Listen/Download Blessing

Listen/Download Blessing (excerpt)

The piece draws inspiration from
Numbers 6:24-26.

“The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”

I love the warm image of God’s face shining on us. I also image peace like a river, gently moving forward and spreading across the land. In the same way, this piece ends with bells and percussion spreading to all and drifting away into infinity.

BC ELEMENTS (What’s This?)

Download Full Score for Blessing
Download Parts for Blessing

The score and parts are available for performance or for inspiration in creating your own Confrontatie.

If you would like the wisdom of these cows to be with you all year round. Download our 2011 Ecclesiastes Cow Calendar.

$5.00 Suggested Donation. Click to Donate.

Download 2011 Ecclesiastes Cow Calendar

Finally, Bible Confrontatie has partnered with Kilomanjaro T-shirts from Brooklyn, NY, to bring you your very own Ecclesiastes Cow T-shirt. Thanks to a drawing by Paula Roberts and hand-printing by Leland Fischer, the design below is available on a t-shirt with your $25 (tax-deductible) donation to Bible Confrontatie. Click here to donate or Contact Us.

Ecclesiastes Cow T-Shirt

Show your support. Get this on a t-shirt today.

Original images: www.freephotobank.org

Listen/Download State of the Art Veterinarian

The lyrics were adapted from a letter written by my father, John Roberts, a veterinarian and problem solver for farms and farmers. While his letter that inspired the song wasn’t from the Bible, there was something about the experience Dad was describing and the concepts he was wrestling with that reminded me of major Biblical concepts. With that in mind I started exploring and found a wealth of inspiration when connecting the story to sections of Scripture.

The strongest connection to the song is the second half of Ecclesiastes 3 where we hear a rant on the frustrations of work that parallels the struggle of our veterinarian and farmer.

Ecclesiastes 3:9-22
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Most of the Bible talks about the joy of living and working for God (for example Matthew 7:16, Matthew 13:23, Titus 2:13, and James 1:25), but in Ecclesiastes (and earlier in Genesis 3) we hear of the pain and struggle that work can bring apart from God.

While Ecclesiastes 3 is the focus of the post, the story of the veterinarian and the farmer parallels many other Biblical concepts including…

-The challenges of living a simple life. 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 4:12-16, Psalm 73

-It takes wisdom to live by faith. Hebrews 11

-Foolish things can shame the wise. 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16

-What we have inherited from time and others can put a world of weight on our shoulders.
Romans 8:18-39, 1 Peter 2:4-10, 2 Corinthians 5:16-18, Galatians 3:26-29, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

State of the Art Veterinarian (Lyrics)

Nancy is this morning heading south while I am heading north by the same road
It’s winter. Better not leave the wood stove all alone.
It’s bizarre how complex it is to be simple.

I set out in the morning to resolve and now I am heading home by the same road.
It’s winter. Better not leave the wood stove all alone.

For a full story of the dance between the farmer and the veterinarian enjoy this version of the song:

Listen/Download State of the Art Veterinarian (ballad)

BC ELEMENTS (What’s This?)

Bb Plucks
Bonker Beat
Melodica Tune

Special thanks to Pastors Dan Olson, Tim Bourman, Matt Doebler for their help with the passages.

For those who haven’t heard, Aarti Sequeira is the Next Food Network Star! We’ve been glued to her journey on the Food Network and we are ecstatic that she came out on top. Her creativity, honesty, and enthusiasm have been very inspiring to us and we are honored and encouraged she has been our friend on Bible Confrontatie with her recipe and kind words.

She’s a class act and we know her show will be a smash hit! Watch Aarti Party! It premieres August 22nd at Noon (Eastern) on the Food Network. A million congratulations to Aarti!

Download                              The Constant (18Mb)

Preview Each Card : Instructions • Constant Card • Yellow • Dark Blue • Light Blue • Brown • Green • Grey

Word Document Download (9Mb)

Each card contains a set of instructions for the participant, asking you to carry out a task in relation to the others around you. What exactly you choose to do depends on your interests and what your group is creating. What your group creates depend on their identity, for just as Creation tells us about the Creator in Genesis, so our creations tell others about us.

This composition is part of Nature’s Lamp, a component of Bible Confrontatie that provides creative resources relating to God and nature, bridging the unfortunate gap that has apparently developed between readers of the Bible and readers of nature. A large part of Nature’s Lamp has been the development of the Nature Bible Database, a massive interactive online database that cross-references and discusses each passage in the Bible that contains a nature word. Interestingly enough, all the nature words, can be boiled down into several key categories that roughly reflect the days of Creation. This relationship is also explore in The Constant.

The Constant is appropriate for adults and teens, with artistic backgrounds ranging from none to professional. It’s simply a blueprint for creativity, something open to everyone.

We are looking for…

…Willing participants to try out The Constant and record/film your experience so we can feature it on this site and natureslamp.org. With a bit of imagination you could use The Constant to make music, dance, build a sand castle, create a recipe, explore a new trail in the woods, rock climb, finish yard work or raise a puppy. We’d love to see you try.

…Educators that work with young children to adapt a version of The Constant for young children for inclusion on this site and natureslamp.org.

Please Contact Us if you would be interested in either.

This piece was commissioned for use at a nature camp in northern Wisconsin. The theme of the “Nature Center” for that week was The Bible and Nature: A Unity in Purpose or in bumper sticker form: “Have you read God’s other book?”

You can use “The Constant” to create anything. Here’s a video of a cabin from Lake Lundgren Bible Camp using “The Constant” to create a giant wild drawing.

CLICK HERE to see what they made

Listen/Download The Wheels

The recipe, her delightfully upbeat presentation, and the wild story of Ezekiel’s Vision in Ezekiel Chapter 1 inspired this song The Wheels. In true Confrontatie style, I picked a few specific parts of Aarti’s submission to create my own artistic reaction.

First, I recorded the great sounds that came up as I made Ezekiel’s Wheel Chickpea Salad in my kitchen:
-Firing up the gas burner
-Roasting a red bell pepper over the burner (it whistled and popped)
-Stirring up tahini
-Pouring chickpeas
-Chopping shallots
-Boiling beets
-Scraping the skin off the bell pepper with a knife
-Dropping and toasting walnuts in a pan (we were out of pine nuts)

Then I sampled Aarti saying two words from her video: “Tahini” and “Chickpea.” I used the tah, iin, and chi sounds.

In the spirit of a Food Network style challenge I limited myself to only the recorded sounds from the salad prep and Aarti’s three syllables (tah, iin, chi) when making the composition. I cut the sounds up, pitched them at different octaves, and added delay and reverb.

The text is adapted directly from the story of Ezekiel’s Vision of God. There are so many fascinating parts of this story, but since Aarti pleasantly focused on the mysterious wheels that Ezekiel saw, I thought I would also make this the focus of the song.

I imagine the narrator emphatically telling the story of what he just saw to the first person he sees. When we see something incredible, barely believable, sometimes we focus on just one component of what we saw, the only part we can wrap our head around. Imagine a couple telling their grandkids about an extreme storm they just witnessed. The storm had tornados, torrential rains, and affected thousands of lives, yet the part of the story they tell over and over is that there was a mailbox in perfect condition yet up in a tree. The rest of the tale was unfathomable so they keep coming back to that mailbox.

That reminds me of Ezekiel a little bit when he spends so much time focusing on the wheels–how many, how they intersect, that they move but don’t turn. Perhaps of all the wild things he saw, the wheels were something that he could wrap his head around and communicate so he really focused on them.

So those are the parts of Aarti’s Recipe and Ezekiel’s story I am confronting. We hope you enjoy! For a more classic rendition of the tune listen to the Piano/Vocal Version of the song here:

Listen / Download The Wheels (Piano Version)

If you would like to perform the song, download the Lead Sheet and Lyrics here.
Contact us if you would like the full sheet music.

BC ELEMENTS (What’s This?)

Here are the sound samples I used to make this piece. They were gathered while I made Aarti’s Ezekiel’s Wheel Chickpea Salad. We hope they might inspire you to make your own Confrontatie. If you do please let us know and Submit your Confrontiatie to be featured on our site. Thanks for your support and involvement!

Gas Burner Lighting
Roasted Red Pepper Whistling
Roasted Red Pepper Crackling
Boiling Beets
Dropping Walnuts in a Pan
Pouring Chickpeas in a Bowl
Chopping Little Shallots
Chopping Big Shallots
Dropping a Pan on a Burner
Peeling Skin Off a Roasted Red Pepper
Rolling Walnuts in a Pan
Scraping Roasted Red Pepper

I was particularly impressed at how many cool sounds the red pepper made when I roasted it over the gas burner. Try it! It whistles and crackles like a big ol’ campfire.

Listen/Download Eyes of Your Heart (Instrumental)

Listen/Download Eyes of Your Heart (Sample Performance)

This setting of Ephesians 1:18-19 can be performed live. The Instrumental track is above for you to use along with a sample performance.

Reading this text makes me think that it’s the kind of thing that you would whisper to someone you dearly love. You might say these words so close to them that you could hear each other’s tiny breaths and mouth sounds amplified with clarity. With that in mind all the sounds in the soundscape are created with the mouth, recorded very closely and amplified.

When performing this piece try experimenting by speaking the text very quietly with high amplification. There’s no rush, so take your time. Think about how fascinating the concept is that your heart could have eyes.

Please contact us if you would like a detailed score for performance.

BC ELEMENTS (What’s This?)

Long Breath In
Breath Squeaks
Breath In Teeth
Breath Out with Sound
Long Breath Out with Whistle
Breath Out Long 2
Click Long Breath In
Click Double Breath In
Deep Warble
Breath Warbles
Dark Breath Click
Breath In High Long
Vocal Beat Composite

Here are the mouth sounds and breath samples I recorded to make the soundscape of this piece. They are great for loading into a sampler and manipulating. I’ve used them for several projects. Please use them for your own projects. Try making a reaction to this composition or passage and Submitting a Confrontatie.

Photo: Nicholas Tarling

We told her about Bible Confrontatie and she graciously submitted her recipe for “Ezekiel’s Wheel Chickpea Salad.” The salad is a response to the completely wild story of Ezekiel’s vision of God–a vision with fiery windstorm, animal-headed men with wings and bronzed calf feet, glowing metal, and eye-covered sparkly flying wheels. Read the story of Ezekiel’s Wheel.

Thanks Aarti! We just made the salad for a picnic and it’s delicious! Watch and learn, folks:

A quick chickpea salad perfect for BBQs and picnics, pleasing to carnivores and vegans alike. Chickpeas, tahini, roasted red peppers and pickled beets

Ingredients:
1 shallot, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
3/4 cup tahini
1/2 cup or so hot water
1 clove garlic, minced
Splash of extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 cans chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
3 roasted red peppers, chopped
3-4 pickled beets, chopped (OR handful of pomegranate seeds)
Handful chopped parsley
Zaatar

Here’s some of Ezekiel’s vision:

4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, 9 and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.

10 Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. 11 Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. 13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. 14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.

15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about [d] as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around. Read More

Here’s our recipe for a deliciously diverse afternoon:

1) Read the Story of Ezekiel’s Wheel
2) Watch the Aarti Paarti Episode 6 and make Aarti’s Ezekiel’s Wheel Chickpea Salad
3) Do a Yoga Wheel! Well, maybe try a Bridge first if it’s new to you… Or just some stretching, or happy jumping.
4) Eat Ezekiel’s Wheel Chickpea Salad
5) Make your own Confrontatie to the recipe or Ezekiel’s Wheel and submit it to Bible Confrontatie
6) Celebrate by watching more Aarti Paarti episodes or if it’s Sunday catch the Next Food Network Star

Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
Read the full text from 2 Corinthians 11.

Listen/Download I Am a Fool

This piece explores “foolish” sounds and imagery. The extended intro, “Beast”, uses sampled clicking from a candle holder and a small thumb piano. The entire piece also features a samples from a train whistle and melodica inspired by portions of the song text about the sea and traveling. I combined the intro and song itself because I feel they blend well together and emphasize the themes that I love about Paul’s writings: foolishness among the wise, power in weakness, and what is worth boasting about.

Lyrics:
You are a beast. I like your red shoes. They make you stand out.
Unless you’re standing with a clown, then they wouldn’t.
Or the devil.
However, I hesitate to bring up the devil’s shoes
Because this humanizes him
Which I think is a trick to make us think he doesn’t exist.

It’s no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light
It’s not surprising then, that all of his friends are dressed up in righteousness
O I’m too weak for this
It’s no wonder you put up with fools when you are so very wise
They slap your face and then boast of your slavery, so too I will join their cries

For I am a fool.
Please take me as a fool ’cause I am
I am a fool, take me as a fool ’cause I am and I’ve no where else to go
To my shame I am too weak for this

It’s no wonder you follow the first man who pushes his way through the crowd
He enslaves your skin, exploiting your name, he boasts to the world out loud
So I, too, will boast:
I’ve been beaten and stoned, I am bleeding, naked and left for dead,
I’m in prison now, I’m shipwrecked and sore, I’m weak but I am proud

For I am a fool.
Take me as a fool ’cause I am.
I am a fool, there’s power in weakness, my strength was never my own.

It’s no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light
It’s not surprising then, it’s not surprising then…

For I am a fool.
Please take me as a fool ’cause I am.
I am a fool, slavery is safer than living your life on a bus.
To my shame I am too weak for this.

BC ELEMENTS (What’s This?)
I am a Fool (Piano/Vocals only)
Thumb Piano
Candle Click
Train and Truck Whistle/Motor
Bike Pump
Beast Intro Sound Effects
Melodica
Piano Solo

Here are many elements for you to use for your own Confrontatie. Included are parts of the song as well as the original samples we used. There is also a solo piano version if you would like to perform the piece. Please contact us if you would like the sheet music.

Credits:
The “Train Whistle” sound was made by combining and manipulating Truck and Train samples from Freesound.org by users “euroblues” and “daveincamas.”
The Shipwreck photo is by Jeff Ratcliff. Used by permission. Please credit accordingly if re-using.

Summer Performances:

Sunday August 1st, 7pm
Aurora Free Church
Aurora, Wisconsin
Admission: Donation

Saturday, July 17th.
8:30pm and 10:30pm
Jimmy’s 43
43 East 7th Street
New York, NY 10003

If you have seen the show and have some feedback please post your comments below or contact us.