So last night I was sitting at a kitchen table at a friend's house letting the dog get some fresh air and compiling tuneage for the show this morning, thinking about the transpiring of the past few days, of revolutions borne out of hope and frustration only to see more of the same, of self-styled holy warriors who kill children and blow things up, of nations too busy bickering over partisan lines than actually dealing with actual problems, preferring to snipe about the mannerisms of one's spouse or what someone's wearing.
Sometimes the fuckedupness of it all gets a bit overwhelming and I find myself returning to Job and the Psalms to use the words of others to simultaneously express wonder at the Divine and the beauty of the world and to be furious at the grievous and incomprehensible wrongs that we inflict upon each other.
I don't believe that everyone who professes what I believe is going to end up where they think they're going, or that they're right or justified. Since Glenn Beck is an adherent of a religion that bears as much resemblance to my Christianity as Farrakhan's does to classical Islam, I don't take him seriously but to imply that it's somehow their fault they got shot makes me sick. So does Pat Buchanan who's always been afraid of the coming days when the world won't be so crackertastic. You know what, all these other people have souls too. God made them just as much as he made you.
Buchanan applauds the guy's grasp of history, but being a bit of a history geek, I also don't understand this conflation of Christianity and xenophobia evident here, and also stateside, especially considering that a substantial amount of early converts were not of Nordic, or even European stock and came from areas that we now lump into the general category of "the Arab World." Augustine, Perpetua, Simon of Cyrene hailed from Roman Africa, which is now modern-day Tunisia, Algeria, Libya... most of the churches in the book of Revelation are in modern-day Turkey. So, yeah, I know nobody cares about stuff like that except for me, but I somehow feel like it's relevant to point out that while the pre-Islamic world was converting to various forms of Christianity, my ancestors to the north (Celtic and Slav) were still doing that whole human sacrifice thing. Norway was still pagan for about a thousand years after. Just sayin'.
And yeah, European thought and religion have dominated the world through colonization, globalization, and mass media, so for a lot of people the West is equated with at least a cultural framework that has some basis in Judeo-Christian thought. And talk about bloody political conflicts. It wasn't all peace and love under Ferdinand and Isabella, or in the Balkans where everyone's been doing nasty things to each other for centuries, or the Crusades, or England and Ireland. It was brutal and barbaric too and like now I'd guess that the fanaticism was more of a bloodlust and lust for power wrapped up in a moralistic guise rather than any deep religious faith or understanding.
And I don't know if there's anyone who makes my blood boil than those who kill in the name of whatever religion or ideology they espouse because they have it out for whoever. I don't care what it is. It's sick and wrong. And just because someone else did something bad doesn't mean you have to do it worse. The Neo-Nazi types who think they're somehow superior because they're more likely to get sunburned are some of the hardest people for me to even try to understand or interact with, and the ones who'd say that the Hitleristas are reprehensible but more or less espouse the same garbage.
I've heard people talk about the perceived menace of Islam and can't help but think that it seems there seems to be this hard-wired human need to have an enemy, an abstract group of people to fight against. In my parents' years, it was the communists, and Hitler before that, and before that, whatever interethnic conflict which led to people immigrating here in the first place. For my lefty friends, it's those damn wingnuts, for the righties, it's the secular humanists or the perceived elite.
And sure there's wackjobs with violent tendencies in every camp who like to blow shit up and put their ideology over whatever human collateral stands in their way. And it seems more and more like we as a country focus on the talking heads and what their acolytes might do while our tax dollars are used to blow the heck out of othfer places halfway around the world and do all sorts of shady stuff and don't even pretend it's not happening anymore. I was born halfway through the Reagan years and can't remember when we weren't blowing something up halfway around the world... arming shady dictators in Latin America, going into the Balkans, Sudan, Granada, Somalia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan. But those last ones, it's not really war, just some sophisticated technology that kills people from far away, so you don't have to look in that person's eyes.
I don't buy this whole "oh they're ruthless and can't be dealt with like normal human beings" because it's not like Al-Qaeda was the first or only group to use suicide bombers or there weren't people brainwashed with ideology.
But maybe it's just my own weird perspective of God-so-loved-the-world and not God-loves-my-country-best-because-I'm-cracker. I just don't understand hating someone else's guts because they practice a different religion or don't look like you or do the same things. And there are things that other cultures do that I'm really glad I don't have to deal with, especially being female. I like being able to get an education, live on my own and hang out with whoever and not have to deal with the lady parts getting cut off because heaven forbid that I experience pleasure during intercourse. I don't hate other people because they do those things even if I think it's messed up. We do things in our country that are horrible too but it's always easy to point the finger at someone else.
I should note here that I almost didn't post this, in part because I found myself so angry and frustrated at my lack of powerlessness but upon hearing the tonedeafness of the punditry, I felt like I had to tip the balance the other way somehow.
I should also note here that the above song was playing during the penning of said rant, and said song is awesome in that totally apocalyptic way.
Showing posts with label incoherence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label incoherence. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
since I didn't get my existential convos this week and am working late instead...
I find it amusing when those outside of evangelical circles like to generalize about an entire group in ways that are about as absurd as saying that Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan or Oprah speak for "the black community" or put-your-favorite-talking-head here speaking about their pet topic.
Immerse yourself in any subculture, whether it's musical or religious or whatever, and there are infinite permutations and variations and raging debates on what is true and good and what sucks and is totally ridiculous.
As far as serious issues go in the taboo topics of politics, sex, and religion, I am more willing to argue about religion than other things because I think that this kind of stuff actually matters in the great scheme of things as far as eternity goes, and as far as application to one's daily life in the meantime.
On the other hand, I don't really like to have these arguments because I don't believe that any of us mere mortals really get it half the time. There are certain things that I hold to, that I gauge the truth based on as far as I can tell. Any time anyone starts talking about "a new way of" this or that or anything resembling a "bright new future", I'm expecting a whole lot of bullshit platitudes coming my way.
So often we make God into our own image, assigning preferable personality traits and occasionally a skin color, political party, and language to fit the way we see the world, whether it's in a hellfire-and-brimstone-way or a Buddy Christ motivational booster kind of figure who just wants everybody to be happy and get along.
Anyways, Rob Bell has a new book coming out where he's talking about heaven and hell and not in a way that has anything to do with Dio and the inevitable evangelical subcultural debates have begun on whether or not he's keeping it real or something.
Most of you my dear readers (possibly all except for maybe one or two) may not realize that evangelicals are not all clones of Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. Evangelical is if anything a catchall term for those who are not in mainline Protestant denoms or Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, and even then, there's occasional overlap. People take this stuff seriously and occasionally aren't friends anymore over hair-splitting doctrinal differences (I don't think that's a good thing, but more on that another time).
The book hasn't come out, so no one's read it yet, kind of like all the people who freaked out about Dogma but hadn't actually watched it. Having seen a few of Bell's videos and whatnot, I'm not a huge fan and while a lot of it sounds nice and looks pretty, it lacks a theological depth and seems to be more of an emotional and aesthetic appeal that looks deeper than it really is.
This is somewhat my issue with the whole Hipster Christianity thing because what looks all cool and edgy and relevant right now is going to look like Stryper 20 years from now if it doesn't already. And when I get mailings from these churches that talk about how they're relevant to me as a creative cynical questioning 20-something who doesn't feel like they fit in with the prevailing culture, I feel pandered to and I don't like feeling pandered to.
I don't pick who I worship with because the building looks cool or we all listen to U2 or there's candles or something. I like that they're not all earnest indie kids and that I find a commonality in God with people that I couldn't be more different from. I like that we're not all the same age and from the same walks of life and that it's scruffy and honest.
Not to sound like a bitter old record store clerk still mad that their favorite underground band got signed to a major and is played on commercial radio, but faith isn't supposed to be cool. And yet, I look at these articles and see myself there in a way that I assume is unconscious and accidental in an "oh snap" kind of way because I do love the writing of Flannery O'Connor and the music of U2 and try to give a damn in an "I want to do something good and right because it bothers the hell of out me that things are so bad" kind of way.
I understand my generation's disdain for poofy haired televangelists and the culture wars still fought by our parents, but there's just as much smug self-righteousness and keeping up appearances that becomes just as much a bubble with its own lines to tow, whether it's trendy and good intentioned causes that everyone thinks is bad (sex trafficking and genocide are generally non-controversial in this way) so that no boats are rocked and a cachet of cool is still maintained.
I get emotion and aesthetic appeal, but essence of what I believe is distilled down to "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." I suck at both of these, but this is what I try to base my life on, to know and learn and love and try not to be a jerk, which is hard, because being a jerk is so easy and sometimes way too fun to do.
And what bothers me that is that the whole "mind" aspect of this equation gets checked in at the door more often than it should, both in hardcore fundamentalist circles and just as much among the more emergent types, when dissent can lead to accusations of "well you're not really a Christian" or "you obviously hate everyone especially poor people and are totally judgmental."
I've been told I was the former, because I didn't dress right, listen to the wrong music, and cuss when I get mad, and described as the latter because I do believe in structure and creed and not in the bright and shining hope of People Who Can Change the World Because They're So Nice and Awesome and Well-Intentioned. I know that they don't know me, that only God knows me better than I know myself, and the more I live, the more I realize how much about me needs to change.
It bothers me to see so much tied to "how this makes me feel" or "this is what I want to hear" or "this is what I want to believe." I'm probably guilty of this too, because I tend to tune out the talking heads and the drivel with every fiber in my being. These conversations are not conducive to facebook walls or message boards and as with anything that can get emotional or misconstrued, I always prefer face-to-face, preferably over dinner or coffee. Even then, sometimes it still gets dramatic.
Because who of us has all the answers or can comprehend these things? It's not that we don't try but we've had a couple millenia now and there will still be thinks that will be seen through a glass darkly. I know that I'm not always consistent and usually not content to just live and let live. It bothers me that there is so much that I just don't understand, and so much more to learn, and that I can't get complacent even if I wanted to because my mind is always working and my heart is always bleeding and my soul is always yearning.
I feel like the little kid in O'Connor's short story "Temple of the Holy Ghost" who makes fun of her ditzy Catholic schoolgirl cousins, the boys in the neighborhood who are going to be Church of God ministers because "You don't have to know nothing to be one," who's asking God to help her not be so snarky, who probably could never a saint but might be an ok martyr "if they killed her quick."
Immerse yourself in any subculture, whether it's musical or religious or whatever, and there are infinite permutations and variations and raging debates on what is true and good and what sucks and is totally ridiculous.
As far as serious issues go in the taboo topics of politics, sex, and religion, I am more willing to argue about religion than other things because I think that this kind of stuff actually matters in the great scheme of things as far as eternity goes, and as far as application to one's daily life in the meantime.
On the other hand, I don't really like to have these arguments because I don't believe that any of us mere mortals really get it half the time. There are certain things that I hold to, that I gauge the truth based on as far as I can tell. Any time anyone starts talking about "a new way of" this or that or anything resembling a "bright new future", I'm expecting a whole lot of bullshit platitudes coming my way.
So often we make God into our own image, assigning preferable personality traits and occasionally a skin color, political party, and language to fit the way we see the world, whether it's in a hellfire-and-brimstone-way or a Buddy Christ motivational booster kind of figure who just wants everybody to be happy and get along.
Anyways, Rob Bell has a new book coming out where he's talking about heaven and hell and not in a way that has anything to do with Dio and the inevitable evangelical subcultural debates have begun on whether or not he's keeping it real or something.
Most of you my dear readers (possibly all except for maybe one or two) may not realize that evangelicals are not all clones of Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. Evangelical is if anything a catchall term for those who are not in mainline Protestant denoms or Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, and even then, there's occasional overlap. People take this stuff seriously and occasionally aren't friends anymore over hair-splitting doctrinal differences (I don't think that's a good thing, but more on that another time).
The book hasn't come out, so no one's read it yet, kind of like all the people who freaked out about Dogma but hadn't actually watched it. Having seen a few of Bell's videos and whatnot, I'm not a huge fan and while a lot of it sounds nice and looks pretty, it lacks a theological depth and seems to be more of an emotional and aesthetic appeal that looks deeper than it really is.
This is somewhat my issue with the whole Hipster Christianity thing because what looks all cool and edgy and relevant right now is going to look like Stryper 20 years from now if it doesn't already. And when I get mailings from these churches that talk about how they're relevant to me as a creative cynical questioning 20-something who doesn't feel like they fit in with the prevailing culture, I feel pandered to and I don't like feeling pandered to.
I don't pick who I worship with because the building looks cool or we all listen to U2 or there's candles or something. I like that they're not all earnest indie kids and that I find a commonality in God with people that I couldn't be more different from. I like that we're not all the same age and from the same walks of life and that it's scruffy and honest.
Not to sound like a bitter old record store clerk still mad that their favorite underground band got signed to a major and is played on commercial radio, but faith isn't supposed to be cool. And yet, I look at these articles and see myself there in a way that I assume is unconscious and accidental in an "oh snap" kind of way because I do love the writing of Flannery O'Connor and the music of U2 and try to give a damn in an "I want to do something good and right because it bothers the hell of out me that things are so bad" kind of way.
I understand my generation's disdain for poofy haired televangelists and the culture wars still fought by our parents, but there's just as much smug self-righteousness and keeping up appearances that becomes just as much a bubble with its own lines to tow, whether it's trendy and good intentioned causes that everyone thinks is bad (sex trafficking and genocide are generally non-controversial in this way) so that no boats are rocked and a cachet of cool is still maintained.
I get emotion and aesthetic appeal, but essence of what I believe is distilled down to "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." I suck at both of these, but this is what I try to base my life on, to know and learn and love and try not to be a jerk, which is hard, because being a jerk is so easy and sometimes way too fun to do.
And what bothers me that is that the whole "mind" aspect of this equation gets checked in at the door more often than it should, both in hardcore fundamentalist circles and just as much among the more emergent types, when dissent can lead to accusations of "well you're not really a Christian" or "you obviously hate everyone especially poor people and are totally judgmental."
I've been told I was the former, because I didn't dress right, listen to the wrong music, and cuss when I get mad, and described as the latter because I do believe in structure and creed and not in the bright and shining hope of People Who Can Change the World Because They're So Nice and Awesome and Well-Intentioned. I know that they don't know me, that only God knows me better than I know myself, and the more I live, the more I realize how much about me needs to change.
It bothers me to see so much tied to "how this makes me feel" or "this is what I want to hear" or "this is what I want to believe." I'm probably guilty of this too, because I tend to tune out the talking heads and the drivel with every fiber in my being. These conversations are not conducive to facebook walls or message boards and as with anything that can get emotional or misconstrued, I always prefer face-to-face, preferably over dinner or coffee. Even then, sometimes it still gets dramatic.
Because who of us has all the answers or can comprehend these things? It's not that we don't try but we've had a couple millenia now and there will still be thinks that will be seen through a glass darkly. I know that I'm not always consistent and usually not content to just live and let live. It bothers me that there is so much that I just don't understand, and so much more to learn, and that I can't get complacent even if I wanted to because my mind is always working and my heart is always bleeding and my soul is always yearning.
I feel like the little kid in O'Connor's short story "Temple of the Holy Ghost" who makes fun of her ditzy Catholic schoolgirl cousins, the boys in the neighborhood who are going to be Church of God ministers because "You don't have to know nothing to be one," who's asking God to help her not be so snarky, who probably could never a saint but might be an ok martyr "if they killed her quick."
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
on art, literature, and Dogma (incoherence reigns)
Like the last time I had wanted to see some good free live music on the east side, the snow decides to come down in massive quantities. I love public transportation on days like that because at the very least if I'm stuck I can read or something, but anything's better than being in a long line of cars and wondering if the bridge you're sitting deadlocked on is going to buckle and send you nosediving into the frigid Cuyahoga River.
However, having a stash of CDs to get me through and leftovers from lunch in the car made the gridlock and the catcalls from loiterers on the corner much easier to bear though I wish I'd remembered to set my alarm this morning so I don't have to reprise all the fun.
Hibernation and not having anywhere to go is a beautiful thing, being able to change out of work clothes and make tea and a dinner consisting of Goya taquitos with no nutritional value and a grapefruit, and watched 'Dogma' for the first time.
I had heard a lot about how bad and blasphemous the movie was from the Catholic newspapers that my grandparents got but I've always believed that you should know what you're talking about for yourself as opposed to what other people say about something.
While I take God as a literal supreme being and la Santa Biblia more seriously than some wingnuts seem to, I'm also convinced that God has a fabulous sense of humor and a deeply creative nature, due to the heady combination of beauty and weirdness that is the created world. I get this sense of wonder when I see photos of galaxies and nebulas. I probably get this from my mom, whose faith was rekindled as a grad student in environmental studies in the 70's.
Everything else, however, is up for grabs, and there's enough dry humor in Proverbs, downright scatological imagery, and some serious sarcasm woven into the Good Book that I really didn't find anything terribly shocking or blasphemous. I do think that there are certain truths and beliefs that mean way more than simple "ideas" and that these do affect one's life in a massive way, but I honestly didn't expect to laugh as hard or find as much depth as I did.
But for someone like me who grew up Catholic, argued with my theology teachers, questioned everything under the sun, gets very cynical about the increasingly common and ridiculous Buddy-Christing of modern church culture, was accused by a college professor at Kent of "sucking on the tit of Mother Church" in the middle of class as an undergrad, whose conversations with God often involve a lot of cussing and questions wondering why things are the way they are and why do things happen the way they do and what's the point of all this.
I'm sure that people will get what they want out of it, whether it's an "I told you organized religion is a sham" or "there's something strangely redemptive here." And that always happens whenever art is involved. One of my art school friends did a final project installation piece that included a film about her great-grandfather who wrote the first hymns in the Tamil language and at the show, a lot of the people who viewed it couldn't get past the Indian-ness of it, assuming that said girl in sari was of course Hindu and into an entirely different theology.
And I wonder if I'm just too English-major-ish when I'm seeing echoes of the Screwtape Letters in the conversations of the fallen angels, the calling out of idolatry in modern civilization, concepts of grace and forgiveness and judgment, and a sense of humor and theology that reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's crazy preachers of the Church Without Christ and carnival freaks that are as unlikely prophets as Jay and Silent Bob, and Walker Percy's apocalyptic scenarios of fragmented partisan Americas and Jesus showing up on Phil Donahue.
Maybe if I was still Catholic I could write something good and God-haunted, but I can't go back there at this point because there's just too much that I can't believe in anymore. That being said, the evangelical wing of modern Christianity kind of sucks in the fiction department, with its terrible virginal romance novels about Amish people and governesses, and general ripping off of already mediocre pop culture.
I don't expect anything to be terribly cool or trendy because that's not what this whole thing is about. If I wanted to be 'with it,' I wouldn't be bothering with this. It has to come from within and not be imposed upon. That's how things got screwed up post-Constantine.
But seriously, fellow believers, a little bit of originality and talent put to good use never killed anyone. Heck, if you believe in God as a supreme and genius Creator and you're made in his image, you need to step up your game a whole lot. More Albrecht Durer and T.S. Eliot and less Thomas Kinkade and less hipster memoirs and prairie romances, okay?
However, having a stash of CDs to get me through and leftovers from lunch in the car made the gridlock and the catcalls from loiterers on the corner much easier to bear though I wish I'd remembered to set my alarm this morning so I don't have to reprise all the fun.
Hibernation and not having anywhere to go is a beautiful thing, being able to change out of work clothes and make tea and a dinner consisting of Goya taquitos with no nutritional value and a grapefruit, and watched 'Dogma' for the first time.
I had heard a lot about how bad and blasphemous the movie was from the Catholic newspapers that my grandparents got but I've always believed that you should know what you're talking about for yourself as opposed to what other people say about something.
While I take God as a literal supreme being and la Santa Biblia more seriously than some wingnuts seem to, I'm also convinced that God has a fabulous sense of humor and a deeply creative nature, due to the heady combination of beauty and weirdness that is the created world. I get this sense of wonder when I see photos of galaxies and nebulas. I probably get this from my mom, whose faith was rekindled as a grad student in environmental studies in the 70's.
Everything else, however, is up for grabs, and there's enough dry humor in Proverbs, downright scatological imagery, and some serious sarcasm woven into the Good Book that I really didn't find anything terribly shocking or blasphemous. I do think that there are certain truths and beliefs that mean way more than simple "ideas" and that these do affect one's life in a massive way, but I honestly didn't expect to laugh as hard or find as much depth as I did.
But for someone like me who grew up Catholic, argued with my theology teachers, questioned everything under the sun, gets very cynical about the increasingly common and ridiculous Buddy-Christing of modern church culture, was accused by a college professor at Kent of "sucking on the tit of Mother Church" in the middle of class as an undergrad, whose conversations with God often involve a lot of cussing and questions wondering why things are the way they are and why do things happen the way they do and what's the point of all this.
I'm sure that people will get what they want out of it, whether it's an "I told you organized religion is a sham" or "there's something strangely redemptive here." And that always happens whenever art is involved. One of my art school friends did a final project installation piece that included a film about her great-grandfather who wrote the first hymns in the Tamil language and at the show, a lot of the people who viewed it couldn't get past the Indian-ness of it, assuming that said girl in sari was of course Hindu and into an entirely different theology.
And I wonder if I'm just too English-major-ish when I'm seeing echoes of the Screwtape Letters in the conversations of the fallen angels, the calling out of idolatry in modern civilization, concepts of grace and forgiveness and judgment, and a sense of humor and theology that reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's crazy preachers of the Church Without Christ and carnival freaks that are as unlikely prophets as Jay and Silent Bob, and Walker Percy's apocalyptic scenarios of fragmented partisan Americas and Jesus showing up on Phil Donahue.
Maybe if I was still Catholic I could write something good and God-haunted, but I can't go back there at this point because there's just too much that I can't believe in anymore. That being said, the evangelical wing of modern Christianity kind of sucks in the fiction department, with its terrible virginal romance novels about Amish people and governesses, and general ripping off of already mediocre pop culture.
I don't expect anything to be terribly cool or trendy because that's not what this whole thing is about. If I wanted to be 'with it,' I wouldn't be bothering with this. It has to come from within and not be imposed upon. That's how things got screwed up post-Constantine.
But seriously, fellow believers, a little bit of originality and talent put to good use never killed anyone. Heck, if you believe in God as a supreme and genius Creator and you're made in his image, you need to step up your game a whole lot. More Albrecht Durer and T.S. Eliot and less Thomas Kinkade and less hipster memoirs and prairie romances, okay?
Monday, January 10, 2011
guns and religion
I felt sick and angry to hear about a congresswoman getting gunned down in Arizona, which, with its combination of the worst elements of the conservative and liberal spectrum (thanks a lot rich boomers!), isn't shocking given the particularly nasty strain of politics going down there.
And don't tell me this is loaded imagery, because it damn well is. I don't blame Sarah Palin for this incident any more than I blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine, but for all the complaining about being stereotyped by clinging to guns and religion, this does nothing but perpetuate.
I'm almost relieved that the guy was more nihilistic than crazy and religious but that doesn't change the fact that people are dead. I'm glad that the condemnation of this has been universal on all sides because trivializing ignorant comments don't do any good for anyone.
I've been told by people who are more conservative than myself that the reason that I don't like Sarah Palin is because it's not cool too, and because "the media" is mean to her but that couldn't be further from the truth. She feeds just as much off the media as it feeds off her.
I see a rank hypocrisy, political incompetence, a crass opportunism, and an enjoyment of the media circus, where truth and honesty is subverted in the name of "Real American Values."
She has set herself up as the spokesperson of an entire group, talking about good governance when she quit her job to make a lot of money promoting a bestselling book and a 'reality' tv show. If anything, she's the Al Sharpton of the right, an opportunist who jumps on bandwagons, shows up on TV all the time, makes herself the center of attention and won't shut up.
I don't want to hear about her great morals or middle class values, because morality is more than saying that abortion is bad, it has to do with your character too, being an honest person and a decent human being, as opposed to being a greedy, bullying, loudmouth.
I dread voting in this coming election watching the Republican party eat its young and alienate everyone who isn't rich and old and white, while the Democrats carrying on the same-shit-different-day policies of the last fifty years. Power corrupts whether you're red or blue.
Some days, I think I'm a bit of both. My faith in God is a daily struggle as it is, and I lost faith in humanity and its systems years ago. I do my best to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my proverbial neighbor as myself, neighbor being anyone who comes across my path in life, especially those who are vulnerable to getting massively screwed over.
I fail at all of those things frequently. I probably spend more time taking care of yours truly than the others in my world. I say things that I regret and don't always do what I could have done. I rant about the hypocrisy of others to feel better about myself. But I do what I can to not be a jerk and try to seek truth and love mercy and walk humbly with God and others. I don't expect to be perfect or have all the answers, but it's the best I can do.
And don't tell me this is loaded imagery, because it damn well is. I don't blame Sarah Palin for this incident any more than I blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine, but for all the complaining about being stereotyped by clinging to guns and religion, this does nothing but perpetuate.
I'm almost relieved that the guy was more nihilistic than crazy and religious but that doesn't change the fact that people are dead. I'm glad that the condemnation of this has been universal on all sides because trivializing ignorant comments don't do any good for anyone.
I've been told by people who are more conservative than myself that the reason that I don't like Sarah Palin is because it's not cool too, and because "the media" is mean to her but that couldn't be further from the truth. She feeds just as much off the media as it feeds off her.
I see a rank hypocrisy, political incompetence, a crass opportunism, and an enjoyment of the media circus, where truth and honesty is subverted in the name of "Real American Values."
She has set herself up as the spokesperson of an entire group, talking about good governance when she quit her job to make a lot of money promoting a bestselling book and a 'reality' tv show. If anything, she's the Al Sharpton of the right, an opportunist who jumps on bandwagons, shows up on TV all the time, makes herself the center of attention and won't shut up.
I don't want to hear about her great morals or middle class values, because morality is more than saying that abortion is bad, it has to do with your character too, being an honest person and a decent human being, as opposed to being a greedy, bullying, loudmouth.
I dread voting in this coming election watching the Republican party eat its young and alienate everyone who isn't rich and old and white, while the Democrats carrying on the same-shit-different-day policies of the last fifty years. Power corrupts whether you're red or blue.
Some days, I think I'm a bit of both. My faith in God is a daily struggle as it is, and I lost faith in humanity and its systems years ago. I do my best to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my proverbial neighbor as myself, neighbor being anyone who comes across my path in life, especially those who are vulnerable to getting massively screwed over.
I fail at all of those things frequently. I probably spend more time taking care of yours truly than the others in my world. I say things that I regret and don't always do what I could have done. I rant about the hypocrisy of others to feel better about myself. But I do what I can to not be a jerk and try to seek truth and love mercy and walk humbly with God and others. I don't expect to be perfect or have all the answers, but it's the best I can do.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
a kindler gentler machine gun hand
Everyone remembers when 9/11 happened and I was a senior in high school in between classes at Tri-C, how it was a totally beautiful day outside and yet something really bad had hit much closer to home.
I was younger and more idealistic and hoped that the people of my country would do some soul-searching, but instead someone drove their car into the Islamic center around the corner, the Egyptian kids who were Coptic got harassed, and suddenly high schools were saying the Pledge of Allegiance, everyone was wearing red white and blue, and these decals with slogans like "the Power of Pride" started appearing everywhere.
Being a snarky punk of a kid still with some born-again fervor, I remember thinking about how the power of pride is usually a bad thing, but evidently no one else saw it that way. Wasn't it pride that comes before the fall, didn't God tell us to be humble?
I played bass in a terrible punk band where we wrote songs about not going to war, jammed around to "California Uber Alles" and was so glad that I wasn't the President, because I wouldn't know what the hell to do.
I remember being creeped out by the Patriot Act and thinking about all the ways that power could get abused. I must have been so naive to think it wouldn't go as far as it did. It sickens me when I hear otherwise decent people justify torture, to think that we can act like we're on this moral high ground saying that the terrorists are doing this and that so they 'deserve it.' Like the Japanese didn't have suicide bombers or the Nazis didn't do what they did.
And my heart breaks for women who risk losing their lives to learn how to read, whose words mean nothing, and for boys that are the victims of pedophilia because of men and women aren't able to relate to each other normally. I can't imagine living in a country where I could not listen to or play music without fear of death. And for whatever attitudes there might be against us around the world, these people that we've never met are God's children too, and we are all equal before Him, just as much in need of redemption and grace.
Where does this whole bombing back into the stone age and American pride fit in with loving our neighbors and praying for those who persecute us? Do we lower ourselves to the standards of those we don't want to be anyway? Just because "the Satanic Verses" gets burned does that really mean it's a good idea to burn the Quran? Why is anyone giving this guy attention anyway? That's the last thing anyone needs.
Is it that we've gotten so desensitized to violence and torture that we don't care? Is it that we've lost some sense of humanity somewhere? I know none of this is new, but to see it so out in the opening and to hear it attempted to be justified as okay when it's not... I just don't believe that we can justify the unjustifiable.
I wonder if Bill Clinton had pulled these stunts if the response from the right would have been nearly as enabling. I remember reading the Gulag Archipelago, and for all our talk about freedom, the same things that they did in the Gulag are what's being done here.
The political discourse seems to grow more toxic every year. I thought it was bad at Kent in '04 when it was Bush vs Kerry and everyone talked so ignorant around me, resorting to groupthink, generalizations, and name-calling and pointless protests, and the way that people like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore made a lot of money out of partisanship.
And nine years later, we're still in Afghanistan but no one's really talking about Bin Laden. It feels more and more like Vietnam, where no one really knows why we're there, what the hell is going on, and maybe it's even worse. Anyone who's tried to go in there has screwed themselves over. And, as my esteemed coworker quotes from "the Princess Bride," one should "never get involved in a land war in Asia."
Our current president declares victory in Iraq again, but we've still got 50,000 soldiers over there. All this talk of "change" and the CIA is still authorized to assassinate, no one is going to be prosecuted for war crimes, Gitmo is still open, the School of the Americas still exists, we are still holding people without trial who may or may not be guilty, and we alternate between bombing Pakistan and sending it aid to rebuild. Blackwater is still getting our tax dollars.
Somehow this is ok because it's not the Republicans doing it. But it's a continuation of the same thing with a nicer face and a better speaking voice.
It's bread and circuses on the homefront and I wonder if this is what it was like living in the last days of the Roman empire sometimes, with all this imperial expansion and enough bones thrown to the masses to keep them complacent, keep them sufficiently entitled and entertained, "informed" but uninvolved. I am guilty of this considering that I vote third party and am ranting on a blog instead of getting arrested in front of the White House.
I can't remember a time when we weren't bombing someone. What does that say about where we are?
"Rockin' In The Free World"
There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign
on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
I was younger and more idealistic and hoped that the people of my country would do some soul-searching, but instead someone drove their car into the Islamic center around the corner, the Egyptian kids who were Coptic got harassed, and suddenly high schools were saying the Pledge of Allegiance, everyone was wearing red white and blue, and these decals with slogans like "the Power of Pride" started appearing everywhere.
Being a snarky punk of a kid still with some born-again fervor, I remember thinking about how the power of pride is usually a bad thing, but evidently no one else saw it that way. Wasn't it pride that comes before the fall, didn't God tell us to be humble?
I played bass in a terrible punk band where we wrote songs about not going to war, jammed around to "California Uber Alles" and was so glad that I wasn't the President, because I wouldn't know what the hell to do.
I remember being creeped out by the Patriot Act and thinking about all the ways that power could get abused. I must have been so naive to think it wouldn't go as far as it did. It sickens me when I hear otherwise decent people justify torture, to think that we can act like we're on this moral high ground saying that the terrorists are doing this and that so they 'deserve it.' Like the Japanese didn't have suicide bombers or the Nazis didn't do what they did.
And my heart breaks for women who risk losing their lives to learn how to read, whose words mean nothing, and for boys that are the victims of pedophilia because of men and women aren't able to relate to each other normally. I can't imagine living in a country where I could not listen to or play music without fear of death. And for whatever attitudes there might be against us around the world, these people that we've never met are God's children too, and we are all equal before Him, just as much in need of redemption and grace.
Where does this whole bombing back into the stone age and American pride fit in with loving our neighbors and praying for those who persecute us? Do we lower ourselves to the standards of those we don't want to be anyway? Just because "the Satanic Verses" gets burned does that really mean it's a good idea to burn the Quran? Why is anyone giving this guy attention anyway? That's the last thing anyone needs.
Is it that we've gotten so desensitized to violence and torture that we don't care? Is it that we've lost some sense of humanity somewhere? I know none of this is new, but to see it so out in the opening and to hear it attempted to be justified as okay when it's not... I just don't believe that we can justify the unjustifiable.
I wonder if Bill Clinton had pulled these stunts if the response from the right would have been nearly as enabling. I remember reading the Gulag Archipelago, and for all our talk about freedom, the same things that they did in the Gulag are what's being done here.
The political discourse seems to grow more toxic every year. I thought it was bad at Kent in '04 when it was Bush vs Kerry and everyone talked so ignorant around me, resorting to groupthink, generalizations, and name-calling and pointless protests, and the way that people like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore made a lot of money out of partisanship.
And nine years later, we're still in Afghanistan but no one's really talking about Bin Laden. It feels more and more like Vietnam, where no one really knows why we're there, what the hell is going on, and maybe it's even worse. Anyone who's tried to go in there has screwed themselves over. And, as my esteemed coworker quotes from "the Princess Bride," one should "never get involved in a land war in Asia."
Our current president declares victory in Iraq again, but we've still got 50,000 soldiers over there. All this talk of "change" and the CIA is still authorized to assassinate, no one is going to be prosecuted for war crimes, Gitmo is still open, the School of the Americas still exists, we are still holding people without trial who may or may not be guilty, and we alternate between bombing Pakistan and sending it aid to rebuild. Blackwater is still getting our tax dollars.
Somehow this is ok because it's not the Republicans doing it. But it's a continuation of the same thing with a nicer face and a better speaking voice.
It's bread and circuses on the homefront and I wonder if this is what it was like living in the last days of the Roman empire sometimes, with all this imperial expansion and enough bones thrown to the masses to keep them complacent, keep them sufficiently entitled and entertained, "informed" but uninvolved. I am guilty of this considering that I vote third party and am ranting on a blog instead of getting arrested in front of the White House.
I can't remember a time when we weren't bombing someone. What does that say about where we are?
"Rockin' In The Free World"
There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign
on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
the end of civilization
"Everyone leaves or gets married!" I tell my mom as I'm crying on the phone, late for a wedding, and it feels like it's true. The ones who don't leave or get married get drunk and I don't get drunk. Such is life in one of the nation's poorest cities and sometimes it gets depressing as hell.
I was feeling pretty down and out this weekend, sleeping, getting bummed out, forgetting about things I was supposed to do, skipping parties and Labor Day gatherings to sleep some more, wake up to clean the house, do some art, and then go to sleep again, never quite shaking the tiredness out of me.
I resurfaced on Sunday night, driving out to the east side to hang out with the usual suspects and eat pancakes, and drink a whole pot of coffee before driving out to the "End of Civilization" in the next county to find a place to look at the stars. There are certain great conversations that only seem to happen in moments like these, when the remnants of pop culture, the ruminations of frustrated English majors subjected to suicidal dead women writers, the dynamics of living in this strange weird world where our paths converge.
We found an empty lot at the end of a cul-de-sac and stared up into the Milky Way, having a hard time picking out the Big Dipper because there were so many other stars and planets and satellites. It was so still and perfectly beautiful but then someone in the house across the way must have seen us because the lights came on and we saw someone in the window and figuring we already looked suspicious enough anyway, roared off because we didn't want to try and explain why three kids from Cleveland are "just looking at the stars" especially when one of us is on probation.
Someone had crashed his motorcycle and we stopped to see if he was ok. He was conscious but there was blood everywhere and thankfully the police and EMS came though it seemed to take them so long to get everything going. I find the outlying areas scary because it's so dark and if something happened, you could lay there for hours if no one sees you and there's nowhere to go for help. Sometimes the city is a cold and scary place too, but at least there's someone around.
Me & Muk had to drive back down there to retrieve his keys he dropped in the road when he got out, and there were still sirens going and the road blocked off. We drove back listening to 1940s jazz at 3am and I ended up sleeping on his couch and driving back the next morning feeling dazed and shellshocked and still laughing over the conversations from the night before. It's always so drama-free and chill and honest in a way that I find rare. Those times don't happen as much as they used to and I miss it.
And I wish things weren't so messy and complicated everywhere else... even though life is consistently interesting and full of adventure, I sometimes wish I could be like the people who appear to have consistency even though that in itself is an illusion. It's hard for me to trust others, and so easy to long for escape and change even when I know that I can't run away from myself and always have to come back.
It seems so easy to get pulled away from what is good, so easy to fall back into past addictions and bad habits and unhealthy relationships. I see everyone around me getting sucked in constantly, saying they want certain things but not being willing to sacrifice or change to get there. We all have to grow up sometime, and I don't think that 'growing up' necessarily has to involve a soulless existence. You can't stay in college forever. You can't party with your bros or your girls forever. Everyone gets older and so do you except when you're in academia.
How can you say you want a relationship with no games when your game is what you pride yourself on? You say you want honesty yet you lie to get out of trouble. You say you want someone who's responsible when you refuse to grow up. How can you say you want to be understood and loved when you are uninterested in doing that for others, and you want to be viewed as more than just what you look like but that's how you evaluate others.
And yet, I don't have the answers all the time either besides the obvious things and find it easier just to do what I've always done and alternately ignore and yearn.
I've gotten back into reading poetry for the first time in awhile, and sometimes the fragmentation and the raw emotion is easier for me to deal with than heavy volumes of information... and Gil Scott-Heron with his amazing voice and way with words does it for me in blue moods like this.
I was feeling pretty down and out this weekend, sleeping, getting bummed out, forgetting about things I was supposed to do, skipping parties and Labor Day gatherings to sleep some more, wake up to clean the house, do some art, and then go to sleep again, never quite shaking the tiredness out of me.
I resurfaced on Sunday night, driving out to the east side to hang out with the usual suspects and eat pancakes, and drink a whole pot of coffee before driving out to the "End of Civilization" in the next county to find a place to look at the stars. There are certain great conversations that only seem to happen in moments like these, when the remnants of pop culture, the ruminations of frustrated English majors subjected to suicidal dead women writers, the dynamics of living in this strange weird world where our paths converge.
We found an empty lot at the end of a cul-de-sac and stared up into the Milky Way, having a hard time picking out the Big Dipper because there were so many other stars and planets and satellites. It was so still and perfectly beautiful but then someone in the house across the way must have seen us because the lights came on and we saw someone in the window and figuring we already looked suspicious enough anyway, roared off because we didn't want to try and explain why three kids from Cleveland are "just looking at the stars" especially when one of us is on probation.
Someone had crashed his motorcycle and we stopped to see if he was ok. He was conscious but there was blood everywhere and thankfully the police and EMS came though it seemed to take them so long to get everything going. I find the outlying areas scary because it's so dark and if something happened, you could lay there for hours if no one sees you and there's nowhere to go for help. Sometimes the city is a cold and scary place too, but at least there's someone around.
Me & Muk had to drive back down there to retrieve his keys he dropped in the road when he got out, and there were still sirens going and the road blocked off. We drove back listening to 1940s jazz at 3am and I ended up sleeping on his couch and driving back the next morning feeling dazed and shellshocked and still laughing over the conversations from the night before. It's always so drama-free and chill and honest in a way that I find rare. Those times don't happen as much as they used to and I miss it.
And I wish things weren't so messy and complicated everywhere else... even though life is consistently interesting and full of adventure, I sometimes wish I could be like the people who appear to have consistency even though that in itself is an illusion. It's hard for me to trust others, and so easy to long for escape and change even when I know that I can't run away from myself and always have to come back.
It seems so easy to get pulled away from what is good, so easy to fall back into past addictions and bad habits and unhealthy relationships. I see everyone around me getting sucked in constantly, saying they want certain things but not being willing to sacrifice or change to get there. We all have to grow up sometime, and I don't think that 'growing up' necessarily has to involve a soulless existence. You can't stay in college forever. You can't party with your bros or your girls forever. Everyone gets older and so do you except when you're in academia.
How can you say you want a relationship with no games when your game is what you pride yourself on? You say you want honesty yet you lie to get out of trouble. You say you want someone who's responsible when you refuse to grow up. How can you say you want to be understood and loved when you are uninterested in doing that for others, and you want to be viewed as more than just what you look like but that's how you evaluate others.
And yet, I don't have the answers all the time either besides the obvious things and find it easier just to do what I've always done and alternately ignore and yearn.
I've gotten back into reading poetry for the first time in awhile, and sometimes the fragmentation and the raw emotion is easier for me to deal with than heavy volumes of information... and Gil Scott-Heron with his amazing voice and way with words does it for me in blue moods like this.
Friday, January 9, 2009
got a gut feeling...
I talked to my dad last night and evidently I've been getting all sorts of letters sent to my parents' address from lawyers who want to be my best friend and help me cash in and claim some kind of victimhood. I talked to my friend's lawyer yesterday and gave him the statement so that they could work on his claim, which is fine, because he's the one with the car that's smashed up, but then he starts feeling me out and smells a personal injury lawsuit waiting to happen. I was getting the bad vibes (I tend to trust these, they've almost never failed me) and he seemed shady as anything.
after talking to my dad and then my uncle who's in the insurance business, I'm not going to bother with the other. After a round of jury duty when I was 19, I don't have a lot of respect for ambulance chasers.
I just don't feel right about it even though technically there's nothing immoral or wrong about it either. I know that's what insurance companies are for, but I walked away from this accident with a stiff back I could have gotten after spending all day at Cedar Point and a black eye that is gone now. I'm not even emotionally traumatized. I'm more cautious on the road, sure, but I can drive I-90 without having a panic attack. I don't want to sue anyone or try to get something out of this because it's money I didn't earn and I feel that by doing so I would be perpetuating something that's gotten pretty messed up about my country.
after talking to my dad and then my uncle who's in the insurance business, I'm not going to bother with the other. After a round of jury duty when I was 19, I don't have a lot of respect for ambulance chasers.
I just don't feel right about it even though technically there's nothing immoral or wrong about it either. I know that's what insurance companies are for, but I walked away from this accident with a stiff back I could have gotten after spending all day at Cedar Point and a black eye that is gone now. I'm not even emotionally traumatized. I'm more cautious on the road, sure, but I can drive I-90 without having a panic attack. I don't want to sue anyone or try to get something out of this because it's money I didn't earn and I feel that by doing so I would be perpetuating something that's gotten pretty messed up about my country.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
