The Talk
I so love this book! Richard Bruxvoort Colligan's voice is full of humor, depth, and transparency. With great wisdom and passion, he excavates what the Psalms offer to us for an unfolding life that includes danger and desolation as much as joy and jubilation. Highly recommended for a rich spiritual encounter.
-- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD.
Author, Abbess of Abbey of the Arts
Richard Bruxvoort Colligan has lived with the Psalms his whole life, and he has wrestled with them on many levels-- as a Christian, a musician, a leader, a human being. In Dangerous Songs, you'll be invited into what the Psalms have taught him, why they matter, how they work, and how they can guide you into a life of thriving-- even in grief, despair, fury, and bewilderment.
-- Brian D. McLaren
Author, faith leader
Dangerous Songs is a bold, imaginative invitation to pray the Psalms with your whole self—thriving, desolate, uncertain, all of you. Part sacred riff, part soul excavation, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s lyrical midrash will disrupt and delight you, helping you meet Scripture—and yourself—anew.
-- Rev. Sam Houser
Pastor, artist, author of Queering the Psalms
As Richard offers the companionship of these ancient poets, we are gently given a tour of our own thriving, desolation, and uncertainty. He does it by gifting us turns of phrase that delight and widen our perspective on what is happening around us and inside us.
-- Marcia McFee, PhD.
Artist, preacher, professor, author, director of Worship Design Studio
Richard Bruxvoort-Colligan has brought the Psalms to life for me as never before. His ability to connect these ancient songs with just about every gritty and grace-filled aspect of an authentic individual spiritual journey is just astonishing. He is equal parts scholar, artist, composer, spiritual director, counselor, minister, social activist, prophet, and comedian. This book touched my heart, encouraged my faith, stretched my theology, brought tears to my eyes, and made me laugh out loud. Do yourself a favor and read this book.
-- Rev. Bryan Sirchio
Musician, lead designer of Convergence Music Project
With the ear of a musician and composer, Bruxvoort Colligan invites us to hear the psalms as the soundtrack of our lives. From passionate praise for our deepest loves to the desolation of ours and others’ traumas to the renewal of our hearts alongside all of creation, Dangerous Songs testifies to a God present for it all, even when we struggle to trust that it’s so. A book to return to again and again.
-- Dr. Deanna A. Thompson
Theologian, retired Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community at St. Olaf
College, author of Hoping For More: Having Cancer, Talking Faith, and Accepting Grace.
Richard has been engaged with the Psalms for 50+ years, including the past 20+ years during which he has composed psalm-songs for each of the 150 psalms. He knows the Psalms and their transforming power, and his insightful and engaging "musical exegesis" invites his readers to be transformed as well.
-- J. Clinton McCann, Jr., PhD
Evangelical Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Eden Seminary,
author of Reading the Psalms Again for the First Time: A Spirituality for Justice-Seekers and Peacemakers
With intimacy and vulnerability, Dr. Bruxvoort Colligan helps us to connect the Psalms with life-- with the particulars our lives, with high and low moments of his own life, and with some of the great themes of living: joy, despair, gratitude. Under his wise and gentle guidance, the world of the Psalms comes alive, populated with candlelight vigils and tornadoes, elderly neighbors with snowblowers and children handing us ice cream cones. We become newly-planted trees snuggling our roots in by the stream. I recommend this book for anyone who is longing for the companionship of scripture and a fresh, creative re-introduction to the Psalms.
Songwriter, Professor of worship and preaching at Eden Seminary, author of Recovering Communion
in a Violent World: Resistance, Resilience, and Risk
Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s book is an incredible gift to songwriters and worship leaders. It’s as if he’s inviting the reader in through a secret side door to the Psalms, saying ‘Hey, you big-feeling-music-nerd, you! Check this out!” Dr. BC’s book reminds me that I’m part of a long line of musicians and songwriters singing out to the Divine, and trying to make sense of life. The tone and approach of this delightful book reassure me that I’m part of something much bigger than what I’m trying to build each week as a worship leader.
-- Andra Moran, worship pastor, musician, author of Brim: Creative Overflow
in Worship Design
Silly me, I thought I knew something about the psalms. After all, in the church of my childhood, we sang them all the time and studied them in Catechism week after week. When I opened this book and began to read, I had the feeling that I had been invited to a grand tour of a land to which I was an almost complete stranger. Richard, the tour guide, teacher, therapist, friend, song leader, and chef seemed to know me in rather amazing ways. When he made the connections between those dangerous songs and my own life, I ended up being surprised time and time again. It is one thing for a book to contain excellent scholarly work which this one certainly does, it is quite another for a book to let you fall in love with psalms as you would fall in love with the most beautiful of landscapes and decide you could not ever leave it.
-- Ken Medema
Touring musician, songwriter, retreat leader
