Key points:
- A United Methodist pastor and amateur musician started a monthly performance and song discussion called Crafted Conversations.
- The theme of one or more of the songs performed at Singin’ River Brewing Co. is used to get an audience discussion going.
- A ministry of First United Methodist Church in Florence, the Fresh Expression is promoted as an informal gathering where people who may be “spiritual but not religious” can feel comfortable.
The theme of the night was “solitude,” and once the conversation reached beyond who was extroverted and who was introverted, the audience at Singin’ River Brewing Co. took it deeper.
“You don’t have to be alone to feel alone,” said one woman.
“Solitude is chosen; loneliness is not,” said someone else.
“I was in a marriage where I was always with somebody, but never more alone,” offered a participant.
Then a guy from a local theater company got everybody thinking.
“Pondering the difference between loneliness and solitude, perhaps could it be that loneliness is questioning if it even matters that we exist at all?” he offered. “Might we be seeking solitude because maybe we’re feeling like we exist a little too much?”
Nobody seemed clear what that meant exactly, but it silenced the room for a moment while everybody pondered it.
This was not a typical night at a local tavern. It was Crafted Conversations, the brainchild of the Rev. Dale Cohen, an ordained elder and pastor at First United Methodist Church. An amateur guitarist, Cohen, with the help of talent booker Tim Jackson, hires a singer-songwriter each month for an evening of music and contemplation.
“We’re trying to create civil discourse in the community,” said Cohen, a Wisconsin native who has lived for 50 years in the South. “I love live music and I love dialogue, and I felt like coming out of (COVID), it was really a good time for people to reconnect and share with one another at a spiritual level.”
Cohen asks icebreaker questions to prompt discussions.
“People will talk around the tables, and then we’ll report out from the tables,” he said. “Sometimes there’s tears as people share; sometimes there’s laughter as people share. Sometimes there’s a sense of awe as people share.”
The Singin’ River Brewing Co. is more neighborhood joint than Carnegie Hall. Crafted Conversations is held in a large, industrial-looking cinder-block room past the bar. The room is chilly, with a makeshift, slightly elevated stage and blue curtain for a backdrop.
That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of respect for the artist. Quite the contrary.
“Any talking during the music, a sniper will take you out,” Jackson facetiously warned the crowd of about 25 people. Some had beers; more didn’t.
The series takes advantage of the many artists and musicians who live or frequent the area because of its proximity to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a U.S. music center. Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brothers have all recorded there.
On Feb. 20, singer-songwriter Bay Simpson, also a member of the Outlaw Apostles band, took the spotlight. Simpson, the son of country singer Angela Hacker and drummer Jon Simpson, has opened for Jamey Johnson and Dwight Yoakam. With his slender build and jet-black hair, he certainly looks like a country music star.
Simpson played two sets of his tunes at the Singin’ River Brewing Co. The discussion centered on Simpson’s “Forgive Me Father.”
The lyrics include these lines: “I’m a loner/A rolling stoner/A highway shoulder/Just getting older” and “I’m partly fiction/A contradiction/an apparition/I’m on a mission.”
Then Simpson got to sit back and witness an immediate deep conversation prodded by his song. After the event, he said he enjoyed the experience.
“Hearing people talk about the theme and trying to tie songs into a theme is a cool thing,” said Simpson, whose biggest success so far is “Never Enough,” which was recorded by Kid Rock.
A four-page handout prepared by Cohen offered poems and artwork on loneliness and solitude as further grist for the discussion, along with a psychology professor’s explanation of the difference between the two.
“Solitude involves intentional alone time without negative emotional states,” writes Barbara Blatchley, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Agnes Scott College. “Loneliness stems from unwanted isolation and social disconnection.”
Most everyone in Florence knows Cohen is pastor of First United Methodist Church, but he doesn’t belabor the point, and he’s not trying to recruit new church members.
“The whole idea behind this is that we want to engage people in spiritual dialogue, and we kind of just keep the idea of spirituality open,” he explained. “We say anybody of any spirituality or no spirituality is welcome to be a part of these discussions.”
If the pastor offers a thought from a Christian perspective, he says so.
“The majority of them don’t attend our church, but some of our church members do attend,” Cohen said.
Subscribe to our
e-newsletter
The series is part of The United Methodist Church’s Fresh Expressions movement, which hosts informal meetings in non-church settings like brew pubs, coffee shops, campgrounds, private homes and on digital platforms.
The Alabama-West Florida Conference was awarded an initial $15,000 grant to launch Crafted Conversations. The performer gets $300.
“Somebody who’s in contention for a Grammy award who will show up and play for you for $300 and they’re grateful for the opportunity — that’s just kind of the spirit of this town,” Cohen said.
“People just love music. They love to play.”
A new song may come out of Simpson’s night at Crafted Conversations. Remember the woman who said, “You don’t have to be alone to feel alone?”
Simpson nodded thoughtfully when an audience member suggested it as a title for a new song.
Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the news digest.
