the Poetry Foundation, “Flames of History / Rhythms of Song.” Also check out the interview with Jess published in the Interlochen Review, “Music, Literature, and the Struggle of Consciousness.” One thing that particularly stood out to me from the interview was, when asked about how he intertwines language and music in Olio, he said,

You have to remember in African American literature that we were deprived of the right of reading and writing for most of our history in this country. So, the song and the music became the literature. So, after emancipation, it’s impossible to really completely extract one from the other, because one was so instrumentally carrying so many stories for so long, for so many generations.

Tyehimba Jess (b. 1965) is a major poet whose work bridges slam and academic poetry and is imbued with deep archival research, often fusing music, history, and fiction. His first collection, leadbelly (2005), an exploration of the blues musician Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter’s life, was chosen for the National Poetry Series by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. His second collection, Olio (2016), which celebrates the mostly unrecorded Black musicians, orators, and other performers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. He teaches English at the College of Staten Island.

Juneteenth Playlist: Songs of Black joy, liberation, and faith

Victoria Emily Jones5 Comments

Juneteenth (June 19) is a federal holiday in the United States celebrating the liberation of enslaved African Americans in Texas in 1865. Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but it was not implemented in places still under Confederate control, and because Texas, being on the westernmost edge of the Confederacy, was farthest from the military action of the Civil War, Texans could conveniently continue to enslave, as there were no soldiers there to enforce the executive decree. But when Union troops, both white and Black, arrived in Galveston Bay on June 19, 1865, two months after the official end of the war, they saw to it by threat of force that the 250,000-plus enslaved Black people in the state were freed.

Also known as Emancipation Day or Jubilee Day (after the year of release mandated by ancient Israelite law), Juneteenth has been celebrated by African American communities in Texas ever since the first anniversary of the freeing event. Historically, the church has been at the center of these celebrations, as the formerly enslaved attributed their liberation to God, to whom they gave effusive thanks and praise. In the twentieth century, Juneteenth expanded into other states but still remained very niche, until 2021, when, after decades of lobbying by Black activists, President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, moving the holiday into the mainstream.

Juneteenth marks not only that one historic day but also, more broadly, freedom as an ongoing struggle. It’s not as if the illegalizing of chattel slavery, or even the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ended racial oppression or prejudices, which manifest today in, for example, the racial wealth gap, voter suppression, and disparities in policing. We have made important progress as a country, for sure, but there’s still a ways to go until everyone breathes free.

Bishop T. D. Jakes of The Potter’s House in Dallas says that Juneteenth must involve a reckoning with our nation’s sordid past and a commitment to identifying and rooting out whatever sordidness persists. “It’s vital we all must remember when liberty and justice is delayed or denied, it causes traumatic ripples throughout future generations. . . . As we collectively stop to acknowledge and learn from the delayed liberties of our nation’s ancestors, we must not allow those same systems to repeat injustices.”

In recognition of Juneteenth, I’ve compiled on Spotify 118 songs of Black joy, liberation, and faith. From Beyoncé to Duke Ellington, Adolphus Hailstork to Rhiannon Giddens, Mary Lou Williams to Richard Smallwood, these artists jubilate, extol, lament, protest, revel, testify, and hope.

I acknowledge the complications of me, a white person, offering this playlist. I have grappled with how to appropriately celebrate Juneteenth and how to balance its predominant tone of joy (am I allowed to feel joy?) with an honest accounting of past and present evils that mark the Black experience in America, especially slavery and its legacy. One basic piece of advice I’ve heard is to center Black voices. Listen to and lift up Black historians, Black theologians, Black novelists, Black songwriters, etc.  

The Art & Theology Juneteenth Playlist combines sacred and so-called secular music written and/or performed by Black artists and exhibiting a spirit of defiant joy. It emphasizes the beauty, power, creativity, and divine belovedness of Black people.

Honoring the religious roots of Juneteenth and the faithful ongoing witness of the Black church, I have incorporated many Christian songs, especially those that speak to the imago Dei and to God’s faithfulness, guidance, and deliverance. The Bible is full of divine deliverance tales: the Israelites from slavery in Egypt; Daniel from the lions’ den; the three Hebrew boys from the fiery furnace; Jonah from the belly of the whale; Paul and Silas from prison. “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel? Then why not every man?” sings one spiritual. Another, “Go Down, Moses,” confronts Pharaoh, a stand-in for white Southern enslavers, with the demand “Let my people go,” while yet another exults in the toppling of Pharaoh’s power—“Pharaoh’s army got drownded.” The spiritual “Satan, We’re Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down” addresses the Enemy directly, expressing resolve to overthrow demonic systems and ideologies, such as white supremacy.

There are also plenty of feel-good vibes on the playlist, lighter songs like Lee Dorsey’s “Occapella,” Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside,” and Jon Batiste’s “Freedom” (with its stylish, smile-inducing music video that I can’t get enough of!):

There’s also the gospel song “This Joy” by Shirley Caesar, sung by the Resistance Revival Chorus:

Its first verse is: “This joy that I have—the world didn’t give it to me. . . . The world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it away.” “This strength,” “this love,” and “this peace” follow in subsequent verses—otherworldly qualities given us by God, as Caesar makes explicit in the original, and which no one can ever steal from us. No matter what harm people may do to us, we still possess these inner gifts, which help us face whatever comes.

Composed in the antebellum South, “No More Slavery Chains for Me” (aka “Many Thousands Gone” or “No More Auction Block”) holds together proclamation and grief. The speaker boldly asserts her freedom: “No more slavery chains,” “no more auction block,” “no more peck of corn,” “no more driver’s lash,” “no more mistress call,” “no more children stole from me.” It could be spoken by someone who is still enslaved but who refuses to tolerate that condition any longer, or it could be spoken by someone recently freed, rejoicing in what she has escaped. But the solemn refrain, “Many thousands gone,” remembers the multitudes whom slavery has killed. Here’s a performance by mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett, an international opera star active from the late 1950s through 1990s:

Often words fail to capture the emotional intensity one might feel. “Triptych: Prayer / Protest / Peace” by Max Roach, from his 1960 avant-garde jazz album We Insist!: Freedom Now Suite, featuring Abbey Lincoln, consists almost entirely of wordless vocal expressions, screaming, and sighing, along with drumming by Roach. It’s mournful and alarming. The only words are at the beginning of part 3: “I need peace.” Queued up here (starting at 5:50) is Lincoln and Roach’s performance of the first two parts of “Triptych” for a Belgian TV station that aired January 10, 1964. (The earlier song in the video is “Tears for Johannesburg,” from the same suite.)

In the liner notes for We Insist!, Nat Hentoff writes that “Triptych” is a “final, uncontrollable unleashing of rage and anger that have been compressed in fear for so long that the only catharsis can be the extremely painful tearing out of all the accumulating fury.”

From the same era and genre is “They Say I Look Like God” from The Real Ambassadors, a jazz musical by Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck that never made it to the stage but that was recorded in the studio in 1961 and released a year later. Sung by Louis Armstrong, the song opens with these humorous lines, which Armstrong delivers with chilling earnestness:

They say I look like God
Could God be black? My God
If all are made in the image of Thee
Could Thou perchance a zebra be?

This is one-half of the first of four verses, all of which are interspersed with lines of scripture from Genesis 1 and 1 John 4 intoned, like a liturgical chant, by the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, affirming the inherent goodness of Black folks, bearers of the divine breath. Verses 2 and 3 are addressed to God, pleading that he would show “that our creation was meant to be.” The final verse expresses longing for the day

When God tells man he’s really free
Really free
Really free
Really free

The creation narrative of Genesis 1 is also where Sho Baraka’s “Black as Heaven” opens—with beautiful Blackness, sacred humanity. Historically the color white has been used to symbolize goodness, purity, and heaven, but Baraka turns that symbol inside out and declares that he is “black as heaven.” If God created all humans in his image and many of those humans have black skin, then Blackness is a reflection of God. The Creator loves what he created, and we should too.

Heaven is full of Black saints and will continue to fill with such; they are a mainstay there, and they will not be moved. The song lists many Black saints from across the fields of politics, music, history, education, theology and homiletics, agricultural science, and the culinary arts: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., King Ezana of Aksum, King Lalibela of Zagwe dynasty, Mahalia Jackson, Saint Athanasius, Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, David Walker, Edna Lewis, Carter G. Woodson, Bishop G. E. Patterson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. These men and women are all “black as gold,” not in the sense that they are commodities or currencies, but rather are holy, luminous; and black as life-giving soil.

This is one of the songs commissioned for the 2022 documentary Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom [previously], and it includes a rap by Mag44 of Zambia. There’s so much richness in it, and I encourage you to follow along and sit with the lyrics, investigating any unfamiliar references and, depending on where you fall, humbly receiving the critiques or gladly receiving the affirmations.

In addition to hip-hop and jazz, the playlist is full of songs from the civil rights movement, such as “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind.” This old gospel song was recorded by Roosevelt and Uaroy Graves in 1936 and adapted in 1961 by the Rev. Robert Wesby, a Baptist minister from Aurora, Illinois. Wesby first sang it while spending time in jail in Hinds County, Mississippi, as a Freedom Rider, replacing the repeated word “Jesus” with one of Jesus’s key platform goals, “freedom”: “Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.”

This song became an important one in civil rights marches, and is led in the above recording by the famous activist Fannie Lou Hamer. For subsequent verses, she sings “Walkin’ and talkin’ with my mind . . . ,” “Singin’ and prayin’ with my mind . . . ,” “Ain’t no harm to keep your mind . . .” Stayed on freedom.

“Ain’t No Grave” is another traditional gospel song, first recorded by Bozie Sturdivant in 1942 and then by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1946–47. It’s about the general resurrection, when the saints will be called up out of their graves, but it’s also about indestructibility, the refusal to be or stay buried. I chose a more recent arrangement performed by jazz vocalist Tiffany Austin [previously], from her 2018 album Unbroken:

Hers starts off with the percussive sounds of a ring shout, a style borrowed from the Gullah Geeche of South Carolina’s Sea Bird Islands, and then goes on to incorporate scat singing. It’s full of enthusiastic energy!

One of the most powerful songs on the playlist is “Make It Home” by Tobe Nwigwe, written after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The song is “for the nappy heads in heaven, with a nappy-head Christ by they side”—for Blacks who have died.

It’s also a prayer and a blessing for Blacks who are living. “I pray you catch a wave that doesn’t subside. . . . May your streets be paved with gold. Hope my whole hood make it home.” He prays that his friends, family, and neighbors are able to make it safely back to their homes each night and are not killed in the streets. But “home” operates on other levels as well. To be at home with yourself, for example, is to feel whole, confident, secure in your body. Home also implies belonging. And of course “home” can also mean heaven, that place of ultimate freedom and rest. Are we creating the necessary conditions for freedom and rest here on earth as it is in heaven?

I learned about this song from Dr. Mary McCampbell (see the February 17, 2022, installment of her newsletter, The Empathetic Imagination), who teaches the music video in her humanities class at a Christian university.

Collectively, the songs on this playlist reflect the multifaceted spirit of Juneteenth, which encapsulates exultation, passion, power, praise, irrepressibility, resistance, sorrow, anger, and hope and trust. Like Juneteenth itself, the playlist is a looking back and a looking forward. We Americans are a people “on our way.” The work of emancipation is unfinished. These Black artists invite us to join the work.

I invite you, as a way of commemorating the holiday, to:

1. Choose one of the songs and pray from it.

2. Choose one of the artists and explore more of their oeuvre.

3. Choose one of the older songs and explore its origin and history, learning more about the context from which it arose and how it has been received over the decades. Listen to other renditions to see the different ways it’s been interpreted.

The image on the playlist cover is cropped from a photo I took a few years ago at Duke University Chapel of the linocut Ain’t No Grave by Steve A. Prince (2019), which shows a dancing winged figure emerging from the head of Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest of the Little Rock Nine, as she integrates the city’s high school in 1957. It is an embodiment of LaNier’s mighty spirit, and that of other Black “agents of God,” to use Prince’s term, who pursue freedom for themselves and others.

Roundup: Historiated crosses, English ballad carol of the Crucifixion, and more

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

Holy Week begins Sunday. I will be publishing short daily devotional posts during that time and through the first eight days of Easter. Also: don’t forget about the Art & Theology Holy Week Playlist and Eastertide Playlist! I’ve made some new song additions since last year, mixed in to preserve the narrative flow.

+++

ART VIDEO: “The Crucifixion, c. 1200 (from Christus triumphans to Christus patiens)”: When I was a student in Florence for a semester, my first paper for my Italian history, art, and culture class traced the evolution of the painted wood-panel crucifix in late medieval Italy, from the Christus Triumphans (Triumphant Christ) type to Christus Patiens (Suffering Christ). I lived less than a five-minute walk from the Uffizi, which has in its collection a beautiful example of each—explored by Drs. Steven Zucker and Beth Harris in this short Smarthistory video. Longtime readers of the blog may recognize the latter, which I posted back in 2018.

Painted cross, Pisa (detail)
Painted cross (detail), Pisa, ca. 1180–1200. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 277 × 231 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Inv. 432. [object record]

Zucker provides wonderful photos of both in high resolution on his Flickr page (start here and scroll right)—the full crosses and details of each apron scene—available for free noncommercial use under a Creative Commons license. And there are many other art historical images there as well!

+++

ONLINE EXPERIENCE: “Anamnesis: Journey through the Stations of the Cross”: This year visual artist Daniel Callis and the music and liturgy collective The Many collaborated on a self-guided set of online Stations of the Cross. There are fifteen total, which are being released one at a time every morning and evening from March 30 through April 5. Each station consists of an artwork, a prayer, a song, and a written meditation that help us enter into lament.

Callis, Dan_Grief Station 1
Daniel Callis (American, 1955–), Grief Station #1, Prognosis, 2022. Ink, oil, palm ash, fiber, clay, ash, fabric, 60 × 24 × 24 in. (total work). Photo courtesy of the artist.

The artworks are by Callis, and they’re from his Stations: Resurgam series, a body of work that was just exhibited this month at Green Art Gallery at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He began the series in January 2021 in response to the death of his son, Jeremy David Callis (1980–2020). It consists of fifteen mixed-media works on paper (his process involves printing, “wounding,” stitching, etc.) and fifteen raku-fired offering bowls that incorporate, from the cooling process, copies of letters, hospital documents, and drawings from Jeremy. “They are about pain and the absurd insistent pursuit of hope,” Callis says of the series. Resurgam is Latin for “I shall rise again.”

The songs are by The Many.

+++

BOOK EXCERPT from The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey by Brian Zahnd: In this post from his blog, Pastor Brian Zahnd excerpts a passage from his book The Unvarnished Jesus (2019). “To interpret the meaning of the cross is more than a life’s work—in fact, it has and will remain the work of the church for millennia,” he writes. “The cross is the ever-unfolding revelation of who God is, and it cannot be summed up in a simple formula. This is the bane of tidy atonement theories that seek to reduce the cross to a single meaning. The cross is many things: It’s the pinnacle of God’s self-disclosure. It’s divine solidarity with all human suffering. It’s the shaming of the principalities and powers. It’s the point from which the satan is driven out of the world. It’s the death by which Christ conquers Death. It’s the abolition of war and violence. It’s the supreme demonstration of the love of God. It’s the re-founding of the world around an axis of love. It’s the enduring model of co-suffering love we are to follow. It’s the eternal moment in which the sin of the world is forgiven . . .” Read more.

+++

SONGS:

>> “The Leaves of Life”: “The Leaves of Life,” alternatively titled “The Seven Virgins,” is a traditional English ballad carol of Christ’s passion, first set down in the nineteenth century. It is narrated by (the apostle?) Thomas, who on a fateful Friday runs into the Virgin Mary and six of her companions, who are looking for Jesus. He directs them to the hill where Jesus is being crucified (“And sit in the gallery” may be a corruption of “The city of Calvary”). The women tearfully fly to the site, and Jesus tries to console his mother from the cross before breathing his last. The song ends with Thomas imbibing a strong scent of rose and fennel as he meditates on Christ’s love. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

Here the song is performed in the chapter house of Wells Cathedral in Somerset by William Parsons, founder of the British Pilgrimage Trust and author of Singing for Our Supper: Walking an English Songline from Kent to Cornwall, a book about the seven months he spent as a wandering minstrel. Parsons refers to it as a gypsy carol because Ralph Vaughan Williams collected one version of it from the Roma singer Esther Smith during his 1908–13 collecting trips that resulted in the publication, with Ella May Leather, of Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire (1920).

>> “Were You There”: This African American spiritual is performed here by Pegasis, a vocal trio of sisters—Marvelis, Rissel, and Yaina Peguero Almonte—originally from the Dominican Republic but now living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It’s as if they’re the three Marys singing their testimony! The song is on their 2016 album Peace Through Praise, which they released under the name The Peguero Sisters. Their harmonies are gorgeous.

+++

PODCAST EPISODE: “Malcolm Guite: Poems on the Passion”: In this special passion- and resurrection-themed Nomad devotional episode from 2018, Malcolm Guite reads and reflects on three of his poems, and David Benjamin Blower performs an original three-part song that he wrote in response and that has not been released elsewhere (see 4:30, 16:04, and 27:18).

Guite’s “Jesus dies on the cross,” part of his Stations of the Cross sonnet cycle, was inspired by a line from George Herbert’s poem “Prayer”: “God’s breath in man returning to his birth.” And his “Easter Dawn” [previously] is based in part on a sermon by the seventeenth-century Anglican bishop Lancelot Andrewes. Paraphrasing Andrewes, Guite says, “Jesus is the gardener of Mary [Magdalene]’s heart—her heart is all rent and brown and wintery, and with one word, he makes all green again.” Beautiful! For more on the theme of Jesus as gardener, see my 2016 blog post “She mistook him for the gardener.”

Roundup: Musical Passions beyond Bach; Angola inmates enact the Passion; and more

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

VIDEO: “Waiting with Christ: An Artful Meditation for Holy Week”: A collaboration between Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts in Durham, North Carolina, and City Church in Cleveland, Ohio, this half-hour video from 2021 presents a small collection of scripture readings, poems, visual art, and music for Holy Week, interspersed with reflections by theologian Jeremy Begbie. The artistic selections are a spoken word performance by Paul Turner, Malcolm Guite’s sonnet “Jesus Meets His Mother,” the Adagio movement of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, the painting Riven Tree by Bruce Herman, and Bifrost Arts’ “Our Song in the Night,” performed by Salina Turner, Allison Negus, and Joel Negus [previously].

+++

ARTICLE: “6 Musical ‘Passions’ Beyond Bach” by Josh Rodriguez: Composer, professor, and Deus Ex Musica cofounder Josh Rodriguez is an excellent classical music curator and guide. In this article he introduces us to six modern large-scale musical works about Jesus’s final week: The Passion of Yeshua by Richard Danielpour, La Pasión Según San Marcos by Osvaldo Golijov, The Passion of the Christ Symphony by John Debney, Johannes-Passion by Sofia Gubaidulina, Simeron by Ivan Moody, and the St. John Passion by James MacMillan. He interweaves composer biography, musical analysis, and meaning in concise ways, with nods to music history. Stylistic influences for these diverse selections range from Byzantine chant to salsa! Audio/video excerpts are provided, such as the cued-up “¿Por qué?” from Golijov’s Pasión (see below), a movement centering on the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet with perfume (Mark 14:3–9).

+++

PRINT SERIES: The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) by Marcus Rees Roberts: “The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) is a series of etchings and monotypes by Marcus Rees Roberts. The images derive from fragments from Albrecht Dürer’s series of woodcuts The Small Passion (1511). Images of the Passion – and of the crucifixion in particular – are so embedded in Western consciousness that we forget that it is a depiction of betrayal, prejudice, and torture. In this version of the Passion by Dürer, one of several he made, small, everyday objects lie scattered within the images – a jug, pliers, a hammer, a coil of rope. Even five hundred years later, we recognise these objects as our own; we can identify with them. But in so doing, we enter the depicted space, and we become complicit in the cruelty. This is one reason why Dürer’s Small Passion is both so powerful and so uncomfortable.”

Roberts, Marcus Rees_Passion I
Marcus Rees Roberts (British, 1951–), The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) I, 2019. Diptych etching and aquatint with chine collé printed on Somerset Satin soft white 300gsm, each plate 29.5 × 21 cm (overall 29.5 × 42 cm). Edition of 15.

+++

PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES: Passion Play by Deborah Luster: “There are more than 5,300 inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Nearly 4,000 of them are serving life without parole. In 2012 and 2013 the Angola Prison Drama Club staged a play unlike any other in the prison’s experience. The Life of Jesus Christ featured 70 inmates, men and women acting together for the first time—in costume, with a real camel, performing for the general public. For the untrained actors, this production held special meaning as they saw pieces of their own lives revealed in the characters they played.”

Luster, Deborah_Layla "Roach" Roberts (Inquisitor)
Layla “Roach” Roberts (Inquisitor), sentenced to LIFE, Angola Prison, Louisiana. Photograph by Deborah Luster, from the Passion Play series, 2013.
Luster, Deborah_Bobby Wallace (Jesus)
Bobby Wallace (Jesus), Angola Prison, Louisiana. Photograph by Deborah Luster, from the Passion Play series, 2013.

+++

SONGS:

>> “May I Go with You” by January Lim: This Maundy Thursday song was written in 2020 in the voice of Jesus in Gethsemane, speaking to God the Father. In the first stanza, it seems to me that Jesus is asking to be taken up to heaven, like Elijah—just whisked away back to glory, and spared tomorrow’s cruelties and pain. But in the second stanza that same request seems to shift in meaning as Jesus expresses a desire to go with God’s plan and asks for the strength to follow through. The song was released on the EP Gathered Sighs (2021), put out by Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, where Lim serves as worship arts pastor. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “Calvary” (Traditional): In this excerpt from Washington National Cathedral’s 2020 Good Friday noon service, Imani-Grace Cooper performs Richard Smallwood’s arrangement of the African American spiritual “Calvary,” accompanied on piano by Victor Simonson. Wow. Chilling!

See also Imani-Grace’s performance of “Lamb of God” by Twila Paris and “Were You There” from the same service, which I queued up at those time-stamped links.

Roundup: News photos with Advent promises, “Tent City Nativity,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

PHOTO COMPILATION: “Alternative Advent 2022” by Kezia M’Clelland: Kezia M’Clelland [previously] is the children in emergencies specialist and people care director for Viva and a child protection consultant for MERATH, the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development’s community development and relief arm. She is a British citizen, but her work brings her around the world, seeking to safeguard the rights and well-being of children globally.

Every December M’Clelland compiles photos from that year’s news, showing people affected by natural disasters, violence, and injustice, and overlays them with Advent promises. There’s sometimes a disjunction between image and text that’s grievous and challenging, a reminder that our long-looked-for deliverance is not yet fully here, even though we receive foretastes. The twenty-eight photos M’Clelland gathered from 2022 include throngs of people making their way to Aichi cemetery in Saqqez, Iran, to attend a memorial for twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Amini, allegedly beaten to death by the country’s religious morality police for not wearing her hijab properly; a police officer helping a child flee artillery on the outskirts of Kyiv, and a baby being born in a bomb shelter; women carrying pans of granite up the side of a mine in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for meager wages; a woman comforting a neighbor who lost her home to flooding in Tejerias, Venezuela; children playing in a sandstorm at the Sahlah al-Banat camp for displaced people in the countryside of Raqa in northern Syria; children clearing trash from a river in Tonlé Sap, Cambodia; and more.

Alternative Advent 2022 (Immanuel)
March 9, 2022: An injured pregnant woman is rescued from a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, that was bombed by Russian forces. The following week it was reported that she and her child, delivered in an emergency C-section, did not survive. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP. Scripture: Isaiah 7:14.
Alternative Advent 2022 (Repairer)
January 26, 2022: A young woman looks on from her house destroyed by tropical storm Ana in the village of Kanjedza in Malawi. Photo: Eldson Chagara/Reuters. Scripture: Isaiah 58:12.
Alternative Advent 2022 (no lions)
June 7, 2022: A man and child, part of a migrant caravan consisting mostly of Central Americans, are blocked by members of the Mexican National Guard on a Huixtla road in Chiapas state, Mexico. They seek transit visas from the National Migration Institute so that they can continue their thousand-plus-mile journey north to the US. Photo: Marco Ugarte/AP. Scripture: Isaiah 35:9 MSG.

The sequence of images is a visual prayer of lament and intercession. I appreciate how M’Clelland—via the work of photojournalists, and her sensitive curation—raises awareness about these places of suffering, putting faces to the headlines, but also spotlights moments of empowerment and joy amid that suffering. We are encouraged to seek God’s coming into these situations of distress and to see the subtle ways he does come—for example, through the consoling embrace of a friend, the nurturance of an elder sibling, the protective aid of an officer, a jug of clean water, a child’s glee, or acts of protest.  

For photo credits and descriptions, see the Instagram page @alternative_advent. (Start here and scroll left if you’re on your computer, or up if you’re on your phone.) Follow the page to receive new posts in your feed starting next Advent.

+++

SONGS by Rev Simpkins, an Anglican priest and singer-songwriter from Essex previously featured here:

>> “Hallelu! (Love the Outcast)”: This song was originally released on The Antigen Christmas Album (2014) with the byline “Ordinand Simpkins & Brother De’Ath”; it was reissued in 2016 on Rev Simpkins’s album Love Unknown, “a cornucopia of non-LP tracks, studio experiments, ingenious live re-workings, radio sessions, off-the-wall demos, obscure b-sides, & pissings about.” The music video was recorded on an iPhone 4 in the Edward King Chapel at Ripon College Cuddesdon in Oxford. [Listen on Bandcamp]

>> “Poor Jesus” (Traditional): Here the Rev. Matt Simpkins performs the African American spiritual “Oh, Po’ Little Jesus” with a soft banjo accompaniment. Harmonizing vocals are supplied by his daughter, Martha Simpkins. It’s the opening track of his EP Poor Child for Thee: 4 Songs for Christmastide (all four songs are wonderful!), released December 11, 2020, to support St Leonard’s Church, Lexden, where he serves as priest-in-charge. [Listen on Bandcamp]

+++

NEW PAINTING: Tent City Nativity by Kelly Latimore: Kelly Latimore is an Episcopalian iconographer from St. Louis, Missouri, who “rewonders” traditional iconography, especially with an eye to social justice. This Christmas he painted an icon called Tent City Nativity, which shows the Christ child being born in a homeless encampment. A streetlight shines directly over the Holy Family’s tent, like the star of Bethlehem, and neighbors bring gifts for warmth and sustenance: coffees, a blanket, a cup of chili. View close-ups on Instagram, and read the artist’s statement on his website. Proceeds from print and digital sales of the icon will support organizations serving the unhoused in St. Louis.

Latimore, Kelly_Tent City Nativity
Kelly Latimore (American, 1986–), Tent City Nativity, 2022. Acrylic, Flashe, and golf leaf on birch board, 27 × 32 in.

[Purchase signed print] [Purchase digital download]

+++

SONG MEDLEY: YouTube user African Beats spliced together excerpts from three songs performed at a church in Germany at Christmastime by South African singer Siyabonga Cele and an unnamed woman, including “Akekho ofana Nojesu” (There’s No One like Jesus) and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” I couldn’t find the name of the last song, and attempts to contact the singer for information were unsuccessful, but it’s in Zulu, as is the first one. Lyrics to the first song, sourced from here, are below.

Akekho ofana Nojesu (There’s no one like Jesus)
Akekho ofana naye (There’s no one like him)
Akekho ofana Nojesu (There’s no one like Jesus)
Akekho ofana naye (There’s no one like him)

Siyahamba siyahamba akekho akekho (I have traveled everywhere, no one)
Siyajika siyajika akekho akekho (I have looked everywhere, no one)
Siyafuna siyafuna akekho akekho (I have searched everywhere, no one)
Akekho afana naye (There is no one like him)