Title: ELCA 'Grace Matters' Features Don Saliers, Emily Saliers May 27, June 3 ELCA NEWS SERVICE
May 24, 2007
ELCA 'Grace Matters' Features Don Saliers, Emily Saliers May 27, June 3 07-089-MRC
CHICAGO -- Father-daughter team Don Saliers and Emily Saliers are featured guests in a two-part edition of "Grace Matters," the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Part one airs May 27, part two June 3.
The Rev. Peter W. Marty, Grace Matters host and senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa, interviews Don Saliers, a church musician and long-time professor of theology and Christian worship, Emory University, Atlanta, and Emily Saliers, a singer-songwriter of the Indigo Girls. The Salierses have co-authored the book "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as a Spiritual Practice."
"We shouldn't ever underestimate the power of music to connect us," said Emily Saliers. She said music transcends time, culture and space. "I think music has that power. It's all about that web of connectivity that, to me, represents the spiritual quest," she said, adding that "we can all move together in the world to deepen our human experience ultimately for the sake of each other and not just for ourselves."
For Don Saliers faith requires music. "Music opens up all the senses," he said. "It's the very mystery of sound, entering our ear and playing this enormous role of opening up reality, opening up the soul. For me, I cannot divorce faith and being faithful and seeking God from the question of listening for God and for one another in the music we make," he said.
The Salierses also share how music has had an impact their personal lives, music in human suffering and in joyful celebration, and the "art of holy listening."
Grace Matters airs on 175 radio stations in the United States and in several other countries. Program transcripts and podcasts are available at http://gracematters.org on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog