There are two types of worship services most regularly associated with Good Friday. One is the traditional service of the “Seven Words from the Cross.” The service, often held between noon and three – the hours Christ hung on the cross – is composed of hymns, readings and a brief meditation on each the seven words Christ uttered from the cross as recorded by the four evangelists. The other common occasion for worship on Good Friday is the Tenebrae service, usually held in the evening and arranged around the passion story as recorded by St. John. Tenebrae comes from the Latin word for “shadows,” and at various parts of...

Eric Whitacre is known for his breathtaking compositions of choral work. He has published more than four-dozen pieces and recorded several albums. More recently, he’s become known as the guy who puts together virtual choirs. What is a virtual choir, you ask. Well, his one first involved inviting 185 voices from a dozen countries to sing and record their various parts in their living rooms, door rooms, or wherever, and send them to him. Whitacre then combined all of these recordings into a single “virtual choir.” The finished piece became an instant You-Tube sensation in 2010. A year later, he gathered more than 2000 voices from 85...

I’m not sure what you’ll think of Amanda Palmer. She is, well, different, perhaps particularly from the kinds of folks that usually show up at our churches. (Although perhaps for that very reason we should listen to what she has to say!) She’s a former street performer turned alternative rock icon. She’s known for pushing boundaries…in her art, her appearance, her lifestyle. She’s bold, brash, unconventional, and at times irreverent. But I think she’s also onto something. Something important, something beautiful, something so deeply human that it is also and simultaneously something divine. She is onto the art of being in...

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always looked forward to Daylight Saving Time (DST). As a kid, I like it because it signaled the advent of spring, which meant that summer – and summer vacation – weren’t far around the corner. And to this day there’s something just plain encouraging about that extra hour of sunshine in the late afternoon and evening. Yes, it’s darker in the morning, but that’s the morning anyway, when I’m hardly awake and is totally worth the extra sunlight later. As for missing an hour of sleep, well, I always figured you just go to bed a little earlier or sleep a little later and it should be no...

From where I stand, spring should soon be on the way. But given that I stand in the beautiful Twin Cities of Minnesota, spring might not actually come for another month or more. That’s because, obviously, we live in the Upper Midwest, with an emphasis on “upper.” But when I remember that there are whole countries further north of me – Canada immediately, Norway, Finland, and vast portions of Russia further away, I both keep my delayed-spring complaints in check and, frankly, give thanks I’m not living even further north. 🙂 Of course, if I did live further north, I might from time to time have a chance to...

I am a huge fan of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, of which A Game of Thrones is the first book. But that’s not what this is about. No, this is about Norway. Or, rather, Norwegian culture. Though I have no Scandinavian blood that I know of, I have developed over my years of living in the Upper Midwest a tremendous admiration for Scandinavian culture. So when I saw these two different articles that capture the resilience and creativity of this Nordic culture that I appreciate so much, I thought I’d share. The first comes from Open Culture, one of my favorite websites, and describes the work of Terje Isungset, a...