Podcast Episodes

0:00 Hello, and welcome to Be.Make.Do. a soul|makers podcast, which is produced by me, Dan ABH. Today, we have a very special episode that I pulled out from the vault from over six years ago, when Lisa and I recorded our very first episode ever, called The One About George Michael. In this episode, you'll hear a lot of foreshadowing of what is in our curriculum and content currently. And for the first time, Lisa lets it all out on the table in an uncensored way about the responsibilities for artists of faith, prophetic critics and imaginative visionaries, and how the church should and could be a resource for those alike. And a little bit about George Michael. I'm excited to take you to the beginning well before soul|makers and the Be.Make.Do. podcast started. So here is The One About George Michael.

Lisa Smith 1:59
Hey, this is Lisa Smith, and I am the pastor and artistic director of Convergence. And I'm here with Dan, our producer and community director. Welcome to The Verge cast our very first recording episode of our new podcast, The Vergecast: Sitting at the Intersection of Art, Faith, and the Human Experience - having conversations that matter. And this is the one about George Michael. So for this first podcast, I was talking with Dan, we're trying to figure out what to do. And he gave me permission to talk about something of importance to me personally.

Lisa Smith 2:41
So I I wanted to talk about an issue that pretty much is on my mind night day for years and years and years. And that is prophetic critics and imaginative visionaries. Dun, dun, duuun. And funny enough, it's kind of the backbone of everything that we do at Convergence, everything from what we do at the church to what we do with the arts initiative. But it's not something that there's really much of a forum to kind of talk about on a deeper level of what we're really all about, and this kind of deeper conversation. So I think this is really a cool venue to maybe just talk about stuff that we don't get to talk about very often. So that's what we're doing today.

Lisa Smith 3:29
So I want to give credit for that that phrasing "prophetic critics" and "imaginative visionaries" to Deborah Haynes and her book, The Vocation of the Artist. And also my friend, Elise Edwards, who gave me a copy of that book, many, many, many moons ago, right, as we were getting started with Convergence. And Elise is a prophetic critic and imaginative visionary in her own right.

Lisa Smith 3:54
I think this concept and thinking about artists in this light has been kind of the backbone of of my question my questioning and so we'll get to kind of defining what in the world it is I'm talking about in a little while, but first, I just want to kind of geek out a little bit and gush over someone...

Lisa Smith 4:21
I was thinking at this point, we're probably going to lose like the entire audience. We'll lose the people who are like, Oh my gosh, that's such a guilty pleasure. And then on the other hand, there are people like within churches who you know, George Michael is like ooooh the devil or something like that. So yes, George Michael, is who I'm gushing over.

Lisa Smith 4:46
Not the George Michael from Arrested Development, although he is super cute as well. But this is the George Michael of Wham! fame. The super short, white short wearing "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" George Michael. The George Michael of Faith. And when I was in high school, I guess in the late 80s, George Michael was very, very popular and but I think at that time, his his album was like Faith, which so like the main songs that were out there were, I Want Your Sex and Father Figure and Faith. And so I remember in youth group them telling us like, we should not listen to George Michael, or Prince by the way, those were not on the approved list because of the high sexual content in there. And at the time, really, the, from my experience, what I saw a lot of churches were kind of engaged in what was called the "culture wars." So I guess reacting against and rebelling against the current culture of music and, and movies. And the way that they were going about it was was by boycotting, and kind of speaking out against but not much kind of cultural creation.

Lisa Smith 6:09
So it's kind of an interesting thing for me to put George Michael, then in this little basket of prophetic critic, knowing that, um, that history, but in the early 90s, I remember hearing his album and I don't even know how I got a hold of it. Listen Without Prejudice. So this guy who had been this super poppy, poppy, popstar then comes out as a gay man, through this album, Listen Without Prejudice, which is a deeply thoughtful, soulful album, about respecting people, and about kind of, the larger the way we interact with people on a deep, deep perspective, so he has these songs, obviously, about his journey and about being real, I guess.

Lisa Smith 7:10
But there's this song on the album called Praying For Time. And that song has, I have never forgotten the lyrics to that song. It's so deeply prophetic. I felt like this was I think, one of the first times I was thinking, this song needs to be played in church. The lyrics to the song or like, Okay, I'm gonna pull up those lyrics.

Lisa Smith 7:47
So there are lyrics like "the rich declare themselves poor and most of us are not sure if we have too much. But we'll take our chances because God stopped keeping score." And this is the part that I love. "I guess somewhere along the way, he must have led us all out to play, turned his back, and all God's children crept out the back door. It's hard to love. There's so much to hate, hanging on to hope, when there is no hope to speak of. And the wounded skies above say it's much, much too late. Well, maybe we should all be praying for time."

Lisa Smith 8:28
I just felt like whoa, this idea that I mean, even the people, people in churches who are trying to, to show God's love or to be good, their response is so often one of antagonism and fear and anger. And I just these lyrics, even kind of speaking in to right now and today that there's so much antagonism and anxiety. And the idea that God's presence is one almost like it, sometimes it feels like God zapped him. But what if we're the ones who were absent? What if were the ones who crept out the back door.

Lisa Smith 9:16
And then this idea of, of seeing God as the wounded skies above and hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of, I guess that last line where it says, And the wounded skies above say it's much, much too late. Well, maybe we should all be praying for time. And that thing about praying for time. It seems like the reaction to kind of this dehumanized world that we're starting to live in is to grab more for myself or to be against somebody else, or to try to figure out how I'm going to take care of myself in the midst of all of this and who am I going to align with and who am I not going to align with.

Lisa Smith 10:02
Does it occur to us to stop and say, let's pray for something different, let's hope for something different. And in the Christian context, going back to that culture war, you know, there are a lot of people who are really, especially at that time really concerned and consumed with end times. And, you know, people thinking about heaven and hell and that kind of stuff. And I just felt like this, this guy was saying, Well, if we're also concerned about that, doesn't, it wouldn't make sense, to ask God, for more grace to ask God for more time to stop this coming apocalypse that we think, is coming that to band together as humanity and say, Please have mercy on us, give us give us more grace and love for one another, which is exactly what the prophets did throughout the history of the Bible.

Lisa Smith 11:02
You know, A prophet is somebody who has a deep, deep heart for the desire of God, God's desire to be with his people and to have be reconciled to his people. And then a deep, deep, deep heart for the people that God is wanting to call back to them. And so the prophet is kind of standing in the middle, both saying to the people, come back to God, come see who you were created to be, and live this way, and then turning and facing God and saying, Give us more time, have grace with us, have mercy on us. And that's a really powerful message. And it's coming from the short shorts guy from Wham! in such a powerful way.

Lisa Smith 11:53
So it's just kind of crazy to think of, I don't know, at the time, I think I was starting to see these things that artists, whether it was movies, or music, or books that I was reading, that they just sort of were inherently speaking to things in the culture and questions that they had, that I wasn't hearing addressed in that way, anywhere else. And I think that's where my kind of interest and love for artists began wanting to kind of connect this to my spiritual life.

Lisa Smith 12:31
So I'll say, a prophetic critic is kind of as defined by Deborah Haynes, as somebody who is "attentive to the world around us, and is able to hold a mirror up to what is, allows us to see the truth, to tell the truth, about who we are and what we're how we're living in the world." And then an imaginative visionary is "somebody who helps us to envision a multiplicity of possible futures", which sounds like a big thing. But I think especially right now, that's an extremely important capacity. Because I think when the word prophet initially comes up, people are thinking of somebody who just predicts the future, or is predicting doom and gloom. But if you if you look historically, at what a prophet does, yeah, they do talk about what's going to happen if you don't do this, but in my mind, a lot of it is just being logical, you know, seeing the, if you continue down this path, this is what's going to happen. And what if we did something different? What if we turned at this point, and chose a different path? And I think that's the conversation for right now.

Lisa Smith 14:04
What if what if churches intentionally championed these artists, encouraging them giving them tools to, to mature and to spiritually develop and encourage them to consider issues of faith and what it means to be human? What if churches were playing songs like praying for time in worship? Because obviously, I mean, as, as we're all sitting here, we're at this very, very pivotal moment, or what feels like a pivotal moment in history where extremely wealthy people are seriously talking about how to survive the coming apocalypse. This is a reality that many people are thinking is going to exist and futurists are saying that the word digital is going to just disappear from our vocabulary within the next 10 years because it will be so ubiquitous, that's just reality. And everybody's realizing that those who control the narrative control the future. So what future do we want to live in?

Lisa Smith 15:14
And for me, I think the stories we tell are the stories we live. And the narrative of what it means to be human and the possibilities of our future existence and the landscape of that world... it's all up for grabs. So who will dictate that narrative? Is it going to be one that highlights a vision for humanity that reflects being made in God's image and, and working towards God's Kingdom one of grace? Or is it one of futility and despair and dehumanization? And the idea that man is just inherently corrupt and evil? And the question then for the future is just how do I survive? And how do I protect myself from other people?

Lisa Smith 16:12
So I guess the bottom line, the bottom line is, like, I want to live in a world that's full of beauty and mystery and possibility. And I want to be challenged to live human the way that that was designed, and I'm moved by sweet voices singing in my ear and gripping stories and stirring images and immersive performances. And so I guess I'm sounding the call to artists who would be those prophetic critics and imaginative visionaries wherever they're coming from, to to lean deep into that point, part of their of their consciousness.

Lisa Smith 16:54
George Michael did an interview about that song later, where he just said, you know, I guess you just reach a point in your career where, you know, you're, you're sort of done writing songs about sex and love, you know, and you start thinking about the the bigger issues and the bigger, the bigger things. And in some of his interviews, I just read one little line where he said that he had been making music for, for 20 years, plus one, and he hadn't changed anything. And I think that's so sad, that is how he felt, because he did.

I mean, to me, that song has been in my head, but more than any sermon that I've ever heard, challenging me about the way that I treat other people, and the way that I think about the future, and in a big way, is a part of this whole quest for me to to encourage those voices, those talented, talented voices, who can speak to us in surprising and deep ways, and get us to change the way we think about things. And to help us change that narrative to be one that's life giving.

So I'm calling on those artists, and I'm calling out to the faith communities who might help them get there and just saying, we need you to create the stories that are going to help us live human and help us have a narrative for the future that is life giving. So, I guess that's The One About George Michael. Thanks for listening.