January 8th, 2010

Failed again. How can I get myself serious about writing every day? Who knows.

I just finished reading East of Eden. It is a 600 page book that took me only 7 days to read, and I was taking my time. I am usually a fast reader, but with this one I couldn't speed my way through it or put it down.

I don't really want to write about the themes in the book. I am writing because I feel the need to do something. I certainly can't read anything else at this moment. I can't watch anything either. I've tried, and my mind won't let me drop the story of the Trask family. I'm stuck at work while my mind races and hits walls and collapses in on itself and then returns to racing. I love it. I love that people can tell stories that ring the bell of truth so hard that it hurts, builds, and tears down all at the same time. Not many things give me more joy than the experience I had today, and I just wanted to write that down.

Nov. 28th

Well, that was a longer break from writing than I was planning to take. I actually wasn't even planning to take one day off. I am really trying to dedicate myself to this, which I think makes it hard for me to get back after I miss a day. I tend to want things I do to be perfect, and if I accidentally mess something up I usually just stop caring. I need to quit expecting things to be done right and just keep on trying. Plus, it's just a stupid blog. Who cares if I miss one day? Well, I care, but who besides that? Nobody.

I've had a good week or so. Nothing really to report. The McKims had a baby. That's cool. Thanksgiving was nice. Not great, but nice. I've finished two books. The Case For God by Karen Armstrong was the first. I really enjoyed that one. It was an analytical look at the history of how humanity has interacted with God or godlike entities. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in exploring his/her faith without all the religious or antireligious language and stances that usually riddle these kind of books. It really impacted me. The other book I read was True Grit by Charles Portis. It is a novel that has been adapted into a film by the Coen brothers. I am a big fan of their films, so I wanted to have a nice grasp of what their latest movie would be like. I wasn't impressed with this book. It read just a like a standard Western novel would, which is bad in my view. It was formulaic and violent. It was sort of interesting to have a fourteen year old girl as a narrator and vigilante, but that didn't redeem the book in my opinion. I'll bet after watching the movie version this will be one of the first times I will like an adapted movie better than the book it was based on. There just wasn't much there. Oh well.

This should be a good week. I feel confident about that. See you tomorrow.

November 17th Reading:

I just read a section of a poem from Anselm of Laon that I thought I would try to remember. It starts rather abruptly, so I'll try to add a bit to help understand what he means.

[I want to grasp] a little of your truth, to which my heart is already loyal

and which it loves. For I do not seek to understand in order that I may have faith, but I commit myself in order that I may understand; and what is more, I am certain that unless I so commit myself I shall not understand.

It might be strange out of the context of the book I am reading, but I just wanted to remember it.

November 16th, 2010

Worked the open shift this morning with James and Shaun. I love the feeling of being done with work shortly after I am fully awake. That first two to three hours is usually just a sleepy blur.

I had lunch with my parents today, my mom started talking to me about the Truth Project DVDs they are watching and discussing with Erica and Scottie. We then had a discussion that rode the fence between civil and uncivil about the merits and demerits of the Focus on the Family organization. I don't really like them and am skeptical of their programs and publications. I believe this is an earned distrust, not just a stigma that they've earned by their associations.

I helped my brother and dad move some stuff on and off a trailer.

Dinner was horseradish cheddar grilled cheese sando's. Real tasty.

Went to the Fenders to do some cleaning. Afterwards, I sat down and read a vastly misinformed article about young "post-Christians" in Fred's copy of Christianity Today. I think I read that magazine for the sole purpose of getting pissed off.

I'm excited about my day off tomorrow. Should be nice to spend the day reading and relaxing.

November 15th

Today I worked a bus shift at the M. It was a fairly normal day, but the monotony of the job really got to me. I was in a good mood, but I was certainly feeling quiet and tired. Not sleepy or physically tired, just shut down. I am on and off about working at the Flying M. I love the place, and most of the people I work with, but I just don't know if I can handle foodservice for much longer. In fact I know I can't. My friends are even telling me that I need to get a new job.

I've been reading A Case for God by Kristen Armstrong. It's been good. Lots of ups and downs, though. At one moment I am feeling inspired by how humanity has viewed God and practiced religion, and at the next I am depressed at revelations about Christian history and left wondering what I really believe in. Then, I am back to being completely content with what I believe. I am loving all this history, but I am not really one to get into history. It's confusing. Maybe I should read that Lee Strobel stuff next, so I get both sides of the argument for God. Then maybe I should read some Dawkins, so that I am not unaware of what I think I disagree with.

I learned more about my possible future job today. It looks like drafting is actually a good place to be in this economy. Lots of professions need drafters. I am thinking it might be a good place to start in my quest to become an architect.

Diana and I sat by the fire tonight, it was nice. I had to lock the dogs out of the library so they would stop barking. They were being distracting and annoying.

Today is the day that Harvey is due. No Harvey yet. It is exciting for one of the couples in our friend group to take the parenthood plunge.

Back to the Blog

Hey everybody or nobody,

I'm coming back to the blog world. It has been about 7 months since my last post. I haven't stopped reading, but I have stopped writing about reading. I'm sorry if anyone/no one is disappointed about that. I've decided that I want to start doing a daily register concerning my humdrum life. Mostly this is inspired by Diana's visual diary that she is keeping. I realized how much I forget about myself in a day, and I would like to continue to compound on my experience, instead of forgetting about it and repeating it in a constant cycle. Anyone/no one who might be reading this for any reason other than an interest in me should be informed that it might be personal and it might be philosophical, but that it will probably be self-centered. Also that it won't be polished. I don't want to spend a lot of time editing things like I did in the posts that came before this one. I just want it to be a reminder of where I've been and what I've done. I've decided to keep the name the same, because it still makes sense. Expect my next post to be within the next few hours from now.

-Joe

Easter 2010

Introduction: After reviewing this posting, I realize it might sound like I believe we should treat Christians better than we treat non-Christians. I don't believe that, but it should be noted that it might be easier to offer love and forgiveness to those that don't believe the same as us if we can love and forgive those that share our values.

Tomorrow is Easter. The most important Holy Day on the Christian calendar. This year I feel oddly lost by the whole thing. It has been an uneventful, yet challenging year for me and my faith.

I still consider myself a Christian, and I still see God daily in the world around me, but the distance I feel from my "beliefs" seems to be growing. This is funny to me, because I feel strongly about what I do still believe. God's existence makes total sense to me, and I do not doubt his presence. I still believe Jesus' ways are the perfect example for the human life to emulate, so living with Him as the centerpiece of my faith is also a certainty for me. I guess what is most likely the cause of my "lost" feelings is the fact that in the last year I have given up organized church.

I am not one of those that has a problem with organized religion, mind you, but merely modern organized "church". I probably wouldn't have this problem if I was Catholic, they still have the sense that your church is your church regardless of how happy you are, or what the church is doing for you.

My problem is one clearly shared by numerous people in the evangelical world today, the collective evangelical church (and how the church views personal faith) has become too much of a product. The "church" is a building, or a charismatic pastor, or the people attending the church, and you get to choose which building, pastor, or group of people most appeals to you. They design the church to fill certain needs for certain types of people.

If your needs or beliefs change, or the direction of the church changes, there are countless other churches waiting in the wings to sweep up the mess that is made. People even switch churches based on advertising campaigns. People aren't unhappy where they are, but the grass is greener on the other football field, or they're gym has treadmills, AND elliptical machines. Is this how we were made to come together? Choosing which church best fits us? Don't we share the Christian title with many types of people, including those we don't always agree with?

Even beyond those whose exact beliefs we don't share, I'm sure there are many instances where people choose not to attend a church based on how others might look. How many whites do you see in a primarily black church? How many people in Nampa would attend a mostly hispanic congregation when there are countless churches populated with a white majority? Even with shared beliefs, people feel uncomfortable when they can't blend with the crowd, and they have the option to leave for whatever reason they choose.

Having limitless options really doesn't do great things for loyalty. It takes people of high character to stick with a church during the rough times, and most people can't live up to that standard. I've left a church or two in my day with hard feelings.

It seems to me that the way Western Christianity does "church" is still focused on the Sunday Service, and that is why I want to leave it behind. How many sermons have I heard that said that the church is the people in attendance and not the building? Do they mean that all Christians are the church, or just those in their denomination?

What if the church didn't revolve around a Sunday Service or an established denomination? What would it look like if it was just a collection of believers that had good relationships with one another? What if the nearly 200 million Christians in America decided that they were all the church body and we treated each other like brothers and sisters of the same faith? Wouldn't that make people begin to treat their neighbors a bit differently? Would we consider any time we spend with the other 199,999,999 Christians to be "fellowship"? A gathering time would be nice, but would it be necessary?

There is a 75% chance that the next American you see registered his or herself as a Christian on the 2008 census. What is the likelihood that you would treat that stranger as a brother or sister in Christ? What is the percentage of strangers that you treat with respect, or better yet, with unconditional love? Yet, at the Sunday morning service, you (hopefully) would treat all in attendance with the patience and love that comes with a shared faith in an unconditionally loving God. If we saw all Christians as the body of Christ, we might start to realize how much we have to offer those that are in need.

I am CERTAINLY not the best at this. I look at my customers at the Flying M as cattle lined up for the slaughter, not like humans in need of a little grace and love. I could also probably use some of that grace and love from the strangers I encounter, not that I deserve it.

So what do we do to solve this problem? Many have tried to start new churches, others strive to better the ones they are in, and others (like me) just give up. I would go to a church that was attended based on location like the public school system, but that would never happen (unless I joined the Catholic faith, like I mentioned earlier... Hmmm.)

Maybe I don't feel distanced from my beliefs, just alone in them. My problem probably comes from a feeling that I no longer belong to an official congregation that knows my name and my family and my personal life story.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this isn't true. I have a bounty of close friends in my life, probably more than most people who attend Sunday service style churches. When things go wrong, I have friends who gladly talk to me, when things go right, I have countless people wanting to celebrate. When I need somebody to tell me not to be such a jerk, I have that, too. I have friends who learn and grow with me. I have friends that I challenge and that challenge me right back. I have a group of people that I can trust to help me with pretty much anything I need.

I suppose I should stop to realize that I do have a church body that I rely on, and that I don't need to feel inferior or left out of the faith because I don't attend a Sunday service or have some middle aged pastor preaching at me regularly.

I feel better now.

Happy Easter, Christ died because he loved us and wanted us to be forgiven. Lets celebrate with endless practicing of love and forgiveness.

Favorite albums of 2009

I thought this would be a good place to preserve my 2009 lists. It feels like this may be out of place, but I don't really care.

This was a really big year for me and new music. It might go down as one of the best years of my life for new releases, hence the rather large honorable mention catagory...

Honorable mentions in no particular order:

New Albums by Prefuse 73, Dead Man's Bones, Fuck Buttons, The Raveonettes, Grizzly Bear, Converge, Mt. Eerie, Andrew Bird, The Dodos, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Sufjan Stevens, Heavy Trash, The Flaming Lips, and Lightning Dust.

Favorites:

15. YACHT - See Mystery Lights

This barely made it to where it is. You could probably switch it out for any of my honorable mention picks, but it is here because I've listened to it a few times more than any of those.

14. Dizzee Rascal - Tongue in Cheek

Dizzee should be in my top five of the year. This album is still good, but it is obviously not the work of someone concerned with perfection. Dizzee is getting distracted by all that money he made with his last three amazing records. (Impressive that he made it into my top 15 with a mediocre effort, though)

13. St. Vincent - Actor

This would be higher if it was a "best of" list. I liked it a lot, and it showed some great talent, it just didn't get as many listens as it deserved.

12. Decemberists - Hazards of Love

I thought this album was the years best when it came out early this year. It had some stiff competition and lacked a little in staying power, but damn it was good live. And the Double Vinyl is certainly still a proud member of our collection.

11. Magnolia Electric Co - Josephine

A sad album honoring the death of Jason Molina's close friend Josephine. I'm a sucker for eulogy records.

10. The Thermals - Now We Can See

I think this album proved to me that even pop-punk, if done tastefully and creatively, can be listenable. My inner 13 year old is satisfied, but won't be complete until ska gets the chance to prove its value to 25 year old Joe.

9. Built to Spill - There is No Enemy

Local dudes delivered their best album in years.

8. Shelley Short - A Cave, A Canoo

This might be here because it was in our car stereo for half the year and I have every song memorized. But even so, it made it to the 8th spot of the list by being able to survive in the stereo for as long as it did.

7. Dan Deacon - Bromst

Reptile Rumble will be spinning this one till its grooves are demolished.

6. Clem Snide - Hungry Bird

"I can't find comfort in the fact that it could be worse." Diana lives by that line.

5. Mewithoutyou - It's All Crazy, It's All False, It's All a Dream, It's Alright!

Mewithoutyou has finally written praise music that doesn't sound trite, cliche, or forced. This is a fully Christian album that stands up on it's own feet. You don't have to say "this record is good, for a Christian band," it is just good on its own. Who knew that was possible?

4. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

I love Yo La Tengo. They make me happy. They could put me in a guitar fuzz daze any day of the week.

3. Megafaun - Gather, Form & Fly

This album makes it this high on my list because of how addicting it is. The songs are incredibly memorable and their ability to do something new with the Americana/Folk genre makes me excited for their future output. I listened to this album hundreds of times this summer.

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

These dudes are probably in my top three artists of all time list. I just think what they are doing in electronic music will never be matched by anyone else. All I need to say to describe their album is that I believe they are my generation's version of the Beatles. (The Beatles in the sense of songwriting and creativity, obviously not in the sense of affecting pop culture.)

1. David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

David Bazan's most honest and abrasive album yet. I wrote a blog after the first few listens of this album that sums up my thoughts. This album will make you laugh, cry, and feel dead inside. It is incredibly moving, and has probably changed my life.

Christmas Trees For Sale

This story begins as the sun goes down on a stale, cold November night. The type of night where everything in the world seems to have a grey tint, and you hit every red light on your way home from work. A woman pulls her old Lumina mini-van into a dirt lot. The sun is now far enough covered in the horizon that her headlights are on, but aren't doing much. Only letting others on the road know of her vehicle's presence. As she pulls into the lot her wheels roll through the ruts made by the many cars and trucks that have preceded her. She avoids the bigger potholes concealed by tan, muddy puddles left by yesterday's rain. The tires make an all-too-familiar crackling sound as they kick up gravel while pulling into the closest parking spot she could find. She puts the car in park and lets out a long disheartened sigh as she turns the key to kill the engine. The front door of the van swings open. She steps out and looks closely at the giant inflatable Santa Claus with his right hand up and his gaze set upward as if he was waving hello to someone in the sky. From the road she couldn't see the mud splattered on him by traffic or the grey water spots left by the rain. Close-up, the big, bright Santa is just as bleak as the world around her.

In this part of the country, the holiday season is less of a white Winter wonderland, and more of a muddy, grey mess. The sun is too cold to warm the surface, but just warm enough to keep all precipitation from freezing. Even when the snow falls on the city, it just melts into slush in the daytime, then freezes into ice in the evening. Although its effect isn't universal throughout the city, the weather takes a heavy toll on the population's mood. It's hard to find a more depressing time to visit. People act as if a stranger is their enemy instead of an unknown neighbor. Dogs are kicked, children are harshly shushed, and spouses are given cold shoulders. Houses are still decorated with lights, but they are merely a facade. The colors adorned in trees and across rain gutters are an attempt to hide the dismay that the weather and holiday stress build in the minds of the people living within the walls of the decorated homes. The sigh that the women let out as she turned off her mini-van is a regular occurrence in most homes on most days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The woman has decided to pick up her family's Christmas tree on the way home from work. Her husband will be thrilled to avoid the slow selection process. Her children will probably cry because they wanted to help find the perfect tree. Finding the perfect tree is the last thing on her mind. In fact, she is tempted to grab the first one she sees and run with it. Throwing it into the back of her van, then speeding off into the stark, overcast sunset. Of course, that won't happen. Part of the holiday stress is the need to make Christmas morning look and feel as romantic as everybody expects it to be. She walks down the path, using a keen eye to find the tree that is the right height and with the least amount of unsightly blemishes. As she stops to get a closer look at a possible candidate a man on his cellphone brushes past her in a hurry, knocking her purse to the ground. He looks back and mouths sorry while continuing to move away into the parking lot. She bends over to pick up her purse, telling off the man with the cellphone in the privacy of her own mind.

As the sun begins to fade completely out of sight and darkness starts to settle on the city, the Christmas tree dealer brings out floodlights. The Santa Claus inflatable begins to glow, causing his cheeks to become even more red than before. Those in the road can now easily make out the dirt and mud specks all over his body. The floodlights light up the trees better than the sun, giving the woman a better view of what the tree will look like in the artificial light of her living room. She begins to smile as she walks around the lot, still searching for the right tree.

After finding her perfect Christmas tree, the woman walks up to the camper where the tree dealer has a cashbox ready. There is a campfire burning to the left of the woman with two teen boys surrounding it. She gives the man a credit card and he walks up the steps into the camper. One of the two boys looks over at the woman and they connect eyes for a few seconds. His chapped lips move into the form of a forced smile. The woman looks away. She tries to remember the number tied to one of the tree's branches. She tells them the number and they begin to walk in the direction of the tree to help load it into her car. One of the boys playfully kicks the other underneath his foot as he walks, causing him to trip up a bit. They let out a few laughs and begin talking quietly to one another. They get about halfway to the parking lot before the man comes out to tell the woman that her card had been declined. He says he ran it twice and it declined each time. He tells her that he doesn't take checks.

She didn't have any cash, so the boys had to return the tree to its original spot with the others. After it was back in place, they returned to their spots by the fire, staring at the flickering colors. The woman decided to just go home. No need to call the credit card company, she knew they must have gone over their limit last weekend while shopping for Christmas gifts. She wasn't stressed about the card declining, they had the money to pay it off, she just wished that her last minute decision to buy a tree had worked out. She wanted some time at the end of her day to just relax. To forget the stress of the season. To cross another item off of her endless holiday to-do list. The wheels of her Lumina crackled out of the parking lot. The giant, glowing Santa waved goodbye to the sky as she drove out of the lot and down the street.

The woman wouldn't return to the dirt lot to buy her Christmas tree. Instead, the next day while cruising the clearance aisle at Shopko she noticed a different sort of perfect tree. One that could permanently cross the Christmas tree off of her holiday to-do list. This perfect tree was made of metal, wire and nylon. It did not have a trunk nor did it shed needles. She did not need to water the tree, because it was not living. At the end of the Christmas season it fit perfectly back into the cardboard box it lived in before being purchased. The manufacturer would say that the tree was immortal, but in fact the tree was dead, and the box was it's coffin. She could throw out the old, metal tree stand that had been used since before the children were born. The woman kept the tree skirt, but it's function became fashion.

The tree that she had chosen at the dirt lot was never purchased. It became firewood for the Christmas tree salesman and the teen boys he employed. It gave them warmth during breaks from cleaning up the lot they temporarily inhabited. The giant, inflatable Santa Claus waved goodbye as he deflated to the ground. Soon enough, the dirt lot was empty again. The trailer that the salesman lived in for three cold, Winter weeks crackled away, and a sign on the property that said "for sale" took it's rightful place, where Santa stands each Christmas season.

The Plague, Farenheit 451, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Stitches, Pygmy, Invisible Man

Despite my lack of posts, I've still been reading. I'm posting this so that I remember which books I have read and will possibly still write about some day.

Darkness at Noon

I read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler a few weeks ago. For some reason I didn't feel like writing an immediate response to it. Probably because I felt like whenever I write about a book immediately after finishing it I tend to feel rushed and not able to clearly communicate what I thought of the complete work, but just a minute part that intrigued me. I was going to wait a day or two, but then kept putting it off until now. Hopefully I can remember enough about it to make sense.

Darkness at Noon is a novel about a former revolutionist who is arrested by the government he helped to gain power. It is set in Communist Russia in between the first and second world wars. The whole of the novel is set in a jail cell, but the main character, Rubashov, frequently daydreams about his part in the revolution and the significant things that led to his arrest. Knowing that Koestler was a former Communist who had become disillusioned with the movement after the Stalinist show trials (of which the main character is a victim) and other detestable practices perpetrated by the Soviet government makes this novel something of a historical fiction and less of a literary exploration of ideas. I am certainly more used to novels having less to do with the setting and more about the general theme, but I believe this book did have a theme that can be explored further than just taking the story at face value.

The theme I was most interested with was the suppression of ideas for the sake of a movement. The reason that Rubashov was arrested was that he disagreed with how the communist government was being handled by "Number 1"(the name given to Stalin in the novel). He had no plans to overthrow the government or assassinate the leader, but his objection to policy was enough to have him arrested and sentenced to execution. Much of the story is focused on the methods of coercion and interrogation used to convince Rubashov to admit to false accusations, giving the novel another theme (probably more prominent than the one I am addressing) of how a imprisoned and hopeless person reacts to an antagonist. Like I said, I am more interested in how the government reacts to dissent than I am the confined person.

Basically the idea that interested me was that the Russian government (and that style of communism in general) had an ideal that they wished to achieve. This ideal was a sort of utopia where all are equal in economic circumstance and workload. The problem was that they believed that it took forcing people into much worse economic conditions and much harder labor in order to eventually reach this ideal society. It reminds me of the double-speak in Orwell's 1984, war is peace, love is hate, etc. "Number 1" had his idea of how to accomplish his ideal and that was through making all who were in the country submit to his values and principals through force. Only by overpowering the people will they eventually realize that his way to achieve equality was the correct way. Only through enslavement and suffering would they be beaten enough to know his way is the correct way. It is a very logical and reasonable method, despite it being completely inhumane and during the conditioning of the people the opposite of the utopia he wishes to achieve. This is what interests me. Is it okay to do something negative if it achieves something more positive than the former action was negative.

For example, say you are a soldier at war, and a man in your sights has a trigger for an offsite bomb. This bomb is going to kill many people (Lets say they are also soldiers, not innocent bystanders). Now, you don't believe in killing, even killing the enemies you are fighting in this war (you were drafted into the military). Would it be okay for you to take on this sin of killing so that the other man doesn't sin himself and kill many people. Obviously his sin has much greater consequences than yours. You are taking one life, he is taking many. Does that make your lesser sin a worthwhile one? If you let him live, do you take some of the responsibility for the lives of those he will kill, or does the responsibility lie solely with him? We all know what our answer to this question is. Being a pacifist, I would say that I wouldn't kill him, leaving myself clean and him responsible for his own actions. Others would say that they would share in the guilt if they didn't stop him from killing, and therefore decide that they would kill the man. There are good arguments on both sides, but the real question is: Which one of these is wrong and which one right?

The communist government believed in freedom of thought and freedom of ideas, but they thought the best way to get there was to restrict said freedom for a time until the revolution was completed and there were no biases based on past economic conditions. They believed that once the people were all rooted in equal experience and not biased by their unequal past, that they would all realize the merits of communism and then be able to keep their government accountable. Until then Number 1's ideas were the only ideas permitted to speak about. It is utilitarian ethics at it's core. The suffering that they caused for a short period of history is much less than the amount joy they will eventually bring. They were killing the lives of the present in order to save those in the future. Is that right? Say they were correct in their ideas and it actually worked. Would they still have blood on their hands?

I don't really have an answer to that question, but it sure is fun to think about.

Will there be a sunrise this Summer?

From the bathroom

I heard weeping

in the kitchen.

I knew before

this telling, uncontrollable

expression had occurred.

She was ready

and out the

door in moments.

The two were

gone and I

was left alone.

One will return,

the other goes

home to weep

with her husband

who can't help

but suffer unknowing

of the pain

the bearer of

children goes through.

God gave life

unexpected. He took

life without petition.

We ask, "Will

there be a

sunrise this Summer?"

David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

The Passion of David Bazan

If you read this blog post, I advise you to first read the article "The Passion of David Bazan" linked above. If you don't read that article, this post might make less sense than I would like it.

I read this article today, but by some cosmic coincidence already have the new David Bazan album "Curse Your Branches". The article is about David Bazan's recent abandonment of traditional Christianity and his venture into agnosticism. The album is a very poignant criticism of not only the Christian faith, but of the God who put us on this earth. I am assuming this album will scare away any more of the lingering conservative Christian fanbase that Bazan's former band Pedro the Lion has built and welcome a larger fanbase of "post-Christians" looking for someone who is writing from a doubtful standpoint without the pompous and judgmental language usually used to put down the Christian faith. Not to say that all Christians that were fans of Pedro the Lion won't appreciate this new album, just that those who are akin to listening to albums approved by Christian culture and deemed "uplifting" will certainly shy away from the dark and depressing content sung in "Curse Your Branches". I hope this doesn't happen, but it is bound to be what will happen based on lyrics like in the song Curse Your Branches: "if You bully her like you've done me with fear of damnation / Then I hope she can see You for what You are." Bazan is clearly not just exploring doubtful feelings, but actually calling out the God of pop-Christianity and asking for a fight.

I would just like to share what David Bazan's music has meant to me over the years and what his latest album has said to me. Here is a little bit of background on my experiences with Pedro the Lion (David Bazan's former monicker). I first started listening to him when Control came out. This was the first album of his to really shake up the Christian music world because it included songs about adultery in a hotel room, murder, a priest denouncing his faith, and worst of all in the last song he said the word "shit." So because I was a latecomer to his music I have never really seen him as some sort of goody-two-shoes who wrote praise music for the Christian consumer. I wasn't shocked or hurt when he released albums that said "fuck" or explored his doubts about the Christian religion. I have always thought his lyricism and music made a perfect balance and his art has influenced my life in a big way. He is one of the only musicians that I feel like I want to talk to, instead of just enjoy from afar.

The reason he has had such a large impact on my life is because of his sometimes brutal honesty about the world around him. He writes songs and albums about the parts of life that aren't always clean and that don't end very positively. He explored the pain that we see every day, and the sins that we try so hard to avoid but can't always keep off our backs. He said things like "Wouldn't it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless. But everything is so meaningful,and most everything turns to shit. Rejoice." What Christian author or musician has the guts to sum up their entire work with something so honest and gut wrenching? Some might say a Christian wouldn't do that, because that negativity about life isn't a very uplifting thing to ponder, but what Christian hasn't thought something similar without the rejoice at the end? Bazan wasn't scared to let the listener decide what they want about what to do when "most everything turns to shit". He didn't end the album with a promise of better days or an alternative way to stop bad things from happening, he just let it resonate in his listener. Thinking about things like that line is what has kept my faith in God so strong. I thought about how I could intercede in other's lives to stop everything from turning to shit. I thought about how rejoicing amidst the shit was a way to communicate your suffering to God. I've been spurred to think about trenches of life time and time again by countless Bazan lyrics over the years, and have been enriched and refined because of it. To me, a Pedro the Lion album is more spiritual than pretty much any other musicians work I can recall. It is honest and grating, unlike any praise song I could hear in a modern church that demands I sing along and agree instead of listen and respond. That is what his music and poetry has done for me, it gives me a chance to listen and respond to serious issues that I feel demand attention. Singing "I love you, Jesus" over and over again doesn't solve problems or grow faith, it merely gives you self-satisfaction or tells Jesus something he probably already knows is true (or not true). Sure, sometimes we need to say things like that, but those times aren't spiritual in my experience, they are merely emotional. Maybe I am just not at a point in my faith where I can be satisfied with "I Love you, Jesus". I am satisfied spiritually when I have the opportunity learn more about Him and His creation, which is one thing that David Bazan and other gritty and honest writers have given me.

So I guess I am not going to say too much about his latest album, but I will say that despite the fact that he no longer considers himself a Christian, he is still challenging me to interact deeper with God through his honest questioning and desire to understand more about the root of our existence. He still writes important words that demand our attention.

With this album he will very likely lose his Christian audience, and that is the saddest thing about his loss of faith. I think his soul is still fine, as he told the Cornerstone audience. I am not in fear that he will be damned for his doubts. The tragedy is that the Christian world still has a lot to learn from him, but will most likely shut him out after the release of this album.

The Sheltering Sky

I got A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Sheltering Sky from the library at the same time. I decided to read Leibowitz first because it was recommended from a friend. I found The Sheltering Sky while I was researching the life of William S. Burroughs (Author of Naked Lunch, the book I couldn't finish). I wasn't sure if I was still going to read it, because I thought the author would share too many similarities with William Burroughs, but I was wrong. The story is cohesive and easily understandable. Some things in it are a bit strange, but not disturbing like the visceral scenes in Naked Lunch. I looked back at what I had read about what the two authors had in common and found out that William Burroughs actually just moved to Tangier, Morocco because of Paul Bowles fiction. There was no reference to sharing any similarities in writing style.

With that said, I am glad I read it. It was an interesting book about a husband and wife travelling through North Africa. The couple is attempting t0 rekindle their marriage, but unsure if that is what either of them wants. It is complicated by the husband's inability to focus and the wife's constant strategizing for how to win her husband back.

The first two parts of the novel are set in cities where there are plenty of Westerners that the couple interact with on a regular basis. The third, and final, part of the book is a strange and intense journey into the Sahara Desert made by Kit (the wife). My interpretation of how the book is broken into sections is that each section is a different stage of the main characters' insanity. The first section shows the general social disorders that the husband and wife have, the second shows the couple become more and more unable to function regularly by putting them in crisis situations and showing their inability to logically solve their problems, while the third section of the novel is an exploration of post-traumatic insanity as viewed through Kit's eyes.

Having the book slowly move Southward throughout the downward spiral of madness was an interesting way to show the harshness of the African terrain and society. It is clearly seen in the novel that the further a Westerner gets from their own culture, the more vulnerable they are. By the end of the novel we are in a mostly untouched African culture that takes advantage of Kit's insanity and naivety, giving the perfect setting for the chaos that is happening in her mind. This had to be an intentional effect to help the reader truly feel the intensity of the character's mental state.

The book was very well written. I found his ability to describe both the natural world and his character's emotions and thoughts incredibly impressive. His writing style and language alone make the book worth reading.

All in all, I think the Sheltering Sky is a great book. It didn't give me any epiphanies or open up too much for interpretation or discussion, but it was definitely worth reading for the compelling story and the impressive prose.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Wow. Merely minutes ago I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz (by Walter M. Miller Jr.). This was recommended to me by a friend and I had not heard anything about it before. Little did I know, it is considered by many readers and quite a few polls to be the best science fiction novel ever written. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I was blown away. It is very different from what you would expect of a post apocalyptic science fiction novel. The author decided to focus the story on relationships, religion, and human nature in general. When I think of a story about a civilization after massive nuclear war, I think of a horror story filled with chase scenes and ominous mutants, not the canonization of the patron saint of electronics. Nor do I think of the reinvention of electricity or the re-emergence of a cold war. Frankly, there was so much meaning packed into this three part, three hundred page novel, that I don't even know what to write about.

I suppose I want to focus this entry on the theme of human nature and sin. There are several times when these themes are brought forward directly in the dialogue and there is also a general undercurrent of the themes going on throughout the novel. The direct references are usually in the form of a sermonette from an abbott to either a certain person or just directed at the world in general. The sermonettes usually invoke the horrors of "the flame deluge" (nuclear war) and are not focused on condemning the advancement of scientific research (the Albertan Order of Leibowitz regards properly practiced science as an act of worship), but they are actually focused on the condemnation of humankind's pride in their advancement.

I felt while reading the book that the author obviously was a student of scripture and Christian tradition based on his mature depiction of what sin was and how it worked in the character's lives. After lots of study and thought I came to the conclusion that I believe sin isn't found in action, inaction or even in thought. It is only found when our motives are selfish and our selfishness in some way affects those around us. I would say that the monks in A Canticle for Leibowitz would agree with this belief, and that Walter M. Miller Jr. probably has a similar understanding of what the traditional definition of sin truly is.

With that said, while reading A Canticle for Leibowitz, you see humans throughout the novel falling into the same trap that they fell into at the time of the nuclear war. I wanted to believe that after the initial time of anarchy after the blast, the world would realize that war and hate are not going to advance any civilization or solve any problems, but just result in the eventual destruction of humanity. That didn't happen in this novel. The survivors of the initial war all have the same, built-in flaws of the original humanity before the nuclear destruction. There was hope from some of the scientists in the second part of the novel that humanity had learned not to repeat history, but some characters also sincerely doubt humanity's ability to save itself and call upon God to miraculously save us from ourselves.

I feel that though the virtue of hoping for the best is important for the continuity of personal faith, it is in vain if you aren't aware of the necessity of intervention. Whether you are a stern atheist or fundamentally religious, I believe there is a sense we have where we naturally understand that intervention is necessary if we are to become truly moral and virtuous beings. Not necessarily the intervention of gods or supernatural forces, but just that something outside of the self (nature, other humans, etc.) is necessary for us to see the error of being completely selfish. As a Christian, I believe it is necessary for Christ to intervene in order for us to bring about any type of new eden or utopian society, but not necessarily through the means of a literal second coming. This is a mere conjecture, a weak theory, but I'll share it anyways. I believe it is possible that the second coming is through His body, the church, finally realizing it's form and acting as the body of Christ through and through. I think even if you disagree with the part about Christ, and would say it just takes humans entering into each other's lives and teaching one another about love and peace and self-sacrifice, we wouldn't be too far apart in our beliefs.

Anyhow, I guess that's what I got most from this book. The fact that the only way we can prevent ourselves from complete annihilation is through miraculous intervention. And I think that is part of what Walter M. Miller Jr. was trying to say as well. Even in the novel's ending (which I wouldn't dare reveal here)* there is hope for some form of miracle to save humanity.

This was a great book, with countless other lessons to learn from it. Everyone with a brain should check it out.

*I found this a funny thing for me to say, since I only know one person who reads this blog regularly. Who would I be ruining the ending for?

Damascus Nights

I finished Damascus nights last Wednesday and decided to wait on posting my final words about the book. I was testing the lasting power of the book's impact on my life. It was a great book. I don't know if it stands up to many of the classics I have been reading lately, but it definitely is worth reading if you ever get the chance.

The story was the perfect amount of fantasy and truth. The way it did this was by placing a very small fantasy plotline into a story of modern living in the city of Damascus. There was very little magic or mystery in the story, but the one magic thing that happened opened your eyes to the stories that Salim and his friends tell. The morals of their stories are sometimes ambiguous and sometimes obvious, but the parables themselves gave me hints of spirituality that made the book incredibly rewarding to read. The characters in the book were all sympathetic and likable. By the end of the novel I wanted them to be my friends, or perhaps for the book to be the first in an indefinite series of books involving these characters.

It is always exciting for me to experience new cultures through literature. I had never really read anything set in the Middle East or written by an author from the region, so this was like a whole new world to me.* The story even touched on that a bit when one character told stories of America and none of the other characters would believe the things he said. The best of that was his story of trying to barter in department store in New York City. As I said before, the stories that were being told sometimes had simple and childish morals that were written to remind you of them in a creative way. Sometimes the stories had larger themes and were focused politics rather than simple morality. Those stories were usually very tragic and affected me in a more intimate way ( i.e. Made me want to learn more or get involved with solving the probles mentioned).

Anyhow, enough Jibber jabber. Great read! Check it out!


*(Funny that I said "a whole new world" because the story of Aladdin and the seven theives is in the book A Thousand and One Nights which is one of this author's main influences. This was done completely by accident.)

Damascus Nights notable joke

"There are these two assassins hiding right outside the presidential palace. They're waiting for the president to come out, and their fingers are glued to the triggers of their pistols. Well the whole day goes by, but this president never leaves the palace. So the assassins keep waiting. The next day comes and goes, and still no sign of the president. Then the third day comes and the same thing happens. By now the men are pretty upset.

'Where the hell can he be?' Asks one.

The other man turns to his companion, full of concern, and says,

'God, I hope nothing's happened to him!'"

Damascus Nights notable quote

"You should use your head and learn: never tell everything you know."

Damascus Nights

While bored at The White Pine today I picked up one of Caleb's books hoping to find something to entertain me on this slow day. The book I chose to start was one called Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami, and it has so far (78 pages) been a very rewarding choice. Lately I have been constantly listening to the latest MeWithoutYou album "It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright!" which has a few very meaningful songs written in the old Eastern storytelling style. Listening to this has caused me to be more interested in reading old fables and parables, so when I saw this book in Caleb's book corner I decided to check it out. The story is about a man who is the town of Damascus' best storyteller. He has a community of good friends who meet at his house every night to hear his stories. One night a woman's voice wakes him from his sleep to tell him that she is his story telling fairy, that it has been her all along that has helped him to be such a great story teller. She then tells him that she has to leave and take his voice with her, and that the only way to regain his voice is to receive seven certain gifts within three months. His friends attempt to find these seven gifts with food, perfumes, wines and many other items. What they finally decide is that the gifts must be stories told by the seven friends to the man who has been telling them stories throughout the years. So far I have read one of their fables and am looking forward to the remaining six that make up the rest of the book.

The first story had a character that not only had lost his voice, but also every method of communication. He sold his entire voice (vocal, gestural, and even his eyes were silent) so to feed his wife, who married him because she loved his beautiful voice. The story then became a three way chase with the man chasing the wizard who bought his voice and the wife chasing the husband whom she still loved. I wouldn't want to reveal too much of the story because it is definitely worth reading for yourself.

What I want to say about this book so far is that it really does illuminate the importance of good storytelling. It is interesting to me to read a story that is written incredibly down to earth, but also completely mythical at the same time. The way the author presents the story is in a way where none of the characters are shocked by or in disbelief of the stories being told. The stories are spiritual and meaningful, yet completely false and impractical. Now, I understand that this is certainly not a new type of writing, and that it is in fact probably one of the oldest forms of fiction in history, but it interests me how little we hear these types of stories as adults. As children we hear mythical tales all the time through numerous types of media, but as adults in our culture we seldom hear these types of parables and take them seriously. Probably most of the mythical stories that Disney has turned into full length cartoons were originally written for adults and children alike, and written to be seriously considered instead of merely enjoyed as a novelty. Obviously the subtle ways we disengage ourselves from the importance of storytelling is a major divide between Eastern and Western cultures, but it is still strange to me how easily we write off the childish fiction of a man selling his voice to a wizard as something to laugh at or a method of teaching children morality. Perhaps if our culture embraced mythology as a core learning tool for all ages we would be better as a whole at virtuous things like honesty and forgiveness, and perhaps learn to value the things we have like our ability to communicate with one another.