“…in praise of an album that belongs in the rare company of Dan Fogelberg’s “The Innocent Age” and Bruce Cockburn’s “Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws.”
Join Steve Bell and Dr Bruce Hindmarsh for a video-podcast discussion of St. John of the Cross and Steve’s song “Dark Night of the Soul.”
If one were to commission a musical setting for Psalm 97, one would expect the composer to employ subsonic synthesizers, blazing trumpets, crashing cymbals, portentous medieval choirs and no end of audio wizardry to complete the task. What one would not expect however, is what Mike Janzen did with the text….
The pose I selected for this portrait reflects a somber mood—perhaps uncharacteristic of how we visualize Steve….
Without a question, Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known and highly sentimentalized of all the psalms. For all its pastoral prettiness, however, the psalm has a quality of resilient, almost rugged faith…
These words of Jesus are not a pain-masking opioid, they are Eastering words spoken by one well acquainted with grief. And so I take up those words and offer this prayer:
“We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts. And when we find it, we are meant to give it away generously.”
The biblical tradition cannot be easily understood looking from the top-down as most of the scriptures were written by oppressed peoples throughout history…
The unique glory of this sovereign is not in the display of splendour and power common to Pharaohs, Emperors, Presidents and the like, but rather in the unlikely display of radical humility, solidarity and compassion with the marginalized and miserable….
Each Sunday I’ll try to post a song or two for those who are shut-in and shut out of church. – SB Yesterday was such…
A reflection and a song based on Sunday’s lectionary readings for March 15. Offered to those shut in or shut out of Church on account of the coronavirus.
Yesterday, after a week of prep, we finally pressed the record button on my new album…
Thoughts and a song for a somewhat subversive feast. – by Steve Bell
It seems appropriate that I should share this song today, on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz…
“…the gospels don’t let us off easily. Jesus—light from light, true God from true God—enters history as a vulnerable victim of Herodian cruelty, not aligned with the settled and powerful, but rather with the dispossessed and fleeing. Indeed, the One whom the Old Testament prophet-poets laud as our rock and refuge is now revealed as…
St. Stephen, whose sufferings in defence of a gospel oriented toward the poor and marginalized gave witness (birth) to a radically different way of being in this world.
I’ve just posted three new-ish songs online that you are welcome to listen to and share if you’d like…
The Pilgrim Year book series is in many ways a natural culmination of Steve’s musical and story-telling career. In seven beautifully designed booklets, Steve takes the reader thoughtfully through the church year. The itinerary across the terrain of the church seasons turns out to be, as the title suggests, a pilgrimage for the soul.
“Steve Bell’s concerts have become a highly anticipated tradition at the WSO,” says Trudy Schroeder, Executive Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. “The experience should not be missed.”