The Night Spirit and The Dawn Air

Signs you are probably an Elitist Music Snob

2011-03-18T01:25:00.014-04:00

The fact that music is sold in Walmart or Starbucks makes you angry. You've also gotten angry at “corporate” radio, pop stars, and the thought that people you've never met could ever listen to that stuff.

You think Vinyl sounds better. You will argue this point at length with anyone, especially those who don’t give a shit.

You’ve used the phrase “Spoon-fed” or “The Masses”.

You know not to wear the t-shirt to the concert.

When someone says “Godspeed You Black Emperor”, you know exactly what they're talking about.

Your favourite holiday falls on the 3rd Saturday in April.

You have reorganized your record collection autobiographically, and/or reorganizing your collection is an all-night (maybe even an all-week) project instead of something that takes less than an hour. People who prefer to organize their music alphabetically disgust you.

You are proud that you don’t have certain kinds of music in your collection (you know, the kind of music that somehow gets spoon-fed to the masses).

"Sold-out" is an undesirable phase in a musician's career ("Those guys used to be good before they sold-out"). To everyone else this simply means they got popular.

You like to wear a t-shirt that advertises an indie record label. This is a whole new level of superiority over the other t-shirts you have by bands that no one else has heard of.

You throw rocks at young boys walking home from school because that's the closest you can come to throwing rocks at Justin Bieber.

The Importance of Silence in a Good Conversation

2011-02-08T05:53:00.002-05:00

Last year, during a radio interview, I was talking with David Dark about the first time he and I met, nearly 15 years ago, at a Bible study discussion group he was hosting down in Nashville, with about 20-25 people in attendance. As I mentioned in the interview, one of the striking features of this group was their comfortableness with silence during the discussion – what many people would consider undesirable “lulls” in the conversation. Silence was not something to be avoided or filled as much as possible in this group, it was rather time for people to think about what had just been said, and to think about what (if anything) they wanted to share. Only when someone actually had something to say did they say anything at all. This was very different from discussion groups I had participated in previously, where silence was something to be avoided on pain of embarrassing discomfort. Silence was Pressure, and as such, its avoidance usually trumped reflection and thoughtful response. I believe what I experienced in David’s discussion group for the first time (at least conversationally) was what I would later come to understand as the idea of a Free Space (more on this another time…).

The idea of silence as an important part of a good discussion may seem counterintuitive to many, but I have come to believe it is an essential element in any meaningful conversation, especially when the offering of a free space to others is a foundational concern. Not only does it give one time to reflect on what the other person has just said (allowing one to truly listen to the other rather than using the time the other person is talking to think of what they themselves want to say next), but it gives the person who has just spoken time to reflect on what they themselves have just said.

In C.S. Lewis’ book “Till We Have Faces”, there is a passage at the end where a complaint is voiced to the gods, ignorantly and redundantly. The gods do not offer a response. Instead, they offer silence, and in that silence the complaint is heard by the speaker herself, as though for the first time, heard for what it really is, and that realization of what she has just ignorantly dared to utter is her answer. Her eyes are opened and her mind is changed when nothing else has been changed and only silence has been offered to her. This response of no response is something we could learn a lot from in our personal interactions.

One of our most basic personal needs is to love others and to be loved in return. An essential part of this is the need to have something to offer, and for that to be accepted. One of the ways we can see this expressed is in the desire to be a part of the conversation, to have something to say, to be heard and appreciated, without being judged. Sometimes this desire to be a part of other people’s lives in this way takes priority over whether a person actually has something of their own to say or not, or whether they’ve thought through what they have to say. Often, people are in the process of finding their own voice (and all of us are in the process of refining our own voice). But to find one’s voice, one has to try on a variety of voices (opinions, ideas) to see what “fits”. And in one sense, *what* is said isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it is being offered as a way to participate in this life with others, one person reaching out to another person. Sometimes it is this much deeper intention that is important, and too often this deeper desire to connect with others is disregarded and damaged simply because of what was actually said, what words were used, which may have been of secondary or minor importance.

Too many of us (myself included) are “right-fighters”. When we hear someone say something we disagree with, we immediately feel the need to “correct” them. This puts the conversation in an “attack and defend” paradigm. And of course the first instinct one has when being attacked is to defend oneself. One of the major problems with this is that, as I’ve said, people often say things that they haven’t really thought through or internalized. Sometimes people are just “trying ideas on for size”. When we respond with an immediate attack on what they just said, putting them on the defensive, we often cause others to defend a position that was never really theirs in the first place. When a person’s “voice of the moment” is attacked instead of received for what it is, they have to defend that position in order to save face. “You don’t really believe that nonsense, do you?” If they say “oh, no I didn’t really mean that”, it can seem like something akin to giving in to bullying, or a protective way to hide their true selves and try to gain a false, conditional “acceptance” for something they are not. And so, the only other alternative is often to say “yes” and defend a position they might not have even held onto otherwise.

Silence, however, offers a way out of both of these undesirable alternatives. It offers a free space for a person to try out an idea and to hear it for themselves, and if they choose to, they can retract it, change their minds, without the feeling that they are giving-in to pressure or back peddling. And sometimes this might not happen for quite some time. But it will never happen in an “attack/defend” scenario where the only way a person can change their opinion is to be considered the defeated loser of the argument.

Besides, as I will talk more about in another entry, all we have in regards to truth are our own personal stories to offer. None of us have a monopoly on what’s “right”, and when we understand that people, at their core, desire relationship far more than “correctness”, we might start paying more attention to intention and relation, and start asking more questions about who this other person is, what kind of life led them to the place we now meet them, and why they really said what they did. And (horror of horrors) we might actually find our own opinions, rather than theirs, being changed in the process…

Conversational Dodgeball

2010-11-14T04:47:00.002-05:00

When it comes to conversations these days, especially about politics or religion, I think there are basically two different mindsets or approaches people engage in: One is somewhat similar to working on a jigsaw puzzle, where each person takes a turn trying to fit their pieces into place – looking at the big picture the way they see it, guessing at where in that picture the pieces they’re holding might go, basing their decisions on what their piece looks like to them in relation to the whole. But each person is working toward a common goal, each person wants the other’s pieces to fit in the right spot just as much as they do. And when it’s done right, each side is equally satisfied with the end result, with how it turned out.

The other approach is more akin to playing a game of dodgeball. There are clear sides to be taken, each with the objective that their side wins and the other side loses. And the harder you throw from your side at the other person, the more chance you have of emerging victorious in the battle. And you can’t let anything in from the other side because they only mean to knock you down. Anything they throw at you is an attack intended to make you lose. You can throw at them, but don’t let what they're throwing get at you.

One of the difficulties with this is that these approaches (or paradigms) are all in perception. Each person doesn’t know what conversational “game” the other is playing at – Dodgeball or the Jigsaw Puzzle. And if you don’t know what game the other is engaged in, you could walk out onto the gym floor with a puzzle piece and get seriously hurt.

And here’s another thing about these conversations – it doesn’t matter what game you or the other person say you are playing. Sometimes people think they’ve got a big round red puzzle piece and if they throw it hard enough they can force it to “fit” into the picture the way they think it should: “Here’s what I think…WHAP!”

I tend to be a jigsaw puzzle person myself (though I have indulged in some conversational dodgeball from time to time). I enjoy working with others in figuring out how the puzzle pieces fit together, and though we will often go back and forth debating what each piece is and how it fits the big picture, the conversations I enjoy involve working toward the same goal – a better understanding of the other’s position, and a desire to get to a picture of truth as best as we can. I generally hate sports, especially dodgeball. And I’ve gotten fairly good at recognizing when others are suiting up for a game of dodgeball – the stance they take, the defensive or offensive posture, the way they hold and present their argument – and I try to stay out of the game and go find people interested in working to make some sense out of the puzzle pieces.

I often see people, however, who keep walking out onto the gym floor with a puzzle piece, to where they think the puzzle is, only to get blindsided by a red ball smacking them in the face. Sometimes they instinctively react by saying “wtf are you doing?” and pick up the red ball to throw a fast-pitch at the other person, getting momentarily caught up in the angry adrenaline of the game, and sometimes they just catch the ball and walk off the court, pissing the other side off to no end. And because this is all a matter of perception, when they first walk out with their puzzle piece, intent on solving the puzzle with the other, the other side sees them walking out onto the court and think they’re holding a dodgeball. When they show them the puzzle piece and either tell them where they think it fits or asks them where they think it should fit, the viewpoint of the dodgeball player only sees a mean dodgeball being thrown at them, and their adrenaline rises. Often, as the other side is throwing dodgeballs, they’re missing, and so the puzzle person often doesn’t recognize them as dodgeballs being thrown until they get hit with one in shocked disbelief. I think those jigsaw puzzle people need to work on recognizing the difference between a puzzle-board and a gym floor, and the difference between people wanting to work on a puzzle together and people suiting up to hurl conversational dodgeballs at one another. In other words, stop a moment, take their eyes off the puzzle piece they’re holding and look at the others, see what kind of conversational “players” they are and make sure they’re headed to a puzzle-board and not a battle zone. And it helps a great deal to realize that some people are only interested in playing conversational dodgeball. Some people just find jigsaw puzzles boring and an unnecessarily complicated waste of time and aren’t interested in that kind of back-and-forth at all.

The bible puts this in another analogy: don’t throw your pearls before swine, otherwise they will trample that which you hold of value and then turn to trample you.

So the question is: what do you do when you’re trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together and someone starts throwing conversational dodgeballs at you?

My Top 200 CCM Rock Albums of All-Time

2010-07-25T04:08:00.002-04:00

HM magazine recently put up their list of the top 100 CCM rock records of all-time, and quite frankly, I thought it was horrible. And so, in response to that (even though I almost never listen to CCM anymore), I started my own list, in the spirit of the wonderful Rolling Stone Magazine Top-500 Albums of All-Time list put out quite a few years ago. This is currently a rough draft, is VERY subjective, and probably has a lot of holes in it, as well as a few artists that were over-represented. For those of you interested in this sort of thing, let me know what you think, what I left off, all that good stuff. I tried to keep this in the CCM pop/rock/metal arena, and with a very few exceptions, stayed away from the "Christians in the mainstream" artists. The exceptions here (Kansas, U2, King's X, etc.) are artists and/or albums that were exceptionally popular among the CCM rock listening audience at the time. there are also a very few albums that I personally don't care for, but a slice of objectivity made it into my decision and I tried to recognize a few albums that are generally considered classics among fans (ex - Prayer Chain). but I still refuse to put Audio Adrenaline on here! You'll also have no problem recognizing which decade(s) I grew up in and/or thought had the best music. This isn't really in strict order, though the top 50 are probably in the ballpark, and the top 10 are pretty solid for me personally. it gets less prioritized the farther down it goes, till the last 100 are just a sloppy mess of titles that I think should be in there somewhere. and so... my nomination for the Top 200 CCM Pop/Rock/Metal Albums of All-Time:

1. Kansas – Drastic Measures
2. Sweet Comfort Band – Perfect Timing
3. The Daniel Band – Straight Ahead
4. Undercover – Balance of Power
5. Sixpence None the Richer – This Beautiful Mess
6. Petra – Not of This World
7. Amy Grant – Lead Me On
8. Rez – Between Heaven N Hell
9. Margaret Becker – Immigrant’s Daughter
10. Undercover – Branded
11. LifeSavers Underground – Shaded Pain
12. Resurrection Band – Colours
13. Stryper – Soldiers Under Command
14. The Violet Burning – Chosen
15. Altar Boys – Gut Level Music
16. Michael W. Smith – Eye 2 I
17. Jerusalem – Live In His Majesty’s Service
18. Larry Norman –Only Visiting This Planet
19. Daniel Amos – Doppelganger
20. Idle Cure – Tough Love
21. Jennifer Knapp – The Way I Am
22. Sarah Masen – The Dreamlife of Angels
23. Mylon & Broken Heart – Face the Music
24. Amy Grant – Straight Ahead
25. Whiteheart – Freedom
26. Stryper – To Hell With The Devil
27. King’s X – Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
28. Adam Again – Dig
29. U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
30. The 77’s – Pray Naked
31. Bride – Snakes in the Playground
32. Daniel Amos – Horrendous Disc
33. Michael W. Smith – The Big Picture
34. Amy Grant – Age to Age
35. Degarmo & Key – D&K
36. Whitecross – (1987)
37. Shout – In Your Face
38. Barren Cross – Rock for the King
39. Kim Hill – Brave Heart
40. Out of the Grey – (debut)
41. Charlie Peacock – The Secret of Time
42. Mad at the World – Flowers in the Rain
43. Sacred Warrior – Rebellion
44. The Choir – Chase the Kangaroo
45. Bloodgood – Rock in a Hard Place
46. Mylon & Broken Heart – Sheep in Wolve’s Clothing
47. Daniel Amos – Alarma!
48. The 77’s – All Fall Down
49. Undercover – God Rules
50. Stryper – The Yellow and Black Attack
51. Holy Soldier – Holy Soldier
52. Resurrection Band – Mommy Don’t Love Daddy Anymore
53. Guardian – Fire and Love
54. Mastedon – It’s a Jungle Out There
55. Adam Again – Ten Songs
56. The Daniel Band – Run from the Darkness
57. Steven Curtis Chapman – More to this Life
58. Petra – Beat the System
59. Mad at the World – Seasons of Love
60. Saviour Machine – 1
61. Altar Boys – Against the Grain
62. Steve Taylor – Meltdown
63. Mortal – Lusis
64. Darrell Mansfield – Revelation
65. Bloodgood – All Stand Together
66. Margaret Becker – The Reckoning
67. The Choir – Circle Slide
68. One Bad Pig – Smash
69. Mad at the World – Boomerang
70. Resurrection Band – D.M.Z.
71. Mike Stand – Do I Stand Alone?
72. Bryan Duncan – Holy Rollin’
73. Whitecross – Hammer and Nail
74. Messiah Prophet – Master of the Metal
75. Rez – Silence Screams
76. Barren Cross – Atomic Arena
77. Greg X. Volz – The River is Rising
78. Matthew Ward – Toward Eternety
79. Larry Norman – In Another Land
80. Amy Grant – Unguarded
81. The 77’s – The Seventy Sevens (Exit)
82. Russ Taff – Russ Taff
83. Vector – Mannequin Virtue
84. Barnabas – Little Foxes
85. Rez – Innocent Blood
86. Dead Artist Syndrome – Prints of Darkness
87. Stryper – Against the Law
88. Kerry Livgren / A.D. – Timeline
89. Randy Stonehill – Equator
90. Daniel Amos – Mr. Buechner’s Dream
91. Vengeance Rising – Human Sacrifice
92. Steve Taylor – I Predict 1990
93. Mylon & Broken Heart – Crack the Sky
94. Geoff Moore & The Distance – A Place to Stand
95. Petra – More Power to Ya
96. Holy Soldier – Last Train
97. Whiteheart – Tales of Wonder
98. Margaret Becker – Simple House
99. Terry Taylor – Knowledge and Innocence
100. Rich Mullins – A Liturgy, A Legacy, and A Ragamuffin Band
101. Out of the Grey – The Shape of Grace
102. Charlie Peacock – Love Life
103. Keith Green – For Him Who Has Ears to Hear
104. Mortal – Wake
105. The 77’s – Sticks and Stones
106. Prodigal – Electric Eye
107. Barren Cross – State of Control
108. The Crucified – The Crucified
109. Resurrection Band – Awaiting Your Reply
110. Pray for Rain – PFR
111. Kim Hill
112. In 3-D – No Glasses Needed
113. Liason – Liason
114. Jacob’s Trouble – Knock, Breathe, Shine
115. The Prayer Chain – Shawl
116. 4.4.1. – Mourning into Dancing
117. Servant – Light Maneuvers
118. Rez Band – Bootleg Live
119. Circle of Dust – Circle of Dust
120. Barnabas – Approaching Light Speed
121. L.S.U. – Wakin’ Up The Dead
122. Altar Boys – When You’re a Rebel
123. Daniel Amos – Vox Humana
124. Tourniquet – Stop the Bleeding
125. Bloodgood – Detonation
126. Hoi Polloi – Happy Ever After
127. Deliverance
128. Edin Adahl – X-Factor
129. Imperials – This Year’s Model
130. Saint – Too Late for Living
131. Bride – Silence is Madness
132. The Choir – Wide Eyed Wonder
133. Russ Taff – Medals
134. Jerusalem – Warrior
135. Sacred Warrior – Wicked Generation
136. Barnabas – Feel the Fire
137. The Front – The Front
138. Newsboys – Hell is for Wimps
139. Steven Curtis Chapman – Real Life Conversations
140. David Zaffiro – The Other Side
141. Mad at the World – Mad at the World
142. Leslie "Sam" Phillips - The Turning
143. One Bad Pig – Swine Flew
144. Michael W. Smith – Project
145. Idle Cure – 2nd Avenue
146. Fireworks - Live Fireworks!
147. Lifesavers – Kiss of Life
148. Sacred Warrior – Master’s Command
149. Ken Tamplin – An Axe to Grind
150. Believer – Extraction from Mortality
151. L.S.U. – The Grape Prophet
152. Daniel Amos – Motorcycle
153. Mad at the World – Through the Forest
154. Crumbacher – Thunder Beach
155. The Lead – Burn this Record
156. Deliverance – Weapons of Our Warfare
157. Jerusalem – Prophet
158. Mortal – Fathom
159. The Violet Burning – (1996)
160. X-Sinner – Get It
161. Angelica
162. Scattered Few – Sin Disease
163. Michael Knott – Screaming Brittle Siren
164. The Choir – Kissers and Killers
165. Kansas – Vinyl Confessions
166. Sweet Comfort Band – Hearts of Fire
167. Iona - Beyond These Shores
168. Randy Stonehill – Welcome to Paradise
169. Larry Norman – Stranded in Babylon
170. Whitecross – Triumphant Return
171. Margaret Becker - Falling Forward
172. Idle Cure – Idle Cure
173. Sacred Warrior – Wicked Generation
174. Undercover – Boys and Girls Renounce the World
175. Mike Stand – Simple Expression
176. Pray for Rain – Goldie’s Last Day
177. Uthanda – Groove
178. Rage of Angels – Rage of Angels
179. L.S.U. – Cash in Chaos: World Tour
180. Brow Beat: Unplugged Alternative (various)
181. Deliverance – Stay of Execution
182. Tourniquet – Vanishing Lessons
183. Steve Taylor – On the Fritz
184. Ojo – Relative
185. Terry Taylor – A Briefing for the Ascent
186. A.D. – Art of the State
187. Steve Camp – One on One
188. Margaret Becker – Never for Nothing
189. Starflyer 59 – (silver)
190. Bride – Kinetic Faith
191. Michael Gleason – Children of Choices
192. D.A. – Darn Floor, Big Bite
193. The Choir – Diamonds and Rain
194. Rick Cua – Wear Your Colours
195. Whiteheart – Emergency Broadcast
196. Petra – Beyond Belief
197. Kansas – Leftoverture
198. The 77’s – More Miserable Than You’ll Ever Be
199. Mylon & Broken Heart – Big World
200. Phil Keaggy – Sunday’s Child

A Conversation with David Dark

2010-06-11T16:27:00.007-04:00

Here's a link to a compressed audio download of a 2-hour discussion/radio interview Bill Keith and I had with David Dark back at the end of May. Thanks to my friend Andrew for putting in a little elbow grease to make this available online.

My Testimony: How I went into debt and started smoking due to the influence of Over the Rhine...

2010-05-31T00:57:00.006-04:00

This is an appreciation piece I wrote a few years ago for my all-time favourite band, published privately in a book by and for fans called "etcetera whatever: Photos, poems and prose inspired by Over the Rhine"

It was back in the Summer of '93, on an old pigfarm in western Illinois littered with thousands of tents, the air polluted with dust, heat, noise, and exhaustion, when I first encountered that voice that stopped me dead in my tracks. Something was happening under one of the concert tents that never happens at Cornerstone - the crowd was completely silent, listening to this beautiful, quiet voice singing its way into each person's soul. Amidst all the confusion that is a typical Cornerstone, you could hear a pin drop. I don't remember what the song was, but the band wasn't playing, it was just her voice. It was impossible for me to just walk by. I stopped and listened, and my spirit was held captive by an artistic beauty I had never known before. And my life, from that moment on, was changed...

Before encountering the music of Over the Rhine, I really didn't have much in the way of discerning artistic taste. I was mostly a pop and metal kind of guy, with a newfound love of alternative that would eventually take over. I was into CCM / Christian rock, having basically grown up on the stuff, yet growing tired of the shallow confines of that genre. I remember feeling like there must be more to a life of faith than what the Christian subculture was offering. I read authors like John Fischer and Brennan Manning who were crystallizing and clarifying my understanding of the dissatisfaction and misgivings I was having about that little "christian" world around me. Into this moment in my life of wanting more depth and artistic integrity came the music of two groups who were offering, each in their own way, what I was starved for: Over the Rhine and Vigilantes of Love (two groups that, for many of us, were like 2 sides of the same coin). They opened my eyes to a whole other world of artistic expression of faith that existed not inside the confining walls of the CCM "ghetto", but instead was active in the everyday world. I started noticing a life of faith in a multitude of artists whom I would have previously written off as "secular" simply because they weren't advertising themselves as "Christian" product. Over the Rhine helped draw me away from that place of spiritual condescension by exemplifying how true beauty and artistic integrity could embody a life of faith without needing to compromise either, nor needing to advertise itself as such. Simone Weil says "If I had to choose between loving Christ and loving the truth, I would have to choose to love the truth, convinced that if I am truly seeking the truth, I will eventually fall into the arms of Christ." In the religious circles I knew, it was sometimes true that, in seeking "Christ", people often ended up with an idol of their own making. Over the Rhine isn't exactly an overtly religious group. In fact, many of their avid fans have no interest in religion whatsoever. Over the Rhine express their faith not in ostensibly evangelistic ways, but rather through the continual pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. In doing so, I believe they have done more to deepen my faith in more meaningfully real ways than anything I was previously encountering in the so-called "Contemporary Christian Music" scene.

A few years later, at Cornerstone once again, I was feeling rather lost and discouraged with where my life had taken me (or where I had not taken my life as the case may be). Over the Rhine was the first group to play that year, at the Gallery "pre-festival" show. They were just the right way to start things off for me, and as a surprise, they had just released a new CD! I took that CD back to my tent, put the headphones on, and the first lines of Good Dog Bad Dog cut straight into my heart, resonating immediately with my emotional state at the time. "What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be." The lyrics and music on that CD were exactly what I needed to hear right then, and it reached me perfectly in a way that few CDs ever have. I will never forget that moment. It instantly became my favourite CD, and they secured their place as my favourite group ever. I soon started digging deeper into who this band was and what they were all about.

In an old newsletter from Over the Rhine, Linford writes about sitting in the back of Kaldi's coffeehouse & bookstore, picturing the Inklings meeting in a place like this, C.S. Lewis smoking his pipe and writing (as Linford was now)...
In the spring of 2001, I was also sitting in the back of Kaldi's in downtown Cincinnati, used books lining the walls around me, thinking not of the Inklings, but wondering rather if this was the spot Linford sat at as he wrote that newsletter. I was smoking, not a pipe, but a clove - whose sweet aroma I first (and for many years only) smelled at Over the Rhine concerts, and have since always associated with their music. This was partly due both to their playing in college-towns and to the guy selling their merchandise back then. Todd used to smoke cloves at their gypsy-ish table while selling things like cigar boxes filled with CDs, trading cards, and t-shirts with pictures of clocks and hermits on them.

There has always been something extremely literary about the way Over the Rhine presented themselves, from the fondness for antique photographs, to their poetic lyrics inspired by authors like Rilke, Flannery O'Conner, Maya Angelou, Thomas Merton, Annie Dillard, Madeleine L'Engle, etc... This literary aspect was one of the key elements of the group that pushed me past being a mere fan to outright obsession (or "commitment", as they would call it). When you are touched so deeply in your soul by art such as this, you want to know where the artists draw their inspiration from - what feeds their spirits and fills those deep wells from which we, the listeners, draw so much life. In those early days especially, the answer you would usually get to that question was (more often than not) the name of a book or author. And soon a bookish cult developed among some of us fans. We would look for literary references in their music, during interviews, while reading those old newsletters, or just while talking with them after shows, making a list for our next trip to the bookstore. They even had weekly recommendations on the website for a while, which brought me back there religiously. I admit to going into a bit of debt filling my bookshelves with their recommendations! But, as the saying goes, I may be broke from buying too many books, but am far richer because of it...

I was in Cincinnati that time because I was on my way south to visit the monastery where Thomas Merton had lived. When Over the Rhine were in my town earlier that year, their current merch guy (and pastor), Dave Nixon, invited me to stay at his house when I was in town. Now this guy didn't know me from Jack the Ripper, and yet these are the kinds of people you find in attendance at Over the Rhine gatherings, welcoming the stranger and all that... Dave showed me around town a bit, driving with me to see the group at a concert hall near the infamous "Sudsy Malones" where they played some of their first shows. Dave also showed me where "The Grey Ghost" was - the beautiful house Karin and Linford were living in at the time. The thought crossed my mind that Linford's book collection was right in there, and how cool would it be to actually look firsthand at the library that inspired so much of mine?!

Over the years I have seen the group over 40 times in concert, collected all their CDs, and never have I been disappointed by their music; never has it failed to move me or to restore my spirit and remind me of where I want to be, what kind of person I hope to become. They've given me far more that just a row of CDs for my collection. Among other things, they've shown how genuine faith can be expressed in the world - artfully, with truth and integrity - and I can't imagine what my life today would be like without their influence, much less how empty my bookshelves would be...

true friendship (a quote by David Dark)

2010-01-14T04:17:00.005-05:00

This may be my favourite quote by David... at least at this moment it certainly hits home and "names" it pretty accurately. Rejection is almost universally one of our greatest fears, one of our greatest hurts, and one of our greatest sins.
(I'm modifying this slightly into the present tense)

"No so-called friendship that requires the denying of another friendship can be worthy of the name, and any joy that requires the exclusion of a peer will be forever illegitimate."

-David Dark (Everyday Apocalyptic)

Quote by: Alan Watts

2010-01-06T02:06:00.005-05:00

The message of the preacher, 52 Sundays a year, is “Dear people: be good”. We’ve heard it ad nauseum. Or: “Believe in this…” he may occasionally give a sermon on what happens after death, or the nature of God, but basically the sermon is “be good”. But how? As St. Paul said, “To will is present with me, but how to do that which is good I find not for the good that I would, that I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do”. How are we going to be changed? Obviously there cannot be a vitality of religion without vital religious experience, and that’s something much more than emoting over singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”. But you see, what happens in our ecclesiastical goings-on is that we run a talking-shop. We pray, we tell God what to do, or give advice (as if he didn’t know). We read the scriptures – and remember, talking of the bible, Jesus said, “you search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life”. St. Paul made some rather funny references about the spirit which giveth life, and the letter which kills. I think the bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book, and to worship it is, of course, a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone, because nobody in his senses can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract... So with this endless talking in church, we can preach, but by and large preaching does nothing but excite a sense of anxiety and guilt. And you can’t love out of that. No scolding, no rational demonstration of the right way to behave is going to inspire people with love. Something else must happen. You say “well what are we going to do about it?” DO about it?? You have no faith? Be quiet! Even Quakers aren’t quiet; they sit in meeting and think (at least some of them do). But supposing we are really quiet, we don’t think. Be absolutely silent through and through… You say, “Well, you’ll just fall into a blank!” Oh? Ever tried?

-Alan Watts

2009-12-07T01:45:00.000-05:00

"If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not "washing the dishes to wash the dishes." What's more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life."

- Thich Naht Hanh

Only This Moment

2009-12-03T00:24:00.003-05:00

I only just saw this for the first time yesterday, but after watching it a few dozen times I'm going to go ahead and call this one of my favourite videos of all-time.

Only This Moment from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

random notes from the underground, october '09

2009-10-18T02:54:00.005-04:00

despite what I wrote at the end of my last post, I'm just going to indulge in some completely pointless self-centered writing here...

So we're here in the middle of my favourite month of the year, and so far it's been a very cold and rainy one (we've had highs in the 40's most of this week). I spent these last couple days off here in the middle of October just wandering around to all my favourite haunts, past and present...

started Friday with a trip to an old pool hall I used to go to all the time in high school, where I got some pizza and watched a new generation of degenerates shoot some 8-ball in this smoke stained, run down rat hole. last time I was here shooting pool was probably around 20 years ago, listening to Whitesnake or something like that...

then I stopped in at Borders just to browse, and sometimes when you do this, you just get lucky... there in the bargain racks was Annie Dillard's latest novel, The Maytrees, hardcover originally priced at $25, slashed to $3. not the best cover-art I've seen on a book, but for 3 bucks who cares... and then I get to the cashier and she tells me that price is wrong. it's not 3 bucks after all. I'm prepared to argue the matter, give her hell if need be, false advertising / sticker price and all, when she tells me it's not $3...it's $1. I paid a buck for a new copy of a book by one of my top 5 favourite authors that I almost paid over 20 bucks for when it first came out. pretty happy with that, though I'll probably never get around to reading it...

Caribou coffeehouse had a raspberry mocha with my name on it, and a seat where I started a book with Frederick Buechner's name on it: The Book of Bebb - 4 novels collected into one thick paperback that I've been meaning to read since I bought it about 15 years ago. I'm now in the middle of about 7 books, and thinking of starting in on a couple more. something about October and the fall air that makes me want to dig into some good books...

What am I reading, you ask? well, even if you didn't, here it is:
Tao Teh Ching (John C.H. Wu translation)
Book of Bebb (Frederick Buechner)
The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (David Dark)
Zen and the Birds of Appetite (Thomas Merton)
Duma Key (Stephen King)
Henry and June (Anais Nin) (haven't picked this up again since summertime)
No Man is an Island (Thomas Merton) (been "reading" this for a couple years now)

onto this stack I'm thinking of adding Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (no, I haven't read all of these yet, and I've somehow managed to avoid most news of how it all ends, even to this day), and Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil (haven't read that one yet either. and yes, I just heard an astonished cry of disbelief come from a certain close friend of mine all the way out in Utah!)

My reading level has been shit these past couple years. I usually get through around 20-25 books a year, and I don't think I've even finished half that many these past 2 years combined. 2008 sucked worse than any year has for me in decades, and 2009 is slowly trying to get things back on track despite my resistance.

I've always considered the cultivation of one's inner-life to be of primary importance, and reading has always been an essential part of this. But I discovered last year that this has always been, for me, a by-product of my ease-of-life. I'm able to take the time to cultivate my inner-life as long as I'm not worried about my outer-life. But when I am suddenly worried about where my next paycheck is going to come from and how I'm supposed to pay off my bills and my debts, when I'm trying not to take too many sleeping pills with my whiskey, so-to-speak, the "luxury" of cultivating an inner-life flies right out the window. It's hard to finish the chapter you're on when the boat you're sitting in is sinking. like, maybe you need to put the book down and find yourself a life-jacket at the very least, like maybe the best use of your time at this particular moment isn't the reading of some more books...

...and this little experience has shown me something ("I've learned something today", as Stan would say at the end of South Park). There is a very insidious temptation for the cultivation of one's inner life to become an escape from, rather than a fuller engagement with, one's "real" or "outer" life. the phrase "so heavenly minded you're no earthly good" comes to mind. and it's hard to tell the difference, because the one can feel an awful lot like the other when you're doing it. But I think the true cultivation of one's inner life prepares a person better for the storms of life, perhaps becomes an even more important practice in the face of them. For some people, the hardships and worries of life actually fuel the pursuit of the inner life. but if it's something you have to put on hold till the storms pass, my guess is it was probably just another form of escape, a game, an illusion. Was it real at one time? I think so, but who's to say... What I do know is that I no longer judge people who don't take the time to read anymore, when most people (especially in today's economy) are worried about losing their jobs and how they're going to support their families. The cares of this life can choke the life out of your days...

While we're on the subject of narcissism, I watched a great movie this past week by one of my favourite film writers/directors (Charlie Kaufman), called "Synecdoche, New York". I can't do any better describing it than Cary did last year, so I'll just say, if you find yourself thinking about death more than twice a week, you really need to see this film! it's maybe depressing as hell, but I laughed a good deal through most of it, partly at Kaufman's humor, and partly because I related to more of it than I care to admit...

Today I went to the library and picked up a couple CDs, then went to the cider mill for some cinnamon donuts, cider, and a walk along the creek. it was too cold for any kind of real enjoyment, but I did my best to soak in the autumn sights and smells anyway (if you haven't smelled donuts frying alongside cider being pressed and poured in a building that is surrounded by falling leaves, you don't know what autumn smells like).

After this, I would've gotten a haircut, but they apparently close early on Saturdays, so I went to the mall like a girl and bought some shoes instead. almost bought a Depeche Mode Tshirt too, but I don't need any more concert tshirts just yet. maybe next week...

a short walk around an old neighborhood I used to love, then home for some late dinner and coffee. and here I am, at 4 in the morning, writing this dribble, as they say, "just to fuckin' write". I should just delete this whole thing right now and not subject you to any of this. but I think my narcissistic exhibitionistic side is going to win out today. If you're reading this right now, it has... and I'm sorry...

The Written Life (or, "What The Hell Am I Supposed To Do With This Blog?!")

2009-10-07T05:32:00.038-04:00

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

"Your freedom is a by-product of your day's triviality...
What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing...
Write as if you were dying... What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?" - Annie Dillard (The Writing Life)

"No good for an old memory to mean so much today" - Night Ranger

At midnight last night, I stepped out into the windy autumn streets of my neighbourhood, lit with a nearly full moon in a mostly cloudless sky, and went for one of my many late-night walks, armed with a flashlight, phone, and pocket knife. The knife was a Christmas gift, given to me 25 years ago. I used to carry pocket knives around with me back then, mostly due to the bad influence of the books I had read as an adolescent - specifically Tom Sawyer, and The Outsiders. I remember once, in the autumn of '84, walking with Brian and Karen through the woods and neighborhood by their house late at night, when a car pulled up slowly by us. In a moment of typical teenage melodrama, fueled in no small part by having seen and read The Outsiders way too many times, I handed Karen my knife "just in case", thinking maybe it was a carload of Socs come to jump us or something stupid like that. I don't know what I thought she was going to do with it, but I vaguely remember us picking up the pace back to their house while the car pulled into the driveway it was headed for, probably only vaguely aware that we were even there...

I have countless memories from that, my 9th grade year, and they are among some of the best of my life. I have memories, but I have no written account of that year - none that I kept at the time anyway. I was simply living in the moment, unaware that those days would ever end. But end they did, as early as the following school year, which was one of the worst in my memory, and it was then that I came to the awareness that the times I lived and loved could and would end, that life didn't have a rewind button for us to go back and relive the best moments of our lives (or redo the times we really messed things up), and this was the seed that grew into my practice of journaling the days of my life. (it was also the beginning of my OCD music collection, as I collected nearly every song that was a hit on the radio during that year, discovering that I could at least relive a portion of those times through the music we listened to... but that is another blog entry). I miss those days sometimes and still wish, 25 years later, that I had kept some sort of record of them - something I could hold onto from that time, something to remind me...

My practice of journaling started out simply as keeping an outlined record of what I did that day, nothing too in-depth or serious. "went to movies w/ Brian & Karen, McD after, hang out at their house at night"...that sort of thing. In my senior year, I made a wall calendar with those little squares for the dates, and used that as my journal. The following year I bought a similar wall calendar, and for the next 7 or 8 years, with a new wall calender for each new year, my journal was right there on my wall for all to see, much of it abbreviated to fit in the tiny squares. The scrolls of my life story, which are still tucked away in my closet. If a day was particularly memory-worthy, I would dedicate a separate journal entry to it and denote "JE" in that day's square.

Somewhere along my early college days I was inspired to start journaling more as a spiritual practice. A friend from high school, Jill, was one of those people whose faith and life was of a kind that I aspired to, and when I asked her more about her personal spiritual practices, she told me that journaling was essential for her. After this, I bought a drugstore spiral notebook (college lined with yellow pages) and gave it a shot. It was the beginning of the reflective cultivation of an inner-life, a deeper awareness of the life I was living and the direction I was (and/or wanted to be) heading. I don't know that my journals have ever reached the promise of such a lofty description, especially back then when I was a teenage evangelical Christian (some of those early writings are rather painfully embarrassing to read now). But that was the path I started on back then, one which I still travel along and aspire to in my personal writings and reflections.

Along the way, there have been many other people who have inspired and influenced my own journal writing. My friend Rachael, another person who had the kind of faith-expressed-in-life that I admired, actually let me read her journals sometimes. She probably inspired me to start buying actual hardback "blank book" journals instead of just writing my thoughts in looseleaf notepads. Her journals were the first I read that sort of modeled what personal spiritual reflection looked like in another person's writings. Over the years I have enjoyed, been inspired by, and benefited from reading the published journals of many great writers, most notably those by Thomas Merton, Madeleine L'Engle, and Malcolm Muggeridge (whose book "Like It Was" was probably the first of such published journals I had read, and was a key influence on my own writings post-college, in it's style and type of substance). I also found inspiration many times from a book with the unfortunate title "How To Keep A Spiritual Journal" (by Ronald Klug). This book is simply a basic overview of just about everything a person might write about in a journal, and served many times as a good kick-start for those uninspired dry times.

For me, the best kind of journal writing is a combination of recording the day's events (by that I mean personal events, not necessarily "the news of the day"), along with personal thoughts and reflections on those events and the course of one's life in general, seasoned with writings of a topical nature wherein one works out one's thoughts and feelings on any given subject of concern or interest - a practice that sharpens the mind and (among other things) makes one's conversation more lucid and interesting. It is both a means of reflection and of remembering one's life and those who shared it with us. And it has to be a completely free space, where thoughts and feelings can be expressed and worked through without editing or censorship - without fear of others reading it. This last bit is of course the most dangerous thing about journaling, as the written word is powerful, and can not only be embarrassing if read by others, but has the power to really hurt those who are mentioned in its pages. But I feel that for a journal to be worth it, this risk must be taken. And the paradox here is that, while writing, it is often helpful to think of it as something being written to someone else - an unidentified "reader". This helps add clarification and some sense of narrative, rather than just throwing down a bunch of disconnected and half-baked thoughts and sentences.

I remember reading in one of the Harry Potter books, where Dumbledore has a bowl where he would store strands of his thoughts, so he could separate himself from his thoughts and concerns and view them objectively, I remember this resonating with me immediately as the essence of journaling.

One of the most rewarding things about keeping a journal over the years is being able to go back and read what I've written (embarrassing though this sometimes is). It is amazing to read some of the moments I have forgotten about, the details I never would have remembered, and also the perspective I sometimes gain from reading what a younger me once thought and felt, the struggles I was going through that either seem trivial in the light of the years gone by (knowing what actually happened as compared to what I was worried would or would not happen), or are struggles I am still dealing with these many years later. I've looked back at things I've written so many years ago, and I can't believe that I'm still dealing with the same thing, still worrying or struggling with this very same problem. And this, too, gives perspective on how to deal with these persistent problems. It can make me realize that the way I've been dealing with it or thinking about it hasn't done anything to solve things...time for a new strategy...or perhaps it's time to accept things and let go the idea that they are going to change, let go the burden of worrying about it. Sometimes this is discouraging, and sometimes this brings a sense of relief - a burden I've been carrying around for years doesn't have to be the same kind of burden anymore...

In late '96 I bought my first "nice" journal from Barnes & Noble (beyond the cheap hardback blank books I had been getting at Meijers), and kept what I still consider to be one of my best and most coherent journals, which incorporated all the elements I talked about earlier. I was, at the time, planning to move to Nashville at the end of the year, and perhaps that somehow focused my mind in a way that led to better writing. I think also, perhaps in a shallow or superficial way, that the quality of the book one is writing in, the look and feel of the journal itself and the quality of its pages, affects the quality of what one writes inside... though this can work negatively in reverse, when the journal is too nice and you feel that what you have to say isn't worthy of the book you're about to write it in, and so you leave its pages blank.

And so these were the beginnings of the snowball that started rolling down the mountain...

I realized the other day, after buying another beautiful black leather-bound journal, that I seem to have a journal fetish (I can already hear some of you exclaiming "no shit Sherlock"). I have at least 25 journals of various quality on my shelves - some of the early ones no more than drugstore notepads, some just cheap small hardbacked books, all the way across the spectrum to a few beautiful leather-bound ones that cost between $50-80. Some (at least 10) are filled with my life and thoughts, and some are still waiting for the story that will be written in their expectant pages...

Which brings me to this blog, which I started over 3 years ago, and one of the reasons why I haven't written anything here for a while. Among other things, I've been struggling with what exactly I do and don't want to post here. I'm quite frankly not interested in adding another collection of "op-ed" opinion pieces to the blogosphere pile. Many others do that, and do it well, much better than I could. I'm not interested in pointing out the faults of others, using this as a soapbox to show how right I am and how wrong "they" are. I've hurt too many people along the way doing just that, and when I put my mind to it, I'm too good at tearing others down in the name of speaking the truth. and in those moments I'm not very good at all at realizing that I "see but through a glass darkly", nor am I very sensitive to the damage I cause when I rail against the place another happens to be in on their particular journey through life. We're all just groping in the dark, and for me to bash another for not holding the whole truth, when I myself don't hold it either, is just ugly arrogance at best. and I don't want this to be an exercise in vanity.

I also don't ever want my writings to be divorced from my life (which many "opinion pieces" can be). I want something of who I am to bleed through in these writings, for people to get to know me, a sort of invitation to join me along the way, perhaps by relating to or resonating with something I say, and feeling free enough to share something of themselves in response without fear of ridicule or judgement or argument (Lord save us from the shouting match!). I have no interest in hitting people's "hot buttons" in the name of more "hits". I am interested in conversation, or more specifically, in relation. (That's kind of an odd way to put it, I know...) I guess I'm more interested in the kind of writing that could be called "personal reflection / meditation", with a healthy dose of memoir thrown in.

...and yet, I don't want to fall into the exhibitionism of spilling my guts out for everyone to roll their eyes at, where I vomit my feelings all over the reader so that they know just what I've been going through! I look over my entries from the past couple years and realize I've crossed that line too often. And this is where the practice of "keeping a journal" for others to read is contrary to my very foundational belief of how to keep an honest and worthwhile journal - complete freedom and lack of self-censorship. Writing with an audience in mind is a whole other ballgame, and I'm not sure that, as far as this blog is concerned, I quite know how to walk that fine line between the two extremes, while staying true to what I do - and do not - want to do.

But, when it's all said and done, I do think it's pretty cool to be able to "publish" ones writings to a potentially wide readership in a way that has never before been possible. and so I will continue to plug away at this (as time permits) and struggle with just what I might have to say here that is worth another's time to read. and I hope that you, dear reader, will feel welcome and free enough to offer your thoughts and opinions on what I share here as well (I'm pretty sure all bloggers, like all good indie rockers, love feedback!), while hopefully putting something of yourself and your personal story into the mix. I like to know why people think and feel the way they do, and not just exchange disconnected points of opinion. It's much harder to disagree with someone's life-path that leads them to a certain opinion (or "way of thinking") than it is to disagree with the disconnected opinion they put in front of them.

2009-08-30T04:49:00.001-04:00

"My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”
- Miles Davis

2009-08-20T05:27:00.001-04:00

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

-Aristotle

2009-08-12T15:31:00.005-04:00

...because you know if you play New Kids on the Block albums backwards they sound better. "Oh come on, Bill, they're the New Kids, don't pick on them, they're so good and they're so clean cut and they're such a good image for the children." Fuck that! When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children? I want my children to listen to people who fucking ROCKED! I don't care if they died in puddles of their own vomit! I want someone who plays from his fucking HEART!

-Bill Hicks

...maybe we'd all be served a whole lot better by not worrying about profanity so much as looking for honest conversation across the generations about how all these prophets had something worth listening to and thinking about...

...clean is good for an addict, but rarely should it be found in the language of an artist, because the raw beauty and tragedy of life is never ever clean, from the moment we are born...

if education is that which leads to liberation, then some lessons in life deserve to be expressed in profanity. and some lessons are worth carving in stone.

-Cary Gibson

Here I Go Again to another Judas Priest concert to see the opening band

2009-08-02T01:06:00.011-04:00

This was my starting seat for Whitesnake when they opened for Judas Priest here in Detroit 2 weeks ago. I got closer (yes, closer) and fully centered about halfway into it (unfortunately my phone was out of picture memory). will probably be my favourite concert of the summer, and if you're a hater I don't give a flying flip what you think about that! :-P
80's metalheads represent... \m/

(last year I went to Judas Priest to see openers Motorhead and Dio Black Sabbath, and missed Testament with much gnashing of teeth. but it was free for me, so there wasn't that much gnashing)

"Don't ever let anyone make you afraid..." (David Coverdale)

2009-08-01T16:17:00.003-04:00

WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS

2009-07-31T15:01:00.003-04:00

"... faith cannot for me be based on believing _in_ something but only being drawn into a way of being..." -Cary "Little Bird" Gibson

that syncs up quite nicely with my favourite concept of late from Karen Armstrong, that the word or idea "believe" at one point not so long ago wouldn't have made sense to people apart from a changed life. To "believe" wasn't to give mental assent to a concept the way we use the word now. which, I think, also fits nicely with Andrew's (or should I say Bruce's) latest post on evangelizing young children. which reminds me of something I heard somewhere recently about the "spare the rod and spoil the child" rationalization for hitting kids (and please believe me when I say that I am no anti-spanking spokesman... I sometimes whack em just for the hell of it), that the "rod" in that scripture is referring to a shepherds rod, which, though it may be used for the occasional whap, was primarily used as a tool of guidance. why people think that getting a child to repeat the sinner's prayer is the end-all-be-all of saving children from hell is beyond me. it doesn't make logical sense, and it doesn't make scriptural sense. only a changed life can do that, for any of us. and as Cary pointed out a moment later, such a thing is nigh impossible. for us.

2009-07-27T13:25:00.001-04:00

"People must first of all feel accepted for who they are before they can risk change." - Lynn Wilson

"Stuff Christians like" blogs

2009-06-15T14:48:00.004-04:00

Having grown up in the christian subculture AND having removed myself from it quite some time ago, yet still keeping an amused and curious eye on it, I found these blogs to be pretty damn funny, and spot on. Great observations!

Stuff Christians Like

Stuff Christian Culture Likes

"Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? ...we should all be wearing crash helmets". - Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

The Night Spirit and the Dawn Air

2009-05-22T03:32:00.008-04:00

I've always been a night person, but about 7 or 8 years ago, I began staying up through the night into the dawn. That first year, during the spring and early summer, it was due to a fresh new friendship, a time when conversations lasted well into the night, the end of which was usually signaled by the first chirping of birds and light breaking through the long night. time to go home, call it a night, resign the life-affirming conversation to the status of "to be continued..." Since that time, those early morning hours have held a special place and meaning in my life, and the sounds of the first birds of spring at the crack of dawn is one of my favourite sounds to listen to. It signals the end of winter and the end of the darkness. Before going to bed, I will often stop by an open window and just listen...and watch the dawn come up. it is a moment of utter peace and calm, a silent moment before the noise of the day and the world break through in demand of one's mind and soul. I often pray at some point during this moment. more often I simply sit still and meditate, or more precicely, allow a spirit of meditation to wash over me and cleanse me for the day ahead.

I've never explained the title of this blog before now, and so I thought I would now, as a sort of compromise between original content and the quoting of others I've been doing these last few months. a bridge. I have writings stirring in my head, moments to catch up on here. for now, I'll simply shed a little light on the pretentious title I've chosen for these pages, for those who don't already know.

The title comes from one of my favourite books by Thomas Merton. It is the title of one of the chapters in "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander". When I read the title, I felt it fit me perfectly, for I am certainly a "night spirit" who is well acquainted with the dawn air, experienced enough to foolishly tell the time by its arrival, "foolish" enough to still be awed by it these many years later. this is an excerpt of the first part of that chapter, along with a quote by Aquinas which opens that section, a quote I find particularly important to remember and live by. I am yet still in darkness, I do not yet live nor love as I ought to, as I want to. But I am trying to open my eyes and see the light breaking through, on my better days, hoping and maybe even expecting the dawn to overcome the darkness. Asking God if I can "be" yet, if it is time...

"We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it." -St. Thomas Aquinas

How the valley awakes. At two-fifteen there are no sounds except in the monastery: the bells ring, the office begins. Outside, nothing, except perhaps a bullfrog saying “Om” in the creek or in the guesthouse pond. Some nights he is in Samadhi; there is not even “Om”. The mysterious and uninterrupted whooping of the whippoorwill begins about three, these mornings. He is not always near. Sometimes there are two whooping together, perhaps a mile away in the woods in the east.

The first chirps of the waking day birds mark the “point vierge” of the dawn under a sky as yet without real light, a moment of awe and inexpressible innocence, when the Father in perfect silence opens their eyes. They begin to speak to Him, not with fluent song, but with an awakening question that is their dawn state, their state at the “point vierge”. Their condition asks if it time for them to “be.” He answers “yes.” Then, they one by one wake up, and become birds. They manifest themselves as birds, beginning to sing. Presently they will be fully themselves, and will even fly.

Meanwhile, the most wonderful moment of the day is that when creation in its innocence asks permission to “be” once again, as it did on the first morning that ever was.

All wisdom seeks to collect and manifest itself at that blind sweet point. Man’s wisdom does not succeed, for we are fallen into self-mastery and cannot ask permission of anyone. We face our mornings as men of undaunted purpose. We know the time and we dictate terms. We are in a position to dictate terms, we suppose: we have a clock that proves we are right from the very start. We know what time it is. We are in touch with the hidden inner laws. We will say in advance what kind of day it has to be. Then if necessary we will take steps to make it meet our requirements.

For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the virgin point between darkness and light, between nonbeing and being. You can tell yourself the time by their waking, if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs. Worse folly still if you think they are telling you something you might consider useful – that it is, for example, four o’clock.

So they wake: first the catbirds and cardinals and some that I do not know. Later the song sparrows and wrens. Last of all the doves and crows.

The waking of crows is most like the waking of men: querulous, noisy, raw.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. It is wide open. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it: we are off “one to his farm and another to his merchandise.” Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static. “Wisdom,” cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.
-Thomas Merton

"complicit in manufacturing the sentiment"

2009-05-01T00:49:00.001-04:00

I'm not really a Jane's Addiction fan, but Jessica Hopper wrote some killer lines in the Chicago Reader this week reviewing their new box set, and I felt the need to share my faves here:

To believe that Jane’s Addiction headlining Lollapalooza again is somehow historic, to be psyched about this recurrence, is like masturbating to the memory of losing your virginity. Sure, it was meaningful when it happened, but 20 years down the line, it’s a pity if this is what’s getting you off. If what was our pinnacle then is still our pinnacle now, it reflects pretty poorly on how we’ve been spending our time.

Why this campaign for our sclerotic hearts and minds? Perhaps it’s because we’re the last generation to come up thinking of music as something we’re supposed to pay money for, and they figure they’d better milk us till we can give no more.

But we’re not exactly the passive victims of this scam. To believe, to attend, to spend is to be complicit in manufacturing the sentiment that reunions like this depend on. To be nostalgic for a time is to assert that it’s worth remembering—that our generation mattered. And we’re happy to allow our sense of our own importance to be used against us as a marketing tool.

Favourite quote of the week

2009-03-26T14:34:00.002-04:00

pretty much sums up why I like this president so much...

a couple of things a little bird told me

2009-03-18T23:49:00.005-04:00

I realize that at some point soon it will get rather ridiculous for me to keep posting things that Cary has shared with me, an abdication of my responsibilities as a blog-keeper, but I really liked these quotes and wanted to post them here. I will return with original content one day soon, but for now she is saying better things than anything I have to offer...

"i think this world puts far too much onus on success, celebrity, achievement, power and the things that feed our ego and narcissism. there is no measure of character to me worth anything than how we treat others. To be human is to be relational. If i can’t be kind and giving, then I am not being the human being i was born to be."

"i'm fairly certain that most of the pain and hurt in people's lives is caused by not being able to admit we are scared of being hurt, not believing we can be loved exactly as we are, and keeping others from seeing our vulnerabilities and instead pretending we know what we are doing. we humans seem to have an unending capacity to push others away at the very moment we need each other. but we think we're different because we have different tricks for avoiding being known and loved. in the words of Adam Phillips, 'we are most creative in the ways we frustrate ourselves'."

-Cary Gibson

Facebook

2009-03-06T14:12:00.003-05:00

In honour of my latest addiction...
(thanks Cary!)

A Taft Diary Interlude: A bit of video history

2009-03-01T01:48:00.006-05:00

Friday night at the taft was loaded with expectation. this was a reunion that fans had been dreaming of for 10 years now. New fans only heard the rumours of those "early days" if they knew anything of them at all. Since the break-up, guitarists have come and gone in the group, but none (until the recently added Kenny Hutson) could even hold Ric's guitar strap. Beyond just his amazing and legendary guitar skills, he added something to the mix that is indescribable. An attitude, a way of being... And Brian holds a groove like no one else can. The chemistry and the magic of that original line-up was just something special. Here is one of my favourite songs done by that original Over the Rhine, from the year I first heard them, for the sake of context. Comparison may be the thief of joy, but the camera also doesn't lie. This song from those early years kicks ass! see for yourself...

A Taft Diary, pt. 4 - Lost

2009-02-28T04:33:00.018-05:00

Anne Lamott says the two best prayers she knows are "help me, help me, help me" and "thank you, thank you, thank you"... There is another prayer (that may be akin to the cry for help) that seems to pour from me more than either of these two right now: "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry". It is a recurring thought this past year, one that comes from my heart almost unconsciously. I'm sorry. perhaps it precedes "help me". The piano resonates throughout the theater, and resonates with my thoughts, my emotions. Mea Culpa, I feel lost...

Part of me, you are a part of me I never want to lose
Hard for me, this is too hard for me, maybe I can't get through

The loss of a close friend, their presence...that sense of home, of safety, comfort, groundedness, of shared moments and the hope of moments yet to share... I recall all the times I loved poorly, or not at all, the times I took them for granted (which is the dark side of trust), the times I lost my patience or temper, the times I judged and criticized and condemned...and I'm sorry...

Broken down, we're all so broken down...

I thought my life would be different by now. The place I find myself, the place I find I've lost myself... the wasting of time and the burying of talents I let atrophy, the apathy, the despair, the isolation, the near loss of hope. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't turn out to be what you were hoping for, I'm sorry I let you down. I'm sorry there isn't more time to get things more right. I'm sorry...

Listening, you're always listening, I don't know what to say

I could sit in a room with those I love and care about the most, knowing that our time is slipping away, that one day they will no longer be here, but right now, in this moment, they are here, I have this chance to be here, with them, right now, and I find I don't have much to say. I'm sorry I'm not better at this, I'm sorry I don't know how to make the most of these moments, I can't conceive how sorry I will be when you are gone...

What will I miss the most? Pray that I'm haunted by your ghost

I meet people here who are some of the nicest and friendliest I've known, people who have been through some hard shit in their lives and maybe have a weariness that could use kindness instead of criticism or harshness. People who have only been abstract names on a screen before now, people whose personality had been mostly a projection of my own lack of imagination, and after I meet them, and discover who they really are, I'm sorry for any time I've been more concerned with being "right" than with being kind. I'm sorry for the irritation my argumentative nature has stirred up in the past. meanness in the name of humor...judgement for the sake of Ego...and I wish I could take some of those words back. I didn't know them or the struggles they endure. and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lost you. I'm sorry for the wall I helped build between us, before we even had a chance to begin...

I know much of this is just something akin to self-pity, much of it is an unnecessary beating myself up for things that are out of my control. Life happens, and people make their choices because of themselves, and their world doesn't revolve around reacting to me. But still...I need grace, and mercy, and sometimes I practice these things, and sometimes I drain them from others. Sometimes I just feel lost...

These thoughts run through my mind as Karin sings "Lost", one of my favourite songs from Ohio.

"afraid that I'm anything but fine...
Lord, I feel so alone now...Lord, I feel so lost..."

...except these aren't the words to the song. There isn't even a song called "Lost". All day I'm telling people "Lost" was one of my favourite songs that they played, and they give me a blank look. Like they don't know what I'm talking about. Because I don't. The song is called "Professional Daydreamer", and though it is one of my favourite songs from Ohio, I haven't listened to that CD in years and so forgot the name (and apparantly the lyrics). Perhaps it is the mark of good art that we can hear in a song what it is we need to hear. Perhaps it is simply the mark of Karin's vague annunciation, coupled with my dark and depressive imagination, looking for darkness in the broadest daylight...

The actual words to the chorus, when I find them out, make me think that there is a symbolic replacing of the old for the new happening here. The real lyrics are something of a response to my imagined lines. It is probably about as close as I'm going to come to a God speaking to me in an audible voice...

"Alright, it's alright now... Alright, it's alright..."

Time

2009-02-15T01:27:00.004-05:00

One of my all-time favourite songs from one of my all-time favourite bands off one of my all-time favourite albums. The concept segments of this video are so-so imo, but that live footage of Undercover at their peak reminds me how overcome with excitement and anticipation I could get at a concert back in the day. Undercover always delivered some of the best, and Gym's guitar playing is just legendary. almost gives me the chills just to see this and remember being up front at Cornerstone for their late-night concert. Undercover is nothing if not intense.

Time

A Taft Diary, pt. 3 - Meeting The Orchard

2009-01-08T05:30:00.001-05:00

The first noble truth of Zen Buddhism is that life is suffering. In practical terms, this means (to me) that we cannot escape suffering, or discomfort. The Zen approach to this truth is to learn to sit with whatever state of being you find yourself in. If you are angry, observe the anger without judging it as "bad", just "be angry", but be aware of it. If you are uncomfortable, rather than squirming to find comfort, rather than running away from the discomfort, sit with it and "be" uncomfortable. If you are sad, don't try to "not" be sad, just experience sadness, but with awareness. Sit with it. Observe it. And recognize that it is ok to feel what you are feeling, that you don't need to feel "something else" (or worse yet, the judgemental "something better"), that this "unpleasant" feeling is not going to kill you, and it may have something for you that you can only find in the moment. And whatever you do, don't forget to breathe!

Another Zen approach I have tried to learn over the years is something I first read from Thich Nhat Hanh - "Present Moment, Wonderful Moment". Not wanting this to be something else, not judging this moment with our own ideas of how it "should be", but receiving what this moment has for us, letting it be whatever it will be. "it is what it is" is one way of saying this. it is only in our minds (creating illusions) that this could be something other than what it is. Karin offers a similar quote of wisdom on Sunday: "Comparison is the thief of joy". but I'm getting ahead of myself...

Before the concerts begin on both Friday and Saturday, I wander down to the front of the stage to see if I can meet and talk with some of the people I have only known online, at a place known as "The Orchard" - Over the Rhine's message board. I've met a couple people from The Orchard before, and this helps. On Friday, Kent is one of the first people I see there that I know from meeting in Grand Rapids a couple years ago, and he is also one of the friendliest people you will ever meet. He's also a music junkie who makes some of the best mix CDs from the seemingly unlimited amount of new music he continually discovers... Zayne is someone I first met at Cornerstone sitting front and center waiting for Over the Rhine. I talk with her for a bit, and she introduces me to Steve (who she drove up with from Nashville), one of the other "music geeks" at the Orchard....I also met Keith from NY, one of the nicest people online, whose concert resume' makes my head spin it's so good. I think he even went to the original Woodstock(?). I find out later that there are also people here on Friday night that I wish I had met, people I used to "know" online from the early days of the mailing list (pre-Orchard), especially Shelly and Snoop Dug, but I had no idea they were there, and I have no idea when I'll have this kind of opportunity again.

On Saturday night, The Orchard has planned to have dinner together at an historic bar/restaurant downtown called Arnolds. they've reserved the upstairs, and Bill, Heidi and I head there to join them. The place is literally right across the street from Ohio books, and I don't know how we didn't see it this afternoon. We head up some very creaky, narrow wooden stairs and rearrange some chairs to sit at one of the tables. At that table I meet Patrick, Steve, Trish, and one of the people I've been looking forward to finally meeting after talking online for years, Kylie Jo.
most everyone else has been here for about an hour already, and those first moments seem a bit awkward for us, as first meetings tend to be, especially when the others seem to know each other. It is one of the times I have to choose to just "be" in the moment, to just let it be what it is, to just sit in the awkward semi-silence of first encounters. Many years ago, two things helped me relax in "conversation lulls", one was the influence of Thomas Merton, and the other was a discussion group David Dark was hosting in Nashville, in which lulls in the discussion weren't considered something that needed to be filled, but rather moments of reflection, comfortable moments where people could sit with their thoughts without needing to "say something". Usually an uncomfortablness at social silence has more to do with one's own perception and lack of center than with any outward reality. The others are certainly friendly, and we do talk a bit about the concert last night and what's been going on this weekend, Patrick initiating a lot of the conversation, easing some of that out-of-place tension I feel. Kylie is a professional photographer, wondering if they'll let her in with a camera that size. I tell her about the Trinity House Theater that Bill runs and how it has the best background for concert pictures.

Having cheated back at the motel and eaten a sandwich so as to save money on food, I only get a salad, and I sneak a bite of Heidi's lasagna. Everyone agrees that the food is excellent, and after dinner we head to the Taft for night two. If we knew our way around here better, we probably could have walked, but it's noticably colder tonight, and driving a few blocks isn't a bad idea either.

Later on tonight, after the show, I'll have the chance to get to know quite a few members of The Orchard a lot better as we all go out to a local bar for drinks and Karaoke. I prayed last night for a deeper connection with others, for friendships to form and relationships to grow out of all this. For more than just passing small talk. May this not just be another weekend of concerts. May this be the start of something more. a beginning. Later tonight felt like an answer to that prayer. this whole weekend feels like a new beginning after a very dark year. like the darkness has been kicked at long enough and is finally bleeding daylight. Tonight I will be grateful once again, purely grateful, for the first time in quite a while...

But for right now my thoughts get lost, once again, in the music of Over the Rhine...

GreaterThan Magazine

2009-01-05T14:19:00.003-05:00

I am now an officially published music critic. This past summer, at the Resurrection Band reunion show at Unity Fest on the other side of Michigan, I met a guy (Carl) who has this online music magazine, GreaterThan, which features a lot of the classic artists I love. The latest issue features Glenn Kaiser & Resurrection Band, and I contributed a review of that reunion show. You can go download and read the magazine here, for free (for now).

Vigilantes of Love: "Resplendant"

2009-01-04T13:58:00.009-05:00

How much of this was meant to be?
How much the work of the devil?

That's a question I've asked in one form or another for more years than I can remember. Discerning the voice (and work) of God from that of the deceiver, whether in the world or just in my own head.
Thanks to Aron for showing me this video via his blog. I didn't know this existed. one of my favorite songs from one of my all-time favorite artists...

How much of this is failing flesh?
How much the course of retribution?
my, my, how loudly we plead our innocence
long after we've made our contribution

A Taft Diary, pt. 2 - How to kill time in Cinci on a Saturday afternoon

2008-12-28T19:55:00.006-05:00

Saturday morning I wake up about an hour before my alarm goes off. I put on some classical music and start my morning stretches. there is cold air blowing in around the door, despite the towel I have pushed up against the bottom of it. Today's weather will not be quite as nice as yesterday. in fact, the difference in temperature between the time I arrived here yesterday and the time I will leave on Sunday night is a difference of about 60 degrees.

I give Bill a call when I'm ready to go (about 1pm) and we head to our first stop: Everybody's Records. I'm on a tight budget, and this place gives me the shakes. I could drop a thousand dollars in here without even blinking. I've done that sort of thing before. I know I can't spend much money, so I just say no to everything, even the cool Tom Waits poster in the back of the store. or that Mindy Smith CD I don't have that's half the price here. A shopping basket would be helpful if I were to pull the things I wanted out of the used jazz section. I have everything I want from Miles Davis...except that one. and that one. oh, and here's another one I've been wanting... If I were an alcoholic, this would be my liquor store. I'm not even going to look at that Joy Division t-shirt hanging there, because that would look really great on me. Yes, Bill, I saw that new Rosie Thomas CD there. No, I don't have it yet, but thanks for asking... I browse the record albums, just because I haven't been able to do that sort of thing at a record store in years. real live vinyl. lots of it. a selection of old jazz on vinyl that makes my head spin. I remember now how I became addicted to buying music, why I spent my weekend nights in high school and college at a record store instead of out on a date. records last longer. I pull out a couple Black Sabbath albums and put them on the turntable in the back. I had to get the guy at the counter to come back and fix the dang thing. the anticipation is kind of like when a druggie wraps a rubberband around his arm and slaps the vein. then you slip the needle in and... oh, yeah...it doesn't matter how bad it might be for you. it's gooood. Black Sabbath on vinyl, the same record that warned a pastor in my youth, in a vision in his shower (probably with his mistress), that all rock music was the same, that Resurrection band was just as bad for me as Black Sabbath, that they were both doing the devil's work. It was probably the one message that made me really want to check out Black Sabbath, if they sounded like Rez. "Born Again" certainly could have been the name of a Rez album, so who knows...

I'm getting even more shaky and weak, this time from hunger and the need for more sleep. Bill buys a small sack of music (including a bit of vinyl), I buy nothing while choking back tears, and we head to our next stop - Kaldi's Coffeeshop and bar. The place Linford used to come to from his appartment across the street to write old Over the Rhine newsletters and imagine the Inklings, the place Karin used to work, the place that I love to visit in Cinci, the place that is closing up for good in a few days.
We get our drinks at the bar, then go sit at a table near the back with shelves of used books still lining the walls (though much of the place is being torn down). We have a great conversation about our religious backgrounds, how we came to the place we are now, the path that led to our current beliefs. We both seem to share an appreciation for the process that faith is, rather than the "now you aren't saved / now you are" mentality of many mainstream Christians.

Kaldis only had drinks, no food, so we get directions to a local deli a few blocks away to have lunch. I don't remember the name of the place, but it had great local flavor and hit the spot just right. A much better choice than just stopping at Subway. Bill reminded me that he knew one of my closest friends through bible quizzing many years ago, and we talked about the old days of Christian rock and how so many had fallen over the years, and the odd response Christians often have to those who fall from grace.

After lunch, we head to a 5-story used bookstore called Ohio Books. I'm always amazed at how little I'm able to find in a place that has so many more books than the average bookstore. They're pretty short on Buechner books, but they do seem to have every issue of National Geographic ever made. I get a Daniel Berrigan book, put back the Merton biography I really want, and we close the store out. I discover that Bill has never been to some of the coolest CD and bookstores in the Detroit area, so we will have to take a trip to them when we get back.

We get back to the hotel and I go back to my room for a quick nap, then the three of us head back downtown for dinner with the Orchard at Arnolds...

A Taft Diary, part 1 - Friday (The original Over the Rhine)

2008-12-28T18:38:00.006-05:00

Last weekend, mere hours after my last day at work, I took a treacherous drive down to Cincinnati for the Over the Rhine reunion show at the Taft theater, and it was certainly the best 3 days of this otherwise shitty year for me, one of the best weekends I've had in quite a few years, actually.

A severe snowstorm was forcast for Friday morning, when I was planning on leaving, so I decided to leave the night before to avoid all that. Only I hit freezing rain and icing highways just past Bowling Green, Ohio, and made it as far as Lima (doing about 35-45 mph for a few hours) before I finally pulled over and made a makeshift hotel room out of my car in front of a Speedway gas pump for a few hours. My only consolation for how ridiculous this probably looked was that it felt like the sort of thing Tom Waits would do. I've never driven through such wet weather in my life. My car was making horrible noises that at first sounded like the muffler, but were distinctly coming from the engine. A comment by a stranger at another gas station down the road made me realize it was probably my belt slipping. It freaked me out, whatever it was, and led to a fair amount of highway "help me" prayers. I just want to get to Cincinnati...

I listen to Sam Phillip new CD on the way there as she sings "I...I love you...when you're useless...when you don't do anything" and I wonder if that kind of unconditional love is even possible to share with another or to experience ourselves. It certainly sounds like a wonderful idea. Some sort of counterbalance to the thoughts and voices that insist "you're not good enough".

Just past Dayton, and the temperature starts to rise, the rain eases up a bit, and as I pulled into Cincinnati (and no sooner), the sun comes out onto a near-60 degree morning. It only took me 10 hours to make this 5-hour trip. I check into my cheap-ass motel and try to get some of the sleep I missed last night.

My friends Bill and Heidi braved the foot of snow in Detroit to leave this morning, didn't have to deal with any ice in Ohio, and made it into town just in time for us to go to dinner before the big show at 8. It is great to have friends here to share this great weekend with. Bill is one of the few people I know whose knowledge and love of music rivals and even surpases mine. We both have CD collections that number in the thousands.
We met a random stranger coming off the bus in downtown and they asked him if he knew any good places to eat within walking distance. Instead of pulling out a gun to mug us (as a random stranger off the bus probably would have done here in Detroit), he actually walked with us down to his recommended restaurant. Really nice guy. Unfortunately the place was packed, so we ended up eating at a mall food court across the street (a mall that oddly closed at 7pm on this Friday evening before Christmas. ?.). It was then, in the middle of a great conversation about old Christian rock, that Bill confessed his early love of Air Supply to us. I told him I'd never admit to that sort of thing publicly...and I won't. (*ahem*)

After dinner we walked the few blocks back to The Taft in the cool night air for what was one of the most anticipated reunion shows of my life. Over the Rhine was getting back together for one night with their original members - drummer Brian Kelly and the legendary guitarist Ric Hordinski. and they did not disappoint.

Over the Rhine has probably been my favorite group (off and on with Vigilantes of Love / Bill Mallonee) for about 15 years now. They played a key role in my post-college years as a beacon of how faith could be expressed in art outside of the confining CCM/Christian sub-culture (or "ghetto"). As such, they opened my eyes to a whole world of literature and music and way of living in this world that was a tremendous breath of fresh air to me and my spiritual life. this original line-up hadn't played together for over 10 years, and I almost forgot how special those early shows were, and how much of an impact they had on me. They delivered a reunion show that exceeded all expectations and hit the mark perfectly for me. And somehow, during the course of the show, I felt like I was regaining some sort of center again, like the "reset" button was being pressed on my life.

Someday I hope you might be true to all it is I see in you...

The music of Over the Rhine makes me long for a better life, makes me want to be a better person along the way. Not necessarily to reach higher, but to reach deeper. There is a life out here beyond what I've allowed for myself. There are people here I connect with who remind me of who I really am, where I was heading, once upon a time. There are seeds being planted right now, in this season, and this is a beginning. Where it goes or whether it grows only God really knows. but it is my prayer that something comes of all this, inside and out, that connections can be made, to others and to that life I can't refuse...

After the show I go upstairs and talk with Dave Nixon, former pastor of the Vineyard Central community there in Norwood. It is good to reconnect with him for a few minutes, and unfortunate that that will be the only real chance I get to talk with him at length.

I meet a few people from The Orchard (Over the Rhine's online discussion group), chat some small talk a bit, and then we head back to the hotel to try and get some more respectable sleep. Tommorrow Bill and I will search Cinci for some used record and bookstore action. already the weekend has been worth the price of admission and the risk it took to get here. Tommorrow things will get even better...

Rebuilding Community

2008-12-08T04:28:00.011-05:00

(a rough draft of where I am)

Earlier this year, I wrote about listening to UnderCover's Balance of Power late into the night on my own this past spring. The first time I did this, over a decade ago when it first came out, my social circles were wide and varied. At one point in that early 90's week, I had around 10 friends over one day, and none of them knew each other. I knew each of them through a different social circle, and I was the only person each of them knew here (egotripping, I know, but it was pretty cool!). Fast forward 15 years, to that night this past spring, when I found myself at a place in my life where I didn't know a single person I could call up to come over and join me for the evening. My social circles, my community of friends, had dwindled down eventually to the point where I had all my proverbial eggs in one basket. And then that basket got knocked out of my hands, so to speak. It is a place I have never really known before. A stifling aloneness. To be sure, I still had and have friends (I've been very lucky in my life, and quite a few of my lifelong friendships have deep, strong roots, regardless how much time or distance may pass between us), but most of them are now either living out of state, or are living busy lives with spouses and children, and that depth of community is no longer here. And so, this year has been a time for me to deal with the pain of loss (and the poisonous bitterness that can accompany that, as I also wrote about), and try to begin rebuilding something of a community in my life again. Because if I know one thing about myself, it is that I need others in my life. despite my love of times of solitude, I need friends in my life. I need people who are there for me, who I can be there for, who can delve into deep waters late into the night every once in a while.

I was going to counseling earlier this year for the first time in my life, and it was ok (I certainly have always appreciated and encouraged the idea of personal counseling), but as the money started to run out, I realized that the conversations I was having in counseling were the kind I used to have with close friends, and the whole thing started to feel like emotional prostitution. Like a substitute for the real thing. Friendship with a time limit that I had to pay for. And though this counselor came highly recommended, she wasn't getting to the psychological core of things like I had hoped. (my new favorite blogger, Cary, recently wrote a paragraph about the latest Kaufman movie that just about knocked me flat with it's piercingly accurate description of my inner life. I wish I could have read it earlier this year to print out and show the counselor and say "see this, this is me. make it stop!").

In recent months, I have been exploring various community building possibilities. Last week I went to a book discussion group with 11 others who were complete strangers to me. and it was good. I signed up for this one because they had chosen one of my all-time favorite books, High Fidelity. I met some nice people and we talked for a couple hours, and though I don't know if I'll see them again for a while, it was a seed planted. It was a beginning.

Online, I've been connecting with a few people who I wish lived in this area, as they are kindred spirits and obviously interested in the same deep waters I seek out. some live on the other side of the country, some don't even live in this country, and none are within driving distance of myself.

Probably more importantly, I have been going to a church on a semi-regular basis, and getting to know some of the people there. David had been recommending Trinity to me for as long as I can remember, and I can see why. It is a very traditional (I like to say almost a "Catholic wannabe") church, without all the snazzy entertainment production or gimmicks of many modern churches, and also without the "turret's syndrome" expressiveness of some of the charismatic congregations I've known. And every single sermon I've heard there has had depth, relevance, and a few quotes from authors in my personal "hall of fame" (C.S. Lewis, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, etc. etc…). The pastor (and the new associate pastor) reads and integrates books of serious substance, and that's a rare find. I've met quite a few people there who I hope to develop a continuing deeper friendship with, as well as getting to better know a couple folks I knew before even going there. But of course even they are about an hours drive from my house, stretching the idea of a "local community" a little thin…

Speaking of David, he and Sarah came to Michigan in October for a wonderfully refreshing weekend at Trinity House. Sarah played an intimate concert (with her seemingly innumerable siblings as bandmates) on Friday night (and if there's a song that's rivaling Mindy Smith for airtime in my head, it's Sarah's "The River"), and David spoke there next morning. Getting a chance to talk with David and Sarah for a bit that weekend, listening to Sarah sing her life-affirming songs, and David speak clarity to the moment we find ourselves in as both of them bear witness to the Kingdom being lived out in life's messy everyday, I was reminded of how much I crave the kind of community they are a part of and help to create. I hope to write in more detail about that weekend, but for now, I'll just say that David and Sarah remind me of a passage from Madeleine L'Engle's book, "Circle of Quiet":

"It’s all right in the very beginning for you to be the only two people in the world, but after that your ability to love should become greater and greater. If you find that you love lots more people than you ever did before, then I think that you can trust this love. If you find that you need to be exclusive, that you don't like being around other people, then I think that something may be wrong.
This doesn't mean that two people who love each other don't need time alone… But there is a kind of exclusiveness in some loves, a kind of inturning, which augurs trouble to come.
Hugh was the wiser of the two of us when we were first married. I would have been perfectly content to go off to a desert isle with him. But he saw to it that our circle was kept wide until it became natural for me, too. There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around the dinner table and talking until the candles are burned down."

I have sat at Dave & Sarah's dinner table talking until the candles burned low (long enough for us to have plenty of candlewax to play with and pour in various shapes on that dinner table itself!), I have experienced their "expanding love", their almost unparalleled hospitality, and the community they are a part of (in Nashville, my home away from home) and in some way share with everyone they meet. To me they are a witness to and living example of the reality of the kingdom to come. And they are a part of a much larger community of like-minded kingdom-reality seekers whose very existence as a community (worldwide) has inspired and challenged me more times than I can tell.

That bit by Madeleine L'Engle isn't necessarily just about lovers or married couples. I think it applies to all types of love, including friendships. And I think this is the warning sign I didn't heed in my own life, that my friendships of late were not expansive and inclusive ones. They spiraled down to just a few, and then less than a few, and ultimately that path leads to an unhealthy solitude that is more akin to solitary confinement within one's own skin. It was leading me towards an angry insanity (which is what lead me to counseling, which may prove to have been nothing more than a way to hang on through a pretty dark storm or two, which may be all it needed to be). And I've also been at fault with other relationships, other deep friendships I simply haven't put the time or effort into to keep alive, vital, and current. Close friends become occasional friends as the "cares of this world" choke the life out of my days.

I've been reading through some old journals recently, and I am reminded of how deep some of these friendships have been, how much certain people have meant to me, and I am alarmed at how easily such relationships can fade into the background. Community requires cultivation, and for the longest time I have just been coasting. And anyone who has coasted long enough knows that eventually you come to a stop, and you don't have to do a thing for that to happen. In fact, that's how it happens. And to get going again requires a whole lot more effort than is required to keep going. And I have to admit, I am tired. And discouraged. But old friendships tend to rekindle quickly, and deep roots are still there, regardless the surface neglect suffered.

There is a balance I haven't been able to find, let alone maintain. For most of my life, relationships have been my top priority. But one's own life needs to be lived as well, and lately I can't escape the feeling that I should be doing something "more important". I spent my whole life cultivating friendships, and I find myself ironically at this place where, because I haven't really cultivated my own life, I don't have some of the friendships I thought I had cultivated. And of course, another early warning I either ignored or didn't fully understand, from C.S. Lewis, that friends walk side by side on a common path. Friends don't generally face one another. That is a different kind of love. and in cultivating "friendships", I lost sight of the path I should be walking, of the object that could be a common focal point for potential friendships. In focusing on friends, I find I've lost some of them, like trying to grab water. Friends are there in total freedom or not at all. Trying to "hold on to" friendships can be the very thing that ruins them. People take different paths in life, and no matter how much you think the path you are on is the right one, you can't force another to walk with you on it. And in facing the friend to try, you lose sight of the path. Chase after the friend, and you can find yourself lost. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure where I am right now (in life OR in this blog entry!). But reading through some old journals is helping me to remember where those deep roots are. And, like I said, I'm not "without" friends right now (one of my closest friends, though living days away, makes a concerted effort to call fairly regularly, for which I am grateful). The local landscape is just a little bit barren at the moment, as far as I can see. If I can find that path I should be on, I think I'll find that community that was probably there all along waiting for me.

Next week I'll be out of a job I probably shouldn't have been doing this long in the first place, and things seem a little bit out of focus right now. But I am praying, and I hope you will too, that I find that path that realigns my vision and reawakens my purpose. I feel like I'm walking in water with my toes barely touching the bottom, my head barely out drawing breath. I can't see where I am going right now, and I hope I find my way to more solid ground soon instead of in over my head. The water seems to be rising all around, and I know we've all been seeing a lot of people dipping below the surface. Sounds dire, but at some point we all dip below the surface for good, and maybe that's what these times are here to remind us. "The Jordan River is chilly and cold…I'll meet you brother on the other side". Times like this can cause one to worry about the cares of one's own life (legitimate and numerous), or these times can be the common ground out of which community is formed and grows (think: Dorothy Day's Catholic Workers). Reaching out to others can be rather counter-intuitive when one's very survival is in question, but community is, paradoxically, the only place where one's survival has a real and lasting chance.

2008-12-05T12:33:00.001-05:00

"I’m a good listener, and I’m a better listener when people disagree with me."
-Barack Obama

2008-11-24T02:46:00.003-05:00

"30 years ago you didn't see porn stars write books"
(Robert Weil, Norton executive editor)

A Poem by Charles Bukowski

2008-10-25T04:03:00.001-04:00

Everywhere, Everywhere

amazing, how grimly we hold onto our
misery,
ever defensive, thwarted by
the forces.
amazing, the energy we burn
fueling our anger.
amazing, how one moment we can be
snarling like a beast, then
a few moments later,
forgetting what or
why.

not hours of this or days or
months or years of this
but decades,
lifetimes
completely used up,
given over to the pettiest
rancor and
hatred.

finally
there is nothing here for death to
take
away.

Anne-Sophie Mutter in Ann Arbor

2008-10-23T03:14:00.013-04:00

This past Sunday, after attending church on my own for the third time this year, I drove out to Ann Arbor to see world-class violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter play what was rumoured to be her last concert appearance in Michigan (a misunderstanding from a French interview gave the false impression that she was retiring this year at the age of 45). It was a crisp and sunny autumn day, a good kind of day to walk around Ann Arbor. I was having a hard time fully enjoying the day, however, as job and financial concerns (among others) were flooding my mind (the place I work had just unexpectedly closed its doors, seemingly for good, two days prior). I also had 2 tickets to the show, but instead of having dinner for two at Grazi's before the show, I had a jelly bagel & coffee for dinner by myself and sold my extra ticket at a loss. Sometimes you do things on faith, and sometimes faith turns out to be a silly delusion...

After my "dinner", I went to church for the second time that day. I haven't been to church on any kind of regular basis for years, and here I am going twice in one day. I guess I felt like catching up a little. This time at the Catholic church my family would always go to when my brother still lived here and we were visiting him. Sometimes it is good to revisit the places in one's past, just to remember that there was life before the world started slipping all to hell...

I've only been to two classical concerts in my life (the first being Perlman 5 years ago), and it was an odd and fitting coincidence that most of the selections were the same at both. Anne-Sophie Mutter was touring in support of her recent recordings of Bach's Violin Concertos (most of the same ones Perlman had played in Detroit in 2003), and thrown in for good measure at the end of the show was Tartini's "Devil's Trill" (a piece I first listened to at a friend's place one spring after we had just gone on one of my first classical music shopping sprees at the late Harmony House Classical store on Woodward). Watching and listening to the grace and fluidity of her playing was intoxicating at times. At a concert like this which demands one's full attention, I am aware of how un-zen my mind has become, as distracting thoughts of all kinds pull me out of the present moment throughout the evening. Aside from my own thoughts, external distractions didn't help much either - the seats were apparantly spaced for children's legs, and luckily I had an isle seat. The audience also chose to do most of it's coughing in between movements, which, on the surface, seems like a good idea, but the silences in between are too important a part of the work to ruin with a chorus of coughs and chuckles at the sound of it. An occasional cough during the performance would actually have been preferrable. But these are all usual distractions at any event of this sort, and they can really reveal the muck and mire that is bubbling up at the core of one's interior life...

After the concert, I was weak and shakey from hunger and mild sleep-deprivation (a side-effect of actually making it to church this morning), with a potential headache making plans for my head later. I was going to stick around to try and meet Mrs. Mutter, but the line was ridiculous, and I realized I just wasn't that interested in this once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet one of my favourite classical performers, so I walked the chilly night streets of Ann Arbor back to my car to drive home to a more substantial meal... and for some reason, after this evening of inspiring music, the lyrics to Mindy Smith's latest song kept running through my head, walking the sidewalks, past the coffee shops on Main, past the bookstores, past a time I used to know and love...

It’s been a hard year this fall
And I still don't know where you're coming from
And the sky keeps on spinning
The stars are running, hiding from the sun

I don't want to feel this blue
I want to be over you
I don't want to feel this blue
but love lost
If the heart needs a reason to cry for
If the heart needs a reason to lie for
there's no better reason than love lost
If the heart needs a reason to try for
If the heart needs a reason to die for
There's no better reason than love lost

It's a been a while since I saw you
I still don't know what you're running for
Guess you were looking around
For something better
or something more

I don't want to feel this blue
I want to be over you
I don't want to feel this blue
But I do
I do…

"if the heart needs a reason to die for..."

2008-10-13T02:18:00.016-04:00

New song by Mindy Smith, who is now officially my favorite new artist of the decade. She's been my favorite new artist since her second CD, Long Island Shores, came out a couple years ago (a CD with some fantastic cover artwork that seems to fit the music perfectly, as her heartwrenchingly beautiful voice does). I have a weakness for deep, dark introspective music, especially when sung with the kind of smooth angelic voice that artists like Mindy Smith or Karin Berquest (of Over the Rhine) employ. (Over the Rhine is probably my favorite group of all time, and as a related side note, Mindy Smith was actually once a house guest of Karin & Linford in Cincinatti before her debut CD came out.) Mindy first stopped me in my tracks with a song she wrote for her dying mother, One Moment More (also the title of her debut CD), and it didn't take long for her to make her way to the top of my favorite new artist list. And in this decade, there's some stiff competition in that category...Hem would almost be at least tied with Mindy if they were more consistent the way Mindy's music has been. Hem's debut CD "Rabbit Songs" is another one that can make me stop whatever it is I'm doing just to fully absorb myself in the music, and "Burying Song" is one of the most heartbreaking instrumental pieces I can think of. But Hem is also capable of some mediocre tracks, and I've not heard anything like that from Mindy. Rosie Thomas is the third artist in my musical "trinity" of favorite new artists, very much in that same "hardcore introspection" (as OtR once put it) vein. Rosie is also more consistently good than Hem, and why I don't consider her as my favorite new artist is one of those inexplicable factors of personal subjectivity. I think Hem, when they are at their best, are far better than Rosie, even if they're not at their best nearly as often as Rosie is. but for some reason, possibly the more personal connection she projects, Mindy Smith just comes out ahead of the pack. And with her new track, "Love Lost", it is evident that she isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

In case you're interested, other artists that would make it into my Top 10 New Artists of the Decade would include Sigur Ros (if this were a more objective list, I would have to put them at the top, easily), Broken Social Scene (when they released "You Forgot It In People", they were my favorite until Mindy came along, but, although they are still one of the best indie rock groups out there, they have never matched the magic of that early CD), and Copeland (another indie/alternative group whose music and lyrics just kill me with their depth. they renew my hope in the future of new music). There are other new artists from this decade that will most likely make my list as well (Do Make Say Think has a promising future and a solid catalog so far), but there's still over a year left in this decade to decide such things. For now, I can't seem to break myself away from this computer while I listen to Mindy's new song over and over. And I can't imagine anyone could come along in the next year who could possibly offer me something better than what Mindy Smith has already delivered...

The American Sports Mentality

2008-10-08T03:19:00.022-04:00

(sorry for the length. I need an editor!)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a sports fan. I think a significant reason for this is that I am not a competitive person by nature. And as far as I can tell, this makes me something of an outsider in America, because Americans love their sports. it is an industry worth billions, and in America's sports obsession, it is an industry that has completely pervaded people's thinking in many other areas of life. Areas that are (in my opinion) suffering severe damage because of it.

The American sports mentality is that desire to take a side, and then beat the other side into defeat. And it doesn't care about the other side's point of view. it just wants to "win". And one of the foundation stones of this mentality is the label. just as sports teams need a name to put on the scoreboard, we feel that the need to label is justified in all areas of life. Religion is one that is affected most by this. and politics. labels are used to define and then dismiss the "opponent". labels like "Christian" and "Secular" or "Protestant" and "Catholic", "Republican / Right-Wing" and "Democrat / Left-Wing", etc... The problem is that, in the case of religion, this mentality mixes with it about as well as oil and water. One of the main foundations of just about every serious religious tradition is Compassion, which is literally "to suffer with". To put oneself in the other's shoes. To do to others as one would have done to oneself. In Christianity, we are commanded to pray for our enemies. not to pray for their defeat, but simply to pray for them. How many sports teams do you think huddle before the game to pray for the other team? Shouldn't that be completely different among religious people in everyday life? and yet how many people approach their religion as though they are on a sports team? Converting someone to the faith is often no more than a draft pick. Church membership is equated with team membership, and so often the drive to "increase church membership" isn't a drive to bring people to faith and encourage them to go to a church of their choosing, it is usually a drive to increase that one particular church's membership numbers.

The same problem pervades politics even more so. We should be working together for the good of our communities and our nation, and instead, most people on both sides of the party divide are more interested in "defeating" the other party - in "winning". But a country does not "win" unless every citizen is a part of that victory. "No Child Left Behind" doesn't work at its root because most people aren't even interested in "No Citizen Left Behind". Both sides vilify the other side, misconstrue what is said by the other because sometimes the other side believes something a little too close for comfort to the same truth that our side believes in, and no fight is very sustainable with the words "I agree", and so what's the fun of that? A foundational part of the game in sports is to tear down the opponent. And so we look for what's wrong in the other, rather than what's right. As David Dark puts it, we don't want to know that a Samaritan would do that sort of thing. And when one side is proven right on any given particular, humility goes out the door. Their "right-ness" gets thrown in the face of the other, as if they somehow just scored against the enemy. "Victory is mine!" as Stewie Griffin would say. And so, instead of an opportunity taken to bring different sides closer together in a common understanding of the Truth that eludes us all to some extent, the walls of defense are put up even stronger and the distance and divide made even greater, lest the other side "score" against us again. People begin to refuse to look at the facts, at the truth as it works itself out, for fear of being made to look like the fool for believing otherwise. This is part of the reason why some people are so stubborn, refusing even to look at obvious facts before them. In the American Sports arena, to admit the other is right in any way is equated with admitting defeat. And so instead of being grateful that the other side is right about something and we can now agree on it and come a little closer together, there is only resentment toward the other for somehow "sneaking one past us". There have been leaders in the past who have accomplished great things because they didn't care who got the credit for being right, but those leaders probably weren't very good at sports, which requires a "keeping score".

Look at the way so many accept the notion of a "war on terror" with a straight face. And they talk about "winning the war" - "we must win the war on terror". How do you win a war against a concept? or against terrorism, which is a tactic? these things will always be there for the using, even if somehow no one on earth were at that moment using them. If a preacher talked about this in the context of "our war is not against flesh and blood", then I might be inclined to listen, but so many in power (and their followers) act as though you can win these "concept" wars with actual bombs lobbed at actual places on earth. But I think it is the framework of sports which people look through and think they see a way to win. and it is usually simple. lob more bombs over there than they lob at us, and we win. Of course one major problem is that War Games tend to go on quite a bit past double overtime.

There are people in my life, close people, whom I never discuss politics with, even when they are begging me to take the bait. Not because I have no interest in discussing politics (I do), but I know from personal and past experience when someone is simply itching for a fight. and I've lost interest in fighting as a substitute for discussion. I see people listening to the talk shows and yelling at the tv or radio, arguing with commentators who cannot and will never hear them, and what they are doing is target practice. they are loading up on "argumentative ammo" for the next straw man who comes along that they can set up to shoot down. And I don't know about you, but I'm not real interested in being shot at. These people right from the start will not listen to what the other person has to say. they don't care. They don't care where you are coming from or why you feel the way you do about any given issue or candidate. they just want to shoot the target, they just want to win the contest. I have certainly been guilty of this on the topic of religion (pick your category), and I realize (even though old habits die hard) that it does nothing but tear others down and close them off to any new way of thinking. I had someone close to me ask who I was voting for, and when I told them, they didn't ask "why do you like that person?", they responded with a disapproving grunt, an "oh no!". and that was that conversation. One of my friends was even told by his own mother that she didn't really like talking to him lately because of who he was supporting. Too often our immediate response to another's opinion is framed in Attack-and-Defense mode, rather than from a place of unthreatened, calm curiosity and compassion. And I think this kind of mentality, this getting wrapped up in the game, in "our side vs their side", makes us lose sight of all kinds of priorities, one of which is to love others. Wayne Dyer once said "When you have the choice between being right and being kind, choose kindness". I think that about sums up why I don't "speak my mind" more often with certain people, because my mind often darkens and hardens my heart.

I suppose I'm perhaps being a little unfair in characterizing this mentality as "American", as it stems I'm sure from our primitive survival instinct, and intense competition is nothing new to humanity. From Cain and Able through the countless wars throughout history, man has been taking sides and trying to destroy those opposed to them. It's the "mob mentality" - don't think it through, don't talk about it, just go out there and defeat the enemy. It's just that, with "civilization" as well as religious conviction, there is supposed to be some sort of transcendence above our baser instincts to "kill or be killed". It is one thing that makes humanity unique and separate from animals, the ability to reason things out and talk them through with each other. And in America especially, the size of the Sports Entertainment Industry being what it is, those baser instincts are played on and encouraged with millions of dollars worth of provocative advertising and media coverage, and the quieter, calmer, more thoughtful inner life is a huge liability to their "success". More money can be made when people are riled up into a frenzied fever-pitch, and nothing does this better than the presentation and caricaturization of an enemy to defeat.

I wonder what would happen if we could somehow eliminate labels from our thinking. We couldn't simply categorize and then dismiss another based on the label we put on them. We would have to listen to what they said about what they believed, and we would be sure to find things we agree with as well as things we disagree with. In religion this happens a great deal. As a Christian, I have met and known many others who also claim to believe in Christianity, only to later learn that we have extremely different views about what that label actually means and implies. But we also have some very similar views in other areas. Being that we both claim the label "Christian", we can't simply dismiss the other based on a label. We have to talk it out and come to either an agreement, or an agreement to disagree. Unless, of course, we resort to "sub-labels" so we don't have to work so hard. labels like Charismatic, Catholic, Protestant, Fundamentalist Wacko, etc...
But if we could be rid of the "win or lose" sports mentality, we could then actually have a constructive conversation with the other. This would mean not only discussing that which we disagree on, actually trying to come to an understanding of the opposing viewpoint, but also a willingness (a desire even) to recognize (or, as David would say, "hell bent on discovering...") where the other is right and where we are wrong. And only after we do this can we talk about where we think we are right and they are wrong. An acceptance of the fact that we each and all together see through the glass darkly and don't understand as we should, and therefore need each other - even and especially the opposing view - to reach more fully toward the truth.

(side note: as if to confirm my assertion as to how pervasive the sports mentality is among us, when I was discussing these thoughts with a friend of mine, he encouraged me to blog about this, saying he thought it was a "slam-dunk argument". He wasn't trying to be funny or make a pun...I don't even think he realized what he had said...)

The Price of Falling in Love

2008-10-07T01:33:00.009-04:00

"When did you fall? When was it over?"

Some Thomas Merton

2008-10-01T03:42:00.002-04:00

"We are living under a tyranny of untruth which confirms itself in power and establishes a more and more total control over men in proportion as they convince themselves they are resisting error...
...The basic falsehood is the lie that we are totally dedicated to truth...that we have the monopoly of all truth, just as our adversary of the moment has the monopoly of all error.
We then convince ourselves that we cannot preserve our purity of vision and our inner sincerity if we enter into dialogue with the enemy, for he will corrupt us with his error. We believe, finally, that truth cannot be preserved except by the destruction of the enemy - for, since we have identified him with error, to destroy him is to destroy error. The adversary, of course, has exactly the same thoughts about us...

If we really sought truth we would begin slowly and laboriously to divest ourselves one by one of all our coverings of fiction and delusion: or at least we would desire to do so, for mere willing cannot enable us to effect it. On the contrary, the one who can best point out our error, and help us to see it, is the adversary whom we wish to destroy...
In the long run, no one can show another the error that is within him, unless the other is convinced that his critic first sees and loves the good that is within him. So while we are perfectly willing to tell our adversary he is wrong, we will never be able to do so effectively until we can ourselves appreciate where he is right... Love, love only, love of our deluded fellow man as he actually is, in his delusion and in his sin: this alone can open the door to truth. As long as we do not have this love, as long as this love is not active and effective in our lives (for words and good wishes will never suffice) we have no real access to the truth. At least not to moral truth."
----------------------------------------------------
"We too often forget that Christian faith is a principle of questioning and struggling before it becomes a principle of certitude and of peace. One has to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after one has begun to believe, one's faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of foregone conclusions. The Christian mind is a mind that risks intolerable purifications, and sometimes, indeed very often, the risk turns out to be too great to be tolerated. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe conventions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture."

-Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

The weight that one man's soul must carry

2008-09-26T04:31:00.008-04:00

I think I just became a Pink fan...

To be the President is a responsibility I cannot imagine. In these past 8 years, there has been a lot of venom shot in the direction of George W, as well as a lot of venom shot in the direction of those who oppose him. I have certainly added my fair share of the former. But at this point, I also can't help but feel a certain amount of heavy sorrow for him as well, which makes it easier to remember to pray for him and the burden he carries, and will carry with him for the rest of his life. A burden, I think, that would drive most men to suicide. When asking the question that is often asked (somewhat rhetorically) in election years, "are you better off now than you were 4 (or 8) years ago?", the answer that I think most of us would have to give makes the question almost offensive in the very asking of it. Some will disagree, and I certainly admit to bias...

Before George W. Bush was ever running for the office of President, I was already hardened against him. In the mid-90's, my views on the death penalty in America did a 180. I had always been for it, in theory, but after watching the true story Dead Man Walking, and (more importantly) reading the book by Sr. Helen Prejean, I realized I couldn't be anymore and still follow the path of Christ...(again, some of you will disagree). A guitar-slinging duo called The Indigo Girls brought to my awareness this then govenor of Texas, the state that held the record, if you will, for the most executions in the nation. One case in particular stuck in my throat, and that was the execution of Faye Tucker, which the Indigo Girls sang about on their "Come On Social" album. You can look up the details of that one for yourself, but if ever there was a mis-application of the state's right to kill, this was certainly it. And if anything could possibly be more disturbing that this execution, in my estimation it was the glibness and cocky / careless attitude of the Govenor of that state who maintains his certainty that everyone who was put to death under his watch was guilty and deserved what they got. And I think it is that glib cock-sure attitude at the fact of the death of others that made him stand out in my mind as especially repulsive. And then this man went and ran for president, and won, twice, and his presidency has been marked by some of the most senseless and unnecessary death in this nation's history. Although I am voting for Obama this election (in great part because his attitude and approach stand in stark contrast to our current President), I will feel a sense of relief regardless who gets into that office come January. McCain will not take war or death lightly the way Bush seems to have done, as though the war in Iraq is a great big video game...kind of fun...

And so, it is fitting to me that, on the musical front, this time is coming to an end with a song that the Indigo Girls helped out on. This is Pink's "Dear Mr. President", and, despite my "misgivings" of some of the sentiments expressed here, in my opinion it is one of the best "protest" songs of this era (an era I find surprisingly sparse in the kind of artistic expression this song gives voice to):

Holding Onto My Dad's Old Record Collection (and keeping all of my Circular Music)

2008-09-15T02:50:00.013-04:00

Every once in a while, I like to go to our storage room and flip through the stack of my dad's old records that we keep in there. Without even hearing a note of the music represented there, I am transported back to a time when my dad was younger, when he was holding these records, looking at the same picture on the cover, reading the same notes on the back, holding the same physical object he held half a century ago as a young man. I learn things about my dad almost vicariously this way. I've always known his love of jazz, country, blues, and classical, but those are just general categories. To hold an actual record that he listened to, and cared enough to keep through 50 years of his life and through countless moves, is an entirely different kind of understanding and experience. It's one thing to know he loves jazz, but to hold his copy of Miles Davis' Round About Midnight, or his Ella Fitzgerald or Chet Baker records, is something that "he likes jazz" doesn't hold a candle to. I'm also exposed to music that would otherwise never enter my musical universe, records that I would never give a second thought to, I look at, study, and wonder, "what was he thinking when he bought this? What is it that he likes about this?". And it's not just the names of singers and song titles, it's that this very copy was what he listened to all those decades ago, this very copy is what he held in his hands and had in his room, what he put on the stereo while living in his apartment. This is, in a way, a part of who he is. Who he once was. Something of what he experienced in his life. There are stories behind this music. Many times nothing dramatic, but things like Frank Sinatra's "The Voice" was one of the first records he ever owned. He remembers listening to Dave Brubeck's "Red, Hot and Cool" back in high school. He used to listen to the R&B (black) station all the time, and once owned almost all of Muddy Waters' singles. I know how much my record collection has meant to me, how certain records hold a special place in my life and are an indelible part of my memories, and this gives me some idea of what some of my dad's records may have meant to him. I get it. And in that, there is a connection between us that a list of names - artists and song titles - can't capture.

I remember the hours I would spend looking at my own record collection, holding the album sleeve while lying on my bed listening to it, associating the cover artwork with the music I was listening to, or sometimes just staring hypnotically at the record turning round and round under the needle arm... One of my first albums was Sweet Comfort Band's "Perfect Timing", and I would sit and listen to the music while trying to see how far back I could see the numbers pictured on the futuristic-looking cover. Or the times I spent staring at Amy Grant's picture on Straight Ahead, listening to her voice and just sort of thinking about her...and her bare feet. And I'll never forget sending my best friend Brian to Harmony House to buy the new Stryper album the day after it came out on Halloween, back in 1986, before I could drive, not knowing what I was in for. It seems tame now, but that cover with the angels dragging Satan down to hell, the fire and the pentagram and everything a true metal album cover should be...I remember almost being afraid to hold it, lest I get caught and in trouble, thrilled at the thought that I owned this evil metal album (almost unable to believe it was Christian) with even a title I could not mention to my parents (To Hell with the Devil), hiding it for years in my collection... There's nothing quite like unfolding a gatefold double album and getting lost in the world represented there in the music and the artwork.

Perhaps this love of the object itself, the history and connection I feel when holding an old record like that, might explain why I am probably the last person on earth without an ipod. I DJ weddings sometimes, and I am one of the few DJs out there that still hauls in a few cases of actual CDs, because I don't use a laptop to "DJ" the way most these days do. Perhaps it just indicates my resistance to change. A few years ago I was the last person on earth still using a pager instead of a cell phone, and if I had lived in the early part of this century, I'm sure I would have been driving a horse and buggy for the majority of the first half of it...

And when the last brick-and-mortar record store closes its doors, you can be sure that I will be the last customer to walk out of its doors, sure to be clenching as many albums and CDs in my arms as is physically possible, with a look on my face closely resembling Charlie Brown's in mid-scream.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a big fan of the digital download culture that seems to be taking over the music industry and making ancient useless artifacts of the physical and collectible objects that music was once recorded onto. It's like a bad parody of my Christian school days, as everyone seems to be getting rid of all their circular music. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy downloading an otherwise unavailable song to add to my collection as much as anyone, and as a DJ, downloadable music has saved me from spending tons of money on CDs that I used to have to buy in their entirety when I only wanted one song. But when someone holds up something that looks like a small credit card and announces proudly that their entire music collection is right there in that tiny little cracker-like square, my heart sinks a little, realizing to myself and unable to explain just how much of the full experience they are missing by reducing their music to intangible and disposable (delete-able) megabytes.

I suspect I'll only be able to reach a few of you with my doomsday message, but let me give it a try...

As I posted earlier, I have a library of over 1,300 books. If you are a regular ol' book lover and want to come over to look at my books, I can point to a few bookcases that have made more than a few book lovers drool. You can take a book off the shelf, hold it in your hands, stick your nose in its pages (if you are of the booksmelling persuasion), thumb through various volumes and lose yourself for hours in these stacks. I have books that were printed many decades ago, and some that were printed not more than a few months ago. each one holds a unique feel and charm to it, beyond anything written inside. Now imagine you come over to look at my library, hearing about all these great books I own, and instead of bookshelves, I point to my computer. I've decided to get rid of all that bulky paper and now have only ebooks. IF you are a booklover, I think even the most digitally hardened amongst you will have to admit that there would be a certain amount of disappointment at the absense of an actual, physical library to browse through. (at the very least, you will agree that sticking your nose to a computer screen is retarted)

Perhaps your thing is antiques. or works of art. maybe you like gardening and enjoy plants and flowers. picture anything like this, anything that holds a physical fascination for you, and imagine coming over to someones house to view theirs, and they show you pictures of their "original Van Gogh" - or their plants...or their antiques - on the computer. That's where they've decided to keep these things, getting rid of the actual physical objects themselves. "Threw the Van Gogh painting out because I have a picture of it on my computer which takes up less space, and I can store more original works of art that way". I hope the only reasonable response to this would be the exclamation "You are an idiot".

The physical object of music - whether a record album, a CD, or collectible box set - at it's best is a piece of art. It's not "just about the music". It's about the experience as a whole, and that includes the artwork and packaging it comes in. People who don't go to record stores and just flip through the stacks just don't get that. There's an almost talismanic experience with a well-packaged slab of music that is lost on downloads. The imagination kicks in while holding an album in one's hands, and before you've even heard a note of the music inside, the experience has already begun and the mind has taken flight. The best of albums deliver on or exceed the promise of the artwork and all that, often not in the way one might have expected, and that element of surprise can get you giddy. I can't tell you how often I've been just flipping through the stacks at the local (now nearly extinct) record store and picked up an album that I'd never heard of, that was getting no airplay that I knew of, just because it "looked interesting". Some of my favorite albums have come to me that way. Music can't "look interesting" anymore in a download music world. What will the grandkids flip through when they talk about their parent's music collection? Will their parents even have a music collection to flip through and discover, or will it have been accidentally deleted long ago? The object seems obviously and intrinsically important in a way that is apparently lost on the download culture.

I say all this, and yet, to balance things out a bit, the other side of my mouth has to admit that I've been going through my stacks the past few years and getting rid of a lot of the "bulk", burning a few songs I like from CDs that don't satisfy on the whole and then excommunicating them from my collection. and yes, I frequently judge whether I buy CDs by the cover art. this is a very loose tendency with me, as exceptions abound, but I like a cover to capture my imagination and hopes, to hold some sort of promise of good things inside, to somehow give me an indication of the kind of music that is inside, and perhaps subconsciously a bad cover says "here's the first clue that, if we couldn't even come up with something good for the outside, we probably didn't do much better on the inside either". I love good packaging, and if the packaging is stupid, I'd at the very least just rather burn a copy...But ripping albums and CDs to the computer just for the sake of space?? The idea seems as ridiculous to me as the art example I used earlier. You'll never see me burning a copy of Over the Rhine's "Good Dog, Bad Dog" to my computer and tossing the original. Somehow, in a very big way, it just wouldn't be the same that way (the thought alone makes me ill). And even though I have Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' on CD, I'll never get rid of my dad's vinyl copy. not because the vinyl is worth any money (it's most definitely not), but because it's my dad's copy, from when he was young (before Dylan "got crazy with all that rock and roll") and somehow that seems incredibly important to me.

Rain

2008-08-06T03:08:00.007-04:00

the song that single-handedly made me a Patty Griffin fan...

It's hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Its hard to know when to give up the fight
Some things you want will just never be right
Its never rained like it has tonight before
Now I don't want to beg you baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm still alive underneath this shroud
Rain

(Patty Griffin - "Rain" - from 1,000 Kisses)

2008-07-27T23:49:00.001-04:00

"God is my co-pilot, and the Virgin Mary is my hot stewardess" (American Dad)

A Life Spent Reading (Pt. 1: Childhood Roots)

2008-07-25T03:13:00.015-04:00

The other day I posted a picture of my book collection (most of it, anyway), and it got me wondering once again, how in the world did it get to this? Why do most of the people I know own just a few books, and I own over a thousand? Is there a rhyme or a reason to this exorbitant amount of literary accumulation?

For as long as I can remember, books and time spent reading have been an integral part of my life. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of my mother reading to me, her arms around me holding a book that we would both be looking at as she read and I either followed along or looked at the pictures while my imagination was carried off in the pages of books like The Velveteen Rabbit (one of my mother's favorites) and Where The Wild Things Are. My favorite childhood picture is of me, at 3 years old, sitting next to a record player with a book in front of me (only a bubble-pipe in my mouth could have made the picture any better). I like to think I was listening to music while reading (as I'm fond of saying that my life hasn't really changed since then), but I remember those books that came with a little record inside of them all too well. A narrator would read the book, usually along with wonderful sounds and character actors playing their part of the story. I had a whole shelf full of these, and I am grateful to my parents for so much encouragement in getting me to read so early in life. My mother even says that she used to read to me before I was born. She used to talk about her own love of reading as a child, saying she would often stay up all night and read a book (like White Fang) from start to finish, simply because she couldn't put it down. I remember how I was influenced by that idea and wanted to do the same thing, staying up well into the night, even that early, as a child, either in my room or in the blanket-tent/fort I would make in our living room on weekends, trying to read a book from start to finish. I usually couldn't make it through to the end the way my mother did, though. (One Saturday in 5th grade, I tried to read The Red Badge Of Courage straight through, and I have a distinct memory of wishing that book would end already, but plowing on in spite of my boredom with it. Even in childhood I was growing the roots of OCD that wouldn't let me not finish a book I started, no matter how much I wasn't enjoying it!)
My father was an English lit major during his first go at college, and in my later life now, I fully see the influence that had on me (at some point in recent years, I realized I was buying a lot of books that he already had copies of. Our interests in literature had begun to overlap). Our house always had shelves full of books, which I would play with as a child even before I was old enough to understand anything written inside of them. I think this early and constant, intimate and comfortable exposure to books certainly led to a development of a love for books themselves, as talismanic objects of wonder and enjoyment in my life. One of my favorite parts of the school year was the Scholastic book order. I can only vaguely remember anything I ordered from there (usually a Guinness book of world records was acquired yearly…something that may have subliminally led to my love of Guinness beer later in life), but I distinctly remember the thrill I felt when my stack of new books came in! (I still get something of that thrill as an adult through the magic of Amazon.com…) I also have summertime memories of joining the reading club at the library, where you would get prizes or something for reading a certain amount of books…

In 6th grade, in an otherwise educationally vacuous Christian school experience, I had one of the best teachers of my life. Mr. Wynn Clack was one of those teachers that you are proud to have known, someone who knew how to reach kids and get them interested in school in a way that is all too rare. One of the keys to his success was the freedom we had as students to pursue that which interested us. He had a love of history and had copies of historic newspaper front-pages hung up on the back wall that we could peruse and become familiar with without a single word of their history needing to be taught to us. We learned history because we were fascinated by these moments of history displayed before us. He loved photography, and we were allowed to bring cameras to class and take pictures at will. I took full advantage of this, possibly more than anyone else in the class, and have an album full of great childhood memories from that year. And Mr. Clack always gave us free reign of as much time as he could to read - whatever we wanted to read. Time spent reading in class was time well spent in his estimation, and looking back on my school years, I would say it was some of the best quality time I've ever spent in class. That was one year I truly loved going to school and looked forward to class time. That was also a transitional year for me in regards to my reading abilities and the kinds of books I was reading. The books I read were having a more profound (and sometimes embarrassingly silly) impact and effect on my life. I read my first C.S. Lewis book in 6th grade - an author who is still one of my top 5 favorites (I'll let you make the obvious guess as to "witch" book that was. Suffice it to say, playtime in the winter took on a whole new dimension in my imagination after that, with snow-covered tree landscapes transforming themselves into a place called Narnia). I read Johanna Spyri's "Heidi" (unaware of the "fruity" implications there may have been for a 6th grade boy to be reading such a book) and her description of the evening sky catching on fire developed in me the beginnings of a lifelong love of sunsets... (descriptions of the grandfathers meals for Heidi also inspired me to start snacking on cheese chunks with buttered bread and milk...one of those random odd influences literature can have on an open and impressionable young mind, and something I still do to this day). As a sort of counter-balance to reading Heidi, I read my first Mark Twain book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - a book whose influence on my life probably would have horrified my parents (I took to sneaking out of the house late at night sometimes to walk to the "cemetery" about a mile from our house. If you don't know why, read the book!). I fell in love with these books and the adventures they contained more than any books I had read before. I got lost in the worlds they depicted, and I reread Tom Sawyer a handful of times - it was my guide to life as a 6th grader. I still count it as an all-time favorite.

It wouldn't be until a couple years later that a book would influence me as much, and that book was one that would influence my entire life as a teenager. A book whose influence has been shared by millions of teenagers for the past few decades, written by an author whose few books opened up a world for teenagers the likes of which had never been portrayed in literature in that way before. A book about teens that didn't focus on prom-drama or dating or changing bodily functions, but rather one where the teens were in charge of their own lives, and authority was all but absent (the kind of world most teens dream about)... A legendary classic called The Outsiders…
(to be continued...)

The Books in My Life

2008-07-22T17:24:00.008-04:00

some of my book collection. the books on the main shelf there on the left of the picture are all double-shelved. so there's a whole other case worth of books hiding back there! Unfortunately, most of my favourite books are hiding in the back behind what are probably more recent acquisitions that by default found an easy resting place in front. My near-if-not-complete collection of books by Buechner, Merton, Dillard, Nouwen, L'Engle, Percy, Dostoevsky, Flannery O'Conner, Charles Williams, and others are all hiding behind works of relatively lesser value to me. But I do love them all. the Stephen King collection is hiding in the dark of my closet where it seems to belong.
I put the shelves in the hallway up over Memorial Day weekend, and those are single-shelved (I used to have a double-shelved case there, but walking through the hallway was a bit tricky without turning sideways, so I bought some smaller shelves - suprisingly hard to find shelves that aren't a foot deep!). I have a couple hundred books elsewhere, but this is the bulk of my library.

River on Fire

2008-07-21T01:14:00.005-04:00

I don't know where to stop with my youtube obsession, but I was just listening to this song by Adam Again and struck by how good it is and how well it holds up over the years, no matter which side of the CCM /secular divide you may be on. Christian rock has produced a lot of crap in its time, more than its fair share, but it has also produced some absolute gems that make it all worth listening to. this is one of those cannon classics that does it for me every time...

What would you say if you knew what I was thinking?
Maybe you do, but you know not to dig too deep
What if i knew what you needed for sure?
I've seen in your eyes you need more, much more
And I could be happy, and you could be miserable
I'll grab a metaphor out of the air
The Cuyahoga River on fire
What can you say? The impossible happens
What can you settle for?
What can you live without?
I remember the night I first darkened your door
And I swore that I loved you
My heart was pure
You could be happy, and I could be miserable
I'll grab a metaphor out of the air
The Cuyahoga River on fire
My open window, a dream in the dark
My fingers, your face
A spark, a trace...
I know a lot about the history of Cleveland, Ohio
Disasters that have happened there
Like the Cuyahoga River on fire

"What about love...?"

2008-07-07T01:51:00.004-04:00

I love Youtube. Finally some video footage of possibly the most legendary Cornerstone concert ever. I remember the chills I got listening to this final song of the '93 fest, up on the hill, when Mike Knott came out in a full-blown clown outfit and sang one of the darkest songs in the CCM rock canon. The symbolism was genius, the screams chilling, and this show is still talked about as one of the highlights in Cornerstone's history 15 years later...

"There's nothing left but ashes where there was once a stolen kiss"

2008-07-06T02:45:00.018-04:00

Sorry for the German guy intro, but I'd kill to have a copy of this whole Flevo concert from '89. Some of the best footage I've ever seen of Rez mowing the heads off the audience with their no-holds-barred classic rock onslaught. Rez was hands-down the biggest influence in my life and Christian faith from the first time I saw them back in '84 (where they gave me my first dose of a lifetime's worth of tinnitus) through my post-college years. I didn't get a chance to see them at Cornerstone this year where they performed a reunion concert, but I am planning on driving out to Muskeegon in early August to catch the only other reunion show they will be performing at the much cheaper, much closer, and much shorter "Unity Fest". I think their days of intense, high-energy aural assault are sadly long-over (as evidenced by what little footage I saw of the Cstone performance, with Wendi looking like she was performing for little kids rather than veteran rock fans, Stu just looks old, and John just looks tired), but I'll still enjoy the trip down memory lane... Until then, excuse me while I warm-up and psych-out with a few videos from the classic years...

"Regrets half-felt and sin half-loved...I say faith is just for fools...somebody tell me, what's the use?"
Another one from the same show, I think Rez does the mellow bluesier stuff just as good as the hard stuff, and the lyrics are always genuine and hit the mark for me. but don't take my word for it, I'm as biased about this band as they come!

"Angel-dust and tortured dreams say I'd be better dead"
This one is easily my favourite Rez song of all-time, and I was at this performance, down in the very front (as I usually was at most Rez shows). I'm still asking those questions, and sometimes I hear those voices (as we probably all do at one time or another). "You chase the shadows because your hopes and dreams have been lost to the night..."
from Cornerstone 1994:

And no Rez concert would be complete without a little "talk" from Glenn Kaiser. a segment that over the years (ever since Bootleg) has somewhat oddly been dubbed "Glenn's Rap":

and since I'm already loading up this post with enough video to make your computer come to a crashing halt trying to download it, I might as well throw in this little bonus clip just for fun. Evidence proving one reviewer's claim many years ago who wrote the classic line (in response to the general idea that Stryper was the first "Christian metal" band) that Rez band was playing metal when the members of Stryper were still playing with crayons! Think of it as the encore in my little Rez Band concert blog. A 10-minute window onto prime-era Resurrection Band, a full-on full-energy blast from the past that I kind of wish was audio-only (although that double-neck guitar is classic Stu!). This is the fashion of the 70's trying to merge with the 80's on a group of 60's Jesus Freak hippies, and it can be a little painful to look at for those of us who prefer our Rez band metal to be clothed in black leather. (I could really do without the Hawaiian(?) shirt is all I'm saying...)

You have less than 5 years to live...

2008-06-27T05:13:00.008-04:00

Have you noticed that life seems to change drastically every 5 years? How many people can look back 5 years into their life and say everything is pretty much the same? Many things might be, but I'll bet that in many other very significant ways it is completely different. 5 years ago in my life, my grandmother was still alive and I was visiting her almost every week; my brother still lived in Ann Arbor and I would see him at least a few times a month (5 years before that he was still living at home in the room right next to mine. He now lives in New York); One of my best friends was living just across the city (he now lives across the country); I was talking with or hanging out almost every day with another close friend who I now hardly talk to more than a few minutes a couple times a month; And I still had a plausable amount of hair on my now bald head! (5 years before that I had hair almost down to my ass!) WTF!?!

and 5 years from now, Obama will be into his second term as president...
:-)

If you chance to look down and see how quickly the stream of time is passing by as you walk the balance beam of your life, you are apt to get rather dizzy and maybe even filled with panic. Maybe you didn't realize you were on a balance beam before you stopped, maybe you didn't realize how easily you could fall off, how easily everything you know could change. There have been many times in my life when I have gotten that feeling and wanted to hold on to something, to somehow stop life from slipping by so quickly (usually when life is about to change significantly, perhaps the loss in one way or another of a loved one, sometimes just from listening to a song that reflects on life's quick passing - usually something by UnderCover or Terry Taylor, maybe Rush's "Time Stand Still", something like that). But there really is nothing to hold on to. It doesn't do any good to try to hang on. We worry about death, but death happens to us all the time, all throughout our lives. Life as we know it ends, over and over again, and something new takes its place. The life we know now is not going to be here in 5 years. (although, in another sense, as Buechner says, every person we once were is still there living inside of us somewhere, only they get covered up and hidden more and more as time goes by). Do you have kids? This is the easiest way to see this. Think of a newborn completely dependant and helpless...now a 5 year old who can walk and talk and is probably started in some kind of school...now a 10 year old in 5th grade listening to the latest in moral-eroding rap music that would horrify you to think of a 5-year-old listening to...now a teenager taking drivers training, rebelling, living their own kind of life in their own private world with friends you probably don't approve of... now a young adult who can go off to war and get killed, or is more likely halfway through college at age 20...now (if all goes according to the plan) someone out on their own, working at a career...perhaps marriage, kids, etc etc... life just goes by so fast. can you believe each of those stages is just 5 years apart? 5 years is nothing. If someone told you you only had 5 years to live, you'd probably freak. but that's pretty close to the truth. Whoever you are right now will be no more in 5 years, whatever life you are living right now will no longer exist then. It's probably best not to look down and see how fast it's all flying by. People like me tend to get dizzy and a bit paralyzed when they realize it, whereas others don't think about it and just keep going along their merry way, living life as it comes and changes until they lose their balance and slip off the bar for good. And of course, as Tom Waits once said, eventually we all get to be dirt in the ground...

Merton's Mountain

2008-06-27T04:12:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain. This is a very different book from anything else I've read by him, and I certainly would not recommend this as a starting point. Not that it's not good (it is very good), but unless you are already familiar with Merton's work and thought, what he's contributed to the literary canon of meditation on the spiritual life, you might find yourself wondering why you should care about the life he is writing about in this autobiography. This is one of the first books he wrote after joining the monestary, and its early origin is evident to someone more familiar with his later work. The most obvious example of this, to me, was the way he talked about other faiths and denomonations within Christendom. He has very little respect for the "opposing" denomonations, taking what come across as cheap-shots at their "erroneous" ways of understanding and practicing the faith, and speaks of Catholocism with an almost idolatrous reverence.

There is a great 10-minute biography of Merton's life here

2008-06-21T05:02:00.000-04:00

"Worship the Lord. If necessary, use music" (Glenn Kaiser)

The best Over the Rhine video they never made

2008-06-10T14:51:00.002-04:00

hard to believe this is an unofficial indie affair.

The Eyes of Love

2008-05-26T05:39:00.007-04:00

A few nights ago I was sitting in this house with a few candles lighting the place, listening to Undercover's Balance of Power. I was reminded of a time nearly 2 decades ago, when this CD first came out, when I was listening to this same music blasting through the house as the night was getting late, lying in bed with 2 of my closest friends (don't ask because I'm not telling, except to say that the friend lying next to me was a hot girl...but I digress). One of the best songs on there is called Eyes of Love, and it's been sticking in my mind since playing it again the other night. "A million questions burning from the flame that melted you, begging for the answers, continue looking through the eyes of love..." Continue looking through the eyes of love. This is one of the hardest things to do at a time when life seems determined to beat you down until you stay down. When I feel hurt or betrayed or simply left behind and "uninvited" by those I let my guard down for, those I let into my inner circle. Or sometimes just dealing with idiots in life. Idiots who often have the upper-hand, who are holding all the cards, who are in charge of things by what must surely be divine mismanagement. My first reaction to this sort of thing is anger. And bitterness (despite Paul's admonition not to let that root find soil). I ride (as Sixpence once put it) a "circle of error", in which my thoughts continue to circle back to the pain or percieved injustice I feel, trying somehow to articulate it or make sense of it. Begging for the answers, to the question "why?" or "how could this happen?". Or maybe just wanting things to be different. Wanting this to "shall pass" already. Not sure if the future holds anything better though. And then just when I needed to hear it, the lyrics to yet another profound Undercover song get stuck in my head and start to work on my heart and soul... "Continue looking through the Eyes of Love..."

It seems almost impossible to do sometimes, this admonition of Christ's to "return good for evil", to pray for one's enemies, to love and pray for those who persecute you. Heck, just to love others period is a thought more than I can seem to manage at times. Trying to imagine what this looks like through the eyes of love. Trying to hold on to what Miroslav Volf calls the Will to Embrace. But if I can somehow remove my thoughts from the mire they are in and look at the situation objectively, somehow look AT myself from OUTSIDE of myself, see what I look like in these circumstances, I have to ask myself, "what kind of person do I want to be?". Do I want to be a bitter angry man, kicking anything in my path and warning others with my whole way of being not to get too close? Are the knocks life doles out a legitimate reason to be this way, no matter how deep or hard or painful? The bitterness and rage become a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy after a time, inviting nothing but the same into one's life, a "circle of error". "Become like what you want to attract" as the saying goes.

There is, of course, a balance to be found here. One can't go around pretending to be happy while ignoring the pain one is experiencing. But, if one can find it, there is a peace and joy that goes deeper than any outward circumstance can affect. If you can find it. For me, reading Buddhist writers like Thich Nhat Hanh or Pema Chodron helps, or Christians like Henri Nouwen or Mother Teresa. People who have known the pain and trials of living while at the same time leading lives of deep love for others and for God. I see that it is possible, But as U2 once sang, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for".

All Quotes By: David Dark

2008-05-15T00:30:00.003-04:00

"I suspect there's something a little demonic in finding others boring or unworthy of our interest."

"No so-called friendship that required the denying of another friendship could be worthy of the name, and any joy that required the exclusion of a peer would be forever illegitimate."

"...humans whipped into a frenzy of what they take to be righteous indignation (whether by waves of nationalism, party politics, or talk radio) often have an unfortunate habit of crucifying people."

" 'He died for me' is a moving phrase, but it's often also one way of drowning out the example of the life Jesus lived and the question of whether or not we dare to apply it to the way we conduct our own lives."

"There is a righteousness that transcends our percieved self-interest, and we get to pursue it in the hope that a better self-interest (not necessarily pragmatically verifiable) will follow. We get to live in hope of a better health than we're currently defending at all costs, including, perhaps, the forfeiture of our souls."

"it's always useful to keep in mind the difference between pessimism and realism in the service of truthfulness. There is a disillusionment that revels in self-satisfied navel-gazing and the insistence that there is no warmth or comfort to be found, but there's another kind (often mistaken for cynicism) that is merely holding out for the real thing."

"the Through-A-Glass-Darkly clause (dare to do our duty as we understand it) that marks all careful speech is witnessed in Lincoln's admonition that we can only speak, see, and understand fallibly. A determined awareness of our deficient imaginations will mark all talk of God, evil, freedom, and necessity (a difficult temptation in an election year), but if a nation or its leaders are to resist the drive to consider godlikeness as something to be grasped, this confession must never be cast aside."

"One peculiarity of the present age is that, in some cases, our powers of application are so compromised that we're incapable of recognizing as morally edifying anything that doesn't advertise itself as such."

Karen Armstrong

2008-05-14T03:01:00.002-04:00

One of my favourite writers and speakers on the topic of religion.

Undercover in '93

2008-04-25T04:12:00.008-04:00

Apologies for the sound on this fan recording, but I found this and had to post it. Of the 12 years I went to Cornerstone, and the hundreds of concerts I've seen there, this one from Undercover in '93 ranks easily in the Top 5 (probably surpassed only by Sixpence in '95 and LSU in '94, Over the Rhine in '96, and probably one of the many Rez shows. Iona in '94 was pretty freakin great too, but I think Undercover holds rank, I think even over the Mad at the World show I saw my first year! now I'm just rubbing salt in my friends wounds...). I was practically sitting on the main stage right in front of Gym during this one, whose guitar playing is simply legendary. An incredible concert from one of the all-time greats. (I was finally able to talk my friend Andrew into going to Cstone the following year, during which he exclaimed many times, "I can't believe I almost didn't come to this!")

And I both love and hate whoever posted this video - Love them because this is the only video I think I've ever seen of my very first year at Cstone, including clips of Mad at the World, Out of the Grey (mislabeled as Over the Rhine here), and Margaret Becker... and hate them because, are you freakin' kidding me? you have VIDEO of those concerts and you only post a few seconds of them in clips??!!??

2008-04-16T01:06:00.004-04:00

"Remember to love your neighbor as you love yourself...and if you hate yourself, then please...just leave your neighbor alone" (Jon Stewart)

Peace is Every Step

2008-04-12T06:30:00.000-04:00

Veronica (Remembering Nanny)

2008-04-06T02:52:00.027-04:00

Three years ago, on the Sunday evening of this first weekend of April, My Grandmother passed away. She had been in a hospital or hospice bed for the previous 2-3 weeks, mostly sleeping, mostly out of it, mostly waiting to die. My Grandmother, in one way or another, had been waiting to die for just about the last 10 years of her life. My Grandfather had died in 1986, and shortly thereafter my Grandmother was practically coerced into making a rush decision to move out of her own apartment (where she and my Grandpa had lived for as long as I remember) to come live with one of her children, a decision based mostly in fear, justified or not. When she did that, she left most of her sense of independence and control behind, a decision she regretted for years afterward. She came to live at our house first, and during the years she lived here, I developed an even stronger connection and relationship with her than we had had before (which was always good). After she went to live with my Aunt (and Uncle before he died), I would come to visit with her almost every week. Many times we would have a lot to say, talking about the goings-on in the world, or in my life, or in the family, and many times she would share stories from her life. Many times, we would just sit there, often watching TV, with not much to say. But I knew those visits meant a lot to her, as they also meant a lot to me. I have so many childhood memories of my Grandma and Grandpa (Nanny and Papa to us). They would come over to babysit for us while my parents both went to work to support the life we had. They would bring a can of Franco-American Spaghetti over for my lunch, and we would watch Price is Right, followed by an afternoon of soap operas (All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and "as sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives"…). Somewhere in there we would usually find time to play a game of cards, like War, or Go Fish…

That last weekend of her life, I had gone to Grand Rapids for Calvin's Faith & Music Festival. It was a long, good, and tiring weekend, with not much sleep to be had. My Grandmother was in my thoughts the whole time though, wondering if she would still be there when I got back, reminded not only by my thoughts, but also by the passing of the Pope that very same weekend. And she did hold on. She waited for me to get back, waited for me to say goodbye, to be there like I always hoped I could be in that moment. I drove the 3 hours back in the early evening alongside my close friend Carrie, who had driven out there separately for the festival as well. We were talking on the phone, planning on watching another Sopranos DVD that evening after we got back, debating whether we even had the energy to do so. When I was literally 2 miles away from the exit that would take me home, my dad called (with no idea where I was in my journey home) to tell me that they were still at the hospice, my parents and my aunt, that my grandmother was having a pretty bad day. I asked him if I should come over there (the hospice was literally one exit past mine. I was no more than 5 minutes away when he called after being 3 hours away all weekend). He said no, probably not, he'd call me if anything happened. After a moment's weary decision, I called my friend back to tell her I wouldn't be coming over for Sopranos night after all, and I headed for the hospice instead.

I walk into the room in which she lays, and my mother falls into my arms in grief, wracked with tears, watching her mother struggle for breath on her death bed…"Go to her, let her know that you're here. Maybe she'll be ok then…"

On the bed you lay, looking at me, maybe not seeing, but suffering, your breathing quick and rattled. I could already hear it when I walked toward your room. A death rattle has caught in your throat. You are dying before our eyes, your rosary wrapped around your hand. Can you feel it? Do you pray now? Or do you just struggle for an elusive breath? Can you feel my hands holding yours? Can you see me looking deep into your eyes, hoping for a glimpse of your soul? Occasionally you mouth words to me, you seem to be saying "help me". But the only help I can offer is all I am offering right now, just to be here by your side. I will share one more hour with you, and that is all we are given…

I am aware that these are your last moments, and instead of only being there with tears and grief, I remember to smile. and I know that you do see me, for I will never forget the smile you return to me. this is a better way to say goodbye. this is a better moment for both of us to remember...

Leaning back, I wonder how much longer this can go on. How long, oh Lord, will you torture her like this? Have Mercy on her, have Mercy oh Lord. Please have Mercy… It's all I really know how to pray. I lean back because I am tired. I lean back, not knowing how long we will be here with you, wondering how much I can take. I haven't slept for days. None of us here have.

It was only 2 weeks ago that I was praying a very different kind of prayer...after visiting for hours with you by your hospital bed, just sitting there, helplessly watching your withered body lay there uncomprehending and confused and wasting away, old and wrinkled and all the vitality drained away to leave this helpless suffering shell. I went out to my car in tears and I screamed at God in anger and disgust and horror stricken grief...I called him a sick fuck, that this is what he is "pleased" to bring us to after a life too short, that this is what he would bring my grandmother down to in her final days after her lifetime of devotion to him, what the fuck is he trying to prove?...and to this day, I don't know if that was blasphemy, or one of the most honest prayers I could have prayed...

Perhaps in some horrible, twisted way, the suffering of the dying is for the sake of loved ones still alive, so that instead of wondering "how could this be?" at the sudden death in the midst of a healthy life, we accept that "this must be" and we are ready for it to be over. It is a sick slight-of-hand trick on God's part, causing us to accept what should never be accepted...

I am here now, and your daughters are here too. Two daughters that have been with you, by your side, caring for you (for years now), praying for you, keeping vigil all day long. They are here now, and we will share this moment with you. You will not die alone, and for that I am grateful, for the strange perfect timing that brought me here to be with you right now...

I hold your hand, and I don't know what to say to you in this final moment with you, this last chance I will have to tell you anything I have to tell you, to say whatever it is I will wish I had said to you after you are gone. And I don't know what to say. "I love you…put your trust in God now". That's all I know how…

As we sit there with you, a loud growl comes from you suddenly, like you are giving it all to clear out that monster in your throat. And again. And then your chest slows its pace, it stops, but your heart beats on. And then a gasp for air…and still again. Looking off into the distance, do you see anything at all? You are still, and your heart beats on…Another gasp, involuntary, and you are still. The pulse, slows. It will come to a stop. And I wonder, is your mind the last to go, and how could we tell, and would you know?
Goodbye, Grandmother…

Goodbye, Nanny. Goodbye mother and father and sister and brother. Goodbye me. For you are now where one day I will be. You are now where one day all too soon we all will be, gasping for air, struggling, ending our days and our life. Just a few more days. Months, maybe even years, but moments all too soon. Death walks these halls, and though two others die here this very night, it never gets its fill. It looks to me…I'll get to you later. Or maybe not later…and for now, it is gone. For now it is only right here in the room with us…

I have a picture of you that haunts me now. In it, you are less than half my age, and now at more than twice my age, you are gone…

Birthday girl, sweet sixteen. "Come here, my daughter", your mother said to you, lying in a bed in your home like the one you lay in now, "when you come home from school today, I will have a surprise for you…" And when you come back home later that afternoon, you find your mother is dead. And now you, sweet Veronica, must take care of this family of yours…

You leaned out the window weeks ago and called out "please don't go daddy", but he left all the same, unable to deal with your mother's illness…
From a rooftop he fell, and now they are gone. And now, tonight, you join them. Less than 80 years ago, between then and now, and here you are, dead like them like you never dreamed back then you could be. Like I never dreamed I could be one day too.

…And so I look at that picture again, of you and your friends at an all-night dance marathon, at the height of the roaring 20's (what a time to be alive!)…and I realize it wasn't all fun and games for you even then, even dancing the night away. You needed the money they were playing for. You needed to win to do what you could to take care of your home…What I wouldn't give to have known you back then. The 20's. What a time to be alive…what a hard, hard time to be alive…

When Dawn
then Dusk
and Darkened Sky
exchange their hue
for one last time
if all we've said
is just Goodbye
with one last day
to live our lives
I'll hold your hand
gaze in your eyes
and pray
Mercy
a thousand times
'till all we've left
are tears to dry
at daybreak
on the other side

Angel Tread

2008-04-02T02:21:00.011-04:00

Wow. This brings back some memories. I didn't realize they had made any videos for this album. This Beautiful Mess was such an important part of my life for years back when it came out more than a decade ago. It was literally the soundtrack to my life in the mid-90's (along with a small handfull of others, most notably Over the Rhine and Vigilantes of Love), and I was a total Sixpence None the Richer groupie back then. I had been a fan since the beginning, but when I saw Tess on stage with the group for the first time (just before this CD came out), I knew something special was about to take place. It's so rare for music to just reach in and take ahold of your heart and soul and become such an essential part of your life like this did for me. Out of the 4,000 CDs I own, this one is probably second only to Over the Rhine's Good Dog Bad Dog, and usually sharing the "musical trinity" top spot with Sarah Masen's Dreamlife of Angels. definitely a top-fiver of all-time disc for me. I still think the music they made was incredible and stands the test of time amazingly well. and they're getting back together and playing Cornerstone this year! Hopefully I'll be there...and if Tess is with them, I'll probably pass out after I pee my shorts and scream like a little girl...

Rev. Wright

2008-03-27T15:44:00.008-04:00

I suppose I should, in some weird and twisted way, be grateful to the news media for bringing this pastor to my attention. This might hurt my chances of becoming president one day, but I like this guy and what he has to say (not everything he says by any means, I'm sure, but I thought this was really good). What I don't like so much, and have a growing intolerance for, is the insistence on the part of "political warmongers" to misconstrue another's words and then attack that misconstrual as though representative of that person. Growing up in an Evangelical Christian subculture, I developed an intolerance for Christians who would take a bible verse completely out of context and then use it to rationalize or justify whatever screwball idea they had about God or how to live (one that comes immediately to mind is the rationalization that speaking in tongues is somehow the pinnacle of one's faith, when the scripture that this comes from actually says almost the opposite). We see this all the time in the political "silly season" (as Obama refers to it), this ripping statements out of context in order to tear down opponents, arguments pretty much based in lies (misconstruing, misrepresenting another's words and thoughts). God forbid anyone shouting against Reverend Wright should actually sit and listen to more than an out-of-context soundbite before they make a sweeping judgement of the man and anyone he associates with. Here's a fuller context of one of the minor "inflammatory" things he had to say:

Obama does it again

2008-03-20T03:39:00.002-04:00

Have we heard a more excellent presidential speech in our lifetime? What a refreshing change it will be to have this man in the White House...

Wholeness / Holiness

2008-03-13T03:08:00.013-04:00

A thought on the nature of Wholeness (or Holiness)...
It doesn't mean being completely independent in the way we usually think of that term - not needing anyone or anything else. In fact, I would suggest that Wholeness involves a balanced connection with others; Aspects of ourselves that are outside of ourselves; To be "hole-y", having empty places in our being that can only be filled by something or someone outside of ourselves. To know ourselves is to know where our empty places are; it is to see where and how others fit into our being. Think of anyone in your life whom you love deeply - can you imagine your life being whole or complete without them? Without your son or daughter? Without your parents? Without your husband or wife? Without your brother or sister? When someone we love leaves us, or dies, is not the most universal feeling one of emptiness? A part of ourselves is no longer there, and it is only right that we should feel that hollow place, and also right to say that no one will ever be able to fill that space in us again. No other could ever take the place of a loved one lost. (This is one of the reasons why the story of Job bothers me so much)

I recently heard someone say something along these lines: "I only need God, even if everyone else leaves me. My relationship with God is all that really matters". This is, in my opinion, unbalanced and unbiblical. To reject not only the centrality of the church in the Christian experience, but to deny God's own claim in Genesis that "it is not good for man to be alone". I would also suggest that if one's relationship with others is non-existent, then one's relationship with God probably isn't much better (Desert Fathers notwithstanding - But even the religious solitary will say that they do not live the life of solitude to get away from people, but rather in order to better serve and love others and the church in their unique calling).

Love involves not only giving, but receiving. Only in both is there whole love. To give and not need to receive is another form of selfishness.

To quote U2, there is a "God-shaped hole" in us that can only be filled spiritually, by God. And similarly, there is an empty place in us that can only be filled by those we love & who love us. Contrary to what some may say or claim, God does not fill that void, only our loved ones can. God was not satisfied just to have a relationship with Adam, God insisted that Adam also have a relationship with Eve, as well as insisting they have children. We may mean well when we advise others in their grief and loss to turn to God and lean on him for strength and comfort, but let's be careful that we don't imply that he will fill that emptiness inside of them. That is a place that will always be there. Part of our fallen state is living with emptiness, hoping in a day when God will restore all things.

It is an easy temptation to go from needing others and God to fill those proper places in us, to trying to get them to fit into empty places they are not and were never meant to fill. Receiving love can easily become an overbearing clinging and demandingness for the other to fill all our needs (often without regard for their particular needs, even those we can legitimately fill).

We don't like that feeling of emptiness, and part of our fallen nature is to try to fill that emptiness with all manner of distractions so that we don't have to feel what can never, for now, be filled. Something to remember and think on when we see the alcoholic, the drug addicted, the sexual deviants and adulterers, the depressed, the obsessive/compulsive, the demented, those lost and wandering, even the criminal and violent. They are no different from us. There is emptiness within all of us that we all rage against in our own particular ways, socially acceptable or not.

-----------------------------------------------------

There is a desperation in everything meaningful we try to partake in... We want a real relationship with God, the ultimate reality, and instead the experience of so many of us is an unreality in relation to God. An Absence. A deep longing to embrace God, to love and live in his presence...yet an unfulfilled longing that finds us embracing our own imaginings. I despair because I want to be loved, and I don't know if I am. And my experience and flawed understanding both tell me I am not - not in the deep, fulfilling way that I long for. What kind of real, solid, loving relationship is experienced in the abstract only? Seeing in circumstance the hand of God - Loving? Angry? What does this good or bad really mean?

We seek to fulfill our longings, our emptiness, with human companionship, love, and we so often end in a clinging, controlling wreck...

(and that's my happy thought for the day...)

Military-family support for Obama

2008-03-07T17:03:00.004-05:00

Frank Schaeffer (son of the legendary Francis A.) has this to say about why, as a lifelong Republican, he is supporting Obama this time around. (Read the whole article here)

This year the Republicans can't count on the military family's vote. Because Obama was right about Iraq, he may become the candidate of choice for far more pro-military voters than pundits might expect. Note: Since Senator Clinton voted for the war in Iraq she doesn't present a clear alternative to McCain or to the Republican Party. Of the Democratic candidates only Senator Obama has a chance to win the support of the military family. Here's why and here's how.

If McCain would only say what I suspect he believes -- that the Iraq war was a tragic mistake, that his support was a mistake and that our policy should be to take responsibility for the mess we've made, but that the best we can do is get out of Iraq as fast as is possible while causing as little harm as possible -- I (and others who mourn Bush's folly) might vote for him. Instead he is talking about "winning" and staying in Iraq for many years. How do you win a war you never should have started which was based on misinformation that morphed into outright lies?

McCain is face-saving and pandering to the Republican base at the expense of our military family. (Disclosure: In 2000 I went on several radio shows to argue for McCain's candidacy. A few years later McCain wrote a kind endorsement for one of my military-related books. I think it is a national tragedy that the Republican establishment destroyed his chances in 2000. Had he been president on 9/11 I'm sure that however he reacted to the attack on America that his actions would never have included invading Iraq.)

It makes me sad that I can't support McCain but I can't because the Republicans and Democrats share something besides trying to figure out what to do about Iraq. Both parties share a primary election system in which the ideological fringes have outsized importance. To get the nomination, candidates pander to the extremes. This pandering has fatally undermined any Republican's ability to lead us out of the mess Bush made.

Obama panders too when he promises we'll be out of Iraq in a year or so. He knows this is fiction. But Obama's pandering to his base is less dangerous than McCain's "never surrender!" pandering. That's because the ideological fringe of the Democratic Party is less dangerous than the ideologically extreme wing of the Republican Party.

The Democratic ideologues are merely unrealistic idealists, the sorts of village idiots that picket Marine recruiters in Berkeley. The Republican ideologues are bellicose warmongers who tarnish America's reputation and get our people killed. They are the torture enthusiasts, the war-of-choice enthusiasts, the radio talk show jerks who send other people's children to wars their own kids don't volunteer for. The Republican fringe goads America into acting like a bully. They are believers in a form of American exceptionalism that -- spewed by bizarre apocalypse-obsessed religious right evangelicals and/or Dr. Strangelove neocons -- is a jingoistic, toxic, fear-driven myth of "they" against "us" that if unstopped, will result in wars without end. And above all the Republican fringe isn't a fringe at all: they've become the heart and soul of the ugly fear-mesmerized party in power.

Republicans may talk about patriotism and honor but in fact through their stubborn support for Bush's war they have become our military's worst enemies. They literally get our men and women killed. But many of us in the military family have had it with the Republican's bellicose nonsense -- Bush's "Bring it on!" and now McCain's version; "I'll chase bin Laden to the gates of hell!" Enough is enough.

Darfur: Raising Awareness

2008-02-29T04:55:00.006-05:00

The discussion on this video actually made me cry...
Awareness of the problem of Darfur is so important right now, and I just wanted to do my part in some small way to help.
(I feel better about it already...)
(*ahem*)

How Can We Raise Awareness In Darfur Of How Much We're Doing For Them?

Obama '08, pt.2

2008-02-14T05:05:00.005-05:00

This speech is probably one of the best examples of why I am so thrilled that this guy is in the public arena at all, much less gaining much hope-filled momentum towards becoming our next president.

(UPDATE: I changed to a link rather than embedding it because it was taking up too much space and messing up my blog page layout. Still a great speach though, well worth the time to go and watch)

Obama '08

2008-02-10T00:16:00.000-05:00

GO BABY GO BABY GO BABY GO!!!

April Night Sky

2008-01-27T18:11:00.000-05:00

(I had perhaps been reading too much Pablo Neruda, or even Bukowski, when I gave this a shot...)

Venus hung from the crescent moon
like a diamond necklace caught on its curve of light.
Is that really Venus, or just a tower in the distance?
It's the real thing, she assures me
with a touch of her hand, and her breath in my ear.
I've never seen it shine so bright before, I say, taken.
This is the best month to see the stars,
she said to me as we drove back through the open night sky,
under a million points of light
most we'll never see, city people you and me
But the country and the sea know that cherished darkness
and you and I have been there and known that light firsthand.
I've looked at that star dangling from the moon
and thought of you every single time.
I've heard music playing with my head
and wanted to dance, slowly with you,
out on the deck, out in the dark, in the middle of the water,
floating towards a deeper intimacy
I whisper a word into your ear and hold you near
with the palm of my hand on the small of your back
and the wind in between our touch blowing warm and gently...
Beautiful...
you know exactly what I mean.
Your eyes reflect the light of the moon and the stars,
like the sea, like the ocean, like this heart
which sinks deeper in love with you.

Book Meme

2008-01-14T05:52:00.000-05:00

Andrew tagged me for this and has been nagging me about it ever since! ;-)
so here is my first draft, subject to change:

1 - One book that changed your life
Love and Living (Thomas Merton) - My first by Merton, always a life-changing experience, and this one couldn't have come to me at a more perfect time...
The Raggamuffin Gospel (Brennan Manning) and Real Christians *Don't* Dance (John Fischer), both of which (as I wrote in a previous blog) helped guide me out of the CCM wasteland.

2 - One book that you’ve read more than once
I generally don't give time to rereading books, not because I think it's a waste of time (I don't - in fact I think it's one of the best things you can do as a lover of literature) but because I have too many unread books on my shelf and on my shopping list and too short a life to get to them all even once. but some of my earliest encounters with literature (in gradeschool) involved a love so strong for what I had read that I couldn't not reread those early classics. but I can pretty much count my rereads on one hand:
The Adventures of Tom Saywer (Mark Twain)
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

3 - One book you’d want on a desert island
I'll spare you the 2 most obvious cliche's of The Bible (which is probably my most honest choice) and A Practical Guide to Shipbuilding and just say something stupid like The Penthouse Yearbook... Forgive me for mentioning him in the same paragraph as that last statement, but something by Thomas Merton on the life of solitude would probably be fitting too, although I'd certainly need a bible as well.

4 - One book that made you laugh
that's easy - I still laugh when I think of the "polite bathroom talk" scene in Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger).
also High Fidelity (Nick Hornby), because I thought I was the only one who was that obsessive about his record collection (organizing them autobiographically. Classic. I should have copywrighted that idea 10 years before I read this book)

5 - One book that made you cry
Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking
Henri Nouwen usually does it to me too (especially In Memorium)
I think I may have cried at the end of Prayer for Owen Meany too.

6 - One book that scared the hell out of you
Stephen King's The Stand was the first book (of many subsequent ones by him) that made me afraid of the dark again (as an adult). Misery actually made me scream...

7 - One book that you wish had been written
My Life and Thought: The Autobiography of Jesus Christ
Probably another cliche' answer, but I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that Jesus himself didn't write a damn thing while he was here, except for a scribble in the dust...

8 - One book that you wish had never been written
Finnegin's Wake (James Joyce) The first sentence is a continuation of the last sentence 700 pages later in the book and it's all gibberish that apparantly holds deep meaning. I don't have time for that kind of crap...

9 - Two books you’re currently reading
The Seven Storey Mountain (Thomas Merton)
Selected Non-Fictions (Jorge L. Borges)

10 - One book you’ve been meaning to read
see my 100+ Books To Read Before I Die post below...
Seven Storey Mountain is actually at the top of that list, and I just started it last night...

I'm supposed to tag someone now, but I don't hardly know anyone else in the blog world. I'll try David Dark / Sarah Masen and A.M. Correa, although i'm guessing they either have too much real-world work to do, or have probably done this one already... Maybe that Barefooted Bohemian Kimberly will want to play? and maybe Carrie (who was also tagged for this) will kill me for tagging every last person she knows as well...(or maybe she has a surprise guest or two...)

My Year in Preview, 2008

2008-01-07T01:59:00.000-05:00

I've started the year with 2 short Malcolm Muggeridge books - the first called "A Fireside Chat with...", which is a transcript of a conversation between Malcolm and 2 other fellows who oddly come across as stodgy old dodgers complaining about the immorality of this current generation (the discussion took place in the early 80's) and what's wrong with the church since Vatican II. The second, which I'm in the middle of right now, is his famous book on Mother Teresa, "Something Beautiful for God". Muggeridge, a former BBC TV journalist, was the one who brought Mother Teresa to the awareness of the western world back in the late 60's with a televised interview first, and then the subsequent documentary filmed in Calcuta.

I was going to mention what books I was planning on reading this year, but I realized that would be utterly pointless, as I NEVER stick to such predictions. My literary appetite is too volatile for advanced planning...

The weather here in Detroit is headed towards 60 this week. All the snow we got whomped with on New Year's Day is melting and spring is giving us a preview. It's funny, I remember quite a few Januarys in years past with this same springlike warmth, to the point that I can almost count on a week like this in January...

In February I'll be seeing a couple old favorites in concert, the first of which I haven't paid attention to for well over a decade. Kim Hill is back at the rock thing with her last CD, Broken Things, and she's coming to the last place I saw her at nearly 15 years ago, at Ward Presbyterian. That was one show I regret not having a copy of. I'm looking forward to a little nostalgia trip down that deserted CCM road. My friend Andrew once worked at some camp with her a couple of lifetimes ago. She didn't remember him though when we saw her at the State Fair back in the day (just like Leigh from Sixpence didn't know me from a stalker when I saw her at Cstone last summer, even though at one time she used to come up to me and say hi by name...)(that little bitch)(no, I'm kidding!). Kim's been through a bad marriage and a divorce since then, and she was always one person you never would have thought would go through that sort of thing. But life rains down on all of us, and shit doth happen... Speaking of divorcees, the second February concert I'll be going to is by one of my all-time favorite songwriters, Bill Mallonee. As I've written here before, Vigilantes of Love was a key group for me in my spiritual growth out of the CCM confines, and Bill is still writing some of the best lyrics I've ever heard. He practically defines the term "starving artist", as most of his posessions these days fit in the SUV he tours in with his new wife. Before last year I hadn't seen him for a few years, and now within this 12-month period I will have seen him 3 times! good time to be a VoL fan in Detroit...

I'm still debating going to what is usually my favorite event, Calvin's Faith and Writing Festival, in April. I'll probably go, but so far the line-up isn't doing much to excite me (with the exception of Kathleen Norris, who wrote one of my favorite books, "The Cloister Walk").

Cornerstone, Cornerstone, Cornerstone... excuse the bad Pacino impersonation, but just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in! Before last year I hadn't been to a Cstone in 5 years (after attending for 11 years straight), but now this year they are having their 25th anniversary, and 2 of my all-time favorites will be there: Resurrection Band (who stopped playing altogether a long time ago), and the not-so-recently disbanded Sixpence None the Richer! not to mention Charlie Peacock, The 77's, and what will probably be the saddest (i.e. embarracing) of reunions yet - Degarmo & Key. The final line-up is far from complete, but just on this alone I think I will probably be there once again... (hey Andy, whaddaya say? make the trek? come on!) Being back there last year reminded me what an impact this place has had on me, Glenn Kaiser especially, and last year I was thinking that if Rez ever played here again then I would go. and there it is...

Led Zeppelin is threatening to do some kind of overpriced reunion tour, which would hands-down be the biggest reunion in rock history (easily eclipsing the latest Van Halen reunion with David Lee Roth), and I will have to go to one of those shows if it happens, even if it involves a long road-trip. New York is the most likely stop, with a rumoured 3-nights at Madison Square Garden. Now I just have to save up a couple thousand dollars for a ticket...

In August I will turn 38, which I will celebrate with much depression and cursing, along with another notch of panic added to my already-unhealthy fear of approaching death...

My family's yearly trip to New York to visit my brother is most likely going to be postponed until the early fall, which gives me some nice breathing room in-between major events...

and that's about all I can forsee into my future. One of these days I'm going to have to get a real job (a career even) to financially support all this, which might ironically mean I will have to cancel most of these plans. (How you working stiffs live with yourselves I'll never know)
and so it goes...

New Year's Resillusions

2008-01-01T01:32:00.000-05:00

1. Criticism is addicting. To set oneself as an authority over another, a power trip, an ego boost, a dead soul draining the life out of another...

2. Don't save the best for last. Tommorrow it will be a bowl of rotten fruit and the person you are today will be but a shadow. The best is only the best right now. Tommorrow something better will come along that makes today's best seem not so great.

3. The reason you aren't doing what you want to do right now is the same reason you won't be doing it tommorrow or next week or next year and why you haven't done anything of the sort yet. Annie Dillard says how you spend the day is how you are spending your life.

4. Escape will disguise itself as Engagement, Avoidance as Preparation, a sharp edge cutting the heart out of another pretends to be Good Humor. I am hurt and offended, and a little bit angry, that you don't at least smile when I slice into your guts...

5. A good book, a cup of coffee, half a pack of clove cigarrettes, music in the air, the voice of a friend sitting near me, catching thoughts on the pages of a leather bound journal, time to spend, memories of moments well-lived, dear ones well-loved, a full year ahead blank untouched expectant hope. What will I write there? What story will I tell with the life I choose to live?

6. I am going to die. I don't want to die. Maybe I should call a doctor. I felt a strange twitter in my arm. am I supposed to have a bump there? I have a hard time getting a full breath when I think about not being able to get a full breath. I read about this rare disease and I'm sure I have it because I have all the same symptoms, like a headache and a tired feeling and pain. what can I eat to keep my brain from popping an anyeurism? I don't want it to do that. nor do I want my heart to pop or my blood to squirt all over my insides for any reason. I've decided the wheelchaired life is not for me. nor any suffering of the unpleasant kind. but mostly I don't want to die. ohshitohsweetlordJesuspleasedontletmedieohshitohfuckfuckfuckfuck...

7. Television is the bane of mine existence. The internet pretends it isn't TV, but I can see right through its keyboarded deception. sit down to watch one oh-so-important thing, and for the next few hours I am "surfing". I don't know how to surf. I drown in the black hole of potential never realized. I wake up drowzy, drugged, from impotent dreams, aware of all that I've lost, the days and weeks and years slip by in dreams forced on my mind. I am told what to think and I think I am a part of something worthwhile for a while and then I find myself still sitting in this chair staring forward where I've been for hours, staring at a box, staring at my life sucked right out through my eyes...

8. The question hangs over my head: Are you digging for coins in the mud of a pig pen? What kind of asshole throws riches into a swine pit? How much degredation is required to look for them there? There are plenty of coins to be found, but is it worth the effort? sometimes...

9.

10. Insipid Banality. Happy New Year!

My Year in Review, Pt.1 - Books

2007-12-28T05:21:00.003-05:00

2007 was a "down" year for my reading list - only 20 books read, and quite a few of those were rather short (last year at this time I had finished 35 books). My friend A.M.Correa did this "bite-size" review thing on her blog earlier this year, and I thought it was a great idea, and so per her suggestion, here are a few of my favorites from the past year:

Mystery and Manners - Flannery O'Conner - Possibly my favorite book on the art of writing, which for me is ultimately a guide to being a better reader, understanding what good books and good authors should and should not do.
(Also The Complete Stories - a motley cast of characters who are either in the process of being saved, being damned, or being used by God to effect one or the other in some unsuspecting and probably unwilling "victim of divine intervention". A grandfather bashes his granddaughter's head into a rock, killing her, and the only proper response to this is to empathize, and pray as Peter might have as he started to sink in the water, "Lord, help thou my unbelief")

Exclusion and Embrace - Miroslav Volf - Started my year with this, got through the first half, put it down, and am now finishing my year up with it. Simply the best book on the subject of Forgiveness and Reconciliation that I could ever imagine reading. The idea that without the Will to Embrace the Other, true forgiveness, peace, and reconcilliation is impossible...that without wanting to fully embrace the other but rather simply live in "tolerance", where you go your way and I'll go mine, true peace is not possible, but rather the oppressed or wronged in any given situation will, if given the chance, want to become the oppressors rather than simply live in peace. It is a power struggle rather than a desire for peace. Embrace cannot happen until injustice has been addressed, but injustice cannot be addressed truthfully if the desire for Embrace is not there. If I hadn't read Flannery O'Conner this year as well, this would be my favorite book of the year. Highly recommended.

The Death of Ivan Illych - Leo Tolstoy (with introduction by Robert Bly) - A book about a man's slow and unexpected decent into death at a fairly young age, filled with his thoughts and fears and various states of sanity (including a 3-day non-stop scream at the thought of what was coming) as the moment of his death approached. The introduction is worth the read alone, and the book reflects the stuff that I think about most often. A book about our experience with our own death. death death death. What more could you ask for in a hundred-page classic?

The Gospel According to America - David Dark - Simply the best book I have read on the way we talk to each other. David contrasts the "Us-vs-Them" mentality of much "American" discourse with the humble mindset that enters a discussion "hell-bent on discovering where we are wrong, and where the other person is right" (as opposed to the "hell bent on proving where the other person is wrong" mentallity we most often see in public debate). Some will find David to be a difficult read, some a challange to sharper, deeper thought, and some will simply find a breath of fresh air in the recognition that "the way things are and have always been" isn't the way things always have to be. There is a different way to engage in conversation, public or private, than the media presents as normal, and it is a way that has deep roots in the very fabric of American history.

Woody Allen and Philosophy - I just like Woody Allen (in fact, he is easily my favorite film-writer and director), and this book was a fun guide through some of the deeper strains of philosophy so abundant in just about all of his films.

Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller - About 10 years ago I read On The Road by Jack Kerouac and thought it was an absolutely pointless account of his travels through America. He just had nothing to say about it all. I'm pretty sure I missed something key to the enjoyment of the book (it is, after all, a classic, and something of a holy book to the Beat Generation). Henry Miller writes a similar sort of account in Tropic of Cancer about his time in Paris, and yet his book was filled with wisdom and poetry and a rich literary experience richly conveyed. Miller's lust for life comes through on every page and is infectious. NOT for the morally squeamish who must discard and discredit a book that contains profanity and vulgarity.

And It Was Good - Madeleine L'Engle - Her death a few months ago prompted me to finally take the Genesis Trilogy down and dig into her meditations on the first few chapters of Genesis. L'Engle's thoughts and meditations on the spiritual life have always been a source of deep and provocative wisdom for me, and this first book of the trilogy was as good as any. I regret never having met her in person.

The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion - Speaking of death, here is a deeply heartwrenching book written in the wake of the sudden death of the author's husband. Those who criticize this as a cold unfeeling book of random facts simply don't know what it means to empathize with another, to read with compassion, to put themselves in someone else's place. This book has the power to wake you up to those you love around you, to make you aware of the brevety of life and the suddenness with which it can end for anyone around you.

Writings in the Dust - Rowan Williams - A short but excellent meditation on 9/11 and our collective and individual response to those we hold responsible for the tragedy itself, as well as the tragedy of foreign and domestic policy that ensued afterwards in the name of "safety" and "freedom". Reminded me in it's approach of David Dark's book.

a few classics that have been sitting on my shelves, unread, for years, that I finally got around to reading this year:

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky - Dostoevsky takes the reader deep inside the mind of a murderer as he daily struggles to live with what he has done and come to grips with what it means to be this kind of a person. From the outside, in theory, murder can seem an academic exercise, merely a matter of getting all the details right, but after the fact (from the other side of the act), one's tortured thoughts and conscience prove to be increasingly overwhelming, and the murderer becomes his own worst enemy as the million little unforseen details unravel his very existence.
I liked The Brothers Karamazov a great deal more, but this is a much easier(?), less complicated read.

The Sound and The Fury - William Faulkner - The first chapter is "a tale told by an idiot" (a line borrowed from Shakespear), and is probably one of the most difficult chapters in all of American literature. I thought I was doing pretty well with it, until I read the Cliffnotes afterwards and realized I didn't catch a goddam thing! Benji's emotions and thoughts are tangled up and laid bare, and Faulkner takes us inside that mind and those emotions and does what only great literature can do: elicits and awakens compassion in the reader, not by way of sentimental pity, but by skillfully putting us inside Benjy's experience. The use of time in this chapter alone is utterly fascinating, approximating a true understanding of a mind that does not comprehend time or its passing, where all that happens is in a way a part of that ever-present "Now" of eternity. The idiot is probably closer to the reality of eternity that we are. (at the very least, you have to feel for a guy whose overwhelming love for his sister and deep grief over her absence results in his nuts getting chopped off...)
Benjy is, in a weird sort of way, closest in kind to his brother Jason, who is one of the meanest characters ever created in American literature. The similarity of the brothers who are, for all observation, nearly exact opposites in every way, lies in their utter self-centeredness. Indeed, the entire Compson family, in one way or another, seems plagued with this malady, and the outworkings of these narcissistic entanglements are most often tragic in nature. A difficult book to read (one that gets progressively - exponentially? - easier with each successive chapter), one that would greatly benefit from an almost mandatory re-reading or two, which I just unfortunately don't have the time nor patience to enjoy.

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut - a book whose(?) use of time is oddly similar to that of Faulkner's "Benjy" chapter. The idea that one can go back (or forward) on one's time/life line to "relive" was oddly appealing to me. The thought of pining away for some lost moments in one's past would be an unthinkable waste of time, leading one to make the most of every moment, for it will always be there for you to experience the way you experienced it. Except that this book definitely does not believe in the foreign concept of "Free Will". A story of war and it's effects upon the mind. that's my take anyway...

Christmas Greetings, Tom Waits style

2007-12-15T12:13:00.001-05:00

A Bible Study

2007-12-04T00:33:00.000-05:00

Society today is too violent. From video games to comic books to the nightly news, violence is everywhere. Many Christians believe that if more people would just read and study the bible, putting its words into action, the world would be a safer, more peaceful place. Click Here for a good place to start...a beginner's introductory bible study with commentary of sorts...

(*ahem*)

Autumn Descends

2007-10-07T23:50:00.000-04:00

October. My favorite month of the year. I don't know why, but I feel so much more alive in the fall. The colours are richer, the air crisper. The heat of summer, which slows a person like me down, fades into the darkening days, and I start to wake up (with the exception of this particular year, when this first week of October finds us in the middle of a week of summer's heat - mid to upper 80's and all the humidity you can't stand). There's something darker, more ominous about October too. Halloween approaching and the decorations all around... the spiders seem to come scurrying out in full force (I kill about 3 a day here at home). Stephen King was always a favorite author of mine, and during this time of the year his twisted tales seem a bit more believable, like maybe among the elaborate halloween decorations strewn across the neighborhood lawns, the walking dead simply have an easier time blending in while they wait for you to pass by, alone. And if, by chance, you don't believe in the horrors that King writes about, you simply haven't been paying attention to the nightly news...

The Cider Mill opens its gates and wooded paths by the river, and I always look forward to taking a book and a journal back to a spot by the water to read and write, to reflect on life and God, in the quiet place of nature that somehow makes me think of Merton and a retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani. The taste of Cider and donuts, and the smells in the deep woods always puts me right in the middle of the best time of the year. I have good memories of this place from years past, books I've read in my favorite spot where the tree roots by the riverbank make a natural resting spot to sit and read - Thomas Merton's Conjectures, Kathleen Norris' Cloister Walk, Annie Dillard's American Childhood and Pilgrim, Thoreau's Walden (of course!), To Kill A Mockingbird, etc... Maybe it's just me, but books seem to hold deeper treasures and music drives ones thoughts more intensely in this season of eternal change. The time right before everything around us dies. Winter looms so cold and dreadful, sucking the life right out of summer's stronghold, and in the dying season everything burns so much brighter for one last time.

How many more autumns do I have left in my life? How many more of these seasons will I be able to enjoy? Lord, teach us to live before we die...

Death

2007-09-09T03:51:00.001-04:00

"Death is everywhere… there are flies on the windscreen for a start…reminding us… we could be torn apart tonight"
-Depeche Mode

"If you're afraid to die, you'd best not be afraid to live"
-Eels

"I want more LIFE...Fucker!"
-Blade Runner

Death can really take the joy out of living.
I don't exactly mean that in the obvious sense. Rather, the awareness of death is an ever-increasing buzz in our heads, and no matter what we do or try to think about, that noise is always under it all, getting louder as the years go by. At some point, that awareness can override our awareness of the life in front of us, the life that we are living right now, with people we love who are alive, with us, right now.

My friend Andrew told me this analogy: when we are born, we are born on a river, and that river is heading towards a huge waterfall. But most of us, early in life, are far enough away from the waterfall so that, to us, it is nothing more than an abstract idea off in the distance. We know it's there, but we don't have reason day to day to think about it. But by the time we get into our mid-30's, we can start to hear the rumble of the falls. We are headed towards those falls, and there is nothing we can do about it. But it's not quite as straight forward as that. The analogy assumes we are all going to make it to old age and then die. But no one knows when they will die (or suddenly suffer from some life-altering misfortune - a disease, a crippling accident, etc). It is more like walking along a wooded path, and you know that somewhere along this path someone is going to jump out from behind one of the trees, unseen, and hit you with a baseball bat or chop at you with an ax or stab you with a knife… you KNOW something like this is waiting for you along this path, and it could happen at any moment. You might survive the blow and have to continue your journey forever maimed (until another attack hits you by surprise), or it might kill you right there. But keep walking, and try to enjoy the woods, enjoy your walk, try not to think about it…

No wonder we live with such anxiety all the time.

A good friend of mine from long ago, someone I had fallen out of touch with for the past many years, killed himself a couple years ago, in his early 30's....
I sat by my grandmother's bedside as she gasped for breath and died in her 90's...
My cousin got Hodgkin's disease last year, cancer, and pulled through, as did another good friend's brother, who had tongue cancer...
And just last week, another good friend passed out at school. He came to and finds he now has Leukemia. It happens just like that...
There are hits, and there are misses. Sometimes we dodge the bullet, sometimes we don't. But the hits seem to be getting closer, like they've penetrated the outer circle of my life. And nobody dodges a direct hit in the long run.

Commercial from God: "There are many ways to die, but only one is right for you." Some people try one way on and decide it's not right for them, and so they go with some other way later on…(let me guess: you'd like to die in your sleep, unaware of what's happening when the time comes, right?) So much of what we do is simply a distraction from this basic fact of death.

I am beginning to think that an over-awareness of impending death is a form of psychosis, and that those people who live as though in denial of death actually have the right idea. A friend of mine told me recently that she never thought about death until I came along (...that sounds about right). She feels like she lost something innocent inside of her because of it. I'm sorry I did anything like that to her, but I have always been fairly certain that wisdom in living is not possible without an awareness of death. Life tends toward the frivolous and meaningless without that focus and perspective. And I still believe something like that, but I also believe that (as Spinal Tap put it) perhaps "a little too much fucking perspective" isn't any better.

I think a lot about the impending death of those I love most. My family - my parents, my brother, my closest friends. I might outlive my brother (if I don't, you should probably go ahead and put me on suicide watch), my friends are hit and miss, who knows, but I will face the death of my parents (and that's if all goes smoothly. That's the best we can hope for). And that thought is so horrifying to me at times that it makes me want to scream. I can't face that reality for too long and still go on with "life as usual". I don't know how to face the fact of death, I don't know how to deal with it, with it's ever-increasing presence in my life. I can't imagine life without one of my parents, or without any of the people I love for that matter. Or without ME for that matter. But somehow parents are the hardest deaths to face beforehand because they are, in all likelihood, going to die in my lifetime, no question. Everyone else I know and love might outlive me, might not. But my parents won't. If all goes "well"…

I recently finished reading Joan Didion's latest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she writes about her experience of the year following her husband's sudden death. It is a heavy, sobering account of grief, the process of grieving as she experienced it, and it contains some very honest, intelligent thoughts concerning the experience. The quote that stays with me is the first thing she wrote after her husband died:

"Life changes fast.
Life changes in an instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends…"

"It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell…"

The question of God takes on ominous tones in light of death, because of the accompanying silence, because of the horror we experience in its shadow. God is not telling us why we die (or why we still die, 2000+ years after Christ came to free us from sin and death, why still the horror of death and evil all around us), nor is he offering us guidance to help us through. He is just silent. That is my experience at least, bible or no bible, and the experience of many faithful Christians whom I look up to as well. Sure, we can do mental gymnastics and come up with "reassurances", making ourselves believe that God is speaking to us, but the doubt surrounding such "encounters" strikes me as unbelievably odd. When I talk with anyone I know (or don't know for that matter), I never wonder if I really had that conversation, nor do I wonder who I was really speaking to. But my "relationship" with God, more often than not, seems to be grounded in my imagination. The question is one of Love, and what it means in the face of perpetual silence and the absence of an unshakable experience of God's presence, not just of his existence, but of his love for his creation.

Just a thought: I think if I were a parent, I wouldn't leave a steak knife in my child's room and simply tell them not to play with it lest they injure themselves or even die from a wound. I think I would keep the knife far away from them. It just seems odd to me that God would leave a tree within reach of Adam and Eve that could result in all this evil and death in the world, and not have at least some sort of guard by it 24-7, at least someone there who could argue the "con" side of eating its fruit while the serpent was arguing the "pro" side. I'm fairly sure the "fruit tree" bit is an analogy for what really happened, but whatever it stands for, the fact is that an all-powerful God allowed it to happen, it has happened under the watchful eye of an all-loving God, and sin and death continue to happen to this very day...
The word "Love". I wonder again what it means when we're talking about God's relationship to us.

(unfinished and to be continued...)

Madeleine L'Engle

2007-09-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

One of my all-time favorite authors, Madeleine L'Engle, died on Thursday at the age of 88.

Her writings have had a deep impact on the ways I thought about my faith and how life could be lived in the light of that faith. She was probably the first to make me realize that being a faithful witness to Christ was not the same thing as being a "good commercial for Jesus", that the idea of being "the only Jesus some people will ever see" is an unnecessary (and unbiblical) burden for anyone to carry, as well as a flagrant disregard for the place of the Church, the body of Christ, and our place in it. I was first introduced to her writings back in the early 90's, with the book Walking On Water, which was probably the starting place for most of her readers who hadn't been introduced through her "childrens" books like A Wrinkle In Time, etc. I've collected most of her books of non-fiction on spirituality, her journals, etc, and I am grateful for the impact she and her writings have had on my life and thought.

One of my favorite quotes of hers comes from A Circle Of Quiet, and it's a wonderful antidote to my perfectionist's fears of inadequacy and negative competitive tendencies:

"It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said, by me, ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way....Good or bad, great or little, that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die."

The world has lost a great voice of spiritual reason, truth, and creativity, and I am going to miss her particular way of "saying it, ontologically"...

Even Mother Teresa...

2007-08-25T23:52:00.000-04:00

here's a book I am looking forward to very much
There's a bit of controversy brewing about this one among some of her admirers as to whether this should even be published or not (she made it very clear that she wanted these letters destroyed). My personal opinion is that she was hardcore Catholic, and as such was committed to submitting to what those over her "commanded" (for lack of a better word), including this. Denial of self-will and all that... a key part of her devotion. And it was made equally clear to her that these letters would not be destroyed as she wished, and so there is nothing particularly backhanded about this, in my view.
Thomas Merton went through the same thing, as did I'm sure a whole slew of others through the centuries.
I think most people wouldn't want their personal letters or journals to be read by a bunch of people, but I also think the canon of literature is far richer because of the publication of some of those. The writer is many times not the best judge of what should be made public, and cooler, more objective heads prevail sometimes (Kafka, anyone?). These letters are edited, of course - we're probably not going to read something about MT's illicit sex life (if there were such portions in her private writings). But I think her superiors understood the importance of allowing people to read of her struggles with her faith, as a balance to the commonly held (mis)beliefs about her as some sort of unapproachable saint. I personally think it's incredibly important to bring her image back down to reality as "just like one of us". Her life can't be so easily dismissed as "the sort of thing saints do that I, however, could never do". I think her superiors understand that it can sometimes be more damaging to a person's faith if they think that someone like Mother Teresa never struggled with doubt but was always "perfect, inside and out". There are things that are truly personal and probably shouldn't be shared with everyone, and there are things that seem very personal, and yet are beneficial for others to read as well, for the building up of believers and all that, etc...
just my opinion...

"Night thoughts produced by walking in the rain after two thousand years of Christianity..."

2007-08-25T01:00:00.000-04:00

I recently finished reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, a fictionalized account of his time in Paris in the early 1930's. In it there is this passage:

"...I can't get it out of my mind what a discrepancy there is between ideas and living. A permanent dislocation, though we try to cover the two with a bright awning. And it won't go. Ideas have to be wedded to action... Ideas cannot exist alone in the vacuum of the mind. Ideas are related to living"

Obvious differences notwithstanding, I was both surprised and excited by what I was reading, because I had posted something here just a week prior to reading this that was along the same lines. I thought it was one of those moments where you feel like things are aligning to let you know you are on the right path. But then after I thought about it, I realized that maybe it wasn't so "coincidental" after all. Perhaps it is just that this Henry Miller book, like all good literature, was leading me along this thought-path the whole time, that it was almost inevitable that I would think something similar to what he was about to write, even though I hadn't yet read that passage. The book itself was informing the thoughts I entertained and followed. The literature I was engaged in at the time had me engaged more than I realized...

(Of course, there's nothing particularly new about these ideas in the first place. All the way back to the first century, Paul says something similar in the New Testament when he writes about not doing the things he wants to do but instead doing that which he doesn't want to...)

The book itself was quite good (is that a feeble-minded understatement?). It is, in fact, a classic - one which was banned for a few decades after it was published. There's a lot of bachelorhood living presented in all it's real rawness (too raw for many), rendered with a poets vision and sensibility, a thirst for a richer experience of life, and a prophet's alarming understanding of the slumber we so easily slip into, from day, to day, to day, to day...an awareness that "The cancer of time is eating us away".

Reading this book, I was reminded of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, a book I hated at the time as a pointless meandering account of nothing worth noting, though he recounts living a similar sort of life in America in the 50's. Henry Miller, however, is well worth the investment, IMO. Miller has something to say about the life he was living and the life he was observing all around him. I probably just didn't get Kerouac at the time, but I found that Henry Miller, in a similar sort of romping account, had much wisdom to offer along the way. I am looking forward to reading more of Henry Miller in the future, as well as the work of one of his most famous "flings" at the time: Anais Nin. Thomas Merton mentions especially liking Wisdom of the Heart and The Collosus, though I think my next book by him will be the "other half" of Cancer, which is Tropic of Capricorn (a similar recounting of his life in New York in the 1920's).

Another quote from Flannery O'Conner:

2007-07-27T03:03:00.000-04:00

This one (from Mystery and Manners) reminded me of the (negative) response of some Christians to the Harry Potter books, but it is certainly applicable to forming a reasonable faith-based response to many different art forms - books, music, movies, etc...

(she speaks from a specifically Catholic viewpoint, and names it as such, but this really applies to Christianity under any label. Substituting the word "Christian" for "Catholic" - if you are not of that particular persuasion - will amount to the same thing)

"If we intend to encourage Catholic fiction writers, we must convince those coming along that the Church does not restrict their freedom to be artists but insures it...and to convince them of this requires, perhaps more than anything else, a body of Catholic readers who are equipped to recognize something in fiction besides passages they consider obscene. It is popular to suppose that anyone who can read the telephone book can read a short story or a novel, and it is more than usual to find the attitude among Catholics that since we possess the truth in the Church, we can use this truth directly as an instrument of judgment on any discipline at any time without regard for the nature of that discipline itself. Catholic readers are constantly being offended and scandalized by novels that they don't have the fundamental equipment to read in the first place, and often these are works that are permeated with a Christian spirit.

It is when the individual's faith is weak, not when it is strong, that he will be afraid of an honest fictional representation of life; and when there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the supernatural is apt gradually to be lost."

And I quoted part of this one before, but had I read the whole thing (as I just did today) I would have quoted the whole paragraph:

"There are those who maintain that you can't demand anything of the reader. They say the reader knows nothing about art, and that if you are going to reach him, you have to be humble enough to descend to his level. This supposes either that the aim of art is to teach, which it is not, or that to create anything which is simply a good-in-itself is a waste of time. Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. We hear a great deal about humility being required to lower oneself, but it requires an equal humility and a real love of the truth to raise oneself and by hard labor to acquire higher standards. And this is certainly the obligation of the Catholic. It is his obligation in all the disciplines of life but most particularly in those on which he presumes to pass judgment. Ignorance is excusable when it is borne like a cross, but when it is wielded like an ax, and with moral indignation, then it becomes something else indeed. We reflect the Church in everything we do, and those who can see clearly that our judgment is false in matters of art cannot be blamed for suspecting our judgment in matters of religion."

Exclusion and Embrace

2007-07-25T04:16:00.000-04:00

I am about halfway through an absolutely amazing book on the subject of forgiveness by Miroslav Volf entitled "Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation". In it, he examines (among other things) the root of conflict throughout the world and history in terms of Identity and Otherness, and why man-made solutions to hostilities always fall short.

Identity, with any particular group, often leads to a sort of defensiveness against the Other who does not share that identity. Groups have different ideas, values, roots, and various groups find themselves "at odds" with other groups around them because of that difference, a difference which is "always close to, and often the same as, hate". In the name of ethnic "purity", the defensive posture of Identity leads individuals and groups to drive out the Other. The Other must either change to be like us, or be wiped out of existence. One problem with this ideology is that one's Identity is partly made up of one's relation to the other. A great part of what makes me who I am is how I relate to those around me who are not me, not like me, and not a part of my group. Hence, to drive out the Other is in one sense to drive ourselves out.

Volf talks about the Christian response to this conflict of Identity and belonging in the world in terms of the scandal of the cross. If Christians, in baptism, share in Christ's death, and are therefore also raised with Christ, then Christ is the new "center" of our identity, not replacing but rather reorienting (transforming) while reinforcing our own identity around Him and His Kingdom. And this center is one of self-giving love. The scandal of the cross and of this self-giving love, writes Volf, is the all-too frequent failure of such love to bear positive results. It doesn't seem to "work", as we would wish it to. but it is the way we are called to follow.

The Christian is called to be separate from (though not removed or alienated from) his cultural identity. His allegiance is to God's Kingdom, but his uniqueness is not sacrificed because of that, but rather accepted as part of the body of Christ, a body with many different and unique members which all serve a unique function. Both distance and belonging are essential. It is essential to a Christian understanding of our new "Kingdom reality" that we "listen to the voices of Christians from other cultures so as to make sure that the voice of our culture has not drowned out the voice of Jesus Christ". Too often it is too easy for Christians to confuse their culture (and it's perceived benefits) with Kingdom values. Far from being "tainted" by other cultures through interaction (as "ethnic purists" fear), other cultures offer the possibility of enrichment.

A key concept to keep in mind is the fact that, within each of us, there is evil, there is the proclivity toward sin. It is easy for us to draw conclusions of a "good" side and a "bad" side in conflicts, but this division is deceptive. There is a tendency, on the part of any group that is liberated from oppression, to become the oppressors of those they have been liberated from. Conflict continues unabated throughout the world because neither side is really seeking an "end to the violence" (as is so often touted in the media), but rather they are simply seeking to become the oppressors over against those who now oppress them. It is about the desire for power and the frustration that comes from the desire for power being restricted by others.

Volf's insights have deep resonances with each of our lives, collective or individual. We all have "enemies", to one degree or another, and we all need to forgive and to be forgiven. One of the central prayers in Christianity is that God would forgive us as we forgive others. We need forgiveness, and we need to forgive if we hope to receive as much.

Forgiveness, for Volf, is not simply each going their own way without further conflict. This is not real forgiveness, which entails reconciliation. We do not ask of God to forgive us by letting us go our way as he goes elsewhere as well. Rather, we wish to be reconciled to God, to be "embraced" in his love. And so, forgiveness and reconciliation with each other can entail no less. Reconciliation begins, at it's most essential, with the willingness to embrace. This embrace cannot fully or truly happen until the sins committed have been addressed and dealt with, but without the desire to embrace the other, forgiveness hasn't even begun, no matter how "peaceful" the situation may be at present. Sin must be dealt with, not ignored. And ultimately, sin forgiven is sin forgotten - as if it never happened.

At present I am only just over halfway through this book (finished with the first major section, other issues being dealt with in more specifics in the latter half of the book). Even there I can't begin to do it justice in any sort of review. I've barely even scratched the surface of this books depths. Suffice it to say, I can't imagine a better work on the subject of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Action words

2007-07-23T12:57:00.000-04:00

For most of my life, whenever I've wanted to get to know someone - get inside their head, see what makes them tick, what inspires and motivates who they are as a person - I've always asked what books they read and what music they listen to. I've always felt that these 2 things would give me a core understanding of what influences a person to be the kind of person they are, what is affecting and shaping their thoughts and emotions, books and music being the two things (in my world anyway) that have the most direct and intimate / personal influence on thoughts and emotions.

But there is a key question that I have neglected to ask people, one that affects who they are more than any books or music could, and that is: What decisions and actions have you taken in your life? I believe a person can best be understood and known by understanding what they have done in their lives, and how and why they have made those decisions and taken those actions.

Two people can read the exact same book and come away from the reading experience with two completely different effects upon their lives, even if both take actions influenced by the reading of that book. This tells me that it is the reader, the person, bringing something to the reading, and not simply the book itself, that is the greatest factor in what that person takes from a book, how that book influences their life. The bible is probably the greatest example of this. Millions of people have read the bible, continue to read the bible (even looking at any one given translation of the bible), and still there are vast differences in how that affects their seperate lives, to the point that they even fight amongst one another over the meaning and application of the bible's words.

And then there are many who take no real action at all based on what they've read, and simply continue to read and read, study even, as an end in itself. Reading is and can be a pleasurable experience, in and of itself, absolutely. Books bring an inner pleasure like few other things can. The cultivation of an interior life is, I believe, essential to a truly happy and fulfilled life. Few things can make it into our inner being the way the words of a good book can. Music reaches past all our defenses and resonates with our very emotions. Our inner experience is made exponentially richer by engaging ourselves in the art of a good book or piece of music. But it is, basically and perhaps essentially, a self-centered activity. Eating food is a self-centered activity as well, so I'm not saying that in the completely negative sense of that phrase. It is necessary. But our outer-life is just as necessary. We need to live the life we are inwardly cultivating.

There is a pernicious belief, not just among Christians, but people in general (readers in particular) that reading is an action unto itself, that if I have read something, I have accomplished something. And to a certain degree, this is true, but in another sense, this is nothing more than the fostering of an illusion. We can come to believe that we are living a certain kind of life, when in reality we are simply reading about that kind of life. Christians especially can fall prey to the belief that reading the bible is a way to live out their faith.

This is similar and related to the notion of salvation that many Christians have in modern times - that salvation comes by giving mental assent to certain propositional truths put forth in the bible, especially those having to do with Jesus...claiming to "believe" in Christ, believing the proposition that he is the son of God, died for our sins, rose from the grave, etc. "Believe" meaning, not its biblical connotation of literally "trust in, cling to, rely on", but the more modern notion of thinking it to be true. Like believing George Washington was our first president. Not like believing a chair will support our weight as we proceed to sit in it (put our trust in it to hold us up, rely on it to work, through the action of sitting on it). We generally don't give much thought at all to whether a chair will support us or not, we just sit down. Many Christians seem to do the opposite with regards to their "belief" in Christ - thinking and talking a lot about it, but not "doing" it. Theoretically, a person could "get saved" in the modern sense of the term, and not do much else than change their mind about certain "spiritual" concepts. But biblical salvation is a changed life, not just a mental change of opinion, and it doesn't make sense apart from repentance and following a new way of living. Action is required. (there's a whole tricky discussion about salvation through works vs. faith here that I'm not going to get into right now. suffice it to say that I believe salvation is a gift of God and not something we can earn on our own, and yet to do nothing is to reject that gift).

Paul says, in that famous chapter on Love in 1Corinthians13, (and I paraphrase): Even if I read all the best books in the world and listen to the finest music, but have not love, I have gained nothing.

The Imitation of Christ says: "Certainly, when Judgement Day comes we shall not be asked what books we have read, but what deeds we have done; we shall not be asked how well we have debated, but how devoutly we have lived"

Life is action taken, not just thoughts thunk. Thoughts do absolutely affect our actions, but they have to become action, they have to make it out to our real lives, otherwise it is like a bodybuilder who sits and does nothing but eat the best foods and the highest quality protien shakes but doesn't actually work out. That person, like us, will get fat and bloated if what he is taking in isn't put to use in what he does with it. Yea I say unto you, it is even likened unto a car sitting at a gas pump, always being filled with gas and never being started or driven... (sorry) :-)

so... what decisions have you made and what actions have you taken that have made you the person you are today?

I have spent the greater part of my life collecting the best books and music that I have been exposed to and could find, and have amassed a drool-worthy library, but as I sit here and look around at all these wonderful books and CDs that I have spent the vast majority of my life reading, listening to, and collecting, I can't help but think that maybe I've missed something - like the point of it all...

Summerland

2007-07-23T05:39:00.000-04:00

Here it is, the middle of the freakin' summer, and I've only read 7 books this whole year. The last thing I finished was Flannery O'Conner's Complete Stories, and that was 2 months ago. By this time last year I had read over 20 books. And so the pendulum swings...

I'm not in step with the whole Harry Potter craze. Don't get me wrong, I love those books, but I'm about 3 books behind now. and those are some thick mofos. I have about 10 other books I'd like to finish before I get to those. maybe this fall I'll try to catch up... In the meantime, I'm in the middle of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer - a book that was banned upon its release for indecency and obscenity, for decades we free Americans weren't allowed to read it. I'm not sure how that all works, but it obviously didn't. Does censorship ever do anything but the opposite of that which it sets out to do? I'm also reading Flannery O'Conner's Mystery and Manners - an excellent book of non-fiction, mostly dealing with the subject of the art of writing, novels, Catholicism, and the meeting of religion and literature. great stuff which I will be quoting here soon...

If you're any good at math, you've figured out by now that I've been back from Cornerstone for a few weeks now. It's been a fairly busy month for a slacker like me, so I haven't had the time nor the energy to sit down and write. And as Annie Dillard says, if you let the work go for even a day, you'd better come back at it with a chair and whip in hand... this here post is one of them "I forgot how to do this and so I'm gonna practice a few lines" posts. I'm still not sure if I ought to be writing for a reader or just for myself. I know you're reading this, dear reader, but I think I'm supposed to pretend you're not there if this is to be anything worth its purpose. Self-consciousnes is the enemy, the twin brother of everydayness...

I'm writing this at 6am, and I've noticed that summer birds sound different upon waking than spring birds do. This sacred hour of the dawn (or, as I like to call it, bedtime) changes with the seasons, and I've never noticed this before. Spring birds at dawn are probably one of my favorite sounds, indicating that the long dead winter is finally really over, and the resurrection from the dead is maybe still possible...

speaking of which, for some reason the passing of Tammy Faye both shocked and saddened me. Seeing her last interview made me gasp once again at the horror that is death. The life had literally been sucked right out of her, and she was nearly nothing more than a talking corpse at the end, and listening to her awakened the constant struggle within myself to come to grips with a God that allows us to know such horror. If I have doubts about the existence of a hell in the face of a loving god, I simply have to ask, why this hell now? 2,000 years later, after Christ came to save the world from sin and death, and we are still dying in the midst of evil all around us...

I'll try to post something more detailed about Cornerstone at some point soon, along with a few other stoney ideas I have rattling around in my head...

GONE C-STONING

2007-06-27T13:42:00.000-04:00

Be back in 5 days...

the fight for equality on a New York bus

2007-06-09T03:53:00.000-04:00

On the busses in New York, I saw something that surprised me: the very best seats on the bus have a sign on them that says "if a handicapped or elderly person gets on the bus, please give this seat to them". Perhaps someday true justice might prevail as a given in our society, but for now we have these signs. It is my hope, my dream (to borrow from MLK), that someday, when an elderly or handicapped person steps onto that crowded bus looking for one of those seats, that someone will have courage - the courage of a Rosa Parks - and say "No...no, I'm sitting here!" Then our society will start to know true equality across all dividing lines...

(*ahem*)

The difference a day makes

2007-06-07T11:16:00.000-04:00

Today I am sitting in front of my computer, at home, on a day that is threatening to hit 90...
One day ago I was in the middle of a 13 hour drive home...
The day before that, I was having coffee at Cafe esperanto, walking around the heart of Greenwich Village, after listening to a recording of Maya Angelou tell us about the Big Bang in a Death Star looking contraption in the Natural Science Museum, this after going bookshopping in SoHo and Brooklyn Heights - the latter being where we ate lunch outside at a french restaurant and then walked down to the water walkway and sat looking out at the Statue of Liberty to our left and the Brooklyn Bridge (which we had walked across last year at this time) and Empire State Building beyond that to our right, New York's skyline across the water directly in front of us...
The day before that, I was spiraling my way down the Guggenheim, followed by a walk through China Town and Little Italy, ending up on Spring Street (the place Dar Williams sings about) for pizza at America's first pizzaria (so they claim)...
The day before that, I was at a Broadway play watching Kevin Spacey (along with the guy that plays "Myles" on Star Trek) put on a heartwrenching performance of the Eugene O'Neil play, "A Moon for the Misbegotton", followed by dinner at the Greenwich Village Bistro while watching a local jazz band, then walked many blocks in the blowing driving rain to get back to a bed...
The day before that, I was looking at original paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Hopper, etc... at the MET.
The day before that, I was giving my brother a hug after we arrived in the city, and later went used book shopping on St. Marks street and ate what proclaimed itself to be New York's finest cheesecake in the East Village...
The day before that I was in the middle of a 13 hour drive there...
The day before that I was sitting in front of my computer, at home, on a day that was threatening to hit 90...

Alone (a moment)

2007-05-29T02:59:00.000-04:00

Alone, in a room lit only with the flickering of a dozen burning candles, a man stands and slowly dances, his arms extended, curved, holding in their emptiness nothing more than a ghost, the memory of that which he once held most dear. The only real love of his life. But she is here with him no more. Perlman's violin plays the melody that stretches the ache within him beyond mortality. The song he danced to, with her, in this very room, amid these very candles, times beyond count, every one distinct and precious to him, more so than his very own breath. He would give up that breath if he could, gratefully, in the longing of his desire, an exchange in time, to have her here for one more song. One last dance, again.

LibraryThing

2007-05-27T19:51:00.000-04:00

Look over there, on the right side. See that big pile of book covers? those are 50 of my favorite books, randomly chosen and in random order. Pretty cool, huh? I even uploaded a couple of those covers myself (Merton's Conjectures and MacDonald's Day Boy Night Girl). That must mean I have a rare edition of those books if no one else put those covers up yet. or it just means no one has cared as of yet. either way, Library Thing is cool. I'm not gonna pay for the service or anything because I'm broke, but you should. 25 bucks for a lifetime membership to make an all-you-can-eat list of books. I'm limited to 200, so my list will ultimately be my top 200 (similar to my first blog entry waaaayy down at the bottom of this tower of entries). This thing even tells you who else has a library similar to yours. You can meet people who read the same stuff you read without ever having to go to the bookstore like a nerdy stalker saying "hey baby...whatcha reading there?" to some freaked out stranger. People relinquish their privacy voluntarily around here. it's a virtual voyeurs paradise. [end commercial announcement]

UPDATE: after all that, I had to delete the code from my template because, for some reason, it started giving me problems - my blog would only load up to the bottom of the "stack" of book pictures. If you want to look at the books in my library, you can go look me up at Librarything (user name Brookd), or you can come over and look at them "live and in person". but you can't borrow any, so don't even think about it!

Heal it up ("'cause the years have not been kind...")

2007-05-24T00:41:00.000-04:00

The years pass by and nothing seems to change. Dreams slip away, dreams we once considered central to our identity. Those dreams die, and now our identity is centered on death. We are dead inside, clinging to the dreams of another lifetime ago. Wanting to move on, we feel stuck, wanting this to work out before we move on to the next. But this never does, and now we see the end in sight of a life that has never really begun. Youth seems only a moment ago, and it always does, for everyone, until the very end. Look in the mirror and who do you see? One day, an old person you barely recognize. Where did my life go? What did I do with the time I had? Does anybody ever really have a good answer to these questions? I don't, and I suspect you barely do either. Life is nothing but a dress rehearsal. We learn our lines after the play is over. We stumble and struggle until then. Or we don't. and in the end, it really doesn't matter, does it? We all get to be dirt in the ground. Unless you believe in a God who grants an Afterlife or a Judgement, Condemnation, Reward, Heaven and Hell. And the Resurrection. And why do we think anything will be different then? We are deaf and dumb, as in stupid and ignorant and lost. And God is saying...nothing.

The deaf claim they've heard Him and the blind have seen His Glory, and the twisted tongues of the mute and mentally ill tell us exactly what we must do to be saved, as they are. They tell us what God Himself has said to those who have no ears to hear and shown to those without sense or sight or mind. And they are right, they know, for they are empty and forsaken in this world, and they have nothing left but the word of God to cling to, to hope in and rely on. The rest of us have it all figured out and are safe and secure in our place on this sinking stinking ship. We know we are sinking, but at least we know something. They know nothing and so cling to nothing and so can be pulled out more readily. Death is as nothing to them that have already died.

Look around you. Who makes you squirm? Who do you hate? Who do you avoid? Who is just plain weird, a nuisance, a pain in the neck and a thorn in your flesh? Who would you rather do without in your life? Who would you not miss if you never saw them again? Look closely. That person is quite possibly God's agent, saving your very soul.

(Or maybe they just need a swift kick in the ass)

Pick up a dead and dried out twig, good for nothing but fire kindling. Stick it in some sand, and water it every day, care for it, until it blossoms into a beautiful tree. In this way you will learn how to be like Christ. The twig may never bloom, but you just might end up coming back to life.

Calvin's Festival of Faith and Music 2007

2007-04-09T05:00:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I was in Grand Rapids for Calvin's Festival of Faith & Music. This is the younger little sibling of the writing festival they have every other year. My friends David Dark & Sarah Masen were participating in the festival again this time around, and it is always good to see them and take in the profoundly moving work that they create, as well as just getting the opportunity to talk with them a fair bit now and then throughout the weekend in between activities. David was the keynote Speaker on Saturday, and it was certainly one of the best talks I've heard him give yet. His seminar later that day was a nice continuation of sorts, bringing in bits that he didn't have a chance to get to that morning (the bit about Tom Waits saying there's no such thing as non-fiction being one of the best parts. Only God is capable of speaking in non-fiction. Whew, that's good!) . Unfortunately, one of the people who raised their hands to ask/share something during the Q&A somehow got the idea it was ok to take over the seminar and (ironically during a comment on "silence") just kept talking and talking and taking precious minutes away from the little time David had left. That's the chance you take I guess when you open things up to the floor. David's usually at his best in dialog with others, but a buzzer or a gong wouldn't have been a bad idea.

Sarah gave a rare late-night concert on Friday, and it was just good to hear her sing again. She even had some newly recorded music for us product-starved fans (her last CD came out around 6 or 7 years ago). In a display of obnoxious rudeness, the new band (Son Lux) that was on before her was only supposed to play for a half-hour, but instead decided to drag it out for well over an hour, putting Sarah after 11pm (which was fine for me, but a lot of people just can't hang that late, especially after a full day of festival goodness). I enjoyed talking to David during that in-between time, and enjoyed Sarah's set when she finally came on. "The River" was probably my favorite.

Lauren Winner was another favorite of mine speaking at the festival, giving a keynote on the first day (Friday), and a seminar right after. Lauren can be a bit hit-or-miss for me sometimes. When she's on, and taking things seriously, she can bring intelligence and unique insight to the discussion, but when she's off, or sidetracked, she can be downright annoyingly goofy (to me anyway). At last year's Writing festival, during her seminar entitled "My life as a reader" (which just sounded wonderful to me), she spent half the time talking about kids books, reading nearly an entire children's book to us, complete with pictures. Not exactly what I was hoping for (though the first-grade teacher sitting next to me was pretty stoked about it). This year's keynote got a little bogged down at the beginning with needless (pointless?) statistics regarding Christians and their participation in the Arts (though the overall speech turned out to be rather good). And at her seminar having to do with the music that is a part of her spiritual autobiography, she only shared 4 songs, 2 of which I found utterly annoying and somehow forcefully quirky. Like she just couldn't stand to be straightforward with the question. She did turn me on to an old Emmylou Harris CD though, when she started the session out with a song from Cowgirl's Prayer that was just the sort of thing I love in music that expresses one's faith (specifically, music that expresses faith in a non-CCM way). As a side note, I learned that Lauren is very hard of hearing, which I found interesting, especially since my own tinnitus has been acting up quite a bit lately (someone take the tea kettle off the stove already, the whistling's gonna drive me crazy). Hearing loss is probably just below blindness on my scale of panic-inducing fears.

Andrew Beaujon (author of "Body Piercing Saved My Life") was there as well, sharing with us his impressions of this whole christian music subculture from a non-Christian's viewpoint (a view we might do well to listen to more often, just to see if what we're doing is really something that can be called "Christian" in any meaningful sense of the word. "Christian" is something the people of the early church were called, not a label they applied to themselves). Something interesting he mentioned that I would also agree with is the fact that Christians need to take it easy sometimes, don't forget to enjoy life and have fun, and not beat themselves up all the time wondering if this or that bit of music or media is "ok" to listen to. Lauren Winner, in her keynote, said something to the effect that you have to ask the question, "is this truthful?", to which Andrew responds something like, "I don't know if Steve Miller Band's The Joker is truthful, but I do know that it's a kick-ass song!". He also talked about his experience at Cornerstone Festival while writing the article that became the book. James (webmaster extraordinaire for Sarah Masen and TimeBeing), who was sitting next to me for most of Beaujon's talk, mentioned to me that he went to Cornerstone once, and what an odd experience it was. when I asked him why, he said he had always heard it compared to Greenbelt fest, and when he got to Cstone, the first thing he asked was "ok, where's the bar?"

Sufjean Stephens was playing 2 concerts on Friday evening, the first of which was for festival attendees only. I'm not particularly fond of Sufjean (his music can grate on my nerves, actually, and I almost poked my eyes out and ran screaming the first 2 times I saw him in concert - at Calvin no less), and so I decided to sell my ticket. After the concert had started, and everyone was inside that could possibly want a ticket, I sat outside by the front steps and lamented the fact that I was unable to find a buyer (hoping to get 20 or 30 bucks for it. Both shows were sold out, and Sufjean is the big thing these days). As I sat there contemplating what to do, a guy in a fedora hat walks up the steps, by himself, I say hi, he asks "you wouldn't happen to have an extra ticket to the concert would you?", and my heart suddenly fills with gladness. "I do" I say with a grin dawning on my face. He stops actually a bit surprised at what I've just told him, expecting it to be a long shot at this point, even needing to verify what I just said. He then asks if 40 dollars would be alright… Yes. Yes it would. We exchange, and I walk away about as happy as I've been all weekend. I still have a hard time believing how perfectly that worked out, like God sent him right to me. the timing was just too weird (I would have left in another couple minutes, the concert already going for about 10, and had only sat down there a couple minutes prior, no one else really around). and that just about cut the cost of this weekend in half for me.

Saturday night my friends Lee and Carrie drove the 2 and a half hours to Calvin just to catch the last concert of the weekend, Neko Case and Emmylou Harris (who were both interviewed separately that afternoon on stage). We first ate at Panera's, then went to the packed auditorium for a great double bill. Unfortunately Calvin had to hold the show in the Fieldhouse (which is nothing more than a full-blown gymnasium). They have a legendary sounding stage at the Fine Arts Center, but it only holds about 2,000 people, and they couldn't financially afford to bring Neko and Emmylou in without being able to sell more tickets to the show (tickets were included with registration, which sold out, hence all tickets would have been for festival registrants only). Bleacher seats suck, even with the cushion things they were renting that Carrie got for us all. I never figured out how to work the damn thing (there's a back you're theoretically supposed to be able to lean back on), and I got a splinter straight under my fingernail trying.

After the show and fest were over, we went out to TGI Fridays with our friend Dave who lives out there (as we usually do after these Calvin events) and spent the late night hours eating unhealthy food and arguing about music. Good times. The next morning after checkout, we all met again at the IHOP for our traditional bon voyage breakfast. I stuck around and went to Schuller's books with Dave and Stacy after that for coffee, while Lee and Carrie headed home to fight Wrestlemania traffic downtown to see a show at the State Theater. Dave bought a big old stack of some of my favorite books, which was fun to pick out and watch him buy. Once the storm started to hit, I decided it was time to head home too, thus ending a great weekend at a Calvin Fest once again. Next year is the Writing Festival, and that's the one I look forward to the most.

A quote from: John Barth

2007-03-26T03:22:00.000-04:00

"When you're lost, the smartest thing to do is stay put till you're found, hollering if necessary. But to holler guarantees humiliation as well as rescue; keeping silent permits some saving of face--you can act surprised at the fuss when your rescuers find you and swear you weren't lost, if they do. What's more you might find your own way yet, however belatedly."

of endless book browsing

2007-03-15T06:36:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things to do with my free time is to browse bookstores. I prefer browsing used bookstores, but because they generally close so early, I usually find myself perusing the stacks at Borders or Barnes & Nobles. Book shopping is something I do a LOT... too much in fact. The truth is, I probably spend more time shopping for books, browsing and buying, than I do actually reading books. This is not good. I think the reason I have this problem is that there are so many books I want to read (thousands, really), and the task is overwhelming to me. The realization that I will not have enough time in this life to read all that I want to read is discouraging and depressing. On average, I can usually only get through about 20-24 books a year (though this last year I set a new personal record, having read -i.e. finished - 35), and I probably buy about 50 a year. needless to say, my ratio of books read to unread is way off. lopsided. unbalanced. sick.

Why do I do this? I was thinking about this the other day when I was (what else?) walking around Borders looking at all the books I wished I could buy and read (I have actually held books in my hand that I already owned, almost regretting that fact of ownership because that means I really truly can't buy it right now, even though I want to feel the rush once again of buying this beautiful book that holds so much promise) (I told you I was sick...). I think the prospect of actually reading everything I want seems so unattainable that I do the next best thing. If I can't read them all, at least I can look at them all, even purchase them to have in my own library. I can at least own all the books I want to read, even if I never get around to actually reading them. This I can do, this is easily accomplished (easy, that is, if one doesn't consider paying the credit card bills). I can take them home, look at them, open their new pages and smell them (much to the chagrin of a certain friend whenever I do that when she's around), handle them, read a few lines here and there, and in general live under the illusion that somehow owning them is similar to actually reading them. I become familiar with a lot of books without going through the slow process of actually reading them all, one by one. I feel some sort of pride at having attained the library I have, some sense of authority regarding books I have no real right to claim authority on.

Books have to catch me at just the right time, otherwise they can potentially be a chore to read. And this is the worst way to read a book, out of a sense of obligation or "should", and not because it has captured your attention and motivation. A few months ago I skipped out on reading a book (that I have every intention of reading one day) for an online discussion group, simply because I just wasn't "feeling it" at that time.
I like having many unread "potentials" on the shelf that will be there for me at just the right time. Thomas Merton was like that for me (to a degree few books ever realize). When I pulled Love and Living off the shelf and read those first lines, my life was changed. If it had not been there on my shelf (where it had been sitting for quite a few months unread) at that late hour of the night, that moment would not have happened with the same level of impact.

So far this year I have only finished 3 books, 2 of which were pretty quick reads (one of those didn't even make it to a hundred pages). At this time last year I had read about 8 or 9 books. needless to say, this isn't shaping up to be a record-breaking year. Just last week, however, I finished reading Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", a book that has been sitting on my shelf (and near the top of my "must read" list) for about a decade. I felt a sense of literary accomplishment after that, even if it was only my third book in as many months. I'm currently finishing up a book of collected speeches given over the years at Calvin's Faith and Writing Festival, called "Shouts and Whispers". I was even at a few of these. I also read the first (major) section of Miroslav Volf's "Exclusion and Embrace" a few weeks ago, but stopped to take a breather. I think that book must be the best theological discussion on the matter of forgiveness and reconciliation. I can't recommend it highly enough. I've been working somewhat on a review of the book, but I can't seem to avoid the temptation to rewrite the book in summary form, which I just can't do. Volf doesn't waste a single line in the book, each paragraph continues the thought and argument, and there is little to no excess or "summary" to be found. He doesn't insult the readers intelligence by restating what he's already said. Some books I've read (especially in Christian circles) could have been better as essays, or pamphlets instead of a 200-page book. Exclusion and Embrace is the exact opposite. It's all meat and essential...

I'll wrap this unfinished ramble up now. just wanted to reconnect with the blog world here, which I've neglected for a couple months now. It is hard to remember that I don't need to write a graduate thesis every time I sit down to do one of these. In fact I don't have to do that ever. But you, the reader, intimidate me, and I want to impress you with my great wisdom and perfection. So, as a counterbalance to my unchecked ego, here is an entry that has neither of those things. if you don't like it, you can go f...

Singing in Tongues

2007-01-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

Cocteau Twins and Sigur Ros have created music that reminds me of the sort of songs that might be heard in Narnia, music sung by Heavenly beings...voices that can be heard but are yet incomprehensible. We aren't yet ready for a full grasp. I can't understand the words, nor can I express in words what they are singing about, and yet I feel like I understand what they are conveying, they resonate deeply within me. Stop to analyze or examine what I am listening to lyrically, however, and comprehension is elusive at best.

A Quote From: Julio Cortazar

2007-01-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

"For me, literature is a form of play. But I’ve always added that there are two forms of play: football, for example, which is basically a game, and then games that are very profound and serious. When children play, though they’re amusing themselves, they take it very seriously. It’s important. It’s just as serious for them now as love will be ten years from now. I remember when I was little and my parents used to say, “Okay, you’ve played enough, come take a bath now.” I found that completely idiotic, because, for me, the bath was a silly matter. It had no importance whatsoever, while playing with my friends was something serious. Literature is like that—it’s a game, but it’s a game one can put one’s life into. One can do everything for that game."

(From: The Paris Review, Issue 93, Fall 1984)

N.T. Wright

2007-01-08T03:41:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending a handful of talks by N.T. Wright (Bishop of Durham) at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. Let me say right off the bat (for those of you who might be hoping for some actual substantive content) that I won't be able to say much about the actual talks here. For the most part I think I understand N.T. Wright while I'm reading or listening to him, but I feel he is just out of reach of my intellectual grasp, and so to try and sum up what he was talking about at any given moment would mostly just come out in some variation of "it was good and stuff", and so I'm not even going to try. He was speaking as part of The January Series, a month-long event at Calvin where they bring in a different speaker just about every day in January to speak for one hour at lunchtime, free and open to the public. I left the Detroit area around 7:30AM, my friend Carrie following just about 20 minutes behind me (we drove seperately because I was staying the night there and she was coming back home). We got there around 10:30, which turned out to be plenty of time (we were the first in a line which didn't really start forming until about 11). Thankfully she stopped to get subs for us and we had a great lunch before the lecture. We were able to sit up in the front row of a packed house (1000 seat auditorium)(we realized while sitting there anticipating the lecture that we were truly geeks). His lecture that afternoon revolved around one of his latest books, Simply Christian. Afterward we stood in line for booksigning and met N.T. himself. Rounding out the rest of the day was a meal at Paneras, bookshopping at Barnes & Noble, and then some more at Schullers along with some early evening tea, and then hanging out with friends for the rest of the evening.

Earlier in the week I found out that N.T. was doing an all-day seminar on Saturday, and I no sooner decided to go to that as well than registration was closed. I discovered, however, that there would be a few spaces left if I just came and registered on Saturday morning, so that's what I did (hence my staying overnight on Friday). He spoke in the chapel, a morning and afternoon session (with Q&A afterwards), on the sacrements of Baptism and the Eucharist. (These sessions will all be available online at Calvin's website soon, and the Friday lecture is up there now.)

All in all it was a great 2 days of teaching by one of the preeminent biblical scholars of our time. My friend Andrew said this of Walter Brueggemann, and I would say it's true for me of N.T. Wright now, that hearing an author speak and getting a sense of their personality and approach has a way of making an otherwise complicated text suddenly more accessible to understanding. I'm looking forward to reading more of Bishop Wright's work now, including Simply Christian (which he brought alive in his first talk), and one of his newest books on Evil and the Justice of God. That last one sounds pretty good and stuff...

For Christmas I beat a cancer patient and took his money

2007-01-01T04:48:00.000-05:00

This past year my cousin was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkins) and has spent the majority of the year going through the hell of treatments. This cousin and I have had a yearly Christmas Eve tradition, ever since we were kids I believe, of playing pool when our family gets together on that evening. We usually play for a few bucks a game, and usually we end up alternating years as far as who ends up winning by the night's end. And this year happened to be my year (despite my cousin's lame quips about "you know I have cancer, right?" and "how can you do that to a guy with cancer?" etc. etc.). He's going to be fine, and I needed the money, and as an added bonus, I get to tell people that's what I did for Christmas...so, you know, Merry F*cking Christmas and all that...

On the gift-getting front, I actually did rather well for Christmas, opening a huge treasure chest of a box from Amazon, filled with books books books. I got more books from a good friend of mine, and as if that wasn't enough, I went used bookshopping on my way back from dropping my brother off at the airport. all told I've added 17 new titles to my shelves in the past week! One of those books is by a very respected author, Czeslaw Milosz, who's name I just learned how to say (from that book), and despite how cool his name looks in print, I will be rather hesitant to tell people in real life when I'm reading him, because it just sounds rather silly (CHESS-wav MEE-wosh). I feel like freakin' Elmer Fudd or something...

What was in that big box?
Thomas Merton - Cold War Letters
Henri Nouwen - Love in a Fearful Land
Charles Bukowski - What Matters Most...
Charles Bukowski - Betting on the Muse
Allen Ginsberg - Collected Poems 1947-1997
Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews
Czeslaw Milosz: Conversations
Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits
Shouts and Whispers

and then I bought used:
Franz Kafka - Letter to My Father
Leo Tolstoy - A Confession (etc..)
Nabakov - Speak, Memory
Thomas Mann - Death in Venice

and then my friends got me:
Frederick Buechner - Secrets in the Dark
Thomas Merton - Asian Journal
Thomas Merton - Dialogues with Silence
Pema Chodron - Wisdom of No Escape

and now I have to figure out where in the hell I'm going to store all these books. But that's a good, fun problem to have, one that I hope will continue to get worse as time goes on...

My brother and his girlfriend were in for the week after Christmas as well, and we had a great time visiting and some good conversations, but that will all have to wait for another entry (one that I may or may not make public). I think I'm done blogging for tonight...

Beautiful After Midnight

2007-01-01T02:53:00.000-05:00

Just over an hour after the strike of the new year, I stepped out into the relatively comfortable night air and went for a walk around the neighborhood. I was struck by how beautiful the sky was this night, the sun shining brightly from the other side of the world on the nearly full moon overhead, rendering my flashlight useless, causing the midnight clouds that passed by to glow white in the late night, and vividly demonstrating what the term "midnight blue" really looks like. If it wasn't so early in the night, I could have believed that dawn was breaking through, and I couldn't help but think that this is how Anne Rice's vampires see the world in the nightime hours. A few hours earlier, I finished a book by Ronald Rolheiser about rediscovering a "felt presence of God". One of the things he suggests we need is to once again approach the world around us with the awe and wonderment of a child, rather than as the same old same old. I felt something of this "caught off guard" wonderment as I went on my walk looking mostly up at the sky. I've taken a lot of nighttime walks in my life, and rarely does one get a beautiful bright night like this.

I was also reminded of a song by UnderCover that Ojo Taylor wrote after his mother had died, "The Moon And The Blue Around", one that has always touched me deeply and reminded me (once again, as UnderCover always seems to do) to not take those I love for granted, to sit still for a moment and truly share life with loved ones before they are gone, to "listen closely to their eyes". I always think of my own mother when I hear this song, and of the hardships she has had to endure throughout her life, and also of the hurt and hardship I will have to endure when she is gone. Depth in relationships takes a depth of courage - to be vulnerable, to be open and engaged and fully present, to take initiatives and risks (mostly to one's ego or personal walls of protection). It is this depth that I strive however feebly to attain. And however often I may lose my focus or resolve, there are those moments (if I am open to them) that will remind me and bring me back to at least the possiblility of awareness of what is truly real, what really matters in this life.

Treat her nice
Treat her to ideas you designed
She's been hurt before
I would gladly take her to the summer in my arms
I would gladly take her if I could

The moon and the blue around
We can find and play
After we have looked down
Moment seized, now silent, past

Speak to her, speak to her
In kindest terms
Listen to her
She's heard lions roar
Let me listen slowly to ideas she designed
Let me listen slowly to her eyes

The moon and the blue around
We can find and play
After we have looked down
Moment seized, now silent, past

Take good care
Take good care of my beloved's time
Innocence becomes her anyway
I would gladly keep her through the winter
If I could
Listen slowly to her lovely eyes