The Christianity of the St Stephen's College I remember was atmospheric (how we loved the chapel, the choir and the Cross), cultural and entirely subtle.
I had always dreamed of living in Chapel Hill. When I was a college student at Hollins University in Virginia, I came down to Chapel Hill for summer school and just loved it.
When I got married, I hired a great choir - the St. James Choir, an all-black gospel choir - to sing at my wedding.
It is not hard for me to remember when I was in college. I loved many things about college life: I loved learning. I loved the comradery. And I loved football.
My elementary education was at Christ Church infant school and St. Stephen's junior school. At St. Stephen's, I encountered my first real mentor, the headmaster Mr. Broakes. He must have spotted something unusual in me, for he spent lots of time encouraging my interest in mathematics.
I spent two years figuring out how I could turn it into something that would satisfy me as a musician but also make some kind of cross-cultural link. I feel that I kind of at least touched on the possibilities of cross-cultural music, but it is a lifetime's work, and I don't profess to be anything other than a novice at it.
I was raised in a Jewish family, but since I was adopted, my parents sent me to Hebrew school and Bible chapel, so I got the best of both worlds - singing in both a choir in Bible chapel and a chorus in Hebrew school. It shaped me and my voice.
But we are gravely mistaken to think that Christianity protects us from the pain and agony of mortal existence. Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian, one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tragedy-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering.
By its birth, and for all time, Christianity is pledged to the Cross and dominated by the sign of the Cross. It cannot remain its own self except by identifying itself ever more intensely with the essence of the Cross.
The first time I ever went out of the country, it was to London. I was with the choir from my college, and we were touring around all these different churches. I loved it so much I tried to find a way to stay there.
My mentor in college was Stephen Shore. I loved his color palettes and his taking mundane things but finding them fascinating.
I don't really believe in political art. I feel in my heart the purpose of art transcends cultural and class and politics. I think something like the Sistine Chapel is something that goes beyond just being a Christian thing. It transcends its Christianity and becomes sort of a universal beauty. And I think that's true of music and art and literature.
St. Paul's Chapel stands - without so much as a broken window. Little miracle.
Robert Whittaker hasn't been that impressive. He got knocked out by choir boy Stephen Thompson.
The best things that have been written, almost, are by Catholics during the counter Reformation: Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, John of the Cross, St. Theresa of ?vila.....great stuff.
The cross of the Cruxifixion without the cross of the Resurrection is the symbol of a mutilated Christianity.
In the light of trust, as it develops slowly over time, you will find that you are a privileged child of the universe, entirely safe, entirely supported, entirely loved.