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nonsermon #1: my religion

I am thrilled to begin a biweekly series, entitled ‘nonsermons’, with New South Journal. The first nonsermon, “my religion,” is live.

NEW SOUTH

by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor

In 1952, e.e. cummings was invited to Harvard for a series of what he referred to as nonlectures. From the outset, cummings clarified that he had no interest in the traditional lecture form: “Lecturing is presumably a form of teaching; and presumably a teacher is somebody who knows. I never did, and still don’t, know. What has always fascinated me is not teaching, but learning.”

I grew up in a conservative Christian home, set out to become a youth pastor in my college years, then found myself in my 20s somewhere between faithless and unsure, among friends who had similarly fallen out of love with religion, the church, God, or all of the above. Oddly, we had met years prior at a church that only a few of us now attend.

Finding ourselves lost within a story we had been a part of our entire lives, we…

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The Age of Solitude (Short Film)

In 2014, I began an era of artistic output known as The Age of Solitude, which included letters of poetry mailed out and culminated in the release of the 2016 album, my anxious age. In conjunction with my performance of the album, I wrote a short film that Noël Wiggins produced and directed. Previously unshared, the film is available for your viewing here.

 

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Soundtrack to My Year, 2017 (vol. 5)

2017 was full of personal growth and joy in the midst of a revealing and painful year for our society. The albums that provided the soundtrack to my year reflect those two poles, with much of what I listened to providing a prophetic voice for troubled times.

This is also my fifth year noting my favorite albums in a year, so I took some time to see how my past years lined up with my current view on the albums listed then. In 2013, almost every album stayed in my rotation, but in 2014, only three did. I was mostly right about 2015, and last year, in 2016, I would go back and move Solange and ScHoolboy Q up to the spots right under Frank Ocean. We’ll see how this year stacks up, but for now, here are the albums that provided the soundtrack to my year.

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Soundtrack to My Year, 2014 (vol. 2)

My greatest love is for music, but I rarely write about it because it’s hard to write about something you’ll only end up gushing over. However, last year I started a tradition of sharing my favorite albums of the year. Here are the 10 (plus a few) albums that shaped 2014.

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In Spite Of Fear

Although my sister and I disagree about a lot—mainly which movies are worth sitting through (I say all; she says none)—we are likeminded when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Her 2014 resolution was “to do better than last year.”