Monday Mix Tape: [the Pentecost addition]

Fire Flowers
Laurel Rudd

Sunday marks eight weeks since Easter.  I've been reading and thinking (when my mind wasn't wandering and my emotions worrying about life issues) Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances.  What a glorious season -- the  days between Jesus' descending into the earth as a buried body and His ascension to the right hand of His Father to reign and intercede.  Those walking-around days of eating, drinking, talking, walking with His friends.

His ascent to the Father put us in a second Advent -- waiting for His reappearing.  But now - glory of glories! -- He makes a way for us to commune with Him and with each other through the presence of His Holy Spirit. This is basically unfathomable.  Although, to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, it is a mystery that makes everything around it lucid.  Obvious. Plain as day.  We are bound together in the one faith, one Lord, one baptism of the Holy Spirit.


We, the Church, should have killed each other off long ago.  Yet here we are today, still trying to make meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Still laying awake at night, tossing and turning, sick with hope that all things shall be well.  And, that by the miracle of redemption, we'll be part of the making and receiving of all well things.


Come, O Spirit.

the mix

1.  Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Sufjan Stevens

2.  Holy, Holy, Holy, Sufjan Stevens

3.  Fljotavik, Sigur Ros

4.  The Trumpet Child, Over the Rhine

5.  Heard Them Stirring, Fleet Foxes

6.  Meadowlark, Fleet Foxes

7.  Magpie to the Morning, Neko Case

8.  Go Easy Little Doves, I'll Be Fine, Brooke Waggoner
9.  Abide With Me, (truly old school!)

10.Jesus Savior Pilot Me, Last Night Camping

11. Rushing Wind, Keith Green

12. Memorial, Explosions in the Sky

13. Come, Love, See My Hands, Brooke Waggoner

14. Just A Closer Walk With Thee, Mahalia Jackson

15. Colors, April Smith & The Great Picture Show

Bonus: Hail to the Lord's Annointed, The Welcome Wagon

I can't quite explain how I chose the mixtape for this season.  At church, we've submitted our worship planning to the rhythms of the liturgical year.  After Lent's leaning into confession and repentance, we've been ramping up in celebration these Easter weeks.  Our Pentecost service will be full-blown, high-praise, shameful boogie-woogie worship.  


But my mixtape didn't quite follow suit.  Still celebration and praise, just taken down a notch or two in the rock 'n roll department.  Plus, somewhere in the middle, I started fiddling around with a bird theme.  Something about wind and doves, I guess.  


When all's said and done, perhaps my most Pentecost-al choices were the songs with no lyrics.  Music wrapped around the speechless mystery of the Spirit.


Enjoy!