Gifted writer, artist and communicator Joel Mason (SSU) offers his poem on the voyage of St. Brendan, and Garrett Viggers backs him up on hammered dulcimer.
It starts about halfway through the mp3. It’s breathtaking - a beautiful spontaneous work of art between the two of them. The poem and the journey it represents is a reflection of our postmodern wandering. St. Brendan’s Voyage by Joel Mason, Music by Garrett Viggers
Our concert and FaceToFace event went off without a hitch, and was a great success.
Here’s a link to a Facebook video Holli’s sister shot at the concert (we were opening for a few minutes at the start): Video
Many musicians and worship leaders were served during the day, and the concert in the Gothic Arches was just a blast. More later, as the Intensive is still on through this week.
I’ll get some of our current participants commenting on the experience in a post. Then, yesterday, hammered dulcimer artist and Intensive participant Garrett Viggers led worship - a rich a beautiful time surrounding ideas from St. Brendan’s journey by Joel Mason.
We’d still appreciate your prayers - more earth-shattering discussions, worship and creativity going on this week.
Our first week in the Intensive is going incredibly well. The grounds here are beautiful, and our learning community is going deep into so many aspects of creational theology, spiritual formation, worldview and worship. Fully alive, boy, fully alive.
David Ruis brings so much to the table as we explore the bigger story of creativity, justice, and a story that’s big enough for all human beings to live in, including Christians. There are moments I think that we all just want to stop, be silent for a time in the presence of God and the richness of ideas, and let it soak in. Today, our sessions are on Ignatian prayer, Celtic Spirituality, Creativity and Cultural Interface (Ruis) and tonight we party around the Planet Earth DVDs (creational theology).
I’ll try to keep you posted, but it’s a time thick with glory, authenticity and activity. The most amazing sounds arise from our group worshipping in songs together - the harmonies are so rich, so cool and the textures of hammered dulcimers, guitars and percussion fill the room.
What a privilege to do this. Thanks for praying for us as we go. Past, present and future - so much in so little time.
Well, we’re full swing into our Two Week Intensive Certificate course at the Institute, and the group is an amazing collection of worship and creative leaders hailing from all over North America. Creative streams are already beginning to flow, and music fills the air in the liminal space of the Dominion Hill Centre.
After sharing our stories yesterday and continuing to recoup from jetlags, we enter into the festivities. Spiritual Director Lorna Jones, Historian Gregg Finley, David Ruis and myself will lead through the day.
The worlds of Ignatius, the Celts and essential worship theology (Wright and others) begin to open up to us, and we’ll begin the day with an ancient form of worship, Lectio Divina, and some contemporary worship.
If you would take the time to pray for us, just for a minute as you read this post, we’d be so grateful. Pray that a vanguard of worship artisans would rise in a living way in our midst, reaching into the past, engaging the present, and breathing in and on the future.
I seem to be in a bit of an “artist” series right now, so I’ll go with the flow.
I was introduced to this artist, Blair Anderson, by good friend and sacred networker Heidi Turner. What I may appreciate about Blair the most is her personal story, part of which unveils her struggle to call herself an artist even after 40 years.
Given the recovery in which the Church finds herself, I’m not surprised. The next 50 years of the Church, in my view, will be an exciting season of watching artists who follow Jesus find their honed, singular and highly skilled voice.
Let Blair’s story be a declaration to you if needed - that the artist must continually come forward, no matter the voices within that seek to quench the call.
Again, in the midst a world that bases human value on so many insubstantial measurements, Derek Paravicini gives voice to the glory of God in the human image.
Especially watch the 1 in a Million clip - a gift. When I think of how many today diminish the spiritual and transcendent in such anomalies of hard-wiring, I’m amazed at the amount of faith they must exercise.
By the way, this man is blind, and by tests thinks in the manner of a three-year old.
Thank you God for for Derek as a living ensign to things beyond - thank you Derek’s parents for giving him the chance to live.
I was speaking in the Canada West School Of Worship (what a great group this year), which Norm leads, and spending some time with the worship community. It’s been a rich time, and we fly back tonight.
Norm and the artists here spend much of their time playing gigs in the city and investing themselves deeply into the artistic community of Kelowna. They embody many of the central ideas and reformations I talk about in The Worship Artisan piece. The language of cultural interface and creational theology marked much of our time.
Pray for them and their work, and our growing friendship. There is a wonderful synergy in what we do at the Institute, and what they do here.
