The final Sunday of the liturgical year—which this year is November 24—marks the Feast of Christ the King. This festival celebrates the reign of Jesus Christ over all of creation and every aspect of our lives.
“The belief in Christ as King finds its roots in the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Messiah, whose reign exists as both a present reality and a future hope,” writes Ashley Tumlin Wallace on her blog The Liturgical Home. “In the here and now, his reign manifests in the lives of believers who seek to live under his lordship. But the Feast of Christ the King also carries a sense of eschatological anticipation, signaling the ultimate culmination of time when the reign of Christ is fully realized.”
Unlike some who sit on earthly thrones, Christ is no tyrant; he’s a benevolent ruler who leads with love and perfect wisdom. He is high and lifted up, and yet he stoops down to us and attends to our cries. He’s so committed to our flourishing that he became one of us and sacrificed himself to save us from the Evil One and reconcile us to God. We owe him our praise, our deference, our all.
For Christ the King Sunday, I put together a Spotify playlist of songs that extol Christ as king of the cosmos and of our own hearts.
It includes traditional hymns like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (below, sung by Paul Zach), “Come, Christians, Join to Sing,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” “O Worship the King,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns” . . .
In looking up hymns, I was delighted to find a new-to-me one from the nineteenth century by Josiah Conder called “The Lord Is King,” which Navy Jones set to a buoyant new tune:
There’s one song on the list whose text dates all the way back to the fifth century. Written in Latin by the Christian poet Sedulius, “Regnavit Dominus” (The Lord Is King) combines praises to the One who conquered death and feeds us with himself with the humble plea, “Kyrie eleison” (Lord, have mercy). Owen and Moley Ó Súilleabháin sing it to a twelfth-century melody:
The playlist also features several psalm settings, including two of Psalm 93, which opens,
The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
One is by Jacob Mwosuko, a member of the Abayudaya (People of Judah) Jewish community near Mbale in eastern Uganda. The text is in Luganda. Though Jews would read “LORD” as referring to God the Father, ever since the early church Christians have confessed Jesus not only as Lord (Master) but also as LORD (YHWH), consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, sharing with him all rule, authority, power, and dominion.
Also from Africa, there’s the Resurrection-rooted salsa song “Jesus Reigns” by Joe Mettle of Ghana, which I learned while attending worship at a Nigerian friend’s church plant for African Christians in Maryland:
On a softer note, there’s the piano ballad “Wondrous Things” by Sandra McCracken, Patsy Clairmont, and JJ Heller of FAITHFUL, a collective of female Christian authors and artists formed in 2019. It lauds Jesus as king to the poor, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted. Heller and McCracken perform it with Sarah Macintosh in the following video:
This next one is more of a nostalgic pick for me: “Make My Heart Your Throne”:
Over two decades ago, when I was a young high schooler, I attended a Christian retreat. The worship leader for the weekend was a man named Carl Cartee, and I remember being struck by this original song of his that we all sang one night. Its words and melody imprinted on me, and all these years later I still find myself sometimes singing them in private as a prayer that Christ would be foremost in my affections and that I would cede control to him.
One of the keenest depictions of Christ’s kingship in scripture is in the book of Revelation, where his glory and triumph are on full display and he’s surrounded by worshipping throngs. Chapter 19, where the exiled John describes “the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven,” is the source text of the song “He Is Wonderful,” sung by Lowana Wallace with Lana Winterhalt and Josh Richert:
These three overlaid, harmonized vocal lines are so enthralling!
Wallace’s song is a simplified arrangement of “Revelation 19:1” by A. Jeffrey LaValley, who wrote it in 1984 for the gospel choir of New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Flint, Michigan, where he served as music director. You can listen to a more recent performance of “Revelation 19:1” on the album Jesus Is King (2019) by the Sunday Service Choir under the direction of Jason White, or in this Mav City Gospel Choir video from 2021, which features soloist Naomi Raine. The choir is directed by Jason McGee:
The build to such fullness of sound . . . wow! It really is evocative of the ample rejoicing in heaven around God’s throne that John the Revelator narrates—“like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals” (Rev. 19:6).
For a multilingual (English-Korean-Spanish) arrangement performed by students and staff at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, see here.
This is just a sampling of the eighty-plus songs on Art & Theology’s “Christ the King” playlist, exalting the One who lives and reigns supreme in the heavens and who will one day bring his kingdom to full fruition on earth.
Cover art: John Piper (British, 1903–1992), Christ in Majesty, 1984, East Window, Chapel of St John Baptist without the Barrs, St John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Staffordshire, England
Van Engen answers questions from poet Shane McCrae and from the audience, addressing how to read a volume of poetry, how poetry produces an experience, the role of understanding and not understanding when it comes to poems, why Christians in particular should read poetry, hymns as poetry, how Adam’s naming creation in Genesis 2 relates to the task of the poet, his favorite poets, and the qualities of a good poem.
Two especially great questions from attendees were:
How do you imagine poetry nourishing discipleship and/or corporate worship, if used by a church leader?
What, if anything, would you like to see more of from Christian poets writing today?
Regarding the first, he says,
I often think that ministers in particular—and especially the heavier the preaching tradition, the more true this is—need creative literature—poetry, novels, and other things—to enliven what it is they’re doing from the pulpit. Not just to understand human life in all of its flourishing and misery, but to connect to people in different kinds of ways than pure principle and message can do.
He mentions the recurring summer seminar for pastors co-led by Dr. Cornelius “Neal” Plantinga, “Imaginative Reading for Creative Preaching,” to help participants explore the possibilities and homiletical impact of engaging in an ongoing program of reading novels, poetry, short fiction, children’s lit, and nonfiction outside the category of Christianity—not just to mine for sermon illustrations but also to develop a “middle wisdom” (“insights into life that are more profound than commonplaces, but less so than great proverbs”) and to deepen their perception of people.
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PODCAST EPISODE: “Opening Your Bible? Turn on Your Imagination” with Russ Ramsey and Sandra McCracken, The Gospel Coalition Podcast, May 8, 2020: This is a recording of a breakout session—“Reading Scripture with an Engaged Imagination”—from the Gospel Coalition’s 2019 National Conference in Indianapolis. Pastor Russ Ramsey (author of Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith) and singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken (“We Will Feast in the House of Zion,” “Thy Mercy, My God”) discuss the role the imagination plays in reading scripture and understanding and conveying its truth.
Scripture calls for reading with a fully engaged imagination, Ramsey says, because that’s how literature works and that’s how people work. “How are you supposed to understand Scripture if you’re not trying to empathize or get into a situation and walk around inside of it?” he asks. They discuss wonder, mystery, and paradox—the unresolved dissonance and complexity present in many Bible stories—and the need to take a Bible story on its own terms instead of always trying to extract a moral or “life application” from it.
Though they don’t use the term, they’re basically advocating for Ignatian contemplation, a.k.a. the Ignatian method of Bible reading and prayer, in which you put yourself into the story and try to experience it with all your senses. Ramsey demonstrates with the story of Mary and the nard. “In those hours as Jesus is being arrested and tried and flogged and crucified, he smells opulent. And I think we’re supposed to get that, you know. We’re supposed to . . . especially a first-century reader is going to say, ‘He left a lingering scent as he went down the Via Dolorosa, and it was the scent of royalty. And it was the scent of extravagance.’”
Some of the names that come up along the way are Robert Alter, Ellen Davis, Eugene Peterson, and Frederick Buechner.
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IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE:Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee at Frameless in London: I’ve been seeing these kinds of exhibitions advertised more and more—ones that use animation and projection-mapping technology and dozens of loudspeakers strategically placed around the room to create a wall-to-wall, multisensory experience built around one or more masterpiece paintings. Some people say it’s gimmicky or overstimulating, but though I’ve never been to one, I generally think they look like fun! They’re not meant to be a substitute for seeing the actual artwork in person.
In the case of Rembrandt van Rijn’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, though, that’s not possible, as the painting was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and has not been recovered. In collaboration with their long-term partner Cinesite, Frameless recently developed an immersive art experience based on the painting—the Dutch master’s only seascape—in which visitors can get a sense of the terror and exasperation Jesus’s disciples must have felt that night they were caught at sea in a torrential wind- and rainstorm while Jesus lay calmly asleep in the boat’s stern (see Matt. 8:23–27; Mark 4:36–41; Luke 8:22–25). Here’s a making-of featurette for that experience, which garnered a nomination for a prestigious Visual Effects Society award earlier this year:
Frameless is permanently housed in the Marble Arch Place in London’s West End cultural district. Christ in the Storm is one of forty-two works of art they riff on across four galleries.
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POEMS:
Here are two poems published this month that each explores a different episode from the story of Jacob’s family in the book of Genesis—one of his wife Rachel stealing her father’s household gods as they flee to Canaan, and one of Jacob’s sons avenging the rape of their sister, Dinah. Both are examples of how poems can stimulate renewed engagement with scripture, as these were stories I had forgotten some of the details of, and the poems did not make sense until I revisited the relevant Bible passages. Poems can help us walk around inside the biblical narratives, both familiar and unfamiliar ones, and see things from the perspectives of different characters, especially ones who are not given a voice in scripture, such as a Shechemite woman taken captive by Jacob’s sons.
>>“Rachel, Cunning”by Patricia L. Hamilton, Reformed Journal: Read the poem first, then Genesis 29–31, then my commentary.
Voiced by Jacob’s second wife, Rachel, in this poem Rachel vents her jealousy over Jacob having first married her sister, Leah, who bore him six sons to her one at this point. This marriage was due to the trickery of her father, Laban, who also tried to cheat Jacob out of fair shepherding wages—so Rachel resents her father. As she prepares to secretly leave Paddan-aram for Canaan with Jacob, Leah, and their children, she steals her father’s teraphim (small images or cult objects used as domestic deities or oracles by ancient Semitic peoples).
In the biblical narrative, Rachel’s motive for stealing the idols is not given. Was she seeking to prevent Laban from consulting them to find out which way she and her family went? Was possession of the gods in some way connected to property inheritance, as some scholars have attested? Was she stealing a blessing from her ancestors? Did she take them for their monetary value? Or leaving her homeland, did she simply wish to take with her a little piece of home, for nostalgia’s sake?
I think the most likely reason is she still believed in these gods’ power—her allegiance to the God of Jacob had not yet been firmly established—and so she stole them for protection. That’s what Hamilton imagines in her poem: that Rachel sees them as “talismans against the spite of brothers,” averting the evil Jacob’s older twin brother, Esau, wished him for his having stolen their father’s blessing that belonged to him. (According to Genesis 27:41–45, before Jacob left for Paddan-aram, Esau had vowed to kill him.)
Marc Chagall (Belarusian French, 1887–1985), Rachel dérobe les idoles de son père (Rachel Hides Her Father’s Household Gods), from The Bible series, 1960. Original color lithograph on Arches wove paper, image size 14 × 10 1/2 in. (35.6 × 26.7 cm).
Caught between two tricksters—her husband and her father—Rachel herself becomes a trickster. When Laban catches up with their traveling party and searches among their possessions for the stolen gods, Rachel, who’s sitting on them, lies and says she cannot get up because she’s menstruating (Gen. 31:34–35). She deceives her deceitful father to keep her deceitful husband and her son Joseph safe from Esau’s rage, as she believes the gods will act in the interests of whoever possesses them. The poem explores the ever-thickening web of deceptions woven in Jacob’s and Rachel’s families and also reminds us that Rachel, remembered now as a great Jewish matriarch, was not raised in the then-still-developing Israelite religion, nor was her turn to Yahweh necessarily immediate upon her marriage to Jacob. I hear in the poem a lament for fraternal and sororal rivalries, and a subtle sad awareness of the vulnerabilities and pressures of women in patriarchal cultures, who are bought and sold in marriage, valued primarily for their childbearing capacities, and typically forced to rely on men for survival, often suffering the consequences of men’s mistakes. (In the poem at least, Rachel’s feeling of insecurity comes from Esau’s threat of vengeance.)
Based on a lithograph by Marc Chagall, this ekphrastic poem is one of twenty-four from the unpublished chapbook Voiced by Patricia Hamilton, all inspired by biblical artworks by Chagall. Hamilton is currently looking for a publisher to take on the collection.
>>“For the Circumcision of a Small City” by Emma De Lisle, Image: The deception continues in Genesis 34; like father, like sons. This poem is based on the episode of the massacre of the men at Shechem by Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi to avenge the rape of their sister, Dinah. Shechem, meaning “shoulder,” was the name of both the city in Canaan where the rape took place and the Hivite prince’s son who committed the rape. Jacob and his family were sojourning there, having even bought land. After sexually assaulting Dinah, Shechem wanted to make her his wife. Dinah’s brothers were disgusted by this request, but they pretended they would entertain bride-price discussions on the condition that all the males in the city be circumcised. Shechem’s father agreed, and his position as ruler meant the people obeyed. A few days after the mass circumcision, while the men were still sore, Simeon and Levi attacked with swords, killing all the males in the city. Their brothers then joined them in capturing the men’s wives and children and plundering their wealth.
Emma De Lisle’s poem is written from the perspective of a woman of Shechem, taken captive in the slaughter. The women of the city scorned the lengths Shechem was willing to go to for the homely Dinah, barely old enough to have her period. “Jacob’s silence for you” alludes to Genesis 34:5, which says that when he found out about his daughter’s rape, “Jacob held his peace” until his sons returned from the fields. If he felt grief or outrage, it’s not apparent in the scripture text. His initial response was to say and do nothing, and then to defer to his sons, who exact an outsize punishment for the crime that Jacob admits after the fact disappointed him because when word spreads, it will negatively impact the hospitality of other Canaanite cities toward them.
Stanzas 4 and 5 refer to two of Jacob’s previous deceptions: donning goatskins on his hands and neck to impersonate his hairy brother, Esau, before their blind father, so as to steal the blessing of the firstborn (Gen. 27), and altering the breeding pattern of Laban’s flocks to increase the number of spotted sheep and goats (how this is accomplished is vague and has posed difficulties for interpreters) and so enrich himself, as the spotted animals were his agreed-upon wage (Gen. 30:25–43). The implication of this mention is, I think, that men will take what they feel is owed to them, whether by guile or force.
Sometimes women participate in this violence. The poetic speaker wonders whether Dinah will force her or the other captive women to bear children for her (future husband’s) family line, just as her mother, Leah, had used her slave, Zilpah, when her own womb had closed.
“The city bled one way // or another, before your brothers took interest,” the speaker says. Sexual violence was not new to them. The last sentence suggests that Dinah was not the only female victim of the lustful Shechem’s assault—the women of the city paid a price too, seeing their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons murdered in retaliation and themselves taken prisoner.
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ORATORIO: The Book of Romans by Emily Hiemstra (2019): Consisting of musical settings of select passages from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, this piece for SATB soloists, choir, and string orchestra was commissioned by Grace Centre for the Arts, a ministry of Grace Toronto Church, where it premiered October 22, 2019. (Hooray for churches that commission new art!) Read a statement from the composer on the Deus Ex Musica blog. The performers are Meghan Jamieson (soprano), Rebecca Cuddy (alto), Asitha Tennekoon (tenor), Graham Robinson (baritone), Lyssa Pelton (violin), Amy Spurr (violin), Emily Hiemstra (viola), and Lydia Munchinsky (cello).
Here is the video time stamp for each of the eight movements:
0:18: i. Who Has Known the Mind of the Lord? (Rom. 11:33–36)
3:56: ii. His Eternal Power and Divine Nature (Rom. 1:20)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . .
It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, . . . and the twelve gates are twelve pearls. . . .
I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. . . .
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
—Revelation 21:1–2, 12, 21–25; 22:1–5
LOOK: The New Heaven by Leroy Almon
Leroy Almon (American, 1938–1997), The New Heaven, 1984. Carved wood, light bulbs, artificial pearls, glue, glitter, plastic letters, paint, 36 × 28 in. (91.4 × 71.1 cm). Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. [object record]
This mixed-media depiction of heaven by African American folk artist Leroy Almon draws on imagery from the book of Revelation, showing centrally a crystal-bright river, the water of life, flowing forth from the mouth of God (Rev. 22:1–2). It courses through the paradisal scene, past the tree with its twelve fruits and healing leaves, and is pumped into twelve fountains, from which Black and white people drink together. Across lines of race, the new-city dwellers unite in worship, fellowship, and play. Notice the group of children with the ball in the bottom register!
For a framing device, Almon has used two wooden doors that bow out, as if the scene in all its fullness cannot be contained; as if the borders of the new city must bend to embrace the multitudes and their joy. The shape communicates an expansiveness that is the heart of God.
God is shown as majestic, mountain-like, and yet bearing a tender expression. The plastic beads on his forehead are printed with letters that read, “THE NEW HEAVEN,” and his eyes (not lit in this photo) are battery-powered light bulbs! He is, as John the Revelator tells us, the unending light dispelling all darkness.
Almon was born in 1938, so for about the first three decades of his life, he lived in a country where racial segregation was enforced legally in many states and socially in others. By and large, Blacks and whites were made to live in separate neighborhoods, attend separate schools, swim in separate pools, eat at separate restaurants, drink from separate water fountains, pass through separate public building entrances, wait in separate waiting rooms, sit in separate sections of the bus and the theater and even (woe is us) the church, and so on. Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, mandating desegregation, racial prejudices and hostilities continued to persist, as they do today. And because sinful human beings create and run systems (criminal legal, economic, educational, medical, etc.), it’s no surprise that the sin of racism can be found there as well.
Almon longed to see racial justice and (re)conciliation, and he knew Jesus has the power to make it happen. Almon’s preaching ministry went hand-in-hand with his art making. Through both, he shared the good news that Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, calls us to a new way of being in the world, which involves repentance of sin and turning to the divine light of love that knows no bounds. His New Heaven envisions a world saved and transformed by Christ’s love, where power is shared equally, forgiveness sought and granted, and friendship is the order of the day, as is a shared rejoicing in the greatness of God. In The New Heaven, Black and white praise Jesus side-by-side, eat at the tree of life together, and put their lips to the same bubbling fount of living water.
And not only are relationships healed and humanity restored to its original harmony in the new heaven, but also personal sorrows and hardships are no more. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, we flourish in the light of God that never dims.
LISTEN: “Great Rejoicing” by Thad Cockrell, on To Be Loved (2009) | Performed by Rain for Roots, feat. Sandra McCracken and Skye Peterson, on Waiting Songs (2015)
There’s gonna be a great rejoicing (2×)
The troubles of this world Will wither up and die That river of tears made by the lonely Someday will be dry There’s gonna be a great rejoicing
There’s gonna be a great joy river (2×)
Questions of this world Someday will be known Who’s robbing you of peace And who’s the giver
There’s gonna be a great joy river
Someday you will find me Guarded in His fortress Open heart and wings That never touch the ground Someday we will gather In a grand reunion Debts of this old world Are nowhere to be found Nowhere to be found
There’s gonna be a great rejoicing (5×)
We are now halfway through Advent! Many of the songs featured in this Advent series, including today’s, appear on my Advent Playlist. I also have a companion Christmastide Playlist, which has been revised and expanded since last year to include some choral selections.
This year’s The Breath and the Clay creative arts gathering, on the theme of “Reenchantment,” is taking place March 17–21, with both in-person (in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and virtual options. Registration for virtual attendees is pay-what-you-wish. Presenters include theologian Jeremy Begbie, poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, singer-songwriter Joy Ike, contemplative author Christine Valters Paintner, dancer Camille D.C. Sutton, and many more . . . including me! On the evening of March 18 I’ll be giving a twenty-minute talk titled “Saying Yes: The Annunciation in Contemporary Art,” which will be archived online afterward. (The global church celebrates the feast of the Annunciation the following week, on March 25.) (Update: Watch here.) Here’s the description:
The story of Jesus’s miraculous conception in the womb of Mary, a first-century Galilean peasant girl, told in Luke 1 has activated the imaginations of artists since the early Christian era. When an angelic messenger came and told Mary she had been chosen to bear God’s Son, she cycled through a range of emotions before ultimately accepting the call, stepping onto a path that, though scary, would be life-giving not only for her but also for her religious and ethnic community and for the whole world.
God invites us to participate in his work in the world and gives us the grace to do it. When his voice breaks through our safe, predictable routines, calling us to something big, do we respond with brave obedience? In this talk Victoria Emily Jones will share a handful of contemporary artworks that visualize that pivotal moment in salvation history when Mary said yes and set in motion the incarnation. These works show us the wild beauty of God’s plans and can help us tune our ears to the annunciations in our own lives.
(The title slide image is a detail of an Annunciation painting by Jyoti Sahi.)
I’m always impressed by the variety of artists, arts professionals, and art lovers that director Stephen Roach manages to bring together for The Breath and the Clay. Click here to learn more and to register.
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ONLINE LENT SERIES:
>> VCS Lent 2021: The Visual Commentary on Scripture is highlighting a different exhibition from its archives for each week of Lent, with new content including a video introduction to the week by Ben Quash and an audio reading of each of the three constituent commentaries.
The first week was on the theme of Covenant and covers Genesis 8:20–9:17. Stefania Gerevini curated three artworks from Italy that convey some aspect of the rainbow as divine promise: a thirteenth-century mosaic from the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, a colorful dome fresco (fifteenth century) from the Cappella Portinari in Milan, and a contemporary light installation by Dan Flavin at Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, also in Milan.
Week 2, on Prophecy, explores the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Jonathan Koestlé-Cate comments on three modern artworks: Crucified Tree Form by Theyre Lee-Elliott, a crucifix by Germaine Richier (which sparked outrage when it was unveiled at Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Assy, in 1950), and an installation by postminimalist artist Anish Kapoor at the church of Saint Peter, Cologne.
>> “The Many Faces of Jesus”: I’ve been enjoying this Lenten series (on blog andpodcast) by medievalist Dr. Grace Hamman, who makes medieval lit super accessible.“For Lent, Old Books With Grace will share and explore some medieval representations of Jesus in art and literature—the versions of Jesus that dominate the medieval church’s imagination. These medieval portrayals of Jesus may strike us as odd, threatening, charming, creative, stupid, or inspiring. In attending to these versions of Jesus, I hope for a few end goals: the first is that we may expand our Christian imagination. Perhaps a side of Jesus that has never occurred to you, or been sideswept by our contemporary culture, will suddenly illuminate an aspect of the Jesus of scripture. The second is that we may better identify the ways that we ourselves have culturally contained and portrayed Jesus, in positive and negative ways. Often the strangeness of the past helps us recognize the weird or damaging things we believe in order to make Jesus more palatable, understandable, or like us.”
Jean Bondol, “The bride (Ecclesia) and bridegroom (Christ),” from a Bible Historiale made in Paris, 1371–72. The Hague, MMW, 10 B 23, fol. 330v.
>> “Up from My Youth (Psalm 129)” by Advent Birmingham, feat. CashBack and Terence June Gray: This is such a strange and compelling fusion! “An 1806 hymn by Isaac Watts meets hip-hop meets Johnny Cash meets folk meets New Orleans jazz meets industrial steel factory.”
Led by Zac Hicks, Advent Birmingham [previously] is a group of worship musicians from the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Hicks wrote this new tune for Isaac Watts’s metrical paraphrase of Psalm 129 and integrated a rap by guest artist Terence June Gray from Memphis. Singing lead (and playing drums) is Leif Bondarenko, the front man of the Johnny Cash tribute band CashBack. The video was filmed at Birmingham’s historic Sloss Furnaces. Available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.
You can read the lyrics here, which include a slight revision of Watts’s verse 6.
POETRY READING:“Phase One” by Dilruba Ahmed, read, with commentary, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poetry Unbound: “What do you find hard to forgive in yourself? What might help? In this poem, the poet makes a list of all the things she holds against herself: opening fridge doors, fantasies, wilted seedlings, unkempt plants, lost bags, feeling awkward, treating someone poorly. Dilruba Ahmed repeats the line ‘I forgive you’ over and over, like a litany, in a hope to deepen what it means to be in the world, and be a person of love.”
Art & Theology 