As Robin put it today - "one more sleep till Soul Circus"! Nearly all the problems are sorted out, insurance is sorted, Love Hearts are sorted, drums are sorted, screens are sorted - so we are very nearly all systems go. It feels a lot easier to be nearly upon the event than horribly close to it but not quite there yet.

Caitlin is in heaven because we picked up the djembe drums today and have been playing with them at every given opportunity. We've been talking a lot today about the importance of getting 'rhythm' into church. Now I want to say that I am NOT a musician but I was watching a programme on the blues recently that said the blues is based on poly-rhythms, whereas european music is based on melody. I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with music based on melody - however, the information was for me an interesting confirmation of something that I had been thinking for a while - that there is an omission in a traditional western church music tradition - and the omission is RHYTHM. As huge swaths of popular music are dominated by black music, music that is driven by its beat, I believe we have to ask ourselves some serious questions about what this kind of music could bring to our own church tradition. It is my belief that music that has a strong rhythm is potentially more 'embodied' than music without it - and so we could ask what has happened to a church tradition that has been without music with the ability to carry this embodied element? This is definitely something that Soul Circus will explore and question - we shall certainly see how it will feel to accompany the Eucharist Prayer with live djembe drums for instance. I will let you know how it all goes.