Special thanks to Sivin Kit’s site for the image above of Robert.

Perhaps no one person has further advanced the cause of the ancient-future worship paradigm in the Church than the great Robert Webber. After a battle with pancreatic cancer, he has passed before us, through the night, into the Day.

His influence will have repercussions for generations to come. His life’s work will continue to shape and inform all that we do at the Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies at St. Stephen’s University.

As you read this post, please take a moment to pray for Robert’s wife and family, and for the community at Northern Seminary.

Special Report On Bob Webber

Northern News » Blog Archive » Northern Mourns the Death of Dr. Robert Webber

Thanks to Heidi Turner for letting us know.

I just returned from a wonderful day at the Bridgeway Foundation’s annual Innovation Awards.

Each year, out of approximately 80 groups that they bring support to, they select 8 finalists that have shown exemplary qualities in bringing innovative ideas to the fore in Christian action in the world.

It was a privilege for SSU and the Institute to be one of the finalists this year, and though we didn’t win one of the top 3 prizes, three wonderful organizations and their work did - visit the blog post here for details.

It’s a privilege to work with such a passionate organization as Bridgeway, and their director, Mark Petersen.

The marching band of Virgina Tech played outside of the hospital for the wounded. The musicians in every community are called to serve their community with the healing power of music.

Virginia Tech Band and healing.

We’re releasing some pieces from what we call our Healing Space music soon, where two of our most able musicians in our community, Jonathan Baker and Matt Frise, play for 1.5 hours, healing instrumental music in a beautiful, ambient atmosphere for those in need of any kind of healing.

For both of these musicians, their music has been a gift to many in times of sickness and mourning, giving lift and rise to the hearts of the hurting. They continually minister to us all as they offer their gifts among us.

It’s been wonderful, and hearts, minds and bodies have been touched.

We’ll release some simple, live recordings soon for use in homes, with individuals, in hospitals, for difficult times, for hopeful times, and other places. We’ll keep you posted.

Musicians are called to serve in this way, whether it be in New Orleans, Blacksburg or St. Stephen. We step into a fullness of vocation in those moments.

I write this prose thought, after a mourning of listening to our healing space music:

“Let music breathe in me, when I cannot the stiff air drink; let music move in me, when all my blood is stilled and stolen. Music be my breath, music be my pulse, music take my hand and raise me with your voice.”

Today, we not only graduate our students at the Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, but I also graduate with my M.Min. degree (Master Of Ministry).

What a rich, community learning experience this has been. At my thesis presentation to the SSU Faculty, Staff and Community on Wednesday, I thanked my beautiful wife, Anita, my three gracious children, Anna, Abigail and Benjamin, and my parents, John and Elsie Wilt (who are here now for my graduation and the commencement exercises).

What a privilege to grow, hard as the process can be. Thanks to all who were praying for me to “finish well” this phase of the journey.

Here is a delightful article today from www.science.com.

In our Institute course work, we seek to counter some of the Platonism (material world bad, spiritual world good) that corrupts our theology of creation and its goodness.

Creational theology embraces the immanent now and the material world, not with the worshiping grip of idolatry, but with the dancing touch of a partner in creation’s GodFestival. Assisi aided us all in this journey with his poetry of “brother Sun, sister Moon….”

This article draws us once again to the excellence, the artistry, of God.

SUN’S ATMOSPHERE SINGS
Jeanna Bryner
Staff Writer, SPACE.com
Thu Apr 19, 11:30 AM ET

Astronomers have recorded heavenly music bellowed out by the Sun’s atmosphere.

Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order of milli-hertz–a thousandth of a hertz.

The study, presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Lancashire, England, reveals that the looping magnetic fields along the Sun’s outer regions, called the corona, carry magnetic sound waves in a similar manner to musical instruments such as guitars or pipe organs.

Making Music

Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen of the Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Center at the University of Sheffield and his colleagues combined information gleaned from sun-orbiting satellites with theoretical models of solar processes, such as coronal mass ejections.

They found that explosive events at the Sun’s surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave.

“These magnetic loops are analogous to a simple guitar string,” von Fay-Siebenburgen explained. “If you pluck a guitar string, you will hear the music.”

In the cosmic equivalent of a guitar pick, so-called microflares at the base of loops could be plucking the magnetic loops and setting the sound waves in motion, the researchers speculate. While solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system, microflares are a million times smaller but much more frequent; both phenomena are now thought to funnel heat into the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

The acoustic waves can be extremely energetic, reaching heights of tens of miles, and can travel at rapid speeds of 45,000 to 90,000 miles per hour. “These [explosions] release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs,” von Fay-Siebenburgen said.

“These energies are plucking these magnetic strings or standing pipes, which set up standing waves–exactly the same waves you see on a guitar string,” von Fay-Siebenburgen told SPACE.com. The “sound booms” decay to silence in less than an hour, dissipating in the hot solar corona.

Solar Physics

The musical finding could help explain why the Sun’s corona is so hot.

While the Sun’s surface is a steamy 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,538 degrees Celsius), plasma gas in the corona soars to more than 100 times hotter.

“How can the atmosphere above the surface of the Sun be hotter if nuclear fusion happens inside the Sun?” von Fay-Siebenburgen said. If astronomers can get a clearer picture of what’s going on inside these magnetic loops in the Sun’s atmosphere, they have a better chance of finding the answer.

Another recent study using images from Hinode’s telescope revealed twisted magnetic fields along the Sun’s surface, which store huge amounts of energy. The magnetic fields can snap like a rubber band; when they do, they might release energy that could heat up the corona or power solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections, the researchers say.

Copyright © 2007 SPACE.com.

SSU Commencement Week is in full swing. We culminate Saturday in our graduation exercises, and it will be a great pleasure to graduate our first Institute One Year Diploma participants. What a joy and privilege this inaugural session has been. I believe that I deepened and formed as much as they did during the course work.

I have this thought today for our graduates:

“To venture any growth demands the courage of one who challenges an opposing army; only in this battle to both deepen and rise, the army is within.”

Our website for the Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies is now officially moved to the website of St. Stephen’s University.

All that’s left is for me to hook up our new Podcast and Media links, and the new world will begin. We moved the site to facilitate online applications and a cleaner, clearer information center.

Pay us a visit there, and hit the “Contact Us” link if anything strikes a chord for you or someone you know.

TheWorshipLeader.com

Please take a moment with me as you read this blog to pray for the families of the students who were killed today at Virginia Tech, and for recovery of the community in the aftermath.

Father of us all, come to those in grief right now who are searching for hope after this dark veil has fallen over them. Open their eyes to hear You; their ears to understand Your words to them in these hollow moments. Holy Spirit, be a balm to each shattered heart, and vanquish the fear that would take the heart of the surviving students.

Virginia Tech Shooting Reports on CNN.

Good golly. What are we feeding kids these day - greatness?

When we talk about emerging creativity, listen to what comes out of the mouths these two young ladies. Soul and yodeling are not necessarily where I begin to define my own passions, but you can see theirs beautifully bleeding from their deepest place.

As a father of young girls this age, I like this. My daughter pointed these out.

From our Ignatian Prayer work today, comes this reminder and metaphor:

If you’re ending, or beginning a season, consider the altar you’ve built to God in that season’s coming or going. Reflect on the rough stones with which you’ve built this altar and its simple offering - your rough work, rough relationships, rough ideas and rough actions.

You built the altar with the stones available; worship finds its resource in the present people and pieces allotted to us. Allow the altar to be made of those rough and unhewn stones; allow it represent both the strength you’ve taken from the acts of God within that season, and the weakness in you and others that has been revealed in that same season.

Consider the altar, its shape and form, upon which you’ve placed your offering to God in this past season, or the one you are now in.

Take heart in the building, and take heart in the materials with which God has invited you to build.

Always a moment when seeing the latest Mac/PC ads.

Apple - Get a Mac - Watch The TV Ads

Good friend, sojourner and artist here Matt Frise just reminded me and a number of our Institute graduated community about Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece.

I’ve always been challenged to appreciate the themes of frailty, pain and suffering in so much of the Roman Catholic sacred art, but I especially am attracted in this piece to the resurrection section. There’s something understated about it, and the “orb” surrounding Christ, that I like.

Isenheim Altarpiece

Friend Tim Hughes writes a solid little article on songwriting in the genre of worship expression:

Featured Article

Celebrant:

O morning, far beyond us
Our time or grasp to touch
Strong day of life awakening
From underneath the dust

Part waters black and swirling
Dark night rend with your hand
Bright land of life revealing
Bright sun of love command

Community:

Let this our anthem be
Our celebration prize
That Christ has healed our wounds
And with him now we rise.

Celebrant:

O morning’s tender moment
Our days and grief request
Break full upon our wand’rings
And fill each hollow breast

Divide the shadow brooding
Divorce the Eden curse
With sword of love and beauty
Free hearts and minds coerced

Community:

Let this our anthem be
Our celebration prize
That Christ has healed our wounds
And with him now we rise

Celebrant:

Could mysteries of ages
All quests of humankind
Find their unlocking waiting
Behind a stone in time

When first a movement glimmered
Behind the veil of death
That morning far beyond us
Now gives eternal breath

Celebrant & Community:

Let this our anthem be
Our celebration prize
That Christ has healed our wounds
And with him now we rise.

Amen and amen.

Celebrant:

Let’s turn and great one another on this glad Easter morning.

Bright sun rising
Release my soul
From bitter death
And swell its fields
With light.