Photo credit: Jan Bacon

Singer/songwriter Andy Zipf’s “Stumble on the Line” is built around the image of a river flowing through a canyon it has sculpted—an image that can easily be played out as a picture of the way that the Lord has been at work preparing a path for us in the material world, complete with signposts to his former and present activity. Zipf’s imagery of flowing water as a powerful (even dangerous) but also refreshing force echoes the similarly-complicated place of springs and rivers and seas in the scriptures; his description of his own path through the canyon calls to mind the Psalmist’s affirmation that his help comes not from the idols erected on the heights, but from the maker who has crafted both heaven and earth. Here, the river has literally made the canyon, carving it through the “years and layers,” and leaving the evidence of that long work as a sign to all who journey through.

But though Zipf’s canyon provides shelter, a good measure of necessary constraint, and even encouragement to keep moving along the river-course, the thrust of the song is that seeking God is a complicated, sometimes difficult endeavor, whether we are looking for Him through what He has made or through what He has said. The lyrics suggest that walking with the Lord is a path of halting discovery and intrigue, of our learning to notice the way God’s actions in the past are written subtly into the world around us. But Zipf also implies that this is a path that requires obedience, since we are also confronted with the fact that He sometimes speaks to us directly and unequivocally, saying, “follow me.” The song does not take its name and refrain from the river itself, then, but from how we tend to navigate and respond to the terrain it has carved: we “stumble on the line.”

Though pursuing the text’s geologic conceit a bit further is possible, what is more poignant for all of us engaged in the science and faith dialogue is that “Stumble On the Line” is at its heart a love song addressed to the “you” that is the river—the one who has carved the path and along whose banks the singer and we pick our way. Our attentiveness to this terrain of faith does not come first from our desire to analyze and categorize the “evidence” of how it came to look as it does, or even to demystify the mechanism by which a message might be written “in a line of stones.” Rather, what leads us on is the desire to know how to relate to the water itself. The song describes not just a physical path, then, but one of the heart and will.

Indeed, the personal address of the song focuses our attention on the fact that the subtlety or obviousness of the signs along our way have much less to do with whether or not we heed them than does the basic dividedness of our hearts. As Zipf says, we alternate between “trying to reach” and “trying to leave” the One we love. Put another way, we do not reject how God has written his past activity into the layers and years of the earth, or spelled out his intentions for us in the future because they are not obvious, but for the same reason we reject any and all of His claims on us at one time or another: because we wish to be the ones who forge the path, write the story, and sing the song. Our pride—whether in our science or our righteousness—is what keeps us blind and deaf to His leading in our daily path. And yet, even—perhaps especially—in response to our pride, God makes a way for us to gain a better perspective, and leads us on towards Him through whatever means we need.

To return to the language of the song, there is a beautiful ambivalence to the word “stumble,” that contains reminders that following the Lord involves being ever surprised by His ways (we “stumble on” his truth as an unexpected discovery), and ever broken by our own ways (we “stumble on” our pride as an impediment to seeing and following). Yet in both cases, our stumbling leaves us in the same position: on our knees before the one who is both maker and guide. In the last few repeated lines of the piece Zipf affirms that we must and will continue to stumble on in this path of love, whether we come to each stumbling place through surprise and joy, or pride and brokenness. From that position of humility and worship we have the proper perspective to see and affirm that the God who creates is the God who speaks is the God who redeems—the Lord who meets us on our knees, lifts us up, and guides us into the steps of His righteousness.

“Stumble On the Line”

© 2009 by Andy Zipf

I walk a weathered canyon
you're the rapids, running through it
years and layers start to show
in the soil, there is a swelling, beating rhythm to it
earnest prayer I used to know

on the one side, I reach you
on the other, try to leave you
in between the faults of my youth
I stumble on the line to love you

came upon a message,
hidden in some shallow water,
written in a line of stones
telling me to go on down the canyon, follow after. . .
so I keep on. . .

on the one side, I reach you
on the other, try to leave you
in between the faults of my youth
I stumble on the line to love you

I walk a weathered canyon
you're the rapids, running through it
years and layers start to show
in the soil, there is a swelling, beating rhythm to it
earnest prayer I come to know

on the one side, I reach you
on the other, try to leave you
in between the faults of my youth
I stumble on the line to love you.

Though now based in Washington, DC, Andy Zipf began life in the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Iowa), but moved to Pennsylania and then New Jersey before his family settled in northern Virginia. He began his career as a professional singer and songwriter shortly after high school, and has performed over 400 times in the last four years—in living rooms, coffee houses, churches, concert halls, and bars. Though “Stumble on the Line” comes from Andy’s 2009 ep “Our Voice Is a Weapon,” his third full-length album and seventh studio release, “Jealous Hands,” became available in July, 2011. More details on Andy and downloads of his music may be found on his website.

Despite a common desire among Christians to find evidence for the activity of the creator God in the natural world, the Scriptures themselves more often give us images and analogies of God’s providence rather than “proof” that would be admissible in peer reviewed journals, much less in court. In his final climactic week in Jerusalem, Jesus used image after image, parable after parable to convey the urgency of his message that the Kingdom of God was coming to pass through his own coming Passion.

Though His disciples did not understand them at first, it was by new pictures (the lost coin, lost sheep and lost sons) and reinterpreted old ones (like the vineyard), that they came to understand the “facts” of His healing miracles and, ultimately, His death and resurrection. By reframing concrete happenings and material relationships, stories and images opened up possibilities rather than limiting them—and they still invite us to enter into them, rather than leaving us dispassionate and disconnected.

As we remember the narrative that takes us from Good Friday through Easter morning, the image of a buried grain of wheat invites us into the story rather than just describing what happens in it. Certainly this is an image for Christ Himself, but as I’ve written elsewhere, the seed isn’t just a symbol of His death and rebirth from the grave, but a promise of future abundance, lavish reproduction, and a pointer to the coming harvest: Jesus Himself is the “first fruits” of the new creation. We are called not only to be workers for that harvest, but to be, like Him, the harvested grains. As Christ entered into His glory through self-sacrifice, so we, too, give ourselves in order to share in and contribute to the shalom—the comprehensive flourishing—promised as the marker of God’s Kingdom now and in the future.

This combined image of death and renewal, single seed to field, is the heart of John Crumb’s hymn “Now the Green Blade Rises,” first published in 1928 in the Oxford Book of Carols and originally set to an old French Christmas carol (“Noel Nouvelet”). By clicking the image above you can hear a new version as revised and re-arranged by contemporary hymnist Alex Mejias. We offer it as a meditation on the sacrifice and victory of Jesus, the glorious promise of resurrection, and the call upon us all to join in God’s story of redemption and renewal.

“Now the Green Blade Riseth”

John MacLeod Campbell Crum (1872-1958),
© Oxford University Press
adapted and arranged by Alex Mejias

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain.
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

Alex Mejias is the founder and director of High Street Hymns, a non-profit music ministry that exists to spread the Gospel and worship the Triune God in spirit and truth through hymns, psalms and spiritual songs. Alex grew up in New Jersey and outside Washington, DC, receiving a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. For the past 15 years he has been leading worship for churches and ministries, writing and recording both new and old hymns, and touring the east coast as a singer-songwriter. Alex is also committed to the power of the creative arts to advance the Gospel and promote justice and healing in the name of Christ, serving, supporting, and collaborating with several other non-profit ministries. More details on these projects and music may be found at High Street Hymns.

Today's sermon is from Pastor Mark Swarner of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, CA. You can hear the full sermon here.

Of all the blessings to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, none of them surpasses the riches of the eternal blessings which the Lord has bestowed on his sons and daughters in Christ Jesus. Pastor Mark Swarner of Menlo Park Presbyterian emphasizes this point as he looks at Psalm 103: 1-4 (NIV):

“Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion…”

The benefits are “life-changing” and “soul transforming.” Unlike most where there are exclusions and various requirements, these are freely given through Christ, and no one is disqualified based on pre-existing conditions. In fact, God desires that people come to him in all their imperfections that he might renew and heal them.

The first benefit deals with the major problem of the human heart: sin. In the Psalm, King David, who knew what it meant to be forgiven for deeply wrongful acts, boldly speaks of the love which God has for his people such that God does not deal with us according to our past actions. Rather, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Regardless of a person’s past or future mistakes, God’s love is stronger still. We are, above all, forgiven people and with that "we enter his gates with Thanksgiving in our hearts.”

In his second point, Swarner examines the power of God available for healing. The verse is not claiming that one will never become sick, but it does indicate that God has the power to heal. The all-important assurance in this passage is that God will take our brokenness and weakness, and through him, ultimately, we will be whole. We are, above all, a people filled with hope, and with that "we enter his gates with Thanksgiving in our hearts and we come into his courts with praise.”

The third benefit the Psalmist declares is that the Lord “redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” There is a sense in which we all—like Joseph in Genesis 37—have experienced life’s pit of despair. We, like Joseph, emerge from the pit to a new life crowned with the confidence that we are loved, and with that we, ourselves, become agents of God’s love and channels for God’s compassion. We are, above all, a people redeemed by love, and with that "we enter his gates with Thanksgiving in our hearts and we come into his courts with praise.....This is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice for He has made us glad.¹”

1. See Psalm 100:4 and 118:24:

Listening to this recording of The Fretful Porcupine playing “The Water Is Wide” online is a very different experience than being in the room with the duo and other audience members for a live performance. Nevertheless, the diversity of readers of this post does recreate one particular aspect of being with Jake Armerding and Kevin Gosa presenting the music in person: in both settings, some hearers are familiar with this very traditional and well-known folk tune as just that, but many others’ first association with the melody will be the cross of Christ, as those hearers recognize the music as the Christian hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” At the live performance, that latter group may have wondered if this pair of avant-garde bluegrass/jazz players was surreptitiously proclaiming the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the midst of a show at the Infinity Hall performance space, or merely hearkening back only to an 18th-century tale of woe. The truth is most likely “both,” and in that very fact the Fretful Procupine gives both audiences a complicated gift—an example of the way that in music, as in all life, adaptive reuse is a way to wring the most meaning out of both the material and symbolic forms we discover in the world.

In the life sciences, the idea of adaptive re-use or biological re-purposing—of taking an existing form and making it do sometimes very different work—is often given the term “exaptation.” In less technical terms, scientists also sometimes speak of a feature being “co-opted” from one role in the life of the organism to another. But while in common parlance we tend to think of something being “co-opted” as a bad thing and a violation of original principles or intentions, the word itself does not imply a “hijacking” so much as a divergence with connection: co-operation between one use and another.

This intrinsic openness of both complex and seemingly-simple structures—not to mention whole organisms or ecosystems—sometimes makes for new, different, even transformational relationships that do seem to upend or contradict what came before, rather than merely taking a slightly different “co-operative” path. Thus “The Water Is Wide,” also known (and listed in hymnals) by the name “O Waly Waly,” is a song that its early hearers would recognize as a lament about the fickleness of love, the inconstancy of human relationships and promises, and the despair that comes of misplaced trust. But when paired with a different set of words, those of Isaac Watts’ hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” the meaning undergoes a profound and ironic change.

What’s interesting here is not just the idea that one can strip a symbolic, expressive musical form of its “original” meaning and impose an entirely new regime of meaning upon it, but the way such a change is often not a wholesale substitution but a transformation—the old meaning becoming part of the new meaning, even when that first is superficially left behind. This is particularly appropriate when thinking about the Water Is Wide/Wondrous Cross pairing, because the lamentation quality of the original tune reinforces in the newer symbolic environment the idea that what makes the cross of Jesus “wondrous” was precisely its horror—and that our very God would submit Himself to it for our sakes. That tension is one of the deep and terrible mysteries and ironies of the Christian faith.

But even more than just affirming that the cost of our redemption was high, remembering (or learning) the various texts that “O Waly, Waly” accompanied before Watt’s hymn was paired with it gives us a beautiful contrast between the character of human love and commitment (fickle, inconstant, self-serving) and the character of divine love (constant and self-sacrificial). In other words, the hymn setting preserves not only the musical structure of the song, but even part of the meaning of the first—lament and sorrow over love—but in a new context, with a new framework of meaning. The lament itself is transformed without being lost, and turned to mark the distinctively Christian tension between sacrifice and redemption through a greater love than that of mortal men and women.

Precisely because of this kind of expansion rather than replacement of meaning, our appreciation of this or other hymn tunes ought not decrease when we realize that they may have had secular or even profane origins (think of the drinking songs used by Charles Wesley), or be limited to merely rejoicing that such vulgar forms have been redeemed. Instead, we can celebrate and marvel at the way such beauty and new work has come directly out of something that seemed either unrelated or even in opposition to our life in Christ. This dynamic of renewal is, after all, exactly what we celebrate when we affirm that God’s grace is extended to us, and our own covenantal responsibility fulfilled by God himself, through the horror of the cross of Jesus.

By analogy, then, this instance of expressive “exaptation” in the art of worship has something to tell us about how we might think about the science of biological and even human origins—of how the scientific accounts of the history and relatedness of life on earth express the character of God. Most generally, we should see that it need not degrade or debase the biological world (much less humanity) as God’s creation to proclaim that we were made from lesser materials and that we share so much of our physical make-up and history with creatures in whom we may not see much to celebrate. It is, after all, the very power of God to remake what is base into what is glorious through often surprising and unexpected means.

Even more specifically, this reminder of the way new meaning emerges in old forms may help Christians think about what genetic research and developmental biology is suggesting about the way everything from proteins to cellular structures to body parts (from bacterial flagella to feathers) may be put to very different, novel and unexpected uses in different (or just changing) biological and ecological contexts. The more scientists in various fields of specialization look closely at the way life grows expands and connects, the more they see that adaptability—creativity—is the rule rather than the exception, and that biological or environmental challenges are often answered by surprising and unexpected re-purposings of previously-extant, often apparently “unrelated” capabilities.

A more detailed discussion and important examples of this exaptive principle in evolutionary biology may be found elsewhere on this site, but the key issue for our worshipping life together as the Church is that we recall the thrust of Watt’s hymn—that God wrought something more wonderful than the disciples (or we) could have imagined from the most unlikely and disturbingly-familiar means: the cross. Listening to “The Water is Wide” with ears to hear both the lament for lost human love and the affirmation that divine love has, indeed, found us, may we be reminded that at nearly every scale of life, and at every point on the material scale from chemical compounds to poetic symbol, creation points to the Creator who says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing,” and to the Redeemer who so often told His hearers, “You have heard it said. . . but I tell you. . .” while calling them to a radically new way of being the People of God. May all our songs of lament be put to similar new uses under the guidance of the Spirit and in fellowship with all the saints.

In their own words, The Fretful Porcupine "brews finely-crafted roots chamber music made of saxophones, wires, and wood." The duo incorporates a list of styles and idioms in creating its own, from jazz to pop to bluegrass to classical. Since their first official performance at the 2009 World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, they’ve performed regularly throughout the U.S. at festivals, clubs, colleges, performing arts centers, cellars and rooftops. Currently, the group is focusing much of its energy on developing a new paradigm for live performance that recognizes the need for physicality and human interaction in music. They are performing and lecturing on the subject "Embodying Music" at colleges and conferences throughout 2011/2012.

The ensemble's saxophonist, Kevin Gosa, is an emerging thought-leader on arts and culture. His writing has appeared in Comment, Chamber Music, and The Curator. He has masterminded four conferences for International Arts Movement. Violinist/mandolinist/guitarist, Jake Armerding, has been performing as a bluegrass fiddler and folk songwriter for over 20 years. He was acclaimed by the Boston Globe as “the most gifted songwriter to emerge from the Boston folk scene in years.” You can follow the Fretful Porcupine on Twitter, and like them on Facebook.

Early this year I introduced BioLogos Forum readers to the choral music of composer and performer Toby Twining as an example of how, in both art and science, one of our fundamental responses to the created order is representation: taking what we find in the world and re-presenting it, adding our own associative, creative powers to see and make something new, even if what’s “new” is a more careful and true picture of what we thought we already “knew.” In that first case my focus was on the way Twining’s highly interpersonal music reflects and reforms complex material relationships by representing beach and ocean waves via the human voice. This week, I’d like to call attention to a second piece from that same album that serves as a reminder that another primary response to the given world is and ought to be one of joy.

Like “Playing in the Waves,” “Yes! Yes! Yes!” was written as the accompanying music for Sarah Ruhls' Eurydice as produced by Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater in May 2008, and the complex sounds in the piece are created by only five human voices over a foundation of a single cello—the entirety of the Toby Twining Music ensemble. Within the play, the song acts as wedding music for Orpheus and Eurydice as they confess their love and pledge their lives to each other, but the exuberance and joy of the singing here speaks of a more essential and thoroughgoing love than just that between characters in a stage drama. Partly, this is evidence of the kind of intimacy and care for each other (as well as the music) required of musicians singing such work. But it is also a reflection of Twining’s own sense of God’s goodness and affirmation of His creation, and of the creation’s response of worship.

Again in this piece there are echoes of the waves that play on and just off the shore where the scene takes place, and the mixed hums and tones and syllables that alternate with percussive and overtone singing give an impression of a playful rapture that is either pre- or post-verbal—of human joy intermingled and sharing the stage with joyful expressions of the earth itself. It is as if the waves join Orpheus and Eurydice in their song of betrothal, while they, in turn, borrow freely from the language of love and praise that the creation is always already singing to its Maker, even in the midst of death, decay and delay of its ultimate consummation.

Though a few will complain that any attribution of such feelings as joy to the material world or to the creatures with whom we share it is misplaced, and some will even complain that our sense of confidence in and hope for a physical and spiritual redemption of the world is misguided, precisely these beliefs are the basis for the distinctive role Christians can play within the sciences, in addition to that of being champions for the dignity of all human beings as being made in the image of God. We rightly recognize and lament the pain and hurt and seeming futility of much of the way the world works, but we can nevertheless also see the creation as a pointer to God’s glory, and seek its shalom even as we seek the shalom of the entire human community. That is, the practice of science can be seen not merely as being about instrumental control or efficiency, or even the pursuit of a “pure” knowledge, but about seeking to recognize and promote the way God has ordained the world to be good and fruitful, our own role as cultivators within it.

To return to the relationship and words that define Twining’s composition, then, this vision of the why and how Christians ought to be engaged in contemporary scientific work reminds us that the Church is the Bride of the coming Christ, called—but also joyfully desiring—to prepare ourselves and our household for the coming of the Groom. We eagerly await the day of His return, when we will join with all of creation in a complicated, intricate, and resounding chorus of “Yes!”

Raised in Texas, with family roots in country-swing and gospel, Toby Twining has traveled musically from playing for rock and jazz bands to composing and performing experimental music for voices. In 1987 he began working in New York, initially writing his new choral music for modern dance choreographers; since 1991 his ensemble Toby Twining Music has performed in music halls and festivals across the United States and Europe. His recordings include Shaman (SONY, 1994), The Little Match Girl and Emily Dickinson’s Birthday Pizza on A Prairie Home Companion 20th Anniversary Album (Highbridge, 1996), Chrysalid Requiem and Eurydice (Cantaloupe Music 2002 and 2011). Twining’s instrumental music has been recorded by pianist Margaret Leng Tan and cellist Matt Haimovitz. He was a 2003 Pew Fellow, co-founder of Arts on the Edge Wolfeboro, and serves as Minister of Music at Community Congregational Church in Short Hills, NJ. Twining is also a 2011 Guggenheim recipient. Samples of the ensemble’s other work may be found here.

The musicians on the recording are: Eric Brenner, soprano; Liz Filios, alto; Steve Bradshaw, tenor; Toby Twining and Mark Johnson, bass, and Flora Shapiro, violincello.

Conversations about the relationship between science and faith in the Christian context will nearly always include some reference to the idea of the natural world and the Bible being the “two books” through which God has made himself known. Another way of making the same distinction is to say that each represents a different kind of revelation: general, whereby God shows Himself as creator, and special, wherein He shows Himself to be redeemer.

Referring to Paul’s statement that “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20), cultural historian Ken Meyers observes that “theologians, including Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, have argued that God’s eternity, power, wisdom, righteousness, goodness, truth, justice, and judgment are displayed in the universe. But not his grace. For that, we must rely on his special revelation in redemptive history, in Christ, and in the apostles and prophets.”

What then is the relation between the two books, the two kinds of revelation? Are they really as “separate” as the image of two books sitting beside each other on the same shelf suggests? Can we read one, but not both, and still have the picture of God and ourselves that He wants us to have? Usually such questions are approached through philosophy and theology—the more rational and analytical modes of our human thinking. But I wonder if the answer might lie not in our study of God but in our praise of Him. For in praise, we take up our own dual natures— both as part of what has been created and as heirs to the divine process of creating.

When we make the very air vibrate with the sounds of our voices and instruments, we ever so gently counter claims that the two revelations are set apart from each other, that one must supersede the other. Following Jesus, we take on the priestly role of singing the love of the Father to the creation and singing the love of the creation back to the Father. Perhaps these are not two books after all, but two hands working in concert, an accompaniment as we give voice to the unity of God’s revelation of Himself.

This is the image of praise that emerges in Alex Mejias’ new setting of 19th-century Scottish preacher and hymnist Horatius Bonar’s text, “O love of God, how strong and true!” Bonar’s words shift from an initial statement of the opacity of God’s essential character through a series of statements about how we can, nevertheless, “read” of Him in His works, both natural and historical. In effect, Bonar gives a narrative line that moves from general revelation to special revelation. But in writing a new refrain that alternates with the original verses, Mejias reminds us that God continues to reveal Himself in the natural world, most explicitly in us, who he has enabled to share in his character and fellowship and love, though we are yet part of the creation.

In structure as well as words, then, Mejias’ hymn reminds us that God’s two kinds of revelation—the two books—may both be “read,” but their meanings emerge most fully when we engage with, respond to, and share them as a unified whole. Indeed, he ends the piece not with a reprise of the refrain, but with Bonar’s own statement of how we are assured that the presumed distance between heaven and earth was collapsed in the resurrection of Jesus. The hope and prayer that all creation will “find a voice” begins to be realized in the act of raising our own voices in thanksgiving and praise for that act of unification, one that compels us on behalf of all of creation to “speak His mercy and rejoice.”

“O love of God, how strong and true!”

by Horatius Bonar/Alex Mejias

O love of God, how strong and true!
Eternal, and yet ever new;
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.

O wide embracing, wondrous love!
We read thee in the sky above,
We read thee in the earth below,
In seas that swell, and streams that flow.

Refrain:
Let all creation praise His name
The wonders of His love proclaim
Let all creation find a voice
To speak His mercy and rejoice

We read thee best in Him who came
To bear for us the cross of shame;
Sent by the Father from on high,
Our life to live, our death to die.

Refrain: (x2)
Let all creation praise His name
The wonders of His love proclaim
Let all creation find a voice
To speak His mercy and rejoice

We read thy power to bless and save,
E’en in the darkness of the grave;
Still more in resurrection light,
We read the fullness of thy might.

Alex Mejias is the founder and director of High Street Hymns, a non-profit music ministry that exists to spread the Gospel and worship the Triune God in spirit and truth through hymns, psalms and spiritual songs. Alex grew up in New Jersey and outside Washington, DC, receiving a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. For the past 15 years he has been leading worship for churches and ministries, writing and recording both new and old hymns, and touring the east coast as a singer-songwriter. Alex is also committed to the power of the creative arts to advance the Gospel and promote justice and healing in the name of Christ, serving, supporting, and collaborating with several other non-profit ministries. More details on these projects and music may be found at High Street Hymns.

What is the character of our creative interaction with the world—not only the material world alone, but also the spiritual one? What do we literally make of the gift we of all creatures have—to see the intricacies of the cosmos and to recognize that they point not just to a god or designer, but to the Lord who invites us into intimate relationship with Him and each other?

Whether in science or in art, our fundamental response seems to be that of representation. Literally, it is to take what we find in the world and re-present it, adding our own associative, creative powers to see and make something new, even if what’s “new” is a more careful and true picture of what we thought we already “knew.” When we create in response to the world and our place in it, we necessarily display the depth of what was already there. Thus, both art and science are part and parcel of reflecting the imago dei, for creative representations direct glory to the God who made first, and show how that relational, recombinant power is gifted to humanity by His will, to bind us to each other and to Him.

There is no better example of the way representation directs us to truth that is both material and relational than composer, vocalist, and music minister Toby Twining’s “Prelude—Playing in the Waves.” Written as part of the accompaniment to the Wilma Theater's production of Sarah Ruhls' Eurydice in Philadelphia, May 2008, “Playing in the Waves” introduced the first scene of young Orpheus and Eurydice together. The piece begins by vocally re-creating the regular pattern of waves crashing on the beach, capturing the joy of the world as experienced by the two youths in love. It is a marvelously compelling rendering, especially given that it is created by five human voices over a foundation of a single cello—the entirety of the Toby Twining Music ensemble.

It’s also important to notice that even this first joyful and seemingly “regular” rhythmic section is built upon complexity: the singers take turns beat by beat to create the melody in a medieval technique called “hocketing”; the strange buzzing, spring-like or whistling sound is produced as a second overtone note by the singers (similar to Mongolian or Tuvan “throat singing”); and the harmonies are sometimes microtonal, or between notes, rather than being restricted to the standard whole and half-step intervals alone. As the piece moves on, each part sings in different rhythms as well as tonal registers, with patterns of four playing against patterns of thirteen to extend and defer our expectations of resolution.

As the “beach waves” sections get interspersed with sections of “ocean waves” (a bit of musical foreshadowing of the complicated events that follow in the story), it is yet another intimation of the way complexity is often masked by apparent simplicity on account of our limited perspectives. The regular splash and run of beach waves occurs when they are forced to "resolve" themselves on the sand, and in seeing that relatively coarse but immediately apprehensible interaction we forget that even just a few yards off-shore the waves are moving in and out and across and through each other, being turned and changed by the shore and other objects in their paths, all these interfering interactions causing an almost infinitely complicated topography of peaks and valleys, edges and curves. Even the “simple” pattern of beach waves carries the imprint of this deeper, beautiful mystery.

In this perceptive representation of natural phenomena, Twining and his friends have given us a reminder of the partialness of our perception—something always helpful in the conversation about faith and science. But as the physical system of water waves is being re-presented, it is also being remade into waves of a different sort in the air, of sound waves created, molded, shaped and shared between the singers in the room in which it was recorded, and with each of us in the spaces in which we listen to it now.

Just as the music originally evoked the complications of human lives in the play, the complex interactions of waves may still represent our own interconnections and interactions: the way even fleeting moments of “interference” may be either constructive or destructive, of building up or tearing down individuals and communities. It is the literal embodiment of the patterns of tension and resolution in human relationships, not just music, for the players breath together and make the air between them—and now between them and us—shimmer and dance according to the level of their attention to and care for one another.

Singing music like this is not easy, nor is anything that requires individuals to be in such intimate relationships of responsive give and take. But in the midst of the syncopated rhythms and sometimes-difficult harmonies, of the implicit meditation on complexity and tension, there is an ever-present sense of play and of joy. Twining is convinced that the role of discovery and representation of we have been given by the Creator is, indeed, a gift whose aim is resolution and reconciliation. He says,

“Our call as artists has boiled down to the imperative to make art that comes out of life and bursts with the energy, mystery, and love of creation. That seems to me what God has done and what our best art making does as well.”

If we can awaken the church to that wonder and mystery, perhaps there will be more love and energy left to turn towards loving our neighbors and enemies. If we can also embrace the belief that science is the sister of art, with the same call to true and beautiful representation of what the Lord has given us in His creation and in each other, then perhaps it and we who argue about its relationship with the Christian faith will also be able to better serve each other and the Lord who is the Maker of all.

New York-based composer and recording artist Toby Twining has received critical acclaim for music that brings together a new choral sound with hi-resolution/microtonal harmonies and innovative instrumental techniques. His ensemble, Toby Twining Music, has recorded three CDs: Shaman (BMG Classics, 1993), Chrysalid Requiem (Cantaloupe Music, 2002), and Eurydice (Cantaloupe Music, available February 25, 2011). The ensemble accompanied Garrison Keillor in the award-winning Little Match Girl on A Prairie Home Companion's 20th Anniversary Album (Highbridge, 1994) and Twining's instrumental works have been recorded by pianist Margaret Leng Tan and cellist Matt Haimovitz. Former Artistic Director of the Arts on the Edge festival of faith and arts in Hew Hampshire, Twining is now Interim Minister of Music at Community Congregational Church in Short Hills, NJ. Samples of the ensemble’s other work may be found here.

Just as the Lord gave Adam the task of naming the animals in the Garden, naming remains a central part of the scientific exploration of the world, for we designate relatedness in the tree of life by giving creatures names, even as we try to understand and classify them according to their morphological or genetic character. But what does it mean to be “called by name”? The phrase speaks of our biological identity, but also of intimacy—of being known for who we are as individuals (our given names) and for who we are as part of a community (our family names). Names are not something that we merely possess, then, but something we live: to be called by our name is to be invited into a relationship.

This relational aspect is all the more true when we accept the name of another as our own, or when another’s name is bestowed upon us. Marriage and adoption are the examples of this “identification with another” that spring to mind in our contemporary context, and, indeed, the Scriptures use both of these to speak of the way we are invited by the Lord to Himself. In both cases, it means that we take on the identity of another who is different from us—to know them by being part of them. Naming does not just recognize the current state of affairs, but brings into the world a new state of being. As poets know, naming is a kind of creation, and by being named as God’s own, we begin to bear His likeness.

In this season of Advent, though, we prepare to celebrate not so much how we are called by God’s name, but how He chose to be called by ours—how in addition to the powerful names by which Israel had known their God through the ages, we would now use humble ones, too: child, lamb. Those are the names William Blake used in his poem The Lamb, to set before us the intimate kinship Jesus wrought by taking our names and giving us His, in terms that also connect us with the rest of the natural world He created and which we have been called to cultivate. In addition to reading the original words below, listen as contemporary British composer John Tavener (here through the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge) gives voice to those names, to those likenesses which we are blessed to share.

The Lamb (1793)

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee! 

Little Lamb, God bless thee!