Interview on Patheos, “Earth Transformed with Music!”
Dr. Caryn D. Riswold, a feminist theologian in the Lutheran tradition and Professor of Religion at Illinois College, interviewed me about my new hymnbook, Earth Transformed with Music! Inclusive Songs for Worship. Caryn published this interview on her Patheos blog:
1. Tell us why you put together this collection of hymns.
Music has great power to touch the heart and change the world. Words we sing in worship shape our beliefs and actions. They have great power because of the sacred value given to them, and because the music embeds the words in our memories. The majority of churches, even progressive churches, still use hymns with mostly male names and imagery for Deity, inadvertently supporting gender injustice and inequality. Biblical female divine names and images are excluded from most hymns. So I continue to answer the call of Ruah, the Creative Spirit, to write inclusive hymn lyrics and to publish them in hymn collections for faith communities to use in worship
Earth Transformed with Music! Inclusive Songs for Worship is my third collection of hymns; the first two are Inclusive Hymns for Liberating Christians and Inclusive Hymns for Liberation, Peace, and Justice. I’ve collaborated with composer Larry E. Schultz on these hymn collections, as well as on a children’s musical, a children’s songbook, and choral anthems. All include biblical female divine names, such as “Wisdom,” Sophia, Ruah, Shaddai, Shekhinah, “Mother,” “Midwife,” “Mother Hen,” and “Mother Eagle.” These female names of the Divine help to transform patriarchal structures that continue to support worldwide oppression of women and girls. When we include female names for Deity, women and girls are seen in Her image and thus respected and valued instead of being oppressed and abused. Gender-balanced names and images of the Divine affirm the sacred value of all people and all creation, supporting justice and peace in our world.
More and more congregations, communities, and small groups are seeking inclusive hymns that reflect their beliefs of gender equality and justice. They have affirmed my hymn writing and encouraged me to keep writing more hymns that include female divine names and images. So I continue writing lyrics, and Ruah continues to inspire me!
- How does Earth Transformed differ from your previously published hymnbooks?
This collection includes all new songs. In the previously published hymnbooks I organized the hymns according to general themes of justice, liberation, and peacemaking. Many of the hymns in Earth Transformed with Music! address specific justice issues, such as workers’ rights. I organized the hymns according to justice issues, such as racial equality, gender equality, marriage equality, economic justice, care of creation, and interfaith collaboration, that also form the organizational structure for She Lives! Sophia 
Wisdom Works in the World, a book with stories of fascinating pioneers who are changing the church by reclaiming multicultural female images of Deity. I hope that Earth Transformed will be used as a companion to She Lives!, bringing change through story and song.
This book also differs from my previously published hymnbooks in that it includes multigenerational short songs for various parts of worship services, such as invocations and benedictions. Larry composed beautiful new music for these short songs.
- How is it a challenge and an opportunity to write hymns for interfaith settings?
The challenge is to find tunes that various faith traditions have in common and/or to create new tunes. Earth Transformed with Music! includes tunes such as “Bunessan” (made popular by Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken”) and “America” (popular tune for “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”), as well as wonderful, easy-to-sing new tunes that Larry created.
Writing songs for interfaith settings is indeed a great opportunity! Singing is a wonderful way to bring people of diverse religious and spiritual traditions together to contribute to justice and peace. When we take down divisive walls, we discover our common values and the power of our combined efforts to transform our world. One of the songs in this new collection, “In Unity We Gather,” concludes with this celebratory stanza:
In faith we are united, in hope and love set free;
through bridging our divisions we claim all we can be.
Together we envision a peaceful global home;
within Creative Mystery we find a deep Shalom.
- Which do you prefer: writing new words for familiar tunes, or writing new songs entirely?
That’s a difficult question because I love doing both! Familiar tunes provide a rhyme and rhythm structure I like working with. Also, it’s rewarding to write new inclusive words to tunes that I grew up with and that I love but can no longer sing because of the exclusive theology of the original words. Many people have told me that they’re delighted that I’ve reclaimed some of their favorite hymn tunes, and music ministers have told me that it’s often easier to get congregations to sing new words to familiar tunes that provide continuity to their traditions.
On the other hand, writing words for new music gives me freedom in creating the poetry. For this new collection I first wrote the lyrics for all of the short songs for various parts of worship, and then Larry E. Schultz created wonderful new music that enhances my lyrics. This is also how we wrote our children’s musical, children’s songbook, and choral anthems. In Earth Transformed, as in our first two hymn collections, Larry also wrote new music for some hymns that I’d written to familiar tunes, and we include the lyrics to the familiar tune side by side with the lyrics to the new tune so that congregations can choose to sing either or both.
- What else would you like people to know about this new hymnbook?
For congregations beginning the movement to inclusive language, this new collection provides hymns that draw from the wealth of biblical gender-neutral names for Deity, such as “Friend,” “Love,” “Spirit,” and “Maker.” Then as congregations move to what Presbyterian pastor Rebecca Kiser calls “gender-full” language for the Divine, they will find in this new collection hymns that reclaim biblical female divine names and images. This new hymnbook also includes hymns that feature important, often-overlooked biblical women, such as Miriam and Mary Magdalene. Earth Transformed with Music! invites people to join in transforming the world through singing inclusive songs that give birth to justice and peace.
Check out Dr. Caryn D. Riswold’s book Feminism and Christianity: Questions and Answers in the Third Wave.
EXCELLENT INTERVIEW/ POST!
Jann,
Again is forging a path to “bring down walls” for inclusivess through music which has always been a universal language.
I love “spoken word ” in writings about the Divine as she has been opened up and freeing so many of us. And I am more familiar with the written word than I am with music.
But many people have begun to turn away from the written word for various reasons.
It is becoming automatic to turn away even before they can read about spirituality transforming to a place of inclusivess and love and perhaps strength when the Divine is being redfined in ways that are truly in our image( female, different ethnicities, and that there are more mysteries beyond our understanding than we admit),
It simply validates how wounded we are spiritually that we turn away even before knowing that the Divine is no longer a tangible one dimensional, stifling construct for some and others are left out.( Thank you Jann, you have been a different pioneer in this area)
And that we, (the world we) could perhaps find strength, and find the openess to explore her vast mysteries through love, patience, respect and understanding/ questioning and that it is not only acceptable, but expected that spirituality has evolved and is fluid not stagnant as once thought or projected by a small culture of men.
But music is very very different. I believe that music has always drawn people in and Jann has SCORED again by creating new and recreating known music to include children.
I truly believe she has this wisdom that any/ all people can hear through music that the Divine is so much bigger, loving, and inclusive than previously defined.
Jann reminds me of an excellent medical doctor who will stop at nothing to help us be our healthiest selves. Not subscribing to orthodoxed treatments but understanding that the body (spirituality) has complexities, mysteries that one size has never been the way to practice. And people have difficulty trusting a practioner who does not understand women, different cultures, is closed minded, and who does not include them in their care. No one should be turned away or left out if they choose to seek treatment( spiritual growth). Treatment is kind and humane, and whatever your culture, gender it is reflected in your course of care with honesty/ kindness and above all things it is safe.
And Dr. Jann is creating treatment that no matter who you are the quest to find spiritual treatment through the kind of music/ songs she is creating is something we all can embrace because we see ourselves mirrored.
Music has a way of coming in and truly ” transforming” our consciousness like no other vehicle I have seen. It can be a private transformative experience or a grand group connecting experience.
I have heard and read small samples of the songs/music and I feel so grandly positive about it, and I only wonder with great anticipation what it will be life for me to hear and/ or participate in singing this music. I just hope my little feet can stay on the ground.
I am excited to start this new journey of spiritual music that it’s essence is about the Divine being gifted to humanity through the eyes of mother/ teacher. It makes me tearful just the thought, so again I can not even imagine being able to hear and sing the songs.
Yes I will need my own copy, and I am happy to share but I do like my own things.
Sorry just can’t stop….( someone told me recently I never have to apologize for my feelings and I have a lot of them after reading this post/ interview)
It is a powerful vehicle(music) and Jann and other theologians’ messages that include multicultural, female images of the Divine will stir spirits and heal past and present wounds of a society/ world that can only see the Divine as a white man, or man in other cultures or ethnicities.
For me it is simply that this music will open us up to explore our connection to one another as human beings and not labels and it is about time that our real teachers come forward….I have missed them immensely.
And to include children’s songs/ music completes the cirle of unity. Children must never be left out and I am so proud of Jann’s s understanding of this. And I believe she understands this on a soul level.
There is nothing sweeter and powerful than watching children sing songs about the Divine. They hold a genuiness, an innocence of sacredness that sometimes we don’t see with adults.
Because kids are totally in the moment and nothing is in there way and you can feel or see that Divine aura. And as adults we can be very distracted/ preoccupied and that can be seen as well, not a criticism but an observation.
I I really believe that if this music gets the exposure it deserves I am confident and brave enough to project that we will see a significant change in spiritual attitudes that will begin a healing process that can be measured and seen.( We love to measure things)
I I am not naive nor am I a gambling person, but I stand firm in my belief that we will see real, solid ” transformation” in our behaviors towards one another.
Because this type of spiritual growth, healing, restoration is something I feel that is not only desired for myself but for so many because the outcome would be exponentially beneficial I feel as though I should gather Jann’s books and start door to door, church to church, temple to temple, synagogue to synagogue, mosque to mosque and anywhere else I can think of and simply say, “hi I am Gwen and this is a gift that we can begin today to use to help a hurting world.” And for anyone who knows me and understands how driven I feel about discovering, uncovering things that can heal us spiritually,” think it not strange” that I may run into you and give you a copy of her new book. The only thing I have to remember, is that in my enthusiasm not to give away my copy, that is problematic for me.
I am proudly a teacher’s assistant when it comes to gender equality, social justice, issues that broaden our humanity, and helping with ice cream parties. I will never abandon this position regardless of who that teacher is and their lessons are genuine and resonate with my soul self.
II think it would be a great time to be a s spiritual music director for kids having access to Jann’s songs….I feel ecstatic about this.
To imagine the Divine as a mother through music I believe changes the spirit in an unconcious way of acceptance, respect, forgiveness, cooperativeness and true engagement of hope, dignity and strength in the true sense of the word.
Jann’s use of music is a platform that will change hearts effortlessly and I am so proud to witness this new birth of theology that creates a safe, sacred space for us ALL.
My brother, who is a Minster has always said that in order to engage people you have to have a genuine heart of and for the people and I think the songs that Jann and the music that Mr. Schultz are creating has the heart of and for people, all people. It is simply brilliant and so necessary.
To give us a compass through spiritual music that we can see our own reflections in the Divine is a beautiful gift that I think we have been waiting on for a long time.
May Sophia continue to bless the laborers like Jann and Mr. Schultz and may she bless those who would be open to receive the gifts.,
It will indeed make us better people and a better world community.
Namaste
Thank you, Gwen, for your enthusiastic, expansive comment on my blog. It is deeply rewarding to read what you wrote about the power of including multicultural female images of the Divine in our music and in all of life. Your prophecies about the transformation that will come/is coming from this inclusion increase my hope and faith.
May Sophia continue to bless your writing and all your activism for a better world community.
Namaste!
Jann