1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:07,040
In the winter of 386 AD, the 
Imperial Palace in Milan echoed 

2
00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:09,760
with the footsteps of soldiers 
preparing for what should have 

3
00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:14,000
been a simple task. 
Empress Justina had issued her 

4
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,720
command, arrest Bishop Ambrose, 
and hand over the portion 

5
00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:21,040
basilica to the Aryan priests 
who denied the divinity of 

6
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:23,520
Christ. 
It was, after all, just a matter

7
00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,080
of state policy. 
But as the soldiers approached 

8
00:00:26,080 --> 00:00:28,760
the great Church, they 
discovered something unexpected.

9
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:31,560
The building was not empty, 
waiting to be claimed. 

10
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:35,560
Instead, it was filled, packed 
beyond capacity with the people 

11
00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:38,480
of Milan. 
Men, women and children had 

12
00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:41,680
streamed in throughout the 
night, and they showed no signs 

13
00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,880
of leaving. 
Inside, Bishop Ambrose stood 

14
00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:47,000
before his flock, but he was not
giving a sermon. 

15
00:00:47,480 --> 00:00:51,120
Instead, something remarkable 
was happening, something that 

16
00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:53,880
had never quite been tried 
before in the Christian Church. 

17
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:56,800
Ambrose was teaching his people 
to sing. 

18
00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:00,960
Not the complex, ornate chance 
that only the trained clergy or 

19
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,360
Cantor's could perform, not the 
philosophical discourses that 

20
00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:07,280
only the educated could follow. 
Songs. 

21
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,440
Simple, memorable melodies that 
a child could learn and a 

22
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:14,040
grandmother could remember. 
Songs that told the story of who

23
00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:18,320
they were and whose they were. 
Ambrose had written these songs 

24
00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:21,000
himself, and he taught the 
congregation to alternate 

25
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:23,720
verses, first the right side of 
the sanctuary singing, then the 

26
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:26,800
left. 
Today, M la Damas, their voices 

27
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:29,240
began to rise. 
We praise you, O God. 

28
00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,120
The words were in Latin, but 
they didn't need translation. 

29
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:35,240
They were the heartbeat of a 
people who belonged to something

30
00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,080
larger than themselves. 
As their voices joins together, 

31
00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:42,080
something was happening that the
Empress and her soldiers had not

32
00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:44,840
anticipated. 
This was not just a crowd that 

33
00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:47,080
could be scattered. 
This was not just a Bishop who 

34
00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:49,840
could be arrested. 
This was a people who had found 

35
00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:52,200
their voice. 
Hour after hour, through the 

36
00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:54,720
cold night and into the dawn, 
the hymns continued. 

37
00:01:55,360 --> 00:01:59,280
Veni creator spiritus eterni 
rerum conditor. 

38
00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:02,640
Songs that reminded them that 
they were part of a story that 

39
00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,600
began before empires and would 
continue long after they fell. 

40
00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:10,039
Songs that connected them not 
just to each other, but to 

41
00:02:10,039 --> 00:02:13,520
generations of believers who had
sung these same truths in the 

42
00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,080
face of persecution, doubt and 
despair. 

43
00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:19,880
The soldiers waited outside, but
as the singing continued, their 

44
00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:22,920
resolve began to waver. 
These were not rebels shouting 

45
00:02:22,920 --> 00:02:25,400
angry slogans. 
These were their neighbors, 

46
00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,240
their family members, their 
fellow citizens, singing 

47
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:30,960
together of eternal truths with 
such conviction that the very 

48
00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,960
stones seems to join in. 
Messages flew back and forth 

49
00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:36,120
between the church and the 
palace. 

50
00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,680
The Empress grew increasingly 
agitated, which she ordered her 

51
00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,680
soldiers to storm the building, 
which she risked the blood of 

52
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:45,680
Milan citizens to enforce her 
will. 

53
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:48,920
The captain of the guard shifted
uneasily, knowing that many of 

54
00:02:48,920 --> 00:02:51,640
his own men had family members 
inside those walls. 

55
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,480
In the streets, more and more 
people gathered, drawn by the 

56
00:02:54,480 --> 00:02:57,360
sound of voices that seems to 
carry beyond the stone walls and

57
00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:02,320
into every corner of the city. 
Still, the singing continued, as

58
00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,040
if the people had tapped into 
something that could not be 

59
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:08,760
stopped by imperial decree. 
The Empress faced a choice that 

60
00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:12,080
would define her reign. 
Would she use force against her 

61
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:14,080
own people, or would she 
retreat? 

62
00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:18,440
By morning it was clear that no 
arrests would be made. 

63
00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:20,960
The empress's edict was 
withdrawn. 

64
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:24,080
The Church remained in the hands
of those who had defended it, 

65
00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:29,200
not with swords, but with songs.
Bishop Ambrose would later write

66
00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,840
that it was during that long 
night of singing that he 

67
00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:34,520
understood something profound 
about the power of music and the

68
00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:37,080
life of God's people. 
It was not enough to have the 

69
00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:40,400
right theology written in books 
that only scholars could read. 

70
00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:42,960
It was not enough to have 
beautiful liturgies that only 

71
00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:46,680
the trains could perform. 
The people of God needed songs 

72
00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:49,880
that would give them their 
voice, songs that would remind 

73
00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:53,320
them who they were when the 
world tried to tell them 

74
00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:56,840
otherwise. 
And so began a revolution that 

75
00:03:56,840 --> 00:03:58,200
would echo through the 
centuries. 

76
00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:01,160
The hymns of Ambrose. 
Simple enough for a child, deep 

77
00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,680
enough for a St., strong enough 
to hold a church together in the

78
00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:12,280
darkest of hours. 
Welcome to the Imagination 

79
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,640
Redeemed podcast where we follow
the great stories further up and

80
00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:19,720
further in in pursuit of the 
life of Christ. 

81
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:26,800
Welcome to Imagination Redeemed 
everyone. 

82
00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:30,360
I am Brian Brown, joined by 
Matthew Clark and Terry Moon. 

83
00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:33,640
And we're doing something that 
we don't get to do very often 

84
00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:37,120
because our recording team is 
partially in Colorado Springs 

85
00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:40,160
and partly all around the 
country, Matthews visiting us 

86
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:42,320
from Mississippi. 
And we wanted to talk about 

87
00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:45,320
music. 
And we just decided that was way

88
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:49,760
better with a piano and a guitar
and our voices right here in 

89
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:51,360
person. 
Yeah, yeah. 

90
00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:54,440
And we're going to talk about a 
category of music that we have 

91
00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:56,880
just made-up. 
And you made it up. 

92
00:04:57,080 --> 00:05:01,560
Fine. 
And I and until someone gives me

93
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:07,320
a better name, I am calling this
category of music we songs and 

94
00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:09,960
let me explain what I mean by 
that and. 

95
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:15,080
You don't mean tiny songs? 
No, no. 

96
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:17,720
No roller coaster songs. 
OK, good. 

97
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,600
We. 
Oh good. 

98
00:05:20,840 --> 00:05:24,480
Yeah, I like I said, like it it,
it, it could use work. 

99
00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:31,320
We can workout the but we wanted
to have a conversation about 

100
00:05:31,320 --> 00:05:33,800
something that we at the end 
some society feel very strongly 

101
00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:38,480
about, which is singing and 
which is not simply that we 

102
00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:42,520
don't sing enough as moderns, 
but also that there's a certain 

103
00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:46,880
kind of song that we could we 
would benefit from having more 

104
00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:49,600
of and knowing more of and 
singing more of. 

105
00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,080
So what this is, what this 
isn't. 

106
00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:57,480
We all care about having good 
music in church. 

107
00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:01,440
I mean, one of the things that, 
for better or worse, Christians 

108
00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,280
are sort of infamous for is is 
fighting over what kind of music

109
00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:06,840
they're going to sing in church 
right now. 

110
00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:10,680
And quite aside from that, like 
we all get very excited when we 

111
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:15,040
encounter a new artist, a new 
song, a new type of music maybe 

112
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:17,800
that gets us really excited and 
seems to to speak to us. 

113
00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:20,600
And especially when we run into 
one that seems to be 

114
00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:22,560
contributing to that need. 
Right. 

115
00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:28,080
And in this episode, we're going
to discuss why we need a certain

116
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:32,720
kind of song that's a little bit
underrepresented among even 

117
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,800
modern hymns and worship songs. 
And that's what I'm calling a We

118
00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:40,560
WE song. 
What is a We song? 

119
00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,080
I am so glad you asked, Harry. 
I'm dying to. 

120
00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:50,680
Know a We Song and a We Song is 
a song that is intentionally 

121
00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:56,880
written to connect us to God and
His people and foster the voice 

122
00:06:56,880 --> 00:07:02,240
of His people. 
Like instead of me it's we all 

123
00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:04,120
together. 
Yeah, because if all the Saints,

124
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:08,000
if all the Saints exist to 
praise God and worship does not 

125
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,880
equal music, right. 
We can have all we can have 

126
00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:14,440
great conversations about what 
worship can and should look like

127
00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:18,720
in all of our life. 
But the singing form of worship 

128
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:24,120
that we do and singing in 
general is a specific thing that

129
00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:27,360
that teaches us who we are, that
trains us to relate to God in a 

130
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:30,200
certain way, trains us to relate
to the world in a certain way. 

131
00:07:30,640 --> 00:07:35,040
And we need more music that 
teaches us how to praise God and

132
00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:37,240
that equips us to do it 
fearlessly. 

133
00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:40,800
Right. 
You are a music director at a 

134
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:42,880
church. 
How many times have you heard 

135
00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:47,320
someone say some variation of 
Oh, you don't want to hear me 

136
00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:50,240
say? 
Man, I hate that. 

137
00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:54,240
Yes. 
And it's pretty much not. 

138
00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:56,080
It's, it's, that's a false 
statement. 

139
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:58,960
I would like to hear everybody 
sing whether they can carry a 

140
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:02,680
tuner or not. 
And the reality is that very, 

141
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:08,720
very few people cannot sing. 
I mean, that's a very small 

142
00:08:08,720 --> 00:08:12,760
percentage of the population 
genuinely cannot sing. 

143
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:17,560
OK, but if I were to tell you 
that if if you if I played a 

144
00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:20,480
note here on the piano, I 
couldn't match it, if you 

145
00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:23,840
started singing and I started 
singing with you, I would not be

146
00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:27,000
hitting the same notes as you. 
Clearly I'm tone deaf. 

147
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:31,680
What would you say to that? 
I would say God has commanded 

148
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:36,080
you to sing anyway. 
I mean there are, I mean there, 

149
00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:39,760
there it really there are over 
50 times in the Bible where we 

150
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:44,840
are commanded to sing. 
Now, it doesn't say only the 

151
00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:47,960
people that can sing in tune 
should sing or only the people 

152
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:51,280
that have, you know, beautiful 
like Taylor Swift kind of 

153
00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:54,800
voices. 
Everyone is commanded to sing. 

154
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:59,880
And I believe that God really 
loves to hear those people sing 

155
00:08:59,880 --> 00:09:02,240
because it's singing engages 
your heart. 

156
00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:05,720
So if you're singing from your 
heart, that's what God hears. 

157
00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:10,320
So would you say that even if I 
don't know how to play the 

158
00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:12,680
piano, I have an instrument that
God gave me? 

159
00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:14,160
Totally. 
Yes, we were. 

160
00:09:14,160 --> 00:09:18,160
All are. 
The human body is a musical 

161
00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:20,120
instrument. 
We have pipes. 

162
00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:25,360
We have, you know, the very 
breath in our bodies that fills 

163
00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:27,600
our lungs was given to us by 
God. 

164
00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:30,480
And that breath can create 
sound. 

165
00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:32,760
Yeah, simple as that. 
We were made to worship. 

166
00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:36,240
And I mean, I know several 
people who are professional 

167
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:38,880
voice teachers. 
I know several people that run 

168
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:43,080
choirs in high schools or middle
schools where where actually 

169
00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:45,520
singing is is required. 
Everyone sings. 

170
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:49,840
And all of them, every single 
one I've ever talked to, 

171
00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:54,560
remember by name the one person 
they met that one time who was 

172
00:09:54,560 --> 00:09:56,480
actually tone deaf. 
Yeah. 

173
00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:00,040
That's, that was, that's how 
rare it actually is and all. 

174
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:02,880
And the thing I always heard 
from them was, well, no, it's 

175
00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:05,000
just no one taught you to use 
your instrument. 

176
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:07,160
Yeah, I've, I've actually done 
that before. 

177
00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:10,360
Worked with a student who 
couldn't match. 

178
00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:16,320
Well, OK, I'll make it personal.
It was my own daughter couldn't 

179
00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:20,600
match a pitch that I'm when I 
played on the piano and when she

180
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:23,640
wanted to learn to play the 
violin, I thought, oh man, I 

181
00:10:23,640 --> 00:10:25,280
don't think this is going to 
work. 

182
00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:31,760
But amazingly, when we worked on
it together, I was able to help 

183
00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:34,920
her figure out how to slide her 
voice from low to high. 

184
00:10:34,920 --> 00:10:38,080
And then like, oh, that's where 
I'm stopping right there on that

185
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,120
note. 
It just took work, you know? 

186
00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:43,200
So I firmly believe that 
everyone can learn to sing. 

187
00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:46,800
Well, I would chime in and say 
like that is kind of my story. 

188
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:52,040
I mean I sing a lot now, but I 
singing did not come easily for 

189
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:54,600
me. 
I really had a lot of trouble 

190
00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:58,560
learning to sing. 
I wanted to sing and I enjoyed 

191
00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:02,440
singing, but it was it was not 
easy. 

192
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,520
And I played guitar long before 
I sang. 

193
00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:09,920
So that was my first instrument.
And then later I was like, I 

194
00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:14,840
want to be able to play these 
songs, but it was, it took years

195
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:17,360
and years for me to. 
It's inspiring, Matthew, because

196
00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:20,840
I think you sing beautifully. 
Now. 

197
00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:23,480
That's. 
Good, I love it. 

198
00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:27,640
Wow, that's inspiring. 
Well, and as is the fact that 

199
00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:31,240
you learned the guitar first, 
like you showed yourself that 

200
00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:35,280
you weren't tone deaf, right? 
Like you knew, like I'm, I'm 

201
00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:37,600
playing a song and I'm playing 
the notes correctly and I know 

202
00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:41,160
I'm playing the notes correctly 
right from there, like learning 

203
00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:45,600
to control my diaphragm, my 
vocal cord, Like that's, that's 

204
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:47,400
technique. 
Now that's, that's a 

205
00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:49,280
technicality. 
That's not a. 

206
00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:53,320
A binary can or can. 
And it was a process, a learning

207
00:11:53,320 --> 00:11:55,560
process. 
Just like learning the guitar. 

208
00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:57,960
Yeah. 
And you know what? 

209
00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:02,360
Gosh, Brian, when I, when I 
stand up to help lead our 

210
00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:07,840
congregation in singing, I mean,
I'm constantly aware of my own 

211
00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,400
limitations. 
I started out in life as a 

212
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:15,800
violin violinist, so singing has
kind of been, you know, 

213
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:18,040
something that I needed to do 
along the way. 

214
00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:25,120
I mean, I'm, I've, I, I see my 
own lack of expertise in singing

215
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:28,760
like every Sunday. 
But what's wonderful, I hope is 

216
00:12:28,760 --> 00:12:30,480
wonderful. 
I hope it's an encouragement to 

217
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:35,040
the congregation that, hey, if I
can do this, you can't do. 

218
00:12:35,560 --> 00:12:38,320
That's what I'm hoping. 
You know it's not about 

219
00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:41,680
performing. 
Well, and another bad notion 

220
00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:44,840
that sort of mirrors the I Can't
Sing thing. 

221
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:49,680
I, I know a lot of believers 
that even if they weren't taught

222
00:12:49,680 --> 00:12:57,040
this, absorbed this idea that if
it is good, if it is right, it 

223
00:12:57,320 --> 00:12:59,640
ought to be hard. 
If something comes easily to me,

224
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,600
something, something's wrong. 
Like good is supposed like it's 

225
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:09,360
like eating broccoli, like good 
is supposed to equal unpleasant,

226
00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:11,320
bad is supposed to equal 
pleasant. 

227
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:14,520
And this is how we, this is, 
this is our, our, how we develop

228
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:19,040
our moral intuitions. 
And that's, that's not the 

229
00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:23,000
picture that is painted to us 
by, by our forebears, by, by the

230
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,000
Saints. 
And Aquinas in particular talks 

231
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:29,640
a lot about how well we'll know 
habits, everything you can build

232
00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:32,320
skills, everything you can build
through habit. 

233
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:36,240
And when you get to a point 
where something is second nature

234
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:40,080
to you, not only is it not hard,
it's often pleasant. 

235
00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:43,000
You're talking about spiritual 
disciplines now, Brian. 

236
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,520
What if singing is a spiritual 
discipline? 

237
00:13:45,680 --> 00:13:47,480
What if singing is a spiritual 
discipline? 

238
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:51,720
No way. 
If this were a cartoon and this 

239
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:53,440
would be the point where you 
say, what if singing is this? 

240
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:57,960
Oh, there's nobody there. 
So, OK, so we've, we've we've 

241
00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:05,360
covered the sort of preliminary 
thou shalt sing and at this 

242
00:14:05,360 --> 00:14:09,080
point, the people who in who 
already agree with us are going 

243
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:13,800
yes, and the people who want to 
learn to sing in and aren't 

244
00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:16,200
quite there need some training 
for feeling like there's some 

245
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:17,880
hope. 
And and then there's still a 

246
00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:21,080
chunk of our listeners that are 
that are going OK, when are they

247
00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:22,720
going to stop about when are 
they going to stop guilt 

248
00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:27,480
tripping me about singing? 
So we're, we're not, I wanted to

249
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:28,920
make sure that we, we covered 
that. 

250
00:14:28,920 --> 00:14:32,440
And I'm grateful to both of you 
for, for fleshing this out 

251
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:36,480
because the, the, the, the 
imperative of singing is, is 

252
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:38,560
worth an episode in and of 
itself. 

253
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:41,760
We want to talk about a specific
kind of singing, which frankly 

254
00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:44,040
is kind of the lowest bar of 
singing. 

255
00:14:44,120 --> 00:14:49,280
The the thing that's easiest to 
get you into and that as music 

256
00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:52,600
directors, as singer 
songwriters, as someone who 

257
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:57,800
fools around on the piano, as 
churches, we can actually Foster

258
00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:00,160
and make easier and help people 
build confidence, right. 

259
00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:05,000
So we songs we're going to, I'm 
going to I am going to totally 

260
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:08,640
take a a leaf out of Matthew 
Melama's book over at our see 

261
00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:11,120
podcast. 
Matthew loves coming in with 

262
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:16,840
lists and and here are here are 
the rules that I have just 

263
00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:20,160
made-up for this particular 
thing for defining this or or 

264
00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:23,440
something. 
And Matthew and I have some of 

265
00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:26,840
those same tendencies. 
So I'm going to let them loose 

266
00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:30,440
today. 
And we will talk through kind of

267
00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:35,200
two big things and six total 
things that that define a we 

268
00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:36,800
song. 
But before we do that, I wanted 

269
00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:39,880
to get a few caveats out. 
First of all, we are not saying 

270
00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:41,400
these are the only songs worth 
singing. 

271
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:48,680
We are not saying that every 
decent WE song necessarily nails

272
00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:51,840
all six of these. 
And we'll talk about exceptions 

273
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:54,520
along the way. 
And that's especially true in 

274
00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:59,640
this day and age where for 
better and for worse, like we're

275
00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:02,600
like, you're often trying to 
make a living off of writing 

276
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:07,000
songs that will work on the 
radio, it will work on Spotify. 

277
00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:10,600
And you are conforming your 
musical style to expectations in

278
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:16,760
that, in that arena, which is 
going to affect. 

279
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:19,040
Thanks. 
And so you're, you got to kind 

280
00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:21,440
of give a little bit of a of, of
grace and go, OK, well, that 

281
00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:26,120
that checks 4 out of the six 
boxes, but boy, it nails the 

282
00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:29,120
other four. 
And yeah, anyway, what we are 

283
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:33,560
saying is that these are 
underrepresented in probably the

284
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:38,280
songs that most of us know, that
most of us absent mindedly sing 

285
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:40,280
when we are to ourselves, when 
we are doing the dishes. 

286
00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:43,040
Assuming I'm not the only one 
that does that. 

287
00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:49,520
I do dishes occasionally. 
But yeah, we're like we're 

288
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:53,240
saying we need a lot more of 
these because otherwise we end 

289
00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:57,600
up with is an imagination that 
is individualist, 

290
00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:02,560
individualistic, short sighted, 
maybe even gnostic, not not 

291
00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:05,280
knowing what to do with sort of 
physical anything. 

292
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:07,839
OK, so you're ready for the 
first thing on our list. 

293
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:12,280
Go for it. 
OK, so I'll give you my two big 

294
00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:13,319
ones and then we'll break them 
down. 

295
00:17:13,319 --> 00:17:19,359
So first and foremost, a we song
is a song about us, not a song 

296
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:23,000
about me. 
It's a song about us, not a song

297
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,200
about me. 
It still might use the word I, 

298
00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:28,160
it still might be framed in 
terms of my personal story 

299
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:32,600
relating to something. 
But a We song tells the story of

300
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:33,760
a people all. 
Right. 

301
00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:38,360
It reminds you who you are in 
relation to a whole. 

302
00:17:38,360 --> 00:17:41,760
They are often designed for 
corporate singing, like a good 

303
00:17:41,760 --> 00:17:48,240
pub song, but there are many 
kinds that are also designed to 

304
00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:53,320
be sung by a soloist, like 
ballads like you go to, you 

305
00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:55,880
know, any, any culture that has 
a strong storytelling and 

306
00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:59,040
singing culture is going to have
one of the ways they remember 

307
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:01,880
who they are is that they have, 
they've got different words for 

308
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:04,120
them, but bards and minstrels 
and things like that. 

309
00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:07,840
That's what Matthew is. 
That's where you are, Matthew. 

310
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:10,960
That's helpful. 
So we'll dig into that in a 

311
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:12,080
second. 
I just wanted to get that, get 

312
00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:14,560
these two things out first. 
So it's a song about us, not a 

313
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,440
song about me. 
And then second, it is written 

314
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,680
to give us a voice in God's 
story. 

315
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:24,000
In other words, it's written to 
empower you to sing, to do this 

316
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:27,320
thing that comes naturally to a 
few of us and take some effort 

317
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,360
in learning and overcoming fears
for some of the rest of us. 

318
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,040
All right, So it's a song about 
us, not a song about me. 

319
00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:39,800
And it is a song that empowers 
me to have a voice in in the 

320
00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:41,000
people of God all. 
Right. 

321
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,400
All right, so song about us, not
a song about me. 

322
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:46,600
Principal. 
One of three. 

323
00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:52,200
It connects you horizontally. 
OK. 

324
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:58,680
So that means I could be singing
at church on Sunday or in an 

325
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:04,320
arena at my favorite band's 
concert, and I feel a sense of 

326
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:06,240
connection to the people on 
either side of me. 

327
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:09,400
Now, to some extent, anybody 
singing a song they like 

328
00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:12,840
together does that, right? 
Like, you go to a Billy Joel 

329
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:14,640
concert, you go to a Taylor 
Swift concert, right? 

330
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:18,800
You have that experience. 
But a WE song is intentional 

331
00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:20,520
about doing that. 
You're not just connecting 

332
00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:22,840
because you both happen to know 
the song or happen to have been 

333
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:24,480
influenced by that artist 40 
years ago. 

334
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:27,520
But the song is intentionally 
trying to do that. 

335
00:19:27,520 --> 00:19:31,880
It's locating your story, your 
story, as part of something 

336
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:33,520
bigger. 
Yeah. 

337
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:35,720
So that also means it can give 
you strength. 

338
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:39,880
It can help you give strength to
others through that community 

339
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:41,480
and identity. 
What do you think of principle 

340
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:43,120
number one? 
It connects you horizontal. 

341
00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:46,480
Yeah, so as you're talking, 
Brian, I, I'm thinking of a song

342
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:51,960
that I love that I think, I 
think it's, it really embodies 

343
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:55,080
this quality really well. 
And and the song is Amazing 

344
00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:57,120
Grace. 
So Amazing Grace. 

345
00:19:57,120 --> 00:20:00,400
It tells a story of an 
individual person. 

346
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:05,840
When you sing it, you're telling
the story of God's grace and how

347
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,880
it. 
Affects your life. 

348
00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:15,040
So in that way, it's a story 
that is for anyone who has 

349
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,120
tasted of God's grace. 
It's a universal story. 

350
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:24,840
We've all experienced that. 
But the very, I think a really 

351
00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:28,280
cool thing is after three verses
of telling the significance of 

352
00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:33,840
this story and who I am in this 
story, the fourth verse tells us

353
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:36,600
when we've been there 1000 
years, we will be singing 

354
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,440
together about this grace and 
it. 

355
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:41,960
Shifts from eye to. 
Wheel Yeah, yeah. 

356
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:46,520
So I I love that. 
And yeah, I mean, if you've ever

357
00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:49,840
been singing sing song together 
Amazing Grace and got to that 

358
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:53,760
fourth verse, like who doesn't 
cry when they sing that? 

359
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:57,440
Yeah. 
'Cause I don't, I don't cry. 

360
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:00,640
Out. 
Yeah. 

361
00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:09,680
Yeah, connect you horizontally. 
Well, I think, you know, I was a

362
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:13,880
worship leader for 10 or 11 
years and I was not good at 

363
00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,160
writing congregational songs or 
worship songs. 

364
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:24,320
And the stuff I love to write or
most naturally write is are 

365
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:26,240
these kind of folk songs. 
It's interesting. 

366
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,440
I was thinking about the the 
sort of original concept of 

367
00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:34,440
sacred and profane. 
It doesn't mean that profane in 

368
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:39,320
the sense of evil if it's not, 
It meant just what songs are 

369
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:43,840
specifically used within a 
worship context and what songs 

370
00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:48,160
are just are not. 
And I felt like I spent a lot of

371
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:54,040
time, like a decade in the sort 
of sacred context, thinking 

372
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:55,840
about what songs fit well in 
that. 

373
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:58,920
And but the songs that I 
actually like to write are quote

374
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,920
profane songs. 
They're songs for that are 

375
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:08,080
coming from a Kingdom context, a
context of faith in Christ, but 

376
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:13,720
not necessarily they're not 
written to be working in a 

377
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,760
sacred context, Right, Right. 
And. 

378
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:18,760
But they definitely work on your
heart. 

379
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:21,480
Right. 
But they they're still Christian

380
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,840
songs. 
They're still songs that I hope 

381
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:28,240
and intend to, to invite into 
the body or to encourage the 

382
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,920
body, but they're not being used
in a worship service per SE. 

383
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:36,800
Yeah, right. 
And but there still are these, 

384
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,160
these similarities, like 1 when 
I was leading worship, one of 

385
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,520
the big words that I felt like, 
felt like the Lord would have me

386
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:50,760
just kind of sit on a particular
term for a year or whatever. 

387
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,360
And one of the big words that, 
and it was a big learning 

388
00:22:53,360 --> 00:22:56,040
experience for me as a worship 
leader was participation. 

389
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,840
And I just came back again and 
again to this idea of if you're 

390
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:04,480
singing something that people 
cannot participate in, like 

391
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,840
you're not doing your job in the
sacred context. 

392
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,560
Yeah, thank you for saying that,
you know, thank you. 

393
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,760
And maybe I'm getting off the 
the original question, but. 

394
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,200
Well, I want to dig into that 
later, but keep going. 

395
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:21,280
But there's there's an idea that
a lot of the music that is 

396
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:27,160
produced by the worship industry
is actually for solo performers.

397
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,120
Yeah, right. 
And it features like an an 

398
00:23:29,120 --> 00:23:32,120
exceptional soloist. 
Like with a really high void. 

399
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,440
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
And So what I found was I was 

400
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,600
having to rework a lot of songs 
so that were actually 

401
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:40,960
appropriate for participation. 
Yeah. 

402
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,760
Which a lot of times. 
Tell you a lot. 

403
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:46,000
Yeah. 
If someone wrote something 

404
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,960
that's supposedly for 
congregational singing and you 

405
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,800
have to fix it before it can be 
used that way, it tells you how 

406
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:58,640
much the the industry has shaped
that. 

407
00:23:59,360 --> 00:24:02,560
I was on the the Overthinkers 
podcasts a few weeks ago and. 

408
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:04,120
And we were talking about this 
the. 

409
00:24:04,120 --> 00:24:07,880
We were we were doing the math 
at 60 plus percent of. 

410
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,400
Well first of all, nearly all 
the main worship songs are 

411
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:16,200
coming from 4:00 record labels 
associated with three mega 

412
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:17,960
churches and then one other 
group. 

413
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:23,440
And at least 60% of the songs, 
most of those are are owned by 

414
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:27,120
secular record labels. 
And anyway we did the math and 

415
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:30,920
at least 60% of those songs had 
had the fingerprints of a non 

416
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,920
Christian music producer on. 
Oh, that's going the wrong 

417
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:34,520
direction. 
Right. 

418
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,920
And that that's not to say there
aren't good people in that 

419
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:41,360
industry doing their best, and 
that God can't work within 

420
00:24:41,360 --> 00:24:45,720
limitations, and that good, 
great songs haven't escaped that

421
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,000
factory and done good work in 
human souls. 

422
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:55,120
But that's quite quite an 
assembly line to produce when 

423
00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:58,840
you are supposedly writing songs
for corporate singing, when 

424
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,920
there's that many boxes you have
to check along the way that have

425
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,520
nothing to do with corporate 
singing before you have any hope

426
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,280
of your song making it into 
corporate. 

427
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:08,080
Singing. 
Now take, take a moment and 

428
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,080
think back to the story that you
read at the beginning of this 

429
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,640
podcast. 
How different is that from Saint

430
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,280
Ambrose teaching the women and 
the and the men and the children

431
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,440
a melody, a simple melody that 
they could remember and sing. 

432
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,160
Yeah. 
OK, so we'll, I, I want to 

433
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,600
circle back to style a bit more 
when we get to our second trio 

434
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:34,880
of of concepts. 
But I want to get to the point 

435
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,840
#2 because you're on the very 
verge of it. 

436
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,920
So it connects you horizontally.
And I encourage our listeners to

437
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,600
go check out our recordings from
the past with Amber Saladin 

438
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,480
because she talks, says some 
wonderful, wonderful things, 

439
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,080
including it. 
Which one of your books does she

440
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,200
say this in? 
She wrote an essay in A Tale of 

441
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,520
Two Trees, which is the middle 
book in the Whale trilogy that's

442
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,320
a great essay about, and she 
talks a lot about singing is 

443
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:03,960
this physical, embodied thing, 
which that connects for me to if

444
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:08,280
we have a recording industry, it
means so much of the song making

445
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,680
is disembodied. 
It's somebody else, somewhere 

446
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:16,080
else recorded it and I'm just 
hearing a recorded voice and 

447
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,160
it's a big deal to actually 
experience music in person and 

448
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,520
you see the person and you are 
one of the people actually 

449
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,280
making it. 
And what we're talking about 

450
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:29,880
today, too, is not only 
embodying the singing in your 

451
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:35,200
own body, but doing it together.
And there's some amazing magic 

452
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,360
that happens when you're singing
in a room together, breathing 

453
00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:42,440
the same air, and your heart 
rate syncs up together because 

454
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,560
you're you're singing that. 
That is. 

455
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,600
There's no substitute for that. 
There is no. 

456
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,840
Yeah, so, so like when you're 
at, I was going to rush past #1 

457
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:55,960
but we're getting good, more 
good stuff is coming out. 

458
00:26:56,360 --> 00:26:59,240
But when, when you're at, you 
know, let's say you're a huge 

459
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,840
Rolling Stones fan and you and 
you go to that concert and they 

460
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:03,720
meant so much to you back in the
day. 

461
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:09,520
And, and, and everybody sings 
together, right? 

462
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:11,520
The song that meant so much to 
them. 

463
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:17,520
And, and you have that moment of
just kind of euphoria of 

464
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,680
togetherness and you, you can 
feel like even if you don't sing

465
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,880
at all, you're still yelling it 
out and loving it. 

466
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,520
And you just go home with this 
almost transcendent feeling. 

467
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,520
I just felt something profoundly
right. 

468
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:37,440
But essentially what that was 
was a glimpse into something 

469
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,120
that that is fundamentally, I 
don't want to say fake, but 

470
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,640
incomplete in that context. 
Because what happens now, it 

471
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:45,760
falls off. 
You don't go home and write 

472
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,240
music. 
You don't go home and make 

473
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,120
music. 
You don't go home and you 

474
00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:54,600
probably don't go home after the
first day or two and and sing. 

475
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,760
And most importantly, probably 
that song meant something to 

476
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:00,120
you. 
I mean, there's plenty of songs 

477
00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:03,520
that mean nothing. 
I mean, some of the best, best 

478
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:05,640
songs you've ever heard on dance
floor that everybody gets 

479
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,520
excited about literally mean 
nothing as far as far as we 

480
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:13,640
know. 
But I probably this the song 

481
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,880
that meant something to you, 
connected to something 

482
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:19,200
transcendent and we'll get to 
that. 

483
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:24,600
But it wasn't actually written 
out of out of an embodied shared

484
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,480
experience. 
It might like Amazing Grace be 

485
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,840
writing out of a a universal 
shared experience. 

486
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,240
And there's there's something 
good about that. 

487
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:36,840
I think a a good we song more 
often than not is going to have 

488
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,240
that embodied component to it 
either because like with Amazing

489
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,680
Grace, like we all, we all know 
this song and this song has 

490
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:48,080
shaped all of our faith, or 
because it's come out of our 

491
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,800
particular church, our 
particular congregation and our 

492
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,480
experience. 
We wrote this song because we 

493
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,400
were grieving together at that 
one time. 

494
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:56,680
And we remember this through 
this song, remember the 

495
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,800
faithfulness of God. 
So many of the Psalms are like 

496
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,480
this, right? 
So that's different when you 

497
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:08,120
have the life of a community 
that is giving birth to bards 

498
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,400
who are writing songs from and 
for the life of that community. 

499
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,000
To tell their story. 
And pouring it, pouring them 

500
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,840
back into the community who then
sing those songs. 

501
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,680
And, and that's, that becomes 
something that's 

502
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,840
intergenerational in a way that 
even even most of the best pop 

503
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,480
songs won't be. 
And they're, they're real 

504
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,920
because they're coming from an 
embodied experience. 

505
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,200
We're doing life together. 
This song is coming out of our 

506
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,280
experience doing life together. 
So when we have that euphoric 

507
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,840
moment of, oh, when we've been 
there 10,000 years and we're all

508
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,560
belting and we're all excited 
and half of us are crying, 

509
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,280
that's coming from our real life
together. 

510
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,880
And as soon as we stop singing, 
we're going to step back into 

511
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,000
that real life together. 
And so it's powering our real 

512
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:57,280
life together. 
That's a step further than I 

513
00:29:57,280 --> 00:29:59,320
always use Taylor Swift as the 
example because she's such a 

514
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:04,360
good voice for the experience of
the women of her generation. 

515
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:06,560
Yeah. 
This is what the women of her 

516
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,800
generation tell me. 
But we've, you know, we've got 

517
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,320
really thoughtful women on our 
team that that have unpacked all

518
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:14,680
this for me and believed to see 
a good episode on Taylor Swift a

519
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,360
couple years ago. 
But like she's, she's singing 

520
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,440
things you've felt you've 
experienced, right? 

521
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:20,880
But you've experienced them 
alone. 

522
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,040
Now you're in an arena and 
you're and you don't feel alone,

523
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,040
right? 
What if this was singing? 

524
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,960
What if the music was things 
that we experienced together or 

525
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,560
experienced separately and then 
brought us together and kept us 

526
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,400
together? 
That's another level. 

527
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,320
Can I tell a story? 
Yes, you can tell a story. 

528
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,560
Please tell a story, Sherry. 
Just a couple of weeks ago in 

529
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:49,680
church, we so we had just had 
some very, very difficult things

530
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,080
happen in in the news. 
Everyone was kind of upset. 

531
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,560
We knew we were all coming, you 
know, together to worship 

532
00:30:57,560 --> 00:30:59,440
together. 
And in the meantime, we're 

533
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,560
processing like, how do I make 
sense of this world that I'm 

534
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,840
living in? 
And it just happened that that 

535
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,320
Sunday I had planned to sing. 
It's a new song. 

536
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:15,560
We'd never sung it before by 
actually, it was the would Drake

537
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:19,760
sessions when Wendell Kimbrough 
recorded it. 

538
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,240
And the song is Grace will 
prevail. 

539
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:24,360
And that was so meaningful on 
that day. 

540
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,280
Just, you know, the words 
talking about the darkness and 

541
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:31,280
how we encounter these difficult
things in life. 

542
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,240
And yet we all believe we're 
reminding ourselves through this

543
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:39,920
song, grace will prevail. 
That was a really powerful 

544
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,520
moment of worship for me. 
You know, I felt like it brought

545
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,240
our congregation together. 
We're telling each other this 

546
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,040
story. 
We're reminding each other of 

547
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:50,880
the truth. 
There we go. 

548
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,600
So yeah, let's go to point #2 
because that's good transition. 

549
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,280
Well. 
No, because that's a, that's a, 

550
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,200
that's a great example of 
something that was written in. 

551
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:07,240
It's written to be timeless, 
right? 

552
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,840
There's that universal sense to 
it, but that means it meets us 

553
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,080
everywhere. 
I think it was TS Eliot that 

554
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,280
said, like, if you want to write
something that's universal, you 

555
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:18,760
don't do it by being so bland 
that it applies to everyone. 

556
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,680
You write about something that 
is so personal that everybody 

557
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:23,600
goes, I've been there. 
Yeah. 

558
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,400
And Jonathan Rogers talks a lot 
about that writing concretely 

559
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,680
that you that you start with 
with these really specific 

560
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,640
concrete things. 
And the more you do that, the 

561
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,000
more universally it will apply, 
which is kind of 

562
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,960
counterintuitive, but in your 
experience it it plays out that 

563
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:39,920
way. 
If you talk about the idea of 

564
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,800
sadness, people go, OK, nice. 
If you talk about I'm sad and 

565
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,320
here's what it feels like. 
Or here's a natural thing that 

566
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:47,640
happened. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

567
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,080
Wait, what's your second point, 
Brian? 

568
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,520
I wouldn't know. 
Chronologically. 

569
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,360
Oh OK, so tell us the story of 
the Saint Brendan. 

570
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:03,360
The song about Saint Brendan. 
So this was so our our Celtic 

571
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,280
pub night a couple years ago. 
We sang the song Saint Brendan's

572
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:11,200
Fair Isle and I know a couple of
other people who have written 

573
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,400
ballads of Saint Brendan, their 
own retelling of this famous 

574
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,360
Irish St. 
So that's a that's a good 

575
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,400
example of the chronological 
component of of a wee song. 

576
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,360
Another is just the more the 
more abstract God was faithful 

577
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,480
in the past, so he would be 
faithful now, right? 

578
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,080
So many of the song Psalms do 
this and I keep coming back to 

579
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,800
the Psalms. 
But but Saint Brendan is a good 

580
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:38,840
example of 1 where huh, for for 
it's kind of a it's kind of a 

581
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,640
weird story. 
There are odd elements to it and

582
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,720
there's definitely some parts 
where you're like, surely that 

583
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:48,240
didn't happen the way that the 
ledge of the dragon, right? 

584
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:55,320
But but someone writes that song
and generations and generations 

585
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,560
and generations later, people 
are are still singing it. 

586
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,200
I had a conversation on this 
podcast a couple weeks ago with 

587
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,360
Gustav Hoyer and Benjamin 
Harding and we were talking 

588
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,600
about this and, and Gustav made 
the point that yes, there's this

589
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:13,239
particularity to our experience 
in the here and now, but really 

590
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:14,600
there's nothing new under the 
sun. 

591
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,040
So they're like everything that 
is particular to us and that we 

592
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:21,840
feel is distinctive does connect
to the always does connect to 

593
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,440
the eternal, does connect to the
last generation and the one 

594
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,080
before us. 
But it's on us as a generation 

595
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,520
to tell those stories, to create
that art. 

596
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,320
Otherwise there's a void in our 
in the church's cultural memory 

597
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,400
where our generation was. 
And, and Gustav said said it 

598
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:40,520
better than I'm than I'm saying 
it. 

599
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,159
But this idea that when you 
write a song, you're being a 

600
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:48,159
missionary to our great, great 
grandchildren, people that we 

601
00:34:48,159 --> 00:34:51,040
will never be able to share the 
faith with and disciple 

602
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,360
individually, but might sing 
that song, but might sing John 

603
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:57,200
Newton's amazing friend. 
Just like the people that wrote 

604
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,920
the song about Saint Brendan 
that we're singing now. 

605
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,600
Want somebody to remember this? 
And by golly, in Colorado 

606
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:08,800
Springs in 2023, there are these
goofy people, most of whom 

607
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,480
aren't Irish, who are singing 
about Saint Brendan's Fair Isle.

608
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:15,760
This is wow. 
Yeah, this, this makes me think 

609
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:20,640
of a couple of things. 
One, if if I'm thinking of Ruth,

610
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,760
Naomi Floyd, who's a brilliant 
musician herself and composer in

611
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,520
the jazz and Blues arena. 
And I've heard her speak several

612
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:35,160
times on how Blues and jazz 
music kind of created this, this

613
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:39,600
fabric for for a displaced and 
an abused people to have some 

614
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:44,760
way to understand themselves. 
And then that got connected to 

615
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,120
Christianity. 
And this became this whole genre

616
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:53,960
of music that enabled a people 
to sometimes even things that 

617
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,960
were encoded into the music or 
into the lyrics that were like 

618
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,680
secret codes to like recognize 
one another in a dangerous 

619
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,800
situation where they or to 
recognize something that they 

620
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,200
were going to do together. 
It's so wonderful to hear her 

621
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,520
talk about this. 
It's fascinating, and she has a 

622
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,800
lot of insight because she spent
a lot of time studying it. 

623
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:17,720
So I think about how, like, you 
could go a whole podcast just 

624
00:36:17,720 --> 00:36:21,280
into how the African American 
music tradition and Christian 

625
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:23,960
music tradition works. 
But what it made me think of, 

626
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,480
too, is in the music I've been 
spending the most time with, 

627
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:30,600
obviously the last few years is 
my own music. 

628
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,320
Because when you make music or 
record, you listen to it 

629
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,960
billions of times, and by the 
time the album comes out, you, 

630
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:42,120
like, hate your own. 
Yeah, but for me, I was, I was 

631
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:47,160
looking at Psalm 137, which is 
this Psalm where the exiled 

632
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:52,240
people of God are having to 
decide whether or not they're 

633
00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:56,760
going to continue to sing the 
songs of their homeland now that

634
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,840
they're displaced, or if they're
just going to give up and be 

635
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:04,880
absorbed into the Gentiles and 
lose their identity. 

636
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:06,400
In they don't know anything 
about that today. 

637
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:09,720
Right. 
And so like that was very 

638
00:37:09,720 --> 00:37:13,400
resonant for me. 
I felt like, OK, am I just going

639
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:17,360
to say, OK, I'm just going to 
kind of dissolve into the flow 

640
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,200
of the way things are? 
Or am I going to take my harp 

641
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:24,240
off the Poplar tree? 
Even though everybody is saying 

642
00:37:24,240 --> 00:37:27,200
yes, sing those little cute 
songs about Zion, you're 

643
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:28,560
homeland, you're never going to 
see her. 

644
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,640
It's not even real or and you 
have to decide. 

645
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:37,320
And so there's a, you know, this
song says, I'm just saying that 

646
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:44,560
like the first verse. 
Our captors cracked their whips 

647
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,680
and grinned. 
Down by the rivers 

648
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,200
Babylon? 
And even that song is coming 

649
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,120
from because I grew up in 
Mississippi and I love Blues 

650
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,960
music and Blues rock, and so 
that has that kind of down. 

651
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:52,240
By the rivers. 
It kind of has a call and 

652
00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:58,080
response which and then on that 
same album, that song has a kind

653
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,720
of sister song. 
That is the response to that 

654
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:05,560
song, which asks the question, 
how can we sing the Lord's song?

655
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:11,080
How can we sing these we songs 
here when when all that makes us

656
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:16,680
us is being picked apart and 
dismantled and and all the 

657
00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:20,720
threads are being pulled in the 
out of the fabric and then the 

658
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:26,320
the last song on the album. 
Says the endless voices 

659
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:35,120
whispered that our hopes are 
only dreams, Then no deliverer 

660
00:39:35,120 --> 00:40:22,360
is coming, 
So you got this idea of like, 

661
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:23,920
we're going to make up our 
minds. 

662
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:29,400
Yeah, we're going to do this. 
But it it's very much in that 

663
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,480
whole middle album in the Well 
trilogy is kind of about how do 

664
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:39,440
we live as a people when when 
the face we met at Jacob's Well 

665
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,360
seems to have kind of receded in
the darkness has come and we 

666
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:44,400
feel like we're in exile and 
we're not sure if all this is 

667
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,800
really true. 
How do we keep reminding one 

668
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:50,760
another that this is real and to
to keep singing that song? 

669
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,360
And it takes a decisiveness, but
I think songs themselves are 

670
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,400
part of what helped us do. 
Totally. 

671
00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:03,080
We can't live this life alone 
and it's the community that 

672
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,200
encourages us. 
And singing is one of the most 

673
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,520
powerful expressions of of 
community. 

674
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:13,640
I remember the first time I 
heard you play, I think both 

675
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,400
those songs in in person and you
were talking about the actual 

676
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,360
story of the people of God in 
Babylon that had inspired that 

677
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,560
song. 
And I remember you saying that 

678
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,160
the the people who made that 
choice were the people tell that

679
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,440
tell the tell the the last. 
Story Yeah, yeah, there's a guy 

680
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,760
named John Oswalt, and he's an 
Old Testament translator and 

681
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,000
scholar. 
And I heard him tell this at at 

682
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,800
her retreat. 
And he explained that the people

683
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:45,760
are taken into exile and then 
eventually you've got Cyrus. 

684
00:41:46,240 --> 00:41:50,800
And Cyrus gives this edict that 
anybody who wants to go back to 

685
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,800
their homeland and worship their
own gods, that they can go, 

686
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,680
they're free to go. 
And he said, as far as we know, 

687
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:00,920
was it was the remnant of 
Israel. 

688
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:03,760
They were the only ones who 
responded to that edict. 

689
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,800
Nobody else went home because 
everyone else had been absorbed 

690
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,320
and assimilated. 
These Israelites were the only 

691
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:16,720
ones who actually still had 
enough of a distinct identity. 

692
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,440
As a people. 
As a people, they that they even

693
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,440
could respond to that. 
And part of the idea was that 

694
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,280
why did they how did they 
maintain that identity? 

695
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,480
And part of it was that even 
though their tormentors made fun

696
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,080
of them by the rivers of Babylon
and they were tempted to quit 

697
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,560
seeing singing the songs of 
home, they picked up their harps

698
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,440
and they said, may my tongue 
cling to the roof of my mouth. 

699
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:40,880
If I fail to sing the songs of 
Zion. 

700
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,400
I will not do that. 
I'm going to keep these songs 

701
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,320
going even though it seems 
totally pointless and stupid 

702
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,840
because how could they have 
known or anticipated that edict?

703
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,400
But when the time came, they 
were ready to go. 

704
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,680
Like because they had kept 
singing the songs of home. 

705
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:57,680
May it be so for us. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

706
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,600
Yeah. 
And which, which brings up an, 

707
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:06,000
an important point, I think that
the chronological element to 

708
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:11,840
this, I mean, first of all, it, 
it can mean, it does mean a lot 

709
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:15,440
of the time that the, the song 
has a narrative structure like 

710
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,680
that. 
And you know, one of you'll see 

711
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,400
this with a lot of old hymns. 
Why are there 6 verses or 8 

712
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,920
verses or 10 verses? 
That's shortened it down to four

713
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:25,360
people. 
People will get bored. 

714
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,040
You're literally cutting out the
middle of the story. 

715
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,840
Right. 
But so there is that element to 

716
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,080
it a lot of the time. 
But even when there isn't, 

717
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,720
there's, there's that sense of 
I'm telling a general story. 

718
00:43:37,720 --> 00:43:41,400
There's, there's a number of 
different hymns that are that, 

719
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:46,320
that use Marshall imagery, 
military imagery, following God 

720
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,560
as captain and not the army and 
things like that. 

721
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,080
And, and, and those don't refer 
to a specific time and place and

722
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,480
they don't have a specific 
beginning, middle and end, but 

723
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,120
they describe what it is like to
be God's people being faithful 

724
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,680
to him in the face of, of, of 
strife. 

725
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,960
And so they, they need it can't 
make none of them I both of 

726
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,160
those two categories. 
They can't just be, you know, 

727
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,440
the old joke is 711 songs, 7 
words, 11 times. 

728
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,080
Because they, because they, they
need to breathe. 

729
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,440
They need, they need, yeah, 
lyrical space to paint a 

730
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:16,880
picture, right? 
Right for. 

731
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:18,280
You. 
Yes. 

732
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:20,280
Keep going. 
Keep. 

733
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,240
Going let's, let's do point #3. 
So it connects songs about us, 

734
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,080
not songs about me. 
They connect us horizontally, 

735
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:30,360
they connect us chronologically.
And finally, the most obvious 

736
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,280
one, especially with religious 
we songs is it connects us 

737
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,400
vertically, vertically connect 
us to God and, and specifically,

738
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,760
I mean, any worship song is 
designed to do that, but a we 

739
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,560
song does it specifically by 
connecting us to his story. 

740
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:51,960
It's not simply generic. 
I don't I love you Jesus type 

741
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:55,080
lyrics or God, you're so pretty 
and awesome and make me feel so 

742
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,880
nice inside. 
As appropriate as I'm I'm being 

743
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,560
sarcastic, but those are 
appropriate at a given in a 

744
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,240
given situation. 
But but for a we song, it's it's

745
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:05,400
it's a little bit bigger than 
that. 

746
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,520
It's not just the abstract idea 
of God somewhere off in the 

747
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:13,400
distance, nor is it simply God 
as a almost romantic love 

748
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:16,680
figure. 
It's, it's, it's God as, as the 

749
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:19,320
one who has been faithful 
through the ages, It's God. 

750
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:25,120
It's, it relates us as 
individuals to his story and 

751
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,960
actually equips us to relate to 
his story in the face of our own

752
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,200
insecurities, in the face of our
own. 

753
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:32,600
I don't know what to do 
tomorrow. 

754
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,680
I don't know where's the next 
job coming from or who am I 

755
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,720
supposed to be? 
And all these, all these kinds 

756
00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:40,160
of questions. 
It locates our individual 

757
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:45,600
questions in the larger story of
God himself. 

758
00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:48,080
Yes, the people of God, that's 
the horizontal component. 

759
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,680
The people of God over time, 
that's the chronological 

760
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,760
component. 
But also all of that is part of 

761
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,040
the great creation, fall, 
redemption, restoration, meta 

762
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,840
narrative of Scripture and of 
God's people. 

763
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,000
Yeah. 
So connects us vertically. 

764
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,280
Any thoughts on? 
I feel like that's maybe the 

765
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:08,640
most obvious one, but any any 
thoughts on that or favorites 

766
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:10,320
along those lines? 
How about this? 

767
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,240
Praise to the Lord, the 
Almighty, the King of creation, 

768
00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:18,160
O my soul, praise Him, for He is
Thy health and salvation. 

769
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,920
Join the greats throng, 
psaltery, organ and song, 

770
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:27,000
sounding in glad adoration. 
Praise to the Lord over all 

771
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:32,120
things He gloriously reigneth, 
Borne as on eagle wings safely 

772
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:37,400
His Saints He sustaineth. 
Hast thou not seen how all thou 

773
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,920
needest hath been granted in 
what he ordaineth keep. 

774
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,680
Going. 
OK, next verse, praise to the 

775
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:49,160
Lord, who doth prosper thy way 
and defend thee. 

776
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,560
Surely His goodness and mercy 
shall ever attend thee. 

777
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:59,480
Ponder anew what the Almighty 
can do, who with his love doth 

778
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,560
befriend thee. 
Praise to the Lord, O let all 

779
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,600
that is in me adore Him, all 
that hath life and breath. 

780
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:09,960
Come now with praises before 
him. 

781
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:14,640
Let the Amen sound from his 
people ago again. 

782
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,280
Gladly, forever adore him. 
And we always sing Amen at the 

783
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,520
end of that, because you just 
said let the Amen. 

784
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,800
Yeah, got to put his Amen on it.
Yeah. 

785
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,480
Unpack that like you're looking 
at you're looking at the words 

786
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,320
and I'm not that there. 
There are so many. 

787
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:36,120
It's hey, on some level, that is
a That is the hymnity world's 

788
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:38,160
version of a praise song. 
Oh totally. 

789
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,680
It's telling you there's lots of
verse starts with praise. 

790
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:43,520
Praise. 
The Lord Praise to the Lord. 

791
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,800
But it but it gets into a lot of
specifics that locate you. 

792
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:52,840
Yes, it names him as the King of
creation, the one who provides 

793
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:58,400
for us, who prospers our way, 
who defends us, who sustains us.

794
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:02,600
Like it's naming all of these 
things that God does for us. 

795
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,240
Surely his goodness and mercy 
shall ever attend thee. 

796
00:48:06,720 --> 00:48:10,400
You know, it's calling us to 
ponder who God is and what he 

797
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,240
has done. 
I think that's that's, gosh, we 

798
00:48:13,240 --> 00:48:18,600
need to be reminded every day, 
you know, who, where we are in 

799
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,640
in the story and how he really 
is big enough to take care of 

800
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,480
our our needs. 
Yeah. 

801
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:31,240
Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking of you. 
You mentioned the narrative 

802
00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:32,880
aspect. 
So we've got the chronological 

803
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:38,240
thing, but but also like the way
so much of how Scripture 

804
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:44,040
communicates who God is, is, is 
this relational, this cumulative

805
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,360
relational experience of like, 
well, what have we seen him do 

806
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,400
in the past? 
What are the mighty acts of God?

807
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,120
And that's not an abstract thing
or it's not even really a 

808
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,120
conceptual idea. 
It's like, no, these are 

809
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,480
specific things that he's done. 
Like what? 

810
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,280
Well, like when he got you out 
of Egypt and he parted the sea 

811
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,000
and he, you know, all these 
things happen. 

812
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,960
And so I think a lot of times 
that connects very specifically 

813
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,520
to story points, narrative 
points. 

814
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:14,080
How do you know? 
I was having a conversation with

815
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:18,400
somebody about the specificity 
of Christianity and saying like,

816
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,280
well, there are a lot of things 
you can talk about that could 

817
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,880
kind of apply to any religion. 
Well, why do we make this 

818
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:27,000
concrete, specific claim about 
this God? 

819
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,280
Right. 
And I think part of the answer 

820
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:35,480
to that is when we're looking at
the story, it's not just any 

821
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:40,040
story, even though lots of 
stories may have elements that 

822
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,840
relate or connect because Jesus 
is the logos and he, but he is 

823
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,680
also the narrative of the world.
And so of course, people that 

824
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,400
don't know him are also going to
pick up on patterns, narrative 

825
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,000
patterns. 
Sure, that happens. 

826
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,520
But when we're talking about 
Jesus, Jesus has a very 

827
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:58,080
particular outline. 
He is a specific person who has 

828
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:02,120
done specific things. 
And so when we sing, it's nice 

829
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:07,600
to include very concrete details
about this story, because I'm 

830
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,240
talking about this very specific
God, not just any God. 

831
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:14,000
Right. 
And and this actually, yes, I 

832
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,920
love this verse that says he has
borne us on eagle's wings 

833
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,760
safely. 
His Saints he sustaineth. 

834
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:25,480
Hast thou not seen how all thou 
needest hath been granted? 

835
00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:30,920
In what he Yeah, yeah, We're 
remembering the Saints that he 

836
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:32,560
has sustained. 
Yeah. 

837
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:36,760
Actually, you have a song kind 
of like this, Matthew. 

838
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:40,160
Well, a song I really like. 
I was thinking about a song that

839
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,680
I haven't been playing, but it's
kind of one of those ballad 

840
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,360
songs. 
OK, It's the it's the title 

841
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:47,280
track of the middle book, A Tale
of Two Trees. 

842
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:51,040
And it basically like kind of 
walks through the I did a whole 

843
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,200
album actually called Bright 
Came the Word from His mouth. 

844
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:59,480
It's a nice concise title, but 
it's a Bible walkthrough. 

845
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:03,200
So the whole idea of that album 
is like, let's let's walk 

846
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:06,920
through this story and talk 
about some specific things. 

847
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:11,640
But in a tale of true trees, I, 
I frame it as two family trees 

848
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:15,680
and how these family trees kind 
of, and it talks about there's a

849
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:17,840
dream that I saw two family 
trees. 

850
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:19,880
They grew from very different 
seeds. 

851
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:23,360
One stood tall with flowered 
crowns and one was bent and 

852
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:26,080
bitter. 
The bitter tree bore sour fruit 

853
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,600
that made the people eating do 
wickedness upon the earth until 

854
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:32,680
they grew to love it. 
The flowered tree put out its 

855
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,520
leaves, which perfumed faintly 
that bitter breeze. 

856
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,800
The bent tree's branches shook 
like snakes and did their best 

857
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,720
to kill it. 
But the sweet up the sweetness 

858
00:51:41,720 --> 00:51:44,720
rose again, like children rise 
from water cleansed. 

859
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:48,040
And though the thorns tore at 
their flesh, they would not stop

860
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:50,240
their singing. 
And it goes on to kind of tell 

861
00:51:50,240 --> 00:51:52,080
the whole story. 
But yeah. 

862
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:56,520
He's got away with words. 
Yes, you're a great storyteller.

863
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:01,680
So I do love that idea of 
connecting us vertically, but 

864
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:06,320
part of like all these things 
work together because you can't 

865
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,920
do the vertical thing in some 
abstract sense. 

866
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,400
Like it has to be rooted in 
history and narrative and time 

867
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,320
and all these things have to be 
included. 

868
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:19,720
And it's sort of one perhaps 
useful analogy is, yeah, I've 

869
00:52:19,720 --> 00:52:25,440
seen Christian traditions that 
put a lot of emphasis on sharing

870
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:30,960
your testimony, right? 
Sometimes to the point where 

871
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,960
like if you haven't had terrible
trials that the Lord has brought

872
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:36,960
you through yet, you feel like 
you're a third class Christian. 

873
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:40,760
You go to summer camp and 
everybody's crying and telling 

874
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:43,720
their and it's like trying to 
one up each other almost. 

875
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:50,720
Now there it's it's incredibly 
important to practice the 

876
00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:53,920
personal, the spiritual 
disciplines that that equip you 

877
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,800
to remember the faithfulness of 
God in your own life and to be 

878
00:52:56,800 --> 00:52:58,960
able to to share that witness 
with others. 

879
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:05,440
However, we songs give you a 
multi generational dimension to 

880
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,240
that. 
You know it's not it isn't just 

881
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:13,120
let me tell you the story of 
when I was struggling with long 

882
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:14,840
division. 
It was. 

883
00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:18,320
Wait, wait. 
You mean we're not the first 

884
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:22,840
people to have struggles in the 
world and like, like have need 

885
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,760
someone to come and help us? 
We're not the first people. 

886
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:30,600
OK, so that that reminds me of 
this really neat quote that I 

887
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:36,280
love. 
It's a by John of Salisbury, and

888
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:41,320
he writes, Bernard of Shark used
to compare us to dwarves perched

889
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:45,920
on the shoulders of giants. 
He pointed out that we see more 

890
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,240
and farther than our 
predecessors, not because we 

891
00:53:49,240 --> 00:53:53,320
have keener vision or greater 
height, but because we are 

892
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:57,760
lifted up and borne aloft on 
their gigantic stature. 

893
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:02,920
So you we have stories that we 
can sing about that are stories 

894
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,920
from the past, and they're our 
story too, because they're our 

895
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,520
God. 
It's it's stories about our God 

896
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,160
and about his people. 
And if you have a posture 

897
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:15,680
towards the faith that is 
obsessed with the current and 

898
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:19,920
the new and the recent and 
doesn't know what to do with the

899
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:24,880
past, you are you're you're 
cutting yourself off from all 

900
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:25,800
of. 
That you're. 

901
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:33,160
This this immense store of how 
God has safely sustained his 

902
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:36,840
Saints, Yes. 
Like the story you read of Saint

903
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,800
Ambrose from the very beginning?
Yeah, that's our story too. 

904
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,440
Yeah. 
One of the things that that 

905
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:45,120
helped me a lot, I read a book 
years ago by a guy named Joseph 

906
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:49,200
Atkinson, one of the it's called
the Biblical foundations of the 

907
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:51,720
family or something like that. 
And one of the things he brought

908
00:54:51,720 --> 00:54:58,680
up in there was the idea of, of 
the Hebrew has, we have an 

909
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,560
individualistic imagination in 
the, in the West, the modern 

910
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,040
West. 
But he said, but for the Hebrew,

911
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,320
they didn't think of themselves 
as individuals. 

912
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,040
He says they had a corporate 
imagination. 

913
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:12,200
Yeah. 
And so, you know, it's kind of 

914
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:16,160
funny to us when we read 
language like in Christ, you're 

915
00:55:16,160 --> 00:55:19,760
in Christ or we're in Christ. 
He's like, that's an indicator 

916
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:24,240
of a corporate imagination. 
And so he said, you know, to be 

917
00:55:24,240 --> 00:55:30,640
in Abraham, to be in Isaac is 
this idea of like, I don't have 

918
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:34,600
any way of comprehending or 
understanding myself apart from 

919
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,440
the family that I belong to, the
thing that I'm inside of the 

920
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:42,080
story that surrounds me. 
And then that led me to think of

921
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,720
the idea of just like a simple 
kind of word trick that helped 

922
00:55:44,720 --> 00:55:50,120
me is that they have 
strandedness and that we live in

923
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:52,920
a culture, I think, where so 
many people feel stranded. 

924
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:58,440
And a strand is like if you have
a fabric and you remove one 

925
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:03,160
thread from it, then that strand
is stranded and they actually 

926
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,520
belong in the story. 
They belong woven into the 

927
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:10,840
fabric or the context or the 
text or the texture or the 

928
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:12,360
textile. 
Tapestry. 

929
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:17,720
Or the tapestry of of reality. 
And this is what the Bible is 

930
00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:19,760
doing. 
It's saying, oh, actually this 

931
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:23,360
world came from somewhere so 
beautiful, so good a life that 

932
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,960
the Trinity was living together 
that then overflowed into the 

933
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:29,800
cosmos. 
And God created all this because

934
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,520
he wanted to expand the family. 
And it's all going somewhere. 

935
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:36,640
It's going back to that 
beautiful face in the Beatific 

936
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:40,440
vision where we're going back to
the one who smiled us into 

937
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:42,920
existence and he's waiting to 
receive us home. 

938
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:46,080
Wait a minute. 
So you're woven right into this 

939
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:49,000
fabric, but if you don't know 
that story or you've been 

940
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:52,080
truncated from, you've been cut 
off from that fabric and you 

941
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,760
become stranded, like that's 
such a desperate and sad and 

942
00:56:55,760 --> 00:57:01,280
frustrating existence. 
Songs and stories and the way 

943
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:05,520
that we worship together help us
help weave us back into that. 

944
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:08,960
Wait, are you saying that not 
only chronologically are we 

945
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:13,240
connected to the Saints from the
past who share our story, but it

946
00:57:13,240 --> 00:57:16,360
goes as far back as being 
connected to the Trinity? 

947
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:22,400
I am saying that, Terry. 
Wow, that is worth pondering, 

948
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:25,040
yeah. 
Well said. 

949
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:31,960
Well, let's pause there and 
continue in our next episode and

950
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:34,720
then and we will continue 
looking at how this all plays 

951
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:37,280
out. 
We've looked at how we songs are

952
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:43,360
focused on connecting us to God 
through his story, through his 

953
00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:47,400
people over time and through his
people right now and into 

954
00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:50,280
eternity. 
Now it's in the next episode, we

955
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,760
will look at how we songs are 
written to give us a voice in 

956
00:57:53,760 --> 00:57:55,760
that story. 
So particularly focused on 

957
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:59,160
lyrics so far, we'll focus a 
little bit more on music and the

958
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:00,920
rest of our conversation. 
Oh good. 

959
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,600
The Imagination Redeemed podcast
is a production of the Anselm 

960
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:06,800
Society. 
It's easy to see this world as 

961
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,360
disenchanted and to give up hope
that there's more. 

962
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:12,800
But you were made to see the 
world with the eyes of heaven 

963
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,160
and to live a bountiful life 
that participates in the life of

964
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:20,200
God like in the great stories. 
To help make this show possible,

965
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:25,760
go to anselmsociety.org/podcast 
25 and make a donation. 

966
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:29,520
The Anselm Society is a place 
where you can come in and 

967
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:34,200
experience that beauty, joyful 
celebration, and ancient wisdom 

968
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:38,360
and go out renewed, bringing 
that life to your vocation, 

969
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:42,200
home, and church. 
Learn more at anselmsociety.org 

970
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,160
and join us next time as we 
pursue a renaissance of the 

971
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:46,720
Christian imagination together.