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Also, for those who didn’t know, all the sheet music from the book and podcast is available for free download at Church Publishing.

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

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Agents of Future

Todd and Angie Fadel, members of the Bridge, an emergent community in Portland, discuss hope, participatory music, and being Agents of Future. Go buy their new album at Proost.

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/epp130.mp3

If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.

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.

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.

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.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

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If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.

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:

Deborah Van Dyke singing it as a meditative chant (kadosh):

In Dulci Jubilo singing it as Ambrosian Chant (santus):

Helen Shapiro singing as full-on gospel melodrama (kadosh – the Lord He reigns):

The Psalters singing it as only they can (hosannah):

Rachel Cole singing it as Christian pop (kadosh):

Adom9 singing it as trance electronica (sanctus):

All of the above are available on iTunes, so if any of them struck your fancy, go buy them!

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.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml

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.

So here’s a video chronicling the event. Observant folks will notice that the music is the track Lamentation, from my first album! It’s pretty nifty when you chance across cool people who are using your music, and this is exactly the kind of prophetic work I would want to be associated with.

The idea for the ritual came from my experiences riding the subway, watching my fellow riders create privacy for themselves by listening to portable music. Music is recorded with artificial reverb, an effect which makes the music sound as if it is taking place in a large space. Different kinds of reverb create different kinds of “virtual space” for the music so that concertos sound like they’re being played in concert halls, arena rocks sounds like it’s being played in an arena, and folk music sounds like it’s being played in an intimate coffee shop. A subway is a public space and during rush hours people are packed into them as tightly as possible with no room for personal space. At the same time, however, each person listening to music bring a virtual space with them, and any given subway car will probably have at least a dozen personal, virtual spaces packed in to it.

Church is another place in which personal space and public space interact in interesting ways, and I thought it would be interesting to see how portable music would affect ritual. Epiphany, a feast day which celebrates a journey, seemed like the perfect opportunity to ritualize my commuting experience.

I set up five stations along a walking route which wound its way through four rooms. Each participant was told to bring a portable music player (i.e. an iPod, a discman, or something comparable). I created five tracks of voiceover layered on top of music and loaded them on to each person’s player, and we began the ritual. Details below:

Station One: A threshold station placed at the entry way. Participants were given the tracks upon arriving, beginning the ritual as they were ready. Music was “This Lost Morning,” a piece I wrote for a choreographer a few years ago containing didjeridu, kalimba, bass, conga, and subway sounds.

Welcome to Epiphany at Transmission. Epiphany is a feast day, celebrated on the day after the 12th Day of Christmas. It is the day on which the Wise Men, the Three Kings, the Magi arrive. It is a day about journeys. It is a day about gifts. Many of us are probably just returning home after a journey visiting our families for the holidays, but the journey with which we are probably more familiar is our daily commute, riding the subways and busses twice a day, packed in with people we don’t know, trying to eek out a bit of privacy and personal space by listening to music on our iPods. Commutes can be stressful, but they can also be relaxing, depending on the person and depending on the day.

Today, I’m hoping to evoke that sense of personal meditation that I sometimes see on the faces of my fellow commuters. This is a slow, introspective ritual. There will be meditations, but there will be also be long periods of music. Feel free to move at your own pace, feel free to skip ahead, and feel free to take your earplugs out and just be in silence for a while, if that’s what moves you. Their are five stations, and each one will have a red number on it corresponding to the audio track. For now, take a moment to center yourself, focus on where you are, and prepare for worship.

Station Two: a table filled with candles. Music is “Star in the East,” an Epiphany hymn from Southern Harmony performed by John McCutcheon.

The magi would never have started their journey if they hadn’t seen a star, blazing in the heavens. They knew star was not their destination, the star merely indicated a direction in which to travel. Do you have a star? Is there something which tells you which direction in which you should be traveling? Is it a career goal? Is it your family? Is it faith? Hope? Art? Daydreams? A friendship? Or are you feeling directionless? Do you feel like there is no light in the sky, no beacon to give you guidance? Light a candle to represent the light you follow or the light you wish you had.

Station Three: in another room, a table filled with a random assortment of items, including books, ballet slippers, candy bars, and yarn. For us, this table is a place where many people leave things they don’t want anymore. The music was Erev Shel Shoshanim, a Hebrew love song which contains references to myrrh and frankincense, performed by John McCutcheon.

As they prepared to leave, the magi chose gifts to take with them. Although they did not know where their destination lay or whom they would be meeting, they believed they would find a great king at the end of their journey, and so they brought items of great value – frankincense, gold, and myrrh. What gifts do you bring with you on your journey? Possessions, assets? Valuable skills? Vision? Passion? Hope? The table in front of you is full of objects for the taking – find something that represents one of your gifts and take it with you.

Station Four: another room including a collection of icons of Mary with the infant Jesus. The music was “Aye” by Martyn Bennett.

Finally, the magi arrived at Bethlehem. I’m sure what they found was not what they had been expecting. They probably expected the new King to be born into wealth. They probably expected that the rich gifts they carried would be token gifts, or even tribute. They probably did not expect to find a poor family who would probably sell their gifts to buy food, but they offered their gifts nonetheless. Say a prayer and offer your gift, knowing that you might not have any idea how it will be used.

Station Five: just outside the final room in which we would be eating dinner and having our post-ritual social time. The music was “Where Do We Go From Here” by Joss Whedon.

The story doesn’t end here. In the next portion of the tale, King Herod tries to kill Jesus by ordering the deaths of every male child under the age of two. Because of this, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee down to Egypt. Shortly after being born into poverty, Jesus has become an exile, a refugee, an immigrant. In this coming week after Epiphany, as you find yourself back in the world, take a moment to think about all the exiles, refugees, and immigrants in our world and pray for them.

After the ritual, we had dinner and shared our experiences.

There were a couple of things that happened that surprised me. Even though the ritual was quite linear, the participants were not afraid to create their own experience. I saw one participant stop to dance to the music. Another participant stopped to examine some artwork which was near one of the stations. At one point, three participants formed a line and solemnly processed into the next room, each listening to the same track but out of sync with one another. One participant had her iPod set on shuffle and listened to the tracks out of order.

For the future:

~it would be interesting to do a longer ritual on this model, perhaps leading people through the streets of New York City or through stations in a park.

~it would be interesting to create a ritual in which the participants were intended to listen to the tracks on shuffle, perhaps having ten or twelve stations in a large room with no particular order necessary.

~it would be interesting to write music in two parts, one non-rhythmic ambient track to be played on the PA system and one rhythmic track to be played on the iPods. The two parts would be written to blend with one another. Doing this would make it much less jarring to remove the ear plugs if participants wanted to pause for a while or have a conversation.