What’s good everyone,

Long time noooo talk.

The biggest update is that my sophomore full-length release Mercy We Need is coming out on Sept 25^th. And the first single from that project, Not Yet Home, is out today, everywhere you stream!

The record is all about the mercies we need, both those we know how to articulate to God and those we don’t know (how) to express. In this historical moment, I see the stark need for both. Every day the headlines give us reason to cry out mercy. And all of us, either because of willful ignorance or just the nature of being finite beings, have mercies we can’t name. Even though church attendance is shifting and much of organized religion is declining in America, we are in no less need of mercy. I look forward to hearing how you experience this song. Shout out to my friend Dr. Jasmine Reid who did the artwork for this song and for the whole record. I look forward to sharing with you the full painting come September 25th. (This is just an up close snippet.)

Here’s a quick look at the past few months.

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May

May was a time of settling into new ideas. One of my highlights was preaching at my church Lawndale Christian Community Church on Pentecost. ‘Twas a joy to bring the framework of Notes of Rest to the holy day of observance in the church of the Spirit descending upon the church. It was doubly special to teach on the liturgical calendar to my church who wasn’t as familiar with that background. I built on the work of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, a Catholic teacher in Christian spirituality who argues that Pentecost is a pattern for life with God as much as it is a one-time event. To live the spirit of Pentecost is to practice receiving the new life that you are already living on the other side of grief. And it just so happened that two days prior to Pentecost, someone in our church who had been wrongfully abducted by ICE had been released from custody and had found their way back to the church through a miraculous chain of events. And then someone else proposed to their partner right before the sermon! (She said yes.) Then it was my time to preach.

I gave God thanks for witnessing all of that – not only because ICE needs to be abolished or that Black folk getting married is a beautiful thing (let alone in church) – but also because these kinds of miraculous events are the exact kind of surprising encounters with God’s grace that are at the root of Pentecost. We can’t manufacture God’s miraculous activity but only open ourselves to seeing it. That worship service was a time of practicing just that. My heart was full! You can watch the service here.

June

And then June got off to a great start with recording and mixing Mercy We Need. We had a funky good time! Part of what I loved about this go around is that I came into the process far more patient and relaxed than the first record. We had two days instead of one, and fewer songs to record. (This joint will have no more than 8.) And because we had more time, the bandmates had more time to dig in with their own ideas and try new concepts out. The new bassist in the group, Ethan, made a good observation: when you have less time to record, you take fewer risks. By contrast, because we had more time here, we took far more. We could afford to discard more non-ideal takes. I appreciated that framing from Ethan. There’s a lot of life wisdom there: the more space we give ourselves, the more we can experiment. Seems obvious now in hindsight, but that’s how it goes for most good lessons learned.

And then I had an incredible time with the first in-person convening for the national project around Black Church testimonial practice called Testify!. (Pictures coming from that soon.) Various artists from the Indy area gathered – a quiltmaker, a photographer, an ecclesiastical tailor (the brotha makes pastor and church robes and he’s bad), a prominent gospel recording artist, a spoken word poet, and a multimedia visual artist – all got together to learn about Black testimony practice. On Friday night we had Notes of Rest, after which recording gospel artist Lamar Campbell (known especially for More Than Anything) shared a deep affirmation: this project Testify! can only be appreciated if you don’t have clutter in your life. That just made me so happy to hear. Yes! Testify! is a project in Black contemplative spirituality where we pay attention to the God-stories of our lives and share those stories through artistic media and digital storytelling. The more clutter, the less attention we have to give (anything).

And then right on the heels of Testify! I went to Vancouver to participate in a fascinating discussion with Dr. Craig Barnes at Vancouver School of Theology on preaching and the arts. I have tremendously enjoyed my time presenting around theology and the arts with senior scholars this year – earlier Kwok Pui Lan through an online course at Episcopal Divinity School – and now Craig Barnes. I have learned immensely from their patience, wisdom and freedom. Craig made a fascinating point in our shared discussion about how he has spent most of his pastoral career caring for careful Christians who have lived comfortable religious lives their whole life. He said that in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, not many of his congregants, if any, would identify with the debauchery of the younger son who squanders the inheritance of his father and yet is forgiven and comes back into the father’s arms. Instead, his congregants, and Craig himself, have lived lives as the elder son, careful, conservative, adherent. The older son grows jealous that the younger son is taken back in and who feels wronged that the father has never celebrated him. But Craig notes that Jesus’ parable ends without us knowing whether the elder son in fact ever runs to the father, meaning that the careful, conservative lifestyle of religious folk is not a guarantee for life with God. By contrast, those who know they have messed up and who run to forgiveness have greater assurance of their pardon and thus their relationship with God. My God.

Are you more like the elder son where you have lived most of your life having figured out God? Or do you identify mor so with the younger son, where you’re more than aware of how you’ve participated in death-dealing ways and are aware that you’ve been forgiven? Not Yet Home indeed.

July

Earlier this month I also had an amazing show with my band in Indianapolis at Bethel Cathedral African Methodist Episcopal Church’s 190^th anniversary. It was a tremendous honor playing there, encouraging the saints. The AME church in general is an enduring testament to what God continues to do in this country and despite this country.

I also had the chance to shoot a video for Notes of Rest at this breathtakingly beautiful church called St. Benedict the African in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. The video was for Creo Arts, a granting organization focused on supporting projects in theology and the arts. They’ve generously given me grant money this year to help with Notes of Rest the book, Notes of Rest the documentary (out Aug 20^th), and Mercy We Need. It was a delight getting to do a special Notes of Rest on Creation with an intimate recording group. I also got the chance to record a version of All Creatures of Our God and King for a documentary film on St. Francis of Assisi. (That’s why we were in that church.)

August

This coming month I look forward to ramping up for the release of Mercy We Need in September, for the Notes of Documentary dropping, and for Testify! Live in Indy (which will be on Oct 2^nd at Eastern Star Cooper Road Campus). My next single will be Farewell, Hello Again on Aug 21^st. I look forward to playing for you soon. As always, thank you for listening.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Aug 7 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Harper Court (Chicago)

Aug 9 w/ Tramaine Parker in Tramaine and Friends

Aug 20 Notes of Rest Documentary Drops on YouTube

Aug 21 Farewell, Hello Again single drops

Aug 22 Notes of Rest (Seattle)

Aug 23 Notes of Rest at The Practice Church (Chicagoland)

Aug 27 Notes of Rest: A Documentary Screening at Muse Coffee Shop (Chicago)

New Postings

Sojourners for America’s 250th (A Subversive Prayer of Thanksgiving)

Jazz Institute of Chicago Article on my first album Vocation

Thinking of Creating as Chaplaincy: The Artistic Vision Podcast

Sojourners for America’s 250th (A Subversive Prayer of Thanksgiving)

What’s good everyone,

Every evening, every morning, is an opportunity to thank God. Gratitude is core to the resistance.

April - No Word for Hello

Last month held a lot of special moments with various speaking engagements and good music. One moment that stood out in particular was Notes of Rest at Pastors, Priests, and Guides led by Aaron Niequist (pictured at the bottom of this post). One concept that really caught people’s ear is that mastery does not yield intimacy. The spiritual practices to which God has called us facilitate intimacy with God, neighbor and self, not mastery over them. In his seminal After Whiteness, theologian Willie Jennings writes that the West is built on mastery that yields distance and death, and that we are conditioned to desire this kind of mastery no matter our skin color or gender. By contrast, when we seek facility with our gifts, we yield to intimacy, to desire, to joining. He was writing about theological education in this book, but it pertains equally to spirituality and to music. In any realm, we can chase distance-producing mastery that separates us from others, or distance-reducing facility that joins us to others. What forms of religious and spiritual devotion create distance between you and others? What forms create intimacy?

Relatedly, another exciting moment was serving as a faculty member during a 5-day intensive on spirituality and creativity with an in-person cohort with the Academy of Spiritual Formation. Man that was dope getting to dig in with the participants not only on Notes of Rest, but also into how their lives can be places of perpetual creativity because God is eternally creative. The Artist’s Way (one of my favorites) was a foundational text, as was my own creative process with Notes and my music career. Teaching on this topic was a dope challenge because I had to systematize some of what I’ve intuitively been up to for the last 5 years in stitching together contemplative spirituality, theological education, and artistic practice.

But one of the great highlights of that week was getting to hear from the other faculty member, Ray Buckley, an Indigenous Methodist pastor who lives in Alaska. During one of his teachings, he said that in his native Lakota, there is no word for hello, for hello doesn’t establish relationship. All of their greetings, by contrast, immediately draw you into kinship with the one you greet (brother, sister, mother, etc.).

To not have a word for hello because it keeps you at a distance - sounds like Jennings’ observation about the distance of the master.

I am so fascinated by salutations, by what they state explicitly, what they state implicitly, and what they ignore all together. I am reminded of how in Swahili one greeting translates to “how is it with the children?” This too, like Lakota, is a relational greeting. It is not about what you produce, and it is not just about recognizing you as an individual, but it is about wrapping you as quickly as words can into the swaddling blankets of siblinghood.

The waters that we swim in here in America are drenched in language of transaction and production. What’s going on? What’s happening? How you doing? These greetings pail in comparison to Lakota or Swahili at reminding us that we are kin. Perhaps it is no wonder that we always feel the need to be producing. Our language never lets us forget the need. (This is why I love Black English that says my brotha, my sista, my cousin.)

Finally, last month, two dope pieces of content tied to my album Vocation came out. One was a write-up on the Jazz Institute of Chicago blog by Corey Hall. It centers in on my relationship with my oldest friend Michael Burkes who died a few years ago and who is the inspiration behind my composition Nerve to be Super. The other is a video by Suhaib Qasim taped at the Jazz Showcase back in February. I love how this video shows the way I view the stage of the jazz club as another kind of pulpit. (If it moves you, I invite you to leave a comment!) I’m glad it the video could go up in the weeks leading up to International Jazz Day here in my beloved Chicago.

May - Into Obscurity

This month started off with an awesome Notes of Rest Retreat in St. Louis. That was a life’s delight. We had worked on that for so long and it went over so well. We danced. We cried. We experienced portals opening as the band came down and played. It was the longest retreat I ever held - 2 nights and three days, and I’m exceedingly grateful to the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church for hosting it and to all of my bandmates who helped create with me. I’ll be munching on the richness of last week for quite some time.

But just like Jesus would go from in-your-face ministry into the wilderness, so too am I now looking forward to much-needed time digging into my Notes of Rest book. It has been a humbling and fun process settling into writing a long-form work. It has required saying no to so many other opportunities to focus on God’s “yes.” Perhaps God is calling you into obscurity as well.

Part of that obscurity is giving me space for the documentary for Notes of Rest. This ministry has been life-changing for the last 5 years, and to slowly capture all of this footage on camera has been a gift with my boy Sulyiman Stokes.

I’m also really excited to be preaching at my home church Lawndale Christian Community Church for Pentecost Sunday on May 24th. Something’s cooking. I’m not sure what yet, but I can feel it taking shape. May the Spirit rain down!

Finally, I have two shows with my group Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust coming up at Dorian’s and Green Mill both here in Chicago. We’ll be going into the studio next month to record the next album, Mercy We Need. That’ll be out later this year. Stay tuned.

abundantly,

Julian

P.S. Happy early Mother’s Day, starting with my own Momma and my wife Carmen. Thank you both for showing me God our Mother.

What’s Next

May 22 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Dorian’s (Chicago)

May 24 Preaching at Lawndale Christian Community Church (Chicago)

May 24 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at The Green Mill (Chicago)

Other Podcasts and Articles:

Interview with Faith & Leadership: “Black Music is a Form of God’s Grace”

Interview with KWOK Pui Lan:

What’s good everyone,

Today is Holy Saturday, also known as Silent Saturday, the day between the observance of Christ’s death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Over the years I’ve come to cherish this day because I know many people in the world identify with Silent Saturday - in some cases, more so than with Good Friday or Easter. Perhaps that’s you. Perhaps you’ve buried some form of hope along ago and/or have no concept of future resurrection. If that’s you, I see you.

Christians aver that Jesus doesn’t stay in the grave but is raised to new life by God on Easter Sunday tomorrow. However, that’s a reality we can speak to because we live on the other side of that first Easter Sunday morning. The folk in the original storyline, however, did not. All they knew was death.

I sit with the death and the dying that we know now - of the post-WWII goodwill amongst the G7 nations, of public trust in government, of justice, of Iranian schoolgirls - without much knowledge of tomorrow. So much is dying, and we are invited to acknowledge that on a day like today.

I pray that we can have theologies and mental dispositions that allow us to sit with the holy in-between of not knowing. Of course I am thankful that death is not the end - that Christ will come again - but I am aware that death is an end, the other side of which takes faith to see past. May faith not numb us to pain that we’re called to feel and hold as we await hope of new life.

Perhaps that is why my song Moan is so important to me. It keeps me close to the sorrows of the world while not letting it swallow me up. This is why I can sit with Silent Saturday, because I know that attending to grief doesn’t mean I must be consumed by it. Lord, walk with us amidst these armageddon times that Trump and Hesgeth seek to hasten.

March

A special experience last month was embarking on a 5-week spirituality online course with my former professor Dr. Kwok Pui Lan. Hosted through Episcopal Divinity School, it’s been on Notes of Rest but has also been a course in Notes of Rest for me. Dr. Kwok has been teaching for decades and is a preeminent scholar in postcolonial (feminist) theology, so to have her amplify my Notes of Rest teaching has been an immense honor. Specifically, I’m learning from her what it means to teach the practices of rest. Her teachings on neuroscience, tai chi, meditation and the like have led students to feel more rested in the moment. Not just talking about rest, but practicing it. I’ve learned so much from her.

My work with Testify! is also picking up. Testify! is a nationwide project about Black Church testimony practice as experienced through the arts and digital storytelling. One idea my colleague Dr. Nick Peterson and I have been sitting with is what it means to testify beyond capitalist notions of God’s blessings. So often in our modern-day culture, we are encouraged to testify about our new car, our rags to riches. While I of course believe God cares about our material well-being, focusing on the material to the exclusion of our inner spiritual formation misses God’s desire for our holistic growth. In addition to talking about our outward accomplishments, what God-stories do we share about our inner lives?

Also, Fuller Seminary put the video of a dope concert/interview I did out there last October, which you can see here.

April

This month I’m excited for various kinds of speaking engagements and International Jazz Day here in Chicago at the end of the month. This coming week I’ll be in Atlanta at a dope conference on unity in the church called Unified Gathering 2026. There I’ll be talking about the unifying work God is crafting within us that then helps us unify with others beyond us.

I’ll also be leading a week-long intensive about spirituality and creativity through the Academy of Spiritual Formation (a ministry of the United Methodist Church). That’s going to be fun to take people deeper into the Creator’s desire for each of us to be creatives.

I look forward to returning to Pastors, Priests and Guides, a largely Episcopal-attended spiritual formation retreat series. This year’s theme is re-enchantment. I love that prompt to counter the dreariness of the headlines. Yes!

Last but not least, at the end of the month I have a few gigs here in Chicago for International Jazz Day and then I’ll be in St. Louis for a gargantuan Notes of Rest retreat with my band Circle of Trust coming down from Chicago. It’s going to be off the chain. I’m so excited. Registration closes Apr 16. (Fyi there will be another retreat like it here in Chicago next month).

May we all continue creating in the ways God has called us to create. A blessed Easter to all looking forward to tomorrow.

abundantly,

Julian

P.S. The picture at the top of this post, Bow and Lay, is by my friend Eóin who created this felt piece during one Lenten season at our old church, Elm City Vineyard. His work impeccably captures the humility that Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, encourages. Imagine the Pentagon adopting such an image (for themselves, not our ever-growing number of enemies). One can hope.

What’s Next

Apr 5 Easter at Lawndale Christian Community Church (just inviting you to come attend with me; I’ll be playing)

Apr 9-10 Unified Gathering 2026 (Atlanta)

Apr 13-15 Notes of Rest at Pastors, Priests and Guides (Chicagoland)

Apr 23 Notes of Rest at Dominican University

Apr 26 w/Zach Finnegan at Green Mill (Chicago)

Apr 26 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Principle Barbers (Chicago)

Apr 30-May 2 Notes of Rest Retreat (St. Louis) (Note: Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust is in concert May 1 for free to the community)

Retreat and Course

May 28-30 Notes of Rest Retreat (Chicagoland)

What’s good everyone,

February - Breaking Yokes

This February, I stood tall. I love Black History/Futures Month because it amplifies the countless stories of God’s faithfulness to my people in generations’ past and the hopes for God’s continued faithfulness for generations to come. The more history I learn, the taller I stand. Trump et al’s desire to erase Black history only strengthens my resolve. People don’t try to tamp down what they deem irrelevant or nonthreatening.

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Part of that standing tall means saying what the Spirit prompts, even when it’s risky. There came a time during one such session for Notes of Rest. In preparation for that gathering, I discerned a call to share with a largely White, Southern audience about Palestine, the Epstein files, and ICE. I knew that any meaningful conversation about rest and restlessness in our country during these days had to address these issues head-on. I also knew that to do so risked blowback and ostracism from similar events if the organizers thought I was too “much.” But I was spurred on by MLK who said on the night before being assassinated in Memphis: “[L]ongevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.” God bolsters us to move in courage for the sake of love.

After the session, most of the people, including a lot of White men, came and said thank you. But one older gentlemen came for a different reason. Standing eye to eye with me (a rarity), he shared how angry he was with what I had said, how lopsided I was in my portrayal of the country and this current administration, and how he couldn’t enjoy the music as much as he wanted to because of how political my remarks were.

I will be slow to forget my inner world in that moment. As he shared, I unconsciously reached for the God of my Grandmommy and Papa, the God of MLK, the God of my parents, the God of those who wrote the spirituals. This was the God who had helped them to stand with straightened backs and lowered shoulders, who helped them remember that they were somebody (RIP Rev. Jesse Jackson), who helped their souls get over. This was the God who gives rest to the weary.

I thanked him for sharing but never apologized for what I said. I explained that the Bible, at bottom, is political. I explained the peculiarity of Black music and how it flows from the complex of social, political, economic, and religious vectors that converge at any point in time to give us something to sing about in the first place. My God and my people helped me stand tall.

The next day, he approached me and my bandmate Tramaine Parker three separate times to say hello. By the end of the day, he even said God bless your ministry. Tramaine commented that perhaps our initial conversation at the bar, coupled with our ministry onstage that weekend, broke yolks in his life. I think she might be right. To the extent that was so, may God be praised.

March

March has gotten off to a rolling start, with memorable engagements in Chicago and Dallas. The other day I was at Mt. Carmel High School (my brother’s alma mater) here in town for a quick Notes session with all of the boys. I asked them what they saw in this picture above (a great inkblot test question), and the first brotha to respond said “a homeless man.” I was a bit stunned. What made him see that? Was it the state of his clothes? Was it that so many unhoused folk in Chicago are Black? What a statement for this teenager to make. What do we see when we see Black folk are resting?

I am excited for a Notes of Rest online course I’m offering with Dr. Kwok Pui Lan, my former professor, through Episcopal Divinity School starting this coming Tuesday. It is a delight to teach with a former seminary professor about ideas I incubated while in her tutelage. It’s a virtual course and people will be Zooming in from various countries. Registration is still open. It’d be dope to see you there.

I am also looking forward to shooting more footage for a short film I’m making on Notes of Rest with Sulyiman Stokes, the brotha who shot the music video for my song Moan. Since Notes turns 5 years old this year, I’m doing this short film to celebrate what I’ve learned, the communities helped, and the God glorified.

Last, the heat is turning up on Testify!, the project out of Christian Theological Seminary about Black Church testimony practice (a clip for which is shown above). I’m starting to create music around the different prompts that ground this 5-year project: God creates; God transforms; God consoles; God heals; God brings rest and belonging. The creativity continues. Onwards.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Mar 10 Course: Notes of Rest, Notes of Resilience (5 Tuesdays, virtual)

Mar 14 w/Denise Thimes at Winter’s Jazz Club (Chicago)

Mar 25 Julian Davis Reid & Tramaine Parker at Elastic Arts (Chicago)

Retreats

Notes of Rest as a Course from Garrett Collective (Use promo code Notes100 starting Feb 16 for a significant discount)

Apr 9-10 Unified Gathering 2026 (Atlanta)

Apr 13-15 Pastors, Priests and Guides (Chicagoland)

Apr 30-May 2 Notes of Rest Retreat (St. Louis)

May 28-30 Notes of Rest Retreat (Chicagoland)

As Rilke encourages, I am learning to live the questions in my life more so than seeking the answers. In our daily living, everything we experience is an opportunity to meet God. Wherever you are, I pray this meets you as good news. Amen.

January

The year began with a bang; my inaugural headlining tour was a life delight. Man, my group Circle of Trust - Tramaine Parker, Ethan Philion, Runere Brooks, and James Russell Sims - brought the sound of my record Vocation to life. And it was a joy to play for sold out shows in New York and Minneapolis, and for the stories along all the stops of people who felt touched by the band. In the thick of it, I am also thankful for my first press write-up on my project, from the hometown Chicago Sun-Times.

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It was special playing in Minneapolis given all that’s going on. Lord have mercy on that city and on this country. The energy was so high that the bartender texted his wife to hustle down to the club to catch the rest of our set. I am thankful we could be a balm.

When we were in Des Moines, IA, tears caught me off guard during the Q&A after the show. I was talking about hope that artists can offer during these times, a theme that I’ve been meditating on more these days given the daily mayhem. In particular I was focused on the folk who wrote the Negro spirituals such as “Hush, Somebody’s Callin My Name” (off my record Vocation) were written by people who found a way to praise God even while their children were being sold down the river (Click here to see).

I had to stop right then and catch myself because I was fina start crying. The force I had surprised me. In this Black History Month, I’m so thankful for all the ways I experience connection to Black folk who have lived and loved on these lands down through the years. God remains faithful and I take solace in that.

After tour, I was delighted to bring Notes of Rest home to my church, Lawndale Christian Community Church, here in Chiacgo. What a special time. One thing I love about Lawndale is how raw the people are; they tell it like it is. During the group discussion time, one person shared aloud how singing my song I’ll Protect You helped him process some serious life-and-death challenges he had parenting his adult daughter. Even though we both attended the same church (and it’s not that big), I didn’t know this brotha. When strangers share that honestly in public like that, I give God thanks to just be a witness.

February

For this Black history month, I am excited to bring Notes of Rest to Charlotte, Grand Rapids, and Atlanta. In Charlotte this weekend I’ll be at Gordon Conwell for their dope Art of the Psalms conference and then at Christ Church Charlotte. (Gordon Conwell may have have a few tickets left if you’re in the area.) On Feb 19th I’ll be participating in an educational concert at Calvin University about the history of Gospel music - the first concert of its kind. I’ll be sharing the stage with Rev. Dr. Donté Ford, chaplain of Wheaton College, and vocalist Tramaine Parker. And in Atlanta on Feb 28th, I’m excited to bring Notes to two congregations coming together for unity, Immanuel Anglican Church and Israel Missionary Baptist Church. Let us play for such a time as this.

Here in town, I also look forward to performing with my group Circle of Trust on Feb 10 at Jazz Showcase, one of the more storied venues for jazz here in town. I’d love to share with you this new tradition I’ve started of singing a parting blessing over and with the audience. It’s called Take Care Now, and stems from the part of Sunday morning liturgies where the pastor sends the congregation home with a parting blessing, such as the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6:22-27.

Just like when I preside in church, I really want people to leave my shows differently than how they came. I want folk to feel encouraged to keep on, to hope, to exult, to contemplate, to be with. To that end:

I look forward to singing this with you someday. Take care now.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Feb 6-7 Notes of Rest at Gordon Conwell Art of the Psalms (Charlotte, NC)

Feb 7-8 Notes of Rest at Christ Church Charlotte

Feb 10 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Jazz Showcase (Chicago)

Feb 13-14 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s Jazz Club (Chicago)

Feb 19 Julian Davis Reid & Tramaine Parker at Calvin University Chapel (Grand Rapids, MI)

Feb 25 w/ Lanecia A. Rouse Church Anew Preaching Cohort (virtual)

Feb 28 Notes of Rest at Israel Missionary Baptist Church (Atlanta)

Mar 5-6 Notes of Rest Retreat at St. Luke’s Episcopal (Dallas)

Retreats, Classes and Conferences Down the Road

Mar 5-6 Notes of Rest Retreat at St. Luke’s Episcopal (Dallas)

Notes of Rest as a Course from Garrett Collective (Use promo code Notes100 starting Feb 16 for a significant discount)

Apr 9-10 Unified Gathering 2026 (Atlanta

Apr 13-15 Pastors, Priests and Guides (Chicagoland)

Apr 30-May 2 Notes of Rest Retreat (St. Louis)

May 28-30 Notes of Rest Retreat (Chicagoland)

Radio Interview

Jazz88 Interview with Yonci Jameson in Minneapolis

Happy new year! Even as this year has already given us all reasons to grieve, I pray it is also giving us all reasons to give thanks. Hopefully your holidays were marked with rich connection. If not, I grieve with you and pray that this coming holiday season might be different.

This morning I woke up with a story in my heart that I wanted to share with you before I tell you about December and January.

Early last year, I really got into swimming, to the tune of multiple times a week. I loved the exercise and the symbolism of being in deep water. However, I did not love being so slow compared to everyone else. (It did not help that I was almost always the only Black person at this Latinx and White pool too.)

One day a white guy was in the lane next to me, getting ready to start right when I did. I could tell by how he sat in the water that he was a legit swimmer, and so as I lowered myself into the deep end I mentally prepared to see his bubbles kicked up in my face as he cruised on by. He did, although after while I lost track of where he was and then just moved on with finishing my laps. Though I was not fast, I was consistent and got in the zone of just focusing on what was mine to do.

After I finished, I headed to the showers. The white guy saw me leaving the pool, got out himself, and came up to me in the shower. He introduced himself and said that he admired my stamina. It had encouraged him to keep going himself when he felt tired during his workout. He then hustled back to the pool to continue.

Man. We never know who’s watching and how God will use our weaknesses. Praise ye the Lord.

December: Nose in the Canvas

A highlight from December was meeting my mentor Mako Fujimura. They say sometimes it’s dangerous to meet your heroes because your black and white sketch may poorly resemble their technicolor life. But thankfully for me, the two matched. I met him through a retreat on work and faith that he led for an organization called Goldenwood. Mako (and his wife Haejin) are deeply hopeful people, and it came across in his reading of everything, including when we went to Princeton Art gallery.

Mako and I stopped at “The Japanese Footbridge” by Monet, shown above. He said that Monet painted this masterpiece when his eyesight was failing. To compensate for what he was losing, he painted at nose-length and used vivid colors. When Monet’s world was going dark, he chose to paint all the more vividly. The intensity in Mako’s voice as he casually preached this history lesson brought me to the verge of tears.

How bright is our palette these days? The grimness of these days can be a reason to paint in gray. If you’re there, I hear you. However, the stunning clarity of Monet, as refracted through Mako’s lens, offers an invitation to cast vivid hope to our world. Because of the grimness we can choose to be like Monet and bury our noses in our respective canvases and paint all the brighter. I pray that faith helps us all see the world as it is, with eyesight failing of all sorts, and paint more brightly. This is a vision for life together.

In that spirit, I have another highlight from last month: I am now the Artistic Director for the 5-year project called Testify!, a project about testifying through artistic witness to God’s goodness in Black church contexts. It’s a $5 million project funded by the Lilly Endowment, and my dear brother Dr. Nick Peterson will be overseeing the grant which will be housed at his seminary Christian Theological Seminary. (You can read the press release here.)

I am elated to work over these next 5 years to catalog preexisting testimonies from Black American church folk about God’s goodness and help folk create new works to tell of what the Lord has done. The world has ended many times for Black folk, yet in still, we have a song to sing and a story to tell. May God use this project to encourage us all.

January: Seismic Transitions

And noooow it’s time for tour!!! Starting on Saturday, my band begins its inaugural tour. It will be for my first-full length release, Vocation. Ahh!! If you’re in or near one of the cities listed here, pull up!! I’d love to play for you.

This tour is already a dream come true. I’ve been slowly building under my own name for a few years, and now with the advent of Vocation, it’s go time. God is good, and I pray that my message about the preciousness of the relationships we have with God, self and others shines through in all of these cities. I am especially thankful to be playing Minneapolis during this tender time. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Also, this week a few essays of mine were published in these edited volumes now available wherever you get your books. Light for the Way is an anthology of past Sojourners articles for the contemplative journey that they put out. (Other writers include Walter Brueggemann, Margaret Atwood, and Richard Rohr.) My essay All is Calm is about how we can better rest during the Christmas season. At This Time* is a series of dialogues about the seismic transitions happening within theological education given the sea change afoot in the current American religious landscape. My essay Notes of Rest as Theological Education invites the reader to consider rest as a theological category and pedagogical tool for one’s academic study of God. Connected to the essay is a dialogue with Matthew Wesley Williams, president emeritus of Interdenominational Theological Center, and Fr. John Kartje, president of Mundelein Seminary. That was so dope.

If you get to check either essay out, let me know. Here’s to 2026!

abundantly,

Julian

*The discount code for At This Time is TEBT40 if you buy through the publisher, Eerdmans.

What’s Next

Jan 10-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (New York at NuBlu Classic, Chicago at Constellation, Des Moines at Plymouth UCC, Minneapolis at Berlin, Madison at Cafe Coda)

Jan 11 Notes of Rest at St. Peter’s Chelsea (New York)

Jan 22 Notes of Rest at Knox Presbyterian (Naperville, IL)

Jan 25 Notes of Rest at Lawndale Christian Community Church (Chicago)

Feb 6-8 Notes of Rest in Charlotte (Gordon Conwell, Feb 6-7; Christ Church Charlotte Feb 7-8)

Feb 10 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Jazz Showcase (Chicago)

Feb 13-14 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

What’s good everyone,

A gracious new year to you. I hope that your 2025 holiday season was marked with rest, hope, and strong relationships. If it wasn’t, I pray that changes happen in your life throughout this year in such a way that you experience those three in the 2026 holiday season.

I have decided to end my Julian’s Note subscription service here on Substack. It’s been a decision I’ve been wrestling with for sometime, but in the spirit of the practice of notes of rest, I’ve discerned that God is calling me to do more with less. On the writing front, that means focusing solely on my monthly Substack newsletter (which you’ll still get) and my Notes of Rest book.

Thank you so very much for your paid subscriptions over the last two years and change. You’ve given me space to work out thoughts on the page and find more of my bearings as a public theologian. I’m thankful that “writer” is part of my vocation alongside musician and speaker. What a beautiful way to have experienced God as the author and finisher of my faith.

While I grieve what I will no longer have, I also am excited for this season unfolding. It is a new level of faith to focus my intentions on the longer-form essay writing the book will require. I’ll be drawing from themes I’ve explored here over the last few years and adding to that. I invite your prayers with me as I worship in this way.

I’ll still be writing the monthly newsletter, so we’ll remain connected in that form. I’m also here to talk if something ever catches your eye. Moreover, the writings from the paid platform will still be here, just in the archives.

May your 2026 be awash in God’s penmanship. Here’s to the rest of it all.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Jan 7 w/ Zach Finnegan at Winter’s (Chicago)

Jan 10-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (New York at NuBlu Classic, Chicago at Constellation, Des Moines at Plymouth UCC, Minneapolis at Berlin, Madison at Cafe Coda)

Jan 11 Notes of Rest at St. Peter’s Chelsea (New York)

Jan 22 Notes of Rest at Knox Presbyterian (Naperville, IL)

Jan 25 Notes of Rest at Lawndale Christian Community Church (Chicago)

What’s good everyone,

Christmas is around the corner. What has this time of waiting been teaching you? In the Christian faith we are currently in Advent, the season of waiting for the birth of Jesus’ birth in antiquity (that we customarily celebrate on Dec 25) and the season of waiting for His eventual coming again and making all things new at the end of all time. That can be a heady concept, but ironically a lesson I’ve had to learn this Advent is a concrete one: logistics are important for planning for a generous future.

Last week, I underestimated the complications of getting to the airport in a snowstorm and missed my flight. I was coming back from New Jersey from a retreat with artist-theologian Mako Fujimura and had a gig later that afternoon. I missed my initial flight at 8a because Lyft and Uber drivers did not want to drive in the snow and because I had only given myself enough time to get to the airport in a regular amount of traffic. Their no-shows set me back and by the time I did get there, it was quarter to 9.

I got on standby for the 11.30a and miraculously made it on the last seat. On one hand I was happy I’d make my gig (which I did, 3 minutes before we started), but on the other hand I was disturbed by how I felt during those last few minutes when the ticket attendant Sydney was determining who’d get that last seat out of Newark. I remember when all of us on standby were huddled around the ticket desk, awaiting mercy. I felt a strange primal urgency wash over me, where I was hoping that the other couples who were ahead of me would stay together instead of wanting to be split up so that I could get that seat and where I hoped I was further up the queue than the woman who was bound for Detroit to see her sick father and had a connection through Chicago. I felt for all of them, I really did, but I wanted that seat.

When Sydney called my name, I felt a thousand eyes looking at my back. As I scanned my ticket and went onto the jet bridge, part of me wanted to look back and say goodbye and good luck to the people whose stories I had gotten to know over the last 30 minutes. But I couldn’t. I was just so happy to be on the plane and felt any comments would have been disingenuous and could’ve poured salt in the wound.

It’s helpful that this story happened during Advent. In this season of waiting, I can see the importance of planning for a generous future. Had I been more prepared for the snowstorm, I wouldn’t have gone into this cutthroat mode. To be sure, I don’t think it’s wrong that I got a seat on the plane. I just shudder at my inward desires to beat others out for it.

They say you never have to outrun the bear chasing you and your friend; you just have to outrun your friend. This kind of cruel logic - what Christina Sharpe calls an “execrable arithmetic” - is at the heart of human selfishness, and we are all prone to it. I saw it in myself last Sunday.

I wonder what would happen if we humans better anticipated the future. None of us have crystal balls of course, but can we better discern the times we’re in so as to look forward to what’s to come with more generosity? The trumpeter Sean Jones (coincidentally) spoke into this yesterday during a master class of his I attended here in Chicago. For jazz musicians to play well, he argued, we always have to be anticipating the next note we want to play. We have to be in the moment yet also always present to the chord “changes” ahead. (Steve Miller would concur: time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future.)

That’s a wise way to think about Advent, and it’s one that can yield more generosity. Because I hadn’t planned well enough around the storm, I couldn’t be generous in my thoughts and feelings in the moment when I was in a bind. My lack of planning made me solely focused on my wants and perceived needs.

I am reminded of the Negro spiritual that warns: there’s a storm out on the ocean, and it’s movin’, this-a way. The more honest I am about possible pitfalls that can come my way and can take stock of them - in this case that snowstorm - the more generous I can be towards others in heart, mind and deed.

I’ll close with this song from Stevie Wonder, Someday at Christmas. It’s a song of deep longing for world peace and goodwill to descend like snow on Christmas one day. It can feel just like a heady approach to Advent. However, in light of last week’s airport ordeal, I’m hearing in this song a call to action to anticipate my future well by taking concrete steps towards that peace. Order my steps in your word, Dear Lord, so that generosity might flow.

As I make my way to the manger this year, this will be my prayer. I will pray the same for you. Merry Christmas.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Dec 31 w/ Kenneth Whalum at Dorian’s for NYE

Jan 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at City Church Heights (Cleveland Heights, OH)

Jan 10 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust New York DEBUT (Nublu Classic, 62 Ave C.)

Jan 11 Notes of Rest at St. Peter’s Chelsea (New York)

Jan 14-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (Chicago at Constellation, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Madison)

Jan 22 Notes of Rest at Knox Presbyterian (Naperville, IL)

Jan 25 Notes of Rest at Lawndale Christian Community Church (Chicago)

Podcast

Many a morning I start my day with centering prayer, a time of focused breathing where I breathe in the phrase “Lord” and breathe out the phrase “perfect me in love” while sitting meditatively still. It’s a practice I’ve been working through this last year and it’s helped me immensely see where I’ve been moving primarily in fear instead of love and how I can better attune to God, the center of all things.

My “breath prayer,” as it’s called, comes from 1 John 4:18.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Some fear is healthy, but other fears, the fears that rob of us community, are unhealthy. The antidote to unhealthy fear is being perfected in love. This has become a life intention for me, to receive from God in this way.

During centering prayer, thoughts and feelings come to the mind from deep within. I try to apply a lens of love to them, just observing the thought and holding it in God’s presence. How can this thought drive me closer to love of self, of neighbor, of creation, of God? Lord, perfect me.

Today a wonderful thought came to mind that helped me better see love of self. It occurred to me that one reason I have felt lighter in my career recently is that I’ve stopped receiving streaming reports about how well my songs are doing every week on Apple Music and Spotify, the two main streaming services. Man has that made a difference in how I feel about myself, about my creating, about my light in the world.

The numbers can stroke my ego or crush me, depending on the week. In so doing, the numbers become a game, a crushing one, and I was becoming obsessed with them. God has been teaching me about the importance of assessing what data really matters. To be sure, knowing how many people are listening to my music can be helpful, but knowing every week what was or wasn’t happening was just boosting me up or weighing me down in the wrong way. Moreover, it wasn’t helping me change my behavior in any meaningful way. It could become the case that poring over that data weekly really matters, but right now I realized that there were other places I needed to be training my precious attention when it came to the impact my music was making and what opportunities it was affording me down the line. For instance, I had an incredible time doing a musica divina devotional session this week online, where we listened to tracks off my new album Vocation contemplatively and talked about the impact those songs were having on us. That’s the kind of impact that really matters in this season.

This connects to a larger point that I think is so important in our day and age about discerning what data, headlines, and news we take in. It is far too easy to know too much about things that don’t really pertain to our callings, to the work at hand. The over-saturation of information in the digital age is a very serious problem that can leave us restless. We were not created to know so much about ourselves or about others. To resist, we must exercise limits in what we pick up. In so doing, we are choosing repair - repair of ourselves and of each other. With God’s help, we can heal from the damaging weight of this deluge.

Jesus frequently left the crowds, not unduly concerned with people’s praise or critique. He ignored the calls for his head when people wanted to stone him to death. He moved onto a different town even when the throngs were clamoring to experience more of his miracles. That is, he received and processed the news that required his attention.

Let us follow suit. Just because we can get reports on every little thing under the sun, should we? They say ignorance is bliss. Sometimes that’s dreadfully dangerous, sometimes that’s inevitable, but sometimes that should be intentional.

Here’s to intentional ignorance, the kind that helps us intentionally place our precious focus where God is calling us to attend. In this advent season, with the vortex of shopping and Christmas pageants and Tr*mp and end-of-year reports swirling around, let us be brave enough to do the work that does require our loving focus.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Dec 6 Notes of Rest for First Responders at First UMC of Des Plaines (Des Plaines, IL)

Dec 9 Advent with Image Journal (virtual)

Dec 10 w/ Zach Finnegan at The Gin Mill (New York City)

Dec 14 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Lula B. Sherman UMC Jazz for Joy (Unitarian Church of Evanston, IL)

Dec 31 w/ Kenneth Whalum at Dorian’s for NYE

Jan 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at City Church Heights (Cleveland Heights, OH)

Jan 10 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust New York DEBUT (Nublu Classic, 62 Ave C.)

Jan 11 Notes of Rest at St. Peter’s Chelsea (New York)

Jan 14-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (Chicago at Constellation, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Madison)

I hope that last week was a holy time for you. I’m not sure of their respective etymologies, but “holidays” and “holy days” sound awfully similar, don’t they? Whether they’re actually causally linked, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Tax Day or any other civic holiday does function in American society as a day of national holiness, a time treated with quasi-religious reverence. (In Thanksgiving’s case, religious observance is marked by the enshrinement of turkey and the Dallas Cowboys). Of course, American Thanksgiving has convoluted origins. However, I do give thanks for the ability to gather with my family and for you to gather with yours. Seeing my 2-year-old Lydia run around with her elders 35x her age was a delight. The world is filled with evil and God is good.

Subscribe now

November, More Spokes Of the Wheel

Last week I got to play a special show with The JuJu Exchange at The Promontory here in Chicago, a beloved South Side institution that is closing its doors at the end of the year. To give space for the community to grieve, the band convened a panel discussion with staff of the venue to talk together with the audience about the rigors and stressors of the music industry. After the panel, the four of us in the band took that mourning into the show, intending to both hold that space for everyone there and transmute that grief into fertile soil for new imagining about what is possible for life together in live music.

After the show, the talent buyer for the venue came up to me and said he needed that panel. He said it with his mouth but I more importantly saw it with his eyes. That got me thinking about where else these conversations might be had. What if there were panels in universities with professors and custodians together, or in law firms with partners and café cooks together about the lives of our institutions? None of us are spokes alone.

To that point about the university, I had a special moment at the annual American Academy of Religion Conference in Boston, connected to my forthcoming chapter on Notes of Rest in At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education (Eerdmans, Jan 2026). In celebration of the book and the larger series that it concludes (Theological Education Between the Times), I was invited to play background solo piano at the TEBT reception. Man that was a dream come true, playing Monk’s Ruby My Dear and tracks from my new record Vocation for fellow academics. At the same conference back in 2017, the sensory overload of so many fascinating ideas and people so overwhelmed me that I just stuffed my headphones over my ears to find some relief.

But as my mother-in-love says, God has a way of connecting the dots. It was a gift to return this year and thread the needle between my artistic practice and academic scholarship. As my contemplative-musical project Notes of Rest nears five years old next summer, there were many people I now knew. It was so much fun, running into old friends and making new acquaintances.

I am so thankful for the field of religious studies. Our current government and the relevant forms of pushback are thoroughly religious problems (religion of the state and religion of the church) and we all are implicated, including my spiritual-but-not-religious kin. Whether your religious gathering happens around a weathered, printed Bible or TikTok self-help influencers, we all are engaged in the practice of linking ourselves together through shared stories. In that most fundamental sense, to be human is to be religious.

Speaking of religion in the American calendar, today is Cyber Monday. (HA! The irony isn’t lost on me at all.) I now have Vocation CDs and BEHOLD CDs.

These would be great stocking stuffers for loved ones this holiday season. And even if you no longer own a cd player, the artwork by my Shin Maeng on the cover of Vocation can remind you to continue listening to God for guidance in the roles that you play. Similarly, the artwork on the cover of BEHOLD can remind you to keep paying attention to the transcendent that always floods our immanent present.

December, A Weary World Rejoices

This month I’m especially excited for my first ever musica divina offering, happening tomorrow online for free. During this event, hosted by the Center for Spiritual Imagination, I’ll be in conversation with my old classmate Cameron Johnson about my record Vocation, specifically the tracks Hush and Moan. We will listen to these tracks contemplatively, taking multiple listens per song, and will invite reflections on what people hear from God through the music. I’ve never done this before with my recorded music. I’m excited.

On next Sunday, in Evanston here in Chicago, I’ll be playing the second annual Jazz for Joy, hosted by Lula B. Sherman UMC. It’s a gift to bring warmth to the holiday season through the music and through this coat fundraising and giveaway that is now happening for the second year in a row. I’m looking forward to sharing some new Christmas music with you there. (One of these years I’ll record a Christmas album, ha.)

As we approach the end of the year, I just want to say thank you for your readership and subscriptions. You’ve helped make possible my creativity in its varied forms - playing, writing, speaking. I pray the albums have helped you, including When Souls Cry Out, The Last Days of Cabrini-Green, Bust, Notes of Rest Hymns Vol. 1, BEHOLD, and Vocation. I pray the writing here and elsewhere has helped you, including “The Convicting Spirit: The Holy Spirit’s Use of Black Music for the New Creation” in Naming the Spirit (IVP). I pray the speaking has helped you, such as Makers and Mystics podcast or Notes of Rest at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Chicago is transforming - hushing - as the snow storms begin. Silent, night. May we heed winter’s invitation to quiet what no longer needs volume as the year comes to a close. I pray God walk with you each in these days of continued peril and promise.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Dec 2 Vocation Jazz Meditation (with Center for Spiritual Imagination) (virtual)

Dec 6 Notes of Rest for First Responders at First UMC of Des Plaines (Des Plaines, IL)

Dec 9 Advent with Image Journal (virtual)

Dec 9 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust for a Christmas Party at Ogilvy (Chicago)

Dec 10 w/ Zach Finnegan at The Gin Mill (New York City)

Dec 14 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Lula B. Sherman UMC Jazz for Joy (Unitarian Church of Evanston, IL)

Jan 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at City Church Heights (Cleveland Heights, OH)

Jan 10 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust New York DEBUT (Nublu Classic, 62 Ave C.)

Jan 14-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (Chicago, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Madison)

—

Podcasts and Books:

Recent Podcast Appearance: Kwok’n Roll with Kwok Pui Lan

Forthcoming essay in a book from Theological Education Between the Times: At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education (out in January 2026)

Forthcoming essay in a book from Sojourners: Light for the Way (out in January in 2026, starred review by Publishers Weekly)

What’s good everyone,

These days, food tastes better. My performances sound better in the moment. The colors of the day feel brighter. I erupt in laughter more easily when my daughter says something funny. The ordinary has become more vivid.

I shared this observation with my parents-in-love a few months back and they casually said it’s because I’m more present. That resonated then and does so still. By being more present in the moment I greet the fullness of each moment - the pleasure, the wonder, the joy, even the sorrow.

One place where I have especially noticed this greeting is at the piano. In any given show, I’m much more attuned to what I want to say in the moment. In this way I feel closer to the greats I so admire - Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Robert Glasper. A throughline of their artistry is that what they say on their instrument seems to be close to what they are thinking they want to say. Of course one is always striving for more intimacy with their sound, but the more experience a musician accrues, the more capable they are of closing that gap between expectation and reality. This is attunement to oneself. This is musical integrity. This is presence.

Our current moment can make it hard to practice presence. Distractability, after all, is the soup du jour. Phones, ambition, mental health challenges - so much keeps us from the present. There is no silver bullet to address our distraction, no panacea for our fragmentation. The entrenched isms that put pressure on us are not eradicated with manifestation thinking or, even, self-care. But God has not left us alone. Part of what helps me come deeper into the present, to practice notes of rest amidst our fragmentation, is contentment - contentment with the day I’ve lived, contentment with the food I’ve been given, contentment with the solo I just played. Contentment is a key way of practicing presence, and I’m grateful to receive the Spirit’s teaching in this way.

Psalm 131 beckons me into the vividness of the ordinary, into the wonders of contentment.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
² But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

³ O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.

Not occupying ourselves with things too great and too marvelous can sound like sacrilege in a culture of limitlessness. But anyone who works in science labs knows the importance of recognizing our limits. Practicing healthy limits helps moor us in the present. Jesus, be a fence.

In basketball, a game I cherish, boundaries are core its logic. You stay present to the game by ensuring you understand limits. There may be thousands of people in the crowd who would be happy to play with/against you on the court, but your game is limited - for various reasons - to those in the lines with you.

So too is it with our lives. The boundaries help us become more present, and when we practice in such a way, we see the vividness of it all. As Psalm 16 says, “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places… in your presence there is fullness of joy.” I pray that as we better discern our limits, we can better practice contentment and see the vivid joy awaiting us in the ordinary. What heavenly delights await you under your nose?

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Nov 25 The JuJu Exchange at The Promontory (Chicago)

Dec 2 Vocation Jazz Meditation (with Center for Spiritual Imagination) (virtual)

Dec 9th Advent with Image Journal (virtual)

Dec 9th Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust for a Christmas Party at Ogilvy (Chicago)

Dec 10 w/ Zach Finnegan at The Gin Mill (New York City)

Dec 14 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Christmas at Unitarian Church of Evanston (Evanston, IL)

Jan 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at City Church Heights (Cleveland Heights, OH)

Jan 14-17 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust TOUR (Chicago, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Madison)

—

Podcasts and Books:

Podcast Appearances: Kwok’n Roll with Kwok Pui Lan

Forthcoming book: At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education (out in January 2026)

Footage from a new song of mine, Memory, from my concert in Chicago Monday night at Fulton Collective for Vocation.

What’s good everyone,

I have been thoroughly enjoying the Vocation roll out. We had a show Monday night where one of the main points of feedback was that people enjoyed my storytelling as much as they did my music. I take that to heart, especially since the overwhelming majority of music that people listen to these days is not live (a development/problem only of the last 150 years, to be sure).

These days, with venues shuttering and AI musical slop on the rise, I’ve been reconsidering the value of creating music in-person, in front of people. It’s not just that it’s notes played in your presence versus through headphones. Nor is it just that I can improvise anew over my songs in front of you, though that’s important too. It’s both of those, but more. Playing live uniquely allows musicians to frame why they play what they play and then play it. Turning from mic to piano and piano back to mic on Monday night underscored that for me.

How much talking do you like in the concerts or shows that you attend? Do you like where musicians talk minimally and just play? Do you like experiences with robust framings of each song? Do you like a bunch of jokes or random tidbits from the lives of musicians?

Your answer is a mix of personal taste and conventions of genre. Classical music concerts will frame each piece of music in the playbill that you get when entering the orchestra hall. (Rarely have I heard much talking at a proper classical concert.) Sometimes jazz prints up liner notes, but typically the musicians will frame the songs over the mic in real time. Interestingly, hip-hop shows I’ve attended don’t frame songs all that often. Usually there’re just a few introductory lines and then people get right into the next song. Perhaps that’s because hip-hop revolves around talking anyway.

I attended a fascinating talk last night by Steve Guthrie at Belmont University about theology and acoustics. A central claim of his argument was that sound only makes sense in an environment, in a place. (There’s a reason there’s no sound in space.) To that end, perhaps our songs only really make sense in the world if they are given an audience, which is why introducing songs is such a joy in-person.

On Monday night, a man came up to me afterwards, shook my hand, stared me in the soul, and said that my song Share a Smile (a song for my daughter, Lydia, and my sister, Rebecca) moved him because he and his wife lost their daughter last year. Cherish every moment with your baby girl. Every moment.

Had I never shared the framing for that song, I might have never heard that story from him and he wouldn’t have known that this song, because of its genesis, could aid his mourning.

Part of the wonder, and terror, of living is not knowing exactly how your story will impact somebody else’s. That lack of knowing can be a means of grace, where we receive gifts from God and one another that we were not expecting. Whenever someone comes up to me after a show and tells me the impact the music made on them, I feel exposed to that unknowing. I’ve shared my story, and now they get to share theirs - a wondrous exchange.

Here’s to the grace that comes from introducing the songs of our lives to one another. Thanks be to God for such opportunity.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Nov 7 Sounding Shalom Convening at Belmont University (Nashville)

Nov 10 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago) 6.30p

Nov 11 Notes of Rest at Dominican University (River Park, IL)

Nov 15 w/Zach Finnegan at Berlin (Minneapolis)

Nov 18 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - Brighton Park Public Library (Chicago) 6p

Nov 20 Notes of Rest at Dominican University (River Park, IL)

Nov 22 Theological Education between the Times Panel and Reception at American Academy of Religion (Boston)

Nov 25 The JuJu Exchange at The Promontory (Chicago)

Dec 2 Vocation Jazz Meditation (with Center for Spiritual Imagination) (virtual)

—

Podcasts and Books:

Podcast: Kwok’n Roll with Kwok Pui Lan

Forthcoming book: At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education (out in January 2026)

I’m changing the format of Julian’s Note, paring releases back to just once a month. I am shifting my focus to my book-in-process on my contemplative ministry Notes of Rest. Julian’s Note will reflect on the month that’s ended and hope for the one that’s beginning.

October: A Named Fear, A Lifted Spirit

In October my first full-length album, Vocation, released as Chicago was being invaded by Trump’s ICE. Of course I did not wish this, but am thankful that my music could provide balm during these times where vocations are under assault for so many. Even though I believe in God and trust God, I am afraid about what is happening and what is on the horizon. Naming that fear has helped me rest better. I pray you can name your fears in God’s presence.

My trips to Pasadena and Boston two weeks ago lifted my spirits. In Pasadena I performed at Fuller Theological Seminary’s Brehm Center and had a wonderful interview conversation with their artist-in-residence Rajeev Nandakumaran. (Stay tuned for that video.) But afterwards, we went out to eat and the waiter, upon learning that I had released a record, cut on Hush in the restaurant. I was just ecstatic; I was just so happy that he was so happy and that others were so happy too watching me be happy listening to my music over the speakers of this (excellent) Italian joint. You work at something so hard in private, you pour so much time and money into it, and then moments like that catch you in public.

In Boston, I ministered at Calvary Baptist Church in Haverhill, MA and at Endicott College in Beverly, MA. Every time I’m at Calvary Hill, I am heartened by the music minister named Joe. He is bouncing off the bench in praise of God, consistently on the verge of tears. I have noticed this as a pattern for some Black male church pianists, and it has always been a gift to my soul.

It is sacred to see Black men in Black churches emote so freely while at an instrument. Sometimes we musicians can hide behind our instruments and not deal fully with our emotions. (Ironic for a musician, I know.) But man, when the instrument becomes a vehicle for sharing our emotions in full, heaven opens up anew. I am committed to playing that way and am thankful for the Black men who are my elders whom I’ve seen do so too.

I have been ministering at Endicott for the last few years and have gotten to interact with some of the same students year over year which has been a gift. (This year I ministered with my Tramaine which was dope.) It made me especially happy that one of the students said that they were getting ready to graduate and had been to Notes several years ago. They could chart the progress between then and now and felt that they had new next steps from God in their rest journey. Another student said that busyness was their alcohol. Lord, thank you for the wisdom of the youth.

November: A Shifting Scene

In music, you know if someone is serious about their work if they’re on a local scene. “Scene” is a word of multiple meanings, conditioned by the preposition preceding it. We gigging musicians are on (or off) the scene, which speaks to the world of performance spaces that we can inhabit in a local city. To be “on the scene” is to be for hire, to be in-demand, to be in the flow of the life of that town. By contrast, in film or drama, one is “in a scene,” not “on” it. On screen or on stage, the scene is a constructed scenario that moves a story along.

Chicago’s scene is shifting. In a tragic parallel with the snapping of SNAP benefits and ICE’s arrest of 3,000 people in Chicago (and counting), the music scene is also being disrupted with the closure of one of the South Side’s few live music venues, The Promontory. I do not know the exact reasons for its closure, but it’s not hard to imagine why. All I know is how sad it is to sustain live music in Black spaces; there is a paucity of live music on the South and West side, which is where most of Black Chicago lives. The scene that we’re in and the scene that we’re on are both shifting. Lord, why this storyline?

The JuJu Exchange will be playing at Promontory on Nov 25th, one of its last before it shutters at the end of the year. We’ll be having a conversation beforehand about where arts and culture stand in Chicago. I look forward to that conversation between artists and patrons. If you’re in town, I’d love to share that night with you.

To everyone here who patronizes live music, thank you. I say that not just as a musician, but as a citizen. The arts have always vivified imaginations and encouraged togetherness, and Lord knows we are in need of both in these times rife with isolation. In faith, may we cling to nevertheless hope. Asé and amen.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Nov 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Fulton Street Collective (Chicago)

Nov 6-7 Sounding Shalom Convening at Belmont University (Nashville)

Nov 10 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago) 6.30p

Nov 11 Notes of Rest at Dominican University (River Park, IL)

Nov 15 w/Zach Finnegan at Berlin (Minneapolis)

Nov 18 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - Brighton Park Public Library (Chicago) 6p

Nov 20 Notes of Rest at Dominican University (River Park, IL)

Nov 22 Theological Education between the Times Panel and Reception at American Academy of Religion (Boston)

Nov 25 The JuJu Exchange at The Promontory (Chicago)

Dec 2 Vocation Jazz Meditation (with Center for Spiritual Imagination) (virtual)

—

Next Releases:

At This Time: Dialogues in Theological Education - A new essay out in a forthcoming book in January 2026

What’s good everyone,

I ask your prayers with me for Jamaica. I have distant family there and the hurricane has been no joke. My fam is okay, but many are not. If you’d like to materially support the recovery, you can do so here.

—

I learned recently that sometimes birds flee their nests when fireworks erupt. Explosions disorient.

During a time of centering prayer recently, I visualized fleeing myself. From an aerial view, I could see my inner child and my current self in a forest clearing (such as pictured above). My adult self had grown restless and left my inner child, bounding through the trees on the hunt for someone else’s clearing (probably another pianist’s). My inner child, a now scared and lonely little Black boy, scampered from tree to tree around the clearing’s edge, asking his elders if they had seen where I had gone. Where’s Julian?

Such is the casualty of jealousy, a (minor) death of relationship with our most vulnerable, authentic inward parts. The overwhelm of Washington, the seduction of the algorithm, the glut of ambition in late-stage capitalism - I have no shortage of reason to flee out of my own earshot and line the perimeter of someone else’s clearing. If only I could be.

Jealousy requires I travel alone, and so my inner child must stay back. At least he remembers my name. Have you seen Julian? I am thankful he asks the trees of my whereabouts. There is hope for return.

An elder once told me that she routinely comforts her 6-year-old self whose parents belittled her fears and that she routinely consults her 60-year-old self who stands in the future offering wisdom backwards. This time travel keeps her close to herself - a practice in the clearing.

We so often say, make and do for others what we need to say, do, and make for ourselves. So it has been with my album Vocation. The record calls us (back) to our respective clearings. I had a sense of this before releasing the project, but the message grows louder the more I sit with God, the music, and this historical moment. When I listen to Dressing the Wound, I hear the call to continued activism and pastoral care as the violence continues in Palestine and in Chicago from ICE. When I listen to Share a Smile, I hear the call to parent my Lydia and to brother my Rebecca.

My personality type chronically struggles with envy, of looking over my shoulder at others with the wistful thought that I am not doing enough because I am not doing what they are. I wish this struggle were not mine, but as Paul reminds us with his confession of his thorn, we each have one/many. Naming our struggles in God’s presence avails us to God’s transforming work that Jesus came to effect. I trust that’s why Paul wrote. That’s certainly why I do.

As the fireworks continue to rage, may we make every effort to stay near our young. Jesus, be a fence.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Oct 31-Nov 1 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

Nov 2 The JuJu Exchange at Principle Barbers (Chicago)

Nov 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Fulton Street Collective (Chicago)

Nov 6-7 Sounding Shalom Convening at Belmont University (Nashville)

Nov 10 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch RESCHEDULED (Chicago) 6.30p

Nov 11 Notes of Rest at Dominican University (River Park, IL)

Nov 15 w/Zach Finnegan at Berlin (Minneapolis)

Nov 18 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - Brighton Park Public Library (Chicago) 6p

Nov 22 Theological Education between the Times Panel and Reception at American Academy of Religion (Boston)

Nov 25 The JuJu Exchange at Promontory (Chicago)

Theological Education between the Times

https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802885210/at-this-time/

https://www.spiritualimagination.org/events/jazz-meditation/

What’s good everyone,

I hope some light is reaching you in these days. When The JuJu Exchange decided to release BEHOLD on Sept 26 and I decided to release Vocation on Oct 3, I had no idea that my Chicago would be invaded by a federalized National Guard days later. (ICE just recently disappeared someone from my church, a father of two girls. This is now a personal pain.) I’m thankful this music is out at such a time as this, to help us meet this moment of deeper listening, deeper action, and deeper hoping. May God help us do what is ours to do in these days.

Today I am sharing with you two music videos I created for songs from the record: Moan (For Hearts of Flesh) and My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me (For Winston, Everett, Emmanuel, and Rebecca).

The music video for Moan is a story about how we contend with the depths of the pain we carry. Pain need not leave us bereft of hope. Rather, it can become a befriending sorrow that sets our feet on the paths of resistance and freedom. With our moans we move, even as we tarry. God, show us the way.

The video cycles through four phrases. We moan in faith. We moan as one. We moan to resist. We moan for freedom. Which of these declarations speaks to the moan you carry today?

The Black moan permeates American life. We moan in fellowship hall basements and in hospital rooms and on camera and in movies and at press conferences. The Black moan in America, more so than other cultures’, is public, perhaps too public. Yet at its root, our moan is not performance but organic cry. Moaning keeps our hearts soft, resisting the dehumanizing work carried out against us and against all flesh. Moan keeps us nestled in love - love of self, love of neighbor, love of God. It is this spirit of the moan that I sought to capture on screen.

And boy did Sulyiman Stokes (videographer) and Gabrielle Ntsimi (director) do just that. They took Moan to new heights with their incredible cinematography and direction. It was a joy stretching new muscles as creative co-director with them. I give thanks for the fecundity of Black collaboration.

Fun fact: The footage in the park was filmed right before I was robbed and extorted (an incident I wrote about here). I don’t know when I’ll feel comfortable enough to return to that park - a while no doubt. The moan that I captured in the studio and on screen now lives in my body in a new way. I wonder how that information will shape what you hear and see in the Moan video.

Left to right: Winston, Everett (also known as Nova Zaii), Emmanuel, me, Rebecca; we loved waiting for popcorn to pop.

The second video is the live studio recording of My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me (For Winston, Everett, Emmanuel, and Rebecca). I love my younger three brothers and sister and I loved the process of composing a melody that flowed from that love. I pray you feel and see these loves in this video.

This performance video is one of two that I’ve created. (The other was for my song Candid years ago, which you can see here.) I love this genre of video. You capture a unique energy this way. My long-time collaborator René Marban did a great job doing that on this one too, just like he did on Candid.

In particular, there’s this moment at 2:24-2:25 where I bend my shoulder a little in the break between playing notes in my right hand. Micah on bass hears the pause and exploits that space with a subtle insertion of an extra note in his line. Oh man, that’s a high moment from the whole album for me! It catches the spontaneity of playing this music live. And in so doing, it captures the spontaneity of life with my siblings, of listening to and responding to them in real time as we all grow and mature.

Do you have siblings? If so, what is your interplay with them in this season of life? Part of what is so heinous about DC’s imperious antics is that the coldness of ICE does not recognize the importance of human relationships. (And even gloats in running roughshod over them.) I pray that as you listen to My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me, you can hear a sibling love that encourages you in loving your own, whether they are siblings given or chosen. After all, love is a warm resistance to the coldness creeping over these lands.

Every time I engage Vocation, I am reminded of an essential truth: the relationships we cultivate keep birthing new life. Thank God that God remains the God of the living, not the dead. Here’s to new life in all the relationships we hold dear.

May your moan give you insight into what is yours to do in these days, and may your sibling relationships - as full or fraught as they may be - give you reasons to thank God for the gift of life together. As always, thank you for listening.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Oct 17 (my birthday) Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 22 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - North Austin Public Library (Chicago)

Oct 23 Grace Notes: A Public Conversation about Spirituality and Music (Virtual)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)

Oct 27 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverly, MA)

Oct 31-Nov 1 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

Nov 2 The JuJu Exchange at Principle Barbers (Chicago)

Nov 3 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Fulton Street Collective (Chicago)

Nov 6-7 Sounding Shalom Convening at Belmont University (Nashville)

Nov 10 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch RESCHEDULED (Chicago) 6.30p

What’s good everyone,

“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Matthew 11:15

Thank you for listening to Vocation. It is a record that invites us to listen deeper to the voice of God in the roles that we carry. This is a guide of prompts to walk you through the songs off the album.

1. Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name: This is my take on this beloved Negro Spiritual. My enslaved ancestors were wise to ask who is callin’ their name. Enslaved folk often went unrecognized, so to write a song about their name being called was a profound declaration of their personhood. To then ask afterwards “O my Lord what shall I do?” speaks to their spiritual discernment. People call our names for all kinds of reasons - affection, discipline, curiosity - and we must decide how to respond to them. Those different ways of being called connect to the roles we are called to live out. Who is calling your name today?

2. What a Wonderful World: In this day and age, this is a subversive statement. I echo Louis Armstrong’s declaration not as a way to trivialize our present horrors, but as a way to remind us of the deeper footing we stand on when we moan and bereave and worship and fight and dream. We do all of these because we’re convinced that the world is yet wonderful. What do you find delightful in this world that you dare not let evil tarnish?

3. Textures (For Carmen): This song is about the wondrously textured life I have with my wife Carmen. It is a song about the depths of love - looking past the 2-dimensional hallmark card renditions proffered on movie screens into the 3-dimensional life replete with rupture and repair, delight and vulnerability, deep unto deep. If you’re married (or planning to be), what is the texture of love in your marital commitment in this season? How does it feel? And regardless of your marital status, how do your deep loves feel right now?

4. Moan (For Hearts of Flesh): This song is about staying supple to the pains of the world, the pains we carry within and the pains we witness without. The moan for me emerged from when I stood in Ferguson where Michael Brown laid. I hope to never become calloused to such pain, but rather nurture my moan for the sake of the world. We moan in faith. We moan as one. We moan to resist. We moan for freedom. What moan do you carry today and what other moans are you uniquely positioned to hear and answer?

5. Dressing the Wound (For Black and Palestinian Life): We are living amidst a genocide in Gaza, a violence resonant with the thoroughgoing antiblack treatment endemic to the United States. There are so many wounds to tend now and there will be so many more once the dust settles. How are you being invited to tend to these wounds today?

6. My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me (For Winston, Everett, Emmanuel and Rebecca): I give deep thanks to be the eldest of 5 siblings. My parents have routinely told me that the greatest gift they gave us were each other. When I look at Winston, Everett, Emmanuel and Rebecca, I hear a call to love them as only big bro can. It is a sacred office, and one of the longest vocations I will carry in this life. Whether biological or chosen, how are you being called to care for your siblings in this season?

7. Share a Smile (For Lydia and Rebecca): My daughter Lydia and my sister Rebecca have smiles that remind me of one another. In that way, they share a smile. This song is about my twin callings as father to a girl and brother to a sister. If you are a parent, what invitations lie before you in this season to hone your care? Even if you aren’t a parent, how are you being called in this season to tend to the next generation?

8. Cockroach, Pheasant, Butterfly (For Those Seeking Dawn): Which winged creature do you most identify with in this fable? Can you hear the call from the butterfly? Do others hear you reminding them of dawn?

9. Precious Still (For Those Who Have Forgotten): This song stemmed from a conversation I had with a pastor after Trump was elected about the newfound threats the LGBTQIA+ folk in his church faced. So much happens in the world that can force us to forget we are precious still, but we dare to remember. Whose poor sight threatens to blur your vision?

10. Nerve to be Super (For Michael): This song is for my oldest friend, Michael Burkes, who died back in November. I am thankful I was able to play a performance of this song into his hearing before he passed on. Michael struggled with nerve damage and loved superheroes. But when I saw him struggle to get out of bed to watch Black Panther and Iron Man, I saw him as a superhero. Who are Michael’s that you are called to befriend in this season? If you’re Michael yourself, how are you holding onto hope?

11. Nevertheless Hope (For Mom and Dad): I am the eldest son of eternally hopeful parents, Rev. Adonna Davis Reid and Neville Reid. Theirs is a hope grounded in a sober, yet robust, faith in Jesus. Because of this, they stare down the challenges of our day with a desire to always see new possibilities in this world as the new world unfolds. This song’s title was inspired by a sermon by Rev. Teresa Fry-Brown about nevertheless faith. So much weighs down on us, but God empowers us to hope nevertheless. How do the living out of your roles help you embody hope in this season?

What’s good everyone,

Ahha!!! The day is here. Vocation is now live on all streaming platforms. You can order CD’s here and I’ll get them to you in the next couple of weeks. (I’m a little backed up, so expect them by beginning of November.)

Man, thanks be to God. This is my biggest release of anything I’ve ever released in my life, and I couldn’t be more thankful it’s coming out at such a time as this. The record is all about the vocations I have lived in my life, which I pieced together with the intention of helping you discern the vocations that you are called to live in yours.

We live in a world of constant noise which can make it hard to hear what is ours to do. I pray that the music of this record helps create space for you to hear God’s calls on your life. Glory be to the One who speaks.

Every song from this project comes from concrete relationships in my life. I’ve written about the single from the record, Moan, here and here, and there’s a music video coming for that soon and very soon that I’m excited to dig into with you. But today, I wanted to meditate on a few other songs, the bookends of the project.

“Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name” is the album’s opener. This is a Negro Spiritual that I’ve sung in Black churches my whole life (primarily St. Mark UMC in Chicago). Black folk have sung this song for centuries to discern God’s presence in their lives as we navigate around the toils and snares that readily threaten to ensnare us in this day and age. As the mystics Howard Thurman and Barbara Holmes have taught me, the spirituals are a treasure trove of Black contemplative wisdom. In that spirit, as the first track on the album, Hush theologically frames everything else.

Hush invites us to think about how God is calling us to live out our vocations. We have our names called as spouses (Textures) and parents (Share A Smile) and members of our race (Moan) and concerned citizens against genocide (Dressing the Wound) and as siblings (My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me) and as friends (Nerve to be Super) and as children (Nevertheless Hope). This song is a reminder that we have to listen to carefully to God, to our community, and to ourselves to hear these callings (What a Wonderful World, Cockroach, Pheasant, Butterfly/Precious Still).

The world has so much noise that seeks to distort that calling, hence “hush.” The deluge from Washington, the backbreaking speed of our economy, the addictiveness of our tech, the volatility of our weather, the busyness of our friends, the idolatry of our religions, the questioning of ourselves - so much can keep us from hearing the true callings on our lives. But I pray that this record helps us listen with the wisdom of my enslaved ancestors who had the spiritual wherewithal to bequeath “hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name” to the world who needs to hear from God.

The song ends with my mother saying, “oh it’s so good to hear your voice.” I had her say that with the gusto of her mother, my Grandmommy, Mrs. Gwendolyn Newberry Davis. Grandmommy has passed on, but whenever I called her growing up, she’d often respond by saying, “Oh it’s so good to hear your voice.” Putting my Ma’s voice in the track ties me to the God of my Grandmommy who beckons me, who beckons us all, to share our authentic voices. Grandmommy, you have passed on, but you are still here. Aşé and amen.

The last song of the record is called Nevertheless Hope, written for my parents, Neville and Adonna Reid, who are eternally hopeful people because of their love of Jesus and their awareness of God’s love for them and the world. It has been an honor of a lifetime to be their eldest son.

I conclude with Nevertheless Hope because we need a grounded hope in these days of peril and promise. We neither listen for God’s voice nor share our voice with others if we are bereft of hope. When hope is scarce, we shrink and repress.

What worlds are you hoping to create with God and with others in these days? What justice do you want to see? What new beginnings do you want to witness? I do not ask these questions with a toxic positivity that bypasses the pains of our world and seeks escape. (Certainly religion is guilty of that in droves.) Rather, I am interested in seeing how we can live with eternal hope in our present. That is the good news of Jesus that animates me and that I want to see animate more of the church and the greater world. I hope this track resonates with your soul in this kind of way. Thank you for tending to your callings.

The Best Ways to Support

I appreciate your listening anywhere in any way, but the best way to support the music is to buy the music directly, either through cd’s or through Bandcamp given Bandcamp pays far more money directly to the artists than streaming services do. (It just so happens that today is Bandcamp Friday, meaning that the artists you buy from get even more of the money from the record sent directly to us.) BEHOLD, The JuJu Exchange record that I co-released last week, is also up on Bandcamp. Thank you for your ear.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Oct 3 Vocation from Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust releases

Oct 4 Vocation Listening Party (Muse Coffee Studio, 11a-1p)

Oct 9 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago)

Oct 17 Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 22 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - North Austin Public Library (Chicago)

Oct 23 Grace Notes: A Public Conversation about Spirituality and Music (Virtual)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)

Oct 27 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverly, MA)

Oct 31-Nov 1 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

What’s good everyone,

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to take a breathtaking, surreal trip to Newfoundland, Canada with my wife Carmen for our 10-year anniversary. Carmen is Canadian and wanted to visit Newfoundland once she learned the island has fjords, including in Gros Morne National Park where we stayed. Man what a treat.

Newfoundland is not only unspeakably beautiful, it is a geological wonder of the world. Its unique composition helped scientists establish the plate tectonics theory, which argues that the earth’s land masses sit on top of subterranean massive plates that continually collide and separate over the course of the planet’s lifespan. Newfoundland is home to rocks that are up to a billion years old, including those I’m standing on in the picture below at this site called The Tablelands. These particular rocks are 500 million years old and are an exposed part of the earth’s mantle. (Newfoundland is one of the few places in the world where you can witness this phenomenon of otherwise subterranean rock being visible on the earth’s surface.) These rocks contain heavy metals such as iron and chromium, and since they are now exposed to oxygen, they are rusting, hence their red color.

Carmen and I so happened to be on this trip when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Man that was sad to hear. It grieves me how American men continually turn to violence to settle disagreements, and it is disconcerting to hear impassioned Republicans call for war on liberals as a response to the murder. Violence keeps on keepin’ on.

Learning of this news while touching 500 million year old rocks made me wonder what all these rocks had heard in their lifetime as they have supported all sorts of people walking on them. How many stories had they heard of heinous murders of fathers, of struggling peoples and nations discerning how to survive? The juxtaposition of the headline and our trip made me appreciate all the more how much the earth endures from us while still giving us air to breathe and ground to stand on. What a grace.

With such fracturing and fragmenting happening in national discourse these days, it is tempting to say “we” are not like “them” and that they are not like us (to quote Kendrick Lamar). But the trees give Republicans and Democrats air alike; evening and morning greet both Portland, Oregon and Charleston, South Carolina. In that sense, we are all like each other.

It is not to say that there aren’t unique environmental dangers experienced by select groups of people. To be sure, environmental injustice is only growing worse under Trump’s repeals. Black lives matter. It is to say, though, that we are bound up together amidst - and despite - our iniquities and inequities. That‘s what those Newfoundland rocks reminded me of. We all live under the grace of the earth and of God. Wherever we are to go as a nation, the Holy Spirit and Mother Earth are inviting us to make decisions in light of this shared, humbling dependence.

In that spirit, I mourn Kirk’s death because he is a human and there were other ways to engage him and his thoughts other than through murder. (As a former philosophy major and high school debater, I appreciated when Kirk decided to debate college kids on campuses when the settings were grounded in mutual respect, such as here.) We must ask ourselves where we are headed not only because Kirk was killed but also because a school teacher tweeted that Kirk’s death brightened up his day.

I wrote my new single Moan from the vantage point of Black folk in the hull of slave ships and Palestinians experiencing ongoing genocide in Gaza, but I invoke the moan today on behalf of the political violence engulfing the States. (It is sad that Kirk died by the gun given he spent so much time defending Americans’ rights to them.) As I prepare to release my album Vocation on Friday, I pray that this song and the rest of the record helps us all better hear what God has to say to us in these days of cacophonous polarization.

The Bible is filled with all kinds of violence itself, but I am thankful that God came in human flesh to absorb our violence directly and to say that not even our violence is enough to keep God from loving us and from calling us to love one another. Jesus extends grace as do the rocks. What about us?

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Oct 3 Vocation from Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust releases

Oct 4 Vocation Listening Party (Muse Coffee Studio, 11a-1p)

Oct 9 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago)

Oct 17 Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 22 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - North Austin Public Library (Chicago)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)

Oct 27 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverly, MA)

Oct 31-Nov 1 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

Listen to BEHOLD here

What’s good everyone,

Today my group The JuJu Exchange released our long-awaited album BEHOLD, the second musical offering in my 10-day stretch of releases. The stretch started on Wednesday when I released my single Moan from my upcoming record Vocation, which is out next Friday. Earlier this year, The JuJu Exchange’s BEHOLD became available on Even.biz, but now it’s available on all streaming platforms, with cd’s coming soon.

BEHOLD is a project inspired by the biblical Hebrew word hinneh (הִנֵּה), which roughly translates to “behold” or “lo.” In biblical texts, hinneh is used to inform the reader of something’s existence, such as a person or story. The best way to imagine it is pointing at something as if to say to an onlooker: “look, it’s real!” In an era obsessed with what is artificial and straight-up false, it is the band’s prayer that this project of mostly wordless music helps you attend to the real around and within you, even when what you see defies words. (You can read more about the concept behind BEHOLD on this older Substack post.)

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I want to focus on two songs off the record, Grace and Real. Grace is my favorite cut off the project because of the story the music tells and because of the theological meaning intrinsic to its name. At the heart of the song is a loop from cellist Sylvie Grace, around whose chords Nova Zaii, Nico Segal and I built a world.

Because Sylvie’s such a central instrumentalist on this song, the track is named after her. But it also is named after the theological notion of grace, where God gives us gifts we could never earn. The track embodies this concept at 2:06, when the dance between electronic bells and cello pauses for a split second and my downward piano line intervenes. My cascading interruption is the way the grace of God often meets us, as unexpected greeting.

So it was for the shepherds in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night when the angels suddenly appeared and declared Jesus’ birth. Behold! And so it was for the Roman soldiers watching over crucified Jesus’ tomb when the dead man sprung forth resurrected. Behold! Both revelations were startling - neither the shepherd nor soldier earned this appearance from God. Rather, it was a free gift to receive if they so chose. Such is the beauty of the good news of Jesus, and, as visual artist Mako Fujimura argues in Art + Faith, such is the beauty of art.

The album artwork for BEHOLD underscores this idea of grace. My brother Zaii stands in the middle, holding the sun, with Nico and I on either side. Of course, one cannot hold the actual sun; all one can do is position oneself to capture its rays. That is an explanation of grace. We do not earn the sun’s presence; we can only receive and refract it, through our hands and through what we make with them (such as photographer Daniel Delgado’s camera). To attend to grace is to attend to the reality of God in our midst, the unutterable Word made flesh who came down to dwell among us. Lord, help us receive you.

In the spirit of combating the oligarchic machinations, political malfeasance, and self-deception pervading our world at this time, I wanted to foreground our song Real. It’s the most hip-hop leaning song on the project, which you can hear in the electronic drums called 808s that Nova Zaii programmed.

Hip-hop as a genre is characterized by its attention to the real. (Sometimes it can be too real, which folk call trill lol.) We wanted to incorporate that gritty feeling into the record for two reasons. First, hip-hop’s part of our soundscape - e.g., Nico has a Grammy for his work with Chance the Rapper, and we’re all shaped by Chicago’s rich hip-hop tradition. Second, we wanted to incorporate hip-hop because BEHOLD is about attending to even the grit of our lives.

2:51 - 3:01 on the track invites that careful listening, where the otherwise fully-layered track dwindles to a mere whisper of trumpet and drums. This is for sure one of the quietest moments on the whole record. The listener is invited to pay attention in a new way when the volume (of our lives) is gone. May we have the courage to listen to the truths that are as loud as 808s and to those that are as quiet as whispering trumpets.

Part of the subversive work we can do right now is to avoid being authoritarian towards our own stories. There are parts of us that need our attention that we have systematically neglected. God invites those parts of us to the table of our souls alongside the parts we love most. Just like there are people in society who we treat as negligible at best, so too do we treat our inward beings.1 To behold God is to behold the one who longs for our wholeness, a wholeness predicated on paying attention.

May God give you peace for the journey as you endeavor to behold all that is yours to see and hear. I pray this record helps you towards that end. Thanks be to God.

abundantly,

Julian

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What’s Next

Sept 26 BEHOLD from The JuJu Exchange releases

Sept 27 The JuJu Exchange at Hyde Park Jazz Fest (Chicago)

Oct 3 Vocation from Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust releases

Oct 4 Vocation Listening Party (Muse Coffee Studio, 11a-1p)

Oct 8 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago)

Oct 17 Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)

Oct 27 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverly, MA)

Oct 31-Nov 1 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

What’s good everyone,

Today begins a 10-day journey of musical releases from my bedrock. My single Moan is out now from my new record Vocation, which is out in full next Friday. (You can pre-save Vocation here.) And on Friday my band The JuJu Exchange’s album BEHOLD comes out. (You can pre-save that here.) So in review, that’s Moan today, BEHOLD Friday, and Vocation next Friday. OH YES!

Wow!! I’m so happy that Moan (For Hearts of Flesh) is now in the world. This song has changed my life. It is a container for whatever griefs we carry and whatever hopes we yet cling to. That may seem to be a somber song to have as a single, but I am convinced, and have witnessed, that if we do not carry a deep moan, we have yet to know deep love. We moan when a love of ours - our bodies, a loved one, the land - hurts. Lord knows there are so many moans around us and in us in these days. Let us attend.

I have chosen this song as the opening salvo of the record because I want to fight the pall of apathy spreading over the US authoritarianism consolidates, and I want to stand in hope and solidarity amidst the pains we stare down daily. In this current historical moment, where hate and self-righteousness are the soup du jour, might we stay tender to pain and preserve/cultivate our hearts of flesh?

—

The textures of this arrangement of the song signal the enduring love of God amidst our mourning. Tramaine Parker (with whom I collaborated on another version of Moan at the beginning of the year) starts the track with her iconic solo voice. If you’ve heard this in-person, you know how powerful that opening bit unaccompanied is. Moans, by definition, are naked, honest affairs; you can’t fake the funk when deep wells up.

Then Micah Collier, James Russell Sims, and I enter to support her. I like the symbolism of this - three Black men supporting a Black woman in her moan. Part of the path to deeper unity in Black America comes from holding space for each other’s moans, especially men holding space for women’s and non-binary people’s moans. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Then my brotha and comrade Rev. Dr. Nick Peterson - stage name Narykcin - enters the scene. Nick is many things in this world, including a cancer survivor. In a cruel twist of irony, his dissertation (which he worked on while contending with cancer) was all about Black pain and how Black folk have tarried with God amidst this present evil age to offer intramural, pastoral care. When he belts the moan in this song, I always hear him contending with his cancer, both the cancer in his body and the cancers of antiblackness he experiences and has dedicated his life to resisting through the personal and professional shades of his life.

But Nick doesn’t moan alone. The Calvin College Gospel Choir joins him. A multi-racial group, they first support him and then Tramaine. Their contribution ushered in a new dimension of the song, cross-racial solidarity. Moans are so thoroughly human that we need not have the same life experience to acknowledge and even join in someone else’s song. Any meaningful work around racial difference in this country calls for cultivating this capacity to share in someone else’s moan.

And then Lenard Simpson comes in on sax with a solo from the heavens, an erupting sound that reminds me of God’s moan that rises - and falls - to meet ours. It is good news that we do not moan alone. Our deep moans mix with God’s just like when God heard the Israelites in Egypt and sent Moses, like when Jesus wept over his city Jerusalem and his cousin Lazarus, like when the Holy Spirit groans beyond words. Every time I hear Lenard’s solo, I hear in it the pathos - the blues - of God.

The cover for Moan is by my friend Shin Maeng, an extraordinary artist and cherished friend. I asked him to draw a right ear at the center in service to the album’s thesis: to listen to God for the roles I play and for the roles we all play. The right ear in the center plays on the trope of Western visual art, where the subject looks towards the right of the image to indicate looking forward into the future. For the same reasons I was thankful to have the multi-racial choir from Calvin on the track, I am thankful that Shin, a Korean American, could draw the cover for my record of Black music. He, along with many others in my life, has long joined Black people in our story of promise and peril as a fellow traveler on the way.

I pray this song helps you hear your moan and share your moan with the world. If it does, I pray that you can share this Moan with someone else.

Vocation the full record will be out next Friday, Oct 3. Until then, may God be with you. Thank you for listening.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Sept 25 w/ Ryan Nyther at Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago)

Sept 26 BEHOLD from The JuJu Exchange releases

Sept 27 The JuJu Exchange at Hyde Park Jazz Fest (Chicago)

Oct 3 Vocation from Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust releases

Oct 4 Vocation Listening Party (Muse Coffee Studio, 11a-1p)

Oct 8 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago)

Oct 17 Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)

Oct 27 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverley, MA)