On Interfaith Dialogue: Oh my God, unite the hearts of thy servants

Blogger Bass-I-Am, a.k.a. bjbass, is a bass player. He is not a Baha'i but has contact with Baha'is through an interfaith choir he is in. -gw

Yesterday was the OHF lunchtime performance for the Interfaith Mission Service workshop. There were only two other groups: a children's choir, Rick's "praise band" which consisted of Rick, his son Ben, and Me, and OHF.

Our OHF choir is not all that big, generally about 8 or 9 people, and we're in kind of a "rebuilding year" with several new people singing and several of the more experienced people having become less active or having dropped out. But the Nashville chapter showed up, so we probably had 20 people on stage. And there are some strong voices in the Nashville group. We sounded good.

Rick and Ben and I opened the show. At the last minute, they had asked that we not do "Jesus songs" since the group really has grown into being interfaith. I haven't played this stuff much with Rick lately, so I had gone over some of the old praise-band repertoire we used to do, but we didn't do it. We did songs like Van Morrison's Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, pop songs that work in the (interfaith) praise environment. I was playing my 5-string, which I shouldn't do for music I'm rusty on, because I don't play it enough and sometimes the notes are just in the wrong places. But it went OK.

The children's choir sang their songs, and then OHF was on. We had three songs prepared, two of them relatively easy upbeat hand-clapping pieces. The other is a hauntingly beautiful, slow, soulful song called the Unity Prayer. It's difficult, but we've worked a lot on it because we like it. I was surprised (I had left the OHF warm-up early to set up with Rick) when we started off with the Unity Prayer. I guess the thinking was that if the program was running long, they'd stop us at one or two songs (it has happened before), and we wanted to make sure the Unity Prayer was on the program. Both because we like to sing it, and because it is particularly appropriate for this group. More on that later.

Rick, Ben, and I did one more song, Get Together, to finish the program. OHF came up and sang behind us, which was pretty neat and kind of unexpected.

We had a pot-luck get together at our house afterwards. I hadn't had time to make up maps, so I led a 9-car caravan to our house. I was amazed we all made it. The IMS used to be pretty much a Christian group, "interfaith" mostly meaning interdenominational. A few years ago, a mosque joined the group, and there was a bit of an uproar. One of the big Baptist churches left and took its substantial financial support with it, and it was rough going for IMS for a while. It is now on the rebound, and it brings together Muslims, Jews, Baha'is, as well as many flavors of Christianity.

OHF is not a Baha'i choir -- although people keep calling us that -- but it did grow out of the Baha'i tradition. Our group is about half Baha'i. The Unity Prayer is based on Baha'i scripture ("Oh my God oh my God, unite the hearts of thy servants..."). Baha'is believe that all religions are legitimate, and that they should strive to work together. That's why this song was particularly appropriate for the IMS workshop.

Bass-I-Am, "Singing and Playing at the IMS Workshop," BJ Bass

Blogger's bio:

I spent most of my life in Wisconsin and Michigan, and found myself living in the south about a decade ago. I have degrees in physics and atmosperic science. I work for an Army contractor, building computer models of smoke and atmospehric effects.

In my spare time, I'm a bass player. I play upright and electric in a wedding band (jazz and retro rock), a big band (Ellington to Setzer), a community orchestra, musicals, and the occasional opera. I also sing (not very well) in a gospel choir.

{Re-posted with permission}