"Prayers Of An Atheist"
Written by: Beth Nielsen Chapman
©2007 Prismlight Music (SESAC – USA and Canada)/PRS – Worldwide ex. USA and Canada)
Produced by BNC
Recorded by David Leonard at
The Tree House Studio, Brentwood, Tn.
Mixed at East Iris Studio
BNC: Piano, vocals
The Vine Street Christian Church Children's Choir
Directed by Andra Moran
featuring:
Thompson Berhow, Will Carson, Matthew Jafari
Morgan Jafari, Miles Kleinert
Parker Leonard ,Ellen Jennings Matthews
Julia Matthews, Kara Reed
Strings arranged & Conducted by JB Arthur
Recorded at SABC Studio M1A
Engineer~Evert De Munnik
Second engineer~ Duane Arthur
Violins: Irene Tsoniff, Camelia Onea, Barbara Malinovski, Elbe Henkins
Violas: Evert van Niekerk, Olga Korvink, Elsabe Laubscher, Ivo Ivanov
Cellos: Susan Mouton, Carel Henn
Contrabass: Lodovico Gabenela
If love could say God's Name
We'd hear a trillion sounds
Choirs from the balconies
Grass grow through the ground
The sound would ring so true
As every fist uncurled
One human family
All across the world
The prayers of an atheist
Sent from the emptiness
Even they find the way back home....
If love could say God's name
And we would just be still
Silence would start to sing
And nature reveal God's will
If love could say God's name
How could we not behold
One light, one peace, one grace
Shining in every Soul
The Story behind the "Prayers Of An Atheist"
In 1994 my husband Ernest died of cancer. A few months before his death he wrote a letter and sent it to everyone he'd known and loved in his life asking if they would be so kind as to send him a brief note telling him what they believed happens when we pass out of this world. Ernest, who had an MA in philosophy, had spent a great deal of his life fascinated with the meaning of life and the definition of God in all different cultures and paths of faith.
The response was amazing of course-- many different points of view from Christianity to Muslim to you name it. Each was very special to him but the one that he was the most moved by came from an old friend who had always been an atheist. They had very passionate discussions throughout their friendship in which Ernest would try to argue with his friend about the existence of God. So when his friend's letter came he said "I'm probably not, as you know, the best person to ask this question of at a time like this. Nothing has changed...I still feel the same way...still, because I love you, today I sent up for you the prayers of an atheist." My husband looked up from that letter with tears in his eyes and said, "Wow. That would have to be the most powerful prayer to have had to travel so far."
For years I've been trying to write this song "Prayers of An Atheist". I kept trying to capture the power of that moment and the deep respect Ernest held for his friend in spite of the great difference in their perspectives on faith. I must have written it three or four different ways trying to tell the story inside the song. But it always came out like a bad country song and didn't have the sensitivity I felt needed to be expressed.
About 6 months ago I sat down at my piano and started playing this melody I'd started writing in late 1993...during some of those grueling months when Ernest was going through chemotherapy. It was as if a trap door opened and the whole lyric slipped in through that portal I call the "creative umbilical chord" in the top of my head fitting neatly into this melody like it had been born in the same moment. I honestly sobbed while writing it down because, not only did it mean so much to me personally as an accomplishment, it also completed a big piece of the puzzle in this very intense ever-lengthening undertaking of a now double CD called "Prism" --which is my collection of world hymns and songs celebrating the spectrum and spiritual diversity of the human family. This project should be released in the fall of 2007--and the centerpiece for that collection is "Prayers Of An Atheist" as that strikes such a chord within the hearts of people of all walks of faith.
"If love could say God's name"....became the first line of the song. Inspired by the "prayer" Ernest received from his friend. Whatever anyone's belief's are we are born to love and create, which, to me has always been the greatest proof of God's existence. And even the prayers of an atheist have value as I can attest from the amazing grace it brought to my husband in the last days of his life.
Recording "Prayers" really turned into an odyssey! I recorded the basic piano vocal with David Leonard engineering in my finally up and running home studio "The Tree House". It's the first song I've recorded on my 1916 beautiful brown grand piano. It's a stunning instrument....
I recorded the strings in South Africa along with a bunch of other strings on the record. The arrangement by Joseph Arthur is just
an incredible piece of writing.
Here's the studio where we did the strings:
I also put on a children's choir! I had so much fun working with these kids:
In addition to the session with the children's choir, I did a separate session with Parker Leonard, the son of my engineer David Leonard, and yet another one with Mpilo Tutu, the son of Naomi Tutu (also known as the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu!).
I ended up using the different sessions together and blending the close with the far away. I have to say it was challenging! But the result was beautiful. It was the last song we mixed. Or I should say David Leonard mixed! He was traveling off to another recording project the next day and we were in the studio until about 4 am. That's what you call dedication! Or craziness. Or a little of both! Thanks Dave!!
click on any cover
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