|
i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. |
In The Beginning The Betrayal In Search Of Meaning Exodus Watchers Tell Us Of The Night Time Line Between Two Gardens Finding The Lost Voice Singing A New Song! Upon This Rock |
It begins with the story of Creation told in Genesis 1. It continues through the perfection that man once fleetingly knew in Eden; to man's fall from Grace. It tells of the various ways that man has attempted to replace God, or alternately, get back into a relationship with and be close to God, and of man's failures to do so. It takes the reader on quite a few twists & turns, fits & stops, weaving its way through a number of tangents. It gets quite personal in one section, where James evaluates his own relationship with the Lord, & his need for salvation. There is a brilliant section on the concept of time. It takes the reader through a faith journey like no other, eventually focusing on the Return of Christ to gather his flock of believers. It is ultimately the story of God's Saving Light and Lamb, Jesus Christ, who's saving Grace provides what no man can. "Rapture" spans 10 movements or "books", as James prefers to call them. Each "book" ranges in length from one page, to 6-7 pages in length. The poetry is laid out as prose, rather than having any kind of verse/chorus or rhyming scheme. In fact, there is hardly any rhyming in the entire poem. The reason for this is that James never imagined that "Rapture" would someday be set to music... Edward: "During one of our many 'midnight' conversations about a whole range of topics, Jim mentioned to me that he had been working on an epic poem for a majority of his life and was close to completing it. I had never heard this before, and asked him if I could read it in the hopes of someday setting it to music, as I had done with many of his lyrics. He resisted the idea at first, as he had never shown this poetry to anyone, including his wife! He also had doubts that such a thing could be set to music, as that was not his intention for it, although he hoped to someday publish it if he could ever complete it to his satisfaction. Maybe because I was so persistent, maybe because Jim and I have a high level of trust, but Jim finally showed me what he had. To put it mildly, I was totally blown away by what I read! This was nothing like the songs Jim had written. This was a whole new level of depth and creativity, the likes of which I had never seen before. In a weird kind of way, I felt honored to be the first one to read it. I immediately threw myself into putting parts of it to music. I then played some of it for Jim, which in turn inspired him to complete his poem. We seem to have come to a tacit agreement to let me finish the music on my own (enthusiastically showing it all to Jim as each section gets completed.)" The music for the first seven "books" is now written, is well into the recording process, and is roughly 70-75 minutes in duration. The entire production, when completed, will probably end up being somewhere around 2 to 2 1/2 hours long. It may be many years before this project is completed, althought the current plan is to release the first 7 books early next year. A sampling of what is to come can be found on the recently released Christian Progressive Rock Collection called CPR Volume One, which includes "Book I - In The Beginning". RIGHT Click [HERE] & choose "Save Target/Link as" to Download Audio. Slated for a Spring 2008 release, "Rapture" is definitely a work in progress, and a labor of love. |