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Worship music remix 2- what is so special about singing anyway?

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Continuing a series begun here.

OK, people have sung to worship God since the earliest times of church. The Hebrew Bible gives a whole book over to songs of praise, otherwise known as Psalms. Does that mean that we should follow their example?

There are lots of other traditional forms of worship that we no longer practice as a norm (certainly in the non-conformist tradition that I come from anyway.) We are not much into sacrificing animals, or washing feet, or burning incense, or flagellation, or dancing (particularly the naked Dancing that King David was known for.)

Then there is are lots of others that are fashionable, but still relatively rare- pilgrimage, silent meditation.

So- why sing?

Some people would point to the passages in the Bible that would seem to instruct it- ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’. Clearly early followers of Jesus sang together-

1 Corinthians 14:26
[ Good Order in Worship ] What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.

I have to say however that my times of direct literal application of words like this without any wider questioning are gone. There are lots of other passages that we do not apply in this way. The question of how much is social/cultural/historical, and how much is expected conduct for all subsequent followers is always a point of debate. In this instance- the practice seems to me to be less important than the purpose and the meaning of the practice.

However.

There are some things about singing that are special. I will divide these into three areas- physiological, communal and spiritual.

Physiological

There is plenty of evidence of the health benefits of singing.

  • Singing releases endorphins into your system and makes you feel energized and uplifted.  People who sing are healthier than people who don’t.
  • Singing gives the lungs a workout,
  • Singing tones abdominal and intercostal muscles and the diaphragm, and stimulates circulation.
  • Singing makes us breathe more deeply than many forms of strenuous exercise, so we take in more oxygen, improve aerobic capacity and experience a release of muscle tension as well.” — Professor Graham Welch, Director of Educational Research, University of Surrey, Roehampton, UK- from here.

Other claims made are that singing can increase your life span, can reduce depression, improve your posture. If half of this is true then perhaps every hospital should have its own choir. GP’s should prescribe barber shop.

We do not worship for our own benefit of course- and I suppose you could argue that worship music has already become too centred on ‘us’- our needs for a ‘high’, not to mention the egos of we worship leaders. However, we might argue that things that carry a simple wholesomeness about them always seem to draw us towards God.

Communal

Everywhere, in all cultures, through all time, when people come together, we sing.

In these times when individualism tends to dominate our western culture, very few things still collectivise our activities. There are very few semi-ritual activities that bring us together. Communal singing is one of the few things that achieves this- whether on the football terraces, or our national anthems, or in churches.

When we come together like this, interesting things happen. We humans are above all things, social creatures. Our sense of wellbeing is very dependent on our connection with people around us. The stronger- more harmonious- that these are, then the better we tend to feel.

Perhaps the most developed example of this is the choir. Choirs come together to rehearse, with an overarching mission- the performance. Fairly ordinary voices are combined with other fairly ordinary voices, and the sound that is made collectively can be extraordianry- even sublime. And along the way, we learn together, laugh together, form relationships with people from other walks of life. There is much of the ways of the Kingdom of God in this I think.

And then there is the high of performing together. Like this, for example.

Spiritual

If our culture skews us towards individuality, then perhaps our means of worship have taken a similar course? Our spirituality is ‘personal’ and ‘private’, and newer forms of worship may have underlined this too- for example, ‘alternative worship’ spaces (which I love) which owe more to art installations may tend to make individuals of all of us even within a communal space.

Singing is one of the few spiritual practices that can be totally shared. When done together it requires us to align ourselves entirely with our fellow singers- to find the same rhythm and chordal structure, to feel the ebb and flow of the emotional content of what sing and to depend on others to fill out the polyphonic diversity.

There is more however- many of us who have sung in groups would describe transcendent experiences whilst singing. These things are extremely difficult to define- but perhaps the shared intensity, allied to deep breathing and exposure to rich lovely sounds will always open us wide to deeper experiences.

Of course, you might experience similar things from exposure to all sorts of art/beauty- from a rock concerts, to films, or beauty in nature. But singing is slightly different- in its democratic accessibility.

It is also a means of making worship deliberate and directional. It combines something abstract- music, with something concrete- words.

In many ways, these words are the carries of our faith- the ones that we remember more vividly and use to encapsulate beliefs. Some of these words rest on our souls- we never forget them. They come to us in moments of significance almost unbidden- either in times of adversity or ecstasy. Somehow their allegiance to music makes them spiritually more three dimensional.

 

So perhaps the arguments for singing remain strong?

The issues of what and how remain however…

 

Church closes it’s doors to radicals shock!

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So, in the light of my recent ponderings about capitalist excess and consumerism- this story caught my attention…

The protest – modelled on earlier such events in Spain and, more famously, New York – descended on London’s financial district last Saturday with the intention of setting up a permanent camp in Paternoster Square, the private commercial and retail plaza housing the Stock Exchange headquarters.

However, the square’s owners won a court order preventing this, and police blocked access. Several thousand activists, who eventually coalesced into an encampment of around 200 tents, instead based themselves on the western edge of St Paul’s. There, they set up an increasingly entrenched camp, featuring a food marquee, a media tent and a “university”.

Relations with the church began well, especially when its canon chancellor, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, delighted protesters on Saturday by saying he supported the right of the “good-natured” crowd to remain.

Since then, however, cathedral officials have repeatedly raised concerns about the size and scope of the camp, warning that it was impeding access for both worshippers and tourists, especially ahead of next week’s busy half term. This is a particular issue for a cathedral that relies heavily on entrance fees for its income.

Hmmm- I wonder if they Dean is concerned that some radical might start turning over the money collecting tables?

To be fair, the closing of the doors of the Cathedral does seem to be at odds with his earlier statements-

He said: “We are delighted that the London protests have been peaceful, and indeed there has been a good atmosphere generally between cathedral staff and those dwelling in the tents around St Paul’s.

“There is something profound about protest being made and heard in front of this most holy place – a gathering together of those concerned about poverty and inequality facing the great dome of this cathedral church.”

I wonder though- is this perhaps the beginning of a real movement for change in our rather sclerotic socio-economic system? Might these few hundred tents be far more in touch with the zeitgeist than the health and safety constrained Cathedral managers?

Over in America, a recent survey suggested that only a slight majority of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Asked whether capitalism or socialism is a better system, 53% of American adults cited capitalism, 20% said socialism and 27% said they weren’t sure.

The question remains- what next?

 

Reverend Billy on ‘What would Jesus buy?’

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I love people who create a holy row.

Such a man is Reverend Billy, the alter ego of Bill Talen. Check out this article in Sojourners magazine- I have pinched a few quotes as below…

Reverend Billy, also known as Bill Talen, has gotten the strange idea that the Big Corporations, notably Disney, Starbucks, Nike, and Wal-Mart—and their shameless commitment to profit at the expense of human infrastructure—constitute a destructive force in our society. He has, moreover, reached the critical judgment that such a negative ideological force in our society must be resisted, and can best be resisted from a self-aware theological perspective that operates with parody and irony. The purpose of such parody and irony is to expose what seems like an economic operation as an ideological force of totalizing scope in our society. This force seeks to situate U.S. consumers in an uncritical way in the “life world” of consumer capitalism.

Rev. Billy began to take his preaching into the Disney Store, and later into Starbucks, often joined by supporters who would help him stage “shopping interventions,” during which he might, for example, perform an “exorcism” of the cash register. In the process, the Church of Stop Shopping was born, a performance activism nonprofit staffed almost entirely by volunteers, including many professional musicians, singers, and actors who turn up as they’re able at actions and rallies promoting free speech, local communities, and anti-consumerism; tour with Rev. Billy as the Stop Shopping Choir; and help lead periodic “revival” productions.

For a flavour of his ‘preaching’-

Or check out this ‘choir raid’ on a shopping centre…

Preach it brother. 

A new chicken…

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We welcomed a new creature to our menagerie at the weekend- a Bantam chicken, courtesy of Freecycle. Chickens (like humans) are not good when isolated and alone- they need company, so the wonderful Freecycle in this instance acted as a kind of dating agency (in a platonic kind of way you understand.)

She came to us named Sugar, but we renamed her Bandit, as she proved to be rather tougher than our last surviving chicken. The first thing that chickens do when they meet each other (Also like we humans) is to jostle for position- to measure their worth in the pecking order of life.

Thankfully, after a few flying feathers and odd pecked eye, things have settled down to some kind of communality. Whether you could call it friendship I am not sure. I do not speak chicken.

Here she is, mid peck…

Worship music remix 1- introduction…

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This is the first of a series of post on worship music. My current working titles for he others include ‘Authenticity/Creativity’, ‘Transcendence’ , ‘Songs of community’ and ‘What is so special about singing anyway?’- hopefully these will emerge over the next few weeks. But in the meantime, here is a bit about my own journey, in which I have to acknowledge some rather negative aspects to my experience…

I have written before about my own previous encounters with worship music- the practice of which has been extremely important to me.

I started out singing in a church choir. I had a high pure voice as a boy, and sang solos in church. I learned to play piano, and church organ- earning some pocket money playing at weddings and funerals.

Later we discovered simple choruses- and during the late 70’s and early 80’s I started playing guitar. We played simple songs such as ‘We have come into this house’ and ‘Freely’, and were indebted to the songs of the ‘Fisherfolk’, whose music became the soundtrack to the Charismatic revival that swept through the Church of England. I still feel a strange nostalgia for the simplicity and ‘wholesomeness’ I remember from this time- and the music was a huge part of this.

I then spent 15 years as part of a large independent church in the north of England- in which my major contribution was musical. I eventually became the leader of the music team. We made a journey through all the waves of new church music that emerged- at first it was all sourced via new songbooks- which would come out every now and then- but later the machine that poured out songs  (mostly from America) used many different portals- books, CD’s and increasingly, the internet. Vineyard soft rock worship was something we constantly imitated- although the shiny happy Hillsongs worship always left me a bit cold.

Following a move to Scotland, I continued to lead worship- now in a small Baptist church. Through connections there, I also became slightly itinerant- leading worship in the USA, Europe and for some different events in Scotland.

Then I stopped.

I found it increasingly difficult to sustain any kind of passion for this kind of worship. It had become so formulaic and anchored within a narrow world view- based on  set of core assumptions that were all-dominant even if rarely spoken. I was increasingly finding myself at odds with these assumptions, which were grounded in a particular American Evangelicalism.

Then there was the place of this kind of worship at the centre of all of our services. At first, worship music was all about FREEDOM- it was the means by which we escaped ritualistic liturgy and ‘made room for the Spirit.’ Except the longer we did this, the more liturgical and rigid we became. The formula went something like this-

Open service with a time of ‘praise’- 

Upbeat high energy praise songs. However, there were (and presumably still are) far fewer exuberant praise songs than quieter ones, so we tended to do the same 10-15 or so over and over, after which typically the kids will leave for Sunday School, and we hear notices.

Time of ‘worship’

We then have more singing- quieter songs now which worship leaders try to theme slightly, with a nod towards the coming sermon. In my experience, we often talked about worship being about a much broader thing than just music, but in practice other artistic forms of collective worship had little part in our services. The odd bit of drama, or music/power points. Possibly a bit of dance. The job of the worship leader here is to generate some intensity and expectancy as we prepared to hear the preaching of Gods word- mainly by singing songs.

The sermon

Teaching within this tradition is of paramount importance. We talk of being ‘fed’ by this teaching, and skillful preachers were the top of the tree in terms of status. The very best preaching has this goal of creating a climax– you could call it a spiritual/emotional crisis- during which the congregation is expected to ‘make a response’. This might mean coming forward for prayer for healing and deliverance. The public nature of these crises is valued as some kind of statement before man and God, but I have long wondered whether it might also serve the purpose of measurable ‘success’ of the peaching.

And while all this happens, the music has a vital role again- ecstatic, emotional love songs to Jesus. Matching/creating/heightening the emotion of the event. A benign manipulation of our emotions in the name of Jesus.

The sending out

The last part of the service was about commissioning the congregation to go out into the world, changed by their encounter with God in the service. Songs tend to be more martial, triumphalist and perhaps more hymn-like.

All of this can be energising and vibrant- it can also be very ego-centric for those of us on the stage.

That is not to say that all this has no value- but I think we greatly exaggerated it. People were challenged and even changed in these services, but most were not- they were just caught up in the weekly merry go round. I once heard these services described as like a weekly wedding with the same couple getting married each time. And me, the wedding singer.

About 5 years ago I decided that I could do it this no more. The ‘crisis point’ of services seemed to me increasingly to be manufactured and divorced from the reality of the lives of the people present. At worst it became a religious show- a pep-me-up for the dwindling faithful. The particular context I was part of did not make this easier as there was also a surface dishonesty about levels of conflict and political in fighting.

There were other reasons why I walked away- firstly, theological ones. I found myself adventuring into new ideas, questioning and rediscovering aspects of my faith- and the Evangelical assumptions of many of the songs I had previously used became very difficult to sing. They tended to be strange quasi-erotic love songs to Jesus, or triumphalist war songs for the army of God. They use the Bible as source material- but only parts of the Bible that come pre-packaged by Evangelical assumptions.

And they tend to be American, arising from the cult of the super worship leader- a strange cool guy (mostly male) who has an expensive guitar. His music only finds wider release if he is marketable, and hopefully photogenic. Then the music goes into a highly profitable (but not necessarily prophetable) machine, which spews out visuals, CD’s and sheet music for the whole band. All worship leaders have their favourite super worship leader. We aspire to be like them, and to make music that is a second rate version of their music.

Secondly, I was discovering other forms of worship that I could connect to in a different way- both older forms of worship (from a contemplative tradition) and also new forms of ‘alternative worship’, which had more in common with performance art that with praise and worship as I had used to understand it.

I am a few years down the line now though- and have been involved in many a prayer room, curated worship space or wilderness meditation event. These experiences are very precious to me, in my on going attempts to reach towards God, and to offer my worship.

But I still love to sing. Gatherings with friends still often involve getting out some of the range of instruments our family have accumulated. And within my community (Aoradh) we still sing when we gather from time to time. What I have however, are a set of open questions that I am still working through-

  • Where are the songs of lament, of thanksgiving, of hope, of brokenness, of joy, of doubt, that fit this new context?
  • What songs are counter cultural- challenging the idolatry of the consumer driven unsustainable way of life our churches are embedded within?
  • This new context- what songs might collectively release us towards a different kind of mission? Encourage us to seek after justice, truth, beauty- and when we find it, to sustain it?
  • If these songs are the cultural carriers of our theology- then what of our faith do we want to celebrate? How do we move towards songs that are more open, less reductionistic, more comfortable with mystery and less concerned with the promulgation of fake certainty?
  • Where are the songs of community- not of individuality- all of that personalised spirituality from the God of success?
  • Are there different kinds of songs needed for small community contexts?
  • Why do we need to sing the songs of the machine- how can we encourage local expressions emerging out of community?
  • What of the old is still usable? From the 1560s or the 1960s?
  • I long for poetry- deep and honest lyrics. I am sick of the same old sacred rhymes- grace/face, love/above, sing/bring. We can do so much better.
  • I long for music that carries emotion, not just a steady tune. Where are the solo instruments, and the complex rhythms and harmonies? I am so tired of soft rock.
  • Is all this just because I am looking for something new, something trendy? Am I overreacting?
So, the journey continues- think I will go and get my guitar…

Dark reflection…

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Part of some poetry written for Aoradh’s Pucks Glen meditation walk- another Cowalfest collaboration. If you are local- come along to the Glen next Saturday @ 2.00pm. You can book here.

The sun can only be seen in the light

Of the sun

And everything else is just

Reflection

~

Sometimes our roads lead through dark places

Places of uncertainty

Bridges between here-

And somewhere else

~

But darkness is often penetrated

From above

~

Like this falling silver water

Standing at the edge…

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Today I took a step closer to the edge.

Like most changes we face, this one is not of my choosing. I was told today that I would be receiving a redundancy notice- I will be invited to apply for a different job at my level (which I do not want) otherwise I will have a choice between a demotion or redundancy.

The circumstances of this are really rather strange- for reasons which I will not discuss here, but this means that for the first time in my career, I am facing redundancy. In one sense, I am fortunate, as I have a choice.

But perhaps (more scarily) I am facing an opportunity to take a leap into the unknown.

After 21 years of uninterrupted social work practice, then a chance is here to re-invent life and living.

I am not sure yet whether I will leap. There are lots of sums to do and business plans to work on. There is a skew in me towards safety. But a safe life is not the measure of value I want to look back on in 20 years time, should I last as long…

 

Human rights, cats and really bad politics…

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Vodpod videos no longer available.

Mathew Paris said it all when he described the Conservative grass roots opinion of the European Convention on Human rights as akin to that of ‘political correctness’ ‘health and safety legislation’ and all other sorts of interfering European pettiness.

Paris suggested that this has nothing to do with the finer points of the law- nothing to do with how complex legal matters have been worked out following the incorporation of the convention into our law statutes back in 1998. Rather it relates to something baser and more instinctive.

Theresa May, the minister for ‘justice’ (I kid you not) so shocked her own Senior minister- the Home Secretary Kenneth Clark- that he later publicly ridiculed some of her Daily Mail style ‘factual’ statements. Interestingly enough, it seems as though the Prime Minister sided not with Clark, but with May.

The article that May had a problem with was this one-

Article 8: Right to privacy

(1) Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The strange thing is, article 8 reads like a slice of just about any Conservative Party Manifesto. It could be a clarion call for the protection of the men and women of middle England in their suburban castles.

However- the issue appears to be that this article is not just to be applied to US- but actually THEY want these rights too. The grubby grasping immigrants.

Lord forgive us if this is the essence of who we have become.

Losing small wars, but not learning lessons…

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Britain has been engaged in some small war or other for much of the last couple of decades. Small that is as they are not here- the public are not particularly involved, and most of the time are not even very interested.

The last couple- Iraq and Afghanistan- will probably come to define our age- along with the ‘credit crisis’, and the death of Princess Di.

When these wars are spoken about at all in the media, a strange kind of mythological language is used. We start from a position of ‘our brave boys’ (no argument there- mostly we send boys, and they are incredibly brave) who are part of the most professional, humane and most highly respected army in the whole world.

Criticism of the war is possible- in terms of the political decisions that have been made- but criticism of the actual way the war is being waged by our Generals is not countenanced.

If you are interested in an alternative perspective, then I would recommend listening to Start the Week on the i-player, here.

Frank Ledwidge was devastating in his analysis. He described how we lost the war in Iraq- including the humiliation in Basra, where our forces were rescued by an exasperated US army. We then went on the lose the war in Afghanistan, where we sent our troops to a place where they were only ever going to be seen as an invading unwelcome army- given our history in the region.

The scary thing about this is how little we are prepared to hear these critical voices. We have been brought up to view our own military misadventures as essentially good versus bad- the plucky resourceful Brit against the Hun/Jap/Red. We always triumph in the end- true character always does.

This ignores all the evidence to the contrary- the mounting body bags, the torture of prisoners, the resounding “NO!” echoing from the population of all these countries that we are supposedly liberating.

Them there is the stench of post imperialist self-interest, and the feeling of being manipulated by murky spinners of media messages- all of that gung ho ‘smart’ bombing and ‘shock and awe’-ing.

The discussion mentioned above identified some key myths that we really should watch out for (along with a few of my own suggestions)-

  • “Failure is not an option”- we will win. We. Will. Win. Or at least give it the appearance of victory.
  • “This year is the pivotal year”- as each one seems to be.
  • More money will win ‘hearts and minds’.
  • You can’t trust the locals.
  • The hero myth- glorious death. Dulce et decorum est.
  • War will solve our problems.
  • You can fight a war on terrorists by terrorising their communities in return.
There is a different path of course- to see these things from the perspective of the individual. This is a luxury that governments, particular superpowers, appear not to have. The voices that emerge from war that are the most powerful in retrospect are ALWAYS the stories of individuals faced with the awfulness of war.
.
Our TV’s are full of the soldiers stories- amputees and medal winners, returners to family. We have so few stories of ordinary Afghans.
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Let us create space for honest debate, and for the sharing of stories of small ordinary people in extra ordinary situations.

Churchill’s faithful black dog, and why we might be grateful…

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I wonder if anyone heard this last Sunday morning-

(The programme blurb-)

“For a couple of days in May 1940, the fate of the world turned on the fall of a leaf” says John Gray. He outlines the strange conjunction of events – and the work of chance – that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister.

He muses on how Churchill was found by one of his advisers around one o’clock on the morning of May 9th “brooding alone in one of his clubs”. He was given a crucial bit of advice which may have secured him the job. What would have happened Gray wonders if he hadn’t been found and that advice – to say nothing! – not been passed on?

He also ponders whether it was it Churchill’s recurring melancholy which made for his greatness? “It’s hard to resist the thought that the dark view of the world that came on Churchill in his moods of desolation enabled him to see what others could not”.

“Churchill had not one life but several” says Gray. Without them all, “history would have been very different, and the world darker than anything we can easily imagine”.

Interesting for several reasons- the obvious historical one- the other leading candidate for Prime Ministership (who most MPs wanted) probably would have sued for peace rather than fought on against Hitler. As a pacifist, I would have supported him in this- but the end result of Churchill’s influence on British politics at this time was war- and history has rather sided with him on this one…

The other reason however is related to how we understand depression.

Churchill was stalked by what he called his ‘black dog’ all his life. He was prone to black moods and fits of despair- it separated him from those around him, and made him different.

Depression is a terrible thing- it destroys lives. But Depression is not only a terrible thing- and those who journey with the black dog often achieve a level of insight and depth of understanding that others do not.

Depression in this sense may actually be a means of equipping us for life.

Some time ago I wrote a post on why I found all the obsession with positivity rather difficult. All those shiny happy invocations to will ourselves to ever greater heights. Here it is- entitled ‘In which I find myself reacting against positive thinking’. This is really not because I believe that to be miserable is good, and that we are all doomed (although perhaps we might be when I come to think about it.) Rather I believe that we start from where we are- and I am sick of people telling us to be someone else.

Human life is made up of light and shade- and as well as pure white there are many shades of grey. My experience is that most art emerges from the shadows- most creativity is achieved through adversity- and perhaps great statesmen also need a hinterland…