Bri-anne Swan:

Hello, and welcome to our very first episode of Wilderness Times, a new podcast brought to you by both the Resistance Church and Jubilee United Church communities. My name is Rev. Bri-anne Swan, and along with Rev. Norm Seli, I am one of the called ministers at Jubilee. I’ve also had the honour of offering leadership to the Resistance Church community since 2019.

So, what is Wilderness Times? To lay it all out, here is the trailer we’ve been using to describe the show.

[MUSIC]

The wilderness is a place to reflect. To discover who we are. To grapple with all that is wild and uncertain. To figure out what we stand for. Where God is revealed. With guests engaged in the work of standing up for Truth, join Rev. Bri-anne Swan as we explore what it means to answer God's call to seek justice and resist evil in this beautiful and aching world. Engaged Faith and deep conversation for these wilderness times.

We have some amazing guests coming up for this first season and I’m can’t wait to share these conversations with you.

The Many’s Introduction

If you find yourself in emergent Christian spaces, chances are you might know today’s guests. The Many are a musical collective based out of Chicago. They are the resident band of The Plural Guild and draw on indie pop and gospel influences, making music to help give voice to faith and doubt, questions and fears, laments and longings. It is music that speaks of a non-violent God, a Jesus who is with us and for us, and a Spirit that can't be easily defined or controlled.

The Many describe their songs as music for a movement of resistance to hatred and division, for reconciliation and restoration…music that always reminds us "we are on this earth to love."

A couple of weeks ago I was able to speak with Gary Rand, Darren Calhoun and Christa Sangster Monroe. The additional members of The Many are Hannah Rand, Jonathan Ulanday, and Kristina Sinks. Hannah will be reading a paraphrase of Genesis 11 later on in the show as part of what we are calling, “Bible Bites”, a regular feature in the podcast where guests choose and reflect on a piece of scripture.

I’m not gonna lie folks — I am very, very excited to share the conversation with you. If you have worshipped with Resistance Church or with Jubilee, you will know how powerful it is to sing along - even if you are alone at a computer screen - with The Many’s music. It is even more incredible to experience their music in person, God’s beloveds gathered together, sinking into the words we can all share together. But before we get into the conversation, here is All Belong Here, from The Many’s 2017 album of the same name.

[MUSIC: All Belong Here by The Many]

[this piece of the transcript has been automatically generated]

Gary Rand
I'm gonna have to go get my bigger headphones. I feel like you know, you have the bigger headphones now.

Darren Calhoun
You know, fortunately, it's not a competition. I just I just switched to these a few moments ago. These are my podcast headphones.

Bri-anne Swan
Actually, it's a very nice visual setup.

Darren Calhoun
Thank you. Thank you. It's been my little passion project of the pandemic.

Bri-anne Swan
Nice. Well, thank you, all of you for joining me this...I guess it's afternoon still for for you, folks. I really appreciate it. I'm just so delighted. One of the questions that I had, as I was trying to write the intro for what this episode is going to be, is sort of trying to describe what your musical genre is. Like, if I was trying to look you up in a record store? What what would it be if people go to to people leave and go to record stores anymore? Is that? Is that a thing? I don't know.

Darren Calhoun
They've come back in the in the fashion now.

Bri-anne Swan
En vogue is it now? I heard cassette tapes are coming back like those are kind of oh, wait, that's a record? Yes, cassette tapes? I'm not sure.

Gary Rand
I was just saying playlists are what playlists are where you can find that stuff now. I'm constantly looking at playlists that include us and going like, so why do people think we belong on this playlist? You know, that's the question you're asking.

Bri-anne Swan
Yeah, so if you were if you were going on a streaming platform that may not be named? Where would you find yourself on that playlist? What genre? And then where do you think you belong?

Darren Calhoun
Well, you know, we have a song about all belong here. And in many ways our music defies being neatly categorized into one particular group. Sometimes people say, oh, gosh, you guys are such a great praise band. And other guys go out. Other folks say, Oh, God, I'm so glad that you guys aren't a praise band, is it is just this weird mix of different ways that people, people resonate with us pretty much based on whatever their experience is. So sometimes the singer songwriter, sometimes it's like contemporary praise and worship. Sometimes it's just kind of a thing of its own. But whatever it is, it's definitely us.

Bri-anne Swan
So can you tell me a little bit about how the many began? What was the start? What was the catalyst for this musical group to come together? I think, you know, we, we had all we've all three of us have been involved in, in church worship leadership. And so I think, you know, Chris is quite new to the group, Darren has been there almost from the beginning. And in the early days, I think it was a matter of us coming out of experiences, where, particularly in the music side, we, you know, it was difficult, it really was a chore to find music, we could sing authentically. And that we could that the congregation that we were with, could honestly put those words in their mouth. And so I think that, we began to think about writing songs and

Gary Rand
Lenore and I, my wife, Lenore, and I had been writing songs for a long time. And my daughter, Hannah had just graduated from Belmont University with a songwriting degree. And so the three of us sort of as a family started writing some songs for our church that I was the director of. And so then we began to sing these in our church, and we started inviting folks to join us and partly the whole, we decided, you know, to maybe this, we should share them, because we had heard a lot of people in the same boat. So we started sharing them, we started, we put the group together really to share the songs. And then we really began to realize this was a much bigger thing that people were also finding words, hard to say in church, prayers and liturgies. And the structure of the churches seemed to be dry and not creative. And symbolism was overused. And some of it didn't mean anything, or it meant the wrong things. And so it was, we began to see the sort of the entire intersectional idea really in this kind of way to think about all these different elements. And so we started this group called the plural guild to kind of work on church renewal in general. And so the many became kind of an outreach of the Plural Guild. And it is it has been what we do now we do that whole, we create liturgy, we create worship gatherings we, we place the songs in context with all of these, hopefully creative and authentic worship gatherings. That's sort of how we've grown and moved.

Bri-anne Swan
In listening to, I mean, the different iterations of the band, because it's, it's, the lineup has shifted and changed over over time and stuff. But one of the things that's always been so striking to me is that you have been able to maintain this really special quality, that usually I only notice in groups that are made up of family members. So people saw those really tight, familiar type sounds where people can almost even though we're listening to recordings, it almost sounds like you could anticipate how each of you are going to, to shift and change as you sing. And it the tones and the harmonies just blend so beautifully together. And so is that something when you started singing together? And in crystal, you're new, I don't know what your experience is, like, do you? Does it feel does it click like, Oh, this is something special here that that's unique. There's a unique quality to to this sound and this coming together?

Christa Sangster Monroe
Yeah. No, yeah. One of the things that even we had a planning meeting recently, one of our like, the key things in our, I guess kind of, like fears or concerns area was like, you know, we feel so you know, tight knit, we want to stay tight knit, we want to keep the bonds that we have, we want to grow within that not just when we're singing, but also outside of when we're singing. And not just because it helps when we're singing. But because we actually like each other, we actually like being with each other. And so it's nice to be able to have that reflected through our sound. Of course, I know, it definitely helps when we get together to be able to kind of understand and have a feel for one another and know, okay, you know, John is clearly going to be able to like hold down the guitar lick and just lean back and let him work. Or being able to and comfortable with one another and knowing that like, okay, you know, I can I know my area kind of, of expertise. And I can I'm not afraid to be able to sing out and be able to give in the areas. How do I say this. So I'm not afraid to give, because I know that like I'm surrounded by people that also want to be there also want to sing and also love and thoroughly enjoy and believe in the music that we're making.

I don't know if you have a musical background. But sometimes the music field is very competitive and very Catty, and very aggressive. And it's just hard to be in groups with people sometimes. But and when I joined, I was like as a feel. But it just wasn't the field. It wasn't a thing. I think everybody was very intentional about welcoming one another, so that we could be a unit and so that we could produce music that we all enjoyed and loved and believed in. Because that we knew it was going farther than just ourselves. It was going out to like different groups of people that were like actually meeting the music that we were giving.

Bri-anne Swan
So I feel like I've kind of this is the first conversation we've had together. This is we are meeting each other for the first time and yet I kind of feel like I've been with you and following you for quite a long time now. And when we started resistance church in the fall of 2019 I was so desperate to find music that was theologically sort of in line with what we were trying to do. But that wasn't a lot of the same stuff that was in our in our hymn books. And that is how I came across your music and started to become a very excited fan about not just the music, but the whole movements that you were trying to, to put forward and to do and so I remember in December of ninth 2019 We were having a live gathering and there was a snowstorm which often happens in December in Toronto and so we couldn't meet in person. And so we decided off the cuff to do the resistance church worship online, in my basement, and we sang waiting for you by the many online and it was very exciting because then we saw the many come up in our comments saying we were so glad there was a snowstorm because then we could, we could do there. But we decided after that that resistance church would move from being an in person gathering to an online worshiping community. And then the pandemic happens, which you know, and then everybody was on your online and stuff by like, months, but it was enough, it was enough that people were like, how do we do this? Show us how to do this. But I'm wondering, like, what is the pandemic been? Like, for The Many? How has that shifted what you were doing? Was it an opportunity? Were there? What were the obstacles? Like what what is the pandemic meant?

Darren Calhoun
Oh, I could, I could geek out on this, because there was so much that changed on in so many ways. Like earlier, we were talking about that close family feel us getting together and having lunch and rehearsing together and you know, just kind of open ended, at least spending the day in the presence of each other was a normal thing. Pre pandemic, us having the core of people who know us be people who connected with us through in person, liturgical gatherings that we're with, we describe it as we don't, we don't do concerts, we create gatherings, right.

So to know us to really be a part of the music that we're doing nine times out of 10, you were also praying with us, and you were sitting in a room with us and that kind of thing. And when the pandemic hit, all of that, immediately had to stop. All of that had to be like, wait a minute, how do we do everything? How do we do all the things that we do? And so one of the first things that came up was, we I mean, we've had a few videos that were recorded, and we produced a few things for like, smaller use. But this idea came up of just holding spaces, like the world was was last is in a trauma traumatic moment. And it was like, well, if anybody knows how to respond to this, it's us if you need to cry, we got you covered. And so it was an opportunity to pivot and to say, Okay, well, how do we how do we hold space for people online? And from there, it gets into, I think, more than a year, we did these weekly limit together gatherings, via Facebook, Facebook, and YouTube. And that kind of changed the for change things for a lot of folks. Right? It meant there was more access to things that we created, that churches that would soon follow after your path would be using as they were trying to figure out what does it mean to gather people online, but also in places like congregation, like? Places like conferences, we're trying to figure out? What does it mean to gather people online. And one story, I'll just share quickly, there was a there was a very large conference we were part of, as an online event, we were originally scheduled to be there in person, and you know, everything shifted. And one of the speakers at the conference was talking about how online, it's just not real worship, it's just not real. It's not the real gathering of the people. And in this same conference, we're scheduled to do one of our online gatherings and it was an extended ones like a 45 minute gathering. And after that event, their whole tune had changed. They realized that with the right kind of intention, with the right kind of artistry that we had developed over time Hanna Rand becoming literally a video editor overnight, me stay at home, build my own little home studio and figure out microphones and, and I mean, I have a photography background, but I was like, Oh, I get to dig in now I get to create some really interesting things. And then us figuring out what does it mean to record together to write songs to produce them to learn them to sing them to make resources for churches that are also trying to figure this out, everything changed, and it completely changed who had access to us. And so now, many people first know us from our videos and first notes from our online gatherings. And then they get to have these in person experiences with us now that they can sing all the words already because they've been singing them in their churches and so forth. So it's been it's been a wild journey. And we're continuing to figure out the you know, as the US things, somewhat returned back to what we knew before, I don't think they'll ever go completely back. But as things as we figure out the new normal, it's been very, very interesting to me. To see all the ways that now both in person and online, that we're creating opportunities to do ministry, creating new opportunities to connect with people, to meet people where they are. And I think the church is really in a in an important place to figure out what does it actually mean to gather? What does it actually mean, for us to be in communion together?

Bri-anne Swan
Yeah, that was, that's one of the things that struck me as you were speaking, it feels very much in line with what we hear in Scriptures, the responding to the particular context and, and time period. And that's what you guys were doing. And it feels really special, actually, that people have been able to be introduced to you in in this way. That and that they might not have been, they might not have been, and there might not have been this exposure to this liturgical music that is, is faithful that is scriptural. And is justice focused in the same in the same way. And so I'm wondering, in a faith that is inspired to seek justice and resist evil, like, what is the role of the arts, and in that, in that pursuit, and in, like, the role of music and all of these things that culturally connect us?

Christa Sangster Monroe
I believe it's to make people uncomfortable. It's made to make people think. I think far too often, especially in the church, we are allowed to kind of breeze through of like, hey, you know, I trust the pastor, I'll accept what they say, I trust the choir director, the worship leader out, you know, trust what the lyrics are saying. But the only soul the only time really that we have to stop and we're confronted with things that really make us think, is when we feel uncomfortable. And when it's like, oh, I don't like the way that makes me feel like, I don't know, if I like this is it? Then we start to question like, is that true? Is that accurate? Is it real? Yeah, and so I one of the songs let justice rain I think we were talking about before. Like, I was driving in my car practicing and everything. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, "How am I going to sing the song without making people feel scared?" Like, because in my mind, of course, like this Black lady's up there, like, you know, "NOT ONE MORE! SAY THEIR NAMES!", you know, and like, how do I turn it back? Or how do I do this without like, bawling? You know, because there's that balance. But in my mind, also, I'm like, I love that it makes me feel like uncomfortable to a degree of like, even how am I going to present this, so people can hear it? Because I know that they will have hopefully some sort of like real response to it. And like, have to think like, well, you know, did I stop assessing if Black Lives mattered, you know, after the riots and after, like, the protesting or not right, protesting? Like, is that something that I just kind of said, Oh, mental assent and now it's no longer an issue for me because that's not my community. And so like things like I think that the music has that responsibility to not necessarily just make people comfortable. Yes, music brings hope and it helps us to grieve and it helps us to grow and be more of a community and feel love but I think also that that responsibility is there to present people with the opportunity to think and feel uncomfortable and sitting.

Bri-anne Swan
I love that. I love that feels right in there with comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable in the tension that that brings about.

[MUSIC]

Each episode of Wilderness Times features a piece of biblical scripture chosen by our guests. The following is The Many’s Hannah Rand reading a paraphrase of Genesis 11:1-9, written by Ted Heibert from the book Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible.

Hannah Rand
After the flood, the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Noah were one big family. They moved to Shinar where the world started again after the great flood. They all spoke the same language and live together in one place. They said, Let's build a big city with a very tall skyscraper so we can stay together. They liked living in a city where everyone knew everyone else. They liked speaking the same language. They liked being all alike, and they didn't want to leave God saw them building their city and their skyscraper. And God said, they're one big family. They're all alike, and they're all speaking the same language. If I don't do something, things will never change. Everyone will be just like everyone else forever. So God came up with two new ideas for the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of Noah. First, God gave them different languages to speak. Then God sent them out to live in different places all over the whole world. The people never finished building their city. They could have called it many town, because that's where the people living in many places, and speaking many languages came from, but they called it Babel. It was their word for dividing one language into many languages. It was their word for dividing one place into many places, where we all live in the world today. The people building Babel had a little plan to stay together. But God had a big plan that was different. God wanted to fill the world with different languages, different people and different ways of living. And that's what God did.

Bri-anne Swan
Why is this passage special to you?

Darren Calhoun
I can jump in. So when it when it comes to looking at the Tower of Babel story, one of the reasons that I feel like we use this is because it's it's a story that's familiar, like you didn't necessarily have to go grow up in church, to have heard it before or to have heard a version of something similar. And in the society, I think that many of us were raised in, we were socialized to see the Tower of Babel and to interpret it along a certain lines of God, sitting up in heaven, and smiting the efforts of the, those bad humans who are always up to trouble. But when we and maybe Garrick could talk about more of it, but but a friend of the band, and a friend of the Rand family, was part of doing these refreshed interpretations of these passages, and put it together in this children's book. And it was so beautiful, to look at this not from the perspective of an angry god wielding power to limit and to shut down human technology and innovation, but rather a God who's like, oh, wait, you could do this. But what if I redirect? What if I spread out the opportunities and the possibilities? And what if, what if, in in the way that we co create the future, it's going to be so much more than that one narrow vision, that that you maybe maybe came up with? He's like, Oh, this is just this is it? This is right. And I think in in reinterpreting and seeing it through a different lens and, and what may likely be a more authentic and accurate lens, right, like there's so many things that that were part of, of language and translation and history and, and how things were decided, that really had to do with more with the people who were translating, and their understanding that it had to do with what the text actually said. And so it's like, oh, wait, what if we reenter the Scripture? What if we re look at this, and do it with with not only the scholarly backing, but this this idea of love being at the at the at the core, and not a love that's, that's spiteful, but a love this, like, oh, you could do this but there's so much more so I love that we that we get to show up in churches and show up and what is often people's routine, their everyday the thing that they do, over and over and over and get to renew their minds, right that to reference Romans to, to look again to change the way we see it. And so looking at the Scripture and realizing that God was creating opportunity for diversity that God was creating opportunity for us to do more than what we would have done based on that previous effort. I think it's I think it's critical, like in a time like now where again, you know, referencing the pandemic, so many people are afraid of all the change for afraid to figure out what the you know, we reach back for what we knew. I'm not gonna slip into a story about Latin. We, it's almost natural to know to know one thing and to think if we just do the one thing we know that that's going to be all there is but I Home to be looking at. Yeah, the world worked a certain way. But what if there's an opportunity for the church? What if there's an opportunity for your neighbourhood? What if there's an opportunity for the way we lead, I mean, the the gains that people who are living with disability experience when all of a sudden everyone couldn't go out of the house. And it was just like, oh, we can do things online, we can have things accessible via via the internet, what we can do this, we just didn't have the wheel to do it. But it literally took a global catastrophe for us to just reconsider using the tools that already existed. That's profound to be. And I see in the work that we do this, these opportunities to just invite people to renew, like Gary was saying, to renew, to rethink, what are the traditions, what are the rituals, because it's not that we're saying ritual and tradition are bad, it's that we're saying there's some different ways to look at the same thing, and to uphold the values that that are timeless and transcendent. And I think that, you know, I could just go on about it for days, but I like the way we just go into these familiar things, and just change it a little bit, just so your ear perks up, and you're like, oh, wait, I've sung that song before. Like, we sing. Lamb of God, it's like, people are familiar, but it's like, this isn't the way we used to sing it.

Bri-anne Swan
I'm just leaving space in case anybody else wants to respond to that passage.

Gary Rand
I can say something. I, you know, first of all, I love these two, Christa, and Darren, I could sit here and listen to you guys talk all afternoon. You know, one of the things about diversity that I think the story tells in this retelling is that there's a richness and depth to our experience, and our understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to worship God. When we reach beyond our, as Darren was talking about one dimensional ideas of our own traditions, and our own beliefs and values that we grew up with, you know, when we start reaching out and meeting people and, and listening to each other, we begin to develop a sense of God and a much bigger sense of God and a much bigger sense of God's grace and how God works in the world and how God is understood in the world. And, you know, the way we make music, actually, I think, you know, we we make art out of our own values, and what we what we value we think is important as important tools for making our art. And so this diversity of experience, listening to other people and trying to understand other traditions and cultures and other people's experiences, of pain in humanity. This is the kind of thing that just enriches the art itself. And, you know, I think one of the things that I love about the many is that we are not all the same. And, you know, that part of what you were talking about earlier, being about this kind of sense of, it sounds like we're a family is really, just because we listen to each other, it's not because we all share the same background, you know, we just, we have different places we've come from musically speaking, and, and in our religious traditions, and how we live our lives. But I think we love each other deeply. And we love this experience of being together and learning from each other, and trying to figure out, okay, I love Krishna, what you were saying, because this is how I feel about the best of music making, it's when we bring our full self to this, and we don't, and we are given the opportunity, and the trust, and the invitation to be ourselves. And yet to find that part of ourselves that enters into this bigger picture, you know, that can contribute to this, this wider thing. To me, that's a it's a way of thinking of the Body of Christ. You know, it's like, we all bring our own gifts or passions or, you know, our personalities into this community to try and share that sort of, you know, we, we make this community better, we make this community deeper and richer by giving ourselves as we listen and understand and give opportunity for others to do the same thing. So it's in a way it's both a passion and it's our method for putting a group together.

Bri-anne Swan
And there's a shift in this passage too similar to the shift that you were talking about Darren with with the pandemic that things didn't work anymore. And so there was a shift in this passage though, one of the things I noticed is that they just didn't build, they just stopped building the city. That wasn't the city we needed, we needed to do a different thing. So my last question, what is the one song that you can't wait to sing along with people?

Darren Calhoun
Um, let Christa go first.

Christa Sangster Monroe
So, All Belong Here would be the the piece that I kind of thoroughly enjoy singing with others, especially in a community kind of environment. It was one of the songs that it was the song actually, that kind of introduced me to the many, even before I started singing with The Many, and I played that bad boy on repeat. And so yeah, so when I'm like, in that, in that group, we're just being able to feel like the unity in the electricity. Just amongst all the people kind of declaring out to like the world and to God, like, everybody here, everybody out there belongs here.

Bri-anne Swan
How about you, Darren?

Darren Calhoun
So I get to it's funny, like, even on the stage, you can't necessarily like, see people one to one, but I always feel like I end up connecting with somebody when I'm just singing the words, there's, there's mercy enough, there's grace enough, there's love enough for all of us. And I literally, I literally smile, like not just like, Okay, here's, you know, here's a little encouraging little word, but it's no it literally like wells up joy within me to, to just look out over a group of people and to kind of kind of pronounced a blessing, and an honor and remembrance and remind people like there's enough. There it I remember we, when when we first started singing that, and I it changed the way that I talked about what's possible in the world. You know, it kind of inform this idea that, that Yep, abundance thinking this, this idea that that God's God's wonderful world that we're that we're part of, and stewards of, really does have enough, we just have created this idea that there's not and that we have to make scarcity so that things have values like now, there's more than enough for what we need, we just have to change how we handle it. And so to remind people that and then to literally see people's faces light up and change in that moment, with just those words, I haven't had a chance to sing that recently, at a vigil where some people had kind of been lost to a senseless act of violence. And even when people don't know it, they start singing, right along with those simple words, because we feel it, it's in our hearts, it's in our souls. But we don't get to say it very often. And so I really liked encouraging people to sing that part.

Bri-anne Swan
Gary?

Gary Rand
I was thinking. Some of you know, Frederick Buechner, who died recently, and who for many of us was just a gift. His work meant so much to me and to Lenore and my wife who writes the lyrics to all of the songs. And I was, you know, very early on when Darren had first joined us, and we were just doing some gatherings. And we recorded a couple of songs. One of the first songs we ever wrote was called Only Grace. And Frederick Buechner had a big influence, not personally, but his books. Lenore had been reading his books, and we had been talking about his whole idea about grace. And, and it just seems like in a world where we often are judged, and in a world where the church is at pains to, you know, tear the other church down, that it seemed like, grace was what we needed, you know. And so we wrote this song, and it was about why we come to church and part of it was about, you know, we are, there's fighting here, but there's love here. There's brokenness here, but there's healing here. And it's only grace that calls us together. Because it's, we wouldn't be here for any other reason. And so it's and then in the middle of that we sing Amazing Grace as a kind of bridge. And it's, I remember the this was the first song that we sent it actually, after we wrote it. We sent it to Frederick beaker. And we said, we thought you might like this song, and he put it on his Facebook and Instagram page. And suddenly we had 10,000 people listening to Only Grace overnight up to then we'd had four, you know. And, and so...

Bri-anne Swan
That's very niche, that's a very nice group of people.

Gary Rand
It was incredible. And, you know, it was sort of the moment that really made us think, well, maybe maybe we have something here, you know, and it was just such a gift to us in those early days to be sort of have his approval or is sharing of that. But we do it all the time. And at that point, we started doing a few church things. And I remember the moment when we started doing Only Grace. And everybody in the congregation started singing with us. And, and Hannah and I had several lives on stage, we just looked at each other, and we pretty much just stopped singing because we were crying, you know, it was like, people are singing along with us. This is why we did this. And suddenly they now know this song. And, and it was great. It was grace that brought us all together. And so I love that song.

Darren Calhoun
Carrie, I'm trying not to cry, even though crying is completely okay. pletely okay. But I feel that I so, so feel that.

Bri-anne Swan
So I don't want to say that I'm a liar. But that wasn't the last question. The actual last question, I think, is is what's next? What's coming up for the many over the next little while?

Gary Rand
Can I say one thing? I just wonder? Yeah. We have three new people in the group who joined in the last year. Krista, and Jonathan Udalay and Kristina Sinks. And I'm sorry that Jonathan and Kristina could not be with us because they are fabulous. And along with, with, I guess, when I think about what's up to what's to come, I just am so happy about what's to come. Because Christina and Christina and Jonathan have brought so much life and energy and, and just gifts to us in so many areas as people and as singers and as musicians as creatives as spiritually deep people that are aware and articulate. And so that's what I'm most imagining, and just the opportunity to be with them some more and to be a group together is just very encouraging to me. Yeah. So see, you guys have made a wonderful place to come.

Darren Calhoun
We love you. Yeah. And just to add to that, as our as our foot print expands, and now Gary and Lenore are living in North Carolina and the rest of us are still in Chicago. And we have various conferences, seminaries and churches and, and who knows what else that we're scheduled to do through the end of the year. It's, it's, it's a new season, right? Like, the band is bigger. We've got we've got more voices who are bringing both behind the scenes talents and on stage talents. And you know, who knows? Well, Gary, probably now since Gary's always over there, like, toying around with some new ideas. And Lenore is always writing, there are so many songs that have been written that I haven't even heard yet. But I know that they exist, because I'll catch the interaction between her and Hannah. Because that's kind of how it happens. When Nora throw something on the piano and Hannah, start working on it. And now that happens, I guess via email, but yeah, there's some there's, I'm trying to be careful not to like, spill it all and just start blabbering about all the stuff I'm excited about. But I know we've got we've got several trips just in the next few months, and I am super geeked about it. We need we need someone to bring us to Canada.

Bri-anne Swan
We were just talking about that. We were talking about that before, before I hit the record button that we need to figure out a way to get you into into Canada so that we do that I feel. I feel like there might be a project in my future to facilitate that because I know that there would be there so many people when I told them I was going to be speaking with you today. We're just so excited. And there was definitely are they going to come to Canada because we would really like them like, I mean, Canada's a very big place. So you might need to be strategic.

Darren Calhoun
But might have to make a few stops,

Bri-anne Swan
might have to make a few stops. But yes, we will we need to definitely figure out how to get you get you here.

Darren Calhoun
Yeah. Well, I mean, one thing that's that's one of the reasons why we are The Many is because we do things in in community and partnership. And so many of the places we've been haven't been been because there's a single person or single church or organization that's bringing us it's because several groups get together and share in pool resources and one person knows how to you know, get a hotel discount and somebody else has a large church venue and somebody else can get some discounts on flights and and it works. And it's it's mutually beneficial. And I think, hey, it might be the next wave of how how progressive artists emerged because we don't get the kind of big band support and or big record label support and we don't get

Bri-anne Swan
sounds a bit like house concerts on steroids. Yeah.

Darren Calhoun
It's a lot of it is only only a healthier version.

Bri-anne Swan
Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, United Church folks, Anglican folks, Presbyterians, we need to get together and get thishappening. Anyway, thank you all so much for for being here and sharing in conversation. It has been an absolute delight for me anyways, so thank you.

Darren Calhoun
Thank you so much for having us.

[MUSIC: "Waiting" by The Many]

[MUSIC]

Wilderness Times and Resistance Church are part of the Digital Ministry of Jubilee United Church. We are committed to continuing offering opportunities for spiritual engagement in digital spaces in the long term, but we need your help. Please consider a donation as an investment in this ministry. You can find our donations page by going to Wildernesstimes.ca/donate. From there you can choose “Wilderness Times” from the Drop Down menu. Whether you donate once, or sign up for a monthly contribution, we are very very grateful for your support.

Thanks so much for joining in this week’s show . You can find links to all of The Many’s released music by going to our shownotes at wildernesstimes.ca.

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Next week, I’m joined by Texas pastor, author and all around spiritual badass Rev. Aurelia Davila Pratt as we talk about her new book A Brown Girl’s Epiphany, and the importance of Imago Dei in the leaning into healing.

Until next week, take care of yourselves and each other in this wilderness. Blessings to all of you.

Wilderness Times and Resistance Church are ministries of Jubilee United Church, which is an affirming ministry of the United Church of Canada, committed to the work of being and anti-racist community, and living into right relationship with Indigenous peoples. You can find links to Jubilee United Church and Resistance Church, as well as a full trasncript of this episode, by going to our show notes at www.wildernesstimes.ca