learning to befriend our fears

August 17, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Congregational Song, Leadership

Learning spaces are challenging spaces. To gain a new skill requires humility and resilience, flexibility and fortitude. When we come up against our limitations, it can bruise the ego and cause us to doubt our ability or value. But what I’ve experienced through Music That Makes Community is that learning can be a joyful, enlivening, liberating experience. While we can never ease the discomfort that comes from learning a new skill or the jitters before sharing a new song, it is empowering to name our fears, to befriend them, and look for the surprising lessons and gifts these uncomfortable spaces offer to us.

songs for the journey

July 22, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Worship, Music, Congregational Song

Over the past year I’ve been collecting short songs and hymns focused on spiritual journey and pilgrimage. Some are walking songs or invite body movement; others feature a beautiful or thoughtful combination of text and tune. I have used many of them in congregations I've served as an interim/transitional musician and I'm happy to share the list with others as a resource.

the pilgrimage continues: one year later

July 15, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Pilgrimage, News

One year ago, I stepped away from a steady job, a comfortable New York City apartment, my closest friends and family, and went on a pilgrimage. Beginning in Seattle, I drove down the west coast of the United States over a month, stopping to visit colleagues and friends, and leading worship and workshops along the way. At the end of the trip I was invited for a six-week residency at a church in San Diego but very little was planned afterward. Call it craziness or call it faith, God gave me courage to follow an unknown path.

you are present

June 26, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Music, LGBTQ, Lament

I wrote the text and a musical sketch for ‘You Are Present’ months ago but returned to it a few days after the mass shooting in Orlando. The initial feelings of shock and disbelief had given way to anger at the perpetrator and a broken political system that refuses to enact sensible gun control legislation. Anger melted into sadness for the victims, whose lives were ended far too soon, as well as their families and friends.

music for anxious times

June 22, 2016 by Paul Vasile in Worship, Congregational Song

Is it a creeping tension in your neck and back? Perhaps you're finding it hard to focus or can't quiet your thoughts? Maybe your stomach is upset, your head aches, your teeth are clenched? Maybe you find yourself hyper-vigilant or distrustful of others in public spaces? You are feeling the subtle and insidious presence of anxiety, which seems to affect us all in these difficult days.

While I don't have a quick fix to our collective unsettledness or the anxiety that ebbs and flows, I have noticed that singing settles us. Perhaps one of the ways we can defuse anxiety and diffuse peacefulness is through song, specifically songs that remind us who we are and whose we are.