I was, as I always am, surprised, thrilled and humbled because something I’ve made plays a part in someone else’s process. I was also aware that her kind word to me were reflective of how the CMYK Project began. I received a letter in the mail that provided language and context for a part of my own life’s process lacking it. And that’s the way it is with us most often, is it not? We need the words and the insights of others in order to have clarity and perspective about our own lives. 

She went on to say that she had felt for a long season as if she’d come to the end of her process. She wondered if God might be done with her,.. and vice-versa. She said that she found, in the stories of others in the book as well as my own, ways in which her process was similar. She just didn’t now that believing in God could look so messy and feel so incomplete.

I think there are a lot of folks in her same place and I want this project to serve as a reminder that “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”*

• Join the email list to keep up with release news, reviews and upcoming dates for CMYK readings and concerts.
• Get the best overview of the entire project at the CMYK Project Page.
• You can get every element of the project at my web store.
• And if you’re curious but not quite convinced, get yourself a free chapter and song right here at the NoiseTrade widget:

—
*Abraham Kuyper

But also because, in the CMYK print process, their right relationship makes it possible to  bring about any color imaginable.

I’ve found life to be this way: meaning, purpose and place are established and celebrated in relationship and in community. My identity and my destiny have not so much grown out of an internal process, the result of which I can then share with friends and loved ones. Instead, who I am and what I do best in my world are things that have been worked out and are still being worked out in the process of life together.

Today, the CMYK Project becomes available.

3 EPs: C, M and Y
1 Full-Length album: K
and the long-awaited book CMYK: The Process of Life Together

Get them all at the online store.
Get familiarized with the project at the new CMYK Project Page.
Get a free chapter and song right here:

The article goes on, of course, to use the word “controversy” in framing the long-running conversation about the ethical implications of cloning. One detracting sentiment is voiced this way:

“This is a case in which one is deliberately setting out to create a human being for the sole purpose of destroying that human being,” says Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a professor of medicine and a bioethicist at the University of Chicago. “I’m of the school that thinksthat that’s morally wrong no matter how much good could come of it.”

To which a commenter responds:

“…when someone compares me or anyone else to a cell its pretty disconcerting. The thought that the potential of life equals life itself degrades what being a human means. Certainly we are killing something alive, but it is not a human being. But a person who objects to embryonic stem cell research on the grounds its murdering something that is alive needs to also weigh who is dying due to the lack of research into the stem cells. Are you implicit in their deaths because you belayed treatment that would have saved their lives? The truth is you can’t live with such strict universal maxims.”

I get that. I was once compared to a ham sandwich and it totally ruined my day. I was clearly NOT a ham sandwich, but a human being… this is still true. And I know that’s true because I know that I’m a human being… which, it turns out,.. is a far more nebulous statement than it seems at first.

Friends of mine who question the ethics of stem cell research are often called “crazy” or “backwards” for wanting to slow progress down (or stop it) because of, as one commenter put it “unscientific morals.” And I get that. If men like John Gearhart (quoted in the article) are right, this kind of research could mean an end to a long list of terrible human ailments, not the least of which being Alzheimer’s.  And even the possibility of such a thing just might be worth the risks and missteps we make along the way.  But then again, even that thought communicates a kind of moralism; that human life is worth working for and sacrificing for.

So… is that a scientific moral? And if so, does it reference a value stemming from (<—- see what I did there?) a particular definition of human life?

Which brings me back to questions my more cautious friends are asking… like why isn’t a human egg human life, at least in some way? Most folks I know would say it isn’t but most folks I know wouldn’t be able to articulate why that is. So, then does human life begin at the point of conception? Again, most folks I know would say “no” (which lands us squarely in the socio-political mine-field of abortion…).  But maybe it’s not a matter of eggs, per-se… but more intricate than that, is Human Life/Identity a matter of DNA coding? If so, then when DNA coding is significantly different, as in the case of people born with Down’s syndrome, does that make some folks, by standard definition, “less” human?

Rather than being annoying and coy, I am sincerely thinking out loud here and wondering if the question “what does it mean to be Human” can ever be definitively answered without stepping beyond the authoritative realm of science. And that step might lead to an arbitrary delineation of species in variation.. or it might lead to the doorstep of unscientific ethics; to places where value is assumed without evidence of its credibility.

I certainly lean far more heavily toward the sentiments of those who believe great good can (and currently does) come from stem cell research of all kinds. And yet, the value of that research is rooted in a value for human life; the definition of which seems to be distinctly lacking without the wisdom of traditions and disciplines outside the lab. It seems to me this is an opportunity to step past “controversy” into respectful dialogue. “Controversy” makes for interesting news/entertainment. But I think this is too important for that.

You can read the article here.

The text from the video’s narration is an excerpt from the book’s afterword:

“From atop the hill adjacent to my home I can see Mt. Diablo, looming over the valley that bears its name. I’ve grown up in its shadow and though I’ve lived in a few different places here in the Diablo Valley, I could always see the mountain from outside my home.

Mt. Diablo is just over sixteen miles from where I live now, and its distance provides a spectacular perspective. But the things I truly love about the mountain are things I’ve learned in the time I’ve spent on its trails and along its ridges — a proximity that comes at the cost of seeing the big picture. Similarly, the things I most value about the process of life together have generally come into focus when I stop trying to see the big picture and pay particular attention to the part right in front of me.”

The CMYK Project is the fullest expression of my whole life: as an artist, pastor, writer, friend and father. it is made up of…

-3 EP’s
-A full-length album
-20 songs total
-12 letters
-12 essays
-A text version of the book (featuring the letters, the essays and the lyrics)
-Artwork by 3 visual artists, Macha Suzuki, Dylan Mortimer & Laura Van Duren
-An expanded, full-collor version of the book (featuring artwork by the three above artists as well as stunning design work by CMYK art director Gregory Madsen).

We’ve worked very hard on this.
We’re very proud of it.
And we think you’re gonna dig it.

That’s what we’ve done together.

Of course, it’s problematic to make any phrase a mantra of the Christian life when it wasn’t something Jesus said. Jesus did say something like it when He said “Love your neighbor” which comes with no qualification.  But I think “love the sinner, hate the sin” has more similarity to another, well known teaching of Jesus:

“Love your enemies.”

The similarity, as I see it, is that both phrases/teachings share an intrinsic contradiction. If I love someone, they may still consider me an enemy, but my love for that person ought to make that same thing impossible for me. An enemy is someone I want to see fail, someone I must beat or destroy. In love, the way Jesus taught and lived it, I don’t stand against that person anymore, as is the posture of enemies. Instead, I am for them and want good for them.

I see “love the sinner, hate the sin” similarly. If I truly love someone, I’m likely not seeing them as primarily a sinner. In fact, I am convinced that seeing someone in a truly loving and Christian way means seeing her as primarily beloved of God; our differences and especially our faults, come second… at least.

And so, while I would rather friends cease from using the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” in exchange for the actual teachings of Jesus, I’m almost equally happy to hear and see it used in seriousness. In other words: what if I meant it when I said it? What if I took that charge to love someone I saw as a sinner? And what if that love transformed my vision (as true love does) and I no longer saw that person as primarily a sinner, but a whole person; conflicted and conflicting but above all a beloved child of God?

I think that would change everything… beginning with me.

It is beyond question that there are many other professional athletes who also identify as queer.  In coming out, Collins hopes to provide an inspiration for other athletes to walk through. He also knows that the next few steps won’t be without some conflict. For instance, ESPN columnist Chris Broussard recently voiced a more traditional, conservative view of homosexuality, specifically suggesting that “living in an openly homosexual lifestyle” is “walking in open rebellion to God.” That is, of course, the line being kicked around FB and Twitter.

But I think both of these public statements, Collins’ and Broussard’s, are redemptive and essential steps forward. Furthermore I will suggest that, for many folks I know, Broussard’s public statement might be the more essential step. Referencing  another openly homosexual member of the sports world,  L.Z. Granderson, Broussard said..

He and I have played on basketball teams together for several years.” Broussard said “We’ve gone out, had lunch together, we’ve had good conversations, good laughs together. He knows where I stand and I know where he stands. I don’t criticize him, he doesn’t criticize me, and call me a bigot, call me ignorant, call me intolerant.

Yes, Broussard said something many would consider predictable insofar as he is a Christian; that he doesn’t see homosexuality as a good or godly way of life. But he also voiced his sentiment while acknowledging the basic humanity of those with whom he disagrees.  You might think that’s short of what is needed, but I’m fairly convinced that such civility is far from a compromise… It’s an essential part of the story.

It’s easier to dismiss someone’s opinions, needs, desires, etc… if I consider them less human than I am. The angle of many political campaigns bends itself toward demonizing and dehumanizing one’s opponent. She’s a “liberal” or he’s a “threat” which makes them a set of ideas at best rather than a living, breathing person. That generations of Africans (and eventually African Americans) were considered less than human was the existential foothold of slavery and horrendously unjust Jim Crow laws. In the very checkered conversational history between The Church and the LGBTQ community, our worst efforts have made people into ideas (and dangerous ideas at that). But on either side of an ideological dispute are people made up of more than their ideas (and, vitally in this case, more than their sexuality). 

Learning to disagree without dehumanizing those with whom we disagree (and especially about issues tied to identity) is as important an expression of grace as simply siding with someone. I think that’s where the hinges are that open doors to healthy, just and fruitful communities; communities marked by equality and fairness, even in light of serious differences in worldview.

Men in the culture of pro sports could use more examples like Broussard’s statement to more civilly deal with and express disagreement with or dislike of a teammate’s lifestyle. I think that’s a huge part of the road forward.

_____

** For my non-sports-fan readers, Jason Collins is a professional basketball player who came out this week to publicly identify as queer. His public statement made quite a splash online yesterday, as was Collins’ expressed intent.

Part of why I recorded the album K was to highlight the truth that black, represented by the K in CMYK, is not only an element of the process but an essential element. After all, it is not denoted by a  “B” for “Black” but “K” for “Key.”  The CMYK print process is done correctly when the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow plates are lined up with (or “keyed” on) the blacK plate. Furthermore, once an image is printed, it is black that gives clarity, definition and depth to printed images. And yet, while black (K) is a key element of the process, it is only one element. The image to which black gives clarity and depth is mostly composed of light and color. No dark moment is the end of the process much less the whole of it.

THE ALBUM, “K”
With the album “K”, I want to declare that our moments of suffering, doubt etc… are, in some way, essential elements in the process of life while not being wholly definitive of that process. This two-headed truth has freed me to more freely engage in those darker moments in my own process.

In curating and assembling the album “K,” I chose two key songs from each of the original C, M and Y eps. We completely re-imagined and re-recorded all six of those songs and then wove them together with songs from my faith tradition that have played key roles in my life’s process.

I hope you resonate with K and I think you will. I hope the album provides a way to see your own dark moments as a significant part (but only a part) of your life’s process; a process that, while featuring dark elements, is not fully defined by darkness… a process that is full of color and life and one that I believe will culminate in an image of truth, goodness and beauty.

–
FURTHER READING:
- The musical/thematic influences of K
- An Overview of the CMYK Project

For some of my listeners, K may sound like a musical departure of sorts. Set against the sparsity of the C, M and Y recordings, K is a full-bodied, rock album. This will be particularly clear in the case of the six songs originally recorded on C, M and Y but re-imagined for K.
While I don’t expect to do a series of albums quite like this, I felt like the harder edge and darker nature of “K” was a necessary element of the CMYK project, just as black (K) is a necessary element of the CMYK process. 

Almost anytime I make an album, I use recordings from other artists as guideposts. For instance, while recording “Trust” in 2001-2002 I referenced Aimee Mann’s work for the Magnolia soundtrack. In 2007-2008 I listened to Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” throughout the recording of “Deconstruction.” I don’t ever try to replicate another artist’s work so much as I consciously allow what I am making to be impacted by art I am inspired by.

I had a few albums in mind when I set out to record K. This is one album I was listening to… 

Noah and the Whale: First Days of Spring
While just about every song on the album stands on it’s own, “The First Days of Spring” tells the story of lead-singer Charlie Fink’s breakup with former bandmate Laura Marling. I wanted the songs from “K” to work as individual songs as well as to tell a cohesive story when assembled.

I also enjoyed the way producer Emery Dobyns occasionally used group vocals to highlight key phrases in Fink’s lyrics or key melodic moments in his songs. This is an element we adopted for key moments on “K.”

You can hear both elements, Fink’s story-telling and Dobyns’ group vocal choices, in the song “Blue Skies” from that album.

*NOTE OF INTEREST: “Blue Skies” was featured in the excellent 2011 film “The Descendants” starring George Clooney.

* NOTE OF WARNING: For listeners with a lower tolerance for foul language, there are a few choice moments on the album “First Days of Spring.” The song/video above doesn’t feature any of them.  You should also avoid Tarantino films and the Godfather trilogy.

Sigur Ros: Valtari
As is the case with most of what I love about Sigur Ros, the songs from “Valtari” consistently capture or evoke emotions in me unlike most other music. Their music finds a way to be anthemic without the pretense normally associated with anthems. Sigur Ros makes deeply emotive music that I never find to be saccharine or cheap.

So much of the process of life together involves living in seasons for which we lack sufficient language. Beacause this is true, I think the role of emotion is Key and I wanted to capture or evoke some of that emotion with “K.”

I have, along with what seems a large portion of my culture, grown suspicious of emotion as an unreliable way of experiencing or understanding life. But emotional knowledge is still a way to know ourselves, one another and our world. I wanted to allow for moments on the album that were more freely emotive, in the likeness of this song from Sigur Ros’ Valtari. The song is entitled “Varúð.”

Pedro The Lion: Control
Along with a lot of Christians my age, the music of Pedro The Lion played a Key musical role in the history and process of my religious thought. Perhaps no Pedro The Lion album played as Key a role as “Control.”  It is, in my opinion, a truly cathartic album both culturally and spiritually.  Songs like “Paramedics” and “Rehearsal” gave me a kind of permission to voice frustrations and doubts that had roiled beneath the quiet surface of my precedently shallow expression of faith. I’ve come to see these frustrations or doubts not as deviations from the path of faith but as often essential elements of it; moments that deserve their own space and validity.

While nothing on K gets quite as heavy as the song “Second Best,” from Control, I kept this song in mind when guitar tones got more aggressive in the process of making “K.”

—
It won’t be long before you’ll be able to hear this album for yourself. In the meantime, you can catch up on the CMYK Project by reading the original artist statement or the more recent rundown at Kickstarter.

You can also get three FREE tracks (one from each of the original EPs) at Noisetrade.

Once upon a time, there were four able-bodied friends who had a fifth friend who could not walk or use his arms. These four friends had heard stories about Jesus and specifically that he did miraculous works of healing. That had also heard that this Jesus was in their town. Together, they set their friend on a mat and carried him across town to the place Jesus was rumored to be. When they arrived, the room was not only full, but full to overflowing.  But the faith and resolve of these four friends made a way around (or more accurately, over) the obstacle posed by the crowd, and they somehow got their friend onto the roof of that building. Then, cutting a hole in that roof, They lowered him to Jesus’ feet.

This feat, described in the second chapter of Mark’s Gospel, required a community of people. They could not have carried their friend across town, hoisted him onto the roof and then lowered him to the ground through that hole had there been only two of them, much less only one.  Such a great deed required an assembly of people acting in like-mindedness. And I think almost every great act, including acts of faith, bears that same communal character.

I can only imagine the celebration and years of joyful story-telling between the five friends from Mark ch 2. Because after they had done all they could do together, Jesus does something I still find stunning. He not only heals the man at his feet, but He does so because he saw the faith of that man’s friends – the friends who carried him across town, climbed the walls of that building, cut a hole in the roof, and lowered their friend to the floor to be healed.

Not because of the faith of the man in need.
Not because of the need of that same man.
Jesus healed that man because of the faith of his friends.

I think there is something very much like magic in the practice of life together.

• I see it in the way, as scientist Matt Ridley discusses, mind-blowing advanced technology is creeated out of (and ONLY out of) the collective effort of women and men who are unable to do the jobs of their colleagues much less do the whole creative job on their own.
• I see it in the way my church community just provided clean water for over 1000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa by drinking nothing but water for 40 days and giving the money otherwise spent on coffee, juice, beer etc.. to the Blood:Water Mission.
• I see it in the seasons of my life when my faith in God was held together, not by internal fortitude and resilience, but by the strength of others’ faith.
• I see it in the way my own identity is at times affirmed, at times challenged and always shaped by what loved-ones see in me.  There are things I believe about myself and my world because I trust the perspective of others over and against my own evaluation.

I don’t think interdependency is a weakness of character or of faith. I think my need for others is an invitation to participate in part of what makes life truly good: community, friendship, family.. togetherness.

I look forward to sharing the songs (new full-length album), letters and stories (first ever published book) that have been born out of my own practice of life-together. The final phase of the CMYK project is just about ready for release.