waiting

December 01, 2019 by Paul Vasile in Advent, Congregational Song, Music

This jazz-inspired Advent song was written on the plains of Southern Ohio last spring and holds an invitation to reflection and wonder. Rather than assume we know who or what is coming (because we often struggle even to know ourselves), we are invited to look and listen, to be in the present moment, attentive to where and when Divine will manifest.

And it could be in any number of forms - sound, light, touch, a human body, or through the movement of grass on rolling hills. God is always being made known to us, and Advent calls us to heighten our senses, to practice paying attention both individually and in community.

change is gonna come

October 30, 2019 by Paul Vasile in Music, Social Justice

This summer I had the privilege of traveling and working in British Columbia, where I hiked close to several massive glaciers. Though they were retreating in the warm weather, they were a formidable force. Their size and presence took my breath away, as did the volume of water that flowed from them into swollen streams and rivers.

Glaciers are slow-moving agents of transformation that have shaped and re-shaped the planet for millennia. And they reminded me change is natural and inevitable. Resistance is also natural and inevitable. And while it may take a very long time to notice the slow, shaping force of a glacier or river or wind, it’s happening in ways we may never fully recognize or see in our lifetime.

i cannot dance unless you lead me

September 19, 2019 by Paul Vasile in Music

I Cannot Dance Unless You Lead Me is a layered song based on a saying of Saint Mechtild of Magdeburg (1210-1282), a medieval mystic who shared visions that inspired and shocked her contemporaries for their sensuous, intimate language of relationship with the Divine.

our tears falling down like rain

September 01, 2019 by Paul Vasile in Music

Our Tears, Falling Down Like Rain was written for the 2018 Annual Conference of The Hymn Society in St. Louis, Missouri. I hoped it would be a vessel big enough to hold many people’s prayers of repentance, especially those from diverse denominational and theological spaces. It’s essentially a Kyrie eleison (Lord/God, have mercy), a classic penitential text in the Christian tradition, rooted in a verse from Psalm 126:6.

pray with our feet update

August 07, 2019 by Paul Vasile in News, Music

I’m grateful to share my protest song Pray With Our Feet is being sung around the country - from Washington, D.C. to Iowa to California. I continue to offer it for free, with hope the piece inspires courageous action to end gun violence in the United States.