A recording we did in 2018 at Ruebush Studio (at Shenandoah Conservatory) of my arrangement of “Through the Night” (a.k.a. “Thy Strong Word” or ‘Ebenezer’)…
David E. Chávez — arrangement & piano
Melissa Jean Chávez — vocals
Jacob Pembelton — bass
Chace Washington — drums
Michael Valentini — recording & mixing
Text: Bernhardt S. Ingemann, 1787-1862; translated by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1834-1924 (alt.) Music: 'Ebenezer' by Thomas J. Williams, 1869-1944; arranged by David E. Chavez (© 2018)
I’ve decided that in 2019 I’m going to start selling a bunch of my own work as sheet music and recordings on my website, davidechavez.com, and I’m going to donate 100% of the proceeds to organizations that help immigrants, migrants, and refugees get the resources they need to be healthy and safe. I’m also going to continue new music specifically about these topics and related issues.
Synthesis for a warm day in October…
The Unmeasured Podcast returns soon! In the meantime…
Today, someone I know (whom I won't tag here) said, "Yes but they all were in their own country!" regarding the miracle of Jesus feeding the thousands with a few loaves and a couple fish. This person was, I think, justifying a less compassionate response to the migrant caravan (and other central/south americans) making its way toward our Southern border today. According to the stories about Jesus, he performed miracles for citizens of various countries (and maybe even some lacking official citizenship in any nation at all). Below is my response... to the claim that "they all were in their own country" when Jesus fed the multitude...
Photo by Zeshalyn Capindo on Unsplash
Exactly which country is "their own country" that all these people inhabited?
Assuming that there were "countries" defined the same way we define them today doesn't make historical sense.
But, even if we assumed that this miracle occurred in a place with clearly defined national borders, how can you be sure absolutely certain that no one in that crowd had citizenship outside the region they found themselves in that miraculous day.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes is recorded in all four gospel accounts in some form.
In the Gospel according to Matthew, it occurs directly after the healing of the Canaanite woman’s (also known as the “Syrophoenician” woman’s) daughter around Tyre and Sidon, and the curing of many others near the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus calls his disciples to him, he notes that he has compassion for the crowd “because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way” (Matt. 15:32). So, we can safely assume that some of them were a long way from home. To simplify things a bit: he had a growing crowd following him, and he had been traveling around the region.
Also, how do we know that the Canaanite woman or her daughter didn’t follow Jesus after the healing, and thereby become a beneficiary in the loaves/fishes miracle? The Syropheonician/Canaanite woman is herself is a citizenship paradox. According to one Bible encyclopedia:
The woman from the borders of Tyre and Sidon whose daughter Jesus healed is described as "a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race" (Mark 7:26), and again as "a Canaanitish woman" (Matthew 15:22). This seems to mean that she was of Canaanite descent, a native of the Phoenician seaboard, Greek in religion, and probably also in speech. The names Syria and Phoenicia are both applied to the same region in Acts 21:2,3. Syrophoenician may therefore denote simply an inhabitant of these parts. According to Strabo (xvii.3), this district was called Syrophoenicia to distinguish it from the North African Lybophoenicia.
[Source: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/syrophoenician/]
In other words, exactly what country would claim her as a citizen? And how would she identify herself? My guess is that most Jews would see her as a non-citizen of the Jewish nation (even though her ancestors lived in Judea prior to the Jews) and most Romans would simply see her as one of many local peasants in a Roman province… but a Roman citizen? Who knows.
For that matter, the Jews themselves probably identified themselves as a nation more by their ethnicity (for obvious reasons, given their out-of-Egypt and Babylonian-exile migrations) than by their current place of residence. And, I doubt most Jews were Roman citizens.
But, for Romans (like the centurion Cornelius who came to believe in Jesus later, and the centurion whose servant Jesus had healed earlier in the same gospel account), Judea and Syria were simply provinces of the Roman empire. It was not a “country” belonging to its inhabitants. It was part of the Empire, and its true citizens were Roman citizens. The rest were peasants who owed taxes, but not true citizens.
And then, how do we know that no one else was part of that crowd? In the Gospel according to John, the miracle of the loaves and fishes occurs in Chapter 6, and the writer repeatedly notes the presence of a large crowd following Jesus. In verse 4, the writer also mentions, “Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near,” perhaps as an explanation for why the crowd was so large. Perhaps some of that same crowd were there for Pentecost a few weeks later in the second chapter of Acts. Notice that Luke gives Theophilus a specific list of the wide variety of national origins represented:
“Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ––Acts 2:5-11 (NRSV)
Are you certain that not one of those people were in that crowd when Jesus divided up the loaves and fishes? Not one Arab? Not a single Egyptian? No Roman proselytes? How do you know for sure?
Later in Acts (chapter 8), Luke writes about an Ethiopian eunuch who was traveling from Jerusalem to Gaza. How do we know this didn’t happen previously as well? Could there have been Ethiopians there that day that Jesus fed the hungry crowd?
And what about the possible presence of Samaritans? In the Gospel according to John, Jesus talked with a Samaritan woman at a well as he was passing through Samaria a couple chapters before the feeding of the five thousand. Immediately after their conversation: “Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.” (John 4:28-30) In other words, a “city” of Samaritans got on their feet and made a caravan over to follow this Jesus character! Isn’t it possible some of them were still following him when he divided the loaves and fishes? And, are Samaritans “in their own country?” Well, that depends on who you ask. I would guess that given the disciples’ reaction to Jesus talking to her, and given the way Jesus portrays the Samaritan in his parable of the Good Samaritan, most of Jesus’ fellow Galileans would have seen Samaritans as foreigners, or at least not locals.
Did someone check each person’s visa or passport before handing them a loaf or a piece of fish?
And, in any case, if Jesus were here now and saw thousands (millions, if we zoom out) of needy people south of the border, what would he say? If we are the body of Christ, then Jesus is here now, and we have the responsibility to be his hands. We had better act like it.
Still frame capture from video of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) during this week’s Kavanaugh nomination hearing. Source: “Nomination of the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Day 5),” September 27, 2018, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/nomination-of-the-honorable-brett-m-kavanaugh-to-be-an-associate-justice-of-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states-day-5
If you are someone who has experienced sexual violence, this has been a hell of a week.
I truly cannot begin to imagine what you have been through these past few days. It's wrong. I am personally sorry for the pain you've experienced, and for the ways I have in the past been complicit in the systems that brought us to this moment.
If you are a survivor, you've carried the burden long enough, much longer than you should ever have had to. It's time for the rest of us to get off our individual and collective butts and stop being complicit.
If you are a survivor, you are not alone and it is not your fault, period. It doesn't matter who you are, who you love, how you identify, how you dress, or what you've done/not done; it is not your fault.
You may feel (justifiably so) after this past week that people will not believe you if you ever come forward.
It's completely up to you whether you ever come forward. If you do choose to come forward, there are people who will listen to you and believe you, without requiring you to share another word or a single detail. I am one of those people, and there are plenty of others out there, including the hosts of The Liturgists, and even a great many people of faith with whom I'd be more than happy to connect you. After a week in which leaders and thinkers on faith and spirituality were too often conspicuously silent, The Liturgists (and Science Mike in particular) have been for me both a breath of fresh air and a bracing challenge to do better.
I am in awe of Mike McHargue (better known as Science Mike) coming forward in his Ask Science Mike podcast this week to talk about his own experience as a survivor. I am in awe of the eloquence and strength with which he addresses his own difficulty in speaking out (he waited decades too), as well as the difficult-to-hear statistics about assault and the difficult-to-have conversations we MUST have about consent, particularly affirmative consent. We have to change the culture of all of the United States around sexual assault and make it unacceptable, and he expresses this with more clarity and conviction than I possibly could.
We have to believe survivors.
N.B. -- I encourage my friends far and wide to listen to this indispensable podcast episode IF you are able and ready, BUT please know that it includes frank discussions of sexual violence and you should NOT listen if you know you aren't ready. If you are a survivor and you know these discussions may cause you to be triggered/activated/re-traumatized, you are well within your rights to take a pass on any such discussion. You are well within your rights to turn off your news notifications, disconnect your Twitter app, and avoid podcasts like this one, especially this week. I would no more expect you to wade into this week's news than I would expect a soldier with PTSD to attend 4th of July fireworks. There is no shame in waiting until you are ready to listen to these sorts of conversations. Survivors are my heroes this week, and getting out of bed in the morning is more than I would ask of myself in your shoes (much less listening to an entire podcast on the topic).
That being said, my friends, the indispensable wisdom and courage of Science Mike...
http://mikemchargue.com/asksciencemike/2018/9/26/episode-163-sexual-violence
[Ask Science Mike - September 26, 2018 - Episode 163 - Sexual Violence]
Search the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport. Go ahead. I'll wait.
The President tweeted things so horrid today, I don't even have words. At first glance, his tweets seem like normal political bluster, but they're not.
No woman (no person of any gender, in fact) should have to fear being shamed for reporting or not reporting sexual assault, but the reality is that such shame is the norm. Ask almost any woman (and many men): they will tell you exactly why they didn't report their own assaults.
By breezily assuming that assaults are usually reported (they aren't, and even more so weren't three decades ago), the President perfectly exemplified the kind of shaming our culture places on those who are sexually assaulted. This shaming, in turn, discourages reporting. He answers his own implied question.
This, Mr. President. This is why people don't report. You and everyone like you are why people don't report.
And, you know what? If I look over my own past, I can see ways in which I have said things which perpetuated a culture of shame. I have make remarks along the lines of assuming someone was wearing an outfit "to get attention." I was and am part of the problem, and I can do better. We can do better.
I pledge to do my part to make our country and our world a place where women are not shouldering a heavier burden than men when it comes to preventing sexual assault and harassment and abuse. I pledge to not say and do things which make women feel objectified or things which imply that women are in some way responsible for the wrong actions of men who mistreat or disrespect them. I pledge to treat everyone, especially women, with greater respect, and to not assume that I get to pass judgement on someone else's physical appearance, clothing, choice to report/not-report an assault or harassment, etc. Will you join me? Let's do better than the President.
He is a (huge) symptom, but he is not the cause.
#ListenToWomen
#BelieveWomen
Photo Credit: PO2 Patrick Kelley
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lights_illuminate_the_National_9-11_Pentagon_Memorial_in_Arlington,_Va.,_as_the_sun_sets_Sept_140910-G-ZX620-002.jpg
On this September 11, I think of:
...where I was that day (Penn State), and the class I was in (New Testament, with a rather hostile professor who shut down someone who came into the room to try to tell us the news), and then the rest of the day spent in front of the TV when we realized the gravity of the situation. I remember reading "We're all ok here at CUA" on a friend's AOL Instant Messenger profile, as I had recently transferred schools from Catholic University in DC.
...the fallen––on Flight 93, at the Pentagon, in the towers and on the planes. Their sacrifices are not forgotten and their memories will live on eternally. I think the new "Tower of Voices" wind chimes at the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania are an especially appropriate remembrance, and I look forward to visiting the place in person. I also want to go back to the 9/11 memorial just outside the Pentagon, which I found to be one of the most strikingly understated and contemplation-inducing and beautiful memorials I've ever seen.
...the President's "bullhorn moment" three days later, and the 60 Minutes story that came out a couple years later walking through his experience of that day. While I later came to realize that many of our government's actions (and particularly his administration's policies) and military decisions that rippled outward from 9/11 were misguided, in those first few days George W. Bush provided the kind of strong and steady leadership we needed.
...the countless people I know who have served in our military and emergency services and in so many other ways on that day and since, many of whom were inspired to service by the horror of 9/11. I am thankful for everyone who responds to tragedy by self-sacrificial service. That spirit of service is one of the best parts of this country; when we serve, we make America great, and 9/11 brought out the finest in so many people for so many years. I know people who served in the background, in secret, and in thankless and forgotten jobs to try to keep me and my loved ones safe, and I am so grateful.
...the wise words of my professor (and, really, mentor) Paul Barsom within those first days, in which he immediately understood and foresaw the context of the attacks and the risks in how the nation was already misunderstanding what would later be called the War on Terror. It took me longer to catch up, but it's become clearer and clearer to me that we only perpetuate a cycle of violence when we assume that we are locked in a great West vs. East (or Christian vs. Radical Islam) battle with a foe who "hates freedom" or "our way of life." There are many bin Laden-type people out there who do in fact despise us... but it's much more complicated than simple-and-pure evil; we have to go back and study our own nation's actions and their unintended consequences. It's easy to forget that (like Ho Chi Minh, and like Saddam Hussein) the rich Saudi heir Osama bin Laden was the United States' ally (with the Mujahideen in what for us was sort of a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan) before he was our enemy. We (the USA) have a lot to answer for in our recent history, and it's not right for us to keep sending our brave (and often poor) young military recruits to fight and die in wars which are ill-informed and partially profit-driven. We've got to do better at thinking through the long-term implications of our foreign entanglements.
May God bless the United States of America, and may we learn from the hard lessons of a terrible day.
More about the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial: https://washington.org/dc-guide-to/pentagon-memorial
Soap box: with the streaming and downloading digital music revolution in full swing, it should be EASIER than ever (NOT HARDER THAN EVER) to see the credits for an individual track or an entire album.
I am spending a ridiculous amount of time this afternoon trying to access the "digital booklet" (i.e. a PDF of liner notes) for an album I bought on iTunes. I need these liner notes for my doctoral dissertation research, and I keep hitting roadblocks; in fact, it's been harder than finding and downloading most of the articles I've sought from peer-reviewed publications, downloads which have required the use of an academic institution's proxy server in order to authenticate my way in.
Think about that. In a world where we can link almost any digital asset to almost anything else with a single tap or click online, here is the laughably unhelpful and arcane step-by-step process I finally was forced to look up, describing how Apple wants me to access the liner notes for an album download I BOUGHT from them many months ago: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201306.
Seriously? Do you have any idea how many songs are in my iTunes library? (Wait... Apple probably knows exactly how many songs are in my library...)
The most laughable part of this page is probably the second set of instructions for viewing the digital booklet on a mobile device. I cannot for the life of me understand why I wouldn't be able to do so simply by tapping the cover art, but no. I have to manually (manually!) find and then sync the individual PDF file using iCloud Drive (or, really, any cloud storage solution). How Apple manages to still be the biggest player in the downloadable digital music game is beyond me.
I am guessing the average consumer is not going to bother. Most people who own this album probably have no idea which studio was the location for the recording, which audio engineers worked on it, who the producers were, or which special individuals or organizations the artists wished to thank or acknowledge. And, with all their power and billions of dollars, Apple isn't interested in designing a relatively simple software fix to make it easier to find and appreciate this kind of information. Ridiculous.
When I was a kid, this kind of information made a big difference to me. Now that I am a working musician and I know all sorts of people who work in the industry, it's infuriating how inaccessible it is.
Earlier this year, Spotify finally started to address these concerns, but their solution is pitifully inadequate. Yes, you can now (sometimes) right-click and select "Show credits" or tape "Song credits" to see who wrote and produced an individual tracks... but the information is missing or incomplete for a vast number of tracks, and it still has no information on who recorded, mastered, played as session musicians, etc. ...and the mission information for writers/producers is not just on obscure albums. For example, I just clicked to find the credits for multiple songs from The National's 2017 album Sleep Well Beast, and the producer field was blank every time. I'm guessing The National would like to see their producer(s) credited (or if it was self-produced, that should be credited too).
I spent many hours of my adolescence poring over album liner notes, and the minutiae therein made an impression on me. I learned the names of musicians, producers, audio engineers, and many other contributors whom I would never have heard of. I sometimes saw those people, people like bassist/producer Otto "Sugar Bear" Price, playing in a concert and would be very excited and inspired. Many of my musical heroes and career inspirations were not the headlining artists, songwriters, or composers, but rather the co-writers, producers, session musicians, and more low-profile people. Learning these people's names, seeing the model number of an artist's favorite instrument, or reading their thanks and acknowledgements opened my eyes to career paths in music I had no idea existed. Liner notes also helped me learn lyrics, gain historical perspective, and do the sort of exciting exegesis which unveiled how interconnected the music world can be. That information matters, and it helped shaped my pathways through this profession. I'd hate to see others miss out on that info.
Soap box over. There are lots of petitions to change this state of affairs. Here is one: https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/show-the-album-credits
I had a very strange and disconcerting experience this afternoon driving through Maryland. As I was driving, five people were shot to death and others injured in a targeted attack in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette, a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland. What shocked me was the reaction I heard from someone I'd never met.
Here is a little something I came up with today drinking an americano at Hopscotch Coffee & Records and recording from the Model D app into the Garageband app on my iPad.
This is important stuff. Beth Moore reminded me that I was part of the problem not long ago.
My opinions and prejudices and preconceived notions about female leadership in the catholic (universal, not just Roman) church had to change over time when I was presented with new information.
It was hella uncomfortable and took time and new experiences, but it was also worth the discomfort and just plain RIGHT for me to change my views on how women can and should serve God. My discomfort is puny compared to the outright hostility so many women STILL face when they try to follow God’s call. My discomfort belongs on the altar of sacrifice, along with my old this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-things-and-it-just-feels-right bubble of safety. It took time, but I put those things on the altar, and my High Priest was kind enough to slaughter them for me.
I don’t like admitting just how sexist I was in the not-so-distant past. Whether I intended to be sexist or not is irrelevant. Whether I was more sexist or less sexist than other people is irrelevant too. The fact remains that I was sexist in my attitudes and actions. Sometimes, if I’m not careful, I still am.
If we want to truly follow Jesus, we are going to have to admit our faults, dethrone traditions that don’t advance the gospel, and take seriously the work of uprooting and removing misogyny.
I was part of the problem. I’m all in for changing things and fixing the problem. Are you?
(Oh, and by the way: Beth Moore writes specifically about her experiences in “conservative evangelical” churches in her letter, but churches that don’t meet that description don’t get off the hook either. Sexism is alive and kicking in plenty of churches across the ideological and theological spectra.)
Mr. President: Let my people go.
What would you do? Before we demonize the stranger and the outcast, we ought to know why they leave their homes. Perhaps instead of treating them like rapists and gang members, we should consider that the opposite may be true. For some, they may be fleeing rape and gangs and more awful realities. If we cannot do our part in addressing root causes, a wall made of concrete, soldiers, or racist rhetoric will certainly not improve the situation.
Are we not one human family?
The Memphis sanitation workers in the time of Dr. King’s assassination chanted a slogan which they still use today: “I am a man.” Translation: I am just as human as you are. Each and every migrant seeking a better life, and each and every desperate parent seeking simply to let their children live is as human as you or I in our comfortable United States homes.
Sí, somos una familia.
Here is an excerpt from the article linked above, describing one heartbreaking story:
Rodriguez, a builder, said he fled his home in El Salvador in the middle of the night with only the clothes on his back, a few dollars, a nephew, and his son, a student who had received a written death threat from a gang he had refused to join or pay.
"To be young, in my country, is a crime," Rodriguez said. "I'm old - they'll do nothing to me. But to my son, if we go back ... they'll kill him."
This right here... this should be the end of his political career. Not normal. NOT NORMAL.
The President of the United States of America—three DAYS after a horrific national tragedy when children were massacred in their classrooms—made it about himself. He didn’t even try to co-opt the event to support some cause or advance some concrete policy goal. He didn’t even try to masquerade as caring. He might as well have said “too bad those kids died, but that’s just another reminder that there is NO COLLUSION.” Before the blood was dry or the bodies were buried. Before the survivors returned to school. Before the weekend was even over. Before the makeshift memorials were supplanted with permanent memorials. Seemingly without hesitation and (I hope) without consulting anyone who knows anything about how to comfort and support the grieving, he jumped on the opportunity. He eagerly issued a hot take as if he were some impotent pundit who has no real influence and can only hope to be heard by yelling into the void. He twisted one terrible truth of the story (the FBI failing to follow protocol on tip investigation) into an opportunity to help himself. Just himself. “No collusion” is almost like a mantra to him lately, a mainstay if his most ugly political tweet-slinging. And he trotted it out in a tweet about a massacre. He even uses his favorite word—“Trump”—to refer to his own campaign... as if we needed to wonder to which campaign he might be referring.
This should be it. He has gone too far so many times that it’s like we have no idea what “too far” is anymore. But can we not agree that this is too far? That this is not the time or place? That The process of national grieving domestic mass murder by an American attacker is possibly the wrong time to try to exonerate oneself from complicity with international espionage? Is this not the absolute sickest and most disgustingly self-centered way to try to turn events to one’s own political advantage, no matter who it hurts?
When you’re president, your words really matters. Talking—it’s pretty much the majority of what you actually do. It’s your most visible job responsibility. You get up and say stuff. People ask you questions, look for orders, debate with you, and listen to you. And you say stuff and armies literally rise when you give the word. You send a mere tweet and it’s often easily the top story of the day.
Is Mr. Trump the person whose words we want speaking into the soul of our nation? Does he speak life? Does he speak truth?
It matters, because, in this vain moment of opportunistic verbal vomit, the President is building our future. He is building our future on the backs of slain civilians, teachers and marching band kids. Except the only future he actually seems to want to build is his own political survival.
What a small, pitifully low, weak aspiration toward which to direct the words which issue from the most powerful office in the world.
