Julian Reid explores the way music and scripture can come together to create a sacred space. Extending metaphors of music as architecture and dwelling and spiritual experience as a river, the jazz pianist, producer, writer, and performer explains a recent project of his, "Notes of Rest," combining African-American spirituals with classical hymns for an experience of spiritual hospitality, gratitude, and proclamation of the Gospel into the full spectrum of human experience, in all its pain, frustration, frenzy, stillness, and joy. Throughout the conversation you'll hear Julian play along to accompany his points; he also graciously provided beautiful meditative interludes, much like the kind you'd experience in one of his "Notes of Rest" sessions. Interview by Matt Croasmun.
Julian Reid explores the way music and scripture can come together to create a sacred space. Extending metaphors of music as architecture and dwelling and spiritual experience as a river, the jazz pianist, producer, writer, and performer explains a recent project of his, "Notes of Rest," combining African-American spirituals with classical hymns for an experience of spiritual hospitality, gratitude, and proclamation of the Gospel into the full spectrum of human experience, in all its pain, frustration, frenzy, stillness, and joy. Throughout the conversation you'll hear Julian play along to accompany his points; he also graciously provided beautiful meditative interludes, much like the kind you'd experience in one of his "Notes of Rest" sessions. Interview by Matt Croasmun.
This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Show Notes
Introduction (Evan Rosa)
One of the most gripping and influential philosophers of the last 200 years once wrote:
"God has given us music so that above all it can lead us upwards. Music unites all qualities: it can exalt us, divert us, cheer us up, or break the hardest of hearts with the softest of its melancholy tones. But its principal task is to lead our thoughts to higher things, to elevate, even to make us tremble… The musical art often speaks in sounds more penetrating than the words of poetry, and takes hold of the most hidden crevices of the heart… Song elevates our being and leads us to the good and the true. If, however, music serves only as a diversion or as a kind of vain ostentation it is sinful and harmful."
That Friedrich Nietzsche, written when he was 14 years old.
There is plenty of "vain ostentation" in popular music today, and certainly not excluding the music played in church.
But the unitive depth and invitation into transcendence that music offers us of course pairs beautifully with scripture. And whatever else might have changed in Nietzsche's thinking, even at the end of his life in Twilight of the Idols, he suggested that "Without music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a songster." And I say: Well, not just the German, but the human.
In today's episode, Matt Croasmun welcomes Julian Reid, jazz pianist and producer, writer, and performer (not to mention Yale and Emory educated). You can hear his hip-hop infused jazz project The JuJu Exchange on episode 26 of For the Life of the World, when Julian joined us to talk about How Jazz Teaches us Faith and Justice. Today, Matt and Julian explore the way music and scripture can come together to create a sacred space. Extending metaphors of music as architecture and dwelling and spiritual experience as a river, Julian explains a recent project of his, "Notes of Rest," combining African-American spirituals with classical hymns for an experience of spiritual hospitality, gratitude, and proclamation of the Gospel into the full spectrum of human experience, in all its pain, frustration, frenzy, stillness, and joy.
Throughout the conversation you'll hear Julian play along to accompany his points; he also graciously provided beautiful meditative interludes, much like the kind you'd experience in one of his "Notes of Rest" sessions.
Thanks for listening.
About Julian Reid
Julian Reid is a Chicago-based jazz pianist and producer, writer, and performer (B.A. Yale University / M.Div. Emory University). The JuJu Exchange is a musical partnership also featuring Nico Segal (trumpet, Chance the Rapper; The Social Experiment) and Everett Reid—exploring creativity, justice, and the human experience through their hip-hop infused jazz. Their new 5-song project is called The Eternal Boombox. Julian's latest project is "Notes of Rest"—a spiritual mini-retreat that places meditations from the Bible on a bed of music, cultivating rest, contemplation, and creativity in all who will hear Jesus’ call.
Production Notes
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.
Julian Reid: It grows in intensity a little. It grows in volume. It grows in movement, the embellishments. And all of that can speak to a different affective register. "Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus! You can have all this world. All that you done taken anyway, you can ha' dat. But give me Jesus." So it can become a cry without ever saying it. Irrespective of what you know about the lyrics, yo, you can really get into what that sound might be conveying. And maybe it's conveying joy. Maybe it's conveying deep, ferocious hope for you. "Give me Jesus." Or maybe it's conveying anger. "You can have all this world." And for black folk to be singing this, way back when, during antebellum slavery, "You can have all this world, but give me Jesus," I think speaks to a deep peace and a deep knowing that can be had. A peace that I'm so thankful my ancestors gave me.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center For Faith & Culture.
One of the most gripping and influential philosophers of the last 200 years once wrote, "God has given us music so that above all it can lead us upwards. Music unites all qualities. It can exalt us, divert us, cheer us up, or break the hardest of hearts with the softest of its melancholy tones. But its principle task is to lead our thoughts to higher things. To elevate. Even to make us tremble. The musical art often speaks and sounds more penetrating than the words of poetry, and takes hold of the most hidden crevices of the heart. Song elevates our being and leads us to the good and the true. If, however, music serves only as a diversion, or as a kind of vain ostentation, it is sinful and harmful."
That's Friedrich Nietzsche, written when he was just 14 years old. There's plenty of, quote, "vain ostentation" in popular music today, of course, and certainly not excluding the music played in church. But the unit of depth and invitation into transcendence that music offers us, of course pairs beautifully with the words of scripture.
And whatever else might've changed in Nietzsche's thinking, even at the end of his life, in an aphorism from Twilight of the Idols, he suggested that, quote, "Without music, life would be a mistake." The German imagines even God is a Songster. And I say, well, "Not just the German, but the human." In today's episode, Matt Croasmun welcomes Julian Reid: jazz pianist, producer, writer, and performer. You can hear his hip-hop infused jazz project, The JuJu Exchange, on Episode 26 of For the Life of the World, when Julian joined us to talk about how jazz teaches us faith and justice. Today, Matt and Julian explore the way music and scripture can come together to create a sacred space. Extending metaphors of music as architecture and dwelling, and spiritual experience as a river, Julian explains a recent project of his: Notes of Rest, which combines African-American spirituals with classical hymns for an experience of spiritual hospitality, gratitude, and proclamation of the gospel into the full spectrum of human experience--in all its pain, frustration, frenzy, stillness. Enjoy.
Throughout the conversation. You'll hear Julian play along to accompany his points. He also graciously provided beautiful meditative interludes, much like the kind you'd experience in one of his Notes of Rest sessions. Thanks for listening.
Matt Croasmun: Julian!
Julian Reid: Matt!
Matt Croasmun: It's good to have you here, man.
Julian Reid: Man, good to be here.
Matt Croasmun: I was telling Evan the other day-- Julian Reid, you are, I think, the closest thing I've had to a music teacher since college.
Julian Reid: Wow. That's awesome.,
Matt Croasmun: I-- I don't want to hang that around your neck. Like, you don't have to be responsible for what that might mean.
Julian Reid: [laughs]
Matt Croasmun: I don't want to ruin your musical reputation by hanging that on you, but it's really exciting to get a chance to talk to you about music and theology, music and scripture.
Julian Reid: Amen.
Matt Croasmun: So much of what you do, I mean, in your life, you bring these two things together: music and scripture.
Julian Reid: I have to!
Matt Croasmun: You have to. Why do you have to?
Julian Reid: They say, you know, "Do the thing that you must, that your soul must have." And for me, it's those. If I can't talk at the intersection of faith and music, if I can't live there, if I can't express there, if I can't bring people into that, then I can't really bring people into me. To do only one or the other, which I have done, and I've tried to do in the past, leads to feeling lopsided. The fullest expression of self comes from doing both, trying to figure out ways to synthesize both. In my band, The JuJu Exchange, it's not a theologically explicit band, but we're constantly talking about what it means to have faith as a professional artist. We're constantly talking about what does it mean to engender wonder and trust amongst our audience members? And for me wonder and trust are the seedbeds for faith. To have wonder, to have awe, to have reverence, and to trust. Trust in self, in other, and ultimately in God. All of those together mix and create the sensibilities for faith. And then in Notes of Rest, my spiritual retreat ministry, I'm bringing explicitly to the fore this interplay between scripture and music.
Matt Croasmun: Yeah, it's powerful. And in large part, I think because there are some really deep, sort of, structures and realities that it seems that both of these two things have in common. The reading of scripture and sacred music, for one, strikes me that both are architectural projects. You wouldn't think about them that way, but they're both about creating space. And then they're ministries of hospitality, inviting people into spaces in which they might encounter God. How do you think about that space-making work? That space-making vocation in this combined ministry of music and word?
Julian Reid: I think that's one of the great features of weekly liturgical practice for the church. How it brings to the fore scripture reading, reflections on scripture, which we call, oftentimes, sermons or messages. And then how, oftentimes, you're also listening to music and you're creating music. You're singing songs, animating lyrics that others have written or in some cases making up new stuff if the context calls for it. And both of those practices together lead to this beautiful space-making. And hopefully those are spaces that churches are drawing people into.
What I'm doing with this mini spiritual retreat is I get to be the architect for a brief time, for you to come and almost live in a tent more so than a house. And as you walk on your pilgrim's journey, and set up a tent or come into this hotel for a night. I've never thought of it like that, but that's kind of what this is-- like a spiritual hotel for you, where you come with a community, as oftentimes happens in hotel situations, and you come and you stay and we set up this space, in a sense, together, but I do a lot of the hosting. And with the music, hopefully hymns that you've heard that are familiar, and other sounds that feel like the kind of space that you can sit in and just rest in, and take your shoes off in, and then with scripture passages that call you with questions to consider the space that you make in the story of God. I'm trying to create this hotel experience for you and for your folk. So thanks for giving me that prompt because I've never thought of it as such.
Matt Croasmun: Well, then that's so evocative, the way that you're describing it. And it brings me back to an account of scripture that my doctoral advisor, he used to say. "Scripture is like a cathedral or a museum." Because, you know, you think about it, that it's got all these different artifacts that come from different ages and different times, but they have some sort of common theme or something like that. Or, we put them into conversation with one another as we inhabit that space. But it's always struck me that the most important feature of that space is that it is inhabited, not just by us, but by God. Right? Who meets us in that space. And I think whenever I hear you play and see the ways that you invite people in to inhabit that space that is scripture, that's the key feature. You're inviting us into this space for us to receive from what you have. You're offering us as the innkeeper of that metaphor. And we'll encounter one another, but ultimately the goal is to encounter God.
Julian Reid: Amen.
Matt Croasmun: Maybe, I mean, I like this at the traveling space, the tabernacle, and the hope is that you put up the tabernacle and God will fill with God's presence.
Julian Reid: Amen. And then you're blessed and you're sent on your way.
Piano: [piano interlude]
Julian Reid: It's interesting. The beginning of every Notes of Rest session begins with me playing "Thank You, Lord."
[plays musical excerpt]
And then I go into the opening prayer. And, as we're reflecting now, saying, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I just want to thank you, Lord." That's an old song that I grew up on. In church, black church traditions, I've always heard that. And I think I start here because gratitude and being grateful, even on behalf of others, is such a wonderful way to bring people into a hotel, to bring people into a space that they don't know, but they know that they know, in a sense because, they know we're going to talk about scripture. They know we're going to play music and hymns that are familiar. So to start with that, it just sets up a space for the kind of gratitude that can lead to other kinds of hospitality that they extend to themselves and extend to one another and the comments that are shared. But ultimately as they think about what it means to be hosted by God, or even for the group to have this sense of hosting God-- again, going to tabernacle language, I think that's so key --they're able to ultimately have that kind of relationship with God as well.
Now, the other cool thing I want to note about this: hotels, often, in terms of art that they have on the wall, they tend to be very inviting, fairly non-intrusive kinds of pieces. You, of course, can pay to have an experience at one that's more provocative. But oftentimes, when you think about a Marriott or Ritz, whatever kind, La Quinta, I don't care the style or the echelon, but the artwork tends to not really jar, but instead invite and calm.
Now, in my band, The JuJu Exchange, sometimes we have calming music. But also sometimes the stuff we make can be very in your face and jarring. And what I have found is that Notes of Rest has this beautiful interplay with that space. Because I'm as honest there, when I'm creating with Nova Zaii and Nico Segal and JuJu, I'm very honest there in how I create, and the spaces we take you, and the sounds and the craziness and the patches, and, "Where'd that come from? Is that a train? Is that a caterpillar? What? What am I hearing?" Having all that curiosity. Whereas in Notes, it's very calm. They're hymns that you know. It's very watery. I typically don't do a whole lot to really mess with the form or the time, because it's meant to invoke a different kind of response, a different kind of calm. And so I'm so thankful that I have this space alongside the band to really give full voice to what I'm doing. And together, you really get a full sense of what God's given me to do in terms of sharing from the same section
Piano: [piano interlude]
Matt Croasmun: So it's striking you make this contrast between what you're doing in some of the liturgical spaces, like Notes of Rest, versus what's happening with your band. But scripture itself, it's not just, like, a comfy place to hang out.
Julian Reid: What you say! [laughs]
Matt Croasmun: Like, we have plenty of jarring provocation.
Julian Reid: Yeah, that's right. That's right. The Psalms.
Matt Croasmun: Yeah. So how do you think about that in terms of just the liturgical musical expression?
Julian Reid: So when that gets going, and I mentioned the Psalms, because I think that's a great place where people go to often sanitize scripture, and be like, "Psalm 23, baby. That's me all day." Or, you know, "This is the day that the Lord has made," or, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." All of these verses that are cherry-picked out of really intense and harrowing experiences that the Psalmist is bringing about. When those moments come in scripture, as they are wont to do in the passages I pick, what I'm hopeful for, with the music I play, is that it can either provide a space of familiarity that you can return to, or, if I, when I do, improvise and the song gets louder or gets more involved, that can signal some of the change in affective register present in the text as well. The cool thing about playing after having spoken a little about the texts and after having the questions lead people to where they need, is that the playing doesn't overdetermine what. you end up doing with the question I asked about a passage that might be difficult. Rather, the playing can serve as an accompaniment, wherever you're going, and hopefully continue to summon you, invite you, maybe even nudge you towards that exploration and not shy away from those.
One song I really like to play is "Give Me Jesus," which is a spiritual. And I often like to end the retreat with "Give me Jesus" under the time called Wellsprings, during which the participants get to continue reflecting, or they get to pray, or they get to write out a note of encouragement for somebody, or they get to create something. A song themselves, or they write a poem or whatever the case is, but that's a time where all of these responses can happen. So during that time, I typically end with "Give Me Jesus" to be a prayer on behalf of everybody. But also to speak to the fact that all of the pain that you might have felt during the retreat, based on what it is that's been brought up, can still open onto this final prayer. "You can have all this world." And for black folk to be singing this, way back when, during antebellum slavery, "You can have all this world, but give me Jesus," I think speaks to a deep, deep peace and a deep knowing that can be had. A peace that I'm so thankful my ancestors gave me.
So often times it starts very calm.
[Julian plays]
But then it can get more intense.
[Julian playing more energetically]
So, it grows in intensity a little, it grows in volume. It grows in movement, the embellishments. And all of that can speak to a different affective register. "Give me Jesus. Give me, Jesus! You can have all this world. All that you done taken anyway, you can ha' dat. But give me Jesus." So it can become a cry without ever saying it.
That's in part why I love playing this because I can say so much, I can offer so much in terms of provocation, in terms of suggestions for ways forward, without over determining the space without telling you everything you need to walk away feeling. Letting the questions do some of the work, letting some of the framing do the work. But then also, insofar as you're familiar with the lyrics, and that's a bit of a risk, but not always that big, depending on the audience.
Matt Croasmun: Well, and there's the affective component, whether or not you follow the lyrics.
Julian Reid: Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, irrespective of what you know about the lyrics, yo, you can really get into what that sound might be conveying. And maybe it's conveying joy. Maybe it's conveying deep, ferocious hope for you. "Give me Jesus." Or maybe it's conveying anger.
Matt Croasmun: Yeah. But because that's all aimed at an encounter with the living God, it's aimed at something you don't control.
Julian Reid: Yes.
Matt Croasmun: You can't control! The moment you try to control it, it's not the thing you're after anymore.
Julian Reid: Yes! Amen! That's it, yo. That's grace.
Matt Croasmun: And that entails so much risk.
Julian Reid: Yes, yo.
Matt Croasmun: What does that feel like to you when you're in the moment? Cause that's, like... You've put all this time and effort into planning. I mean, as a teacher, I relate to so much of this. You've done your craft and you offer it. And then, it's the Elijah moment. Like, you wait for the fire to come from heaven. And it does, or it doesn't come. And when the sacrifice is just a sopping wet mess...
Julian Reid: And you're like, "Man, did I flop?" Yeah. I think one terrifying yet salutary benefit of doing this kind of work, in cracking open proclamation in this way, because I really do see this as proclamation twofold, you know. With the music, with the preaching or with the speaking: both are a form of proclamation. When I look at kerygma this way, it surfaces, I think, an intrinsic risk to the preaching moment that is often papered over by just moving on to the next component of whatever the worship leader, who oftentimes is the pastor and the preacher as well, has determined will come next in a liturgical flow. So I can preach something that's awful or problematic or lazy, or really imaginative and inventive and creative and compassionate. It doesn't matter. It can be either end of said spectrum--
Matt Croasmun: Whatever was going to come next is going to come next.
Julian Reid: It's just gonna come next! And then people are like, "Well, that was crazy," however crazy it means, in that some say,"That was fire," or, "That was trash," or, you know, "Let me just get onto the next song." So I, having been a preacher, having taught preaching, one of the insights that I've been picking up on is the extent to which we all take risks over the pulpit. Every single time we open our mouth to interpret the word and to make space for this encounter. And if it doesn't come the way you want, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're invalidated, but it also can be a reflection of where the people, in fact, are.
Piano: [piano interlude]
Matt Croasmun: It reminds me of something that Karl Barth said in his Evangelical Theology, when he talks about, I think it's in his chapter about temptation, the thought that God tempts the church. And God, he says, tempts the church through God's apparent absence. Because the temptation is, will our machinery of church keep running even if, Barth I think says, "even if there is no wind in the sails." Even if there is a mill wheel in the river, but no water turning it, will we somehow just keep the machinery running? Or, do we have moments? And it's why I love what you're describing there. Can we have moments, ought we have moments in our liturgical practices where, if the spirit of God, the presence of God, is not with us, we might notice? Right? Barth writes that it should be a great moment in the Church when everything screeches to a halt, because we were so dependent on God in that moment that the kerygma has an opportunity to fail.
Julian Reid: Wow. Yeah, that's a great gift. And you know, it's a great vulnerability that musicians take every time when they play. I think about vocalists. I am not one, but I think about vocalists and the inherent risks that you do to make a career around your voice! And you can get sick one day, something can happen, you can get, you know, some kind of food poisoning that messes with your voice. And the folk who are on that tour to hear you, who come, that, when you come to their city, they I don't care about any uh dat. They care about the product. And yet artists are always taking these risks to show up in a certain way, night in and night out. And in being consistent on records and all these things. So I think this inherent risk is present to me on either side of the hyphen, "artist-" and "- theologian." But it's one that I really surface here.
And I think that the risk is not only, "Does God not show up?" because of whatever reason, or, "Does God show up in a way I just can't read?" Or, like, the prompt didn't really ask for. So if I'm asking for you to share, and you don't feel comfortable sharing, but God was working on you, well, I don't know that. And you might go away from the time saying that, and saying, "Man, this is amazing," but I'll never know. And so for me, in those moments, I have to pivot and submit to what I think the spirit will be calling, which is for music to help lead the way forward into whatever comes next. And so it has me really on guard in a different way. While as much as I plan ahead of time, I also have to be ready to really shoulder the weight of caring for the energy.
And so sometimes I'll come back after a moment of pause and I'll say, "Hey, okay, I'm going to play [Julian plays] until somebody feels led to speak."
[Julian continues playing]
And I might just create this atmospheric sound like that for a while. Or I might go on to another hymn. And sometimes, if I haven't already played, I will play this hymn, "Lord, Hear My Prayer," from Taizé.
Just for our viewers to review, cause we've been doing a lot of explaining, when things are happening, this is the format for our Notes of Rest session: I welcome, I do "Thank You, Lord," and then I give us three metaphors of water.
The first metaphor is The River. You never step into the same river twice. So too is it with scripture. Because we're seeking to encounter the living God, I'm going to read this passage and ask a few questions based on it, and invite you to immerse yourself in the rivers of the text. And we'll do that for a few minutes. During which I play as you reflect on the questions.
And then after that, you come out of the waters and onto The Banks, the riverbanks. You dry yourself off, so to speak. And then we get to talk about what happened while you were swimming.
And then after Banks, we then have time in The Wellspring section to continue resting as I play, continue creating based on what people were sharing. Maybe you need to write out a prayer for yourself or a note of encouragement for somebody else, but you do one of those four verbs. None of them are greater or lesser than the other. And so, those, in-and-out, take up the space of the hour.
Now when we get to the time of Banks and Wellsprings, Banks is when we're sharing what happened during the question time, during Rivers, and then Wellsprings is the time when you're creating or you're doing something else in response to the whole time prior. Well, sometimes people don't talk during that. Like we were just saying, they don't feel like sharing. It's too deep, they don't know people they don't trust. All good. So when that happens and God's not showing up in the way that I've kind of prompted, then I'll keep playing. And if I haven't played this hymn, "Lord, Hear My Prayer," I play this hymn. This is a hymn from Taizé, a very old tradition, a liturgical practice in the church. And I just love how this hymn goes, which just says, "Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer. When I call or when I come answer me." And then it just goes on and on like that. But that's such a powerful hymn. "Lord, hear my prayer; my silent one, my spoken one." And I love bringing that forth on behalf of the congregation during the session, for them to do just that.
Matt Croasmun: Even as you're just playing that one hymn, I'm struck that you're engaging multiple musical and cultural vocabularies. And it's part of what, as I've seen you minister in various contexts, you're very thoughtful about that, and that you're thinking about, "All right, who's in this room. What kinds of genres, what kinds of traditions of music, of musical expression in the church, outside the church, do I need to engage in order to..." It's a practice of hospitality, it seems, for you. You know, often the phrase gets tossed around, it's funny, it's a biblical phrase, but it's tossed around in our culture: "Becoming all things to all people." It's usually tossed around as, like, an insult or a warning, right? Like, "Don't try to become all things..." Well, I mean, I'm a Paul scholar. As far as I can tell, I think Paul is commending that actually.
Julian Reid: [laughs]
Matt Croasmun: He's like, "No, this is what I've done! For the sake of hospitality, for the sake of the gospel, I have become all things to all peoples." Especially as an artist these days, becoming all things to all people, it feels like that you're at risk of losing yourself. You're going to lose your own authentic voice. It strikes me that you move between these worlds and you don't lose your authentic voice and it is a ministry of hospitality. How do you walk that line between those two different ways of understanding that one scripture?
Julian Reid: That's a wonderful question, yo! And I think that gets to the first thing you were saying about architectural space and how you make a hotel. Because it's a hotel, I'm thinking, "What are enough impressions of home?" that the travelers I'm receiving need to feel like this is a space where they can lay their head. A hotel is not going to have all the fixin's of your southern kitchen necessarily. It might have a little stove top. It's not going to have... you know, it might have right angles and you might come from a culture where everything's curved. But it's gonna have a bed with a pillow that's comfortable and matches, that's relatively comfortable. And again, maybe some accoutrement from Western generic art, or maybe beyond Western art, that goes in hotels, but it's going to kinda have the accessories that allow for some sense of familiarity, such that you can abide.
And I think that, for some reason, my story has allowed for that kind of opening onto different cultures. It helps that I grew up in a Methodist home, a black Methodist home. Because given so many black folk grew up either Baptists or Methodists after the Great Awakening in the 19th century, if you grew up in one of those mainline traditions, and in my case, I was also growing up in an urban context, we were growing up black Methodist church on the South Side. But because it was United Methodist, we were also singing a lot of hymns from England and we were singing a lot that white Methodists on the other side of town will be singing as well. So that kind of gave me a sensibility to have a sense of fluidity between black life in this context, and then white life that black folk were appropriating in the ways that they were in the black Methodist context. And then after that, I still ended up in church spaces that were always adjacent, if they were black, to non-black life, particularly white. And then if it was in a multicultural, white-majority space, it's still in an intellectual sphere that made room for black expression. Because of that, I was able to bring into my formation these various streams of liturgical expression and see how my black musical idioms, as Fred Moten talked about it, allowed for this wanting or wanting differently. So the kind of interest I had in learning CCM, for instance, wasn't so I could play Hillsong better than Hillsong, but it was so I could play Hillsong tunes when I was playing for black folk who might know them. Or when I was playing for white folk who might know them, but maybe wanted to hear them differently. And because I was able to engender trust outside of the musical context, I think people were able to, and are able to, go with me as I go somewhere with their song and feel like they're being seen and known.
Piano: [piano interlude]
Matt Croasmun: It strikes me that there's something, there's a parallel, to what we were talking about with even musical emotional registers where music can be this place of comfort, rest, stability. But also it can be this provocative... It strikes me that you're doing something similar with genre. Where there's maybe a majority function with genre where you're trying to think, "All right. Most of this is hospitable. I want you to know that you're welcome." But you're always going to throw in something that's going to sort of push a little bit, which, I, when I hear you do that, I think, "Oh, I'm being provoked to consider who else could be welcome and should be welcome in this space." Are you trying to push at the boundaries of who belongs in this space, and to whom do we belong? Like, what are the bounds of our mutual belonging? Or how can we extend that?
Julian Reid: That's a great question because it's getting at something that's been subterranean for me, but I guess it's coming to the surface right now, which is, I think about the fact that I center my faith on a cat from Palestine. A place I've never been, I may never go to, from centuries ago, millennia ago. Who didn't speak my language. Maybe looked like me. I mean, I've seen some of the most recent, you know, reconstructions. I mean, he's certainly dark.
Matt Croasmun: Shorter than you for sure.
Julian Reid: Yeah, shorter. He was definitely shorter. Yeah. Maybe play basketball, he probably didn't. The point is this Jesus was very different culturally. And to see how he has been enfolded into black cultural expression has made me think about what we actually are receiving. What does it mean to normalize Babylon, and Ugaritic, and Aramaic, and the Persians, and Rome, and all the peoples that end up being wrapped up into our story because they're connected to Israel?What's it mean to normalize that in terms of our understanding, the lingua franca of church for black folk on the South Side of Chicago in the 21st century? That's happening all the time! And so much of that is so, again, subterranean to how we actually think. We think we might just be singing a song about how God'll get you over your next hurdle and not doing this deep historical work and linguistic work about how we're traversing centuries, millennia to do this.
Braxton Shelley's new book, "Healing for the Soul," does a great job of talking exactly about this kind of interpenetration of temporalities between where we are now and the 1st century. And before that, in the prophetic era. For "A Balm In Gilead," for instance. And talking about how black folk can sing about that happening now is if the balm is happening right now and not in 8th century BCE.
So I'm thinking in terms of pushing to make sense of the fact that we are singing English hymns. We're singing songs, you know, a Dr. Watts hymn. This is a Watts hymn which is a big category in a taxonomy of hymns. There are all kinds of Watts hymns, including "Joy to the World," that we sing. This cat was from England in the 1600s! And is arguably part of how we get to the colonial moment we are in because of supersessionism and the way he was trying to paper over Israel in scripture, and instead put in England, instead put in Scotland, instead put in the rest of Great Britain and say that the Psalter can be just a song book for the nation. Of Great Britain. As they're going around colonizing the Americas. I mean, this is happening seamlessly with us, then, becoming adapted to singing this dope song, "Joy to the World, the Lord has come!"
I'm trying to surface how these colonial pressures are moving, but then also how there's this beautiful other kind of migration happening between us to 1st century Palestine for Jesus. So, yeah, it's a great question. And it's one I'm always trying to bring forth, such that, Taizé, which can seem so obtuse to Pentecostals, or cats who don't feel connected to that side of the Atlantic, actually these songs are very much a part of the reception history that leads to the faith that we have. It ends up being a kind of pedagogy for me as well, to get these musical vocabularies in play.
Piano: [piano interlude]
Matt Croasmun: And you can see that connection historically. You can go through the genealogy of it, but there's also that functional connection, right? Which is that, what more architectural music is there than Taizé? In terms of a music that's about making a space.
Julian Reid: Wow.
Matt Croasmun: I think about, like, I can draw a straight line from that to a good, you know, black gospel vamp, right?
Julian Reid: Oh, wow! Yeah, yo!
Matt Croasmun: Both are like, "We're just, we're sitting in the groove, right? It's a very different sort of groove in that space together but they share that lineage. And that's a shared use and way of relating to music of the people of God.
Julian Reid: Amen, yes.
Matt Croasmun: We're gonna use this to make space. This is going to be our tabernacle in the ear in which we can encounter the living God.
Julian Reid: That is it! Braxton Shelley does a beautiful job-- to all the listeners: if you haven't read his book Healing for the Soul, it's definitely well worth it. It just came out, and he does a beautiful job talking about this. Particularly, as you just said, on the gospel side of how these vamps happen and move. But what emerges there is akin to what emerges in Gregorian chant and to all the kinds of architectural spaces that have been made for centuries.
What is also probably worth noting is I have found a lot of imaginative fuel from becoming a little more hip to monastics. When I was in seminary, down at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, at Emory, I got hip to this monastery called the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. And it's a Cistercian order, meaning super strict Benedictine monks. And it's out about 45 minutes away from where the school was. So I would go out there a few times, and man, just being on the grounds and knowing that those Catholic brothers had been there for a long time. I mean, one cat who had just been recently received jnto the Order was in its twenties. And, you know, these are lifelong vows! And something about learning about these cats, seeing them do some of their hours, 'cause you, you were allowed to sit in the back. They take vows of silence and solitude, so they're not really trying to talk with you for the most part, but you can worship with them in chapel when they do their readings and do their hours throughout the day. So I went in and just seeing these cats gather for these prayers and for these songs, it just really made me think about how deep and how long the faith is, and what it means to have such long standing faith.
You know, I haven't really thought... that's why I'm so thankful for this conversation, Matt. Because I haven't thought about the extent to which that part of my formation, witnessing that, going out there and seeing those cats, has actually then led to Notes of Rest for me. And the kind of space that I can make for people who are not called to that kind of life but who are yet and still called to be contemplative. I'm taking the Monastery of the Holy Spirit with me and, incidentally, also then some of the music that comes from some of these really old monastic traditions of the Roman and Anglican rites.
You know, since we're talking and since we've talked about the reverence and awe of the monks, and then also the reverence and awe of enslaved Africans, I'm going to play again, "Lord, Here My Prayer," and turn that into a medley with "Gimme Jesus."
Matt Croasmun: Thanks for being here, Julian.
Julian Reid: Thanks so much for having me.
Piano: [Julian plays]
Evan Rosa: Thanks for listening, friends. And wherever you're at, may you find "notes of rest."
For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured musician Julian Reid and biblical scholar Matt Croasmun. Production assistance by Martin Chan, Nathan Jowers, Natalie Lamb, and Logan Ledman. Special thanks to the Tyndale House Foundation for their support. I'm Evan Rosa and I edited and produced the show.
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