Ecclesiastes – Art & Theology

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

February 10, 2024February 11, 2024 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.

+++

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.

Into Air, a meditation on impermanence

February 17, 2023 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Dawn Ng is a Singaporean multidisciplinary artist whose practice deals with time, memory, and the ephemeral. For her recent body of work Into Air, Ng has crafted nearly 150 large sculptural blocks of frozen pigment and documented their dissolution in the form of photographs, film, and residue paintings. A poetic visual meditation on time and its passing, Into Air captures the metamorphosis of colored ice from solid to liquid to air, physicalizing transience. Presented by Sullivan+Strumpf, it premiered at a derelict ship factory in Singapore in January 2021 and from there traveled to Seoul, London, and Sydney. See the six-minute documentary below for more on the process and meaning behind the work.

Dawn Ng in her studio in Singapore, surrounded by studies and artworks from *Into Air*. Photo: Sean Lee. All photos courtesy of the artist.

Ng started working on Into Air in 2018, and it’s ongoing. The project encompasses three distinct series:

Clocks
Time Lost Falling in Love
Ash

Clocks is the name Ng gives to the photo portraits of her colored glacier blocks at various stages of disintegration. Weighing about 132 pounds each, the blocks were constructed from acrylic paints, dyes, and inks that she froze together in her studio. After removing each block from the freezer, she and her team photographed it from ten different angles every four hours until it entirely eroded. “Like kaleidoscopic lodestones, the portraits visualize the shape, colour and texture that time inhabits in an ephemeral form,” Ng writes.

Ng, Dawn_If I could find (CLOCKS) — Dawn Ng (Singaporean, 1982–), *If I could find a souvenir just to prove the world was here*, from CLOCKS, 2021. Archival pigment print, 115 × 149 cm.

Ng, Dawn_Some will fall in love (CLOCKS) — Dawn Ng (Singaporean, 1982–), *Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain*, from CLOCKS, 2021. Archival pigment print, 153 × 118 cm.

Ng, Dawn_Don't they know (CLOCKS) — Dawn Ng (Singaporean, 1982–), *Don’t they know it’s the end of the world*, from CLOCKS, 2022. Archival pigment print, 95 × 95 cm.

Time Lost Falling in Love is the collective title of the time-lapse videos Ng filmed of the thawing blocks. The collapse of each block into a puddle of liquid took fifteen to twenty hours, a process compressed into twenty to thirty minutes for each film. Ng says she wants to portray the fluidity of time—time as a “riot of colors” that swell and ebb, that form rivers and pools. By speeding up the frame rate of the film, Ng manipulates time, fast-tracking the dissolution of the blocks while simultaneously providing a calming evocation of a waterfall in slow motion. Time melting on. Here’s Avalanche II:

The third and final component of the Into Air project is Ash, a series of paintings created by blanketing the liquid remains of each melted pigment block with a large sheet of canvas-like paper. Ng leaves the paper there for weeks until all the liquid evaporates through it, creating marbled textures and thick buildups that she then peels away. Ng describes Ash as her attempt to “sieve time.”

Many of the photographs and residue paintings take their titles from song lyrics—by the Beatles, Genesis, the White Stripes, Death Cab for Cutie, Sufjan Stevens, and others.

Ng, Dawn_The Earth Laughs in Flowers I — Dawn Ng (Singaporean, 1982–), *The Earth Laughs in Flowers I*, 2020. Residue painting (acrylic, dye, ink) on paper, 165 × 142 cm.

Ng, Dawn_Ever see, ever be (detail) — Dawn Ng (Singaporean, 1982–), *Ever see, ever be, ever know my heart* (detail), from ASH, 2022. Residue painting (acrylic, dye, ink) on paper, 199.5 × 150.3 cm.

As much as Into Air is about time, it is also about death. In an interview with Nicholas Stephens for CoBo Social, Ng said,

There is an inescapable relationship between beauty and death. Death gives meaning to all of time. I don’t necessarily see death as something tragic, sad or final. It is that structure that gives true worth and true value to what comes before it. In Asia, especially as a Chinese Asian, we don’t like to talk about death. We feel it is bad luck. But in the paintings, I see death as something beautiful. Even in that last transition to nothingness, the pigments explode. They have a way of clinging on, they try to form tributaries, they flood a space. There is something very beautiful about that last gasp. It is not meek. It can be as strong as fireworks.

I would actually not use the word “nothingness” to describe the blocks’ final state. There’s definitely a “somethingness” still there after the melt! Behold the Ash paintings, which have a glory of their own. Although death is an end of sorts, it’s also a passing from this to that. Ng acknowledges as much. She even describes how “the melted pigments receive a form of resurrection through their incarnation as painterly formulae” in the Ash series. Resurrection!

From July 7 to 23, 2022, Into Air was exhibited, under the curation of Jenn Ellis, at St Cyprian’s, Clarence Gate, a historic church in London’s Marylebone district. The midcentury pews, pulpit, and altar inside the Gothic revival interior inspired Ng to design, in collaboration with EBBA architects, new wooden box structures to house the works, some of which stand vertically, and others which lay parallel to the floor.

Ng, Dawn_Into Air installation — Exhibition view of *Into Air* by Dawn Ng, St Cyprian’s Church, London, July 7–23, 2022. Photo: James Retief.

Ng, Dawn_Waterfall VII (installation view) — Installation shot of *Waterfall VII*, 2022. Single-channel 4K video, 25 mins, 24 sec. Photo: James Retief. [watch video]

By displaying these works inside a sacred space, their spiritual implications become even more pronounced.

Impermanence is a theme that shows up in the sacred texts of all major religions, not least in the Bible, where we humans are reminded again and again of our mortality. Our days are like grass, which sprouts up and then withers (Isa. 40:6–7; Ps. 103:15–16; 1 Pet. 1:24). Our lives, but a sigh (Ps. 90:9–10), a shadow (Ps. 102:11), a mist (James 4:14), a breath (Ps. 39:5; Job 7:7; 7:16). We are made of dust and return to dust (Eccles. 3:20).

And not only are we finite; so is the present order of things. Even heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus says (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33; cf. Heb. 1:10–12). But, crucially, God and God’s word stand forever (Isa. 40:8; Matt. 7:24–27). True stability and unchangingness can be found only in God, Christians believe. God is a Rock that does not crumble, a strong foundation on which to stand, in life and in death.

The brevity of life may sound like a fearsome reality, but actually, it can serve to make our moments here on earth more precious and purposeful. Because our lives are but a short span, we must make the most of them while we can. Christians believe that everyone will one day have to give an account of what we did with the time God gifted to us. Did we share it freely with others, or keep it all for ourselves? Did we use it to cultivate virtue or to pursue vice?

The exhibition at St Cyprian’s also involved the premiere of a site-specific choral work by the London-based Welsh composer Alex Mills. A direct response to Ng’s art, his composition is also called Into Air and lasts about twenty-five minutes, the length of Ng’s Waterfall VII.

“In the piece,” Mills writes,

five singers undergo a musical meditation where each moves through the music to the rhythm of their own breaths, one bar of music for every exhale. Musical structures slowly build and disintegrate, evolve and transform, melt and evaporate. Textures, harmonies and colours – some delicate, others more pronounced – appear, disappear and re-emerge. Combing different singers’ breathing patterns gives the piece an indeterminate quality: the piece will never be the same twice and may even be radically different from one performance to the next. As such, the piece is not a fixed musical object that can be ‘performed’. Instead, it is a transient, ephemeral and elusive moment in time to be experienced.

The debut performance featured singers Jess Dandy, Rebecca Hardwick, Feargal Mostyn-Williams, James Robinson, and Ben Rowarth. It was recorded and turned into a gorgeous film by Bobby Williams, embedded above.*

The first singer stands at a kneeler. The second, at a pulpit. They establish the solemn mood. Two male singers sing from the organ loft, and another stands behind the rood screen with his arms crossed over his chest, as if in prayer. Haunting and mesmerizing, the five voices reflect off the stone architecture and meld together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in dissonance.

To everything there is a season. Starting at around 10:35, Mills incorporates keywords from Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, a biblical passage made especially famous by the Byrds: “gather,” “scatter,” “heal,” “kill,” “dance,” “mourn.” The author of Ecclesiastes is describing the tide of events that make up a life.

Periodically throughout the performance, a metal singing bowl resounds—a tool commonly used to deepen meditation. It is struck alternately by Ng and Mills, who are seated cross-legged at the front side of the church.

Dawn Ng and Alex Mills at the premiere of Mills’s *Into Air*, St Cyprian’s Church, London, July 8, 2022. Photo: Damian Griffiths and Sarah Isabelle Tan.

Mills’s Into Air received a second performance just last week on February 8 at the launch of Music & Being, an initiative he founded with Jess Dandy. Music & Being is an open laboratory space in London exploring the intersection of art, music, psychology, spirituality, ecology, and movement.

As we near Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, Ng’s and Mills’s works remind us of how time slips and slides and ultimately ceases, at least time as we know it. What will we do with our fleeting lives? As they dissipate, what will remain? When our breath stops, will a resonance linger?

* Additional video credits: Special thanks to Apsara Studio, Rose Lejeune, Performance Exchange, Ursula Sullivan, and Sullivan+Strumpf.

The Franz Family (bluegrass gospel)

May 21, 2018May 21, 2018 Victoria Emily Jones6 Comments

I grew up in North Carolina, so bluegrass music feels like home to me. Its acoustic strings (strummed, picked, and bowed), its stacked vocal harmonies—this “mountain music” from the southern US sounds sweet to my ears.

Lately I’ve been enjoying some video-archived bluegrass performances by the Franz Family from Berryville, Arkansas, a family of seven—Mom, Dad, three sons,* and two daughters—who toured together as a bluegrass gospel band continuously from 1991 to 2011, performing at churches, camps, prisons, and parties. (*The second oldest son, Hadley, left the group in 2004 when he got married and moved to Kansas.) Click here to watch a short documentary on the Franz Family, produced in 2010.

Everyone in the group sings and plays multiple instruments, but here are the instruments you’ll most commonly see them on:

Randy Franz: Guitar
Ruth Ann Franz: Guitar, double bass
Caleb Franz: Guitar, mandolin, banjo
Audra (Franz) Mohnkern: Double bass
Emmett Franz: Dobro
Olivia (Franz) Jahnke: Fiddle

So many songs from the traditional bluegrass repertoire were written as Christian testimony. Most celebrate the personal redemption from sin wrought through Christ and eagerly anticipate heaven, inviting others onto that glory train. They also proclaim the loving aid God provides through the storms of life, which the family experienced when Ruth Ann passed away from cancer in 2016. Her death renders even truer the lyrics she sang again and again:

I’m just a pilgrim here
Soon I’ll be gone
Nothing can hold me here
I’m headed home

And:

Somewhere in glory you’ll find me
Singing and shouting in eternity

Here are three studio recordings of the Franz Family from December 2009 in Denver, Colorado: “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand,” “Somewhere in Glory,” and “Getting Ready to Go.”

These can be found on their two albums, The Tale You’ll Never Hear (2008) and Sorrow and Wisdom (2012).

Franz Family albums

I’ve compiled some other video recordings below; for more, see Randy Franz’s YouTube channel. Continue reading “The Franz Family (bluegrass gospel)” →