One voice...

How many times has this happened to you: you are driving - or watching TV or a movie - and you hear a song that moves you to tears? It happens to me ALL the time. Cathleen Falsani writes about hearing U2 sing "Walk On" a few nights after the attacks of September 11th:

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off

And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on

It was precisely what I needed to hear: not from a rock band, not from any other human being. It's what I needed to hear the Creator of the Universe say. That moment of grace in the guise of a song reminds me of something I once heard the author Frederick Buechner say: "Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump to your throat because they are sings that the holy is drawing near." (Falsani, Sin Boldly, p. 36)

I am so glad to have fallen into Falsani's book. I've liked her blog, The Dude Abides (http://falsani.blogspot.com/) and enjoyed her interviews with various people about how they understand God working in their lives, but this book really nails it for me. It is like one of those sacred song/prayers that arrives at just the right time with a little bit of solace, a little bit of light and a whole lotta soul.

In fact, this book makes me think even more about other songs that have made an appearance in my life at just the right moment. One, by the Wailin' Jennys, came to me through one of my sweetest male friends, Brian Stevens, who used to sing many of the male lead vocals in my band back in Tucson. He is a teacher and after being in our church for 3 years - and singing most of the U2 songs with passion and verve - he and his wife took a gig in Colorado. Now, Brian is about the same age as my daughters - early 30s - and as we sang and played together he not only helped keep me young and honest, but he let me be a helpful older guy. And on the day he left the band, he asked us if we could sing "One Voice" with him as a way of saying goodbye.

Man, did that cat get it! Not only did that song rip us apart - so beautiful - but it also spoke in form and verse what our emerging theology of music and grace was all about. And it is clearly one of the best ways of sharing the hope and presence of God in music that I know. (Two years later, my man Brian drove all day and part of the night to come to Tucson for our farewell concert - and he NEVER sounded better on "Beautiful Day" than that night we said adios to our ministry mates on a sweaty hot night in June.)

Take a listen to "One Voice" because... it is perfect.

Falsani goes on to write: I have a favorite T-shirt that reads, "Jesus is my mixtape." When I bought it, I thought its slogan was charmingly quirky, but over time it has acquired this transcendent quality, a motto that sums up my belief that everything - everything - is spiritual. At the cent of that everythingness, as a pastor friend of mine likes to describe it, is a universal rhythm, a song we all play, like a giant, motley orchestra. Sometimes in tune, sometimes off-key. We call it by different names. Still, it remains - if only we have ears to hear it - the eternal soundtrack that plays in the background of our lives. (p. 39)

Neil Douglas-Klotz makes an observation about this in his work with the Aramaic prayers of Jesus - and the Lord's Prayer in particular - when he tells us that every person has a God given, sacred note deep within themselves. And, curiously enough, when we all sing our note as it was given to us by God, it creates an organic chord. I think he's on to something because when I've invited people in worship to sing their note using the first word of the Aramaic Lord's Prayer "abwoon" the sound they make is... beautiful.

Take a listen to this lovely reworking of the prayer and see if you don't sense a deep sense of God's peace, too.

Oh happy day...

So epiphanies come all the time and not just in January, right? The other night I started reading Cathleen Falsani's wonderful book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace and I come across these words that hit me upside the head in the introduction:

Why grace? Because some days, it's the only thing we have in common... because it's the oxygen of religious life, or so says a musician friend of mine, who tells me: "Without it, religion will surely suffocate you!" Because so many of us are gasping for air and grasping for God, but fleeing from a kind of religious experience that has little to do with anything sacred or gracious. (Damn, this woman is on to something I think, she really knows how to kick ass and then she writes...)

Because you can't do grace justice with a textbook, theological definition, but you can get closer by describing it with music and film, pictures and stories... and then it all became clear. It was like the scales fell away from my eyes and for the first time in my life I UNDERSTOOD why music has such an incredible and life-giving hold over me and my ministry: I AM BATHED IN GRACE AND THE ONLY WAY I KNOW HOW TO SHARE IT - THE ONLY WAY I KNOW HOW TO GIVE IT AWAY LIKE ONE BEGGAR TELLING ANOTHER WHERE TO FIND BREAD - IS TO SING AND PLAY AND HOPE SOMEBODY ELSE GETS A TASTE OF THIS SWEET FEAST, TOO!

Now, to be fair, I'd been thinking about my call into ministry 40 years ago - and you know that 40 number has a certain energy to it, right? 40 years in the desert, 40 days on the ark, 40 days of fasting in the desert wilderness and all the rest. And this reflection on 40 and my calling took me to another 40 - U2's lament "40" and the kids who turned me on to it during their confirmation - and that connected me to both their confirmation and where I experienced my call into ministry: the Potter's House in Washington, DC.

So I started asking myself, "Isn't it fascinating that I have been playing with arts and music for 40 years - and most of the time my churches just don't really get it (and I guess I haven't really been very good at making it clear why it is so important.) So on and off for 40 years I've wondered why there is such a gap when music is one of the clearest ways that God speaks to me (something I started articulating about 10 years ago.) And now I understand: not only is music the way I hear the voice of God best, it is also ONE OF THE ONLY WAYS I KNOW HOW TO SHARE THE BLESSINGS OF GRACE!

And that's what makes Falsani's insight so important to me: she helped me comprehend that you can only get close to grace through beauty and the arts - doctrine, theology and all that linear stuff that church people obsessive about is a DEAD END when it comes to grace. And the totality of my ministry is about grace! (Ok, ok, I'm a slow learner..)

Well, this started me thinking about what were my first clues to the music that expressed God's grace and I found myself back in the 4th grade in music appreciation class: I was mesmerized by Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sheherazade" along with the sounds of Gerswhin, Camille Saint-Saens, Ravel and the French Impressionists. Yeah, the Four Seasons were fun but most of pop music after Elvis and Little Richard left me cold - but not this mystical stuff that was filled with passion and humor... man, something was going on.!

In 6th grade I wound up writing a paper about the young Bob Dylan - my dad turned me on to Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Cisco Huston - and before you knew it I was a Dylana-holic. Then the Beatles came along and that was Pentecost for me: they filled my heart, head and soul with such energy and reason for living that I begged and begged until I got a guitar. And, after a false start or two, have been playing it and loving it and praying with it for 45 years. OMG.

Now, Little Steven of Springsteen's band has written about how life changing the Beatles were to him, too, so I know that I am not unique - and that's the point. This music was so democratic - and so energizing in all the right ways - that it continues to have a life of its own bringing people together all over the world. Which caused me to make a list of the songs that have filled me with a sense of God's promise, hope, love, anger, fear, sadness and grace and continue to be lasting.

I came up with these so far and they are just the really important ones not the tunes that were fun but throw aways. I LOVE these songs:

1. Tutti Fruitti - Little Richard
2. Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
3. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
4. Please, Please Me/Twist and Shout - The Beatles
5. While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles
6. Oh Happy Day - Edwin Hawkins Singers
7. Freedom /Chain of Fools- Aretha Franklyn
8. Marcie - Joni Mitchell
9. Trouble Comin' Every Day - The Mothers of Invention
10.Everything from Godspell
11.Everyday People - Sly and the Family Stone
12. Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds/Dylan
13. Racing in the Street/Badlands - Bruce Springsteen
14. Born in the USA/Dancin' in the Dark/The Rising - Bruce Springsteen
15. Thanksgiving Eve/The Great Storm is Over - Bob Franke
16. Pride/Beautiful Day/When Love Comes to Town/Grace - U2
17. Sunday Street/Cocaine Blues - Dave Von Ronk
18. Candy Man - Mississippi John Hurt
19. Angel - Sarah MacLachlan
20. Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Reading

I can remember sitting in my brother's room in the early winter of 1968: I had claimed a sense of calling into ministry while at an art's center in DC, Dr. King and RFK had been assassinated and the urban riots of America had been heartbreaking. I was terrified about where Vietnam was leading and what I was going to do the closer I got to draft age when my younger brother, Phil, put on this song, "Oh Happy Day" and I just sat there weeping - I still do (I am right now) - because in the middle of all that pain and sorrow and confusion, there was also a word of reassurance. Grace... and it came to me through the music. That's how God get's our attention, I guess, so it is worth taking another listen to that prayer/song again...

Thinking about a calling...

Interesting: as I reflected a little bit tonight on sensing my call to ministry at 16 - in the midst of the cultural upheaval of 1968 at the Potter's House in DC - a few interconnected feelings and thoughts came to life again. First, it is fascinating for me to realize that I have been wrestling with ways of integrating art, music, poetry and spiritual renewal for 40 years. I remember sitting in the Potter's House while worship was taking place - it was a Wednesday night in July 1968 - and I knew something was going on all around me, but all I could "hear" was the invitation: "you could be doing this!"

It was trance-like, to be sure. But when worship was over and my youth group got up to leave, I was as certain as I was alive that I had been invited/called/encouraged to explore a new way of doing ministry. And this calling had NOTHING to do with maintaining the status quo: it was all about learning from those on the fringes of life both how they discovered beauty and hope, and, how that might be shared with more. And as we drove back to Connecticut and Aretha was singing, "Freedom, freedom... you better think about what you're trying to do for me!?!" - I knew everything had changed.

The second thing that bubbled-up tonight (while watching "Remains of the Day" of all things) is that this ministry has always been more about both/and than either/or. I was a white, suburban kid who sensed a calling to the black city. I was totally ignorant of art but found myself fascinated with both high and popular culture.

My journey to the fringe took me into the damnedest places with the wildest people - Latino farm workers in the Central Valley of California, marginalized gay dancers in LA, African American politicians and clergy in urban Cleveland, radical priests in St. Louis, screwed-up rock'n'rollers all over the place, lesbian clergy in Tucson, woodcutters in Mississippi, 12 step meetings, Episcopal cathedrals, Black baptist store front churches, bars, picket lines and seminaries -but always with a sense of how people like me - straight, white and middle class - could be part of the party of freedom with the excluded rather than the traditional gate-keepers.

One of my seminary advisers, Dorothee Soelle, called it "class suicide," but it never felt like death to me (maybe because she was such a dramatic German and I am waaaay too Celtic.) Rather, it felt like a dance that I needed to earn the right to attend, to be sure, but a dance nevertheless.

And third, whenever I find myself at wits end - and that happens all the time doing this both/and ministry of inward/outward transformation - it is the people at the margins who not only encourage me and get it first, but also show me how to keep on keeping on. No wonder I have come to cherish the words of Jesus in Matthew 11 that Peterson reforms as: ARE YOU TIRED? WORN OUT? BURNED OUT ON RELIGION? COME TO ME... GET AWAY WITH ME AND YOU'LL RECOVER YOUR LIFE... LEARN THE UNFORCED RHYTHMS OF GRACE BECAUSE I WON'T LAY ANYTHING HEAVY OR ILL-FITTING ON YOU.

So here I am - called back in 1968 and it is now 2008 - and I am still trying to figure out how to do this damn thing I was invited into 40 freaking years ago! So, after thinking and remembering and praying... this song/prayer came back to me, too. It's my favorite version of Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," and strangely (or not) it comes from that sad moment after September 11th when we sang together with Paul all across America as a corporate prayer - it was not a performance but a sung prayer - that brought us all a little peace and hope as we rested in the unforced rhythm of grace.

It also brought me back to the one place I still miss about Tucson - the Chicago Bar - a noisy little dive with the best live music in town, the greatest bartenders in America and a real sense of being Christ's community. For almost 10 years, we used to go there at least once a week to dance and visit - and hoist a few, too - with a GREAT crowd of wildass friends. No judgement, no hassle, no attitude: just rock and roll, funk and blues with tons of grace-filled acceptance.

Makes me think of another video that speaks more of church to me than most of what I've seen in these 40 years - it comes from Montgomery Gentry called, "Hell Yeah" and used to touch me very tenderly back in the day.

Life out of balance...

When my children were confirmands in our urban Cleveland church, we completed the class by taking a three day trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the Church of the Savior. For the better part of a year these 5 young teens had met with lay mentors to read the gospel of Luke, learn about prayer, discern what faith meant to them at that point in their lives and to keep a journal. Now they were going with me - the pastor - for a three day urban retreat.

Each day we visited a different part of the city - learning about the various ministries of the Church of the Savior as well as other social realities of race and class in urban America - and at night we watched different films - one of which was Koyaanisqatsi - the Hopi word for "life out of balance." At the conclusion of the retreat experience, we returned to Cleveland for a night of prayer at the church. It was an intense year and the kids - my daughters included - created a powerful "confirmation worship" event during our last night together.

One of the things we did on that trip was visit the place where I experienced my call to ministry when I was 16 - the Potter's House - which was part art gallery, part old world coffee house, part church and part safe place for those spiritual people of the 50s and 60s who just didn't fit into the middle class churches of America. It has matured into a GREAT lunch place as well as a top notch independent religious bookstore - and it houses a variety of Church of the Savior worship communities throughout the week. In the summer of 1968, after Dr. King's assassination and riots in American cities, I clearly sensed the voice of the Lord calling me beyond the confines of my safe, suburban church into something like the Potter's House - and I've been trying to live into that calling for 27 years.

Go down to the potter's house and there I will let you hear my words... so I went down to the potter's house and saw him working at his wheel... and the word of the Lord came to me...

And now, as my current church gets ready to view and discuss this same movie next Monday, I am struck by how much more out of balance all our lives have become: global warming, culture wars, international acts of terror, the collapse of the middle class, technology run amok and so much more.

No wonder those young confirmands wanted to sing U2's "40" - they turned me onto it back then - and I'm still singing it now: "How long, o Lord, to sing this song?" as we ache and wait for your healing?

The GREAT thing about this version of "40" is how much the audience carries it - it is BOTH band and fans together - and U2 switch all their instruments, too, just to make sure we get the point that we're all in it together.

Worth considering...

This article by Joe Klien is worth taking a look at - very insightful - and honestly clear about both the obvious and subliminal issues taking place in this year's Presidential election in the USA. And Klein knows about American mythology: he wrote THE book on Woody Guthrie, the book that helped Springsteen move from Jersey rock and roll to a deeper Americana back in 1980 (remember that he often played, "This Is Your Land" on that tour along with some of his more stark tunes that led to "Nebraska.") You might say that Klein (and a few others like Flannery O'Connor and Steinbeck and Paul Schrader) help the Boss give birth to "Born in the USA," "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and even parts of "Radio Nowhere."

So check Klein out, it is worth considering:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1840388,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

Thinking about IKON and Iron and Wine...

The Ikon Community of Belfast, Northern Ireland writes: "Inhabiting a space on the outer edges of religious life, we are a Belfast-based collective who offer anarchic experiments in transformance art. Challenging the distinction between theist and atheist, faith and no faith our main gathering employs a cocktail of live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theatre, ritual and reflection in an attempt to open up the possibility of a theodramatic event."

(http://wiki.ikon.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

I like this bunch - I am very Orthodox in a radical, boldly inclusive way - but they help me find ways to grow beyond my progressive blinders to an ever-more inclusive community. For example, they have pulled together a group of transformance artists who will journey to your faith community to help you explore things like gratitude or brokenness - the sins of the father or Christ's cry of alienation from the Cross - to say nothing of the wisdom of Judas or what it means to be queer or serving the God of delusion.

Makes me think of this song by Iron and Wine, "Boy with a Coin," which is provactive and insightful and sensual and spiritual all at the same time.

Shoot your TV...

Well, not exactly, but we have decided that after watching reruns of "House" in a semi-vegetative state last night, the time had come to put an Indian blanket over that little addiction box and experience other things in our shared life. Good choice. Tonight I led a small group of 10 through the film, "Pay It Forward." It came out in 2000 and many saw it as too sensitive and tender to encourage others... which, of course, is why I loved it.

There are three bold themes in this movie: small acts of love ripple throughout creation in ways we can never imagine, the words of our deepest faith must become flesh or they are simply good intentions paving our way to hell and often healing takes us through agony - Good Friday to Easter in my tradition - because God can work good with all things when we love and trust God. And, so, this group of young/old believers - some were 80 and some were 20 and most of us were closer to 50+ or between - watched and laughed and wept and prayed together.

And then we talked about it... really talked about how this film touched us: How the moment when the addict saves the life of a young woman about to kill herself was so powerful, how even death isn't the end of the gift of love and how children - and sometimes strangers - can jolt us back into living as our best selves.

One of the crazy ass truths about doing ministry in a small church is just when you are feeling like you aren't connecting... connections happen - often in the most unexpected ways. Like me tossing off a comment about starting my prayers with an old Cat Stevens song only to have a momma tell me afterwards that she always sang all her babies to sleep with "Moonshadow." Or three different men - of three different generations - telling me how meaningful an Eels song in worship was to them as they make peace with their fathers and children.

Or an 80 year old woman asking me, "How come I never heard George Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' before?" And when I told her its been around for 40 years - came out in 1968 - she got a sheepish look on her face and whispered, "Oh, hell, that's when I was going through a divorce." Which caused us both to burst out in laughter having tread that hard road and come out on the other side before, too. Yes, there is something to be said for shooting those TVs... better to say a prayer with Cat/Yusuf and give thanks for the mystery...

(NOTE: I can remember watching this clip when it FIRST came out - and looking like some of those dudes in the audience. OMG!)

Faith, Culture and the Sacred in the Secular...

Tonight we start a 5 part series of "Film, Faith and Culture" conversations at First Church with the hope that as we go deeper into these films, we will learn to discern the presence of God's grace and judgment in various expressions of popular culture. It will be a totally out there series that should be lots of fun, too.

+ First up is the film, "Pay it Forward," a tender look at what wounded people often do to one another and how hope can still be claimed amidst the chaos and pain. And it has that wonderful song, "Calling All Angels," too! (September 8th)

+ Second is the documentary, "Koyaanisqatsi," that starts with slow motion in the desert and ends up with fast speed life in urban America to document what the Hopi word for "life out of balance" really looks like in 21st century living. And the Philip Glass score is priceless. (September 15th)

+ Then we move on to the German film, "The Lives of Others," about how a man in the East German secret police tries to atone for his sins in contemporary Germany. Incredibly powerful look at what it is like to be in a double-bind with a conscience. (September 22nd) Fourth will be the great "music documentary" of the 60s using the tunes of the Beatles, "Across the Universe," one of the blessed rays of light in recent movie making. (September 29th)

+ And the series concludes with, "Born into Brothels," another documentary about how a photographer with a conscience helps children in India not only learn to tell their own hard stories with integrity but also change their lives. (October 6th)

As we discovered with both "Chocolat" and "Babette's Feast" last year, the presence of God's grace is all around us if we have eyes to see. And, using film and story telling as a way of learning to listen for God's voice in culture, is a gentle way of deepening Christian formation for those raised in a post-modern world. Come and join us at 7 pm if you are in the area! As a teaser, check out this tune:

Blending cultures and styles of worship...

One of the on-going challenges of my professional life has to do with finding balance when it comes to blended worship: I fundamentally believe that the vision of God's realm that Jesus both talks about and organizes is one where the old and young, rich and poor, male and female, gay and straight and all the rest come together as equals around the banquet table of God's love. That seems to be how Jesus organized his band of women and men in lst century Palestine, it is clearly how Paul and others in the New Testament advance the cause and it is even one of the last images of scripture in the book of Revelation where all the tribes of creation - every race and culture - are gathered around the font of God's loving grace.

... but it is sure hard to pull off in the flesh! For over 27 years I have been struggling with how to encourage and help congregations both expand their vision of who is welcome at the table and how that demands embracing all kinds of people, music, expressions of worship and life experiences. Today, for example, we had a bold and powerful liturgy about real life - not the lives we would like or the ones we pretend are real - but a liturgy of real life. And it included Taize and World music alongside the sounds of contemporary life: Annie Lennox and the Beatles, the Eels and mellow Celtic tunes. The goal was to retell the story of Christ's life, death and resurrection in words and music that are part of contemporary real life America in the 21st century.

And I was delighted that my band of dedicated singers and players pulled it off beautifully: they served God with integrity and sweet, sweet soul music. What was interesting was the reaction from this formerly staid bunch of New England Puritans. Of the 75+ people in worship today, clearly the overwhelming majority LOVED the encounter. It was worship of head AND heart. It helped people struggling with addictions, fear, disease, broken hearts and doubts bring their experiences into worship and know that God aches for their wounds. It was beautiful. The tears and laughter were healing. And, thankfully, the 60+ people who made a point to speak with me after worship expressed exactly these points. What's more, 8 women and men of a variety of ages and walks of life - from 30 - 80 - said, "Thank you... thank you for widening the worship experience here so that my life has a place."

There were two other important reactions, too. Clearly a small but often vocal minority was really uncomfortable with the heart emphasis - and let's be honest - they don't like rock guitar in church (or probably any other place for that matter!) Two people made a point to send me clear and helpful e-mails about why this type of worship doesn't work for them; what is encouraging to me is that they both shared their concerns, and, said that they valued being pushed into new experiences. In a word they told me, we don't like this but we are a part of the community of faith and want to find ways of making space for even expressions that we don't like or understand. (Some, of course, will be unable to be so open and will simply resent or misunderstand. And the sad part of this is that they will miss that the old ways are not being thrown away - just balanced out with a few new ways - but it always feels like too much to those who are threatened by inclusivity.)

The other group were the clearly marginal folks who spoke with me after worship - the folks from the edges of society either by life-style, theology, life experience or doubt - and they were so tender that this experience had occurred that they had tears in their eyes. I am reminded of my friend who began one of the early HIV/AIDS ministries back in Tucson before anyone really knew what the disease was: she welcomed the hookers and addicts, she prayed with those in hospice and when nobody else in town would bury these dear souls, she anointed their bodies and held funeral worship for the least of these my sisters and brothers. (Interestingly, she openly wept when the UCC began the "Still Speaking" campaign a few years ago and we were training members to welcome those from outside our tradition. Through her tears she said, "I am sooooo grateful we are doing this now... I just wish we would have been able to do it 10 years ago. So many lives would have been saved!") Her experience was renewed today in worship...

And yet... (why is there always this and yet!?!) while I know in my heart and believe in my head and trust that this radically inclusive vision of the open table where we are all together - Rock and Rollers along side those singing Bach fugues as well as praise music - is the way to go... it still is tough to make it flesh! Resistance, fear and judgment gnaw at me. Ok, I'll stop whining now because things are starting to take off here and I know that this is when the challenges become tough... still that negative minority still gets to me sometimes. What about you?

Not everyone who cries, Lord, Lord and all the rest...

Ok, why is it that Presidential candidates who are allied with strict Biblical interpretation can get a pass when it comes to lying and being aggressively mean-spirited - to say nothing about forgetting all that blessed are the peace-makers stuff - while progressive believers get nailed for things taken out of context from their former pastors? It simply isn't true that Jesus lied about his opponents - and I can't find anything in the scriptures that tell us he mocked and smirked about them either - rather it seems that he argued with those he opposed with truth and grace in the daylight and let the chips fall where they may. I don't know about you, but I am sickened by the ugly hypocrisy of Sarah Palin.

I get it: she is a snarky, scrappy middle aged hockey mom (her line about pit bulls seems both funny and prophetic) who gives the Religious Right and the cultural warriors red meat. She brings beauty and zip to her team and isn't afraid to play hardball. I get it that politics is for the big boys and girls - you play rough for keeps - and all is fair in love and war and this is a real war of ideas, values and possibilities for America and the world. But you can't throw around the name of Jesus as your Lord and Savior and then go after those you don't like with sarcastic half-truths, innuendo and outright lies.

People were all over Obama for the things his former pastor said (things, which in the context of Black liberation theology makes sense) but Palin gets a pass from the cultural warriors, the press and everyone else. (No wonder she's being kept in hiding this weekend!) Lord have mercy on us all if we let Karl Rove get away with this crap a third time.

As I think of our young women and men in combat, this mean-spirited manipulation of Jesus is NOT why they agreed to lay down their lives; the civil rights martyrs didn't face dogs, prison and death to beat people up with the Bible and degrade them, either. They knew that freedom and faith are costly. God help us if we let those who take the Lord's name in vain bully us into silence: not everyone who cries Lord, Lord... (What follows is a truly lovely remake of CSNY's "Find the Cost of Freedom." I find it helpful to hear when I pray for peace and integrity for all the political candidates this year. Maybe you will, too.)

You are what you eat: music and personality

So... Ludwig Feuerbach WAS right after all! You may recall (or not) that Feuerbach was the 19th century German theology student who became enraptured with Hegel and eventually came to write a creative materialist critique of Christianity (The Essence of Christianity, 1841). In fact, brother Ludwig was an important early influence upon both Marx and Engels in their more cultural/philosophical days.

And the heart of their collective critique was: you are what you eat! That is, culture and context are essential ingredients in understanding how we think, perceive and act in the world.

And now along comes a study out of the University of Edinburgh based upon the replies of 36,000 people re: their favorite music and their personalities and what do you know? "People who listen to indie bands are miserable shaggy-haired layabouts, while fans of rap music are bold, brash and brimming with self-confidence. Rather than mere narrow- minded stereotyping, these are the results of an extensive psychological survey of more than 36,000 music lovers, which confirms, once and for all, that our musical tastes really do reflect our personality.

But the study's most remarkable discovery is that refined lovers of classical music share a high number of personality traits with those who prefer rocking out to heavy metal." (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/classical-to-rap-music-lovers-have-much-more-in-common-than-you-would-think-919553.html).

What's more, the study suggests that there are some important commonalities between those who would think themselves opponents on the surface:

Indie: Devotees have low self-esteem and are not very hard-working, kind or generous. However, they are creative.

Rock 'n' Roll: Fans have high self-esteem and are very creative, hard-working and at ease with themselves, but not very kind or generous.

Blues: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease with themselves.

Classical: Classical music lovers have high self-esteem, are creative and at ease with themselves, but not outgoing.

Heavy metal: Very creative and at ease with themselves, but not very outgoing or hard-working.

Reggae: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, kind, generous and at ease with themselves, but not very hard-working.

Country & Western: Very hard-working and outgoing.

Dance: Creative and outgoing but not kind or generous.

Rap: High self-esteem, outgoing.

Now, if I could just put together a blended band of country and western and classical musicians with a little rock and roll and blues sensibilities, I think we could find a way through these culture wars! Oh, wait... that's what I'm already doing. Hmmmmm...