Barrett musical collaboration releases Advent album

["A former South Carolina United Methodist pastor has released an album for Advent that she hopes will capture what she calls \u201ca season when we celebrate God\u2019s taking on our flesh\u2014and a season during which we are reminded, forcibly, that all is not yet well.\u201d\r\n\r\nSinger\/songwriter and author Elise Erikson Barrett, wife of late United Methodist pastor the Rev. Chris Barrett, who died of cancer in February 2016, now lives in central Indiana, and she and two musician friends united as Sister","Sinjin, a creative collaboration that has just released their first studio album. \u201cIncarnation\u201d is in limited-release hand-stamped version, traditional and digital formats. (\u201cSinjin\u201d is a phonetic spelling of the English pronunciation of St. John.)\r\n\r\nBarrett, a mother of three who has released two full-length studio albums, \u201cAwake\u201d and \u201cValley,\u201d is a former UMC pastor who came into full communion with the Catholic church shortly before her husband\u2019s death. As Advent neared, she connected with two friends\u2014Elizabeth Duffy, a writer, cellist and mother of six, and Kaitlyn Ferry, a worship minister, classically trained violinist, music educator, singer\/songwriter and mother of three\u2014to explore how to create an album for Advent in the midst of the everyday demands of life.\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething felt immediately fitting and right about the project,\u201d Barrett said. \u201cThree mothers, with varied challenges to our time and energies\u2014three creative types, wanting to do art in a way that would connect people, and ourselves, to God. Three human beings, frustrated with an idealized model for creativity that requires freedom from dependents and large chunks of uninterrupted time.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe said they thought about incarnation, about the real demands of parenting and working and providing for the needs of others, and about a creative life.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe decided to try an experiment,\u201d Barrett said. \u201cWe would do an album that was truly incarnational\u2014music that could be born in our real lives, just as they were\u2014and we would do it for Advent.\u201d\r\n\r\nSongs include \u201cIn the Virgin\u2019s Womb He Lay,\u201d \u201cO Come, O Come Emmanuel,\u201d \u201cIn These Long, Last Days\u201d and more.\r\n\r\nThe trio hopes the music will serve as a reminder that God shows up among us and a reminder that no matter how painful the waiting becomes, our hope is in Emmanuel.\r\n\r\nTo learn more about the album and their collaboration, visit www.sistersinjin.com<\/a>."]