The Prayer of Jesus from Vespers '23: Bless this Night

Heather, Steve, Mark and Rachel talk with Dev about the Prayer of Jesus...part of the new vespers service (Bless This Night) that was composed and released at Holden Village this year. They reflect on their process and some of the decisions that they made in translating the Lord's Prayer into contemporary language and setting it to music.

The Prayer of Jesus
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.
He said, when you pray, pray like this:
O Holy One, who calls me beloved, you are in the air we breathe.
Your name, and all that you have made, is beautiful.
Bring forth your jubilee!
Give life to your dreams in heaven and on earth.
Nourish and sustain our bodies.
Release our debts as we release the debts of others.
Do not let us turn from you.
In hardship and in peril, stay with us.
Amen.

To follow the work of this creative team...see www.fireweedliturgies.com or contact them at fireweedliturgies@gmail.com.

To learn more about Holden Village, visit: http://www.holdenvillage.org or to listen to more audio recordings visit: http://audio.holdenvillage.org. The Holden Village Podcast is accessible through Apple iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeart Radio, and most podcast apps. For questions and inquiries, contact podcast@holdenvillage.org.

Piano played by Steve Wolbrecht. 

Cantors: Hannes Carlsen & Ava Shively.

Transcript

The Prayer of Jesus from Vespers '23: Bless this Night

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Holden Village Podcast. Holden is a community of education, programming, and worship located in the remote wilderness of the Cascade Mountains. These snapshots provide a glimpse into the learnings taking place in our community. Let's tune in to this week's highlight. 

[00:00:22] Dev: Welcome to another edition of the Holden Village podcast. I'm with the village's most famous band...you know...I feel like you said the Katabastic Breeze or something like that in the original episode. I wanted that to be the title of the first one...but anyway. We are in part two of the Vespers' 23 Bless This Night series...first episode broke and shattered all the records...so this is a famous topic. Let's go around the circle...reintroduce ourselves...and maybe say also what has been inspiring this summer for all of you. 

[00:01:03] Steve: My name is Steve Wolbrecht. I use he/him pronouns. I was the musician and did the score for the Vesper setting. And it has been amazing to play this and have this be sung in a near full village for the first time...I think...since the remediation started in 2012. We had over 350 villagers and staff that were just all here and that was electric and amazing and moving and I was weeping most of the time. It was kind of crazy. Yes, that's been great. 

[00:01:36] Rachel Joy: I'm Rachel Joy. I worked on this project as a poet. I'm in the village as an accounting person. And one of the most inspiring moments for me this summer with the Vespers' 23 project was hearing teenagers...we had a whole group of teenagers who were here...and when they sang it fully...I realized...wow...this is really something meaningful for the future. And then they gave us a standing ovation and that was just amazing. 

[00:02:03] Mark: My name is Mark. I use he/him pronouns. I served the village as pastor and I worked on this with the lyrics. Every Monday it's really fun to have people...it's been really well received and it's fun to see people interact with it and sing it...and then ask us questions afterwards. And I've loved the preview sessions too. We meet and give people an opportunity to kind of preview the music and workshop some of the lyrics...just engage with their questions and comments and wonderings and it's, that's been really fun. 

[00:02:32] Heather: My name is Heather Griffith. I use she/her pronouns. I was one of the lyric authors on this project and I echo everything that has been said...but it's been really enjoyable to share...the results of this project with a different group of people each week. So, we started working on this in January...really intensively on translating and scoring the Annunciation and Magnificat...Mary's Song...and then expanding that into a full vespers service. So the entire service has an evening hymn...a psalmody...the Mary song...and then the prayer of Jesus...and then a blessing. So today we're here to talk about the prayer of Jesus specifically and the work that went into that project. 

Live recording: O Holy One, who calls me beloved, you are in the air we breathe. 

[00:03:38] Heather: So, this all started with an original translation that Pastor Mark did...working with the texts in Luke and Matthew and the Greek. One of the pain points with the prayer of Jesus is always the first line. Traditionally it is a very gendered line...Our Father. After many iterations, we ended up with, Oh holy one who calls me beloved. We really wanted to emphasize the relational nature that you might get from a father or mother. And so the language of the one who calls me beloved really resonated and has continued to resonate with the community.

[00:04:19] Mark: We're changing the directionality of the text. So this is God moving to us...holy one who comes to me as calling me beloved...as opposed to me articulating some far-off God that is somewhere who...you know...art in heaven. So then we move that phrase into you're in the air I breathe...instead of the far-off skies or distant places...to try to capture the intimacy of that opening line.

[00:04:47] Dev: That makes it sound more personal. You're trying to create a more personal moment with God, which I love. I'm also curious...as you talked about parenting...the philosophy of the parent...to go beyond gender. Since many of you are parents...I'm curious...does any of your parenting...has that gone into any of this work as well? 

[00:05:09] Mark: For me for sure...thinking about translating the text and thinking about how else would you translate father or mother? You know...oh holy one who gave me birth quite doesn't work...the kind of traditional parenting language. What does that mean? And like...then just thinking about interacting with my kids. What's the primary thing we do? We love them. And so naming that as the primary action of parent...from my own experience as a parent is where that came to my mind. 

[00:05:36] Steve: It's just parent in general...male/female...female/female...gender fluid...it doesn't matter. It's just...these are the ones who are looking out for the little ones. So, yeah just kind of wipes that all...and you can draw the relationship however you need it to be. 

[00:05:50] Mark: Because families are complicated. This is probably not the first time we've heard this.

[00:05:55] Steve: Well, slow down coach.

[00:05:57] Mark: I mean...people are raised by grandparents or any constellation of guardians...chosen...adopted. All those kind of familial relationships are at play. 

[00:06:08] Steve: The social construct doesn't matter. It's the relationship that does...the beloved relationship. 

[00:06:12] Dev: I believe we are on Give Life to Your Dreams. 

Live recording: Give Life to Your Dreams.

[00:06:21] Mark: I just think it's a beautiful way of saying...instead of your will be done...inviting us to imagine what is God's dream for us in creation? What is God's dream for us in relationship? What is this world that God longs to see? And I think that is a powerful image and a way to hear those words that it invites you into a new perspective.

[00:06:39] Steve: Very different perspective...but opening in possibility and wonder of...wow. 

[00:06:46] Mark: So I think that give life to your dreams...it doesn't pull back from impact...and we're still saying give life to your dreams...your will be done. But just the poetic way of inviting...and just like...to think like...what is God dreaming? Does God dream? Does God sleep? Just having that kind of that metaphor I think is particularly interesting. 

[00:07:06] Dev: bring forth your Jubilee! 

Live recording: Your name, and all that you have made, is beautiful. Bring forth your jubilee!

[00:07:20] Mark: That was a really challenging one to translate this word kingdom, right? It's kind of a common part of the Lord's Prayer...the prayer of Jesus...and what does that word kingdom mean in our contemporary world? It's kind of a churchy word and we don't really live in a world of kingdoms anymore. And it's patriarchal...hierarchical...kind of all those things. Looking into the Greek too is really not the connotation of the word...there is not necessarily a defined place with borders and boundaries...and a gate.

Yeah, that's not really the imagination...it's an ability to rule or govern or authority or something like that...and I was sitting with a close friend of mine...a theological mentor...and I was kind of sharing with him my little translation puzzle...and how else do you translate kingdom...and what might be a better word.

And we were just kind of flipping through words...just playing. And all of a sudden he looked over and he said...Jubilee! Use Jubilee! Like oh my gosh! It was kind of this eureka moment of lightning strike. And like...whoa...that's so interesting! The next few moments...I'm just flipping through all of these places in scripture where that says kingdom...and replacing it with Jubilee...and oh my gosh...this makes so much sense.

It was so exciting...and then...in Luke four...when Jesus announces what he's come to do or articulates the beginning of his ministry. He recasts Isaiah 61...which is the Jubilee text. I mean...so in Luke...Jesus is saying I've come to bring...and so we can still use the word kingdom...we have to be careful. It's not that kind of kingdom...with the border and the boundaries...and all those kind of things. It's a Jubilee kind of kingdom. That got really exciting to think about this person of Jesus coming to announce a Jubilee kind of a kingdom...a Jubilee kind of way of being in life. 

[00:09:02] Rachel Joy: When this idea first came up in our group...I wasn't very excited about it. 

[00:09:08] Mark: What? 

[00:09:10] Rachel Joy: Because we had spent the whole last summer...our theme was Jubilee. And so it was a wonderful theme. But our community had just spent so much time with it that it was kind of...a little too soon.

[00:09:24] Steve: Yeah, it was totally. 

[00:09:25] Rachel Joy: But over time...it really...for all the reasons that Mark just mentioned...became something that I have fallen in love with in this prayer. 

[00:09:35] Dev: Topics of jubilee and joy and playfulness...that's something that I always feel I want to inspire in others...and I love that that's also what's happening in this context as well. Also, curious...from your own personal lives...you've talked a little bit about this Mark...but yeah...how do you bring jubilee in your lives? What is one aspect in which you feel like you're able to embody that? 

[00:09:58] Rachel Joy: This whole creative process has been a jubilee for me...really deeply and profoundly. Having said that...having a group of people that I can be my full creative self with...and trust that they will help me get it to the better thing...that it can be...and having those moments where we talk about a word like jubilee...where we come up with a phrase like revolution in your womb...where we just work and work and work at a word that's not quite right...and then it finally falls into place. Having Steve put music to the words that takes it that next step to meaning and wonder. All of that has been hugely transformative in my life. And a jubilee...a joyful...wonderful...life giving experience. 

[00:10:50] Heather: I think for me...just seeing what can be and looking at each word that we chose...and really thinking about...what are we trying to say...and what are we trying to convey have been helping create that jubilee that we want. What are we aspiring to be as a people of faith...and a community of faith up in the mountains? 

Live recording: Release our debts as we release the debts of others.

[00:11:22] Dev: Release debts. What you got for us? 

[00:11:25] Mark: Well, let me tell you! 

[00:11:27] Steve: Please sit down. It's going to take a while.

[00:11:34] Mark: After the lightning strike, it felt really important to capture the economic kind of imagination of the prayer...particularly as it's rendered in Matthew...to think about this as a really tangible prayer that includes economic justice and economic release.

And so that's where that debt comes from. And it felt really important then because part of the Jubilee promise is the release of debts...is this kind of opening and forgiving...and not just the forgiving in an existential way...or I'm sorry and I receive your or those kinds of way...but like a transactional way...and an economic way. And so it felt really important to tie that into this concept of Jubilee that we translated into the prayer. 

[00:12:17] Rachel Joy: This was another passage where we struggled with the me language versus the our language...and we decided to leave only the me in the very first sentence with holy one who calls me beloved. Because it didn't make sense to go back and forth through the whole place as part of that conversation. We thought about...there are specific debts that I have...or that I can forgive personally...and also there are communal debts...so the communal language here is particularly powerful...in thinking about what are things as a community that we can take responsibility for...in terms of needing to be forgiven...needing to do something to address the injustice of. 

[00:13:03] Dev: I have a question with communal debts. When I hear that...my abstract mind thinks of generational trauma. I'm just curious...does that apply? 

[00:13:16] Heather: Yeah, that's exactly where I went as well...as Mark was saying...that goes back to the idea of Jubilee...and part of the concept of Jubilee was to avoid generational debts because the debts would expire after a certain amount of time. And that has not been happening in our current society, but that's something that we can aspire to.

[00:13:43] Steve: I also take a little bit...even on the personal...releasing the debts we hold against ourselves...as far as being too critical of ourselves...or holding on to guilt or something...and not being able to forgive...or even release Jubilee yourself from those...and then staying chained to those. Also acknowledging that we also have to do that work then to get past these generational general issues that we have with ourselves and kind of become better versions of ourselves.

[00:14:16] Dev: Beautiful. Nourish and sustain your bodies.

Live recording: Nourish and sustain our bodies.

[00:14:25] Rachel Joy: So we translated...Give Us Today, Our Daily Bread...as Nourish and Sustain Our Bodies. One of the themes that runs through our whole Vespers service is embodiment...and so we really wanted to keep the daily bread sense of...we are in bodies that are being nourished. So that was where we got nourish and sustain our bodies...we kept bread for a long time...even though bread is a very Holden thing to celebrate.

We love bread. We eat a lot of bread up here...and we have bread for our Eucharist services. Bread is not a cultural universal. And so...with the idea of this prayer being meant to be a universal prayer...we decided not to name bread specifically as a culturally...as a cultural food...but just name the action that bread does to us...which is to nourish and sustain us. 

Another aspect of the translation here is that Mark has talked a lot about over our seasons with this...is that in the original...the bread that we need is for today and also for tomorrow. It's an ongoing action. And our translation of nourishing and sustaining our body captures...that it's happening now...and that it's ongoing. 

[00:15:42] Dev: And nourishment is also...it's a universal term...but it's very Holden.

[00:15:46] Mark: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:15:48] Dev: Like all the cookbooks that have been released throughout Holden have that nourishment title usually in it...and so I think that's great cuz this is a Holden creation. It's a universal creation too, but it's very Holden.

[00:16:00] Mark: Very particular here.

[00:16:03] Dev: No doxology...which you'll have to let me know what doxology means. 

[00:16:07] Mark: Actually not the right word.

[00:16:12] Steve: So what does that mean?

[00:16:13] Dev: Should we make it up? 

[00:16:15] Heather: I could talk to this.

Live recording: The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.
He said, when you pray, pray like this:

[00:16:24] Heather: The prayer usually ends with...for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen. But that particular phrase is not in the text...and so we didn't put it in our version. However, we did put a little intro into the version...into the song where we say the disciples asked Jesus to pray...and he said, when you pray, pray like this. Because that is in the text. And so we thought that was the more interesting thing to emphasize. 

[00:16:52] Mark: And I think it's interesting to remember that the prayer of Jesus is the answer to a question, which is interesting. How do we pray? And Jesus said, when you pray...pray like this...and invites them into this way of prayer. It's accurate to end it that way.

[00:17:07] Steve: I loved it. Like, when that was suggested...so when I was in confirmation...my confirmation teachers said...you know...we're analyzing the Lord's Prayer and going through everything. And then one of them made a side comment of like, "Oh, but that's not actually in scripture...the ending part." I'm like, "oh, it's not?" "Oh, yeah...so I don't personally say that. But you go ahead." I'm like "I'm not saying it either then." And I stop....I never say that. I just say the amen at the end with everybody else. So, when that was suggested...I was like, "Yeah! I'm down! Oh, that's great. That's how I do it." So cool. Yeah, I love doing it that way. 

[00:17:44] Mark: I mean, it's traditional...there's a long history there. We're not saying don't do it. But also, you know, it's just interesting to kind of play with it. But, like I said earlier...this is going to provoke people into a new way of hearing these words and understanding our relationship with them. 

[00:17:58] Steve: And we're taking straight from the text...here's what the text says...so that's all we're going to take from. Like, I thought that was cool too. 

[00:18:06] Rachel Joy: And on the doxology, we did build a doxology into the Evening Hymn...and we felt that that balanced not having that ending in the Lord's Prayer.

[00:18:17] Mark: Yeah. 

[00:18:18] Dev: In regard to music...the musical style of the prayer of Jesus...how would you like to highlight that? 

[00:18:26] Steve: It was a fun challenge to come at this where it's certainly not a hymn...we're not having a syllabic pattern that repeats...or is that any sort of form. So it's more free form. I can do nice arpeggiations and make pretty music...but then how do we do this in a way that keeps the drive of the prayer going...it doesn't get too lost in itself a little bit.

Once we boiled it down...once we kind of distilled down...this is what we want to say...it came very quickly...as soon as we kind of got that. I think Rachel mentioned earlier I wrote this in an afternoon. 

[00:19:05] Mark: Because we didn't even plan on saying this that night We were in that workshop...you were in the village workshop and you said "Hey, I think we're close to having the final words for this prayer of Jesus down here." I said "Oh, I'll give it a look." And we sang it that night.

[00:19:16] Heather: And musically it's a continuation of the prayers that happened right before. So the prayers...the intercessory prayers move directly into the prayer of Jesus. So it's just one continuous time of prayer when you do the whole service. 

[00:19:31] Mark: Right. And that's a subtle thing we hadn't planned on talking about. But we don't amen at the end of the intercessory prayers. The amen at the end of the prayer of Jesus is the collect for that entire intercessory moment. We did really intentionally...it's subtle...I don't know if people would notice it...but it seemed really cool to not have the prayers of intercession...amen...the prayer of Jesus...amen, but to see that as this arc of prayerful experience within our vespers service as a complete thing felt important.

[00:19:59] Steve: When we came to that, "Hey, maybe we do this." I was like, "Oh, how do we bridge the two?" But we ended up working, I think, pretty well.

[00:20:06] Mark: Cause the prayers are spoken, but then there's this vamping underneath...and the song refrain...and that song refrain then...it echoes you into...

[00:20:17] Steve: It's the same chords that lead into the repeated refrain of the prayers. That led into the Jesus Prayer with a slight variation. So you get that same kind of lift off every time. But this time you're going into the Jesus Prayer for the whole thing...so I was very excited too because I was able to...I wanted to get a specific nod and acknowledgement/tip of the hat to Marty Haugen. I tried to get this little motif in two other ones that just didn't work. It didn't musically follow what needed to happen. But in this one, I was able to get this perfect descending line...that echoes from Haugen's first movement. So I was very excited to get that on Give Life to Our Dreams.

[00:20:58] Heather: I'm really proud of how this turned out. This is my favorite piece...or my favorite song in the whole work. And I think Steve scored it beautifully. And it is just so fun to do every time.

Live recording: Jesus Prayer in entirety.

[00:22:22] Outro: Thanks for joining us. Be sure to view the links in the description for more information or visit our website to find out more about the village. We hope you will make a pilgrimage to Holden. Blessings and peace to you.