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This past summer, Beyoncé was on tour again. Her Cowboy Carter shows were filling stadiums, winning awards, and generating the kind of buzz only Queen B can. And every time I saw a headline about her latest performance, I was reminded of the time I found myself in a packed stadium, earplugs in place, swept up in the ecstatic roar of 80,000 fans – all because my students told me to go.Sometimes co-learning means trusting your students. Sometimes it means doing the homework they assign – even if that homework is attending a Beyoncé concert. From Early Polyphony to Pop IconsYears before, I’d taken a different class to hear the world-class ensemble New York Polyphony perform Renaissance Marian music. The students were mesmerized. Five unaccompanied voices wove harmonies so rich and unexpected that one student turned to me, stunned, and said, “I didn’t know the human voice could sound like that.”The texts were sacred, the music deeply devotional, and yet what struck the students most wasn’t the sixteenth-century solemnity but the encore: a playful barbershop version of Rosie the Riveter. Somehow, that moment – a bridge between sacred history and cultural familiarity – made the entire evening resonate. The music stopped feeling like an artifact and became a living conversation between past and present.That night stayed with me, a reminder that context matters. And a few years later, when I wrapped up a course on religion and popular culture, I asked my students a question I have always asked since:“What should I explore to better understand the worlds you inhabit?”Their response came quickly: “Go to an arena concert. And not just any concert – Beyoncé, Drake, or Kanye.” Enter the BeyhiveSo, in the summer of 2018, I booked a ticket, crossed the border from Canada, and joined 80,000 members of the Beyhive in Ohio Stadium for the On the Run II tour with Beyoncé and Jay-Z.From the first moment – when the Carters descended from above, dressed in white, declaring their enduring love – it was clear this was not just entertainment. This was ritual.The show unfolded as a narrative arc of love, betrayal, repentance, and redemption. Paradise gave way to heartbreak, scenes of confession and prayer played out in a candlelit chapel, and a climactic celebration of forgiveness transformed the stadium into something resembling a cathedral.And the crowd? They weren’t passive observers. They sang every lyric, moved in unison, and cried openly. It felt like full, conscious, active participation – the kind of embodied engagement we often hope for in sacred spaces but rarely see. When Beyoncé Became an Icon – LiterallyWhat stayed with me most was the imagery. Midway through the concert, Beyoncé appeared in shimmering purple and gold, styled unmistakably as an Orthodox Pantocrator – an icon of Christ enthroned. She even raised two fingers, echoing the gesture indicating divine and human natures.In that moment, the conversation between Christianity and contemporary culture could not have been clearer. Here was a global superstar, embodying centuries-old sacred iconography in a performance consumed by millions. Fashion, music, and religious symbolism were colliding to create something profoundly resonant, and my students had sent me there to see it for myself. Shifting My PerspectiveI returned to the classroom that Fall with fresh eyes. Co-learning had always been central to my pedagogy, but stepping fully into my students’ cultural world shifted something.I began paying closer attention to themes of celebrity, cultural authority, and the theological undercurrents embedded in popular culture. I started inviting students to share more of their own frameworks and interpretations, realizing that they weren’t just consumers of culture but skilled analysts of its meanings.The experience also expanded my understanding of how religion permeates the spaces we often call “secular.” The concert was not just a performance; it was a pilgrimage – complete with shared anticipation, communal solidarity, and a sense of collective transformation. And, like pilgrimage traditions past, it was also monetized: tickets, merchandise, exclusivity all wrapped into a deeply spiritual-yet-commercial exchange. The Power of Reciprocal LearningToday, when I teach courses on religion and culture – or on pilgrimage, as I did this past academic year – I think about that night in the stadium. The walk toward the venue with thousands of others felt uncannily like the approach to a sacred site. The sense of communitas – a shared, egalitarian solidarity – buzzed in the air, reminding me that cultural experiences can be as spiritually charged as traditional rituals.Students directing the narrative of their own engagement, I’ve realized, is the real power of co-learning. I don’t hand them neat interpretations of the world; instead, we create frames together. Their insights push me to reimagine my own assumptions, and in return, they see their cultural knowledge valued as part of the academic conversation.For me, that Beyoncé concert wasn’t just a field trip. It was a lesson in humility, curiosity, and the unexpected ways learning happens when we let students lead.And as I watched news of Cowboy Carter lighting up stadiums this summer, I was reminded to keep asking my students: “What should I see next?” Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the richest pedagogical journeys often begin when we’re willing to follow.

[audio mp3="https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Perichoresis.mp3"][/audio] John of Damascus, one of the most important theologians of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, writes the following about the relationship between the three Persons of the Trinity: [They] dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or commingling or confusion. And there is one and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature. The Greek word “perichoresis” has come to refer not only to this multi-dimensional, incomprehensible unity, but to a particular metaphor describing this relationship: that of a “divine dance” between/among/within the Trinity. My composition Perichoresis[1] is my musical impression of this “divine dance.” Its overall mood is joyous, an ecstatic whirling-about in which all three members become lost in the ecstasy of divine fellowship. At the exact moment of the dance when one member moves, the other fills in the spot left vacant. Seen from afar, the effect might be like looking at a spinning wheel whose spokes disappear from view, yet which retains its speed, energy, and power. Musically, this occurs through the technique of giving each of the five instruments their own, equally important roles to play. In the fast sections there is no clear melody that dominates the texture, relegating the other parts to mere accompaniment. Instead, each musical “voice” contributes its own unique and independent strand, each often winding around the others in a musical version of indwelling. The complementary rhythms and melodies often make it difficult to distinguish these layers, yet the absence of any one of them would leave an obvious hole in the musical fabric.  Musical textures create a sonic example of an ideal community: one body, many parts, and none more important or unique than the other. Unlike visual art-forms, music brings to life these types of complex relationships in ways that make sense to us humans. Music allows us to hear individual parts at the same time as we hear the whole that they create. The bassline of a Beyoncé track is 100% funky without anything else. Yet, when part of a family of horn riffs, drum loops, background singers, and lead vocals, that constituent element takes on a new identity. It is the same as it was, yet completely different: a new thing, yet not new at all. Its beginning is its ending, its Alpha already its Omega. The Trinity expands upon this idea by challenging us to imagine a mutual interpenetration of the parts and the whole. As a teacher, a composer, and member of the Body of Christ, this is the model of community for which I strive. In the classroom or the rehearsal studio my goal is to create an environment in which my students and I take turns leading the “dance.” But this only happens when I get out of the way, when I recognize that my students are not small-scale versions of myself, but rather young people whose lived experiences are fertile sources of knowledge. In the classroom, this happens when I allow a discussion to take on a life of its own, skipping down paths I didn’t even know were on the map. In orchestra rehearsals it happens when a French horn player’s phrasing opens up a new dimension of musical interpretation, changing the way I conduct an entire passage. In both situations, the requirement is that I stop trying to hear the content of my student’s ideas, and instead listen to the ways those ideas express their full humanity—when I listen through or beyond their words to understand who they are. When this happens, the space I vacate does not remain empty, but is immediately filled with a presence: a person whose life is both similar to mine and different, and with whom I can now collaborate as co-learner and co-teacher. As in the classroom and the rehearsal hall, however, there are many moments in Perichoresis when certain parts come to the fore and others step back. In the slow middle section, a lyrical melody ebbs and flows, sometimes played by one instrument and sometimes joined by a partner. But even in these moments we don’t lose sight of our ideal vision of community. The melodies only sing because the ground beneath them allows them to stand. Conversely, the accompanying chords draw their notes from the melody, taking a line and turning it into an object: something solid and substantial. When I’m lecturing or leading discussion, I try to remember that I don’t need to be the melody. While my voice may be the most prominent at those moments, thinking of myself as the accompaniment is a way for me to recontextualize my role. My words can be the fertile soil for my students’ nascent ideas, the ground on which they can learn how to stand. I don’t always get there. As a teacher, husband, father, or church member, I often find myself singing the melody before I’m even aware of it! As I learn how to undo years of uncritical acceptance of my importance as a white guy, it’s helpful for me to look to music as a model: it is, after all, the most evanescent of all artforms, a will-o’-the-wisp that disappears as quickly as we hear it. Its fundamental weakness, however, belies an extraordinary power: power that can change hearts and minds—but only if we allow it in, if we really listen to it. My hope is that listening to my composition will help you think in new ways about the Trinity. Perhaps it will help you imagine how three Persons can be One, or One Person can be Three. And perhaps, the next time you listen to music, you might even be inspired to take it as a model for your life as a teacher, leader, or community member: a model based on relationships, mutual indwelling, and the joy of the dance. [1] Composed by Delvyn Case, and premiered by Boston’s Triton Brass Quintet, Perichoresis has also been performed by the Grammy-winning Chestnut Brass Company. Of this piece, theologian Walter Brueggemann wrote, “I am not a great theologian but have pondered ‘perichoresis’ for a long time. This is the finest exposition of that thick idea that I have encountered.” The audio is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GoHExKMJLk. IMAGE: Photo by Sheng Dai (Chicago) on Unsplash

Delvyn Case · Ruach (Revised Version)   The Hebrew word Ruach means both “breath” and “spirit.” Fundamental to this word (and to the Greek analogue, pneuma, which also is used in both ways) is a paradox. The notion of “spirit” denotes something ineffable and invisible - yet something that is always ready to break through and make itself known in a transformative way. Catholic mystics, African griots, and Christian Pentecostals are well-known examples of religious people who - when filled with the “spirit” – sing, dance, pray, feel, or see things that are amazing, powerful, and even out of their control. In the same way, “breath” is something simultaneously ineffable and invisible – yet also so fundamentally physical that our bodies do it without our conscious thought. We usually only become aware of our breathing when we experience something surprising or particularly important: when something beautiful makes us catch our breath, our something frightening makes us cry out in terror. In the same way, we are not usually aware of our “spirit” except in special circumstances: in a religious or spiritual state, for example, or when we have to call upon something deep within us in order to create – or to endure. This piece, Ruach, confronts this paradox by bringing to our awareness many different ways “breath” and “spirit” can become sonically and dramatic present. Throughout the piece the performers are asked to make various kinds of breath sounds with their instruments and their own voices, blurring the line between music and sound. Overall, the piece emphasizes idea of the spirit as a powerful force that is surprising, shocking, and fundamentally resistant to control.