An old Dominican saying challenges priests of the order only to talk to God or about God. At first blush, then, the Dominicans sound really lame—the kind of people who are a bit too eager to turn every conversation towards spiritual things. You know the type. You certainly, then, would not expect Dominicans to release an album of traditional American bluegrass music, not to mention one that is well-produced, original, and actually really enjoyable.
That, however, is precisely what a group of Dominicans from the Providence of St. Joseph, called the “Hillbilly Thomists,” have done in their second album: Living for the Other Side. The name of the band comes from the American Southern author Flannery O’Connor, which might help explain this apparent discrepancy.
O’Connor’s stories often portray the grim realities of our world and are never sugarcoated. That’s why some critics began to label her a “hillbilly nihilist.” Responding, she called herself a “hillbilly thomist” because she drew inspiration from reading St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica every night. St. Thomas’ particular emphasis on the incarnate reality of Christianity—its “fleshiness”— inspired O’Connor to write about people who encounter God’s grace through real, earthy ways.
In a way, this is exactly what the Hillbilly Thomists are doing: What kind of music is more down-to-earth, authentic, and American than bluegrass? And living in the tradition of their Dominican brother St. Thomas, they realize how these good, worldly things are not hindrances to holiness but, when used correctly, are conductive towards it. God created this world, called it “good” (Gen 1), and even Himself became part of the world in the Incarnation. Just like Paul who quoted Greek poetry when preaching in Athens, the Dominicans are using a beautiful part of our American culture to preach the Gospel.
Out of the fourteen songs on the album, ten are originals. The others—“Hard Times,” “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” “Jacob’s Ladder,” and “Just as I am”—are covers of American classics. The songs are all religious in some way, but cover a wide variety of topics.
Many of the songs point to the inevitability of death as a call to conversion. In “Chasing Money No More,” Fr. Thomas Joseph White sings that since “everything eventually turns to dust, all possessions eventually rust,” he “ain’t gonna spend [his] time chasing money no more.”
In “You Still Walk Down the Line,” he speaks of how even if you “run five miles and take vitamins, you will still walk down the line” so it must be “time to get real and get saved.” Another theme is the lowliness of the human condition and the necessity of grace. Two of my personal favorite songs on the album share this theme: “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” and “Lead Me by the Hand.” In the former, the famous verses, “I came to Jesus as I was, so weary, worn and sad; I found in him a resting place, and he has made me glad” are resung in a new, folky way with a couple simple stringed instruments in the background. In the latter, the singer begs, “So won’t you lead me by the hand, when I’m blind and I can’t find a place to stand…all I’m doing is sinking more, waiting for you to lead me by the hand” in one of the most moving refrains of the whole album.
Lastly the friars, fitting for their identity as preachers, make the Bible come alive in countless songs where you may not even notice. Fr. Justin Bolger’s song “Give Me a Drink” is an imaginative retelling of the story of the Samaritan woman at the well from John 4:1-26. My favorite, “Weight of Eternal Glory” with its refrain “I’ve been suffering under the weight of eternal glory” is a riff off St. Paul’s beautiful line in 2 Corinthians 4:27: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
In all, the album is a great way to spend a car ride or a walk across campus and a great reminder that to be all in for the Lord—to talk only to Him or about Him—doesn’t mean you need to be a cultural outcast, constantly speaking of some far-off spiritual realm. Christ came to redeem what is broken in this world, and, as one order not as cool as the Dominicans says, you can find “God in all things,” even bluegrass.
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