RECORD COMING SOON

God Is The Dream - Ordinary Neighbors from Joshua Banner on Vimeo.

New Song 1 Peter 6:6-8

Sus and I wrote a little piece based on 1 Peter 5:6-8 for the Verses Project that Joel Limpic and others have put together. The challenge was to write a song without any changes in the original bible passage. We fudged in one little place. Even though the arrangement and mix was done really quickly, this song can give you a glimpse into the sound of The Necessary Dark even though it isn't necessarily worship or devotional in nature.

CHECK IT OUT HERE

A Dose of Techno-Pessimism: The Problem(s) With the Smartphones

It's up online here.

I'm glad to get some of these thoughts down. I'm really interested in those who disagree with me and might be optimistic about these things. Please, please continue the conversation in the comments below or email me.

Kickstarter Soon For The Necessary Dark

It is six years this summer that we've been in Michigan and six years total that we began work in earnest working on a full length recording. I'll be putting up a kickstarter page soon, so you can help us get the funds together for mastering, artwork and manufacturing. It'll include links to early digital downloads and most likely options for CDs and vinyl along with other things like copies of one or both of Susanna's books, a signed broadside of the title track (originally one of Susanna's poems), a house concert and things like that.

Please check back soon or email me your contact info so I can keep you updated. 

Some factoids/reflections regarding the record:

Record Title: The Necessary Dark

Artwork is being done by Chris Cox

Most of the songs were started on analog tape, my 8 track 1/2 inch Otari 5050. I then transferred all that to the computer. Most of the mixing was done at home. Final mixes have been tweaked at the school studio.

Many great thanks are due to John K. Erskine, my hero.

I apart from Susanna though, I owe many, many more thanks to Dustin Ragland. He plays all the drums, some synths and synth bass lines. He also contributed some sequencing.

The shape of most of these song was established during that week of recording at my house in Oklahoma before we left. We were packing boxes and leaving the drums and mics up all over the place. It was a mess. I think working on those tracks was a way for me to cope with the pain of leaving. Justin Rice, Dustin, Susanna and Judson Thompkins all contributed various arrangement ideas. 

As soon as the basic tracks were in place, I had Brian Bergman add some synth from his Roland poly and a bit from Reason.

The record substantially took on a whole new life with these basic tracks and with Dustin's drum parts. I didn't know what these songs were becoming. It's taken me these years since to come to terms with what each song is wanting to become. It's not like I've been working on it each week for six years. It's been little bursts every few months for a few days or a week.

After our first year here, I flew Dustin and DM Stith (Asthmatic Kitty) to our new home. David arrived a day or so early and Dustin stayed a day later. We had drums in the dining room. The main control was setup in the basement. David had a little rig setup in his room upstairs. Dustin had his MPC and other gear in the breakfast nook. Susanna might be working on vocal craziness with David in the basement while I was in the nook with Dustin working on sequencing. I was so glad that David later asked Dustin to add some drums to a few songs for his (then) forthcoming record, Heavy Ghost. The song that made the cut is "Creekmouth." Check it! 

Once again, after that week in Michigan, I was left with an even larger sense that the songs had taken on a new life of their own.

Most of what Dustin added remains on the record. I usually would 'screw' his sounds up by adding distortion or filters or slowing the drums down.

Much of the time spent bringing the songs together is due to my insecurities of my mixing abilities but even more to do with the enormity of the sounds and layers of sounds.

Justin Rice played added some guitars on a visit back to OKC. Dustin also added some more synths and scant drum parts. Then Justin added more guitars and a little bass when he and Dustin were visiting back here in Michigan last winter.

Judson has a little vocal part on "It's the First Thing." I needed him somewhere.

A few students have added bits: Larry Figueroa (he probably doesn't remember...he was just messing around and I kept it) and Michael Reynolds (vibraphone and a small Rhodes part).

Surprisingly, I played most of the synth and rhodes parts on the record, but I couldn't remember how to play each one if I tried. But I could learn them since they're so simple.

The first song Susanna and I ever wrote together was "Here We Go." We wrote it over the phone. I was in OKC. She was still in Tallahassee.  We weren't married yet. I would strap the cordless phone to my head/ear with a scarf so I could play the guitar. I used a second phone as a mic in front of the guitar so she could hear.

I wrote the lyrics for four of the songs. 3-4 other songs are originals written together. The rest are adaptations of Susanna's poetry and one short story. 

I write the music but she is usually near or within reach to give me direction/encouragement. She can tell me quickly if something isn't working. There are lots of ideas between the two of us. Making music with her is a gift.

We can get into a fight while writing or while recording. You will probably hear/feel that tension in some songs. Even though the mixes have been worked over, I tried to avoid much editing. I often rely on 'scratch' takes especially for vocals. Those alway seem more real and immediate. With all the parts, I tried to keep a real performance in the core of the song.

Yes, I believe I'm in great debt to Boards of Canada. I don't think most people (even those familiar with BOC) would immediate suspect that, but I owe those two much...not just for the songs, but for a way to experience the world. I mention this mostly because I hope you'll go listen to them soon. 

I also owe much to DM Stith. His early, unreleased home recordings, The Ichabod & The Apple, has also had a great affect on me. He had borrowed a little interface from Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) because she didn't know how to work it yet and he had the time and a computer to hook it up to. He'd never fully completed a song before and was working on other projects...a novel and a children's book I believe. In less than two weeks he'd written and recorded something that is much better and haunting than what I've been working on for six years. I hope The Necessary Dark somehow does honor to that precious record and I hope somehow David will release it.

I initially conceived of the Ordinary Neighbors as a way to invite a long list of friends to contribute but I've not had the confidence to add many more 'voices.' The contributors already have left such enormous parts that it's been enough pleasure/work to not add any more people.

DM Stith recently added some of his signature vocal, choir-like textures and bass to "Ontario" [working title]. The fact that he would take time so late in the process means many good things to us. 

I'm elated and also sad to be finishing this big project. My main goal was to put together a record that I will want to listen to. And I will want to listen to this record especially after it is mastered, but I won't be able to listen to it in the same way once its finished. 

We won fourth place in Calvin College's FFM, band spotting contest. That little bit of love helped me want to finish this record. We'd hoped to have it done before June 15, 2012, Shepherd's due date. He came five weeks early, so that plan didn't work out. I'm now building a fence to keep Casper, our two year old, in. I also have work to do for the college, and I'm the head of the board for an urban farm. I really will get this finished. I will. I'm too excited not to.

I'm thinking about ending this blog once the record is out so that it isn't confused with the music.

This is a photo from http://www.thecameracoact.com (friends of Chris Cox) that inspired me to go with The Necessary Dark as a title. It will not be the cover though.

Thinking About Metallica in Church and Other Things

I wrote a response to a piece in Perspective's Journal that was published a few issues ago. My essay, "The Liturgical Question of Metallica: A Response to Jason Lief's "Leave Metallica Alone!" is in this month's issue.

Tonight I'm going to hopefully finish my techno-pessimist essay on the smartphone that will be in next month's issue of The Cresset. I'll link to that when it's available.

It is nice to have some places to publish bits and pieces here and there especially after being at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing last weekend. It was great to see old professors and friends and to meet new friends. The festival was a huge gift for Susanna. She was involved in four different sessions, sold a bunch of books and moved lots of people with her workshops and readings. She inspired me. We are exhausted still from the event. Casper is getting over a cold, but Sus and I are both still feeling the goodness of a great weekend.

Also, Susanna has won another award! Her newest book, Entering the House of Awe was selected to with The Society of Midland Authors prize in poetry. If we can make it work out, she'll receive her award at a reception in Chicago on May 8. The challenge here is to see what a pregnant woman can't do.

While time at Calvin was excellent, stumbling upon William Baskinki and his disintegration loops yesterday is probably the best discovery I've made in a long while. Enjoy this please:

Eighth Day Farm's New Urban Location & Thanks

One of my glad joys is the privilege to serve on the board of directors for Eighth Day Farm. Last year the farm moved into a plot of land that used to be a preschool. That just over half an acre produced more food than the 3 acres of remote, rural land we farm. Based on that success, a developer of the Holland Town Center, a dying outlet strip mall, has worked together with us to expand into another urban location. After a great morning meeting with the board, I was inspired to finally drive out to the location and see the roughly 1.5 acres of parking lot that has been removed and the 'new' dirt that is being laid in.

It is mind blowing to imagine what this this land will look like in four to six months.

This place:

Will look like this place:

So yesterday morning I hosted the Eighth Day board for breakfast at the house. Jeff, good friend and our farmer, brought a large dish of steel cut oats with apples and walnuts. I threw together some quiches and made a pot of coffee. Susanna graciously set the table. If our aim is to help our community to redeem food from the ground to the table, I assumed it'd be good for the board to share more time around a table too.

I'd asked everyone to come prepared to share for 3-5 minutes about what is inspiring each of them respectively to give their time, energy and even financial resources to the farm. Each board member had differing stories, different details, different explanations, but each exuded a tangible sense of enthusiasm about what we are doing together. We watched a fantastic new video that has been produced to help get the word out (which I'll be posting here soon hopefully). It was an exciting morning, a morning to believe in spring, and new life, sunshine and plants.

Being involved in community development, organic food and just good old-fashioned neighborliness...this farm, these people...it all keeps me, the busy busy worship leader, somewhat sane, grounded (figuratively and literally), placed, and thankful.

I just came from brunch with renowned painter, Makoto Fujimura and a dozen or so Hope College students. Mako is presenting tomorrow in our chapel and doing a late afternoon lecture on what he calls "visual theology." The students asked questions that filled up almost two hours of discussion. At the end of our time together, looking around the table, Mako quoted Dana Gioia, former chairman of the NEA who often said in Mako's presence to any given group of people he was working with, there is enough creativity and energy in this room to change the world.

Driving home just now, I thought about how this describes much of my daily and weekly encounters with students, the ministry staff I serve with, the people I pray with, my good friends who are just now starting The School For Contemplatives in Action, and especially the board of directors who met here in my home yesterday. Thoughts like this along with the intoxicating weather outside, my baby boy sleeping upstairs (finally), and my pregnant professor-wife sitting over at the dining table grading papers make me a rich, happy man.


You have put gladness in my heart
   more than when their grain and wine abound. 
Psalm 4:7

Mysticism vis a vis Theology

Recently I posted a series of relatively benign political statements on facebook. I guess all the heat of the Michigan primary boiled something in me. I felt like I was going to pop, so I tried to offer a smattering of 10 political thoughts that could hopefully be so wide ranging that they would either stir up some conversation (perhaps something like, "Josh, what do you mean by ________") or so wide ranging that it wouldn't be easy for someone to just pin me down to one club or team or box or caricature.

Attempting a political statement that way in our day and age of internet and twitter vitriol seemed instinctual and not premeditated. Upon reflection I've realized that the wide range of political thoughts is a kind of dialectical polemic. This is the way I've learned to take my theology, so it's no surprise that my politics are eking their less than formed nature in a similar way.

A dialectic is a statement of point and counter point in a manner of a 'both/and' summation rather than an 'either/or' where two counter points either cancel one or the other or both points altogether. It is a way of looking at two sides of a coin rather than the yin and yang, yet it does lean toward more of an Eastern way of thinking rather than a Western set of rational categories. Christianity, after all, began in a Hebraic tradition before it was spread throughout Europe.

Right there we might begin to identify a dialectic: East vis a vis West. The way I identify Christianity as originally of the East might lead one to read me as saying, "East good. West bad." This would be the same confusion and error that is made when we pit faith against reason or religion against science or the imagination versus reason for that matter (Romanticism against the Rationalism).

It seems just as overly simplistic to pit Mysticism against Theology or contemplative prayer against doctrinal formation. I'm sad there continues to be so much baggage with what people call "religion." It is popular to say, I am spiritual but I'm not religious. Yet this is by definition misguided. Anthropologically speaking a human being is essentialy made up of cult and culture. 'Cult' is the ordering of our spiritual being. 'Culture' is the ordering of our physical being. Even atheism is cultic in its negative view. Hermits, likewise, are just as involved in a kind of culture as the most cosmopolitan. They just chose to order their earthly existence in solitude. So the most mystical of persons are also doing a kind of theology, it just may not be as defined as other theologically minded people would like.

I will say, however, that theologians of any era have always been in desperate need of prayer just like the rest of us. Orthodoxy, the pursuit of straight, true doctrine is also the pursuit of straight and true worship. Ortho, as in orthodontist or straight teeth, plus doxa, as in glory or worship. Theology and doxology must be married. 

I am currently on a journey that is leading me into a joyful discovery of what might be characterized as the mystery of God's presence as revealed through vigil and prayer. My life is being transformed. I admit on one hand, that my theological formation does at times act like a kind of doctrinal radar scanning for half truths and mistruths. Richard Rohr, for example, is a resource I've just barely begun to explore. So far he has been very helpful. In the video below I completely sympathize with his sentiment that all seminaries might better be transformed into places that teach pastors to pray. This new season includes a bit of grieving. Little of my training has taught me how to come to the well and drink. Further, the work culture of vocational ministry itself contains little guarantee that a pastor will have access to time and rhythms for prayer and meditation unless he or she goes to great lengths to create that time. So the likes of Richard Rohr or Parker Palmer or Thomas Merton are a healing balm.

However, appreciating the kind of stream of Christian spirituality that Richard Rohr champions does not necessitate the abandonment of doctrine. An author and teacher like Rohr seems to fall into the prophetic tradition that rails against empty tradition in search of the true, "you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me." Such mystical portions of the church do avoid an overemphasis on naming God, "the one before whom our words recoil." Yet it is interesting that the Roman Catholic church has always sustained within its fellowship some of the breadth between the Franciscan and the Jesuit, between the contemplative and the scholastic. Can such mystical teaching lead to confusion and even heresy? Sure. You can find many examples of mystical transgressions throughout the history of the church.

Yet, there is also such a danger in merely toting the doctrinal line as it were. Theological correctness can lend itself to stagnant, institutionalized, the-form-of-without-the-substance-of religiosity. I did a little search last night of "richard rohr" and "heresy" and found stuff like this "appraising ministries" site. I don't have much of an appetite for watchdog 'ministries.' After all it is the King of England that carries the title of "defender of the faith." I don't want it. Yes we are admonished to test spirits and to not be led astray (1 John 4, Ephesians 4 etc.), yet I am leery of giving too much attention to people and ministries who feel their primary calling is to sniff out and root out false teaching. In my experience these people are more interested in their own power and their control. They lead us toward fear and panic when the grace of God in truth leads us to peace and charity, patience and surrender and trust.

While my theological training can function as a kind of radar, the greater benefit of it is how it has led me to this place of prayer and how it guides me in it. My two knowings of God are becoming one. They work together instead of against each other. The Trinitarian godhead is the One in whom my heart is found. Further, I don't know if my faith would still be intact if it weren't for the clarity of my doctrinal formation. Who knows how the Spirit works? I have watched friends lose their faith, distance themselves from the Church, stray into dark clouds of confusion and suffer tremendously. These words have been an anchor and a harbor:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
    the Maker of heaven and earth,
    and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
    born of the virgin Mary,
    suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,
    and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
    from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
    the holy catholic church;
    the communion of saints;
    the forgiveness of sins;
    the resurrection of the body;
    and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Watch Richard Rohr on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.