---

In Conversation with Sandra McCracken, Flo Paris Oakes, and Katy Bowser

Editor’s Note: In this column that appears in every issue of Conversations, we take a look at the issue topic through the lens of family. We explore the ways our families are spiritually formed, share how we can practice the spiritual disciplines with our families, and consider the ways God is inviting us to learn from our children. Several members of our editorial team have become parents in recent years, so writing about the issue theme from this angle has become even more personal. As the articles in this issue attest, the desire to create is God-given. Recently we had the chance to talk with Nashville-based musical group Rain for Roots about how making music for children allows them to express their own gifts as artists, and invite their children into the creative process.

 

Joannah Sadler: I was first introduced to the music of Rain for Roots while riding in a friend’s car. It stood out from most of the preschool musical offerings I’d heard before, in that both adults and children enjoyed the music. Thank you for making music that is enriching and delightful for all ears! Tell us a little bit about how Rain for Roots came to be.

 

Sandra McCracken: Thank you, Joannah! Rain for Roots is a project that sprung up out of friendship and mutuality—the idea for the first recording was a natural outflow of day-to-day life as we are a group of friends, raising young children in community. We each shared a desire to sing new songs for our children that would help them understand God’s truth and beauty as they begin to experience it in the world around them. We realized how significant early childhood melodies and songs are in our own lives, and we wanted to apply ourselves to songs for our children and for ourselves that would help us hold close to core gospel truths.

 

Katy Bowser: As songwriters and mothers, we wanted to give our children something very good—something that was both delightful to listen to (for all of us) and rich in God’s good truths. We were so thankful that Sally Lloyd-Jones embarked on the first project with us, Big Stories for Little Ones, by sharing her poems for very small children that highlight, over and over, that God is the hero of the story. Thereafter, we have to be careful: every time we even begin to think about making an album, they take on a life of their own. The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like This rolled out of a beautiful dinner under the stars, in a garden. Waiting Songs, our newest album, was made because people were asking us to make a Christmas album, but there are plenty out there. We really wanted to serve children and families with songs that gave voice to the almost, not yet, already, soon-ness of Advent, and of Christian life.

 

 

Joannah: Listeners of your music will hear children singing with you—and in your videos, children are an integral part of the singing, serving, and worshiping experience. The theme of this issue is “Created to Create,” so we’re interested to learn how you integrate your own creative experience with your children’s—allowing them to be a part of the art that you create.

 

Flo Paris Oakes: I would answer that they are not only allowed to be a part of what we create, but they largely inform and directly influence what we create. Before they even record with us, I’m asking my girls (now twelve and ten) if the songs sound good, if I should add anything, etc. If my kids like it, I know it passes the test. But even beyond the sound of the music, I am inspired by my girls to creatively address their very real faith and their very real doubts—to write songs for what they are thinking and feeling and experience in their own journey with God. I think about their questions and try to write songs that are more than just pat answers.

 

Sandra: Making art for children is one thing; it can be sort of romantic and carefully planned out. Making art with children is messy and challenging and wonderful with surprises. I’ve learned so much from working with my kids. They have helped me learn to write more singable melodies. They’ve helped me to simplify lyrics without losing substance. And they’ve helped me to just remember to have fun and play while doing this work. Sometimes, for all sorts of reasons, the kids require us to take a studio break. In some ways, even when it’s frustrating, it’s also a gift. Love is not efficient. Maybe making art together is meant to mirror that, too?

 

Katy:  My daughter has made her own Rain for Roots songs, which makes me so happy. They have their own tunes, but a lot of them have the same truths put into her own words. I love that she feels at home with the thoughts in these songs. So, maybe she is allowing me to participate in her art?

I do love when the kids join us on stage, singing with us, or just being shy and hugging our legs. And they have definite thoughts on the songs and process, and aren’t afraid to tell us. Few things make my heart happier than seeing adults in our world find ways to make bridges to bring our children into worship. Almost all of our church’s children are participating in the entire worship service this summer, and I am nearly positive that our pastor included a Jabba the Hut reference while preaching on the death of the Moabite King Eglon by Ehud for the sake of some of our Star Wars–loving kids.

 

Joannah:  I’ve found that when I’m being creative with my children, it allows authentic conversation to flow more freely. I have young children, so it’s easy for us to engage while playing outside, or inviting my daughter to cook with me. I think some parents are intimidated about being “creative” with their children, especially when children get older and aren’t as easily entertained/ engaged. What are some ways that you practice the discipline of creativity, if we can call it that, in your homes? Any suggestions for the not-so-musically inclined?

 

Katy:  I think that I would simply say to invite your children into what you love. What is it that piques your heart, your sense of wonder, and draws you to worship? Why? Kids want to know what makes us tick, and we are the starting point of reference. We have a lot of dance parties in our house, and music accompanies bread baking, cleaning up, car rides, painting, coloring. One of my daughter’s favorite things is to be given some sheets of paper stapled into a little book and told to go write a story. Her creativity puts me to shame. Start seeing if you can regularly incorporate the phrase “I wonder . . .” into your talk with kids. And then listen. Also, let them see you making things. I mean, they’ll interrupt it, but do it when they’re awake, anyway. For their sake and your own sanity!

 

Flo:     I have definitely experienced a change [in the ways I’m able to be creative with my children] as my kids have moved out of little-kid stage and into tweendom—especially in regard to our conversations. My older daughter, especially, opens up a lot more when we are doing something side-by-side instead of just sitting across from one another while Mom fires away questions about life. I’m not sure if this is “creative,” per se, but some of our favorite activities include hik- ing together and birdwatching at our local nature park. It feels like being on a treasure hunt together, and it really revives us both. I ask her about her friends and her struggles as we hike along. If we see a new bird, we can’t wait to go home and find out more about it. It’s an activity that has come to be something special between us.

 

Sandra: Summer is in full swing in my house, so I think sometimes the balance of work and play and independence within our house is a tricky one without the routines we are so used to during the school year. The thing I have noticed most about our creative habits is that creativity requires space. Space can mean different things. Sometimes space means quietness, or sometimes it means togetherness, or sometimes it is just having enough time to “waste” time. We have to learn to be unproductive before our imaginations can be fruitful. The pressing needs of work and school are hard to push back against.

Sabbath keeping (holding aside a day for rest), habits of silence throughout the day, and unscheduled time are so important to foster creativity—these habits can help us find our creative flow at any age.

 

Joannah: How has art spiritually formed you? [“Art” being ways we experience and also participate in creation: visual, musical, written, dance, culinary, etc.]

 

Flo:     I think immediately of something our children’s pastor has reiterated time and time again—that these things matter, that the works of our hands are lasting building blocks of the kingdom of God. She has said it in the context of creation-care camp for children (that the act of planting a garden is lasting), but this has also revolutionized the way I think about my art, writing, songwriting, cooking, etc. We can be so hard on ourselves as artists—thinking that what we make isn’t any good. But this is self-deprecating and narcissistic at the same time. Rather, when I think of my “creation” as part of God’s creation as a whole, and that it is lasting into eternity, adding to the beauty of the kingdom, and that, in fact, it belongs to God, it sanctifies the art and frees me up to be more bold and daring in the work that I do.

 

Sandra: Like Paul says in Colossians 1, the simple answer is that all things hold together in Christ. I felt some awareness of this in my childhood, from my earliest memories, and I feel it with more depth and complexity today as I experience it with more nuance. In the changing seasons of life and calling as an artist and musician, I take my coordinates from the Spirit, believing that whether I’m pulling up weeds in the garden, or sharing a meal, performing music, or taking communion—in all things, Christ is present; it is sacred to walk with him, to know him walking with us and inviting us to know him more. Art and life and spirituality are meant to be closely integrated. Not that I’ve achieved that integration, but I see that integration as the aim and the trajectory of art making.

 

Katy:  Art has shown me truth, goodness, and beauty. It has fed me and given me discernment. We are storytellers, all of us, and we love a good story. We all have our callings, but spending a lifetime eking out a little truth, goodness, and beauty requires being surrounded by it, to be brave and take heart in this world. I remember Sam Gamgee and Thomas Merton and Miles Davis and Clarence Jordan and Annie Dillard and J. K. Rowling and King David when I need to be brave in the face of a heartbreaking world, all of these good companions, this great cloud of witnesses who carry me on. God in his kindness has given us so many good artists, so many good creators who’ve gone before us and who work shoulder to shoulder with us.

 

Joannah: Ladies, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us. I’m encouraged by your approach to art and parenting, and how you’ve beautifully integrated the two.

 

 

Leaven Bread

by Rain For Roots

 

I wanna tell you another story

All about a woman making barley bread

Flour and water out on the table

“We need a little leaven,” she said

So, she works , she works,

she works to mix the leaven into the flour

She works, she works

She works to make the barley bread

Mama, mama, how much longer?

How much longer for the dough to rise

Oh my children, don’t you worry

We just gotta wait till the time is right

So they wait, they wait

They wait while the dough is rising rising

So they wait, they wait

They wait for the barley bread

This is a story of the Kingdom of Heaven

This is what the storyteller Jesus said

The kingdom of Heaven is just like the leaven

That worked to raise up that barley bread

So we wait, we wait, we wait while the Kingdom’s coming coming

We wait, we wait, we wait while the Kingdom’s coming, coming

We wait, we wait, we wait while the Kingdom’s coming, coming

We wait, we wait, we wait for the Kingdom to come

We wait for the Kingdom to come

From The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like This, released April 2014

Written by Sandra McCracken, Flo Paris, Ellie Holcomb, Katy Bowser, and Alice Smith

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YSkJ84Hsbc