Let us greet with a song of hope each day
Though the moments be cloudy or fair
Let us trust in our Saviour always
To keep us, every one, in His care

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life  (A.P Carter)

Today’s “Sunny Side” starts on the Billboard charts.

Bluegrass Pickin’ Friars Hit the Charts

Thirty years ago, the Benedictine Monks of Santa Domingo de Silos in Spain did the unthinkable. They reached #3 on the Top 200 Billboard Album chart with Chant, a collection of Gregorian chants. Needless to say it was the highest-charting album of Gregorian chants in history.

Three decades later, a group of friars is now hitting the charts, but they aren’t chanting. They are pickin’ and strummin’. The Hillbilly Thomists is a bluegrass group consisting of Dominican priests who saw their fourth album, Marigold debut at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts. Their self-titled first album reached number one.

Here’s how fan Mike Kerrigan described their music in a Fox News Digital tribute.

Their folksy music is at once complex and lovely with lyrics rich in poetry and Scripture, but it’s their live performances that are joy incarnate. The Hillbilly Thomists’ love of God, of one other, and of music is unmistakable, an apt metaphor for the real presence that they so reverently adore. Turning Americana into sacred sound, they play with human hearts, light with – to borrow G.K. Chesterton’s definition of gratitude — happiness doubled by wonder. They are, in a very good word, winsome.

How often do you hear that word — “winsome”– when it comes to today’s artists? See and hear for yourself. Here are the eight members bringing their gifts and the Lord to the Grand Ole Opry in 2022.

In addition to traditional songs and hymns, Hillbilly Thomists perform originals, including songs that reflect current events — for example, the COVID pandemic.

“When you sing about timeless realities like redemption, divine grace in the midst of a fallen world, and man’s desperate need and dogged desire for God, there are always going to be deep resonances with the events of any age,” Fr. Peter Gautsch, one of the band members, told Dappled Things. “At the same time, we’re certainly trying to illuminate reasons to hope in God in this present age. It wasn’t for no reason Augustine called on God as ‘beauty ever ancient, ever new.’”

Speaking of chart toppers …

Right Place, Right Time

It’s not often you get to say a music video saved a life, but that’s precisely what happened the other day. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi was shooting a music video on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in downtown Nashville last Tuesday when he and a production assistant spotted a woman in a blue shirt precariously standing on the ledge overlooking the water below. In a video released (and later removed) by the Metro Nashville Police Department, Bon Jovi and the assistant can be seen slowly approaching the woman. First the assistant, then the music superstar, talk to her. Thankfully, they are able to coax her into coming back over the railing, helping her to safety.

The singer and the woman hug.   

Thank God that Bon Jovi was at the right place at the right time to help.

“It takes all of us to help keep each other safe,” said MNPD Chief John Drake on social media.

A shout out to @jonbonjovi & his team for helping a woman on the Seigenthaler Ped Bridge Tue night. Bon Jovi helped persuade her to come off the ledge over the Cumberland River to safety. "It takes all of us to help keep each other safe,"–Chief John Drake https://t.co/1YejKJ2WgM

— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) September 11, 2024

Married Families = Lower Crime and Delinquency

You’d think the following was a study from the University of Well, Duh! But it comes from Franciscan University of Steubenville — specifically Dr. David Ayer, a professor there. In a study published by the Maryland Family Institute, Ayer analyzed data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and found what the Washington Examiner calls “a significant correlation between a higher percentage of married households and lower levels of crime, drug use, alcohol abuse, adolescent sex, and poverty.”

This he found across all counties from the poor to the wealthy, the rural to the urban, the ocean to the mountains. His conclusion stresses how important it is for our culture to again emphasize the benefits of marriage.

One would think that the advantages of marriage (and disadvantages of cohabiting or non-celibate singleness) in the areas of income and poverty that are this stark, this large, would create a public outcry demanding cultural and political elites draw attention to this and encourage robust policy conversations focused on how we can better promote and strengthen marriage, especially for those raising children. But one would be wrong. This needs to change, and soon.

We can throw all the money and brain power we want at the problems unmarried parents and their kids face, but if we do not address the flight from marriage itself, our efforts will not be nearly as successful as they otherwise could be.

Speaking of Marriages …

I would be an awful human if I were talking about marriage and did not mention what’s happening this weekend. Aliya Kuykendall, the original author of “Sunny Side of the Stream who each week for the last several years would bring her unique voice to topics of faith and scripture, is getting married today!

We at the Stream wish Aliya and her betrothed, Adam, a joyful, fruitful, and long marriage. They’ll have Christ at the center of it. Our tears of sadness at her leaving the Stream last week is far outweighed by the happiness in her heart and eagerness to be Adam’s wife.

I do cop to one regret. After five-plus years working together, I was only just now figuring out how to spell “Kuykendall” without my fingers getting tangled.

“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” (Proverbs 24:3-4)

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, chief barista for The Brew and your host for Al’s Afternoon Tea.