[Oe List ...] Singing A New Song

[R Williams]

Friends and Colleagues,
 
There is evidence that the spirit energy of some of our song writers is bubbling to the surface with new songs that are especially appropriate for today.  We have long known that singing is an indispensable part of our missional engagement and life together.  But many of us have expressed lately that the songs we sang in the previous century do not now have the power they had then.  With the celebration of 50 years of service looking toward the next 50 beginning "officially" on Sunday, it may be the perfect time for the writing and singing of new songs.
 
Although not all of us have written "movement" songs, we know that all of us are song writers at heart.  If I were to attempt to write a "new song" I have thought that some guidelines for me would be:

have a simple tune anyone could sing
more about the future than the past
more about what others are doing than about what "we" have and are doing
more about community than individual resolve and effort
more about "living our lives" than "dying our deaths"
would hold the tension between the local and the global
would highlight themes like creativity, emerging reality, wholeness, participation...
These are just a quick brainstorm of my thoughts on the subject.  I'm wondering what some of you might add to the brainstorm in case someone else decided to join in this resurgence of song writing that seems to be emerging in our group.
 
Happy New Year,
Randy
 
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)
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