where are we going? or, I just threw up in my mouth a little…

If you ask me, I’ll normally tell you that I don’t care about politics.  And the reality is that I don’t care, but at the same time, I know that I really do care.  I don’t care in the sense that most things that happen seem to be outside of my control.  So why waste brainpower and emotional capital on that which is outside the realm of my influence?  Earlier this summer, at a faux family reunion, I was having an intellectualish discussion on our current political/economic climate with my very successful Uncle Kirke.  Long story short, he got mad at me for pretending like I don’t care and insinuating that Jesus may be considered a communist.  Apparently communist is a loaded word with a negative stigma in many parts…  (We both, as well as our 6-8 debate watching audience, may have been drinking.  Him, either red or white wine, and I, an oh-so delicious Aunt B–Finlandia Grapefruit Vodka, Club Soda, Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice– which also happens to be named for his wife, the cocktail’s designer.)

The point thus far is that 1.) the Aunt B really is a lovely drink that you should try, and 2.) that I actually do think about and care deeply about everything that is going on.  I think that the reason why I have seldom wanted to have any kind of, particularly public, opinion regarding our nationstate, is that I have felt powerless about rectifying anything.  I also know that a weakness of mine is living in a world of theory, where praxis is either not desirable or for someone else, etc.  So, knowing that I can waste my life by only theorizing and accomplishing nothing tangible–since accomplishment is necessarily rooted in praxis–I have resolved to try and  thus will grace you with my thoughts on the state of things and an action plan for Election 2012!!

For my sanity and the purposes of this here post, I’m going to limit my thoughts to the federal government.

Elected Officials

It boggle my mind that the American people have allowed the same people to make long and lucrative careers out of political office.  I thought they were supposed to be representing us in a thankless job.  Not everyone is rich before they begin their political careers, instead, everybody that leaves congress is a millionaire because they buy land cheaply and then earmark road money toward the area where their land is.  Their land then becomes worth a whole lot more then they paid for it.  Anyone seen the Boardwalk Empire?  This happens.  I thought there were laws against insider trading?  Is this reported in the media?  See my thoughts on taxes and guess which bracket the media owners fall into… We elect people over and over and over who write special perks into law to benefit no one but themselves.  Special healthcare, special retirement, salary increases even if CPI decreases!  It is asinine that we put up with this.  But we do.  And we continue to elect and elect because if they have a D or an R next to their name, depending on our political bent, then they are ok by us.  I’m so tired of the political rhetoric and squabbling.  It’s embarrassing.

Fiscalness

This country has spent itself under the table.  As one with reasonable mortgage being my only debt, I don’t feel out of line talking about this one.  The Bible, along with about a million other reputable sources, say that the borrow is slave to the lender.  Have you seen our debt figures lately?  Yet, we don’t seem to have any desire to get this under control.  Romney wants to fill a $35, 000 hole with $450…   he wants to remove all funding from PBS, etc. in order to pay down the deficit. (both of the above numbers have been reduced by six 0′s…)  I was watching PBS this evening, first a nature show about Polar bears that the little B was enjoying (she started laughing out loud when they showed the seal pups!) then a Frontline piece on the Opium in Afghanistan.  After watching this, I’m pretty sure (and I mean no offense to A360) that PBS is the only network that has real journalism.  As I’ve alluded to before, most everything on the networks, particularly the cable networks, is simply entertainment.

I guess I wonder if we need to spend more money on our military then the next 100 countries put together?  Looks like a good place to start spending cuts to me.  How about no more Stealth Bomber flyovers of football games?  In the current economic climate , this seems like something we could possibly do without.  I would advocate for DoD cuts first…

Taxes

I don’t like taxes.  I want to pay as few taxes as possible.  I hire an accountant to help me do that.  I feel that without question, I manage my money better than the government.  That being said, they obviously need it, but the fact that billionaire financiers pay only 15% while I pay closer to 30% and half of the country pays 0% doesn’t seem right.  If the middle class is what the politicians are fighting over then why do we pay the most?  If you are a billionaire then you make dividends and capital gains, these are taxed lightly.  If you are the middle class you make a salary and this gets taxed much more heavily.  I’m sorry but we can’t have so many loopholes.  25-30% sales tax.  No income tax.  Sales tax doesn’t include food type items so our poorer people still don’t pay anything.  Unless they buy a flat screen and an x-box and then they can pay taxes on those goods just like the rest of us…

Action!

We need term limits on every office, if the President gets 2 terms then so do Senators and Representatives.  This will help stave off human nature, which is quite corruptible.  In order to help facilitate this, I’m advocating voting out the incumbent in every race which you are eligible to vote.  We’ll continue to do this every year until the people being elected come together with some sense and impose term limits and decide to work together hopefully using the ideas above as a starting place.

I apologize for the rant.  Good luck with all of this…

More on it. Optics!

I had a few more thoughts today that connect a few threads of mine.  Probably, this, this, and this.

Ultimately, in my universe, the only thing that really matters (probably because this is all I control) is my response to the world.

What am I going to do?  It doesn’t matter that anything happens to me.  Obviously, some experiences are more pleasant than others, but ultimately the experience is only important in so far as how I learn, grow, love in response.

Everything is a test of my own merit and ability to overcome.

Sometimes I get the impression that everyone knows this too…

Seeing is believing… among other things I’m sure.

Part of my job entails teaching people the basics of digital video cameras.  I usually find it necessary have a rudimentary discussion on optics.  The other day I was training some new hires when I had a bit of an epiphany.

We all know, or probably were taught at one time or another, that we see, when light is reflected back to our eyes.  I knew this but never saw the weight of it until now.

 

Everything we see is a reflection.

 

In my mind, this is heavy.

 

Paul writes that we see now like through a mirror, but we will someday see clearly.  My understanding is that the quality of mirrors in his day was something to be desired.

I’ve written and certainly still think that there is some kind of mystical oneness to us all.  The last thing Jesus said was that he prayed that we would be one.  Like he was with God.  Paul mentions this a lot too.

In light of this, what does it mean that everything I see is ultimately some sort of reflection? When I look at this computer, I only see it as much as I am able to.  I’m not seeing a Platonic ideal, at least it doesn’t seem that I am.

(So this is where I go tying into thinking about things I’ve thought before, but now have some science to validate my metaphysical assumptions.)

When I look at you, what I’m actually seeing is a reflection.  The light hits you and bounces back to me and then I see.

When I see people–and I’ll admit that I have a tendency to do this more when I see something I don’t like…–I think I’m seeing a bit of myself.  There are parts of me that I don’t like.  Parts that I know have no place in any kind of gospel kingdom. I see these people as manifestations of certain aspects of my own character.  I think this is because we are one.

We are all alike.  We have good and bad aspects to our characters.  The need is for the good to grow and choke out all of the bad, rather than our sinful desires to fully maturing and then becoming death.

I empathize when I see people who aren’t living.  I know that the root cause for suffering affects me as well.  Too often, I am not experiencing life.  But I want to.  And I know I am made to.  We all are.  So we must have mercy and empathize with each other.  Because at some level, we are each other.

 

 

 

 

Inspired to overcome

This photo is indicative of who my daughter is.

Now, as we all know, the little B has been blessed with quite the measure of cuteness, so I hope you are as lifted as we are ☺

I think that this picture also perfectly captures a display of Brixton’s unfettered joy.

Many of you probably have kids, so I’m sure these thoughts are not new to anyone but me.  But, I am both inspired and troubled when I see this image.

Her wonder and amazement and excitement and gladness at being alive in this world is an incredibly powerful affecter on my own self.  It brings me incredible pleasure to watch her enjoy herself and to help facilitate her interaction with the interestingness of it all.

Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be reborn in order to really experience life.   For me, Brixton illustrates what that looks like.  A perception of joy.

Yet, I’m troubled because she is a lot better at living than I am.

I get that I’m older and thus more experienced with suffering and sadness and pain, etc. and that this clouds and obscures my perception of reality.  But I am also, at least in my mind, somewhat aware of what’s going on and with the deeper truths and concepts.  I’m aware that I have done a not so great job of overcoming the world thus far.  But I like to think that I’m better than I once was.

I want to spend more time engaging with the goodness of it all, like a child is able.

But, I also know that there is a duality to it as well.

The truth of the matter is that this world has problems. We have problems.  I have problems. These coexist in the face of the wonder and beauty that also abounds.  I’m confused about how to respond to this truth.

Is acknowledging the evil allowing it to win?  An ignorance is bliss mindset seems like a winner.

(I’ve always been very confused by the creation story in Genesis.  Isn’t the prevailing thought that the garden was a perfect paradise before “sin entered” when Eve ate the apple?  Well, how can there be a tree offering the knowledge of good and evil if there wasn’t already evil to know about?  The serpent, who personifies evil, was certainly slithering around before any apples were eaten.  So evil was there… which leads to my confusion.  How could Eden have been perfect when evil was right there to be found and known about?   We don’t typically think of evil as being able to exist in the face of perfect goodness, which is what we like to think of the Garden, a place of perfect goodness.

But with Evil there? Please.   This makes no sense. Someone, please make sense of this for me and then explain it.)

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the perspective, I don’t have the luxury of an ignorance is bliss mind.  When I try to bury my head so to speak, I just get desperately depressed by the seeming meaninglessness of it all.

But we cannot be run down by our knowledge.  We have no choice but to work toward eradicating evil, leaving only the goodness to be thoroughly enjoyed and explored like my dd Brixton.  We can’t do it alone.  It will take everyone, and we obviously need God’s help as this is a pretty big job with seemingly really bad odds.  But I don’t see any other options, as the status quo is not acceptable, at least to me.

My favorite thing that Jesus ever said is, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.”

I want to overcome it as well.  I think joy accomplishes this.

unpacking the western man

A friend of mine suggested I explain the thoughts behind some of my songs.  Here you go.

 

This link will open up a page with song and the lyrics.

 

For my first real exposé, I want to use The Western Man.   I think the fact that the musical aesthetic (neo-western?) was so different from most of my other pieces, this may have inspired a fresh approach to the lyrics as well. They came quickly, like never before.  I think this new spirit, if you will, helps make this one of my favorites as well.

 

In general, this song is a criticism of our culture, the things in it that are not good–the words and the deeds.  This Western culture dominates half of the world and it’s expanding.  And it’s disconcerting.  The more I put this post together and put more thought into examining my feelings, I’m almost a bit ashamed of my diatribe.  But my anger is toward the zeitgeist.  I pray that this is a righteous anger.

 

 

red fish, blue fish turns me on / and a holy court saint on the run

 

At some level, I am turned on by childish things/thoughts/desires, maybe immature is a better word than childish.  I am not alone.  And it concerns me.  I want to be mature in mind.  But this immaturity is the Doctor Seuss reference in the first line.  The 2nd half of the line is my indictment of the pedophile priests whose sins have been kept hidden and shuffled around from one Parrish to the next. And why?  For fear of the Holy Roman Catholic Empire crumbling, this wasn’t talked about and dealt with?   I know it is too much to think the Church would operate differently than a heartless corporation that makes decisions based solely on dollars.  But I wish we would be different.  I know we ought to be.

 

cut ‘em down, get high and low / echopsychobabblers all

 

I was thinking about bullys, slanderers, gossips, addicts, sowers of dissension and division, and the talking heads that are constantly babbling and complaining and rehashing the rote and the ridiculous, our media culture, the similarities between addicts of the Hannity/Maddow crowds and true substance abusers.  They are literally sick, both the consumers and the dealers.  At what point do we start uniting in our sameness rather than harboring unhealthy emotions that do nothing but destroy us.  Such energy spent in derision.  It’s painful.

 

the western man, I’ll do as I am told.  I’ll do it on my own

the western man, I’ll do it on my own

although the warnings tell me no man is an island or alone

 

The chorus.

Throughout this piece, I made a conscious attempt to connect the western musical aesthetic to the idea of Western culture, very overtly in this case.  It seems to me that one of the major flaws in Western ideology is the idea that the lone wolf is somehow better off or stronger.  I think if we really knew each other we wouldn’t be having the problems, particularly politically, that we are having.  All most of us know of others is what we are being told by the babblers.  We are being taught to be adversaries with each other.  I am trying to mock the idea of doing it on my own, whatever it is–life maybe?  Because we have all heard that no man is an island.  I think this is particularly true for those of us with a gospel perception.  We know we aren’t alone.  That we can’t make it alone.  But we need each other just as much as God.  I think this message gets lost even in the church.  But at the same time that I know all this, I am just as guilty of buying into the isolation as well.  It is a sickness.  If you see it in me, call me out on it!

 

slit red throats, bruised ids and arms /  the common themes are the greedy marks

 

I won’t go into any kind of psychoanalytic exegesis on the id, I wouldn’t be able to.  But in my rudimentary understanding, the id is basically a reservoir of desire that makes up our unconscious and influences us in conscious thought and actions.  In our fallen state, our desires are out of sorts.  We lie, cheat, kill, use, exploit, destroy.  Like murderous addicts we have the tract marks proving it.  We all bear these marks.  Again we are united.  Perhaps, we can use this to our advantage in moving forward the gospel life.

 

cold fusion haunts, come crashing down / disposability’s the charm

 

I used cold fusion as a metaphor for all sorts of things we think and do and spend time on that seem like good, but really are illusions.  We try to live in these places but they are not real.  When we chase the wind we end up crashing.  And we need to.  The crash needs to happen to wake us up.  I’m calling for a crash as well as noting that it happens.  The final part of this line is not so much related to the first, but really is another general indictment of our cultural mindset. We want everything to be disposable.  Even each other.  What can I do to satisfy me, to get ahead.

 

shady lights the streets at night  / all hail the green, beloved envies

fortunate fame or so they say

yeah we all are gone away / yeah we all are led astray

 

Shady here is a concept of a kind of mindset.  A not wholly moral or ethical one lights the way for us in the West. We laud money as king.  We also laud and reinforce the desire for money.  And anyway to get it keep it spend it.  We look at others and think we deserve it, or we are consumed with desire and jealousy.  We long for the fame and fortune of the supposedly fortunate.  Celebrities are like the cool kids in high school.  But it really just looks cool, right?  They weren’t actually that cool.  Which is an important truth.  We are believing this at some level, but it is a lie.  All of this is a lie.  And we know it.  What will we do?

 

 

I’ve been using the word we a lot.  We, us, are affected and coconspirators and complicit in the spread of this Western ideology that we’ve been talking about.  But doesn’t it seem like there is something else as well.  Something more seditious and ethereal.  As individuals we are simply sick, but where is this illness coming from.  Sin has a life of it’s own?  Does full gospel life cure it forever?