"... 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.

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

"Stuff Christians like" blogs

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

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"

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

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

a couple of things a little bird told me

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

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

A Taft Diary Interlude: A bit of video history

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

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

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

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

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"

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

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)

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

(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. One of these still horrifies me to think I carelessly let her slip out of my life, possibly for good, someone I loved very much and is now lost to me, despite repeated attempts to find her.  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.

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

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

A Poem by Charles Bukowski

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

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 watch some of the World Series with my dad... 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..."

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

(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

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

Some Thomas Merton

"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