The Ferment

One of the strange wonders of Marcus’ life is that the core of his after-degree theological training came to him through the medium of publicly funded radio programming, almost all of it curated by David Cayley. For over 20 years, Cayley was a producer for a program entitled simply, “Ideas” at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  Always clear, always careful, always genuinely seeking after the Good, David Cayley has deepened and enriched the public conversation in this country and well beyond it. “What is worth understanding is worth being understood well by everyone,” said Northrop Frye, one of Cayley’s many interviewees. Cayley made a career of helping the Canadian public understand ideas with philosophical heft, and, perhaps even more challenging in the present milieu, ideas of great spiritual significance. We were delighted to have Cayley’s warm and iconic voice on The Ferment.

• David Cayley’s programs on several thinkers and themes:

• Ivan Illich

• Ivan Illich in Conversation

In the late winter of 2016, Alana Levandoski and her family traveled to Beausejour, Manitoba to give a concert in a small country church, one of the oldest buildings in the rural town. Alana was promoting her album, Behold, I Make All Things New.The acoustics were gorgeous, and attendees were hungry for an authentic, living voice to sing songs of praise and longing in the century-old, near-defunct sanctuary. A little group called Saint Julian’s Table was trying to keep alive the embers of a worship life in the building of Saint James Anglican, a local parish that had ceased to gather. The experiment of Saint Julian’s Table would die within a year. But the next morning, Alana had a conversation with the group’s convenor that would birth The Ferment podcast. 

Alana had connected with Marcus Peter Rempel previously as a Kickstarter backer of his book, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: cross/culture/stories. After breakfast at Ploughshares Community Farm, where Marcus homesteads with his family and some fellow Christian agrarians, Alana and Marcus got to talking about collaborating on a podcast that would call itself “The Ferment” – referring both to a moment of social unrest, and to the magic that preserves the integrity of good, homegrown food by feeding a good culture instead of by sterilizing and killing bad culture.

Like good wine or good sauerkraut, it took a while. Now it’s time to taste and see if this thing is good! In this episode, Alana teaches and sings her way through the church calendar as a Christ narrative. Consider it the starter culture for The Ferment.

• Richard Rohr’s Living School

• The Shepherd

James Alison might insist that he is “fairly clearly not an authority, and often just a silly old queen,” but underneath his mirth and modesty lies an exceptional theological depth. America: The Jesuit Review hails this institutional outsider as an authority who “belongs on any short list of the most important living Catholic theologians.”

In this conversation, Alison addresses himself to a generation that has good bullshit detectors, but little social glue, speaking into the challenge of how to cultivate a togetherness no longer defined over against the “baddie du jour.” Questions of catholicity, original sin and the high priesthood of all believers are dealt with in due course. An uncloseted priest from the edges of the Roman Catholic Church speaks into central issues for our time.

• James Alison’s websites: jamesalison.co.uk / forgivingvictim.com

In this episode, Alana and Marcus introduce the vision of The Ferment and introduce ourselves from opposite shores of a prehistoric lake. Then we ring in the coming New Year with Alana’s musical take on Tennyson’s achingly beautiful Ring Out Wild Bells. We couldn’t think of a better way to name our tender hopes and fierce longings to “Ring in…the larger heart, the kindlier hand; / Ring out the darkness of the land, / Ring in the Christ that is to be.” 

We made some references in our conversation that you may want to follow up on. Here are some notes to get you started:

• Wendell Berry – the war economy vs the peaceable economy. Berry discusses this in Thoughts in the Presence of Fear, an essay he wrote in the aftermath of 9/11.