When Strangers Meet Musically and Scripturally

When Strangers Meet

Musically and Scripturally

a few parallels between

intercultural musical explorations

and

interfaith scriptural explorations

Intercultural Musical Explorations

as developed by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble in "The Music of Strangers"

When Musical Strangers Meet: When musical strangers meet, hear one another's music and make music together, they can become friends and new possibilities emerge, not only for themselves but for the world. The Music of Strangers is illustrative.

"Over the past 16 years, an extraordinary group of musicians has come together to celebrate the universal power of music. Named for the ancient trade route linking Asia, Africa and Europe, The Silk Road Ensemble, an international collective created by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, exemplifies music’s ability to blur geographical boundaries, blend disparate cultures and inspire hope for both artists and audiences. "The Music of Strangers" follows an ever-changing lineup of performers drawn from the ensemble’s instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution. This trailer gives a glimpse of the “universal language of music.”

A Theological Interpretation

Interfaith, Intermusical Theology: People who believe in God, people who do not believe in God, and the many who are somewhere in between have much in common. They can all enjoy intercultural musical explorations of the sort performed by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

And they can all partake of interfaith scriptural explorations as developed by the Scriptural Reasoning project from Cambridge University in England. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, and others have a place at the table, as do humanists and atheists.

The friendships that emerge are part of what open horizon theologians call the horizontal sacred: that is, the sacred quality of mutually enhancing friendships themselves: God or no God.

Those who believe in God (I am among them) add that, for them, "God" is in the horizontal sacred itself and also in the fresh possibilities that emerge, particularly those which invite empathy, compassion, justice, and freedom. The living spirit of God does not have to named, or believed in, to be present. (Jay McDaniel)

Interfaith Scriptural Explorations

as developed by the Scriptural Reasoning
Project of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme

When Religious Strangers Meet: When religious strangers meet, read and interpret one another's sacred texts they can become friends and new possibilities emerge, not only for themselves but for the world. Scriptural Reasoning is illustrative.

As Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble maker clear, music has a capacity to blur geographical boundaries and blend cultures, not by dissolving musical traditions into sheer sameness, but by de-contextualizing sonic components from their "traditional" contexts and re-contextualizing them in new contexts, such that the "voices" can be heard in fresh ways, as complementing sonic elements situating traditional sonic components in new contexts. Call it Sonic Blending.

Interfaith scriptural explorations as developed by Scriptural Reasoning operates in a similar way, except the "music" that is heard consists of people from different religious traditions reflecting together on the sacred texts that come from one or another cultural tradition. The "voices" of the Qur'an, or Torah, or the Bible, or the Dae de Jing, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Humanist Manifesto, are heard in a new way, as de-contextualized from their traditional contexts, as heard primarily by an in-group, and then made available for new listeners, from other contexts (religious and non-religious) who add their own voices. Call it Interfaith Blending.

The idea of interfaith blending could suggest (wrongly) that when musicians and/or believers hear familiar voices in new ways, they reject the familiar ways. The musicians reject the music they learned in their local settings, along with the context in which they were situated; and the faithful do the same. This can happen. The freshness of inter-cultural music and interfaith-friendships can be experienced as richer than the more traditional ways. But it doesn't have to happen. A participant (musician or scriptural reader) can find herself drawn to both settings: the traditional and the multi-cultural, finding a beauty in each that is not duplicated by the other. She then belongs two kinds of community: traditional and interfaith. (Jay McDaniel)

Music of Strangers Website