songs, albums, and concerts
Every week I post a recording of my sermon over on the church web site: clarecongregational.org. I don’t usually post the children’s message there, but this week it was too much fun to leave off. It’s a quick introduction to the Ten Commandments, with a little song to help people remember what they are. There’s a first great commandment, inscribed in solid stone…
The iBooks version of my new book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness and Other Hymns for the Progressive Church, is now available from the iBooks Store through iTunes. On most iPads, the music pages themselves will be rather small, but you can always access the pdfs here for printing.
I usually use a Kindle myself, but my son reads books on his iPad, so I was able to test it using that. Apple has an interesting free app for creating iBooks: their iBooks Author. I spent a few hours with this, and used it to build the first chapter of The Inn of God’s Forgiveness. I really like pop-up footnotes, and with some labor I was able to make that work with iBooks Author. It wasn’t easy: I had to create separate little graphics for the footnote links (a little .png for “[1]”, and another for “[2]”, and so on). But the result looked nice and worked well.
After some reflection, however, I decided not to go that route. The books produced by iBooks Author are fixed-layout things. But most of the people in my church who read ebooks do so largely because they can change the font size and read the book with large print. For that, a plain old .epub works better. So that’s what you get from the iBooks Store if you buy this book. It doesn’t have the fancy pop-up footnotes, but it can be read at different font sizes.
The Kindle version of my new book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness and Other Hymns for the Progressive Church, is now available from Amazon. On most Kindles, the music pages themselves will be too small to read, but you can always access the pdfs here for printing.
I made this Kindle edition myself using Jutoh from Anthemion Software. The software worked well for me, and when I reported a problem in the way footnotes were working on the Kindle Paperwhite, Julian Smart (technical director of the company) was a huge help. He quickly made and sent me a beta-test version of Jutoh (2.21.0) that solved the problem. I can’t recall ever getting tech support like that before, anywhere!
If you want to know, the problem was in the strange way the Kindle supports pop-up footnotes. I use footnotes rather heavily in the book — sometimes for bibliographic references, sometimes for brief digressions. I want them to pop up on an e-reader, so the person reading the book won’t lose the main thread. Kindle does sometimes decide to display footnotes as a pop-up. But how it decides which part of your document is a pop-up-able footnote, and how it decides where that footnote ends, is arcane and (as far as I can tell) completely undocumented.
Anyway, I hope this Kindle version gives satisfaction. May God bless you, and may all your footnotes pop up!
I’ve just published a new book: The Inn of God’s Forgiveness and Other Hymns for the Progressive Church. It’s a collection of eight new hymns, each with a chapter about the theology it expresses. The hymns in the book are free: they may be downloaded at this page, or copied from the book, and they come with a Creative Commons license that allows unlimited copying for non-commercial use. There are also some spiritual exercises in the book, which may likewise be downloaded and copied at this page.
I wrote these hymns because the hymnals and other collections available to me didn’t have enough of what I wanted: singable hymns that reflect a progressive Christian theology.
What do I mean by “singable”? It’s a very subjective thing, of course, and differs from one congregation to another. I wrote these hymns to be sung in my own congregations. Those congregations were, on the whole, quite elderly, and if socially progressive, were musically conservative. If I introduced songs with any syncopation—if there were any odd chordal progressions—if the tempo was more than moderate—if there was any rhythmic complexity, even so much as a rest on a downbeat—the congregation was half lost. Of course, not everyone in a congregation will sing at all, but I wanted our singing to be as inclusive as possible. I didn’t want to leave the weaker singers (who are, often, the oldest singers) feeling embarrassed or left out. So I tried to make these hymns harmonically and rhythmically simple. They’re also rather repetitive: for example, many of them have refrains, which help timid singers build confidence.
Then, what do I mean by “progressive”? When people ask me what I mean when I call myself a progressive Christian, I tend to offer a list of things I disagree with. For example: I do not find the theory of evolution offensive or even particularly controversial. I do not believe that the Bible is infallible, inerrant, or literally true in all its parts; it is not, to me, the word of God. I do not judge people based on their sexual orientation, and I don’t think God does either. I do not think God’s judgment takes the form of punishing sinners with eternal torment. I do not think that Jesus died to pay the price for our sins. I do not try to make converts of people who are being well served by other religious traditions. And so on—and as I speak this way, I find that I am defining progressive Christianity by listing the aspects of conventional Christianity it rejects.
But in the end, that isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to say what you reject; you must also say what you claim. Hymn-writing turns out to be a good discipline for this. Perhaps any theological writing that is strictly negative is inadequate—but any hymnody that is strictly negative is obviously inadequate. You have only to imagine trying to turn the previous paragraph into a song to feel the flaw in it. You might perhaps turn it into an amusing series of negative verses, but those verses would be begging to be answered by a refreshingly positive refrain.
So the hymns in this collection are my attempts to express aspects of a positive progressive theology. They are not meant to give a systematic statement of that theology; there are plenty of topics unaddressed here, and there’s plenty of room for a sequel. These hymns are, in the old sense, occasional pieces. They were written for particular occasions in my spiritual journey.
I hope they will be a blessing in yours. If you find the hymns interesting and/or useful, please support this work by buying the book.
My new album is out! There’s a track-by-track description of it on “Learning and Leading”, the blog of the Earlham School of Religion.
Here’s a widget to use if you’d like to pick up a copy, or download a track or two. Notice that my previous album, “Smackdown”, is also still available.
My next album is in manufacturing now and will be shipping within a week or two. It is entitled As a Deer Longs, and contains eleven original songs, including two instrumental numbers. My wife, Kelly Autrey-Webber, provided backing vocals for several songs—wherever you hear an angel singing, that’s Kelly. She also sings one song (“Fear Not, Said the Angel”) with me as a duet. The CD will ship with a 12-page booklet that includes lyrics. All the photographic artwork for the CD, case, and booklet was done with great creativity and sensitivity by Robert E. Pierson. Rob and I have dedicated the album to the students, faculty and staff of the Earlham School of Religion, which rashly graduated both of us.
I wrote the music for this album over the last five years or so. (It might properly be subtitled, “A Soul Slogs through Seminary”.) Some songs are better, and some songs are worse; some songs are reverent, some the reverse. But all of them are from the heart, and it means a lot to me to be able to share them at last.
The album will be available through various conventional channels, with CD sales on CDBaby.com and download sales through with iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Napster, and other e-tailers. I’ll write about it again when it’s shipping.
Here’s some more video from the concert I gave on November 12, 2011 at the Sycamore United Methodist Church in Sycamore, IL. (Thanks to the staff there for providing this footage.) My brother Ben helped me with some of chords and voicings in this song. He’s a jazz genius.
I wrote this song for a homeless veteran I met, a man who told me that he didn’t believe in God — and told me why. God bless you, friend, wherever you are.
Here’s some video from the concert I gave on November 12, 2011 at the Sycamore United Methodist Church in Sycamore, IL. (Thanks to the staff there for providing this footage.) The song is my “Prophet’s Lament”.
Here’s a video recording of a sermon I delivered in the First Congregational Church of DeKalb, IL on Sunday, November 13, 2011. The text was Psalm 90:1-12, and as part of the sermon I sang two songs: “Dies Irae” and “I Think”. The “Dies Irae” is some 800 years old, with a Latin text said to have been written by Thomas of Celano, the friend and disciple (and official biographer) of Francis of Assisi. I sang a subset of the verses, using the 1848 English translation by William Irons. The second song, “I Think”, is one I wrote myself.
Back in 2008 I made a pilgrimage to Iona. Among the books I read in preparation was J. Philip Newell’s The Book of Creation: An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality—still one of my favorites of Newell’s many good books. The trip and the book inspired me to write a cycle of compositions, one for each day of the seven-day creation story. At this point I’ve only finished two of them: Day One and Day Five.
I am trying to compose in a suitable style for each day, and I think this will give me a pretty wide range of musical styles. (Days One and Five are already quite different from each other!) Other aspects of the music lend some underlying unity to the cycle. They are all choral compositions in four parts, a capella. They all open with a common musical tag: a crunchy chord with a suspended fourth. (This is heard in the second measure of Day One, and in the third measure of Day Five.) The lyrics and music are all mine, so although I have attempted to write them in different styles, at a deeper level they speak with the same voice. And they are all written in the first person, as if from God’s perspective in the act of creation.
In The Book of Creation, Newell writes:
To say that light is created on the first day is to say that light is at the heart of life. It is the beginning of creation in the sense that it is the essence or centre from which life proceeds. At the heart of all that has life is the light of God. This is a fundamental belief of the Celtic tradition.
St John the Evangelist’s way of putting it is to speak of this light as ‘the light of life’ or ‘the light that enlightens everyone coming into the world’. Nothing has life apart from this light. It dapples through the whole of creation.
The lyric of my composition “One Needful Thing (Creation, Day One)” emphasizes this sense of light at the core of creation.
One Needful Thing (Creation, Day One) Nothing to see, Neither light nor darkness, And no eye seeking. Nothing to hear, Neither sound nor silence, And no voice speaking. Nothing to taste, Neither sharp nor mild, No mouth enfolding. Nothing to feel, No sense of touch or absence, And no hand holding. One needful thing: let there be light. I make the light, I am the light: Every atom softly shimmering. One needful thing: let there be feeling. I hold with love, I am the loving embrace: Every atom touching tenderly. One needful thing: let there be flavor, I make the flavor, I am the flavor: Every atom sweetly savoring. One needful thing: let there be sound. I speak the word, I am the word: Every atom ever echoing. Now: All who see, will see me, All who touch, will touch me, All who taste, will taste me, All who hear, will hear me. I am the light, every one enlightening.
In this lyric, the light isn’t (just) a physical light: visible radiation by itself is irrelevant in a world that, as yet, contains no sun and moon, no objects to reflect light, and no eyes to see it. It seemed to me that light in this part of the creation story is a metaphor, and could as well be sound, or taste, or touch. The “light” suggests all those doors of perception that will connect the as-yet-uncreated creatures to the as-yet-uncreated things they will perceive. As I wrote, I had in mind two blind members of my congregation: I wanted to express the creation of “light” in a way that would be equally accessible to them.
I also wanted to emphasize God’s immanence: God both makes the light, and is the Light. God both creates each door of perception, and is the Door. Thus, to perceive is to perceive God. I wove in additional scriptural allusions with a Celtic focus: not just “Let there be light,” (Gen. 1:3) but also “The Word was God” (John 1:1) and “The true light, which enlightens everyone” (John 1:9). The title and repeated phrase “one needful thing” is also a scriptural allusion (Luke 10:42, in the language of the King James Version).
In The Book of Creation, Newell writes this reflection on the creatureliness of God:
In the Celtic tradition there is the conviction, as we have noted, that our deepest desire is for the Love that is at the heart of life. It is a desire to see, to hear, to smell, to taste and to touch the One whom we desire. While the essence of God is beyond anything that can be seen or handled, creation is the expression of God. It is the divine embodiment that we may sense and touch in love.
The lyric of my composition “Come To Me (Creation, Day Five)” emphasizes this sensual and God-desiring nature of animal creation:
Come To Me (Creation, Day Five) I am ready now. I have set my heart on this. I summon you: Come to me! Bird of the air, I summon thee: Flap your wings and come to me! Beast of the earth, I summon thee: Stomp your feet and come to me! Fish of the sea, I summon thee: Shake your fins and come to me! I shine my light and draw you like a moth to a flame, I sing the song and send the sound of saying your name. I pull you to the edge and then I pull a little more, I light the fuse and spread the news and open up your hidden door. Now come to me! I open up a path that you won’t find on the map, I light the dark and make a spark that bridges your gap. I dance before my altar and you feel the earth shake, I touch you and your sun comes up and tells you that you’re wide awake. Now come to me! Fly me, whale me, stork me, quail me, hare me, snail me, come to me! Bear me, bee me, mare me, flea me, manatee me, come to me! Louse me, mouse me, goat me, stoat me, tick me, chick me, come to me! Bat me, gnat me, frog me, rat me, dog me, cat me, come to me! Come to me! Come!
The lyric and the music are in a flamboyant style. I picture God as calling the animals, both into existence and toward God’s self simultaneously. This call is a deep enchantment, a longing that is part of our incarnational being, a magnetism that draws us Godward. Although the idiom of the song is modern, I think it reflects an essentially Celtic understanding of creation: one that it does not equate sensuality with sinfulness.
Here’s sheet music for these two songs. I’ve never recorded them, nor heard them performed. If you perform them, please let me know! I’m making these two available with a free license for non-commercial copying and performance. (See the license information at the bottom of this post.)
I still have only notes for the other five days of creation—and I’m afraid they’re on the back burner now. (But if anyone would like to commission them, by all means give me a call!)
One Needful Thing (Creation, Day One) and Come To Me (Creation, Day Five) by Adam Brooks Webber are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)