Tomorrow I'll be part of a ministry band playing my Song of Light (from "Blues Vespers"), a song that was designed to encourage improvisation in a church worship setting.  The point of the music is to prove Heinrich Heine's famous quote, "When words leave off, music begins."

"You need to explain it to the congregation," Kayla told me, " or they'll just sit around, waiting for the musicians to finish."

So here's my explanation: Musicans express themselves through playing.  We'll sit and listen to John Mayer or BB King or Eric Clapton play all day, because of how they express themselves through their instruments.  The church should not serve as a physical barrier to this.

Some feel that hearing a guitar solo in church draws undue attention to the musician.  But this supposes that instrumental music can't be expressive, or spiritual, and that is wrongful thinking.

There are bars all over the country that feature blues music, and people go to these places to feel better, to "drown their sorrows", so hear a sympathetic voice in the blues music.  Why should this kind of healing be only the property of these places?  Why can't the church be a place to experience this kind of ministry?  Because it can't understand that music has a certain property to it that its words can't cover?  Because it disagrees with Heine's observation that music begins "where words leave off"?

Blues Vespers is the template from which this type of expression can be experienced and shared, between musicians and the congregation.