Latest statement on incident at Manchester Arena @CCIanHopkins pic.twitter.com/LDG1wgX2sT

— G M Police (@gmpolice) May 23, 2017

You may find the BBC live feed there.

Read it all and you can follow the #manchester hashtag on tiwtter as well as multiple liveblogs from the best english newspaper+news sites.

19 confirmed dead and 50 injured in 'terror' incident at Manchester Arena, police say https://t.co/gdJUau5rVi

— The Independent (@Independent) May 23, 2017

Soaring performances of songs from “Cats” and “Les Misérables” are unusual fare for a prison. But on May 3rd an inmate at Leicester prison brought an audience to their feet with his renditions. The recital was part of a TEDx conference, a popular lecture series that had never before been held in a British jail. In the midst of a prisons crisis, with violence against inmates and officers at record levels and crippling staff shortages, the event is an encouraging example of smaller efforts to improve conditions.

On a stage covered in prisoners’ art, inmates thundered the words of Shakespeare. An officer recited his own poetry: “I could tell you tales that would make you laugh…tales that would turn your stomach, tales that would break your heart,” he intoned. Organising the event was a logistical nightmare, says Phil Novis, the governor at HMP Leicester. But the enthusiasm of all involved suggests it was worth it.

Read it all.

“Waitress” marks Bareilles’ second role in what has become a passion project for her. She first left the world of pop music to join the “Waitress” production staff as lead composer.

“I was getting fatigued of the cyclical nature of being a pop artist where you write a record, record a record, go on tour, promote, come home, do it all again,” Bareilles said. “So I just was ready to work on something different.”

For three-and-a-half years, Bareilles worked tirelessly to bring the show to life — one song at a time.

“I rewrote the opening number 40 times,” she said. “I wanted to absolutely tear my hair out and throw people across the room. It was so frustrating. But you know all of that again that pressure cooker is I think actually kind of an exciting place to be.”

Read it all (Video highly recommended).

Research by insurer SunLife found that 45 per cent of ceremonies now do not include a hymn, and more than half of funeral directors have seen a decrease in religious services.

Younger age groups are more likely to choose secular music, with just 12 per cent of those aged 50 to 54 choosing a hymn, compared to one in four over-65s.

Sandra Millar, head of life events at the Church of England, said: “Perhaps people have a memory of a hymn that feels sad because they have previously sung it at a sad event.

“Because people are also less used to singing nowadays they might also be more likely to have a recording.”

Read it all.

[It may seem]…surprising that Tull then released a proper Christmas album that included some pro-Jesus songs among the traditional carols. Anderson has also been performing regular charity concerts to support church buildings. His new release, The String Quartets, was recorded in Worcester Cathedral and sports the logo of The Churches Conservation Trust in its liner notes.

So does this constitute a coming to faith or a maturing of his world view? And what caused that early vitriol? Ringing from Melbourne, where he was touring, Anderson explained those formative influences.

“School assembly was very much C. of E. stuff, and the Revd. Dr Luft, who was the headmaster, was an authoritarian, very conservative Christian, who scared us. As a person, he was very uncompromising, never smiled, and was basically not a very good advertisement for the warm and invitational nature of the C. of E.”

While at the school, Anderson infringed the rules, which he admits deserved punishment, and was due to be caned as a consequence. While he would have accepted another punishment, that was a step too far for him.

“I didn’t think it through terribly, it just seemed not a nice thing to be doing – there was something weird about it, so I refused to be caned. I was handed an ultimatum: ‘Go home and come back ready to face your punishment, or don’t come back at all’.” He went home and never returned.

Read it all (may require subscription).

(CEN) Jethro Tull–“I never will be a Christian, but I am a 100% supporter of the Christian Church” https://t.co/oBhpkGOPz9 #religion #music pic.twitter.com/Is2hUpMoRN

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 25, 2017

Watch it all.

Listen to it all.

🎶 @thewailinjennys, Aug 8, Grab a ticket: 🎫 http://t.co/CI8mLip0kj pic.twitter.com/VpQKsHVdx7

— Concerts in Chicago (@Chicago_Gigs) August 5, 2015

For Malick, family is a foil to the “song to song” aimlessness and misguided rebellion we so often pursue. Family (including the church family) is something we take for granted, a source of stability and unconditional love that we tragically fail to appreciate. Why do we so often forsake the good people in our lives in favor of the bad? Why do we choose forbidden fruit over the fruit that we know gives life?

If there is an overarching theme to Malick’s work—and certainly one that is central to Song—it’s that what we really need is right in front of us, if only we have eyes to see. But like Adam and Eve, we want more. We are ungrateful, unsatisfied, unable to recognize the good of what we’ve been given. The flashy pleasures and forbidden horizons lure our gaze away, but they always disappoint. “It’s a big candy store out there,” says Portman’s character in Song. But the candy only leads to rot.

God’s grace is closer than the candy, closer than the castles and frontiers that tempt us. But we have to be able to see it. We have to be able to recognize and name it.

Read it all.

Tomasz Stańko Quintet / Grand Central from Kijek / Adamski on Vimeo.

“Grand Central” was nominated for Best Polish Music Video and for The Best Animated Music Video awards at Yach Film Festival 2010; enjoy it all.

Wofford College president Ben Dunlap tells the story of Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who taught him about passionate living and lifelong learning.

One of my friends recommended this–it is quite energizing and challenging; KSH.

Monday morning and it’s a Zumba class for the over 50s at St Stephen’s Church, Westminster. This class is part of St Stephen’s Second Half Club, a weekly day of classes that looks to build community, keep people active in mind, body and spirit, and ultimately combat social isolation. St Stephen’s is one of two London churches, the other being St Paul’s, North Marylebone running a pilot of this programme.

It is well-known that loneliness is a serious concern, with over half of adults in England saying they experience feelings of loneliness.

Although there are many different ways Anglican churches are addressing loneliness in their communities, what is truly exciting about the Second Half Clubs is the partnership that they can create with other organisations looking to achieve the same goals.

Read it all from Joseph Friedrich.

“I just wanted to sing professionally, so I signed a contract and I just sing whatever words they put in front of me,” Collier told reporters after the incident. “I had no idea the song was Christian””it doesn’t say anything about God or Jesus, or anything like that. Just vague inspirational stuff about being happy, lights, fire, and floods, mostly.”

Read it all from the Babylon Bee.

Religions have a mixed relationship with music; within both Christianity and Islam, you can find strains that eschew all human compositions as a distraction from the divine, as well as robust musical traditions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (to use the Mormons’ official name) has leaned firmly to the latter side since its foundation nearly two centuries ago. Among the revelations claimed by their founder Joseph Smith was God’s affirmation that “the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me”””in other words, the faithful could and positively should sing as well as speak to their Maker. The faith’s choral and orchestral talents were soon reinforced by an influx of converts from Victorian England, some of whom were Methodists and bearers of that faith’s strong musical heritage.

As Markus Rathey, a professor of music history at Yale University puts it, some faiths hold that “the use of music transports you into a state in which you’re open for the divine.” And the Latter-day Saints have always been of that persuasion.

Read it all.

Wonderful stuff!

An Asian caravan guarded by Imperial Russian troops comes over the horizon of the Steppes of the Caucasus, passes by and then recedes into the distance. Dedicated by Alexander Borodin to Franz Liszt in 1880.

A safeguarding issue was re­vealed on Monday to be at the centre of the row that blew up last week over bell-ringing in York Minster.

To furious protests by the na­­tion’s bell-ringers, the entire band of ringers at York Minster had been summarily sacked on Tuesday of last week, for reasons that at first were unclear.

At the time, the Dean, the Very Revd Vivienne Faull, and the Chap­ter alluded only to “health and safety”, and the need to bring the ringers under the control of the Chapter, in line with its other volunteer teams.

Read it all.

York Minster dismissed 30 volunteer bellringers because one member of the group was regarded as a safeguarding risk, according to a statement delivered by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

Other members of the group “consistently challenged” the minster’s governing body, the Chapter of York, on this and other matters, the statement from York Minster said.

The volunteers were told at a special meeting last Tuesday that bellringing activity at the minster would cease with immediate effect for “health and safety” reasons and that they were dismissed.

Read it all.

Bob Dylan, 1962. Photograph by Don Hunstein. pic.twitter.com/8jcatNJY3G

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPix) October 14, 2016

I could go on and on. Dylan’s work is immense, and his lyrics are deeply dense, packed with references, allusions, and multiple layers of meaning. Books can and have been written about them.

What is clear is that Dylan’s work is deeply shaped by the Bible, and by the Biblical worldview. Not just in the superficial sense that it keeps referring to it and echoing its themes, but also in the more profound sense that Dylan’s own worldview is deeply Biblical. It is spiritual, first and foremost, viewing the spiritual world “first” as the bridge through which we live in the material world, which itself only sends us back to the spiritual world. And it is deeply Biblical in its longing for God, whether it is encountered as art or as the Spirit or as Jesus Christ himself, as the answer to our existential quandaries, as our companion ”” and as our Savior. If you’re going to be faithful to Bob Dylan as an artist, you can’t miss that dimension of his work which ”” for those who have ears to ear ”” is everywhere.

Read it all.

The bells at York Minster are to fall silent for the festive period after the cathedral’s management sacked all of its voluntary bellringers without warning.

The world-famous bells will not be heard again until after the new year, meaning a break with the tradition of ringing them on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve as well as on Remembrance Sunday.

At a special meeting on Tuesday night all 30 volunteer bellringers were told that bellringing activity at the Minster would cease with “immediate effect” while the management recruited a paid head bellringer, who would in turn select new volunteers in 2017.

Read it all.

Text: And I Saw A New Heaven

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying: ”˜Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people; and God himself shall be with them and be their God; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.’
Revelation 21: 1”“4

You may read a bit more about the music and its writer there.