Psalm 89 – Ana Hernandez
July 13, 2009
Musician and author Ana Hernandez discusses Psalm 89 and the difficulty of praying from places of sadness and anger. This episode also features her song, “Kosi R’vaya” from her album, Inside Chants, written by Shefa Gold and sung with Ruth Cunningham.
If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml
If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=322056809
If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp089.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio:epp089.mp3]
Vigil at Varick St
July 8, 2009
Hey, Transmissioners!
This Friday, we’ll be joining a bunch of other emergenty, house-churchish people downtown for a vigil, witnessing for justice for non-documented immigrants and other marginalized people. Afterwards, we’ll probably go out for beer. You should come!
Join with others concerned with the plight of the immigrant as we stand in solidarity with immigrants and native-born during the monthly Vigil on Varick Street, located in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Facility in lower Manhattan.
Members of the Catholic Worker, the New Sanctuary Movement, Families for Freedom, Radical Living, Justice For Our Neighbors, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, and various individuals and congregations throughout the city join together the second Friday of every month to pray, sing, and stand vigilant for our brothers and sisters who are behind bars, across the border, and who suffer under the weight of unjust immigration laws.
More than 400,000 people a year are detained by immigration officials in the United States – including undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants who run afoul of the law and asylum seekers who come fleeing persecution. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any form of meaningful review of whether their detention is necessary, and 84% of detainees are unable to obtain the assistance necessary to present viable claims in an adversarial and complex court process.
Many members of Congress have called for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and now is the time to be present and to call for a just immigration policy.
"’When foreigners reside among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34.
Psalm 24 – Stephanie Spellers
July 7, 2009
Well, we’re back with episode 2 of the podcast, and just because I’m posting it at 1:30 in the morning on Tuesday doesn’t mean that I missed my self-imposed Monday deadline. Honest. It doesn’t.
In any case, this week we’re featuring Stephanie Spellers, author of Radical Welcome and pastor of the The Crossing, a very cool emergent community in Boston. We talk about Psalm 24, the idea of welcome, and the difficulties of trying to have an open table.
If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaa
If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/
If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp2.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio:epp024.mp3]
Kadosh, Sanctus, Holy, etc
July 4, 2009
One of the things I really love about mystical eucharistic theology is the idea that there is only one bread and one cup across all the world and throughout all time. The idea is that since each eucharist is mystically linked with the unique event of Christ’s death on the cross, every eucharist that has ever been celebrated (or ever will be celebrated) happens simultaneously. Mind-bending, huh?
I’m not sure that my own eucharistic theology is quite that high, but I am in love with the idea the eucharistic table is something bigger than the food that’s on it and the people sitting around it – that’s an act that unites us with all Christians everywhere and everytime.
This is one reason why so many liturgical traditions sing a sanctus as part of the liturgy, and why it’s important that it’s sung by the congregation and not just by the minister or choir. Isaiah had a vision of angles singing this song without ceasing, and so when the people sing it at communion they are singing along with the seraphim – when the minister says something like:
Therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying…
Or, at Transmission sometimes:
With strangers, neighbors, saviors, ravers, saints and angels, raise a song
As one with some whose work is done and others here or yet to come
This is what’s being referred to.
Angels aside, it is pretty amazing that this song has been song so often, so consistently, and in so many many ways throughout the millenia. Folks have never stopped singing it, but they’ve also never stopped coming up with new ways to sing it. Here’s a playlist of this song through the ages for your listening pleasure:
A sephardic cantor singing it in perhaps the oldest version of it I know:
[audio:1sanctus.mp3]
Deborah Van Dyke singing it as a meditative chant (kadosh):
[audio:2sanctus.mp3]
In Dulci Jubilo singing it as Ambrosian Chant (santus):
[audio:3sanctus.mp3]
Helen Shapiro singing as full-on gospel melodrama (kadosh – the Lord He reigns):
[audio:4sanctus.mp3]
The Psalters singing it as only they can (hosannah):
[audio:5sanctus.mp3]
Rachel Cole singing it as Christian pop (kadosh):
[audio:6sanctus.mp3]
Adom9 singing it as trance electronica (sanctus):
[audio:7sanctus.mp3]
All of the above are available on iTunes, so if any of them struck your fancy, go buy them!
Prayer request
July 2, 2009
Hey, everyone – Renata, who’s back in NYC, has asked that we add her family to our prayers – they’re going through some difficult times.
Emergent Podcast Episode 1!
June 30, 2009
Writing about music is really difficult, especially when isn’t enough room in the book to include all the accompaniments you wrote. Since a lot of people who pick up the book will have no idea how the music sounds, and since Psalms are awesome and deserve to be talked about, I’ve decided to start a podcast! Each Monday I’ll bring on a guest, and we’ll discuss the psalm for the following week and read it with an antiphon from The Emergent Psalter.
This week, Bowie Snodgrass and I dissect Psalm 48, which is in the lectionary for next Sunday, July 5. Bowie is the co-founder of Transmission and director of Faith House Manhattan.
Enjoy! If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaa
If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp1.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio: epp048.mp3]
Transmission this Wednesday!
June 28, 2009
First of all, a big thanks to everyone who helped john, Paul, Sarah, and Dan move this month. That was a *lot* of weekends of carrying boxes, but I’m kind of excited that for each of us, Transmission was by the largest source of moving help – as Bowie says, helping your friends move is the modern equivalent of a barn raising, and the past month has reminded me what a tightly-knit group we are.
Second, July sees us returning to Wednesdays, where we’ll stay for the foreseeable future. Hopefully we’ll have fewer travel conflicts.
Third, this Wednesday, I’ll be hosting Transmission at my place – send an email if you need directions. Dan will be leading the ritual (I’m not sure yet what he has planned), and I’ll be cooking. See you then!
-isaac
All Denominations Are Needed
June 11, 2009
I was riding the subway yesterday and a beggar came on the train asking for money. Anyone who lives in New York City knows that this is not an uncommon experience, but in the middle of his spiel, encouraging people to give bills as well as change, he said, “All denominations are needed, big and small!”
As someone who belongs to a church (Transmission) with about a dozen members and who works for a denomination which is among the smallest in the nation (there are more Americans who believe that they themselves has been abducted by aliens then who are members of the Episcopal Church), I found this profoundly encouraging. So I gave him five bucks.
Returning to Wednesdays in July
June 1, 2009
optical communicationsSo at our monthly Saturday planning meeting, it was decided that we should return to our Wednesday night schedule. Although we had fewer Transmissioners who had regular conflicts on Fridays, we had more Transmissioners who had occasional conflicts on Fridays, and our overall attendance went down. Further, some folks really liked having a mid-week bump.
The major downside is that we’ll have to be more conscientious about ending on time, since those of us with day jobs probably won’t want to sit around hanging out until 11, like we’ve gotten in the habit of doing. This is something worth exploring, since unstructured social time is an important part of Transmission.
See our calendar for more details.
Pentecost audioscape
May 31, 2009
Happy Pentecost, everyone!
A lot of churches have a tradition of reading scripture in a variety of languages on Pentecost, but the act of sitting and listening to something you can’t understand seems to be the exact opposite of the Pentecost story me. So this afternoon I cooked up a sound piece that tries to convey what it’s like to be listening to a cacophony and suddenly realize that you understand what’s being said.
[audio:pentecost.mp3]
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Hebrew word ruach is the word for both “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind.” This is why in the beginning of Genesis, some Bibles say, “and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” while others say “and a wind from God moved over the waters.” Personally, I prefer “and the breath of God moved over the waters.” Curiously, this synonym also exists in Greek – Pneuma could mean either spirit or breath, and even in English “spirit” comes from the same root as “respirate.”
So I encourage you to take a moment today to think about your breathing, how it’s constantly a part of you, how it connects you to your environment, and how natural it is. Use your breath to connect to the Spirit of God, that aspect of God which lives inside each of one of us.