Holy Reconciler, help us make peace with each other.

If love is a law, how may I follow it with more faithfulness?

Spirit of Life who dwells before and between and beyond all words… we open ourselves to you.

I experience the creative impulse as living just under the surface of the daily grind: tugging; imploring, When do we all get to sing together again?

Surround yourself with skillful teachers. Let them teach you, but don't let them do it for you. That learning is yours to do.

May I always remember that Tango, like life, is a dance of the people. It’s meant to be shared, not practiced in isolation.

As a hospital chaplain, I often listen to painful stories. We call it compassionate presence, but I may be crying inside. When words fail, I pray and sing.

It's hard to feel gratitude for something when you're focusing on what’s wrong with it.

God is not a distant force, far away. God is in the beating of our hearts and the backbeat of a funky baseline. God is in a four-on-the-floor drum fill, and in the achy joints and sore muscles the day after.

Music is my solace and my comfort, the one thing that’s always with me. I feel its vibration deep in my soul; it’s my spiritual practice. Music tells the story of my life.

“Now,” the yoga instructor said, “begin to chant GOD GOD GOD as you vigorously circle your arms.” Oh boy, I thought, Here we go. Of course it couldn’t just be arm circles.

I wanted so badly to break free and let loose—but I just couldn't. I was stuck in my own false ideas of the congregation's expectations of me. Luckily, there’s still time.

Joy Unspeakable is not silent, it moans, hums, and bends to the rhythm of a dancing universe…. For our free African ancestors, joy unspeakable is drum talk… For enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, joy unspeakable is the surprise of living one more day… For Africans in bondage in the...

The most important lesson pottery has taught me is to not be attached to the final product—the process matters more than the product.

Last summer at General Assembly, I walked out of the sanctuary we had made from the convention center space. As tired as I was, I returned more and more to my deeply introverted default of self, and I passed a woman who had to stop to talk with me....

The 7 Jobs Capitalism Asks of All of Us: 1. Measure Self Worth by Work: Don’t believe in the inherent goodness of people. Instead decide that everyone’s worth is only as much as they achieve. 2. Accept that Oppression is the Norm: This starts with adultism the moment we are born and conditions...

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time when particular songs get sung; one of them is "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It gets sung in school, in church, and at various MLK day celebrations or over the course of Black History Month....

It's in one tiny moment in time / for life to shine to shine Burn away the darkness You've got one tiny moment in time / for life to shine to shine To burn away the darkness I will be light. — “I Will Be Light” by Matisyahu About six months ago, I got a new tattoo. It’s a lit match on my...

An awakening passed through the whole theatre, and as if touched by some invisible hand, the people stood, clapped, shouted with joy, laughed, and wept… It was blessed to be connected to—no, to be a part of a community—a people. —Volker Kühn, in his essay about a cabaret performance during...

Our first breath is followed by our first song Lusty, loud and primal A solo that announces to the world, “I have arrived!” We are the music. As toddlers hearing our first reggae beat We let our spines and hips bend and sway in response As natural as the beat of our hearts We are the music. The...

A man sits on the rubble— not just in the rubble, but on the pile of what remains. No people in the bombed-out houses. No dogs. No birds. Just ragged hunks of concrete and loss. And on his perch he is playing an instrument constructed of what is left—an olive oil can, a broom handle, a bowed...

I heard the Second Brandenburg Concerto played in honor of Bach’s 300th birthday, and I was swept away. I remembered a story about the people who send messages into outer space. Someone suggested sending a piece by Bach. The reply was “But that would be bragging.” Some say we get what we...

I vote we let the artists win the ones covered in paint from their last attempt to smuggle across the beauty of a bowl of fruit the 14-year-old rapper learning to spit throwing life's chaos on the rhythm wheel uncovering the shapes that live on after the next break I say we let the food bank...

Listen carefully… Can you still hear the song? The one sung for you when you were born. The song sung by a cosmos in motion rejoicing at your life.

I believe music is god given Singing is an act of creation, of bringing into the world something that wasn't there before. Singing is a natural expression of my spirit—at the same time it can be soothing, energizing, crying, laughing, angelic or down in the dirt blues...it's all good! Singing is...