Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel lesson, John 10:1-18, Jesus uses pictorial metaphors to describe his relationship to his people, in particular, that of the ‘good shepherd’.

In this image, we understand Jesus to have the welfare of his sheep in mind. He is ‘the door’ of the sheep, protecting them from wolves, but also ‘laying down his own life’ for the sheep.

Of course, this idea moves us in various ways. It is both a comfort and consolation, but it is equally poignant and tragic.

Take, for example, two remarkably different approaches to Psalm 23, that earlier psalm which expands on the Shepherd metaphor, and which largely seems to depict a bucolic, rural scene, while also speaking of the ‘valley of the shadow of death’.

The first, which capitalizes on the pastoral themes, is typical of our English hymnody and of contemporary English choral settings: Howard Goodall’s setting, here presented in medley with a well-known hymn tune, and sung with an abundance of sentimentality by Aled Jones and his son.

On the opposite side of the aesthetic spectrum, you can hear John Boyer, an American practitioner of Byzantine Chant, sing the same text in English. Interestingly, this setting is devised for English by Basil Crow, and student of Fr. Ephriam (who died recently) at St. Anthony’s Greek monastery in Florence, AZ.

These approaches are so different it boggles the mind and makes the senses do a reset. What can we learn from these vastly different cultural traditions? How do these musics make us feel (while recognizing that sacred music is not primarily about manipulating our feelings)? What can they teach us about ourselves? About God? About reality?

I hope these thoughts and this music are a blessing today.

Yours in Christ,
Justin

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