The Ghoststoriest Holy Ghost Story Of Them All?
Also shaggy horses, draw-your-own-iceberg, and banjo buddies
Hello!
Happy Every-Other-Monday. Hope you’re well. Here’s the latest:
The Breath and the Bones
I’m so excited to share the latest episode of Holy Ghost Stories with you. (Out today!) It’s a story that could not be more perfect for this format and treatment—super spooky, lots of mystery, so much darkness, and an irresistible glimmer of light.
*chef’s kiss*
Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones has captured the imagination of generation after generation of readers, and for good reason. It’s quite an image—graphic, compelling, dripping with despair and hope. As I was writing I couldn’t help but think, Yahweh must have been so excited to show this vision to Ezekiel. Seriously—it reminds me of the way I’ve prepped a special moment for my wife or my kids: premeditating every detail, orchestrating the chronology of a staged reveal, brimming with happiness as I anticipate the person I love experiencing a delightful gift.
“Wait,” you may be thinking, “we’re still talking about the story where God brings Ezekiel to a field scattered with human bones, right?” Yeah yeah—it’s dark at the beginning, to be sure, but it has to be—and it doesn’t stay dark.
A couple of interesting things about this episode’s story/text:*
*If you’d rather experience this episode without much of a sense of what you’ll find in it (that would totally be me), I’d recommend skipping to the next section, listening to the episode, then coming back here to read about it.
Check this out—it’s a figurine of a harpist, carved on the Cyclades islands somewhere between 2300 BC & 2700 BC. That’s quite a while (about 2,000 years) before Ezekiel’s time, but it helped me get a sense of the Israelite musicians singing songs and playing their harps. I love the way his head is tilted over and up, as if he’s lost in the song.
(The image at the Getty is zoomable—it’s like being able to hold it with a magnifying glass in your hand.)
I love all the Creation/Eden language in this section of Ezekiel’s prophecy. (Ez. 36:8,11,34-35; 37:10) Yahweh seems to be thinking a lot about the early days—when His relationship with mankind was less complicated, less fraught. And He’s longing (planning!) to bring things back to how they were back then.
Watching this piece called “The Soul of Good Character Design” recently, I found myself thinking about Ezekiel (and really, Israel as a whole)—what he would have Wanted after the exile versus what he Needed, and how Yahweh addressed each of those. Thinking through that helped me to get a sense of the arc of this episode, and led me to include that final vision at the end—it brings me to tears every time.
I shared Gustav Doré’s engraving yesterday on Instagram, but had to include it here as well. So good. (Sidenote: Can you believe someone can just carve something like this on a piece of wood? People are amazing. Oh—and if you, like me have a Curiosity Problem and are beginning to feel an irresistible itch to know exactly how artists create these engravings, here you go.)
You’ll hear in this episode an intentional reference to Strange Fruit, recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday and written two years earlier by outraged Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol—a haunting musical protest to the lynching of black Americans. It seemed a fitting allusion: these beautiful instruments, tragically silenced by evil and violence.
Alright—I’ll stop here. But man, every episode of HGS has me wanting to share a bunch of auxillary bits and bobs with you guys that are interesting/cool to me. If you dig this sort of stuff, let me know—otherwise I’ll try to spare you the details in the future. :)
Without further ado, here you go! Holy Ghost Stories Episode 6: The Breath and the Bones
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google—wherever. And once you have, share it and leave a review—I’d be so grateful.
Didn’t We Ramble
With England under lockdown (as it’s been since our arrival), we’ve leaned into one shining freedom provided by the rules: we can go out once a day to exercise. And boy do we. We faithfully walk every afternoon (a longstanding tradition in the Gerhardt house, now happily continued in this new place), but every Saturday we really lean in and head out on a family hike, exploring the countryside or the coastline, drinking in the free air until our feet start hurting.
Here are some pics from our latest excursion out to the west side of Weymouth, along the Fleet and Chesil Beach:
Questions?
Speaking of what you’re interested in, I’d love to know what questions you have about Holy Ghost Stories—the process of researching or writing or recording or scoring, choices I make, whatever. If you’ve got questions, just reply—I’d be happy to answer one or two in each issue of The Latest.
4 Cool Things
We’ve Been Drawing Icebergs Wrong - Thanks to one scientist’s plea on Twitter for illustrators to start drawing icebergs the way they’d actually float, someone made a super simple and fun simulation tool—you can draw your own iceberg and see which side is up once it falls into the water. Cool.
Gate A-4, by Naomi Shibab Nye - This poem is just beautiful. (Though I’m tempted to take the liberty of renaming it Pentecost—read it and see if you agree.)
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
"If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately."Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help,"
said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."
Banjo Buddies - After last issue’s Song Couplets, one of my favorite readers sent me a song to set another song up with. Here’s my offering—I think they’re probably a little too similar for firey romance, but surely they’d be great friends:
Boho Banjo Buddies: Always Will, by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell (thanks, Whitney) & Wildflowers, covered by The Wailin’ Jennys
The Memory Palace - One of my favorite nonfiction storytelling podcasts. Created by Nate DiMeo, who does such a great job of entering a life or a moment, looking around for a while, and sharing what he sees. Here’s a great episode to start with.
That’s it! Hope you have a great week. Enjoy The Breath and the Bones!
Gratefully,
Justin
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