Roughly 25 Hours Old

Sorry everybody! I didn't know facebook would be proprietary. I'm working on a link to YouTube right now. It's not working yet...but check back soon if this doesn't work for you.

Casper Augustine Banner

This is what Susanna emailed everybody:



Dears,

Josh and I are exceptionally pleased to send word of the birth of our son, Casper Augustine Banner, born into water on Saturday, May 22 at 1.03p, weighing 6.3 lbs and measuring 19.5" long.

We'll send pictures soon.

Our sweet one is healthy and doing well, as am I. Thanks be to the Giver....

All good things,
Susanna + Josh + Casper*


*Casper: Dutch form of Persian Jasper, purportedly one of the three Magi and meaning "Master of the Treasure"; Augustine: 5th C. North African theologian and philosopher, derived from the Latin root augere, "to increase." Most certainly: OUR TREASURE HAS INCREASED! (Also, a little family trivia: Casper Augustine Banner is the great grandson of Clifford Ashton Banner and the great great grandson of Charles Augustus Banner....)

Baby-Making, Peace-Making, Patience & The Creative Process

Yesterday was the due date for the baby. For some nine months we've been waiting for that day to come and now it's gone and this morning it is raining outside and we can't take our  hour-long walk to help coax the baby further down into Susanna's hips. I've been joking about this darn nine month arrangement that God designed. Some actually argue that it ends up being closer to ten months, but I'll leave those details for Susanna and the midwives to discuss. My point is this: six months is hard; nine months is excruciating.

I'm starting to work on my final comprehensive paper for my Regent degree. I've been hacking away at this coursework for over seven years and now it is all coming down to one single 40-page paper. Of course I'm glad to finally earn my Masters, but I'm also sad. This is not something that I've waited eagerly to finish and be done with. I love being a student. I need the accountability of a syllabus, a classroom and an instructor to push my learning further than it could go by itself. I love the process of learning.

It has been three weeks since our final Sunday evening service. I've had some bits of work to do for Hope College, but for the most part, I've had access to large amounts of time. Yet, I haven't begun any work on the Ordinary Neighbors record. I know this is the final "push." I could be done with it in just a few weeks--done with this project that I've obsessed over for four years. Part of me is scared to be done, to let go of control, to call it finished. It's a typical struggle of an artist, to decide when the work is finished, to know it is ready for "publication." Another part of me is sad to be done with this particular creative process. I love fiddling around in the studio. I love fiddling around with these songs.

I've been reading through a couple books to get my mind and heart back into the flow as I prepare to write this final paper. Makoto Fujimura's Refractions: a Journey of Faith, Art and Culture is really nice in this regard. His first section has been lingering inside of me the past few days. He works off of some thoughts from Tolstoy on art:

"The task of art is enormous. Through the influence of real art, aided by science, guided by religion, that peaceful co-operation of man which is now maintained by external means--by our law-courts, police, charitable institutions, factory inspection, and so forth,--should be obtained by man's free and joyous activity. Art should cause violence to be set aside."

There is much to think about here about the relationship between art and peace. I want to dive into Nicholas Wolterstorff's work on justice. I heard him speak a few years ago about justice and art. I'd like to go further with Derrida on these things too. There could be a lifetime of reflection on these things. I like where Makoto starts his thoughts on this topic:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God" Matthew 5:9

He explains that one way to translate "peacemakers," eirenepois, is "peace poets." Makoto comments:

"We need to seek ways to be not just 'peacekeepers' but to be engaged 'peacemakers.' In such a definition, peace (or the Hebrew word shalom) is not simply an absence of war but a thriving of our lives, where God uses our creativity as a vehicle to create the world that ought to be. Art, and any creative expression of humanity, mediates in times of conflict and is often inexplicably tied to wars and conflicts."

Why do people resort to violence in the first place? Perhaps it is because they are impatient with the other means that are at hand. Love requires more patience than violence. Peacemaking requires more grace than violence-making. It has occurred to me that my impatience with the baby coming is in its small way a kind of violence, a violence that brings anxiety, stress and even strife into my home and my psyche. It is easier to be short with Susanna and myself, with the dogs...with the weather. Patience and peacemaking are partners. When choosing peace and patience, we chose to trust something that is greater than our own powers and resources. If God is my greatest means, then prayer becomes my main priority.

Here is a broad speculation: I doubt that families prior to the industrial revolution struggled to be patient during nine months gestation of a baby. They were closer to the patterns of nature and didn't know any different. Today we are so cut off from the natural order of creation. Our machinery has made us an impatient society because it convinces us that we have so much control. My joke in the past month has been this, "Come on, God. Don't you know I'm an American?" I've learned patience in my learning process and in my own art making (okay, perhaps I need to be a bit more impatient with the music and just get it done), but this baby making has revealed in me a whole other layer of striving, an ache for control. That is why I like the story about the fish farm in southern Spain that I posted last (skip halfway through the video to get straight to it). This is a perfect illustration of the kind of "conversation with the land" that Wendell Berry advocates that I mentioned earlier.

To say all of this again more succinctly: as human creatures we need to learn how to live within the created order and not over and against it. If we can learn how to live within creation, then we will learn the peace making, joyful patience that will allow us to be effective stewards of creation, nurturers rather than exploiters. If I can learn this, then perhaps I'll be a more patient and loving father and husband as well.

So, there is of course a lesson of patience in this nine months. The next few days (post due date) seem likely to be long. I'm trying to love this idea that God, our Creator, is the most magnificent of artists as he fashions this child. I've said that I enjoy the creative process even in watching other artists work. I pray that I can continue to patiently enjoy this particular creative process. Here's one way to look at it: how many artists could consistently turn out work on a nine month deadline and have each piece turn out to be completely unique and original? What artist could do this several billion times?

What Food Feeds Your Soul? Part III

My friend Michael Mobley posted this video on facebook. This guy is speaking a contemporary version of Wendell Berry speak. It gave me goose bumps. If the video doesn't work (I stink at HTML embedding), the try this: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/17/barber.fish.farming/index.html?hpt=C2




This is the note about the speaker from CNN.com:

Editor's note: Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in New York, which aims to bring the principles of good farming directly to the table. In 2006, he received the James Beard award for Best Chef: NYC. In 2009 he was named James Beard's Outstanding Chef, and Time Magazine featured him in their "Time 100." TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading," hosts talks on many subjects and makes them available through its website.

My Musical Reconfiguration

Below is an email I sent to my brother in law, Micah, a bonafide music geek like me. He's going to see three concerts this weekend. Lucky. I was trying to explain to him on the phone yesterday why it's taken me three years to appreciate Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky." 

RE: Wilco. I didn’t know “Sky Blue Sky” was your favorite of Wilco’s records. I can definitely see why. I really am going through a musical reconfiguring. Brief history to explain further what I was mentioning on the phone yesterday: I didn’t listen to much other than Rich Mullins and Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest hits until I got to college (1993). I’d heard of U2, but I hadn’t heard them. Freshman year I discovered “August and Everything After” by Counting Crows (their only good record because it was produced by the venerable T Bone Burnet) and then there was Jason Harod and Brian Funk, former Wheaton students. Their “Dreams of the Color Blind” was on constant rotation in my dorm room—almost every Wheaton College student’s dorm room. Then I got into James Taylor and several of his descendants (David Wilcox/ John Gorka). So from 18 to about 23 I mostly listened stuff like Natalie Merchant and the Innocence Mission. Radiohead’s “Kid A” really screwed with me. I heard some of it one day on NPR. Oddly enough I had “OK Computer” in my CD collection because a former roommate left it when he moved out. I didn’t even know what it was. Played it once, but didn’t like it. By that time I’d made my first record and the studio became an intimidating/fascinating addition to my understanding of music. Discovering Kid A was like discovering a whole new kind of food. Somehow it immediately made sense to me—so much sense that I went back and listened Ok Computer and it suddenly made sense too. Enter Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and I started to re-think the possibilities of song structure and interpretation. All the noises on these records seemed to be more honest to me than just a voice and an acoustic guitar. The simplicity of folk music seemed escapist by that point—naive (unless it was something like Eliot Smith). The noise elements (glitch beats, static, distortion, FX) sounded like our post industrial society: confused, scary, dark, but yet somehow formed and organized and musical. Its been a way for me to think redemptively about the world, a way to make sense out of senselessness. Thus the journey into more obscure kinds of music. However, I’ve realized in the last year that my mental questions about music have taken me into places that are less and less musical. I find it harder and harder to really enjoy the sum total of the parts. That is all to say that SBS is really nice listening for now.

FRIENDS & BABIES! Catching Up On Some Blogging

Weekend before last, we had a couple groups of friends come through Holland. To the left is our good friends Jason and Amiee Shattuck and their kids, Aidan, Micah and Clara. It was our first chance to meet Micah, and wow...Clara is a little girl now. We miss them so much! They moved to western Washington state last summer and left a void. Heaven will partly be getting to hang with all our closest friends and never having to say goodbye!

And these monkeys to the right are my good buddies from Oklahoma City, Brian Bergman and Dustin Ragland. They are in Charlie Hall's band and had played at Mars Hill Sunday morning. Charlie and the whole band with Kendall and Quint and the sound man, Paul Colley came out to Holland after the service to have lunch. I was able to show them around campus quickly. It was especially fun to show the studio to Paul because he used to help me out when I was first starting into recording. He'd give me ideas on what to buy and loan me microphones. Paul also mixed the first record I ever tracked, Like a Little Girl for Shannon Horn (Jurrens). It was also fun to show the space to Kendall because he produced my first record, Come And Reason way back in 2000. My what can happen in a decade!

Dustin and Brian stayed Sunday and Monday nights to both catch up and also to help me with the Ordinary Neighbors record. We spent most of Monday (April 19) listening to each track and taking notes on what is left to be done. Really, they just held my hand and made me feel good about the record--helped convince me that I haven't lost my mind and wasted my time. It has been a deep joy to have them collaborate on this project off and on over four years. I'd like to think that I'll have everything finished by the end of the summer.

I have to say "end" of the summer because our baby is due in less than three weeks, and yet still, I'll have to work on the record in small, short bursts.

Susanna moves home for good this next week. Our last Gathering service is this Sunday night, then Tuesday evening I drive down to help Sus pack up her apartment there and bring her home. MAY WE NEVER EVER LIVE IN DIFFERENT STATES AGAIN!

I've been busy getting the nursery ready. My parents purchased a crib for us. It arrives on Wednesday too. I picked out a comfy rocker for the nursery upstairs and Susanna wanted a Herman Miller rocker that we will put on the main floor. I was able to purchase the shell of the chair from Hope College for $25 and we'll order the rocker base off of ebay. It'll be about $100 total for a chair that costs $1k brand new. Hooray for not spending lots of money! I'm also making a paper lantern mobile to go above the crib. Sus has picked out some stencils. We just might actually get the room put together before the baby arrives. Susanna had wanted to work in the garden today, but it looks like there will be thunderstorms off and on. Maybe we'll do some stenciling and painting.

The baby has dropped, so Susanna is waddling around now. And our midwife told her on Monday that her cervix is 90% thinned already. That doesn't necessarily mean that the baby will come early, but it might mean a shorter labor. We appreciate your prayers for a healthy, safe delivery.

What Food Feeds Your Soul? Part II

Welp, not much feedback on that last post, so let me try again. After all, a main reason why I keep this blog, is to work out different ways to best articulate the things that matter most to me.

Yes, a shift in my writing from music to food might seem less than common sense to some, but it all fits clearly within the framework of what I'm learning. And to make matters more confusing, let me explain the connections between music and food by talking about politics for a bit.

I plead guilty to getting caught up in some of the petty fall out of the Health Care Bill within the past few weeks. Truthfully, I'm optimistic about this success of the Obama administration although I'm concerned about other developments (ie. the off-shore drilling and the legality of drone missile attacks). But these particular issues are not the main thrust of what has been concerning me, and this is the same issue that I've been talking about since the 2004 election. Despite all our political differences, the only hope we have for a functional democracy is a renewal of honest to goodness conversation. Unfortunately what we have in our public discourse is not discourse but shouting, misinformation, slander, reactionary-ist banter and party line quietism. This explanation of what has recently happened to conservative thinker and former Bush speech writer, David Frum, is the kind of destructive happenings that will continue to corrode our democracy.

I've mentioned before my fascination with the great prayer of St. Francis, especially the lines:

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

This selflessness is the fundamental ethic, the essential paradigm for constructive conversation. Without this selflessness--without the capacity to hear the other person--we are only participating in a power struggle. We must give the other person the dignity of being heard.

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber describes this as the "I" and "Thou" relationship. He says something deep when he says, “Through the Thou a person becomes I.” The implication is that we are not fully human if we do not allow the other person the dignity of being fully human. In contrast, says Buber, our post industrial society has developed an "I" and "It" worldview. This is where we presume to transcend our neighbors and even all of society. Here everything has lost dignity of being. When everything outside of ourselves becomes an "It" rather than a "Thou," these things are merely subject to our own whimsy, our own control, and further, our abuse. 


This is why I am so very distressed especially when Christians are the ones shouting the most. They have in essence taken upon themselves a lust for power that ultimately only God can wield. It's a triumphalism that demonstrates the loudness of their own voice rather than a deep trust in the work of the Holy Spirit and the Lordship of Christ over all creation, over our government and even our economy. Of course I'm not saying that Christians should not publicly offer their convictions. What I'm saying is that we will most likely be better heard if we share our convictions in the form of a dialogue rather than from the meager heights of a soap box.

Now here is where I will start to bring food back into the discussion and then eventually music too. I'm a Wendell Berry sucker. I say "sucker" because I've read more of his writings rather than actually lived in response to his writings. I've lacked the patience and courage, but something is arising within me that is intent on putting my ideals more plainly into practice, thus the worm bin I mentioned in the last post (I'll offer some pictures soon, I promise). So, to stoke the fires, I've been reading Wendell Berry again and now that I really want to change as a person, his words are all the more penetrating. Here is his elegant way of bringing together the topics at hand, dialogue and food:

“The fact is that we have nearly destroyed American farming, and in the process have nearly destroyed our country…How has it happened?…Industrial agriculture, built according to the single standard of productivity, has dealt with nature, including human nature, in the manner of a monologist or an orator. It has not asked for anything or waited to hear any response. It has told nature what it wanted, and in various clever ways has taken what it wanted.”

Simply put, agribusiness has participated largely in an "I" and "It" subjugation of our natural land resources. What is the solution for Berry?

...an agriculture using nature, including human nature, as its measure would approach the world in the manner of a conversationalitst. It would not impose its vision and its demands upon a world that it conceives of as a stockpile of raw material, inert and indifferent to any use that maybe made of it....On all farms, farmers would undertake to know responsibly where they are and to consult "the genius of the place." They would ask what nature would be doing there if no one were farming there. They would ask what nature would permit them to do there, and what they could do there with the least harm to the place and to their natural and human neighbors.  And they would ask what nature would help them to do there. And after each asking, knowing that nature will respond, they would attend carefully to her response. The use of the place would necessarily change, and the response of the place to that use would necessarily change the user. The conversation itself would thus assume a kind of creaturely life, binding the place and its inhabitants together, changing and growing to no end, no final accomplishment, that can be conceived or foreseen."

Berry here has depicted the "I" and "Thou" relationship in terms of our connection to the land. This is what I've learned about making music, that it requires incredible listening ability not just to match the beat of the other players, but also an attentiveness to the dynamics and also the audience or congregation. When I play music, I'm listening to everything, drawing it all in and then responding as if in a conversation. When I teach, I am performing a profound act of listening. Each semester I start with a syllabus, but the content of the course always changes as I listen to the students and re-read the material. If I don't let the course dynamically change, then ultimately I am more concerned with imposing my self-important ideas upon the students rather than serving them as learners. So much could be said about healthy leadership, parenting, and friendship along these terms, but that is hopefully all obvious at this point.

Two final things then: first, by attempting to write about food, I am confessing that for the most part, my participation in nature has been one-way. I've imposed my own demands for convenience upon my food consumption. I'm interested in learning to grow things and to make worm compost because it is a way to give my backyard and nature itself the dignity of being a live, vibrant place of sustenance, and I wish I had the words to explain how this is slowly making me more alive myself.

Second, to bring all these thoughts about conversation back together, consider the table. The best of meals are the ones that allow us the time to be together and have a sharedness of our beings. A really good meal can transform relationships. You take your time. You enjoy successive courses. You share in the delight of tastes, textures, aromas and you linger at the table when all the plates are empty. You linger because an event has taken place and you bask in the blessedness of all that the table offered: sustenance, pleasure and above all, love.  Like the music or the sermon of a worship service, food when properly prepared can provide an occasion where we find ourselves being more ourselves when together than we are alone. It is in this way that food can feed our souls.