My next guest, Laura Berman, is a musician I’ve collaborated with for Jewish Kol Nidre services for many years. Raised culturally Jewish, she now practices a widely integrated form of spirituality.  She has a successful career as a singer/songwriter of inspirational music, and now works as the Music Director at Mile Hi Church, which is a New Thought Congregation.  New Thought, is a spiritual movement which began in the 1830s, teaching that God, or Infinite Intelligence, is everywhere, and that divinity dwells within each person.  They look to Jesus Christ as the way-shower who demonstrated perfect divine consciousness.  New thought draws on the accumulated wisdom and philosophies of diverse global cultures such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, teaching that there are universal spiritual laws which can be found across all world religions and within science and psychology. 

Check out more of Laura's work here at the following links:

laurabermanmusic.com

https://youtu.be/-KRT7MC7cBQ?list=PLg74hY6veWGLFp65hhlrSCdaLQvL_CD9J

https://youtu.be/dGPM7ZnKzRo

Psalm 23 Lyrics: 

Nafshi (Psalm 23)  

(Arnold/Berman)

Adonai

Ro’i lo lo lo echsar

Be-friend me, guide me

You beside me there is nothing more I need … 

Nothing more I need

Nafshi yeshoveiv

Cosi revayah

Nafshi yeshoveiv         

Cosi revayah

Ach tov v’chesed

Ach tov v’chesed yirdefuni

Your good Love runs through me

Moves me in grace, and in giving with all souls living

Nafshi yeshoveiv

Cosi revayah

Nafshi yeshoveiv

Cosi revayah … 

my soul is restoring, my cup overflowing…

Today’s guest is a friend I’ve played Chamber music with for almost seven years.  We are in a clarinet trio, which means that this ensemble includes Clarinet, cello and piano.  My guest Carrie Christensen is the pianist.  Carrie is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormons.  As the Latter-day Saints have a lay ministry, Carrie serves as the teacher of a youth scriptures class that the teens attend four days a week before school.  She also has a full  studio of piano students and does free-lance accompanying and solo work.  In this episode we talk among other things about growth through service and missionary work (Carrie served a mission in the Netherlands), what it may feel like when faith is challenged, being in a covenant relationship with God, and finding meaning in life through religious teachings and  beliefs.  

Song Credits: 
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing 

Text: Robert Robinson

Arrangement: Craig Courtney

Cello adaptations: Angie Foster

Performed by April Larsen, soprano; Angie Foster, cello; Carrie Christensen, piano

1. Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing;

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount; I’m fixed upon it:

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I’m come.

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wand’ring from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

3. Oh, to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Today I’m pleased to be sharing a conversation with my dear friend and stand-partner in orchestra, Kathleen.  Kathleen is Catholic and I chose her as the inaugural guest because she actually goes to not one but two services each Sunday.  

Kathleen grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. However, when she married the son of displaced native Ukrainians, she began attending the local Ukrainian Catholic services with her husband.  As her mother became elderly, she saw the need to take her mom to the traditional Roman Catholic services, which is when she started attending both masses weekly.  Today, Kathleen’s mother and husband have both passed away.  But Kathleen remains an involved part of both church communities.  

I’d love to share with you what’s motivated her to stay faithful through the years, as well as such topics as the sustaining power of faith through personal tragedy, the Resurrection, the value of confessing sins, and other topics.  

Lyrics for How Can I Keep from Singing:

My Life flows on in Endless Song, above Earth’s Lamentation

I catch the sweet tho far-off hymn that hails a new creation.  

Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear the music ringing

It finds an echo in my soul—how can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die? The Lord my Saviour liveth;

What tho the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth.

No storm can shake my in most calm While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of Heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death-knell ringing, 

When friends rejoice both far and near, How can I keep from singing? 

In prison cell and dungeon vile, Our thoughts to them go winging;

When friends by shame are undefined, How can I keep from singing? 

I lift my eyes; the cloud grows thin; I see the blue above it;

And day by day this pathway smooths, Since first I learned to love it,

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, A fountain ever springing; 

All things are mine since I am his— How can I keep from singing?  

Hi everyone.  In this episode I explain more fully the motivation for beginning this project.  As I’ve played many sacred gigs through the years, I’ve begun to notice that although much of the worship structure felt familiar, those of us participating rarely talked openly about our differing faiths, and often for good reasons: fear of offending, of being misunderstood, or of seeming as though we were pushing our faith on others.  And yet I kept wondering, don’t we have something in common just by showing up?  In a world where many people no longer attend worship at all, what keeps people committed to a life of faith?  I believe that if we lead with what we have in common, we can give each other permission to talk about these things so we don't have to feel so isolated about it.  

A short explanation of how I began to notice a desire to talk to people about their personal religious faith.