Fermata Mar 11, 2022: Rest and Home
University of Oklahoma and Grace Farms, CT
Fermata is the weekly newsletter describing some of the past week’s highlights from Notes of Rest, which is my spiritual retreat ministry that interweaves text, music, and questions for the sake of cultivating stillness, introspection, and creativity in communities so that all may rest. I'd love to host a Notes of Rest for your church, seminary, or affinity group. Feel free to reply to this email to start the conversation!
Lecture at University of Oklahoma and Notes of Rest at Grace Farms (humanitarian foundation)
Hi everyone,
At University of Oklahoma I lectured to the undergrads in the Department of Religious Studies. Here’s a testimonial from the professor, James Hill Jr. :
"Inviting Julian Reid to facilitate a Notes of Rest session with my undergraduate students was by far the best decision I made this semester. Julian facilitated space for students to think deeply about the arts' relationship to rest, care, and the never-relenting call for productivity. Students continue to highlight points Julian made during class discussions and have asked when he will facilitate another session on multiple occasions. I cannot recommend Notes of Rest enough!" - James Hill Jr., Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Oklahoma
Notes of Rest at Grace Farms, a humanitarian foundation, was a historic session because it was my first time centering non-religious texts and music, which I did in order to respect this interfaith space. The theme for the gathering was home, and so I invited the gathered leadership advisory cohort to contemplate the connection between home and rest.
The texts we centered were Amiri Baraka’s Blues People and Dionne Warwick’s A House is Not a Home (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David). Warwick and Baraka helped us think through what it meant for the cultural home of Black music to stem from people who were, in a sense, homeless. (Here you might think about W.E.B. DuBois’ concept of double consciousness, where Black people are and are not home in the US.) It was dope to then play music from my band The JuJu Exchange as part of the musical response.
What can we learn about homemaking from how the restless (e.g., Black folk, Syrian refugees) turn their “no man’s land” into beauty? How does the intimacy of pain in music create a sense of home for you?
During Wellsprings, there was an an unleashing of creativity! Here is a picture from attendee Syrian architect-artist Mohamad Hafez, who makes art about the destruction of his homeland and the dislocation of his people.
I hope that The Lord can help us receive and give Notes of Rest today.
abundantly,
Julian