Posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman on Apr 7, 2011
I’ll admit, I was getting nervous before the show in Pueblo, Colorado. A sequence of very large men in cowboy boots and hats had come up to me, saying things like “So you’re the PROFESSIONAL musician! Looking forward to hearing the way the PROS do it…” And so on. Yikes. The place was packed – people were arriving an hour ahead of time to get good seats – and this was thanks to the fact that it was a joint concert with Fireweed, a local bluegrass group (with a sizable and dedicated local following) playing first. They did a fabulous set, which I (and, clearly, the whole audience) enjoyed very much. After a short intermission it was my turn. Just me and my guitar and these simple, simple songs. Gulp. My set went well as well. I was certainly enjoying myself, and I think the audience did too. But I found myself huffing and puffing and struggling to catch my breath between songs. Phrases where I know exactly what my voice can do, but I was running out of air… Partway through the concert I had to apologize to the crowd and say I didn’t know what was going on… I didn’t think I was that out of shape… maybe it was that “slopper” we’d had for lunch at the Sunset Inn (watch this for an introduction to this unmatched Pueblo delicacy that makes poutine look like health food). The audience just smiled knowingly, and someone hollered out “Don’t worry – it’s the elevation!” Ahhh… yes… I hadn’t thought of that… Pueblo is at 4 and a half thousand feet elevation. Now at least I had an excuse. It takes practice, you know, to learn to perform while “high”… For the next three days – with performances in Colorado Springs (6 thousand feet), Lakewood (Denver – the “mile high city”) and Boulder (5 and a half thousand feet) I got used to it… took my hosts’ good advice and drank lots of water (even during performances – not something I normally do)… and though I still got breathless sometimes, it felt really good to sing my songs, for the first time, in the Colorado air… Rocky Mountain High...
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Posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman on Mar 18, 2011
Little did I know, when this tour began with the “Sustainable Food and Farming” conference 3 weeks ago, that the very geography of the tour would serve as a kind of “commentary” on the themes we explored there. I led worship times at this year’s “Sustainable Food and Farming” conference in Laurelville, Pennsylvania. During our worship sessions we spent some time reflecting on God’s “alternative economics,” including a different kind of food and land-use policy being implemented (manna and quails – Exodus 16) and legislated (sabbath, sabbatical, jubilee – Leviticus 25 and 26, a text that vividly links obedience to God’s laws regarding land use to the health and productivity of the land…) As we wrestled with these issues, we explored the stories of Joseph and Daniel, both dreamers and dream-interpreters (visionaries and policy analysts) in the context of empire, embodying different approaches to pursuing “wisdom” in terms of food and food policy. Joseph, who becomes the architect and administrator of the “food policy” of Pharaoh’s Egypt, which we typically consider to be a wise and prudent policy of “food security” that provided food in the midst of famine and saved Joseph’s family… but reading the devastating details of this “food policy” in Genesis chapter 47 prompts a lot of other reflections and questions and analysis (and some remarkable resonance with contemporary realities, including the control of seed). And Daniel who, with his friends, is the subject of the strategy of another empire (Babylon) to co-opt and retrain Israel’s elite, including, significantly, by seeking to change their traditional diet. But Daniel and his friends resist the diet of empire (which, it turns out, is not as healthy as their traditional dietary practices). Again, some remarkable resonances with current realities. From Laurelville I spent a week and a half in southern Manitoba and western Saskatchewan, and then I flew to San Francisco where I spent time in the Bay Area and in Davis… heartland of the “local food” movement for the past 40 years (Alice Waters, et al). These travels (and conversations) provided an interesting geographical counterpoint to Joseph’s granaries and Daniel’s dietary resistance. And then, on Sunday night, I was visiting the Church of the Sojourners, a “live-together church community” in San Francisco, and the topic of reflection that night was… you guessed it… food and food policy, scarcity and enough, Joseph and Daniel, manna and quails… (the person who led the reflection drew on some of the same materials that I had for the sustainability conference – eg: Walter Brueggemann, “The Truth of Abuncance: Relearning Dayenu” – and introduced me to a new one – Daniel Erlander, “Manna and Mercy”). In the midst of my journeys – which have included uncountable potlucks and shared meals with such wonderful people everywhere – the meal and worship time with the Church of the Sojourners seemed to put an exclamation point...
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Posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman on Feb 2, 2011
“Amidst the glut of new worship music, Bryan Moyer Suderman offers a much-needed gift to the church: songs that all ages can sing together that ground us in the Person and Mission of God, and that are infectious in their simplicity. Here is the rare musician who writes songs that young and old (small and tall) will not get tired of singing, whether in the sanctuary, in the car or in the woods. Here are songs for the soundtrack of the Kingdom of God.” Sean Gladding, author of The Story of God, the Story of Us (from Sean’s introduction to the “God’s Love is for Everybody” CD, which went into its 5th pressing this...
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Posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman on Jan 25, 2011
Ten years ago, on a January afternoon, I sat down on the living room floor with our then-3-year-old son, and sang, for the first time, “God’s love is for everybody, everyone around the world…” Little did I know that this song would open the floodgates, and that a new vocation was being born. 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of this ministry of “building up the body of Christ by creating and sharing songs of faith for small and tall” (although that mission statement and the name “SmallTall Music” weren’t formulated until a couple of years later). It’s hard to believe. I am deeply grateful that, after about a decade of various forms of ministry, a new vocation emerged that brings together my passions for biblical study, theological reflection, church leadership, worship, ministries with children, youth, and adults, peace and justice, ecology and care for creation – and, of course, music! This 10th Anniversay year promises to be an exciting one, with lots (and I mean lots!) of projects on the go. Stay tuned (watch this space, visit the STM Facebook page, subscribe to the e-mail list near the top of the right-hand column of this website), and I’ll do my best to keep you posted. Can’t wait to see (and hear and sing) what the coming decade(s) of ministry will bring! Thanks be to...
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Posted by Bryan Moyer Suderman on Jan 17, 2011
It’s a rare podcast/interview indeed that covers everything from music to farming to faith to climate change to Bruce Cockburn and John Howard Yoder and the vocation of the church… rather far-ranging for a 20 minute podcast, even if for some reason I seemed to be speaking rather slowly that day (I must have been particularly pensive… or perhaps the coffee was decaf that morning…) Anyway, click here to hear the podcast based on an interview we did a bit ago, in anticipation of the Sustainable Food and Farming conference in Laurelville, Pennsylvania, where I’ll be leading worship at the end of February. (That weekend will be the beginning of the spring/summer tour, which will take me to 4 Canadian provinces and 7 US states in the next few...
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