FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

Newark in the 80’s: My Memories of Michael Jackson

~ by Bowie Snodgrass

In the days, weeks and months to come, we’ll hear more about how Michael Jackson died and the meaning of his life.  But tonight, just finding out that he’s dead at 50, memories of the King of Pop come back to me…

I was five years old and living in Newark, NJ, in the House of Prayer rectory when Thriller came out.  I remember my favorite babysitter, Mimi Jordan (now Rev. Emma Jordan Simpon), bringing over a copy of the record on vinyl and playing it on our turntable.  We were all dancing, laughing and celebrating life. 

It was 1982, and Newark had the highest child poverty rate in the country.  In the 1970’s it had been called “the most decayed and financially crippled city in the nation.”  We lived down the street from the Columbus Homes, one of the oldest public housing experiments in the country.

"No human should ever have to live that way, no animal should ever have to live that way," a senior Federal housing official, James E. Baugh, said after he toured the Columbus project in the early 1980's.

Michael Jackson’s songs were about street problems and gave a voice to struggles on the street: “Beat It” about a street fight, “Billy Jean” on telling your baby mama’s papa that you’re not the one, and later, “Thriller” with its amazing synchronized dance number on a dark, empty street, and bad things that happen late at night –

It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes,
You’re paralyzed

Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it’s thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear the door slam and realize there’s nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination
But all the while you hear the creature creepin’ up behind
You’re out of time

I remember learning that Michael was child star… a superstar when he was just a little older than I was at the time.  I wonder what happened to him during those early years to scar him so and keep him in a cyclical trap of trying to recapture boyhood.

My parents were committed to being Christians in the inner city and we lived there until I was nine, almost seven years.  It was tough living in Newark, but there were always crowds of happy kids at our church looking to have fun, skip rope, tell stories, and dance!

I remember my brothers and I pooling our change together in 1985 to buy “We Are the World” on cassette tape.  This was a serious purchase for a seven, five and three year old!  We listened to it in the van on our way to school, over and over again.  I think we knew the whole song by heart. 

Michael Jackson was the international King of Pop, but to us as kids on the street … he was the one who said to us, and with us: “We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving.”

My prayer is for all the children of this country.  May God grant them what they need – safe shelter and places to play, daily bread and nourishing food – but most of all – love, a happy childhood, a brighter day, music and dancing!

My prayer is for Michael Jackson, may his soul rest in peace.

God Is Not a White Man

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Here is the video that is as comforting as it is challenging. Any thoughts? Thank you Rev. Vince for sending this to us.

Songs About All of Us: Dan Bern's God Said No

~ by Samir Selmanovic

This song has been coming back to me over and over again, ever since I first heard it on Dan Bern's 2001 album New American Language (thank you Ralf for this gift!). Dan is an indie acoustic folk/rock singer-songwriter. God Said No is a time-travel song that questions our desire to change the past (and by extension, see into the future).  Dan's vision of an encounter with God implies we cannot escape from now, where God is. This song, once it enters your system, can help free you from some illusions you might have about yourself.

I could not find Dan Bern's video performance of this song. Following are the lyrics and a video rendition from a YouTube dude with shades, named Malvasio.

Welcome to a walk to the edge of town.

God Said No

I met God On the edge of town
Where the wind meets the stillness
Where the darkness meets the light
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where the desert meets the rain
Where the earth meets the heavens
On the edge of town
I met God

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Seattle
Let me go find Kurt Cobain
Take away his gun, take away his bullets
Talk to him, make him wanna live
Tell him how we love him, help him see his glory
God Said No

If I sent you back
If you really found him
You would only ask him
If he could help you get a deal
If he knows a lawyer, if he can help you
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Berlin
Let me find the one they call Hitler
I will stalk him, I will bring him down
I will bring along a powerful gun, loaded with bullets
Obliterate his memory

God Said No
If I sent you back
You would get caught up in theory and discussion
You would let your fears delay and distract you
You would make friends, you would take a lover
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Jerusalem
Let me go, let me go find Jesus
Let me save his life as they try to kill him
Let me take him down, down from the cross
Take the iron from his body, try to heal his wounds
God Said No

If I let you go
If you really found him
Walking with the cross you would stare
Your tongue no longer working,
Eyes no longer seeing
Ears no longer hearing

God said Time
Time belongs to me
Time's my secret weapon
My final advantage
God turned away
From the edge of town
I knew I was beaten
And that now was all I had

God Said No

For more Songs About All of Us click:

Susan Werner's Heaven So Small

Sting's Fragile

Songs About All of Us: Susan Werner's Heaven So Small

~ by Samir Selmanovic

For my last birthday my dear friend Ralf gifted me with a CD by songwriter Susan Werner called "The Gospel Truth." Self described as "evangelical agnostic" Susan expresses the struggle we all have with religion these days but in a way that is full of hope. Although the language and imagery is more familiar to Christians, her experiences and spiritual struggles are universal. Her mastery of American folk music is matched by her inspired lyrics. In the past Ralf introduced me to countless non-commercialized songwriters and albums he calls "smart music." I am definitely a fan of this one!

Here is a 7 minute medley footage of Susan performing songs from her new album "The Gospel Truth" live with band at Club Passim, Cambridge MA. Songs include "Help Somebody," "Lost My Religion" and "Our Father (The Revised Edition)." Video includes her between song commentary about the inspiration for the making of the agnostic gospel record, and what it has been like to tour across the country with this unique material.

'THE GOSPEL TRUTH' MEDLEY

Here are the lyrics of the first song on her album. 

(why is your) heaven so small

excuse me sir, what did you say?
when you shout so loud, it's hard to tell
you say that i must change my ways
for i am surely bound to hell

well i know you'd damn me if you could
but my friend, that's simply not your call
if god is great and god is good
why is your heaven so small

you say you know you say you've read
that holy bible up on your shelf
do you recall when jesus said
judge not, lest ye be judged yourself

for i know you'd damn me if you could
but my friend, that's simply not your call
if god is great, and god is good
why is your heaven so small

with your fists that shake, and your eyes that burn
what makes you do these things you do?
i would not be surprised to learn
someone somewhere excluded you

but my friend, imagine it if you would
a love much mightier than us all
o if god is great and god is good
why is your heaven
so small

To view the video of this song click HERE and choose the title: Heaven So Small. On the same website you can find a link to by this CD. 

Four Stories of God

~ by Samir Selmanovic

For more than 20 years since my baptism (a ritual by which one signals publicly that one has become a follower), people have often given me the opportunity to “tell my story”—to “give a testimony,” as we Christians like to call it. Despite the fact that my life with God was not only passionate but also conflicted and complicated, the story itself was easy to tell. It was all one story. One life. One song. 

But it is not that easy anymore. Today, as early Hasidic Rav Kook did long ago, I find myself wondering which song I should sing. Should I look into my own soul and sing the song of the struggles and joys I encounter within? Or should I move beyond myself and sing the song of my people, my religion? Or maybe I should rise above my Christian story and sing a song of all songs of humanity? Or should I spread my heart still wider and sing a song with all creation?

Is the story of God a story of my own soul, a story of my religion, a story of humanity or a story of all that is? To accept all these stories as the stories of God is to imply that my religion then becomes only a part of the ultimate story of the world, not the ultimate story itself.

Orthodox rabbi David Hartman, concerned with the perennial conflict in Jerusalem, insists that different melodies of one God must be cherished: “Each group feels that its way is the only way: there is one God, therefore there has to be one truth. Christians build their story on the Jewish story and therefore feel they are inheritors of Judaism. Muslims built their story on the Bible, and therefore they feel that they are the perfect expression of monotheism. Now, we’ve got to get out of each other’s story. We can’t feel that in order for me to tell my story, your story has to end. . . . In other words, affirmation [of my story] does not require that I demonise those who are different from me. I don’t have to build conviction out of hate and fear.” If my identity depends on annihilation of other stories, I cannot really sing all four songs of God.

What if God measures our religion by the way it contributes to stories other than one’s own? What if our religions will be judged by the good they bring to their non-adherents? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel says this succinctly: “When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.”

In the same vein, The Quran reads, “Had God willed He would have made you into one religious community; but it was his will to test you in what He gave you. So compete with each other in doing good works” (Quran 5:48). Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University contends that “there’s no more crucial problem for our day than to be able to cross religious frontiers while preserving our own integrity. In fact, I think this the only exciting intellectual adventure of our times.”

So I find it hard to “give a testimony” today without offending people of my own religion whose identity depends on a divided and conflicted world. As a follower of Christ, I have grown to believe in a world that is larger than Christianity. Jesus called this larger world the kingdom of God. It is the symphony made of all stories, individual and communal, our magnanimous God is involved with in this world.

Only God is God. And Christianity is not. Nor Judaism. Nor Islam. Paradoxically, this realization about the greatness of God is a deeply Christian, Jewish and Muslim teaching.

When I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I begin with the first word, “Our . . .” (see Matthew 6:9) and I stop and ask myself, “Who do I include in this Our?” I remind myself that the story of God is bigger than my personal story, bigger than the story of my religion, bigger than the story of all humanity, and bigger than the story of all creation. In the kingdom of God, these four stories are all really my stories—all at the same time—woven together, giving meaning and life to each other.

(from Signs of the Times, Australia, September 2007, adapted by the author)

Songs About All of Us: Sting's Fragile

~ by Samir Selmanovic

On September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attacked WTC, Sting was just ending his concert in Italy.  Upon the news, he chose to sing this song.

As you can see, he is confusedly solemn here. And the audience, unaware of the magnitude of the event that happened that day doesn't not know what to think and how to feel, still enjoying the show.

I was in Manhattan at that time, listening to the same song over and over again the following week. For years, this song has been seared into my soul. All of our religious boasting comes down to this: we are born, some of us who are lucky, sing songs, some of us have hemorrhoids or eczema, and all of us die.  We are temporary and breakable. And we say "I (or we) know everything about God?" One does not know whether to laugh about it or cry.

We are in terrible need of one another. How did we ever come to a place where we use our religions to divide ourselves and make an already difficult situation even worse? Why not being sojourners instead of competitors under the mystery and misery of human existence?

So, I invite you to listen to this song again and grieve. Those who don't know how to grieve cannot hope.

"FRAGILE"

Fragile

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are