Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

Back to the Audio!

Seth 1:35

It’s November, everybody, welcome to the fall and welcome back to the show. I'm still Seth, I'm still your host. Maybe one of these days I'll take a week off and have someone else host, I don't know who that'll be. Maybe one of you. Let me know if you want to do that. I'll line it up and I'll set you free anyway, and I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for the chat today and I think you will be too. There's a lot of different stories mixed in that are beautiful, but before we get there a couple quick announcements so many, many, many months ago, quite a few people emailed in and said, “Hey, I don't really like to do Patreon. I'm not a fan of that. I don't want to have to make another username and password because I just kind of would like to support the show if you'll let me do that. So I tried PayPal, and that is a pain in my existence, it just PayPal and I've never really gotten along, ever. And I think that's a me problem because I know millions of people like PayPal, I just don't. And so that is the first announcement. So there is now if you click in the show notes will be towards the top there, right around where it says here's the transcript. For this episode, I have partnered with a new service called glow, and you will see a link right in the show notes. You can support the show if you feel so led. And you can click that button right inside your app right on your phone or wherever you happen to be. And you can support the show in one of two ways. And I'll let you go there and click there. So consider doing that if that is still something for those of you that requested that they would like to do that. It is a different avenue for people that don't want to do something like Patreon. Deeply in love with Patreon, it literally makes this show available the way that it is now. So that is definitely never going away, I want to make sure that you all knew that that is there. And I'll figure out how to refresh the website as well to have those links go appropriately. Hopefully, by the time this airs, I'm trying to figure out how to get the logo re stitched for embroidery because some of my lines as you'll see on the logo there are not uniform. And that apparently does not make the little printer thingys- the needle, whatever you call those happy. And so I'm working on that in as soon as I do. I'm ordering myself a hat from this little bald head that I have for the winter. And so hopefully those will be there. But consider getting something for somebody that you love in support of the show for Christmas or for yourself. Why not for those Patreon supporters, you when you enrolled got a discount code. If you didn't shoot me an email or a message inside Patreon and I will get you that I've got a nice little discount code there for the people that support the show that way. There we go. We did that. We're midway through November a few months back in the episode on parenting with Cindy Wang Brandt, the music in that struck a tone with many people like the singer in that band or one of the singers in that band of the Eagle and Child. His name is Brad Davis. And so we began chatting back and forth and decided, you know what, let's have a conversation. And I really liked it a lot. I laughed a lot. And those are always my favorite as I've said before.
We reference it at the end, but I'm well aware that some of you take weeks to listen to podcast if you're like me, you will listen to a little by little by little and so if you are in the central Virginia area, Brad and his band, as well as Citizens and a few other actually artists that have been on the show as well are going to be doing a concert in Lynchburg on November 6, which I think is a Wednesday and so I plan to go there. I would love to meet up with anyone going there in person. That would be fantastic. But if not, either way, I'm going to go listen to some music. So here we go without any further rambling, a conversation with Brad Davis of the Eagle and Child.

Seth 5:25

Brad Davis welcome to the show man and before we get started for those that need a little context, so a few episodes back, Brad sings in a band called The Eagle and Child it's not and the child is just an child because you caressed with my mind a bit there. And then you know, we messaged a bit and him and I'm excited to have you on to the show excited to talk a bit about you know, your story kind of what you're doing.

Brad 5:47

Yeah. Thanks for having me. And thanks for playing our music a couple episodes ago.

Seth 5:52

Well, thanks for writing it. I'm a big fan of music that isn't on Spirit FM or Klove or really the radio period. My wife will tell you I don't ever not have music playing, I think to her chagrin, she's like, “Can we just have silence?” No, no, no!

Brad 6:08

No way. That's uncomfortable.

How did you end up? I actually wanted to ask you, how did you hear about us? Where did you find us?

Seth 6:18

Oh, man. Well, so I was out shopping with the kids. And the kids get to run my playlist on Spotify. So I have my like, the playlist, that those that listen to all the you know, the songs from each episode going to that playlist. But then I have another one that I use to try to find new music. And I do that by intentionally listen to a different genre every single day, so that I mess with the algorithm. Like I intentionally will listen to slow and then tomorrow. It's only fast stuff. And then the next day, it's all Bob Dylan type stuff. And the next day, maybe we're going to throw some Cumbia in there. Just because I want to screw with the algorithm and then my new release radar, whatever. It's literally all over the place. There will be gospel They're right next to some classic rock. But sometimes it gives me the same stuff that anybody would get. But it rolled up in there. And so I heard the song that I originally emailed you about, and I cant rember the name of that song died had to find it.

Brad 7:14

Probably everyone in everything.

Seth 7:17

That is it! Yeah, and then, you know, went to your website started, listen to everything. And I'm like, I like this a lot. Yeah, latch onto something, I just devour it all. So everything that's available.

Brad 7:27

Amazing, you make an effort. And I appreciate that, to find new music. It's like so hard to do.

Seth 7:34

I figure, the topics matter. And I try to find music that matches the emotionality of the conversation and if I can't, those are the ones that you'll hear that I just have some instrumental stuff from a guy that lives locally here that lets me use his music. If I can't find something, I'm not gonna force words in there. Because I feel like it breaks the conversation. So that's kind of how I found you. Well, yeah, it's one of my favorite, my favorite things to do usually every day listen to about an hour of new music.

Brad 8:04

Wow. I want to get there.

Seth 8:07

I just turned it on. (Laughter) just push the button

Brad 8:11

Sounds simple to you.

Seth 8:14

Well tell us a bit about you. What's kind of your story? Give us the rundown?

Brad 8:19

Yeah. Well, I am a musician. My name is Brad Davis. Yes, I live in San Diego. I am a musician, and a freelance director and editor and video maker. I grew up in church and sort of left of the faith for part of my 20s and came back to it. And when I started going back to church, I was like, “Oh, this speaker is amazing. What if the music was as good as the speaker”. So then I thought I wanted to start a band that was like making worship music that sounded like the music that I love. And so I started a band with some friends and that's called The Eagle and Child. They used to be in a band called Future of Forestry, which is a good band.

Seth 9:03

I know that them.

Brad 9:05

They all played together, the three guys in my band, Nick who plays guitar, Luke plays bass and Spencer plays drums, they were all in Future of Forestry and played on a really amazing record called Twilight and some other stuff too. It's great. Yeah, met up with them and started sort of writing music and we started rearranging worship songs to be sort of fun, musically, and trying to match the depth of the concept and depth of the lyrics with like the musical arrangements.

And then we made a first record doing that we made a second record that's like all original songs, trying to expand ways to describe God, I think, trying to not use Christianease, which which is in fact Christianease. Which is

Seth 9:53

It’s really hard

Brad 9:57

It is really hard. And then we just released the third album called Sight which is a concept album trying to bridge a gap between worship music and being objectively helpful to the world.

Seth 10:06

I didn't know that the other people were from future forestry. I didn't really do much research on the band. I just listened to the music.

Brad 10:15

That's okay.

Seth 10:17

Yeah, one of my favorite songs is one of theirs is what was it called? Um, I don't know if they played on it ..slow your breath down. That's the name of the song. So that's a common story. The 20s. Yeah that's a common story as I've come to talk with a bunch of people kind of what was it that disconnected you? From the church?

Brad 10:33

Yeah, I think there's so much emphasis. Well, I I can talk about what I think it is now. But I mean, partially there was just an overemphasis on the importance of what happens when you die. And then the lack of emphasis on what happens today. And so it was not necessary for me to worry about until I was getting older, and it's kind of the smallest version of faith that ever was given So, and it's and I was a part played a part in that too that's what I would say. That's kind of the thing that that it didn't seem like it was a practical help in any way. And even though like the Holy Spirit is the thing that supposedly lives inside of you like it didn't change anything or wasn't explained in an exciting way at all.

Seth 11:27

So that's a fancy word for eschatology. So I'm going to use a nickel word they're great and Penny words, I'm going to go right up to the nickel word. So does that still hold any sway for you at all as you've come back to the faith now where you're like, “yeah, I still don't really care”. Or like, like, where are you at with that?

Brad 11:42

Well, let's see. I guess. Well, where am I at with how it how what happens when you die?

Seth 11:47

Yeah

Brad 11:49

I have been blinded by worry with that conversation. Just too often and for somebody who like believes I know where I'm going after death or whatever, um, I still just had horrible conversations with people I love who don't believe the same thing. And I think that anytime I focus on that I'm just like gripping something in an unhealthy way that I cannot…I cannot be loving to people, I can't listen to them. It's just like something when I think of my own, or my friends like eternal salvation or eternal destiny. Eternity is something I can't understand and my responsibility for their Eternity is pretty intimidating. So what I do focus on is like trying to learn from what Jesus did and how that is radical and wild and is different than what I thought being a Christian was and different than what I think a lot of people think being a Christian is.

Seth 12:49

I've asked that question to a lot of people. I don't usually ever get same answer, like ever, and I kind of like that I don't get the same answer. But it also makes me really wonder if we're all reading the same Bible. If we're all hearing the same, like literally like, we don't agree on, not agree on much. And often we don't agree on loving others.

Brad 13:08

Yes.

Seth 13:09

Which I feel like that's the most blatant like I'm, I feel like you missed it. I don't know what you read. I just don't understand. Yeah. So I want to talk a bit about one of the things that you messaged me You said I believe more than ever in the potential of the body of Christ. What do you mean by that, like, define what you mean when you say the body of Christ and then what is that potential?

Brad 13:31

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would just say like, I imagine, so I like know that on paper, something like 3.2 billion people in the world identify as Christian. And I don't think that 3.2 billion people are actually trying to, like break from culture in the ways that Jesus navigated like. I mean, I would say that I believe in the potential of these people who like love Jesus, and that, that if the people who believed in Jesus behaved like Jesus, it would be such a wild place and racism wouldn't exist and poverty wouldn't exist. And I just think all of these, like these tangible needs of other people would be resolved. And so it's very easy for me to imagine that when I think of the amount of people who say “I'm Christian“, who maybe don't know what it means, totally and, and who maybe don't even know that, that's like, what they're invited into when I see the Christian sort of, like culture in the US and how much we love our Christianity, like if we loved acting like Jesus as much as we loved holding on to our political Christianity thing. Yeah, the US would look different, you know, and, and also, as a ”Christian nation”, I think if we did align ourselves as a Christian nation, like with I'm making ”Finger quote, by the way, is a Christian nation.

Seth 15:02

Yeah, I can see you there are a lot of air quotes happening.

Brad 15:06

Our nation is one of the most powerful nations in the world. And if we aligned with Christ, we would be powerful in a different way. That didn't look like the same power that we have now. I just love imagining about that stuff. So I believe that that's not unrealistic. You know, somehow, like, I do believe that God is calling people toward him, and even people who know him, and you know, and over time, I feel like progress will will be made.

Seth 15:35

I hope so, although, I teeter back and forth between whether or not I feel like that's realistic, because in my heart of hearts, I'm like, Yes, that wouldn't this be like, literally the world would change. Everybody would lose their power. So I don't know that it will happen. But I also know, and this happens a lot, at least in the conversations that I have, especially locally, I find that the way that we interpret the Bible changes when you live in the Empire of the day. America basically is Babylon or it is Rome, and so because of that, and you alluded to it earlier, you know, like people kind of mix religion with politics. I don't know how to distance from that. Without I don't I'm not saying that well, but yeah, I don't. I don't know. I don't know what that looks like, as I don't know that. I feel like if we got there, the church is a different church in America probably doesn't exist anymore or America looks so drastically different that we don't have any power anyway. Right. If that makes, if that makes sense.

Brad 16:30

Yeah, I mean, I definitely teeter between the hoping for it and thinking that these people that are somehow like, more aggressive and more angry and dismissive because of their faith, like I get so frustrated with those Christians and those brothers and sisters, you know, and I'm trying to say that in my heart and say that out loud when people that have like a different stance, but still believe the same faith, that more air quotes there. But yeah, I'm trying to refer to them with respect and love. But I don't know. But there's so much dismissiveness and hate and that we have tied up in our Christianity. So that's very frustrating to me and part of me thinks like, well, then American Christianity just needs to fall like the Empire needs to fall and then maybe some type of healthy Christianity will be born out of the brokenness of the the lack of power, which is where we learn from…

Seth 17:32

I both fear and hope that. My fear because I want something stable for my children to go into. But also hope for it, because I don't want him to walk into what's happening now. Like, someone's got to break it for it to be repaired.

Brad 17:43

I mean, and if it did, your kids would have the opportunity to access that type of courage that you and I have never had, you know. And access that type of reliance on God that you and I have never had. I'm assuming; but it is a scary thought.

Seth 17:58

So talking about empire and the way that we treat religion and faith in the church here, you said in your message that you had been to Israel and it was like life changing, transformative, why did you go to Israel to begin with? Like a lot of people like yeah, I'm gonna go to Israel and get baptized in the Jordan. I'm gonna take a picture. I'm gonna come home and put it on the wall. Look at me.

Brad 18:21

I'm gonna go there without seeing anything.

Seth 18:24

Now, Israel is on my bucket list. But like, I don't want to go into the places most people go to. Yeah, I just yeah, I want to go to like this archaeological dig that there's 17 walls there and be like, yeah, a lot happened here. Let’s talk about this. Yeah. So what kind of took you there? And then how did it reframe? You know your faith?

Brad 18:42

Yeah. Well, I guess there's been a lot of reframing…adjustments. I'm always adjusting things refiners fire, that's what that songs about. They've been really formative experiences that I've had with that organization called the Global Immersion Project, which is a peacemaking training organization. My wife works for them and, and I've gotten to go on some different trips, they lead peacemaking training, immersive experiences in San Diego/Tijuana, which is very close. San Diego is like 10 minutes from Tijuana, and vice versa. And so, I mean, not vice versa, because driving back you've to wait in line for five hours but (Laughter) and we learned from people who are on all sides of the hot immigration topic, and learn from Border Patrol agents and learn from people who have just been having dinner with people who were just deported, like the day before, like have no idea what they're going to do with their lives. Meet with people who are pastors and believers down there and they actually refer to the US as the Empire which is wild, which doesn't feel good. Yeah, so Global Immersion Project does two trips and one is to San Diego/Tijuana. One is to Israel/Palestine. And I didn't know much about Israel and Palestine, and I knew that it was complicated. And I knew that people have very strong opinions in the Christian faith to be “pro Israel”. And I don't know what that means. And so, I had signed up to do this because of because my wife was working there and I wanted to experience it. And then, so, some backstory, my mom passed away, like a few months before we were going to go and so my dad who's like, super wonderful and super conservative politically, and my brother, who's super liberal politically and not religious, and I feel like I'm in the middle. And I guess I'm quite religious. So I asked them if they wanted to come with me. And we're all just kind of like, well, we have our lives just turned upside down with losing my mom. And so we went on the trip to Israel Palestine.

Seth 20:57
How close is this to losing your mom?

Brad 21:00

Lost her I. October and then we went in April. So yeah, it was like a couple months later. And we were just like, learning and the whole process you were like doing research, reading books on the extremely complicated conflict that's there, and how people think it should be fixed and what's, what a Zionist is and all that stuff. And so, and also what role the US has in that conflict too. What I had heard about Israel is that it's this wonderful holy space like that. It's this wonderful place that you can go and see where Jesus walked in this wonderful, amazing place. Then going there. You meet different people on sort of all sides of it. So you meet with, we met with a Jewish rabbi, we met with a Muslim Sheikh when we met with Palestinian Christians and in that dynamic you just are experiencing the gift of learning from people who are experiencing extremely tough conflict and living under oppression or living on top of oppression or just kind of all those things. So there's one thing that that one phrase sort of that it's a sound bite, you can use it we met with a man named Dauud who is a Palestinian Christian who owns his family's farm land for generations and Israeli soldiers are just encroaching on the land and just have been. And he is really, really persistent in trying to protect his land and soldiers come onto his land with machine guns all the time. They drive over his gate and ruin his gate and they come into his property with machine guns and say like, “talk to me, we want to we want to talk to you” and he's like, “You're in my house. You must have tea with me”.

And I can't even imagine that type of experience and that type of tension—machine guns pointed at me in with my family there and They're like, “No, no, we need to talk to you come here“. And he's like, “No, no, you are my guest”. And he basically sits down with them and makes, you know, as a family member make tea, and then they sit down and have tea. They don't really talk that much. And then they just get up and leave. And like the soldiers didn't have anything to do there.

But he likes to do fused violence, with peace, you know, and with persistence and creativity. And there's another story about him where he was driving in the car with his kids sleeping in the back. And these soldiers with like masks on and laser pointer guns, you know, pointing it, they pulled him over, pulled him out of the car and said, “wake your kids up, get them out of the car”. He's like, “please, don't make me wake my kids up to this sight“. And they insisted, and then he said, In English, which is the common language between the soldiers and him, he told his kids children “Wake up. There are soldiers here, but don't worry. They're also human”; and it like diffused this extremely Intense situation.

And he just was telling us these stories of his ability to navigate those situations in ways that I can't imagine thinking of, you know, just this element of creativity. And he said this, this is the thing that stuck with me as he says, “the Palestinians are waiting for a political Savior, or a leader to lead us out of this oppression” But he said, “but a Savior is not coming”. And he said, “the Savior is already among us”, which he's referring to the Spirit of God in him is what God has provided. And so like, to me that just blew my mind.

You know, it's like the Holy Spirit is like access to wild creativity on how to navigate the difficult parts of life and courage. And that was just mind blowing to me because I had heard the Holy Spirit is just like a nice thing that's a bird on your shoulder, you know? Those experiences have changed the way that I view the Spirit of God. The way that I view power, it's really helped me to see the US as a really, really powerful influence. And what we learned so much about in the Bible is like that. If you look at the power dynamics in the stories, we are on a sketchy side of things, and the people who tried to keep others out and the people who tried to make their religion divided things are the people who get the most pushback from Jesus and, and so being able to have those experiences were totally life changing. You should, you Seth, should go on a trip with Global Immersion. You would freak out, your love it.

Seth 25:44

I would love to go I don't know how well I would do…I get confrontational sometimes, though. And I've got quite a smart mouth. Very, but I think I though being in a country that didn't speak primarily English would temper that because that only works when we all know that this word has four meanings, and I'm using the third one in place of the second one. And that's why it's so cutting. That doesn't work when you have someone that doesn't have English as a first language. So that could temper that. I can't imagine living a faith like that. I'm thankful that I don't have to. But I also know like when you're talking about, like, you know, who Jesus sides with. I remember not long ago, I saw it was a cartoon. I think it was a cartoon like a drawing it had the wall, you know, that everybody wants to argue about and I'm sure as we get closer to the elections will get more arguments about this idiotic, arbitrary latitude that separates humans.

That's an aside, we can talk about that later. And all it said was something to the effect of and I'm going to paraphrase this you know, every time you try to draw a boundary between you and someone else, because you're scared of them, or they don't agree with you, or you think they're wrong, or they're heathen or their pagan or the wrong religion, or whatever the reason is, Jesus is always on the other side of the wall. And you really need to figure that out. Like every time you build a wall and you think…you're wrong. He's always standing on this side of the oppressed. Whoever the oppressed is, you know, whoever, doesn't really matter who the oppressed are. I'm curious, what did those interactions do to kind of you, your brother and your dad, your brother being farther on the spectrum one side than you and your dad, the opposite side? How did that kind of change like the family dynamic? And maybe their faith or did it? Yeah, I don't want you to speak for them necessarily.

Brad 27:26

One thing I noticed is that toward the end of the trip, my brother and my dad and I were at dinner, and I had pointed out something that our political conversations within the three of us, particularly between my brother and my dad, my dad would bring something up, and my brother would just like lose it and just like, “Can you believe that orange idiot“ and just like, you know, just like going, expressing his rage, you know, in a way that didn't create space for my dad to respond. In any in any conversation, you know, and so I just kind of mentioned, “hey, I noticed this, like, I would love for us to talk about these differences, because we're probably just more aware of them than ever. And, like, I'd love for Dad, did you feel shut down by that“? And my dad said, Yeah, I think so. And my brother’s, like, I never thought about that. So it was like a moment of peacemaking within our family that was generated on the peacemaking trip.

And then otherwise, my dad said, He's like, well, I've always after coming home, he said, I've always known I should be pro Israel. And he said, but I couldn't tell you why. But I’ve knowing that that's what I should be. He watches a lot of Fox News. Maybe that's part of it. But now he's met so many, he has friends that are Palestinians, and that complicates things in a way that is necessary for humanity. Y

ou know, I like what I call “slacktivism” is where I engage on Facebook in conversations about things that are political or regarding the faith or things they disagree with, I think so it's called like it's a combination of activism and slacker activism.

I posted on this thing today. It was a post about abortion, which is obviously gnarly thing to bring up, and it's just a gnarly thing. And so, but somebody said in the comments below, it said 100% of Democrats are evil, wicked people and bone. I mean, you said it was just like a thing that said, All democrats are this and all of them. And then I said, Are you giving that much credit to our political system that it's 100% accurate with good people on one side and bad people on the other side that's giving so much credit to this? This? Yeah, part system. Anyways, I just…

Seth 30:02

How did it go?

Brad 30:05

He hasn't replied yet. I've really I've blown his mind. (Laughter From Both)

Seth 30:09

You know, so I get a lot of comments that are people poke at me with theological rhetorical questions. And my my Pat response is always I believe what Jesus said on the topic. Now the nice thing is, often Jesus said nothing on the topic. And so that's where I leave it. And I'm like, well, he didn't say anything. Oh, yeah. That's kind of where I'm at then. Yes, that's where I'm at. Like there's nothing to argue about when I'm like, Yeah, I kinda. I don't know. Let's just love the person. I kind of think that Jesus had the right idea on this topic. Yeah. He didn't talk about the second amendment. Yeah, no, actually, well, he kind of did in Luke. But again, we're getting in the weeds there.

Brad 30:56

I mean, and I was definitely raised and I think that a lot of our country. is in the position to like live with apologetics and with like, you need to convince your friends to believe the same thing you're just like, always thinking instead of how to be like a friend to them, you're always thinking of how to drop the mic on them. Which no one has ever dropped the mic on me and made me change my mind ever in my life. Did you ever think about this?

BOOM

Oh, like this too proud of a move, you know? And so I just think the tempting thing to do is to want to drop the mic. Good luck saying something that were questions and dialogue or where people and relationships are where people are changed, you know?

Seth 31:44

Definitely yeah, you can't hate people that you have relationship with. Yeah, you still lead worship now then or you're like on staff at a church or like what's the what's the main gig like? Are you pick a touring musician? Like what's, what's the gig? How do you eat?

Brad 31:59

Yes. Well, I…

Seth 32:02

with a fork and a knife, but outside of that…

Brad 32:05

I considered going there (laughter) Yeah, so I kind of have two half lives I have a I run a like production company and I'm a producer and like director editor for video stuff. We're doing music videos and stuff like that, which is really fun. And then that feeds into my band. So we do lead worship at camps, or churches and stuff like that. And I've been on staff at a church as a video director while our band was playing there regularly. And we recently ended that season. And But yeah, I think we play occasionally. And we're doing a tour in November. Yeah. So it's kind of have to have careers.

Seth 33:10

There's a method to that question. So you said at the beginning, you were rearranging worship music. Yeah. And I know how hard that can be. I lead worship for free at my church, often with a group of other people. I just like singing, I like playing. I don't know that I'm good at it, but I enjoy it. And I'm going to do it because they give me the microphone, and I don't get paid. So you can't fire me. Yeah, but I know how hard it can be to rearrange songs and you get the pushback from people. You really can't mess with that song like that song. The way that it was written 190 years ago is gospel. You can't touch this song!

Brad 33:46

Yeah.

Seth 33:48

So what have been some of those ones that have caused you the most pause? And then I'm going to piggyback off of that one of the questions I asked every musician I talked to is, how has writing music impacted the way that you see God? And normally everybody goes (sigh) so that's a tough question, which is why I like it.

So I give you the easy one first, what are some of those hard ones that you're like yeah, to rearrange this worship song in a way that still works, and holds credence to what it was intended to be back when it was just an organ or whatever it was. Today, like, what's the one that you found has been the most impactful for you?

Brad 34:22

Well, I mean, I feel like when we started out, we had Nick, our guitar player, is really good at being emotional. And I mean that in a great way he has access to

Seth 34:37

he cries on stage?

Brad 34:39

Nearly. He's a four on the enneagram if you care, but he has access to the emotion of the song. And so a lot of times with the arrangements, he usually just like sits in it in silence and just sort of feeling Like where emotionally it needs to go and he'll write something. And it's like, we're off it.

It's happened a handful of times where he just thinks about something for a moment, and then just like, emotes the song instantly. It is pretty amazing he's a gifted guy.

Seth 35:19

Are those recorded anywhere or are they all live?

Brad 35:21

Well we made arrangements out of like those those are usually just like practices. There's a song that's an original song but I suggested an idea of a song to him. And then he just basically wrote, as is, the song; it’s called Fault Lines. I suggested this concept and then he went (Large inhale…breaking your music)

Seth 36:18

And then on it…

Brad 36:20

Played the song as is. So, yeah and then so with I guess we have more trouble when there's like rock band arrangements of songs. Like if we're going to try to do a more modern song, like Reckless Love or something who would beg there's like pretty good arrangements of it now and so how would we do we just do that?

Seth 36:42

I just medley the song with a different song.

Brad 36:45
Thats a good idea with “I am a C..I am a CH..” did you ever sing that one?

Seth 36:52

I’ve never rearranged that song. My daughter sings that song…have you rearranged that into reckless love? (Laughter both)

Brad 37:02

Not yet but I’m looking to break the he creative threshold next time.

Seth 37:12

So I missed practice, we usually practice on Monday for worship, and I actually was mixing. Probably cut this out. But yeah, I was mixing reckless love with death was arrested. So I don't know that I was happy with 100% of either of those. But they are the same time signature I have them in the same key and they really work well together. And it worked well//haven’t gotten it quite right but I’ve got till Sunday to figure it out. If not I’ll just leave it along, I’ll just do Reckless Love.

Brad 37:41

I mean you could throw in like one phrase from Death in his grave and then that would just really confuse everyone.

Seth 37:49

I’m not interested in confusing anyone

Brad 37:53

That’s kind of our expertise so if you ever need help with that we can help.

Seth 37:57

Mostly I’m just doing it because usually it’s just a guitar and I have to move a capo and so if I can medley the songs then everyone won’t have to stand there wondering well are we singing…we are not singing…oh we are singing again. Back to the harder question: how has writing music impacted the way that you see God.

Brad 38:20

I don’t think I’m stumped by this question I love trying to articulate something about the way God is and the way that God works while imagining more than I have traditionally imagined. It has allowed me the freedom to imagine more of who God is. There is this infinite being that is not bound by time and knows everything-is everywhere.

I learned that in schools that God's omnipresent he's omniscient and it was like that did not cause any curiosity or any like wonder imagining, trying to picture the outside of the universe expanding, like trying to picture the outside of that and then picturing God caring for us faster than that.

There's actually a lyric in one of our songs called Radiance where I tried to articulate that idea.

Seth 39:18

That’s a big thought.

Brad 39:20

W e try to even, it got bigger, we tried to say that God's love is on the outsides of the beyond the universe expanding and then also like attentively with each of us. So like that span of the universe and span of God's love is like, so exciting to me.
So to me, it's really allowed me to wonder and try to like, the words that I grew up, knowing about how to describe God are not as potent to me as they as they could be. Because I'm totally used to them. And so giving myself permission to try to say it a different way has has led me into a faith that I think… led me to look at a bigger God and look at a kinder God; and it's also totally intimidating to articulate your experience with God into a song. Because everybody has individual experiences and to sing it corporately is like really scary, but it’s okay.

Seth 40:26

It's really fun to though, really fun, most of the times it’s fun. Well, you alluded to going on tour and I know you're coming to my neck of the woods because I think you said you're coming to Lynchburg

Brad 40:36

Yep,

Seth 40:37

November 6th, something like that doesn't matter. So where do people go as they want to, like where would you point people to listen to the music, do the things, hit the Facebook's? Where would you send people to Yeah, to do all the things.

Brad 40:54

You could follow us, doing all the things on Instagram. So that's @theeagleandchildmusic and on Facebook to it's the same thing. Oh, if you follow us on Spotify, that's helpful. And then yeah, and you could go to our website, which is the theeagleandchildmusic.com. Or you could go we're going on tour with a band called Citizens and a band called Ghost Ship. And also Allie Page. And so you could go to citizens website or our website to find that, which is wearecitizensnet. been really fun. We did a leg of it in September, and we're doing a little bit more than a week in November it's gonna be sweet

Seth 41:31

Well, Brad, thank you so much. I've enjoyed it.

Brad 41:34

Yeah, me too, Seth. Thank you.

Seth Outro 41:45

Since editing this episode, I have tried to wrap myself around what Brad said there about trying to put words to the infinity that is the divine that we worship together and I find myself struggling. But as I began trying to write more, both for me and for other reasons, I am finding the same struggle of how to find words that can adequately describe the God that I worship. And it is so hard and it is so worth it and the stories that he's told with the Palestinian Christian and the way that he defuse those situations. I wish I could be that patient. I don't think that I could exam certain that I couldn't but what a way to live, right, what a way to live. Big thanks to Brad for coming on. thank each and every one of you for your time today. Be blessed and I'll talk with you all next week.