I have spent much of the past weeks preparing, printing and improving the four new PDFs (Sermons/Songs x English/German) that are now on the Downloads page. These serve a double purpose:

1. They offer a convenient way to print out the sermons and songs, because to read them from a screen is not always optimal.
2. I will hand out copies of them at the live premiere of the entire (7 songs + 6 songs) results of this project.

I hope to celebrate premiere soon! Best would be two, one English, one German. My ideas for dramaturgy/liturgy of the whole thing as a 150 minutes event are identical for both languages and it makes sense to test them twice.

For this purpose I have finished the final four songs:

• The Game Song: an extra complicated one that requires at least two singers, where the text changes depending on the number of people who sing it.
• “I would that You look through my Heart: a love song originally written to one particular lovely lady, adapted into a song for all lovers.
• The Truth We Sing Out Loud: a song for everyone in attendance, that comes right after the fifth Sermon, i.e. right after the communal “raise” bit.
• Summa Summarum: song six is a postludium or medley with bits from each of the previous ones. This has no defined melody but can be sung with any of the others, or those of any other Common Metre song, exploiting how I constrained it all to this one poetic metre.

My fabulous father composed (or in the case of “The Leaves Upon a Tree begun” and “I would that You look through my Heart” wrote down the musical notation) for all of them because I remain a mere poet who can only do the lyrics part. The Six Songs are for the six breaks between the Seven Sermons, for loosening up and because two hours of uninterrupted meditation are an intimidating prospect for most people. I might post the new songs individually here at some point, just to have a convenient way to link to each, but for now having them in the PDFs seems sufficient.

In other news, I continue to parent and do my job, and oncological research on myself enabling all this even as my hilariously overpowered experimental chemotherapy continues.

I have made an oncological discovery that may make a positive difference for any chemotherapy patient who has any cancer other than leukemia.

A standard side effect of chemotherapy is persistent weakness and tiredness, caused by a depressed number of red blood cells.…

— Daniel Böttger 💖 (@7SecularSermons) July 26, 2025

I also began work on Horatius an der Brücke but it is on the back burner probably until after the premiere. And my far bigger next project after the Seven Secular Sermons is taking shape, but not yet ready to be announced.