I received this song [Download] as gift from Zach Hamilton, a faithful participant in the Street Psalms training series offered by Center for Transforming Mission. Zach lives and works in White Center, WA. He is a gifted youthworker and musician. He is also a street poet and a great example of a “grassroots theologian. “ Zach and his friends (along with Keilah Fanene who accompanies Zach on this piece) have been wrestling with what it means to teach and preach Good News in hard places, recognizing that a vital part of Good News includes the space and grace to give voice to pain.

Kathleen O’Connor said, “The first condition of healing is to give voice to pain.” The ancient Hebrews understood this and apparently so did God when he made room in Scripture for the practice of lament. Laments are the “blue notes” of Scripture that give voice pain. Laments also give structure to pain. This is no easy task, especially because pain resists structure and is always unraveling us. Abraham Heschel described the prophetic voice that communicates such pain as an “octave too high.” It is a voice that is hard to hear and, more often than not, is systematically denied or muted by the dominant culture.

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One of the great things about my job as director of the YES Foundation is that I am around a lot of talented young people and I often have the privilege of seeing people in the throes of their own creative process. For someone who doesn’t feel particularly creative, it’s an exciting thing to witness. Although it can be a little messy and feel a bit perilous at times, this place where someone brings into existence that which did not exist before feels holy to me. It has made me ponder God’s creative process.

I have been thinking about something a teenager said at DubCee (a program of YES Foundation) a few months ago. We got into this rather interesting conversation about Genesis 1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

We were “hovering” around the idea of the Spirit of God hovered. Charlie, a 16-year-old who loves to draw and is pretty good at it, commented, “I get that ’cause when I am about to draw something, I sort of hover. I have to think about what I’m gonna do, what’s gonna happen. Sometimes, I do that for a long time before I can start…sometimes it just comes to me.” I was taken by the far away look in Charlie’s eyes…as if he suddenly realized that he and God had something in common.

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