The song I’m sharing this week is from an album I created after the first horrific Trump presidency/disaster, during the pandemic, called Free. The song seems more relevant to me now than ever. I hope, as always, that my music can be an encouragement, that comes along side you, inspires you, helps with clarity and keeps you going forward. Please feel free to listen and share. And please VOTE if you haven’t already!

Many people have worked for freedom longer, and in more depth than I have— I’m certainly no expert. But a couple of ideas that have resonated with me lately are that we need to ask what we want freedom FROM, and what we want freedom FOR. I would further submit that the narrative of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation tells the great story of God wanting to be in relationship with humans, on earth, and that it tells the long arc of God working to set us free from cruelty, selfishness, violence, exploitation and corruption, and the demonic powers and the people that dehumanize and enslave us. Then, in that freedom, we are called to be people of love, compassion, creativity, grace, mercy, courage and justice, to build up all of humanity— together. Oh, if you were under the impression that the point of the Bible was about ‘going heaven when you die, and avoiding hell,’ it’s a common mistake that I made for years. In that case, you’re looking for the pagan Greek philosopher Plato, and other Neo-Platonists like Plutarch. The Bible’s narrative is about Resurrection of actual human bodies— a totally different thing altogether.

This is from my liner notes:

‘As I explored the ideas of freedom that I mentioned in the album introduction, I found myself realizing that ‘freedom’ without love-- love that truly loves my neighbor AS I love myself, isn’t freedom at all. It is license and selfishness. It leads to cruelty and perpetration. It leads to slavery and death of our humanity. So, this is a prayer and a call for help in the tradition of a spiritual-- ‘Lord, set me free.’

Freedom

Freedom doesn’t come from competition and winning
Freedom comes in partnering and collaborative discovery
Freedom comes from sharing
Freedom helps set others free and keep them free
Freedom wants the best for others and knows how to sacrifice
Freedom doesn’t have a my-way-or-the-highway attitude
Freedom is even found in the depths of a prison

Chorus: Freedom, Give me Freedom, Show me Freedom, Set me Free 2x


Freedom comes from courting peace not violence
Freedom doesn’t come from building up miles of great wealth
Freedom doesn’t keep children in cages
Freedom doesn’t hold the world hostage with a nuclear arsenal
Freedom does not come from being a vigilante
Freedom is not vengeance in the name of law and order
Freedom knows good from evil --doesn’t participate with evil

Chorus:

Freedom is not narcissistic
Freedom is not addicted
Freedom is found in embodied love and compassion
Freedom comes through open hands and humility
Freedom doesn’t demand your own taste and preference
Freedom cares what happens to your neighbor
Freedom comes from a servants heart

Chorus:

credits

from Free, released April 18, 2021
Music and Lyrics by Wade Baynham

Freedom on Apple Music

Freedom on Spotify

I wrote Falling as a sort of part II to a Shawn Colvin song, Shotgun Down the Avalanche for my album We. Shotgun, for me, tells the story of going over the edge in a break-up or loss, where the storyteller feels a loss of control— akin to riding in the shotgun (passenger) seat in a car or wagon— hurtling down an avalanche. It’s a visceral and picturesque, but terrifying, image. I also find it to be an amazing song.

I wanted to write a part II, when I realized while in the middle of just such a situation a few years ago in my life, that I was awake and alert IN the avalanche. I was falling, and I hadn’t yet hit the bottom. I had no idea how bad it would hurt, or what the fallout and consequences might be. It’s been part of my work as an artist to try to metaphorically set up my canvas in the eye of the hurricane, and this is one of the songs that came out of that particular hurricane.

But as I’ve thankfully lived forward from that time, I’ve also realized that there are many, many different ways that we all face similarly difficult and even horrific situations, where we’ve lost something or someone, lost control, and don’t know where the bottom is— or how bad it will hurt when we land.

And I also have come to believe that it is one of our human vocations, or jobs as human beings, to come alongside each other in the falling, in the unknowing, and in the avalanche. Now on my days with some clarity, I see an opportunity for love, compassion, and grieving, as well as an acknowledgment of loss, room for tears, and reasons to hope. Further, in the ups and downs of my life and in the life of the world around me, I am trying to follow a God, represented in human form in Jesus, who has experienced the betrayal, the pain, the cruelty, the avalanche and the fall that I am experiencing.

This is not to minimize one ounce of pain and hardship, but I can attest that he has been with me, as he said he always would be. The end of Matthew quotes him saying, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth…has been given to me!.. And look: I am with you, every single day, to the very end of the age.’ Tom Wright, New Testament For Everyone.

And he has not been here with us as a ‘magic man’ or ‘prosperity bringer’ or ‘cosmic ass-kicker’ or ‘my personal buddy.’ He’s here as the Lord of the World, who flatly refuses to rule the way our rulers rule, with violence, domination, wealth, cruelty, racism and perpetration. He, in ways that admittedly can be challenging to see, yet are nevertheless there in the margins and in the least-likely places, rules through humble, life-giving and suffering followers. Many have called it an upside-down kingdom. He rules by caring and inspiring us in the avalanche, while encouraging us all toward a Beatitudes-infused life of love, compassion, mourning, mercy, peacemaking— all tempered with a heart for justice, accountability and speaking truth to power. Yes, we can’t miss this—compassion without justice isn’t compassion at all.

Falling— Apple Music

Falling— Spotify

I had wanted to cover this song for years, since my previous band, the basics, opened for Michael Been and the Call in San Francisco in the early 90’s. I learned of Michael’s untimely death a few years ago, and I had wanted to find a way to try to honor him, his staggering talent, and a bit of his musical catalogue. Once I decided to dive in, it took a number of weeks for me to record the different parts and sing the vocals, plus more time to mix and master the track. And what a gift!

When I spend time working on a song that I’ve admired, but never played or performed, there is a way that I come to inhabit—live in— the material, in ways that I couldn’t from the outside. There’s a way that the music and lyric of a great song carries me along, and teaches me about myself.

In the lyric, he sings, ‘Been in a cave, forty days, only a spark to light my way. I wanna give out, I wanna give in. This is our crime, this is our sin.’ So, we are off on our journey that echoes Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, Noah on the ark for 40 days of rain, and the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. We can hear the echoes of Elijah running from Jezebel, wanting to die, and hiding in a cave.

The song goes from there to being lost at sea, and being lost in a sea of faces, and we face ourselves in our great vulnerabilities. If we just look a little deeper, we see Jesus hanging on the brutal Roman humiliation-and-death machine, a wooden cross, crying the words of Psalm 22, ‘My God, why have You forsaken me?’

But then Michael sings the words of the title, ‘But I still Believe.’ Through all of it, he sings that cry and prayer. He still believes.

There’s a lot beating up on a lot of people in our world today. My heart hurts every day, and tears are never far away. The corruption of our political leadership in Washington, and the thuggery of their ‘allies’ like Putin, the dominance and corruption of the broligarchs, the extreme greed and wealth inequalities of our mega-corporations, the staggering racism and lack of compassion and empathy, the unwillingness to deal with climate change, or nuclear proliferation… I could go on all day—and all night.

As I mentioned with last weeks song, ‘God Believes in You,’ the narrative of the Bible and the testimony of the God-seekers from Genesis to Revelation is a narrative of great hardship, toil, war, stupidity, cruelty, failure, rank idolatry, and also, incredibly, a God that continues to be at work in the midst of it all. And more than being at work, he is present in the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, the Holy of Holies in the temple, and later, in his Son, Jesus, and in his spirit-filled followers. He is reaching out to us, and he is reminding us that we can, like Been, say ‘I believe,’ because God believes in us first, and will not stop working in our lives, if we can try to simply be open to what he’s doing.

What’s he doing? Jesus shared it in the Sermon on the Mount, and while quoting Isaiah, and in the parable of the sheep and the goats, and in the parables of the gospels, and in his own actions. He is working, in and through us, to care for humanity, to bind up and heal the broken people and places, to speak truth to power, to educate and work for justice and accountability and for the health of the planet…. you get the idea. He’s at work through you and me, if we will just play our part in saying no to the death-dealing and enslavement, and yes to life. That’s why I can sing, ‘I Still Believe.’

I Still Believe Spotify

I Still Believe Apple Music

‘God Believes in You’ is a song by singer-songwriter, Pierce Pettis, and I’ve been enthusiastically covering it for years. As with most of my music, I sang, played and recorded the instruments. On this track the drums were played by Dale Baker. No AI was used in the writing or recording : ) The images are Amy Keenan-Amago’s work from the record New Heaven New Earth.

‘God Believes in You’ turns many popular ‘Christian’ narratives on their head and highlights that the Good News or Gospel is rooted in the fundamental idea that God, in fact, is the one lovingly pursuing us, and believing in us, as He has always done. He is the one, from Genesis to Revelation, looking to be with us, and in relationship with us. Emmanuel, one of the the names given to Jesus in the New Testament means literally, ‘God with us.’ We are not stuck reaching out for a distant and angry God, despite some popular ‘Christian’ narratives. God is the one coming down, into our depths and difficulty, to meet us. He always has done.

The lament that I’ve highlighted in songs from previous weeks is not the lament that leads to nihilism and death. There is lament in this song as well, in the bridge, and it has strong ties to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5, Luke 6). And, it’s a lament that is firmly rooted in Hope. It’s rooted in the overwhelming narrative from Jesus and Paul, in the New Testament, that God weeps with us, and is constantly groaning with us in our pain and ongoing suffering. See Luke 19 or Romans 8, if you’re interested in further reflection.

The song has washed over me for years, and I hope it might be able to wash over you with care, hope and possibility. Thank you again for taking the time to listen to my work.

God Believes in You Apple Music

God Believes in You Spotify

I know that I am not the only one who struggles with lament. It’s hard work, and it can be done in a way that leads to despair, nihilism and death. But there’s a lament that remembers, takes time to weep and mourn and count the cost— in community, and with people who care about compassion, justice and accountability. I’ve found that as difficult as it is, that kind of lament can be life-giving in the face of ongoing death-dealing.

An area of ongoing lament for me is around the gun violence in our country and around the world. Our country is awash in guns— made and sold for profit— and we continue to extend that horrific ‘gift’ to the world, because of corrupt court rulings and corrupt politicians. I won’t go into the pathetic arguments in favor of ‘more guns making us safer’ by the people hiding behind a deeply flawed reading of the 2nd Amendment, when that law says nothing about citizens having weapons of mass destruction.

My mom committed suicide with a hand gun that she should have never been able to get— as a person with documented mental illness, and a background of physical, emotional and spiritual abuse. Her death has, of course, been a major, defining part of my life. And lament has been a way for me to grieve my own situation, but also to grieve the regular, daily, needless, gun deaths in America, as well as the violent, brutalization of the peoples of Ukraine— by Putin and Russia, the reckless, failed Iran war, the illegal boat strikes by our military, and so, so much more around the world. The fact that my mom’s death and the deaths of so many others is for PROFIT makes me as sick as I can be. Don’t miss the staggering corruption of the Trump family —personally— around violence, death and destruction.

So, if you have it in you, take some time with these songs. The first is about my mother and the wider world, and the second is space to cry and grieve and lament. But remember, it’s not the lament that leads to despair, it’s the lament that leads to life, prayer, open hands, and action, that I’m inviting you into.

These songs are from my recording project, “Woe, Hope and Lament” on Bandcamp. I write more about this project there. As I’ve mentioned before, you can listen for free, and if you decide to support my ongoing work, I and all the artists on Bandcamp, make more money per transaction—by a wide margin—there. Also, Bandcamp gives high-quality download options for the same price. Thank you for being here, and taking time to reflect and listen.

Denial of You- Hey Mom Spotify

Denial of You- Hey Mom Apple Music

Gun Lament- the Way You Love Spotify

Gun Lament- the Way You Love Apple Music

Hi, and welcome. The song for this week is a version I recorded of Bob Dylan’s song, ‘Disease of Conceit.’ It’s from my album entitled ‘Free.’ During the first year of the pandemic, I was watching the first Trump regime get people killed with blatant disinformation. Way too many of us. It was a daily display of hubris, lies, coverup and cruelty. It was criminal, and I still long for accountability.

At heart was a staggering disregard for human life and lack of compassion from Trump and his regime. At heart was a sense that some were superior to others, and they deserved to live—them—while others deserve to die— us. The divisions on who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are is going on this very minute. That same conceit, arrogance, pride, desire for power and self-enrichment, warmongering and vanity are on display every single day from Trump and Co., and so is the outright death dealing.

This simply is a path leads to death, never life. You can dress it up in whatever White Christian Nationalist heresy, or anti-vax, anti-science nonsense that you want, and it will always come up death.

But that’s not the final story. As the Apostle Paul says, ‘Death no longer has the final word.’ I’ll let you look that up. But here, I believe Bob Dylan calls us to lament, and then I believe, to move forward. To leave deadly, dehumanizing self-centeredness behind. To see the actual ‘Disease of Conceit’ for the horror that it is, and to walk back towards and embodied humanity, filled with compassion, empathy, mercy, truth, justice and accountability.

Spotify— Disease of Conceit

Apple Music— Disease of Conceit

Just a quick note, please listen however you would like. If you feel inspired to buy a copy, using the bandcamp link makes more money for any artist using than the other mega streaming services. Thank you!

Hi, thank you for reading and listening. My new goal is to post a song a week from my catalogue of recorded music that speaks, in one way or another, to the situation we find ourselves in, in the United States and the world.

If you’re not familiar with the Woes of Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees of the first century AD, from Matthew 23:1-9, Mark 12:35-40 and Luke 11:37-54, I can give you a thumbnail of what’s going on, and why I felt like those woes related to America enough to write a song using them as a basis.

Jesus was daily teaching in and around the temple, and the Scribes and Pharisees were not happy with him, to say the least. In large part, they were hoping for a Messiah who would come and save the Judeans from the Roman oppression; and they saw violent overthrow as the way that would work. There had been others who had tried and failed. If they could somehow get everyone in the land to follow their plan for living according to the Law of Moses, a figure would rise up to lead their violent revolution.

Jesus came to put that power narrative on it’s head, and so, he called out their hypocrisy, corruption and love of wealth and violence. The woes are his admonition, that although they were scholars of Moses, they basically did not know God at all, because God was/is accomplishing his purposes— not through power, violence, wealth and bad religion— but through loving self-sacrifice.

So, today, as we have a Republican party that claims to follow God, but actually worships the old pagan gods of power, money, war-making and sexual abuse, I thought this might strike a chord— so to speak.

Woe to You America

Woe to You oh America, woe to you
You sell false gods and bad religion and you burden people to death
You don’t lift a single finger to help while they’re going down
Any piety is only there only for show
You say ‘in God we trust’ at your prayer breakfasts then you take your place at the head table
Don’t you know that if you were truly great you’d be servants of all
Only those with humility are truly great

Woe to You oh America woe to you
You keep people from God’s kingdom and you won’t enter it yourselves
You swear your oaths to god and country while you ignore the one true God
Looking smug for the cameras while your insides rot
Full of corruption, full of extortion using flowers to hide what’s in a grave
Rotten and stinking while your insides are full of death

You ignore the prophets or you simply take them out
While your criminals in power laugh at justice
God waits for you to turn to Him
Turn from your idolatry and corruption

America don’t you want your freedom or any healing help
You are bound by your love of power and violence and wealth
Yeah, when you sing the song destruction is your constant refrain
Keep it up and dead is how you will remain

credits

from Woe, Hope and Lament, released May 23, 2024
Words and Music by Wade Baynham, copyright Wade Baynham

Apple Music

Spotify

I am a working musician, among other things. I made my first professional demo tapes in the early 80s with original songs that-yikes-I don’t think any of us need to hear. But I have kept at it, and music has been my vocation, in one way or another, since that time. I’m a singer-songwriter as well as a producer and engineer.

You can find my work on the normal streaming services like YouTube, Spotify Apple Music, and Amazon Music. I like Bandcamp because I get to put ‘liner notes’ for people to get a bit more of the background and reasoning behind my recordings. Plus, all artists get a much better deal when people buy the music there : )

But this is not a sales pitch, and you can listen for free. This is about trying to share music that might encourage all of us in a dark time to step up our compassion, care, love for all of humanity and courage.

Here are some of my thoughts behind creating Prayers for Broken Hearts. I’ve taken a couple of paragraphs from the Bandcamp site, and the rest of the liner notes are there as well.

'“…the actual message arc of the Bible is about God being near to and interacting with earth, and His desire to be with and live with us as ‘One of Us.’ He desires relationship, and from the Garden of Eden to Revelation, He is about that task. He was about that task in speaking to Abraham, to rescuing the Hebrew people from Pharoah, leading them through the wilderness, indwelling the temple, and then in the person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus-- followed by the giving of the Spirit.

But what I hope is obvious is that, of course, God isn’t using His power to kick ass and take names, the way that so many throughout history-- when they wanted Him on their side-- want God to do. Whether it’s the revolts against Rome in the first century, or the abuses of the Roman Catholic church through the middle ages, or the Doctrine of Discovery, or slavery, or the Trail of Tears, or the Confederacy, or the Klan, or Hitler and the German church, or the religious White Nationalism of our current regime, the list goes on and on.

But in the midst of his life, Jesus met people and said simply, ‘Follow Me.’ And He taught that God works with power differently than we do. He works through the Golden rule of ‘Do Unto Others as you would have them do unto you,’ and through compassion and mercy, and through lawful justice and accountability, and through setting things right, and through wise, generous use of money and resources, and through committed loving sexual relationships, and through beating swords into plowshares, and through righting wrongs, and through care for the planet. These ideas are in the language of the Sermon on the Mount, His parables, and the passages He continually quotes from His Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, from Genesis through the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel and the rest. He particularly highlighted not showing favoritism to the rich, but to the poor.

And in the midst of all of that, Jesus wept. And He keeps weeping. And He prays until he bleeds. And He prays with us when we don’t know what to say. And He sent His Spirit to encourage us in all of the pain and suffering and hell that we live through. He lived and died as a ‘Man of Sorrows.’

So, a long way off? No, God is not a long way off, according to the New Testament writers and the early Christians. He is with us with His Spirit in our suffering, and He is asking us to share with Him-- our grief and sorrow and hopes-- where He prays with and for us when we are too broken to know what to say. And then He motivates us to get to work, with care and teaching and tending and learning and growing and music and art and beauty and a willingness to share each others burdens and fight injustice together. He wants us to get to work with every kind of loving presence, tending and growth that we can be a part of, without falling prey to the usual traps of greed, violence, lust for power, sexual exploitation and warmongering. No small task, but a truly worthy one.

That is why, for me, I am praying, I am crying out, and I am writing and singing this music and sharing it with you.”