From last night's event more than a few people had nice words for us, but the most common comment was "no offense, but the silence was my favorite part." None taken - it was mine too.

Honestly I had had a pretty late night the night before and not the calmest mind the day of--it was not until our silence point in the program that I finally felt my soul drop into place, catch up and be present and be aware that Christ is so present too. For me it felt like a fast forwarding frame that finally stops and starts playing in real time.

...And it makes me happy to hear so many say they needed that. My thought is, if we can get a couple hundred Seattleites to STOP just for 4 minutes and recognize that they NEED that... that we ALL need that... well that in and of itself is worth all the effort. However, you could have done that at home--and you can. Yes this silence is free anytime, but we avoid it like nothing else, maybe because we are afraid of what we will meet there...

I think sometimes I am both afraid I may hear something from God in the silence and also afraid I will hear nothing. So interesting that I can put expectations on what should be REST. Like I said before, the result of the silence for me was just my soul catching up with myself and then a real sense of being present with Christ and being glad to be there, knowing God was with me in all my tumult of emotion, in all the complexity that is my life and my world, and with all these other people in their worlds too.

What did you meet there in the silence?

You'd think by now we would have a dependable mission statement for Urban Hymnal but we don't. It became apparent as we wrote in the context of the death and resurrection of our Savior and found ourselves scrambling to justify some of our choices. "Don't go hiding" was the theme, and we took it to heart as we exercised freedom to express doubt, self-contempt, matters of sexuality, gender exclusive language and even country-twang vocals. I won't pretend that the resulting material is safe--it isn't. We are an artist group and not a church. And artists are curious, we dabble, we throw rocks from tall buildings and hammer at foundations. We also bring helmets and wet cement.

If I take a stab at some of our core values I can say we're about beauty, ecumenism, creating space, exploration, glory, blessing, rest. (Just a tad idealistic, eh.) Even these most lovely of ideas can lead to unsafe places. Exploration is dangerous. Love is dangerous. Glory is messy. And I am quite sure that we don't all experience rest and beauty in the same manner; some find beauty in unity, others diversity. These don't have to be exclusive ideas for the artist-in-community, but I find that in practice, catering to a large audience can result in rather anemic creativity. How much impact can I make if I am simply avoiding toes. I suppose we could do an hour of ambient instrumental music... ah but then we'd have to debate about the overuse of minor chords and the disrespectful attire of the musicians or other such froth. And so I find myself flinching: "Don't put us(God) in a box man!" Blech, the most fatuous of self-righteous clichés. Yes dogma is repellent and counter-diverse but so is irreverence.

Art was so much simpler when I had either the church to adorn or the club to entertain.

So should we get ourselves a trusty mission statement?

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Matt Whitney just sent me some of his sketches, which will be projected somewhere/somehow. His ideas on hiding are quite fascinating. I so enjoy these moments of collaborating.

Jen Grabarczyk blogs about paper clips, her muse for the visual installation piece at this Friday night's Urban Hymnal. If you aren't curious or bothered at the scope of this (32,000 paper clips), you may want to check your meds.