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Home/Hacks/art.hack/Modern Psalms of Lament [art.hack]

Modern Psalms of Lament [art.hack]

I just went and saw Antje Duvekot at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA. Yes, it was at the vegetarian pizza place. Sigh. But she had a song that I particularly enjoyed, and thanks to the internet, you can enjoy it too. It’s called Pearls:

It’s a modern-day psalm of lament…and the first recipient of the art.hack tag!

Read on for more thoughts on it…

Antje opens each song with a story about it, and that song above she opened by saying she wasn’t an organized-religion person, but she found a lot attractive in organized religion. So she wrote the song imagining if she was part of organized religion. It’s refrain is rather haunting:

When you gonna come for me, Lord?
When you gonna come for me?
Cause I’ve been expecting you forever
Waiting here for you
Will you send a little grace?
It’s the least that you could do
It’s the least that you could do

Reminds me a bit of “How long, O Lord?” and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are all psalms of lament to a God that is supposed to care for us and be involved. The Psalmists lament “Where is God?” in the midst of suffering.  I hear this reverberating through Antje’s song, don’t you?

This is an art.hack because it takes a genre of Judeo-Christian culture (psalm of lament) and contemporizes it for the folk-music culture.  It makes a framework more easily recognizable for people, even though she may not be consciously doing it.
What other contemporary psalms of lament are your favorites at the moment?

To find out more about opening Christian systems and other “hacks” visit Hacking Christianity or follow UMJeremy on Twitter

Written by:
Rev. Jeremy Smith
Published on:
April 7, 2008
Thoughts:
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Categories: art.hack

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