Spiked Chai

I really want to try this. Who knew there was an alcoholic equivalent to Sister Chai? I wonder if they use this in India after a long day at work?

Two Quick Things

A couple of things for today We're relaunching Empire Remixed. Our first event since getting back together will feature a conversation between Shane Claiborne and people involved in ministry amongst and for the marginalized here in Toronto. Alongside the website, we also have a Facebook group for the event. You can also let us know whether or not you can make it here. David Suzuki is speaking my language. Check out Suzuki's response to Federal Environment Minister John Baird's assertion that reducing emissions will lead to a slump in the economy. "First of all, let's stop listening to the goddamn economists," ignoring the fact that economy is dependent on the economy of trees, plants, animals, waters, and the land. If Global Warming continues to happen, "Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear. It will cost more than World War I and World War II put together. We'll go into a kind of depression we've never, ever had in all of history

Toronto's Green Living Show

The Green Living show is coming up next week-end at Exhibition Place in Toronto. Anyone else coming?

Time Bomb

On Sunday we entertained guests for Easter. We ate a lot, and a lot of great food. We enjoyed a good conversation, that, inevitably, turned to climate change and the mess we're all in. There were some threads of hope, and some threads of somber defeat in the conversation. But I don't want to give up. I want to believe that if we actually change our ways, one person at a time, and influence governments and organizations to also change their ways, change will come. Changes have been made in the past. Changes that have led to civil rights and women's right to vote. Important changes. They have certainly taken some time. The question this time, as leading environmental thinker Bill McKibben puts it, is on a rather compressed timeline. McKibben writes in Orion Magazine: Simply by doing something that seemed both normal and relatively benign—burning fossil fuel—we have begun to set off cascading and dangerous changes. And here’s what makes global warming different from most other issues that most other reformers have faced over the years: there’s a time limit. An unbelievably short time limit. What will this take? Some simple changes, like convincing your church or office that the use of styrofoam is a freaking bad idea. The stuff can't be recycled. Decycled, but not recycled. Use less water. Use less energy. Drive a more efficient vehicle. Don't drive at all. Take public transit. Walk. Ride a bike. But there's so much more beyond these simple answers provided at the end of Gore's movie. There are so many more ways that we need to change. But it's just too inconvenient. Why buy a fuel efficient car if you really want that gas guzzling army vehicle they just made available for anyone with a hero complex who wants to ravage the roads of suburbia? Why do anything if the world's gonna blow up anyhow? Defeatist thinking sometimes gets me down. But I'm hopeful. Hopeful for change, one person, one organization at a time. I pray my hope isn't misplaced, even tho it's hard to believe it isn't some days.

FFM 2007 - Part 5

Saturday morning after worship and dozing through David Dark's lecture for lack of caffeine, I went to the parking lot. I went to the parking lot and waited. Liz had promised to be at worship that morning, and yet, she slept through it. I understand. It was early. It was a Saturday. She had been out the night before. I get it. Really, I do. Eventually she pulled up in her snazzy Honda, and we drove off. She called me Andy. She always calls me Andy. I hate being called Andy. She called me Andy once more. Just for good measure. Liz and I met in Kolkata back in 2005, and we've been keeping up ever since. This was my second trip down to Calvin, and since she lives in GR, this was my second time seeing her there. The last time I walked the entire East Beltline to meet her, not recognizing that no-one in Grand Rapids walks anywhere. No one except city-bound Canadians who don't own cars, and would opt for public transit, the bicycle, or pedestrian traffic should the two others be unavailable. Liz came to Canadia once and hung out with me, Lisa the Knitter and Doctor Chester, with whom she had roomed in the city of joy. We went to Little India, ate dinner on the traditional styrofoam plates, and snooped around for our fav Bollywood films. This day in GR we went for Ethiopian. My last Ethiopian food experience in Toronto had been lacklustre, but for some reason, Grand Rapids serves it in style, and full of taste. The sampler platter was amazing, and the tea pretty much rocked me. Thick, aromatic and spicy. It was incredible. So we sat there, face-to-face for the first time in about a year, and tried to catch up on everything. We got some of that done. Conversation covered range of thoughts, from Kolkata, to sustainability, to nursing homes. Weddings. Boyfriends. Conversions, the Missionaries of Charity, authentic worship, the beauty of tradition, weighing the alternate values of Catholic and Protestant expressions. What does it really mean to be evangelical? Is it possible to be evangelical and not scary? Is that a valid option? What does humble witness look like? Needless to say, it was exactly what I needed. Questions flying both ways. Good conversation. Inspiration. I think that's what conversations often become. They help us to break out of our own worlds, and connect with someone else's. That bridge, that connection to another perspective is nearly always inspirational, not because we agree - quite often because we disagree - but more because we have been taken to a new place, a new perspective, a new understanding of the world. That's how it was for me, anyhow. I can't guarantee that Liz was inspired, but I will certainly take credit if she was. And I will certainly take many good things away from this time catching up with the most amazing jesus-loving, tree-hugging, cheer-leading, protesting-catholic in all of Grand Rapids.

FFM 2007 - Part 4

After gathering for dinner in the cafeteria, we all headed back over to the Fine Arts Centre for the Anathallo / Sufjan Stevens set. By the time we arrived, the entire main floor was packed, so we trekked up to the balcony seating. It still provided an excellent view of the stage, and would prove useful for spotting Superman later during the show. He may have been removed from the Illinoise album art, but he's still flying with Sufjan. Anathallo took the stage with an entire (20 person) brass section accompanying them. With the indie pop sensibilities of Sufjan, and an at times joyful, at times dark, percussive and rhythmic energy, Anathallo's set set wave after wave of energy over the crowd. Somewhat hometown favourites (originally from Mt Pleasant, Michigan) now relocated to Chicago - the only town all eight members could agree on, the band received an incredible welcome from the crowd. They've played Calvin numerous times before, and have received great support from the community in Grand Rapids. As they should. They're a diverse and innovative band on their way to world domination, in a band geek sorta way. Other reviews have cited melodic sensibilities similar to Sufjan, with the instrumental expansiveness of The Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. In many ways, these comparisons aren't too far off - the size of the band permits a dancing assault of sound, alternating movements of horns, keys, guitars, and scads of percussion. Anathallo's set gained momentum after a shaky start in front of this 1200 person strong crowd, and by the end had the theatre rising in standing ovation. While vocalist/guitarist Matt Joynt operated as the front for the group, it was hard to distinguish at points who (if anyone) was leading the band. It very well could have been Erica Froman, second vocalist who was the go-between, ensuring that the signals weren't crossed between the 28-piece ensemble spread across the 40foot FAC stage. While from my vantage point in the balcony, vocals weren't excedingly clear, the energy conveyed was enough to sell me on this band - tho I'd prefer to see them in a smaller venue. Maybe the Horseshoe or Hugh's Room, if they can be convinced to cross the border. If nothing else, it would be a fun adventure for them. Sufjan's set followed and totally rocked, but before I do that, Liz will get angry if I don't write about her, so that will necessarily be the next installment...

FFM 2007 - Worship Tangent 2

I can't leave this one alone quite yet. After neglecting my blog for so long, here I am getting all obsessive on one little topic. It goes back to the question of hybridity, which is either complicated or simplified (depending on your perspective) by the makeup of your church. Is it white urban hipster? Is it multicultural? Multigenerational? Is it primarily Chinese, Turkish, Trinidadian? Congregations come in many shapes and sizes, and so it makes sense that worship styles may be different in different contexts. Will the white urban hipster church and the church in whose building they meet sound the same? Probably not. Real life example: Freedomize Toronto, meeting in old St. Andrews at King and University, Toronto. Music sounds completely different at the 11am St. Andrews Presbyterian service from the 5pm Freedomize service. Partly a reflection of tradition, age, musical preferences. But okay, what if St Andrew's and Freedomize got together for a love-in. I mean, they share the gorgeous space, what would it be like to see an 75-year-old grandmother of 10 worshipping next to kids the age of her youngest grandchildren? In the context of an age-diverse congregation, should the music not reflect the mix of tradition, the mix of ages, and mix of musical preferences? To completely reject the dominant style of either group would seem to cause a problem. Would the two churches put their musicians together in a room to rough out a "common worship style," or would they incorporate a mix? Would they fight to the death? I know that this was such a huge controversy at a number of churches I've attended over the years. The old crowd felt pushed out and displaced by the "modern worship music," and the young set couldn't see why the older folks didn't "get it." So hybridity hits us once again, with the need not only to accomodate or tolerate one another, but to learn to be accepting of different styles, and potentially, to find your electric guitarist and saxophone jamming alongside the pipe organ. I'd actually pay to hear that. You know, if church started charging admission or whatever.

FFM 2007 - Worship Tangent

When I woke up this morning, made some coffee in our little stove-top coffee maker thingy. Somehow the coffee is that much richer (and stronger!) than making it in the sleek gadgety type coffee maker. Why is that? Whatever the case, the coffee and some time meditating in front of the glow of my ibook brought me back to some thoughts from yesterday: Perhaps the answer becomes this: each congregation, each grouping of Christians needs to find authentic, honest ways in which to express worship - whether in song, in painting, sculpture, drama, and most especially in the realities of everyday life. Not that we can advocate, wholesale, the writing of local worship songs, but I wonder if this isn't a good idea? I wonder how the congregation's ownership and recognition of itself in the songs that have been written affect the ways in which worship is channeled, expressed, etc. With the rise of the Christian recording industry, the professionalization and outsourcing of worship has gone to a whole new level. We now rely on Hillsongs, Delirious, Downhere, or Jeremy Camp, amongst others, to lead us into worship. But how true are these songs to our own witness and experience of God? Sometimes they are. Sometimes they're not. I suppose it's always a little hit-or-miss. That being said, if I hear or am forced to play "The Happy Song" one more time, I might scream. My hope and my desire - not only for the band of which I'm a part, but also for other worship bands, leaders, etc. out there - is that we can start to listen to the voices in our congregations. I think that this has a lot to do with our call as worship leaders - we need to be people in tune with the lives of this within the congregation, with the struggles, hardships, joys and ecstasies that we all face, and be able to help one another take those things to God in our expression of worship. Somedays, and in some parts of the service, that may look more like lament than joyful exhuberance, but then, that would be a little more honest to our own situations. If such things were expressed in our own words, out of our own context. Well, that would be music to my ears.

FFM 2007 - Part 3

"People who know they're not home do not fence it off and dig in." So stated the Psalters as they began their presentation on the role of music in worship. For the church to re-envision its relationships to the land is to sing the travelling songs, the exodus psalms, as we move from one place, to the place where we have been called. Having recently returned from Turkey, a trip which led them into small, remote villages, the Psalters returned with a new song (5 in fact) that they had collected in their travels. After a long-ish lecture on the prophetic role of music in worship, we finally had a chance to do what I had thought we were there to do - to workshop some music. Playing five different tracks, mostly from the middle east, the Psalters took us through the music of lament, prophecy, and of joyful exhuberance. The discussion focused on the ways in which these particular pieces exhibited emotion (especially through their deep, gutteral, and at times pained voicings). The discussion ended up deciding, more or less, that western worship music is somehow less than authentic, because such songs, such utter abandon in the singing of the songs is not present in much of what we consider modern worship music in the west. Point taken. A great deal of our hymnody/mod worship can sound like the newest boy band single, except that we rarely, if ever, like the psalmist, ask God to "quit playing games with my heart." Just saying. Sappy rock ballads fit for radio, often with us as the focus where the focus could be God instead. But - and this is the question that Rob and Brian were kicking around afterwards - how faithful is it to appropriate someone else's music and to claim it as our own? Does it make sense to say "your music is more authentic, more deep, therefore we will adopt that form?" I don't know, but I suspect that when the prophets were railing against Israel (see Amos) about their weak, empty words, it wasn't just about music style, but about the honesty and truth behind their words. So. The question of appropriation. We live in a world where boundaries are being blurred, where people migrate rather frequently, and often from one side of the world to another. We bump up against other cultures, are influenced by them, and they with us. Surely taking Turkish music and calling it a more authentic expression of worship than, say, Matt Redman, is a false choice, especially in the face of hybridity of influence, and hybridity of cultures. But to create music, and to form an expression of worship influenced by some other culture is not fundamentally dishonest. Unless you're just doing it to be "relevant." Then, perhaps, you've got problems. If you're appropriating another cultural form, like the liberation songs of an African-American spiritual, but have no relationship to the story of such a hymn, have no relationship to the culture that birthed the song, can it become for you an authentic expression? I'm not sold on it, either way. That being said, I'm fairly convinced that "worship" comes out of honest expression. You could sing Cockburn or Matisyahu or the songs of Bollywood, and the expression could be just as frail or as robust as singing a Charles Wesley classic. Where's the heart in all of this? Perhaps the answer becomes this: each congregation, each grouping of Christians needs to find authentic, honest ways in which to express worship - whether in song, in painting, sculpture, drama, and most especially in the realities of everyday life. That was it for me on Friday. I skipped the afternoon session to spend time alone, reading, writing, and thinking a bit about the emerging church's tendency towards cybergnosticism. You know, like, living lives on blogs and things, keeping us out of contact with the real flesh-and-blood problems in the communities where we make our homes. More to come...

FFM 2007 - Part 2

After waking up, getting oriented on campus (since we'd arrived in the dark) and finding Johnny's, the campus cafe for breakfast, the band headed off to register in the heart of the Fine Arts Centre. I looked around briefly for Lauren Winner - I was hoping to catch up with her and talk about her upcoming engagement at Wycliffe College - but she was nowhere to be found. From 11am-noon, the band assembled in a makeshift rehearsal space provided by the organizers, and we ran through the next morning's set. The music was taking shape, our parts were making more sense, and we were feeling halfway decent about the prospect of leading several hundred people the next morning. This year's FFM had a really serious spike in attendance from previous years. Where last time there were probably 100-150 people in attendance, 2007 saw around 1000 participants. That's probably something to keep in mind as we examine the ways in which the conference took place. I can see how the change in attendance could have changed the vibe of the keynote addresses. They probably would have felt different in front of a more intimate audience of 100, as opposed to the numbers in attendance this year. Lauren Winner got to the stage and spent her first ten minutes talking about why she shouldn't have been asked to give this particular keynote. By the middle of her address, I was in full agreement. Let me frame it this way: the woman has written a couple of decent books (Girl Meets God, Real Sex), the most recent of which explores a plausible approach towards chastity in the context of Christian faith. I have not seen her speak on it, but I would expect that she's probably comfortable with that schtick by now. Asking her to speak on the arts, and more specifically music, something which she admittedly knows little about, seems like a setup. One of her dominant refrains was that "God cares about senseless art." I had to approach this statement again and again, asking "what on earth did she mean by senseless art?" Especially in the context of a Christian discussion, I had to question the value of calling art senseless to begin with. I suppose I understand what she was getting at - that there is something extravagant and marvellous about the creative process. Winner helpfully discussed art's value in relation to the building of the temple. Such art, she related, was an act of worship where the construction of modern church edifices is often based on the bottom line. But despite this point (which she could have significantly expanded upon and made coherent what was left unclear) she could not seem to tie that sense of worship back to her idea of the senseless. My question lingered: does worship not make sense of the senseless? In recognition of a creative and creating God, is artful creation not only sensible, but sanctified? To steal from David Dark's lecture from Saturday, this must be so, if it points to the truth. I have to admit to tuning out at various points, but my ears sure sprang up again when her discussion of art meandered into a discussion of the poor, where she stated, "The logic of scarcity in our surrounding world is at odds with the Christian logic of fecundity through the God of abundance." The creation and enjoyment of art, Winner seemed to say, either supercedes or at least matches our responsibility to the poor. Are we to feed the poor or buy good art? Winner's logic, avoiding the problem of the church's relationship to the poor, appeared to favour art. I would have preferred it, if instead of creating such a reductionist duality between art and poverty, she had spent some time artfully wrestling with the realities of scarcity in our world. Looking out my window today, I do see poverty. I know of God's promise of plenty, but what I witness, grounded in the realities of my time and place, is poverty. Financial poverty, spiritual poverty, whatever way you want to spin it, our world is impoverished. This does not deny God's fecundity, but points to the realities of a fallen world. I do see people who live in overpriced, poorly maintained apartment buildings. I meet these people in the street. Perhaps I share a conversation and a coffee with them. In so doing, I find myself called towards an artful engagement with all of God's people. In so doing, I do not feel as though I can place art over and above the value of the people with whom I meet. In such a case, my engagement with art would in fact be senseless. How can we value art for arts sake, and not be concerned with the plight of the rest of creation? Certainly this does not reduce the ways in which we can engage with art, or to create things, but I suspect it will be important to reframe art's value (and especially that created by Christians) not in any senseless aesthetic, but rather in terms of its ability to tell the truth, that is, to engage in acts of worship.

FFM 2007 - Part 1

This was the third year of the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College, and the first one I've had opportunity to attend. Late last year, the Wine Before Breakfast community, of which I'm a part, was asked to lead worship at the conference. In preparation for the conference, the band put together a song list in the spirit of lament, integrating it into an adapted Anglican liturgy. We were crossing the border to lead those gathered with us in Grand Rapids in lament. I was kinda nervous about crossing the border with music gear, even tho we weren't being reimbursed for playing. It's always one of those things, when you hear stories of bands being turned away at the border because they don't have the proper documentation. As it was, we didn't need the documents we had been given, and crossed over easily to the other side. Arriving in Grand Rapids after midnight, we found our accomodations in the student residence, and pretty much crashed out for the night. Many thanks to John in 2nd Floor Bolt for putting us up overnight. Turns out we both have the same birthday (tho 6 years apart). It was awesome to meet some local folks and to escape from Toronto for a couple of days to play music, listen to music, and to take part in some of the workshops. Returning to our reasons for going...With the beginning of holy week almost upon us, lament seemed appropriate. In our lament, we were able to acknowledge that the Hosannas we would shout the next day were only fleeting. That our desires for peace, for God's kingdom, are tainted by desires for revenge. How must it have been for Jesus to enter into the local synagogue, read from Isaiah, and to declare that the prophecy had been fulfilled in their assembled presence? How must it be to preach peace and resurrection in the midst of war and the desire for revenge? Syliva Keesmaat led us through a meditation on these things, interspersed with readings and music to shape the service. For me, in the band, it was a good if not nervewracking experience, as I'm not used to playing in front of large groups. That being said, we got through the service, and my bass lines weren't as shaky as I'd expected, despite going to bed late the night before, and getting up way early on Saturday morning. My next entries will cover Lauren Winner's opening lecture and impressions of the Psalters' presentation on leading worship. For those interested, these are the songs we played on Saturday Morning. Introit: Dweller by a Dark Stream (Bruce Cockburn) Into Jerusalem Jesus Rode (Carl P Daw Jr) How Did We End Up Here? (Martyn Joseph) Liturgy: Wade in the Water (African-American Spiritual) Into Jerusalem Jesus Rode (Carl P Daw Jr) Dweller by a Dark Stream (Adapted for Prayer Litany) Eucharist: Eat This Bread (Taize) Jesus Remember Me (Taize) Reflection: Turn Me Tender Again (Martyn Joseph)