Steve Bell’s “Pilgrimage” Boxset: A Review This is no normal run-of-the mill boxset. This is no cheap marketing ploy to get folks to buy again songs they already have. Rather, we have here a beautifully creative celebration and a reflection of twenty-five years of music making.
Truth be Told vs Truth be Lived What happens when I get interviewed by a kindred spirit, there's a bottle of port on the table, and there seems to be little time constraint? Well, the conversation goes in many directions, and sometimes things get interesting. Check out my conversation with Mark Groleau.
Psalm 98: Joy, Judgment and Advent Psalm 98 is an invitation to a victory party … against the evidence, in the face of the empire.
Advent, Psalm 145 and a “Fantastic” Vision “There is a time and place in the ceaseless human endeavor to change the world, when alternative visions, no matter how fantastic, provide the grist for shaping powerful political forces for change.
Psalm 2: Which Son Shall We Kiss? You can't make the ideological rhetoric of Psalm 2 palatable simply by painting it with Jesus. At least, not unless you turn it on its head. Which is exactly what happens.
Terror No More: Psalm 9/10 and a terrible week in Canada God’s judgement cuts through the deceit and names evil violence for what it is, whether on Parliament Hill in the hands of a man bent on murder, or on Parliament Hill in legislation that excludes the refugee, despoils the earth, and favours the rich.
Thanksgiving and Lament: Psalm 42-43 Where is your God? Where is that God who was so close in your worship leader days? Where is that God who was on your lips in praise?
Psalm 33 and an Ontology of Love The earth is full of the steadfast love of God. Dripping, saturated, soaked, running over in love. Even against the evidence.
Leonard Cohen, Psalmist Has Leonard strained to hear that voice whispering through all of creation? Has he had an ear for that voice without words? Might he have the gift of translating such creational glossalia?
From Trust to Lament to Trust Again We must be a community in which such songs of lament, such abrasive crying out to God, such pain at the depths of our souls, can have free voice. You see, without such lament, without such wrestling with God, individually and communally, we can never sing praise with integrity.
Psalm 137, Exile and Rocket Launchers Songs of home, songs of hope, songs that keep a faith alive, are defiled and profaned when they become the trivial entertainment of voyeuristic oppressors.
Exile, song and rage “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept.” There, by those Babylonian rivers, we hung up our guitars, put away the drums, packed up the keyboard, and refused to sing. Except for this one blues tune.
James, ‘the Rich,’ and the Complexity Argument (A meditation at on James 4.13-5.20 presented at Wine Before Beer on August 26, 2014.)
You talkin’ to me? James and the Church Some thirty five years ago I published my first article. It came out in a Berkeley, California based magazine of radical discipleship, appropriately named Radix.