{"id":247,"date":"2008-05-14T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html"},"modified":"2008-05-14T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T02:00:00","slug":"syncopating-i-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That is the question isn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; How do you follow strange fruit?&nbsp; We as followers of Christ wrestle with that everyday.&nbsp; How do we follow strange&#8211;unnatural&#8211;fruit.&nbsp; For the loveliest lynchee was our Lord!<\/p>\n<p>Without Sanctuary:&nbsp; Lynching Photography in America is a pictorial history of lynching.&nbsp; Each stomach turning page brings home the reality of this form of execution.&nbsp; Of the hundreds of photo&#8217;s there are three of a man named Frank Embree that are forever seered into my memory.&nbsp; He stands stripped bare in the back of a buggy.&nbsp; Handcuffs on his wrists.&nbsp; He was only 19 years old though the look in his eyes betrays centuries of suffering as he stands tall trying to maintain his dignity.&nbsp; The only sign that he is in pain is the slight grimmace of his mouth.&nbsp; His legs are lacerated on all sides.&nbsp; Long deep cuts run in all directions over his body.&nbsp; He has been whipped 105 times.&nbsp; He is moments away from a humiliating death by hanging in front of a crowd of more than one thousand people.&nbsp; A final photo shows him stretched out dangling&#8230;crooked neck&#8230;arms restrained&#8230;eyes still open&#8230;loin cloth covering.<\/p>\n<p>Writing about a similar picture, one author says, &quot;He had been stripped of all his clothing but what appeared to be a loin cloth positioned below his hip.&nbsp; The figure was eerily reminiscent of the image of Christ being crucified on the cross.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>How do we follow strange fruit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That is the question isn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; How do you follow strange fruit?&nbsp; We as followers of Christ wrestle with that everyday.&nbsp; How do we follow strange&#8211;unnatural&#8211;fruit.&nbsp; For the loveliest lynchee was our Lord! Without Sanctuary:&nbsp; Lynching Photography in America is a pictorial history of lynching.&nbsp; Each stomach turning page brings home the reality of this&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3) - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That is the question isn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; How do you follow strange fruit?&nbsp; We as followers of Christ wrestle with that everyday.&nbsp; How do we follow strange&#8211;unnatural&#8211;fruit.&nbsp; For the loveliest lynchee was our Lord! Without Sanctuary:&nbsp; Lynching Photography in America is a pictorial history of lynching.&nbsp; Each stomach turning page brings home the reality of this&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-05-14T02:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"That is the question isn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; How do you follow strange fruit?&nbsp; We as followers of Christ wrestle with that everyday.&nbsp; How do we follow strange&#8211;unnatural&#8211;fruit.&nbsp; For the loveliest lynchee was our Lord! Without Sanctuary:&nbsp; Lynching Photography in America is a pictorial history of lynching.&nbsp; Each stomach turning page brings home the reality of this&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2008-05-14T02:00:00+00:00","author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html","name":"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-05-14T02:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-05-14T02:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2008\/05\/syncopating-i-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Syncopating, Improvising and Responding to the Call of a Love Supreme (p3)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/","name":"The Jazz Theologian","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}