Psalm 14 – j. Snodgrass
July 21, 2009
This week, one of Transmission’s founding members, playwright, lyricist, and songwriter j. Snodgrass discusses Psalm 14, justice, and the prophetic tradition. If you’re interested in checking out some of Snodgrass’s other work, check out Captain Crash and the Loose Bricks.
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/epp014.mp3
If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.
[audio:epp014.mp3]
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]
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]
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]
a twentysomething’s love/hate relationship with the bible
April 16, 2008
In 1818, an 18-year-old named Mary Shelley wrote a novel called Frankenstein. I have never read it, but have picked up the basic plot from movies and such. A brilliant doctor decides that he will create the perfect man, using pieces of dead people. The man he creates will be of surpassing good-looks, and the doctor will teach him kindness, compassion, love ‚Äì all that’s best in humanity will be embodied in this perfect person. But once the creature is brought to life, the doctor becomes frightened and runs away. His creation follows him across Europe, demanding ‚Äúyou created me to be the best that humanity has to offer. You built me from scraps of the past, and promised to fill me with compassion and love, to bring about a better future. You have not kept your promise.‚Äù We’re all familiar with the story ‚Äì the creature keeps following him, and hurting the people he loves. The creature that was meant to be beautiful, wise, caring, intelligent…is feared and dreaded, chased away, and becomes a murderer. A monster.
This novel was probably written to caution people entering the industrial age ‚Äì be careful what you design to aid in human life, there will be consequences. But when I think of this story, I see another parallel, that I do not believe the author intended. Some of us may be aware of a book…called The Bible. Written over the course of more than a thousand years, assembled in its final form some seventeen hundred years ago. Built from scraps of the past, to represent all that’s best about humanity. Designed to bring a message of hope and compassion for the future. And it keeps on asking us, ‚Äúwhen are you going to fulfill the promises made on these pages?‚Äù And in fear and dread we run from it. And it follows us. And sometimes it hurts us, and the ones we love.
RICH AND POOR: Two Worlds or One Family? by J.Snodgrass
April 7, 2008
RICH AND POOR: TWO WORLDS OR ONE FAMILY
Presentation given by J.Snodgrass for the Marble Collegiate Church Young Adults 20s/30s
Every year, the gap between rich and poor gets wider. The title I was given for this presentation – “Rich and poor, two worlds…” reminded me that in economic terms we actually have three worlds on this Earth ‚Äì the first world, capitalism, the second world, communism, and the third world, “other,” which has become synonymous with whole nations of people living in abject poverty. The recent disaster in New Orleans was yet another reminder that, although America is a first-world country, there’s a third world in here, too, a small nation’s worth of people that our own government left behind and forgot once the first-class citizens had been rescued.
Every year the chasm gets wider, and every year I’m reminded of a story Jesus told in the Gospel according to Luke chapter sixteen, about an un-breach-able chasm.
Luke 16:19-26
“There was a rich man…dressed in purple and fine linen who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.
In Hell, where he was being tormented, [the rich man] looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus [got nothing]; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’
So here we’ve got this rich man, dead, suffering, and what does he say to Abraham? ‘Send that boy down here, that poor boy that used to lie outside my gates, tell him to fetch me some water.’ Even dead, burning in Hell, this rich man has not learned his lesson. But the chasm cannot be traveled, even if Lazarus had wanted to. This rich man could have spared himself all that suffering, if he had bridged the chasm in life, but never had he reached out to invite this poor man to his table. The story continues…
BRING PEACE TO A WARRING WORLD, PART II by j.Snodgrass
March 20, 2008
PRESENTATION – BRING PEACE TO A WARRING WORLD, PART II
By j. Snodgrass
James 1:19-27
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into…the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act– they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God…is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Unstained, undefiled by the world. It reminds me of a sleep-away-camp skit I saw once saw. A little girl held a clean, white sheet of paper. And someone stomped onto the stage, grabbed her piece of paper away and crumpled it. She picked it up and held it. Someone else walked across, took the sheet of paper, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. She smoothed it out and held it again, but it looked so different from what we’d seen at first. Finally, a third person stomped across the stage, grabbed the paper and ripped it, throwing both pieces to the ground. This time the girl did not pick it up. She just looked at us. A fourth person walked on, picked up the two pieces, smoothed them out, held the pieces together and handed it back to the girl.
Anybody ever wake up with a sheet of paper like that? Anybody ever look in the mirror and say ‘Jesus called me the light of the world, and today I’m gonna let it shine’? Anybody ever bring a sheet of paper like that onto the subway at rush-hour? When I was growing up, we moved around a lot. And I remember the first day of school in New Jersey, first day of school in Ohio, first day of school in Western New York…me and my clean sheet of paper. And then a few days later in the principal’s office, waiting for my parents to show up, because I’d been fighting again. But look what they did, I always tried to say. Look what they did to my clean sheet of paper.
FACING OUR FEARS (Or… Naked, But Not Afraid)
By j. Snodgrass
Proverbs 3:5-24 (Wildly Abbreviated)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. … 13 Happy are those who find wisdom… 15 She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. … 21 My child, do not let these escape from your sight: keep sound wisdom and prudence, … 23 Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. 24 If you sit down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” Ironically, as we find in Genesis 3:10, knowledge was the beginning of fear. Once Adam and Eve have eaten of the tree of knowledge, their first act is to hide from God. Because for the first time they are aware that they are naked.
Fascinating to find that fear of the Lord did not prevent them from breaking the one rule in the Garden…not to eat of the tree of knowledge, not to break the first covenant with God ‚Äì that the Lord would take provide for them. Their fear begins as they come to realize that they have insulted the Lord by seeking the knowledge to provide for themselves.
Adam and Eve, expelled from the Garden, made clothing for themselves, but they were still naked. They learned to provide food for themselves through toil and hardship, but they were still afraid.
Thousands of years later, we work to buy clothing and food for ourselves, but we are still naked and afraid. Henry David Thoreau described modern life with the expression “quiet desperation.” No matter how well we provide for ourselves, one wrong step on the high-wire and we lose everything, with no Garden of Eden to go back to.
From Genesis three onward, fear is a constant theme in Biblical texts. The words “Be not Afraid” appear eighty-five times in the Bible, twelve times on the lips of Jesus. Maybe because he knew that Adam and Eve ran naked from the Lord, and we’ve been running naked ever since, frightened that God and Man alike will see how exposed we really are.
HOLIDAY BLUES (Apocryphal longing for a savior)
December 22, 2007
by j. Snodgrass
Every year, we spend the three weeks of the advent season preparing for the birth of Jesus. For many of us, it’s three weeks in which all our demons ‚Äì loneliness, alienation, depression, financial hardship ‚Äì are amplified, felt all the more keenly, because many of them will follow us into the next year. The days get shorter, colder, and then‚Ķ December 25th, Jesus is born, just in time. We know the baby’s coming, bringing hope and joy, which makes the season more bearable. We also know that where all the hustle and bustle, terrible holiday music and pressure to buy gifts is concerned‚Ķ Well, as Jesus said, “This too shall pass.”
Today, I’d like to talk about some pre-Jesus depression, from when they didn’t know he was coming at all. Looking back, it’s easy to say that the signs were all there in what’s become the Old Testament, the stump and Jesse and whatnot, but it’s important to remember that the ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ in Isaiah 11 who would rule with righteousness had already been fulfilled in the kings Josiah and Hezekiah. Simply put, twas the time before Christians – no savior in sight.
Then came Jesus, more specifically Jesus Ben Sirach, who lived about two hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus was a popular name, since the name ‘Yehoshua’ meant Joshua, the famous warlord who conquered twenty-one kingdoms ‚Äì this name would have risen in popularity as the Israelites themselves were conquered several times, and kept hoping that one of their offspring would rise up and start kicking some butt). Jesus Ben Sirach wrote the following passage about his blues:
Bible Study on “Some Dude”, Thurs Nov 29
November 28, 2007
Tomorrow, Thursday, November 29th, we’ll be meeting at Mi Floridita’s for Bible Study.¬† Dinner and social time begins at 7 pm and Bowie will lead Bible Study from 8-9.¬†¬†
We’ll be discussing the gospel reading for this coming Sunday (Advent 1), Matthew 24:36-44, in conversation with Genesis 32:22-31, Jacob wrestling with the Angel.¬†
For good¬†laughs and context for our conversation, check out jSnodgrass’ recent blog post¬†below on¬†”Some Dude” (Expect the Unexpected)
Mi Floridita’s is at 3219 Broadway
Take the 1 train to 125th, cross to the NW corner, walk N to the end of that block
See you tomorrow!  Bowie