Go Back IconAll Episodes

Grief, Connection, Healing: Gospel Study with Fara Anderson Sneddon

 October 14, 2024
Play

Fara Anderson Sneddon takes on a journey through music and sermon on grief, connection and healing it this recent Gospel Study lesson.

Fara Anderson Sneddon is a teacher, writer, and independent scholar. She received her MA in English from Brigham Young University and completed her PhD coursework in multicultural American Literature and Post-colonial theory at the University of Georgia. She has taught composition, technical writing, and other major English courses. Fara has worked on The Saul Bellow Journal and was publisher of The Student Review. She was the Sabbath Pastorals feature editor for Exponent II and is currently under contract for a book with the University of Illinois Press. She is president of the Midwest Pilgrims board and has been a featured speaker at Midwest Pilgrims, the Exponent II Conference, Northwest Pilgrims, Rocky Mountain Retreat, and Sunstone.

Resources, links to media from the presentation, and books and film with similar themes

Fara Sneddon, Dialogue Sunday Lesson Multimedia 

(In Order of Lesson)

 

(Excerpt begins at 9:48 in the song)

 

Kisa had a baby but the baby died

Goes to the villagers says my baby’s sick

Villagers shake their heads and say to her

Better bury your baby in the forest quick

 

It’s a long way to find peace of mind, peace of mind

It’s a long way to find peace of mind, peace of mind

 

Kisa went to the mountain and asked the Buddha

My baby’s sick! Buddha said, don’t cry

Go to each house and collect a mustard seed

But only from a house where no one’s died

 

Kisa went to each house in the village

My baby’s getting sicker, poor Kisa cried

But Kisa never collected one mustard seed

Because in every house someone had died

 

Kisa sat down in the old village square

She hugged her baby and  cried and cried

She said everybody is always losing somebody

Then walked into the forest and buried her child

 

Everybody’s losing someone

Everybody’s losing someone

It’s a long way to find peace of mind, peace of mind

It’s a long way to find peace of mind, peace of mind

And I’m just waiting now for my time to come

And I’m just waiting now for peace to come

For peace to come

 

So now you’re talking to the night
You read the words by candlelight
You cling to them with all your might
In the hollow of your soul

You dread the crashing of the rain
The waters rising on the plain
The lightning flash, the hurricane
Out of your control
And it’s all in the name of the Lord

We’re prisoners in a fairytale
A Ship of fools all set to sail
We watch the Empire’s epic fail

On shiny hand-held screens

 

The rapture of the buy and sell

The faithful at the wishing well

They rage against the infidel

Lurking in their dreams

 

And it’s all in the name of the lord

 

Pull the oil up through the sands

Desecrate the holy lands

The blood will never touch our hands

In lands so far away

 

The lies we tell to fill the hold

Like coins dropped in a beggar’s bowl

They can’t redeem us when we go

Into the dimming day

 

And it’s all in the name of the lord

 

  • The Unanswered Question—Six Talks at Harvard by Leanard Bernstein
    (Excerpt begins at 9:48 in the lecture)

https://leonardbernstein.com/lectures/television-scripts/norton-lectures/musical-phonology

 

  • Arthur C. Brooks Atlantic, Oct 3 2024

    “Enhance Your Mood with Schopenhauer’s Playlist” 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/why-music-really-does-make-you-happier/680095/

 

All through the night we drove
And the wind caught her hair
And we parked on the beach
In the cool evening air
Well, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all

Your body is an anchor
Never asked to be free
Just want to stay in the business
Of making you happy
Well, I’m just waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you

A priest runs through the chapel
All the calendars are turning
A Jesus freak on the street
Says He is returning
Well, sometimes a little bit of faith
Can go a long, long way

Your soul is my anchor
I never asked to be freed
Well, sleep now, sleep now
Take as long as you need
Cause I’m just waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
Waiting for you
To return
To return
To return

 

Mama, dear mama, look in yonder tree
See that pretty little sparrow, a-lookin’ back at me
She can soar above the clouds, way up in the sky
She can fly away from here, why, o why, can’t I?

Daughter, dear daughter, I’ll tell you something true
Remember Gran Eliza, well, every night she flew
They tried to keep her down but there was nothing they could do

She could fly, she could fly
She could slip the bonds of earth and rise so high
She could fly across the river
Her spirit in her hands
Searching, always searching for the promised land

Mama, dear mama, mama tell me more
I feel a trembling in my arms, I’ve never felt before
Daughter, dear daughter, listen what I say
Your granny always told me you’d feel that way some day
Every time she looked at you she saw the old-time ways

When we could fly, we could fly
We could slip the bonds of earth and rise so high
We could fly across the mountains
Together, hand in hand
Searching, always searching for the promised land

Mama, dear mama, come and stand by me
I feel a lightness in my feet, a longing to be free
My heart it is a-shakin’ with an old, old song
I hear the voices sayin’, it’s time for moving on

She took her mama by the hand, they rose up in the air
They held each other tight and then
They flew away from there
They held each other tight and then they flew away from there

They could fly, they could fly
They could slip the bonds of earth and rise so high
They could fly across the ocean
Together, hand in hand
Searching, always searching for the promised land

 

 

I’m travelling appallingly alone on a singular road
Into the lavender fields that reach high beyond the sky

People ask me how I changed, I say “It is a singular road”
And the lavender has stained my skin and made me strange

The lavender is tall and reaches beyond the heavenly cover
I plough through this furious world of which I’m truly over

And sometimes I hear my name, oh where did you go?
But the lavender is broad and it’s a singular road

Once I was running with my friends
All of them busy with their pens
But the lavender grew rare, what happened to them?

Sometimes I see a pale bird wheeling in the sky
But that is just a feeling, a feeling when you die

Where did they go?
Where did they hide?
We don’t ask who
We don’t ask why
There is a kingdom in the sky
There is a kingdom in the sky

Where did they go?
Where did they hide?
We don’t ask who
We don’t ask why
There is a kingdom in the sky
There is a kingdom in the sky

  1. Eliza Gilkyson, “Sanctuary” from the album Secularia
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6wg4VZ4Fn4&list=PPSV

Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Thou art with me
Though my heart’s been torn on fields of battle
Thou art with me
Though my trust is gone and my faith not near
In love’s sanctuary
Thou art with me

Through desolation’s fire and fear’s dark thunder
Thou art with me
Through the sea of desires that drag me under
Thou art with me
Though I’ve been traded in like a souvenir
In love’s sanctuary
Thou art with me

Through the doubter’s gloom and the cynic’s sneer
Thou art with me
In the crowded rooms of a mind unclear
Thou art with me
Though I’ll walk for a while down a trail of tears
In love’s sanctuary
Thou art with me

 

 

BOOKS
 Referenced in Dialogue Sunday School Lesson

  • Faith, Hope, and Carnage, Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagen 
  • The Book of Mormon For the Least of These, Margaret Olsen Hemming and Fatima Salleh

 

Suggestions for Further Resources

ARTICLES

Pitchfork (online music magazine), Ghosteen album review, Grayson Haver Currin

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-ghosteen/

 

FILM

Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire (1987)

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-wings-of-desire-1988

 

Andrew Dominik, One More Time with Feeling (2016)

Documents the recording of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds‘ sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, in the aftermath of the death of Nick Cave‘s 15-year-old son Arthur. 

 

Andrew Dominik, This Much I Know to be True (2022)

Captured over five days at Battersea Arts Centre and on location in London This Much I Know To Be True captures Nick Cave & Warren Ellis as they ready songs from their last two studio albums for the stage. In this document of their first ever performances of these albums, filmed in spring 2021 ahead of their UK tour, we see the two, accompanied by singers and string quartet, as they nurture each song into existence. The film features a special appearance by close friend and long-term collaborator, Ma-rianne Faithfull.

Denis Villeneuve, Arrival (2016)

 

Further Reading Suggestions

Books with themes that resonate with the lesson

  • Faith, Hope, and Carnage, Nick Cave
  • Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales, Sabrina Orah Mark
  • Present Tense Machine: A Novel, Gunnhild Oyehaug
  • Small Rain, Garth Greenwell
  • Pearl, Siân Hughes
  • The Outrun, Amy Liptrot
  • James, Percival Everett
  • I am Homeless if This is not My Home, Lorrie Moore
  • Take What you Need, Idra Novey
  • Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders
  • The Measure, Nikki Erlick
  • The Swimmers, Julie Otsuka
  • Abide with Me, Elizabeth Strout
  • How do you Live?, Genzaburo Yoshino

MUSIC

Nick Cave, “Fireflies,” in the album Ghosteen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDm1w067hdU&list=PPSV

Jesus lying in his mother’s arms
Is a photon released from a dying star
We move through the forest at night
The sky is full of momentary light
Everything we need is just too far
We are photons released from a dying star
We are fireflies a child has trapped in a jar
And everything is as distant as the stars
I am here and you are where you are

We have lived a long time here in the forest
We lie beneath the heaps of leaves
We are partial to this partial light
We cannot sleep and fear our dreams
There is no order here, nothing can be planned
We are fireflies trapped in a little boy’s hand
And everything is as distant as the stars
I am here and you are where you are

We lie among our atoms and I speak to you of things
And hope sometimes that maybe you will understand
There is no order here and there is no middle ground
Nothing can be predicted and nothing can be planned
A star is just the memory of a star
We are fireflies pulsing dimly in the dark
We are here and you are where you are

 

Nick Cave, “As the Waters Cover the Sea” in the album Wild God 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lt1boQ8S4I&list=OLAK5uy_l8uUel5F20D4jrp7lHNLYgQyw1MZL0ORY&index=10

She sits at the window
Her hands folded on her sleeping lap
As He steps from the tomb
In His rags and His wounds
Into the yellow light that streams
Through the window, He brings
Peace and good tidings to the land
Peace and good tidings to the land

 

And as the waters cover the sea
And as you wake and turn to me
Peace and good tidings He will bring
Good tidings to all things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lt1boQ8S4I&list=OLAK5uy_l8uUel5F20D4jrp7lHNLYgQyw1MZL0ORY&index=10

Bear Each Other’s Burdens, Community of Christ Sings (Hymnal)

(Opening Hymn for Lesson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG4kP9WytxU&list=PPSV