This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:14] Abigail Bengson: Welcome to Token Theatre Friends. It's always a pleasure to talk to all of you. Hi, Charlie. Wanna say hi?

[0:21] Charlie Bengson: Hello.

[0:24] Abigail Bengson: Okay, so I'm always happy to see you and talk to you. And I was gonna say we're gathered here to talk about something serious, which we are obviously, but there's this really beautiful sense of which is something that we've always done so well, allowing rightful, I would say anger, but also beauty and joy meet and be in conversation. So we could perfectly be just like, you know, wearing suits and being like, yeah, we're gonna, you know, demand obviously equal rights for people, which is what we all need. But I love that. I don't know how you do that. And I feel like I've asked you this before, so I'm sorry if I'm being repetitive, but how do you accomplish that? I was so surprised, I was so in awe of how urgent your reaction was to this sovereignty songs and this hymns.

You reacted in a way that made me go, while some of us, I wouldn't say everyone, but well some of us are just shocked and we're like frozen and we don't know how to react. You react with beauty and you react with a way, you know, the ways in which art can serve as, I don't know, it's resistance and as love and just as communion, as calling out for people to be together. So how do you do this? You know, how long did it take before, you know, from this horrible Supreme Court decision to you reacting in song form and art form?

[2:14] Abigail Bengson: Oh thank you. I feel like, um, and if Charlie gets tired then Sean's gonna take him and help him to rest. So that might happen in a moment. Um, okay I think that we as a community of artists and sort of first responders in the world of creativity take turns, you know? So sometimes I think we can respond with immediacy but also compassion and thought and then there'll be something else that happens and I go, oh good, this other artist who I adore, you know, sort of was ready somehow or was called somehow to respond. So it's not like there's a lovely, even though sometimes something will happen and an artist will respond and I'll go like, oh I wish that I had, you know, known what to say or any of that, but sometimes all you can do is weep or rage or, you know, sometimes you just have to be in your own humanity and that, or I do, and that means a certain kind of quietude, you know, within it.

So I have to trust that our beautiful sort of broader family of artists are gonna sort of hold each other within that, you know, and speak to what's happening in the world. And someone always does, you know, someone always does. And I feel like with this, um, we had been working on these hymns for a long time and then when the decision came down we knew it might happen soon, right? And when the decision came down it was like songs started to just flow out of us and out of me. I felt like sometimes the heart breaks and has to rest and kind of implodes and sometimes for me when my heart breaks it's like things start pouring out, you know? It's just like whatever was blocking, um, blocking song gets unblocked through the urgency of the moment and there's something I have to say.

So that happened this time, you know, this time I felt like, oh I gotta start singing right now, this is a moment for song. And other times I think, oh I don't know what if I open my mouth only thing that would come out is a yell, you know? Which is valuable too, it's good to scream a little bit, you know? Um, but we've been working on these hymns for a while too. The work that you do is usually autobiographical and I also don't know how you pull that off, you know? Like being able to do autobiographical work coming from two points of view and yet what you're doing with these hymns and by the way since I jumped ahead to this to the second question basically if you can tell our listeners and our viewers what we're talking about, that would be beautiful.

But what after you tell them that, um, you you're telling other people's stories this time around and it's not the first time that you've done it obviously, but I wanna hear you talk a little bit about how it's a different, you know. Are you, I don't know, like are you transporting people's stories that aren't yours into song form and how does that responsibility, you know, come into play with what you're doing and the work that you're doing?

[5:48] Shaun Bengson: Oh my goodness. Okay. Well first I'll say what we've tried to make, okay. And then help me remember that beautiful question.

[6:01] Shaun Bengson: So we've been making this series called Sovereignty Hymns for a long time and what it had to do with one was sort of a reckoning for us with the idea of sacred music and really longing for a new body of sacred song and that includes to me what one might call protest music, right? Reclaiming some of those or re-imagining what some of those songs could be, which many comes from a long tradition of other artists doing the same, right? But just through our particular lens, um, to include diversity of body. At the time I was thinking really deeply as you know, a person who had gone through miscarriage and gone through birth and feeling really sort of abandoned by art. Like I couldn't find anybody singing about that stuff in a direct way.

And I'm sure there is something, but I couldn't find it, and I couldn't find what I needed, you know? I needed sacred music about this stuff, um, that held the complexity of my own experience. So we tried to make some stuff like that, and then it sort of steered us towards a conversation about what it means to be wholly in one's body, which what it means to be free in one's body, sovereign in one's body. And as soon as you ask that question, you know, then it gets very intimate, and it gets very big, you know? So we knew that just coming from our own perspective had value, but certainly it wasn't enough, and there was so much that we needed to understand and were hungry for connection around what it meant to be sovereign in one's body to different folks, and we focused on reproductive rights.

Although I think Sovereignty Hymns, the lifelong project will not just be about necessarily reproductive rights, um, but that's where we began. And we began with friends, you know, everyone that we interviewed were people that we already had really intimate relationships with, and I don't think we'll always do it that way, but that was intentional to feel like we could inhabit the sort of landscape of their own grief and their own complexity. They were each incredibly generous with us and trusted us to hold these stories sacred, you know, and hold them as carefully as we would our own. And I think that's the thing about having been memoirists for a long time is that people know that we know what it feels like to have your story talked about. And have we made mistakes? Of course, you know, of course. But they know our intention is kindness and complexity.

[9:31] Abigail Bengson: Uh, and yeah I don't, was there another, what was the question before I started talking? No, basically, you know, basically my question was like the Spider-Man thing, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. So was it easier to tune into, you know, let me try to phrase this in a pretty way, um, was it different finding the melody and telling other people's stories than it is finding your melody and Sean's? Because you know your beat, right? Like you beat.

[10:09] Shaun Bengson: I love that. Yeah, and think, yeah, I mean I think we're really playing with form here, right? We're really trying to dismantle something around what it means to write a musical as well because we have thought deeply about what it means to write for a character and the way that we've always approached writing for a character is to love them and imagine them real, right? What and, um, real to me means mad and full of their own deep intention, right? So we took some of those ideas of how you write for character, you know, and then sort of in let the sensual reality of talking to each of these people seep into our skin. So it took a long time is one thing I'd say, like we would do an interview, we would do a pre-interview where we just shoot the shit, you know, and kind of talk more broadly about it and get a also a landscape of what are you comfortable sharing and what aren't you and, you know, and then we do this sort of official interview, you know, with the zoom which is what you see clips of and then it would take so long to sort of let it metabolize, you know, for us so that we weren't reacting hopefully but we were responding and just trying to trust that if we made a meal of their words and their gestures and their struggle that whatever we created would in some way be a transformation of those things and we hope our dream of dreams was that it would be a sort of gift to them, you know, that in the same way that I longed for art that said, I hear you, I hear what you've been through, I see your humanity in a particular way that we could offer these songs back to them and say, we think we understood, we think we heard you.

[12:35] Abigail Bengson: Do you feel heard by this? And if so, will you sing it into the world? And they did. And that to me was a gift back to us, you know, and I hope a gift to people who listen to it.

[12:49] Abigail Bengson: Yeah, it's, you know, it's a little bit, um, I wouldn't let me try to think of the right word. The vulnerability that you show when you're singing the hymns on social media, like I've seen you on Instagram, I almost feel like I'm invading a private space, and it makes me think a lot about how everything that has to do with hymns and sacred spaces is usually thought of as completely, you know, like being alone. So it kind of blew my mind that the sacred could be done in communion and in community. So basically, I guess my very basic question is, is it hard for you to show yourself with such vulnerability? Because I was like, oh my god, am I supposed to be looking at this? Like deciding looking at this?

You sing with people and you bring in people and you're transported, and it does transport, you know, the listener and the viewer. It's almost like I wouldn't say the opposite of, you know, like a TikTok duet. But the purpose, no, I wouldn't even say the purpose is different. The purpose is uniting and unity and bringing people together. But the vulnerability was just astounding to see how, you know, is that easy to pull up? Where were there any like voices going, if it's private leave it, you know, keep it to yourself?

[14:12] Abigail Bengson: Oh man, I mean my shrink would say one thing and I'd say another, you know what I mean? It is my nature to, um, I feel like I make the most sense in this world when I am singing. That's when I feel um truest and therefore bravest because I feel like whatever people will experience it the way that they do or, you know, but I know that it's true, you know? So it may be pretty or ugly or upsetting or whatever it is but I can offer something true through that and I can't in many other forms and many other ways but that's somewhere I can. And then I've learned so much from so many of my friends who also write with profound intimacy, you know, about self-protection and I think there's artists who are navigating that and so many activists too if there's a difference, right?

Like so many activists are also sort of right on the edge of thought and opinion and putting themselves out there and then are attacked again and again often by people who agree with them, you know? And um to sort of allow each other to be learning while we're processing everything because we all are, you know, that we're learning and growing and sharing what we can the way we do through the particular vessel we were given, right? To allow that to um include growth is um something I'm trying to grant myself so I'm not embarrassed, you know? And also um hold for others and and make sure I'm in a community of people who do that and I am. I have amazing, I mean you included, I feel like we're finding the folks who um want art and activism from humans, you know, who are gonna look the way they look and sing the way they sing and think the way they think and it'll be a little different the next day, you know?

I mean it's a bit of a, and I was gonna ask you, I will ask at some point like I wanted, I want I wanted to sing with you like I have a terrible voice like you're never out of tune and you're always a great singer but I was just like taken aback by how open you were and that is something that you don't see very often with anyone.

[17:09] Jose: Like even you know artists like you don't see that kind of openness and rawness to the point where I was like oh my god like I feel like I stole your your phone and I was looking at your videos which was yeah but I mean I will if you're comfortable I wanted to sing along with you and uh try to put some light into the world because like that's what you're doing. So I'm if you don't mind if you want to do that with me.

[17:34] Abigail Bengson: Are you kidding? If no if I may do that with you is is what I should be saying. Because yeah because I I you made me want to sing.

[17:42] Jose: I was singing along and I was thank god and every you know like like everyone that no one has to hear me sing Abigail doesn't want to hear me singing this but but I also was like when I talk to her I wanna I want to sing along with you. Let's sing do you want to do it now?

[17:59] Abigail Bengson: Let's do it yeah I mean let me just have a sip more of my rose I'll drink my water you drink your rose cheers I think the world changes when two people sing together I really deep that's that's what I that's that's what I get from what you do.

[18:16] Jose: I think you can't like simultaneously fight a terrible war and and sing okay let's start with this I'm gonna I'll sing something and I'll teach you how to sing it while we do it okay I'm gonna go who makes the future and we're gonna say we do we do who makes the future we do we do look around friends I'm right here with you who make the future you know we do come on who makes the future we do we do who start now yeah you start now or you feel like it and zoom's gonna make it weird but we don't care we don't care about weird okay I was gonna say you're the master here just give me like a cue or something when when I should join you the technology is such that that because you're in Sweden. It's gonna be a little crazy delay.

[19:16] Abigail Bengson: Okay.

[19:20] Jose: But there's no proper community chorus I've ever heard where there wasn't someone on a delay okay so we're gonna say it's part of the art. It's gonna be a little chaotic, but we're still gonna be together.

[19:31] Abigail Bengson: Okay. I love it.

[19:32] Jose: So I'm gonna do we do, we do, right?

[19:35] Abigail Bengson: Yes, you are, right?

[19:36] Jose: Okay. Who makes the future?

[19:39] Abigail Bengson: We do, we do.

[19:42] Jose: Who makes the future?

[19:45] Abigail Bengson: We do ooh, we do ooh.

[19:48] Jose: Look around, honey.

[19:49] Abigail Bengson: I am right here with you.

[19:52] Jose: Who makes the future?

[19:54] Abigail Bengson: We do.

[19:55] Jose: We do we do ooh.

[19:59] Abigail Bengson: Thank you.

[20:01] Jose: I need more rose after this. I am so full of joy. Um apologies to the listeners that you have to subject it to my voice, but you got Abigail, so thank you for that.

[20:13] Abigail Bengson: That was really beautiful. Um I, you know, what you said about hang on, hang on. We just gotta talk.

[20:20] Jose: Okay.

[20:22] Abigail Bengson: Let's not apologize for our voices.

[20:27] Jose: Okay, that's your voice given to you.

[20:33] Abigail Bengson: It's beautiful, it's only yours. And to me, it's a sacred thing. So I know we mess around, we say, oh, I'm terrible, I'm terrible, and I'm hideous and awful, and all of that, but like that's your one sacred voice, and I got to hear it today. So thank you for that.

[20:49] Jose: Cheers.

[20:55] Abigail Bengson: Yeah, should something that thank you for reminding me about that, Abigail. I, you know, what you said earlier about when people sing together, they change the world. I saw Megan the Stallion in Barcelona a little over over a month ago, and uh, and as I was trying my best, I was trying my best to join in with all the you know dancing and stuff.

[21:19] Jose: We stopped because she also made, you know, this was before the Supreme Court um did the thing and announced that really, you know, inhumane inhuman decision. And Megan DeStallion made us stop in the middle of this massive party with like half a million people at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. And she said, I want to talk about how men need to stop telling women what to do. And then she made us all, you know, raise middle finger to all the lawmakers in the United States all over the world who think they can get away with that. And there was, I felt that I was in the largest church that I've been in ever. You know, there was twerking, which is not something that I thought I would see in what we are told a church looks like, but it did feel like church.

[22:12] Abigail Bengson: So it really broke my heart when you said that you couldn't find art that spoke to what you needed to hear and what you wanted to hear and art that comforted you. So I'm assuming that that's a part of why you know the two of you make art, you know, like you're like, okay, there's a lack, someone's gonna, you know, make this happen, you know, like we gotta do something. But can you talk a little bit about how you find that solace when you can't define that in art? And I mean, you're artists, so you go to art because that's your that's your thing. And to know that what we love doesn't always love us back in the way that we should be loved is really hard. So how do you cope with that and how does that affect and come into play when you're putting out your beautiful work into the world?

[23:11] Abigail Bengson: Um I was listening to Alexis Pauline Gums have a conversation with Prentice Hemphill the other day on Prentices podcast. And Alexis just said, My creative practice and my spiritual practice are the same thing. And I felt I went, Oh thank you. Like it was this incredible permission for me to be honest about that. But that is true for for us in many, many ways. Um and then there's this thing, right? Where it means that you your spiritual practice will be critiqued. You know. And but if I really um think about it, I think that's true for so many people who have I think everybody's spiritual practice is critiqued in some way, whether it's in a tiny community or in a family, or whether it's on a national platform.

I think we are we um when we reveal something so tender about ourselves people will it will ring a bell in someone else's chest that they have to talk about. And sometimes that yields yields praise or connection even better, you know. And sometimes it doesn't, you know, but I think that's true in any church you go to, you know. You know, I think that's true in any church you go to. Someone's gonna have an opinion about the way you pray, and this is the way that I pray.

[24:41] Abigail Bengson: I do think, you know, all of our all of our our wounds and our challenges are both so unique and also in their specificity, it will create the most connection. Um and I think it gets tricky when you're in a spiritual context. Um just a minute, Louie. I'll go talk to Lou. Our older boy. Um, I think it gets it gets tricky when you're in a spiritual community or when you're dealing with things of of that nature because it's so core to each person's identity and so core to their soul, um, that when there's a difference in view, it can feel like a difference in like humanity. You know what I mean? And like a difference in like who you who you are as people. Um But I think like I think for us it's just been so important to remember that actually like those moments are us in connection to something rather than um trying to think of how I would explain it.

I guess I mean that we can get into tricky territory when we assume that we know what uh what is true about each other's spirits and souls. Um and we get especially in the tricky spots, which is what comes into play in a lot of churches when you mistake your own needs and your own preferences for like God's, you know.

[26:14] Abigail Bengson: Um it's uh another like term we were just taught that like kind of blew my mind called spiritual bypass, where like you say, like it's not me that needs this, it's God that needs this. Um and it just like screws with people's heads and hearts so much and has screwed with my head and heart. Um and so I think uh with uh within this work about like what what do you do um with a newly empty womb, you know, whether it emptied because uh um that little spark that fetus wasn't meant for this world, or whether it would be because it would wreck the world that it was coming into, and so therefore there needed to be a change. Um I think in in America uh that whole question is put into shame and secrecy.

Um and so even though it's something that every you know every family around you has dealt with, um we're told that it's something you know you're either supposed to either it's not that big of a deal, so therefore why are you complaining or um or it's something you should be ashamed of? It's either a failure on your own part or like an active like cruelty that you did. Um and so it's this big facet, you know, like half of every pregnancy ends in miscarriage, like even the pregnancies that are that folks are wanting to carry through. Um so just stepping into that world, into the world of recreation is stepping into this world of of life and death. Um, and I think we in our country have a lot of desire to uh have death not be an actual thing.

You know, um and so it was our hope with this that like that we wouldn't necessarily be providing any answers, but there would just be space to say like that we all know that this is something we all go through um and that we don't think that this should be a place for shame um you know and just that like light is the best disinfectant for all the all of that stuff um I have to say sorry go ahead no that was no I was just saying yeah yeah I have to say you know I uh it's it's also so refreshing to hear a man talking about this a male artist um because usually when it comes to talking about you know reproductive rights and anything that people you know put under the women's right boxes like it's so common to see male artists and male identifying artists just like you know like disappear and like nope it's we'll leave the women to deal with that when in fact it's men it's us we're making this horrible decisions about women's bodies so for you Sean first of all well very well done I'm very cocky.

And thank you were there any you know I any preconceptions any ideas any you know what did you what have you discovered about yourself being involved in creating art that's not you know for women but it's for for people for humanity when so often your peers just leave those kinds of conversations.

[29:41] Shaun Bengson: I do think it gets tricky because men also have quite a storied history of explaining away everyone else's point of view. That's my thing too. Yeah, no, that's actually that was me this whole time. So it's definitely like, you know, it feels different getting to head into it with Abigail and in support of Abigail. But also, I completely agree with you that the whole thing of it being a woman's issue is false. You know, like probably there is a man involved in there at some point or someone who makes sperm. I mean, exactly, exactly, a sperm-creating individual. And yeah, I really watched you. Can I say something about my husband? I just feel like I've really seen you grapple with exactly this question and really work to, with a lot of integrity in my opinion, figure out how your voice can be in support and in your own questing too within this conversation.

You know, we made a whole draft of this piece that instead of doing it as a series, we made it as like a 45-minute thing, one thing, and it sort of had us as narrators and going through our experience of interviewing these people. We worked really hard on it for a long time, and then we kept watching it and just being like, this isn't about us.

[29:41] Abigail Bengson: You know what I mean? And we've made this thing that we didn't mean for it to center us. We thought we were framing others, but by making it one piece, you saw us the most. You know, it just did center us, and we were like, oh, that's shitty. So we scrapped it. And then making it one piece also felt like somehow we were trying to say, here are the voices you should hear, and here's all of them. You know, here's here. Whereas if it's a series, we felt like we could honor through the spaces between songs the fact that there's such a multiplicity of experience here. You know, and a series can go on forever, and if there's another story we'll need to do, we'll do that one too, or rather continue a conversation about it, you know, rather than a 40-minute piece which has a beginning, middle, end, and is closed.

[32:40] Shaun Bengson: So I'll just say it was, we made so many mistakes and grappled and grappled and grappled. It was one of the hardest things we've ever made.

[32:53] Abigail Bengson: For both of us, I think.

[32:55] Shaun Bengson: Yeah.

[32:56] Abigail Bengson: Just honestly, it wasn't like a thunderclap. It was like, really, we really were in the minds of these for a long time. A tender job to try to support these stories from these other people because they're all like stories from some of their hardest, most tenderest, you know, like most difficult moments. And so I feel incredibly grateful to them and humbled that they trusted us with it. And it was not easy. Wouldn't it be just beautiful if, you know, that thing you just said, Abigail, about knowing when to remove yourself from the center was actually how politicians did politics? The two of you should be, you know, the Bengsons for office. But no, like, no, don't go into office. You see, I don't think you get that in lavender, you know, seeing that.

Yeah, sorry, that's where my mind went. But yeah, we need to use artists. We don't want to use politicians. But which, you know, again, like also the, I was gonna like, it's not the rose, I promise, but my mind's going so many different places at once. But you know, based on this concept and knowing that you've done such beautiful work, I would say, and such a beautiful job, that's not so, I don't know, like I'm your school teacher, but you've beautifully been able to tell people's stories and to share your stories. And now to see them being repeated and being sung by other people that you've never met, that the people, you know, your friends and the people that you're writing about have never met, what does that do to you?

Can you try to describe that for me first, artist? Because I, it must be really beautiful and mind-blowing. And I don't know, you tell me, how does it feel to see this work that's so important and so beautiful being shared like this?

[35:07] Abigail Bengson: It's like, I just have to snow. It's in, I'm very moved by it. I'm really moved by it. And I feel, you know, because we kind of found ourselves as people writing what folks called musicals, and we kind of came in backwards to that idea, and then discovered that in that there was a world of theater and musicals that sometimes felt very closed. You know, it felt like maybe made for a certain group of people and maybe not reaching. I mean, if you're Hamilton and every single person knows every word of your show, that's one thing, but that's not using off-Broadway musicals, you know what I mean? So to feel that we're finding a way to make songs that can move outside of buildings, you know, that can be on the street or can be in homes or can be in people's hearts in that way.

They did that, we didn't do that, you know, and so it feels like an incredible gift. And it's also, you know, our incredible friend Adrian Marie Brown has done a lot to put our music into the world in a different way because she recorded herself singing a couple of our hymns over the last year, and I think people were so moved by her interpretation of them. I think a lot of people think she wrote them, which I have to say makes me very proud. If someone could mistake our writing for Adrian's, I'd be like, we're doing it right, you know. So I just want to lift her up because I think she really also moved people to her interpretation of these pieces. You know, she makes them something new again.

I think it's kind of this extraordinary complicated thing about social media too, you know, that I feel like on one hand, I think like social media is responsible for a lot of, you know, the misinformation and the general crappiness, you know, that let the Supreme Court do what it did, but it also, you know, it's a human thing, so it's also this vessel for connection. And so it's this very complicated thing for me of both hating it and feeling so grateful for it.

[37:58] Shaun Bengson: So Abigail, I don't know how you do this, but you always jump ahead to when I want to ask at some point, so it's like you're reading my mind, you know. Like I felt when I was watching your videos, I'm like, you're also reading my notes. I, you know, in the spirit of this generosity that surrounds everything that you do, Abigail jumped ahead to that and you mentioning, you know, the work of your friend that you love so much, and people thinking that it was, you know, that your work was her work. So who are some of the artists that you want to shout out? As someone artists that you want people to, you know, sing their music as hymns.

[38:41] Abigail Bengson: I love this question. I mean, none of these people need us. They are fully on their destiny trajectory without using them. But okay, Malkia Devitch Cyril. Everything that comes out of that person's mouth, look them up. She's in an active reckoning with activism and grief. How to make space for grief in the world of activism. And she has changed my life through our friendship and through her work. So Malkia Devitch Cyril. Yes. Adrian Marie Brown, changing my life in our texts and in her books and in everything that she makes. I mean, she's just innovating what the future could be by imagining pleasure in the future, by imagining a new way that we could be with one another with discernment but without cruel judgment.

You know, it's really delicious. There's a bassist who sings named J. Marie, and you can find them, J. Marie is holy, who's doing great stuff, just pleasurable stuff. Our friend Kate Kilbane makes beautiful art. Yeah, in the theater world, Cesar Alvarez and Heather Christian, I think are both doing really extraordinary things. They, like whenever we see their stuff, we're like, damn it. You know what I mean? It's that feeling of both like, oh, we're not alone in the world, and also like Cesar, I was trying to write a song about how Chaco could save your life or whatever, you know what I mean? And Heather, it's just like amazing piece. And Dave and Aeneas, and you know, there's this crew of folks.

[40:30] Shaun Bengson: Yeah.

[40:32] Abigail Bengson: I could, we could really like talk all day about the artists that we love.

[40:38] Jose: Abigail and Shaun, it's always a pleasure talking to you. Can you tell people where to find these hymns? How can they, you know, should we record them and put them on social media? Should we just tell people, hey, we need to sing this together? How do we become involved with this beautiful project? And also, not to be like your agent or your manager or anything, but when can we expect more?

[41:03] Shaun Bengson: Hey, well, you can, oh yeah, no, you can find it on our Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. We're at The Bengsons, B-E-N-G-S-O-N-S. And they're all collected on, this was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse. So you can find it on their website, which is, I think it's Mr. La Jolla Playhouse.org slash sovereignty hymns. That's right. The major pieces and some writing about them. And we've got the next couple of hymns on this laptop right now, and I think they're gonna be released within the week.

[41:47] Abigail Bengson: Yeah, a week or two.

[41:50] Shaun Bengson: And then one or two more in this series, and then it's our dream that then we'll turn it all into a live cantata of the choir for the stage. That's the dream of dreams. I'll just plant it in the world right now. What we want is to have a sovereignty hymns chorus and we make a cantata, a sort of sacred evening of all these voices.

[42:15] Abigail Bengson: Yeah, okay, I'm gonna ask for that. I'm gonna drink to that. I'm gonna point to that. So yeah, so we have permission to sing them and record ourselves and share them with you when we want to. That would be what these songs are supposed to do. That would be fruition, is if you record yourself singing those songs however you sing, whatever kind of voice you have. If you record yourself singing those songs and post it or send it to your mama or whatever, you know, you don't have to post it on social media, but send it to us. We would love to hear it. I would recommend trying to do it. I might even try it myself tonight at some point, duet them on TikTok, which I still haven't mastered TikTok, but I think this would be great.

[42:15] Shaun Bengson: Yeah, we should try it, Abigail and Shaun. Yeah, maybe like if you start it and if you do a TikTok, you know, start duet the thing. I'll come, I promise I will duet with the two of you. So, yeah, everyone, I encourage you to do this. The songs are so beautiful, it's so moving, and see the kids are trying up. I think they're beautiful, they're moving, and I just love that you advise us to tune into other people's stories and being, you know, singing about loss and singing about joy, singing about life and singing about the, you know, all these things that this, people in the stories, you know, I kept thinking about a line about I could feel the baby or something that I'm paraphrasing and just singing that just, oh, I don't want, yeah, I don't want to cry on camera or audio, but it did something to me that only, you know how to do, and I appreciate that, and I love you for it. Thank you as always, and I hope to talk to the two of you very soon.

[44:05] Abigail Bengson: Thank you so much for the gift of this time and for the gift of your beautiful person in this world.

[44:09] Shaun Bengson: We love what you make, we love what we do, mostly we love what you are.

[44:14] Jose: Thank you.

[44:15] Abigail Bengson: You as well.

[44:16] Shaun Bengson: Thank you both so much.