Notes of Rest for the Mangers
2021-24: Julian Davis Reid incubated “Notes of Rest” within the Creative Community Care Residency program of City Seminary of New York. The residency helped Reid see how much all of his communities needed rest during the pandemic, and that he needed to approach rest theologically and musically. Out of this gathering with his fellow artists, Notes of Rest emerged as a spiritual formation ministry grounded in Scripture and Black music that invites the Body of Christ to receive God’s gift of rest.
Reid writes:
I pray that this video helps you attend to your own need for rest, as well as to the needs of those around you (fellow humans as well as the rest of creation). God promises us an eternity of rest in Jesus, so for now, in the here and not yet, let us practice receiving and sharing the notes.
Julian is an artist-theologian who uses words and music to invite us into the restful lives we were created to live. A musician, speaker, and writer, Reid offers his contemplative-musical program Notes of Rest across the nation and he plays internationally with various musical outfits including The JuJu Exchange and Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few. He is a Fellow of Theological Education Between the Times and consults with the grassroots organization Fearless Dialogues. Reid writes about faith, music, Blackness, and rest on his Substack “Julian’s Note,” and his work has been featured in the Christian magazine Sojourners and the jazz magazine Downbeat. He lives in his hometown Chicago with his wife Carmen and daughter Lydia.
A joint project of the Ministry in the City HUB and Walls-Ortiz Gallery at City Seminary, the Creative Community Care Virtual Residency brought together socially-engaged Christian creatives from New York City, Indianapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Corsicana (Tx) for peer mentor support, learning, and sharing. In 2021, residents developed local projects in their respective cities, exploring creative practices of care in the context of community. Projects engaged the concerns and questions of the pandemic period (mutual aid, care re-imagined for social distance, etc.) at the intersection of the arts, learning, faith, and the city. In 2022, the resident pairs offered public online workshops. Starting in 2024, Creative Community Care, a traveling group exhibition of the artwork will be on display with related programming in cities across North America. In 2024, the exhibition has been on view in Santa Ana, CA (March 1-5), Houston, TX (August 7-23), and will be in St. Paul, MN (November 1 - December 15). In 2025, it will go to Indianapolis, IN (March - April), Charlotte, NC (May-June), and possibly Boston, MA (November). For 2026, we anticipate a stop in Toronto, ON (Canada) before a final show in New York City.
