EXODUS - BEHIND THE SCENES

By Ben Batalla

Hi everyone, my name is Ben Batalla and I am a new collaborating artist with The Vigil Project. I wanted to take the time to talk about the collaborative process for our Exodus project.

You might be familiar with a powerful movement that is happening in the Church right now called Exodus 90, which is a spiritual program for men to practice prayer, asceticism, and fraternity in order to obtain a greater freedom to love God and others. I got to participate in Exodus 90 last year along with thousands of other men in the country, including Shawn Williams, the producer and violinist for this album. And we both agreed that Exodus 90 was an extremely powerful and healing experience, even though it was really challenging, especially those daily cold showers for me!

Reading Exodus was so moving for me. There were so many vivid images in Exodus of how God powerfully reminded me of his persistent love and how much he wants me to be free: the ten plagues, the burning bush, the crossing of the red sea, the bread from heaven… 

Along with doing Exodus 90, I would sometimes open Scripture in prayer and would improvise on the piano whatever came up in my heart. I would envision the scene from Scripture, enter into the emotions being expressed, meditate on the characters of the story, and I would invite the Holy Spirit to speak into my playing, to speak into every note. I realized that as I meditated on Scripture, I was actually using the same method of Lectio Divina, or Ignatian Meditation, but with music! It has become such a unique and powerful way for me to pray, especially because music is such an intimate and vulnerable part of my life. God is able to speak to me through the gift that he gave me, and I realized how this encounter with God is actually the purpose and design of all art! And with The Vigil Project’s mission of providing music and art for the Catholic journey, Shawn and I spoke and we asked, “What if the epic drama of this Exodus story of freedom from bondage could be captured in prayer through music?” 

I flew over to Papercastle Records in Nashville and Shawn, Kevin and I discussed how we wanted to create an immersion of all the senses into meditation, similarly to Lectio Divina or Ignatian meditation. We wanted to encourage listeners to pray with us as we improvised and prayed together in the studio and allow the Exodus story to become alive and real in their minds and hearts...to experience the drama of a story that is real and true for all of us.

I had never really done this “musical Ignatian meditation” with other musicians before, but after our first take of Manna, which was one of the first songs we improvised together, we were shocked with joy and wonder. “Did that just happen?” It was a surreal and amazing experience to be with other musicians in a room, listening to the Holy Spirit and each other so intentionally for every change in mood, harmony, and character of the music... it was truly moving. And we really felt like we were praying together without using any words! Just music! We ended up recording for about 4 days. Some passages from Exodus came so naturally to all of us, and some required a lot of thought and planning about the progression and flow of the music. But ultimately, we wanted to keep the process as spontaneous and organic as possible to maintain the spirit of Ignatian meditation.

Ultimately, we hope that this album will not only encourage you to pray in a way that may be new to you, through musical meditation to help you use your whole imagination and experience the real drama of this story, but that each piece will allow you to enter more deeply into your story of God’s persistence and his saving love as he frees you from your bondage, whether it is sin, suffering, or any burdens that are preventing you from remembering your own goodness and your own worth. We hope to reclaim the awe and wonder of the miracles that God performed for his people, and that God sees our affliction and never rests in hearing our cries for him. And we hope that this music will renew you and nourish you for your journey to the promised land, to freedom and eternal union with Christ, our savior. Thank you and I’m praying for you!