The Marathon

Sunday starts the marathon. I might as well just set up a cot and sleep at church.

This year, as in previous years, Kate and I are sponsors for a program called RCIA - the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. What it means is that for the six months leading up to Easter, we have spent a lot of time with about twenty adults, ranging from their late teens to seventy or thereabouts, who are joining the Catholic Church. This coming week starts the culmination of that process, which involves a long service on Sunday, another long service on Thursday, another long service on Friday, and then a ridiculously long service Saturday night that stretches into very early Easter Sunday morning. In between, there is food to prepare for the early a.m. Sunday feast, robes (not for me; for the new kids on the block) to wash and iron, a couple rehearsals, and a six-hour retreat on Saturday morning and afternoon before the ridiculously long service Saturday evening. There is also work, which is still very much full time, and which is particularly crazy right now. Work tends to view these days in terms of Thursday, Friday, etc.

The Thursday/Friday/Saturday slugfest is known as the Triduum, Latin "tri" for three, "duum" for "Oh my God, forget about sleeping." They are my three favorite days of the year, and this remains a profound mystery akin to the full divinity and humanity of Christ and the popularity of Britney Spears. But it's true. I am so thankful for the richness and beauty of the liturgy, for the freshness and vitality of people, young and old(er), who willingly enter into this, who take on the sometimes burdensome obligations and still find joy in them. I am thankful for college students and grizzled, world-weary corporate executives who have decided to change course midway and sometimes a lot farther than midway through the race.

In the space of seven days, we will hear the old, old story, move from palm branches and celebratory acclamation to betrayal, rejection, crucifixion; eventually, after darkness and silence, resurrection. I am always shocked by the juxtapositions until I actually look at my own life, which has sometimes moved from celebratory acclamation to betrayal and rejection. On Palm Sunday various members of the congregation read the story of Christ's Passion aloud, and the murderous crowd is always played by us, the rabble in the pews/Samsonite chairs. "Crucify him!" we cry out; I cry out. I hate it, not because I could never cry out such murderous sentiments in real life, but because I could.

So I am all the more thankful for these new kids; 19 and 70 and everything in between. They remind me of the cost, and the joy, of attempting to live this way. It's a big deal. I'm grateful I get to play a part in it. And I'll be dog-tired at the end of the process, and very happy.

All the Diamonds

Les Miserables

Blasphemy? Oh well.

"As far as Andrew Davies is concerned, adapting Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” to the screen independent of Alain Boubil, Jean-Marc Natel, and Herbert Kretzmer’s juggernaut musical was nothing short of an overdue necessity. “I hated the musical,” the writer stated outright at the Television Critics Assn.’s winter press tour in February. “I just wanted to rescue this great book from [that] pathetic virago.”"

For what it's worth, I didn't HATE the musical, and that's saying something, because I can't stand musicals. But this is about eight hours of more or less straightforward Victor Hugo, and that's very fine indeed as far as I'm concerned. Because Andrew Davies is right: this is a great book that deserves a reverent, non-musical treatment on screen. We get just that starting Sunday evening on PBS. 

Preview

Pagan Friends

"I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy."
- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"

Anecdotal evidence, based on the conclusions of one person surveying a list of friends and acquaintances, suggests that there is no difference in the individual moral lives of Christians and non-Christians. For what it's worth, I don't think of the non-Christians as "pagans," to borrow a term from Herman Melville. The term is, in itself, judgmental and offensive, certainly to non-Christians. So I just think of them as non-Christians; people who look to a different worldview and a different interpretational grid through which to understand the beautiful, tragic, mysterious world in which we live.

And on an individual level, I see virtually no differences. Most of the non-Christians I know are somewhat moral, well-intentioned, frequently kind people who love their spouses and kids and extended family members and friends, do their work with diligence and excellence, and try as best they can to cope with the inexplicable crap that happens to everyone. And most of the Christians I know do the same. Each group - Christians and non-Christians - is also characterized by a significant minority of people who simply don't cope well at all; who struggle with various addictions, legal and illegal, who covet their neighbor's ass, indeed his or her entire body, and who make astoundingly stupid choices based on raging hormones and the endless pursuit of narcissistic pleasure. One might think, given the very public emphases of Christianity, that Christians might have an edge here. One might think wrongly. By the way, there's no intent to cast blame. I have been in that latter group, and I have made my appearance there as a Christian. I'm simply noting that the vaunted moral superiority that many Christians assume is non-existent from my vantage point. And yes, I'm looking outside myself.

There is, of course, more to this story than a tally of moral or immoral attitudes and behaviors. I'm a Christian because I believe the gospel message is true. I'm also a Christian because I'm quite taken with the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God, and although I recognize that many days I don't think or live like him, there's still a desire in me to think and live like him. I assume that this is true of Christians in general, and perhaps even a few non-Christians.

The sea change I've witnessed over the last few decades in general, and quite specifically over the past few years, has to do with Christianity in the aggregate; the big picture. I'm not going to argue with the notion that most individual Christians make some attempt, often a noble one, to follow Jesus. But what has been incredibly demoralizing and dismaying is the public witness of the Christian Church, as a whole, in America. I am not lying when I state, as a Christian, that I believe I'm far more likely to find compassion and empathy among my non-Christian friends than I am among my Christian friends. I am not lying when I state that the Christian vision for America, as understood by roughly 70% - 80% of its adherents, bears little to no resemblance to the vision articulated by Jesus of Nazareth.

I'm a Christian. I'm a member of a local church. Like every other Christian, I've tried to seek out a local church that is an instantiation of the beliefs and behaviors of Jesus of Nazareth. The problem is that I used to see that vision in very broad terms. I may not have agreed with the specific doctrines and practices of some denominations. But I recognized Jesus in their midst. I now see and understand the vision much more narrowly. That's either the fault of my own narrowing thinking or the wholesale abandonment of historic Christianity. On the whole, I'd rather hang out with the pagans. They tend to think and live more like Jesus.

Pass the Creamer

"These aren't people; these are animals."
- Donald Trump, April 5, 2019, describing people asking for asylum at the U.S./Mexican border

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me"
- Emma Lazarus, Words inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty

About once a week I encounter a Christian friend who tells me I am being too harsh; that all of the animosity would melt away if we just sat down over a cup of coffee or a meal. I've also encountered several "Just Chill" books of late, all written from the perspective of finding common ground. The latest is "Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt," by Arthur C. Brooks, the gist of which is that we can disagree without being disagreeable.

It's a noble goal. I like food. I like coffee. I enjoy hanging out with other human beings. And sure, let's be civil with one another. Can we perhaps start with the President of the United States?

This is not the first time Donald Trump has described immigrants as animals. He also did so in May of 2018 in a speech in which he also described the arrival of immigrants in this country as an "infestation," a term normally reserved for termites and cockroaches. I'll leave it as an exercise for you, dear reader, to research when in history the same terms have been used to describe human beings.

It seems to me that it should not be particularly morally complicated to state that the President's terminology, and his view of people with brown skin, is deeply abhorrent. If you're a Darwinian Survival of the Fittest devotee or otherwise a white supremacist, I can see where it might sound fine. But if you adhere to the ideals on which this country was founded, have at one time or another believed the advertising we've offered to incoming strangers for the past 140 years, or consider yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, then let's not agree to disagree. Let's agree to agree instead. Let's agree that the President's thinking is deeply anti-Christian and deeply anti-American.

Okay? And I'll be happy to sit down with you over dinner or a cup of coffee and agree with your agreement. If you disagree, then it's highly likely that I'm going to have a problem with you. I'll try to persuade you to follow the ideals and beliefs that you theoretically espouse. But there's no way in hell I'm going to view this as some sort of harmless disagreement and pass the creamer.

President Pete

The first time I was able to vote for President I voted primarily because I believed my candidate was a good man. That was 1976, and the man (there were only men under consideration at that point) was Jimmy Carter. Jimmy didn't have much political experience, and he was basically a peanut farmer, but I believed in his fundamental decency, as well as in his (then Evangelical, as it was understood; the times have changed juuuuust a bit since then) Christian faith.

I don't know if he was a great President. There are people who tell me he was not, although I tend to view his "problems" as outside of his control, and his downfall as the fault of the then-emerging Christian right that has fucked with both the country and Christianity ever since. At any rate, he has proven himself in the intervening 45 years to be very much a good man, perhaps the last of his breed, but perhaps not. He's still the only President in my lifetime that I would unequivocally trust as a human being.

This week I watched several interviews with Pete Buttigieg, 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and was reminded of my initial impression of Jimmy Carter. Buttigieg is smart, articulate, and multi-talented. As a Democrat, he polled 80% of the votes in a red city in a very red state. Beyond that, though, I listened to him speak off the cuff about a variety of issues and believed him to be a good man, someone I would actually want as my neighbor, for example, or someone I wouldn't feel deeply disturbed by if they hung out with my wife or daughters. This is progress.

Buttigieg is being touted as a potential presidential candidate. I would almost certainly vote for him, and his relative youth and lack of political experience is, in my mind, somewhat offset by the notion that we are currently dealing with a highly immoral reality TV star and game show host. He's also gay, which probably means that he has 0% chance of winning, because this is Amerikkka, and because there are millions of people who would automatically vote against him for that very reason.

But it was fairly refreshing to encounter a good man who also happened to be a politician. I miss those folks.

Beauty Will Save the World

To the extent that I care about theology these days, I can safely state that I am not a Calvinist. And you'd be correct in assuming that a Christian university called Calvin College might adhere to Calvinist theology. All of that is to say that I have no horse in this race other than the horse that believes that art - all by itself, no further justifications theological or otherwise needed - is a worthwhile pursuit. I will also admit to adhering to the stubborn notion that beauty can rip a hole in your soul that lets the light shine through, only because I've experienced that phenomenon time and time again.

I don't know Ken Heffner well. I've only interacted with him a few times when he has graciously invited me to participate as a speaker at Calvin's biennial Festival of Faith and Music. But I've followed him and his work from afar because I've been consistently amazed by and impressed with what one man with a vision can do at a conservative Christian college. I've witnessed dozens of thinkers and yes, first-rate musicians and bands converge on Grand Rapids, Michigan, of all places, to play music and talk about the role of music in living life; actual awake life that is attuned to beauty and truth and escaping the tiny prison of oneself. Some of those thinkers and musicians have been Christians. Some of them haven't been. But the level of discourse has been consistently challenging, uplifting, and thrilling. I've invariably emerged from those long weekends re-energized, believing strongly that I'm not alone in this strange, God-forsaken, spiritual-platitude-mouthing country, and that there were and are people out there who see the world in roughly the same way I do. Brothers and sisters? It's a bizarre and wholly inadequate concept for the most part, but I found them at Calvin College.

So I'm saddened but not at all shocked that the conservative Christian world has deigned that people like Ken no longer make sense, or cents, for Christian universities. You can't bank on the commodities in which Ken Heffner trafficked. What is the value of seeing the world in new ways? What is the price tag for being ripped wide open by beauty?

I have no answers to those questions, but I want to thank Ken Heffner for being Ken Heffner, and for focusing on the priceless.

https://calvinchimes.org/2019/03/29/calvin-cuts-sao-and-ken-heffner-from-budget-students-uneasy/

The Sound of Silence

“Hello darkness, my old friend, 
I've come to talk with you again, 
Because a vision softly creeping, 
Left its seeds while I was sleeping, 
And the vision that was planted in my brain 
Still remains 
Within the sound of silence”
- Paul Simon, “The Sound of Silence”

The vision that was planted in my brain, lo, some 44 years ago now, was based on love and inclusion. It was based on a fundamental (not fundamentalist) assumption: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That little term “world” was significant to me, and helped form some important assumptions:

· God’s love transcended national borders, and attempts to limit God’s love along nationalistic lines should properly be considered idolatry. God’s love = good. Idolatry = bad. That’s where black and white entered my thinking.
· God’s love crossed and transcended racial and ethnic boundaries. If God showered his love upon the red and yellow, black and white (to quote a well-known Sunday School ditty that kids have been singing for decades), then I had no business, as someone who claimed to follow God’s son, excluding anyone for those reasons. Indeed, I had no business doing anything other than extending the love of God which had been extended to me.
· God’s love encompassed those who are different from me; different cultures, different languages, different beliefs and values, different social organizations. Different was not bad. It was good. It was evidence of God’s all-encompassing love.

Let me note that this is nice theory. I fail at it. There are days when I am challenged to love my own wife and kids, and they are dearer to me than anyone else on the planet. But one thing I don’t do is redefine the theory to fit my failure. I don’t conclude that my failure to live God’s love is okay with God. I don’t justify the abdication of my responsibility to carry that love to those who are different from me by claiming that God really doesn’t want me to love the people of the planet; all of them. That would be living a lie. Instead, I engage in an old-fashioned and now outmoded Christian notion called repentance. I tell God I’m sorry for my failure. I ask for help – divine and/or human, I’m open to both – to do better in the future.

It has come to my attention, oh, a few thousand times in the past four years that much of the Christian Church in America doesn’t actually believe this – doesn’t have a clue about its history and teachings - when it pertains to neo-Saviors. Up until, say, 2015 or so, Christians were reasonably consistent in being opposed to and standing against people who called Nazis “very fine people,” paid off porn stars and Playboy models, tried to ban people from other countries and other religions, insulted dead politicians on almost a daily basis, lied pathologically, caged toddlers, threatened to jail political opponents, and called the free press “the enemy of the people.” One could have concluded that at least a few of those “God so loved the world” sentiments might have kicked in and that thinking, praying people might have realized that that fundamental belief was utterly incompatible with what they were witnessing. And once upon a time Christians would have stated that. They would have uttered sentiments such as, “This is wrong. This is deeply inconsistent with what we believe. We’re opposed to this because it contradicts our most deeply held beliefs and values.”

Ah, but that was so long ago. At least four years. Meanwhile, I’m living in the past. Sadly, the 44-year-old vision that was planted in my brain still remains. But it is impossible to ignore the silence. It is deafening. It drowns out whatever feeble excuse the contemporary Christian Church in America offers to rationalize its own denial and inaction.

https://youtu.be/4fWyzwo1xg0

True, Kind, Necessary

Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?

Three questions I'm told I should ask myself before I speak, and certainly before I post anything online.

And so I ask them.

Is it true? Well, there it is. A tweet. One of thousands, put out there for public consumption by the President of the United States. It is true. He wrote it, or at least allowed his name and likeness to be associated with the words. To the extent that anything is true these days, this is true.

Is it kind? Obviously, the sentiments expressed are not kind. They are the equivalent of the fourth-grade bully you perhaps encountered on the playground. Who's a butthead? YOU'RE a butthead. Is it kind for me to bring this up? I don't know. I struggle with this. I'm told I should just ignore it, get on with my life, just accept the constant drip, drip, drip of inane, lobotomized incivility and not stop to wonder what this is doing to our society, to me. Who's a butthead? Feel free to think of me as one if it will help you sleep at night.

Is it necessary? No, it's not necessary. None of this is necessary. The tweet isn't necessary. My response to it isn't necessary. But I can't turn it off and pretend that it's not there, that it isn't happening. I can't turn off the notion that the President's job offer to George Conway is a matter of public record, as is George Conway's very public decline of that job offer. You can, as they say, look them up. They're easy to find.

This is still known in some circles as lying. I can't help it. I remember the notions of human decency and objective truth, hearkening back fondly to times when they used to matter, and I still lament the roaring silence of much of what passes for the Christian Church in America, the great cosmic shushing of conscience. Mine has a hard time staying quiet. Shhhh!

But it's hard to remain silent. I struggle with this all the time, almost every hour. Forgive my lack of kindness, the unnecessary intrusion into your pleasant day. Ironic, isn't it?

One and Done

Once upon a time, colleges focused on education. The student-athletes (note the order) played sports, but were expected to attend classes and work toward graduation.

All of that changed a couple decades back when the universities, the NCAA,(the governing body of college sports) and the NBA colluded to make a mockery of the ol' alma mater. The biggest perpetrator was one John Calipari, coach of, first, the University of Memphis, and later the University of Kentucky, who started recruiting the best basketball players in the U.S. to play precisely one year. And so they did, winning a lot of games and some college basketball championships along the way before they abruptly departed for the NBA. If there was a silver lining, it was that this academic mockery occurred at the University of Memphis and the University of Kentucky, not exactly known for churning out Rhodes Scholars.

In 2019, the "finest" proponent of gaming the system is one Mike Krzyzewski, the head coach of Duke University's basketball team. Duke, you may recall, is one of the finest academic institutions in the land. This year Duke's team features not one, not two, not three, but four freshman players who will bid a fond farewell to the hallowed halls in May to take their chances in the NBA lottery draft. They may or may not have completed their freshman requirements. Who cares? It's a joke.

I don't blame the kids. They're doing what any 18-year-old with an opportunity to earn millions of dollars would do. But something is rotten in the state of North Carolina. And Kentucky. And most states. The rent-a-player stakes could not be higher, and it's very likely that Duke will win this year's college basketball championship. Meanwhile, the administration of Duke, and Kentucky, and God knows how many other schools, will still have to wake up and look themselves in the mirror and convince themselves that it's all about higher education.

                                  

Rorschach Jesus Redux

In the last extended time Jesus spends with his disciples, He prays this prayer: "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17) 

This seems to indicate that the idea of "oneness" is a big deal; so much so that the witness of the Christian Church, as a whole, is contingent on the notion of unity. The way this is often interpreted in the modern ecclesiastical world is this: “You (the other 8,632,970 flavors that are not mine) are welcome to conform to my flavor. Then we’ll truly be one and look like Jesus.” I think this way too, by the way. Feel free to conform to me. It will go better for you in my world, and in God’s, if you do. I believe I have it right, based on extensive study, prayer, and application of hermeneutical principles interpreted in the light of contemporary sociological and political events, as well as a direct pipeline from God to my soul. In Enneagram terms, this is classic Type 1 (Reformer) thinking. It is somewhat balanced by my Enneagram wings, which are Type 9 (Fuck it; leave me alone) and Type 2 (Why don’t you like me?). You think I’m joking? You must not know me well. I’m not kidding. Join me in the Truth, which is not Flavor #8,632,971, but a return to the original, Jesus-lovin’ deal.

God help me, I do think this way. This is a core part of my personality.

An alien anthropologist, tasked with chronicling the many varieties of Christianity currently found in America, would have a difficult time finding much in common in the 8,632,971 different flavors of Christian Church he/she/it would encounter. In one church, a man in an ornate purple and gold robe might be found chanting 3^rd-century theology while slinging incense toward an altar. In another church, a hundred people might be found sitting around in a circle, sitting in silence that was only broken up by periodic a capella songs. In still another church, a rock band might be found strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage, leading fervent hootenannies expressing Jesus Is My Girlfriend sentiments. This is the American Christian Church – or actually just a tiny snapshot of it – circa 2019.

This is hardly a startling revelation. The Christian Church is nothing like the Christian Church. Really. Verily, even. It’s okay. Jesus – the Jesus the gospel writers wrote about – is now 2,000 years removed from leaving footprints in the sand except in the most metaphorical of senses. And like the telephone game in which a message is passed from one addled hearer to another, on and on down the line, the message in 2019 often bears little resemblance to the message that simple Galilean fishermen heard in the first century.

The standard response to this conundrum is that Christians are united by our belief in Jesus. Sure, the forms and the styles and yes, even the doctrines vary from group to group. But we’re all one in Jesus. We are family. All my brothers and sisters and me. We are family. Get up everybody and sing.

I like this sentiment. It’s catchy. My experience in living it has been less than ideal, both on the giving and receiving end, but it’s a nice theory. The problem is, and always has been, which Jesus we accept as the source of unity. And in the age of Rorschach Jesus, all 8,632,971 different flavors of Him, the issue is more confused, and the various Jesus Follower camps are as divergent and as diametrically opposed as they have ever been. Again, there’s nothing new under the sun. In Germany in the 15^th century, Catholics slaughtered Lutherans, and Lutherans slaughtered Catholics, and Catholics and Lutherans together slaughtered Calvinists, and the poor, peace-loving Anabaptists, the forerunners of the Mennonites and Amish and Brethren, never stood a chance. They were wiped out by everybody. Praise God. This is how it tends to go, and how it has always gone. And this is the way it’s going in 2019 as well. Christians not only disagree with one another; they believe things that directly contradict one another and are diametrically opposed to one another.

United in Jesus means beating your swords into plowshares and toting your AK-47 into the sanctuary. It means loving and serving immigrants with the special love God has for them and caging immigrant toddlers at the border. It means believing that personal character and ethics matter and that it’s no big deal to carry on an affair with a porn star while your wife sits at home caring for your infant son. It means being “pro-life” for babies in the womb and treating born people with brown skin, or different religious beliefs, with hatred and scorn. This is the American Church in 2019.

Rorschach Jesus. Which one(s) will you follow? What and where is the unity? I wish someone would let me know.

Don and Don

Not-so-veiled threats and old-fashioned thuggery not seen in a Don since Corleone:

"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell ... I promise you I will pay for the legal fees."
- Donald J. Trump, February 1, 2016

"Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I'll defend you in court. Don't worry about it."
- Donald J. Trump, February 19, 2016

"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people - maybe there is, I don't know."
- Donald J. Trump, August 9, 2016

"Law enforcement, military, construction workers, Bikers for Trump -- how about Bikers for Trump? They travel all over the country. They got Trump all over the place, and they’re great. They've been great. But these are tough people. These are great people. But they’re peaceful people, and Antifa and all -- they’d better hope they stay that way. I hope they stay that way. I hope they stay that way."

- Donald J. Trump, September 22, 2018

"Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!"
- Donald J. Trump, October 15, 2018, in reference to Rep. Greg Gianforte's attack on a reporter

"I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

- Donald J. Trump, March 14, 2019

"The President in no way, form, or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence."
- Grima Wormtongue, June 2017

This is the technique: Say the most outrageous shit imaginable, shit that would get you fired from any workplace in America. Tiptoe right up to the brink of assault and battery and murder threats. And then back away a step. Give yourself a semi-plausible out. I hope they stay that way. Then it would be very, very bad. Yoogely bad. Who, lil’ ol’ me? Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

This is an evil man. It boggles my mind that people who call themselves Christians support him. I want a new faith. This one isn't working very well. 

The Gospel According to Archie Bunker

In a few weeks I will celebrate/bemoan my 44^th anniversary as a Christian.  That should tell you a couple things. First, it’s a big, conflicted deal. Second, I’m still a Christian.

I know quite a few people who would call themselves ex-Christians. They would merely bemoan. And I understand that, too. It’s not particularly hard to fathom in God’s Own U.S. of A., circa 2019. I’m not Nostradamus, but nevertheless I don’t think it’s at all farfetched to think that the megachurches will be big, empty shells in 20 or 30 years, after the Boomers (yes, my generation) have died off with no younger generations to assume the mantles of leadership or Samsonite-chair sitters. From everything I see, the kids all took a good hard look at the proceedings and walked away. The hipster churches, which is where (at least in urban America) many of the kids landed will all have turned into mani-pedi spas or hair salons, possibly called Rockin’ Your Life! which will save money on having to change the sign out front. This is because the hipsters will have figured out that one guy with a goatee and one guitarist with a U2 obsession is as good as another, and that none of them are particularly worth getting out of bed for on a Sunday morning.  The Protestant mainline denominations will continue their slow descent into irrelevancy. The Catholic Church will lose people in droves because of its institutional inflexibility and its ongoing stonewalling over violations of the physical, mental, and spiritual health of its parishioners. The Eastern Orthodox Church will probably do okay if Anglo-Saxons can get past the fact that they are not, and never will be Russian, Greek, or Slovenian. All of them, to a greater or lesser extent, will be dead or dying of a self-inflicted wound.  The Christian Church in America, circa 2050, will be half as large as the current American Christian Church.

I believe that. This is not a shining era for the Christian Church in America. Some good, staunch Christians will explain this all away and tell you that it has ever been thus, and that spiritual rebellion will always lead to such consequences. They’re partly right, but they’re looking in the wrong direction. People are leaving for perfectly good reasons because churches are ridiculously, imperfectly bad. Horrible. When you’ve traded Jesus for an unfunny Archie Bunker, it’s not a good look. Ifso fatso, as Archie would say. When does it make more sense for those who wish to live a kind, moral, compassionate life to avoid Christian churches rather than be a part of them? 2019, the United States of America. That’s when. Who woulda thunk it, huh?

But in three weeks it will be the grand anniversary #44, the Born Again date, which is when everything theoretically became new. It didn’t work out that way. I am still thankful for that date, for the person I am becoming, for the person God made me to me. I am not that person many days. But some days I am, and that gives me hope. When I screw up, and I do, I try to engage in an ancient, mostly discredited Christian notion called repentance. That means saying to God, and to human beings I might have wronged, “I was wrong, and I was wrong in these specific ways. I’m sorry. I’m going to try not to do that – that specific thing that wronged you – ever again.” And I say it with a will. I put my heart and soul into it. This is Christianity 101, or so they used to tell me. It was a commonly understood truth. I wish the Christian Church in America still believed this. The bemoaning that will accompany the celebration will chiefly occur because I no longer think that the Christian Church in America has any standard of right and wrong, or any notion of repentance.

An Important Civic Announcement

It has come to my attention that so, so many people I know - adults, at that - are deeply distraught over and aggrieved by a phenomenon that continues to rock contemporary society. No, nothing so mundane as kleptocracy in America, the disintegration of objective truth, the promotion of racist beliefs and practices, or the ever-escalating fear of the other, praise God.

I refer to the commonly held belief (and I've heard it expressed in exactly these words more than once today) that "the government is stealing an hour of my sleep." To these friends, I offer soothing words of understanding and compassion. It is too late to do anything about this today, but I remind you that this same phenomenon will reappear next March. That's your opportunity. Here it is: go to bed an hour earlier. Be big boys and girls. You've got this.

Prostate Woes

"A doctor a week keeps the vacation savings away."
- Me

Without getting too graphic, I would prefer if people left some orifices alone. Sadly, those are the orifices that have been poked, prodded, and entubed of late. Good times. I have a rapidly growing prostate gland. It's unlikely that I have cancer, which is wonderful news, of course, but I have SOMETHING going on down there. And in the last few weeks I've had an MRI, something called a cystoscopy, and an ultrasound to figure out what that might be. At this point nobody knows.

I'm doing okay. These kinds of things are a clarion call, if you allow them to be, to wake up and smell both the roses and the iodine-like stuff that they pump into your veins to get a closer look at the innards. I'm trying to concentrate on the roses.

Other than the ridiculous cost of these procedures, and the fact that my insurance company has decided not to cover them (why should a potentially life-threatening growth be considered a legitimate medical expense, eh?), I'm fairly upbeat. I am deeply loved, and I know it. I'll let you know more once I know more.

I'm still hoping that these medical procedures will make a vas deferens.

A Taxing Day

A heads-up for those who may not have started the always lifegiving task of filling out tax forms. You may be in a for a shock. I was.

Remember the changes to the tax code that were going to allow Americans more financial freedom to purchase memberships at Costco? Here's what those changes have meant for the Andy/Kate team for 2018.

Our taxable income was roughly the same (actually slightly less, because we plowed more money into retirement accounts). Our claimed deductions were the same (1 for me, 1 for Kate). Our charitable giving increased slightly. And our tax bill went up more than $4,000 from the previous year.

There are two reasons for this. First, our take-home pay, after taxes, went up. We knew that was the short-term impact of the tax changes. We just had no idea that the end-game shock would be so great. I'm not sure if it's possible to change one's claimed deductions from 1 (self) to 0. Perhaps that's what we need to do. Second, the tax breaks for charitable deductions have been severely, and I mean severely, curtailed. Whatever breaks you may be accustomed to because you give money away are virtually gone. You can and should, for the good of your soul, give your money away. It's a good thing. But MAGA World has now assured that you're not going to see tax breaks for doing so.

Have fun.

Mark Hollis

There are certain songs - Bill Evans' "Peace Piece," Van Morrison's "Listen to the Lion," and this one  - that serve as my worship music. I have no idea of the metaphysical views of the songwriters, and they may or may not have intended them as spiritual succor. No matter. They work that way for me, and I'll take them over the entire genre of contemporary Christian music that attempts to scratch that itch.

Talk Talk, the band heard here, were the most unlikely of contemplative worship heroes. For several albums in the early-to-mid '80s they were a standard-issue synth-pop band, and they made a lot of money and wrote a lot of hits with their bleeping and boinging. Then they steered the sleek, shiny car right into the ditch. The last two albums they made, "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock," from the tail end of the 1980s and the dawn of the 1990s, respectively, were unlike any music I had ever heard. They were pensive, ruminative, deeply searching.

Mark Hollis, the singer and songwriter, and the force behind the wrecked car in the ditch, died today, just short of his 64th birthday. If you listen to him and allow him to crack your soul wide open, you might understand why I feel the need to write, to honor him, to mourn his loss.

https://youtu.be/tSg2OIFum3o

Reliving the Past

My aunt, who is in her late eighties, is in the hospital, her twentieth hospital stay in the past three years. She’s been cut open, and poked and prodded until her tiny frame is covered with bruises. And she is tiny; more tiny than I can ever remember her. She’s barely there anymore.


Yesterday she thought I was her brother, who happens to be my old man. It was probably all the medication, although it’s hard to tell. My dad has been dead for six years now, and I don’t want to be him, alive or dead. So it was a bit of an affront to be called “Bob,” although she didn’t mean it badly. She was just reliving her past. As it turned out, so was I.

I’ve avoided my extended family – both sides of my mom’s and dad’s families - for decades. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t do anything other than treat me kindly as their grandson or nephew or cousin, whatever the case was. But my own history with my parents was so fraught with bad memories and times I’d rather forget that I consciously chose not to try to re-engage old relationships. And after a certain point – say, when your own kids move out of the house, and you haven’t seen these people since you yourself were a kid – there’s just too much that has happened to go back.

At least that’s what I thought. What changed my mind was death; my parent’s death, and other deaths. My mom has been dead for 22 years, my dad for 6, and there’s been some substantial healing in the meantime. It’s not that I’ve forgotten any of it. The memories are still fresh, and there is no forgetting. But I’m trying to forgive anyway, not because forgiveness is deserved or earned, but because it’s undeserved, and it’s what I need to do to become a more whole human being. It’s a unilateral peace offering, an extended olive branch with no hands held out to take it. And other people are dying, too; aunts and uncles, lost in the fog of dementia, cousins, dead before their time. Only a few are left. There is no more time to wait.

Over the last few years I’ve been able to spend substantial time with my aunt and uncle in Michigan. I’ve always liked them. They had a bunch of children – my cousins – and I have fond childhood memories of hanging out with them as a kid. The first time I heard Bob Dylan was when my cousin Mike pulled out his “Like a Rolling Stone” 45 and played both sides. The song, in fact, took up both sides of the record – a wondrous thing – and I’ve been smitten ever since. There were picnics and family reunions, trips to Dearborn Village, one hot summer night standing in the back yard watching a strange orange glow to the east. That was Detroit, burning down.

As my uncle, who is 90, tells me, it wasn’t always easy. He wasn’t always easy. He had a temper, and he drank too much, and he had some redneck attitudes. But I see him now – this sweet, kind old man who weeps when he remembers his dead children, and who tells me that he’s thrilled, overjoyed, to see me, and who means it – and all of that history, all of the crap from the past, melts away like snow in May. My own parents got worse. They started out, more or less in love, and their dicks and their misshapen hearts and their mental illnesses and their addictions got the better of them, and they ended up in a very dark, very bitter place. My aunt and uncle have done a 180. They’ve gotten better; old wine in old wineskins, as fine and mellow as two human beings can be. They hold each other, two shriveled bodies sharing warmth, and heat, and 66 years together, and they are deeply in love. And I am so thankful to have rediscovered these people – my past, my present. I am so glad I didn’t miss it.

My aunt is very ill. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that yesterday was the last time I’ll see her alive. When she dies, my uncle’s heart will break. She told me yesterday – the me who might have been Andy, or might have been Bob – that she prays for me. She can call me anything she wants. Andy, Bob, whatever. She aint’ heavy. She’s my sister.

Try to Praise the Mutilitated World

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
- Adam Zagajewski, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World”

In Iraq, they are beheading little Christian children. Why? Because they breathe. I’ve heard the feeble protests, the indignant objections. This has been going on for years, all over the globe. Why only notice now?

Just stop. It has been going on forever.

And they are beheading little Christian children. They are not better, more significant, than little Muslim children, or little Jewish children, or little children anywhere. But they are little. They are children. And they are grabbing them by their hair, stretching out their necks, testing the sharp blade of a machete – a machete! - against soft skin. They are cutting off their heads.

Carry this with you throughout your day, your days. Think about it, don’t turn away, and experience it for the unspeakable horror that it is. Cry, moan, pray.

And in your day, remember, hold up, like a rare old treasure, the slant of late summer sunlight filtered through the still green leaves of trees, the taste of good, freshly brewed coffee, the sound of Miles Davis’ trumpet, the sweet, easy company of the wife of your youth, the surprise of new friendship, new connections that defy logic and convention. Look at these ties. They do not bind. They unite. It is nothing. It is everything. It is what you have, who you are.

Remember, don’t ever forget, all the horrendous, senseless, hateful, unfathomable death down through the ages; heads on pikes and bodies stacked atop one another like cords of wood stored for the winter, the torturer’s rack, the rows of young men mown down like newly harvested wheat, bits of brain spattered against a wall, mustard gas and napalm, the mushroom cloud, the fucking sterile, efficient gas chambers of Auschwitz and Sobibor and Treblinka. This is where we live and move and have our being. Then breathe, if you can. You must. Live. Lift up, like an old treasure, your tiny shards of joy. Try to praise the mutilated world.

Blubber Songs

Chuck Cleaver, who is the impetus behind two very fine Ohio bands few people have ever heard – Ass Ponys and Wussy – recently wrote about the songs that stop him in his tracks, that reduce him to a quivering mass of blubber because of their overwhelming sadness. Some of those songs were standard mopester/unrequited love fare, and I’m fairly sure that most people can identify at least with the sentiments expressed, if not the music. Others were more surprising, and involved connections that were far more idiosyncratic and personal. Chuck listed a few of his favorites, and a couple of them happen to be my favorites, too, for much the same reasons. Given the recent spate of curse- and sob-inducing news, I thought I would compile my own highly idiosyncratic, highly subjective Top 10 Blubber Songs, in no particular order other than alphabetical.

The Blue Nile – Because of Toledo

In general, atmospheric synth bands don’t do much for me. I make an exception for Glasgow’s The Blue Nile because a) I’m a sucker for a good Scottish burr, and b) lead singer/songwriter Paul Buchanan has a wondrously supple, soulful voice that adds some needed humanity to the icy chill. All of the Blue Nile albums are worth seeking out for those qualities, but it’s the opening line of this song that slays me every time: “Because of Toledo I got sober and I stayed clean.”

I don’t know what happened in Toledo, and Paul Buchanan isn’t telling, nor is he even telling if he’s singing about Toledo, Ohio or Toledo, Spain. It doesn’t matter. But I have my own version of Toledo, which has nothing to do with Toledo, Ohio or Toledo, Spain, either, but it will do. It’s the place on the psychic map where you say, “That’s it. I have to change.” These are good if sometimes painful places to revisit, and I do every time I listen to this song.

Bruce Cockburn – The Rose Above the Sky

This song, which borrows heavily from T.S. Eliot, comes from Bruce Cockburn’s divorce album “Humans.” I’ve never been divorced, so I don’t know, but I suspect that the anger and the helplessness are much the way Bruce presents it. And sadness, infinite sadness. “Something jeweled slips away ‘round the next bend with a splash/Laughing at the hands I hold out, only air within their grasp.” At the end of a tough, harrowing album there is this song, which is perhaps the beginning of acceptance; rueful thankfulness, but thankfulness nonetheless for what has been. Occasionally you find an album that cuts through the bullshit and presents life poetically but in stark honesty. “Humans” is that album.

Bob Dylan – You’re a Big Girl Now

Another divorce album, this one from The Voice of a Generation, and arguably the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. So it’s rather ironic that the best bit of this song comes as a wordless moan. The words are certainly powerful enough; Bob Dylan recounting the parting dance, the uneasy shuffle as a husband and wife move apart from one another. The moan comes midway, his Bobness conjuring the image of his wife in bed with another man. Then comes something that can be roughly translated as “Oooohhhhhh,” but is not so much a word as an existential groan, the inarticulate speech of the heart. It’s among my favorite musical moments, even though I realize that “favorite” is a sorry excuse for a word meant to cover something so visceral and painful.

George Jones – He Stopped Loving Her Today

The reason being, of course, because he died today. By all rights, this song should not possibly work. It features country cornpone over-emoting, sappy strings, and a spoken-word interlude that is so sloppily sentimental that even the Hallmark Company would blush. It works because George Jones is the greatest of country singers, and the catch in his voice is the sound of the wind howling at 3:00 a.m. in desolate places. It also works because the sentiment is true. If you don’t know what I mean, too bad for you.

The Left Banke – Walk Away, Renee

Unrequited love, pure and simple. What makes it great is that the song was written by the then-16-year-old Michael Brown, and 16-year-old Michael Brown perfectly captured the “oh fuck, all of the meaning has just been sucked out of the universe” despair of unrequited love as only 16-year-olds can do. There are thousands of songs that express these sentiments, but this one might be the prettiest, and features a lovely little chamber-pop arrangement. Baroque ‘n roll, indeed.

Joni Mitchell – The Last Time I Saw Richard

Unrequited love, but with a few zingers thrown in. Joni feels bad about ol’ Richard, to be sure, and wants to be left alone to drink at the bar, but she’s not above throwing in a couple catty lines about the nondescript suburban woman he married and the stupid kitchen appliances he bought her. And really, those lines rescue the song from maudlin sentimentality. Anybody can write a song about feeling miserable and drinking alone at the bar. Only Joni Mitchell can turn that into a rant about the vacuousness of consumerism.

Pentangle – Lord Franklin
An old, old British folk song – some 200 years old now – given a bit of a folk/rock update by Trad band/hippies Pentangle in 1970. This is a sad, nay tragic love song, but it’s a sad love song told from the standpoint of a sailor mourning the loss of his captain. The captain – in this case the titular Lord Franklin – lost his life in a foolhardy expedition to sail to the North Pole. “Ten thousand pounds would I freely give/To say on earth that Lord Franklin did live.” This is the melody, by the way, that Bob Dylan appropriated/stole for his early song “Bob Dylan’s Dream.”

Sun Kil Moon – Glenn Tipton

Mark Kozelek only writes sad tunes. Really, he’s recorded dozens of hours at this point that could serve as the soundtrack for wrist slitters worldwide. But I’m particularly fond of this song, which finds him looking past his navel for once:

I know an old woman ran a doughnut shop
She stayed up late servin’ cops
And then one mornin’, baby, her heart stopped
Place ain’t the same no more
Place ain’t the same no more
Not without my good friend Eleanor

I haunt a few places like that. I’ve known a few Eleanors, and I miss them too. This song reminds me to remember the sweet people on the periphery.

Tom Waits – Kentucky Avenue

An early trashcan symphony that is part poetic childhood reverie and part surrealistic nightmare. In Tom Waits’ universe, the juvenile delinquents and hookers have hearts of gold. Here they play strip poker, spit on kids, flip the bird, slash car ties, and exhibit extraordinary sweetness and kindness:

I’ll take a rusty nail, scratch your initials in my arm
I’ll show you how to sneak up on the roof of the drugstore
I’ll take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie’s wing
And I’ll tie ‘em to your shoulders and your feet
I’ll steal a hacksaw from my dad, cut the braces off your legs
And we’ll bury them in the night out in a cornfield
Just put a churchkey in your pocket, we’ll hop that freight train in the hall
And we’ll slide all the way down the drain to New Orleans in the fall

Diamonds shining in the mud. It’s heartbreaking.

The Weakerthans – Elegy for Elsabet 

This being an elegy, one assumes that poor Elsabet, whoever she might be, is a personage of some stature. The guitars crank up in proper elegiac fashion, and the chorus swells grandly, celebrating … what? It turns out that Elsabet is a young woman who lives a nondescript life, browbeaten by her parents, watching too much TV, finally succumbing to something that may be no more consequential than terminal boredom. Whoever she is, she is a cypher, someone who has never really lived. The thing that I love – and the thing that I love about John Samson’s songwriting in general – is that this makes her a person worth eulogizing. Let every sound consecrate the whispering words that Betta never heard.

http://youtu.be/MBdkMulBSvc