Coming Clean

I have discovered the power of the more tag

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For most of my life, I’ve participated in music. I sing, I play, and – though you’ll never hear a lick of it – I tinker at composing.

The thing about music is that it’s creative and beautiful. The beauty can be a single simple melody, but I’ve never heard a single simple melody that cannot be made yet more beautiful by other musical parts.

And it’s here in the communion of musical voices, each moving and dancing harmoniously in their respective ranges, resonances, and tones, following the beating measure given by the director, that heaven is captured and gives us here in the present moment an opportunity to glimpse into the way things were created to be. Music very readily explains it all for us without needing word or reason except simply to be and follow freely within our part, with our own expression while remaining within the spirit of the score.

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So I took my (almost) yearly camping trip with my family (wife, kids, folks, and brother) to Deep Creek next (or in?) Bryson City, North Carolina. This was the first year that Josh might actually remember something of it. Unfortunately for him, he’s most likely to remember (1) falling down, (2) bruises from falling down, (3) being constipated, (4) the unfortunate remedies for constipation, but maybe if I’m lucky (5) playing in the creek, throwing rocks. I’m certain to remember (1) through (4) – sheepishly, uncomfortably, albeit just the slightest jovially – but the joy on his face during our two days of (5) is what I’ll cherish.

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YARWIBITE – Yet Another Reason Why I Believe In The Eucharist
This might need to become a category of its own.

Anyways.

I’m reading Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. It is, as the name implies, an introduction to the theology developed by Pope John Paul II during his life-time and particularly his papacy that explains how the human body reveals spiritual realities – even those of God: “‘The body, in fact, and it alone,’ the Pope says, ‘is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden since time immerorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it.’” (p. 5)

I’ve only read the introduction, and I’m already nodding my head and finding myself deeply moved and awed. In particular, I wanted to share this piece, which is a thought I’ve often wanted to express but did not have the theological clarity to make.

In addition to imaging the Trinity, sexual love is also meant to image the union of God with humanity. Christ’s redeeming self-donation is a new outpouring of the Trinity’s love on all of creation. The Church receives this love and attempts to reciprocate it. God endowed our bodies as male and female with the sacramental ability to convey this exchange between Christ and the Church. As St. Paul says, quoting from Genesis, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church” (Eph 5:31-32)

This passage from Ephesians 5 is a key text – perhaps the key text – for understanding the body and sexuality “theologically.” Christ is the one who left his Father in heaven. He also left the home of his mother on earth. Why? To give up his body for his Bride (the Church) so that we might become “one flesh” with him. Where do we unite bodily with Christ? Most profoundly, in the Eucharist. (p 9)

No one is saying the Eucharist is a sexual encounter, but that sexuality images this ultimate, complete giving of self that we see in Jesus – an image of the giving of self we find in the Trinity. We find in our sexuality and in the Eucharist and in the Trinity the purpose of relationship – that thing we’re born into and can never escape – being made plain: that God is and mankind was created for “an eternal exchange of love and communion.” (p 10)

Yes! and Amen!

In elementary school, I can remember whining to the teacher when someone kept poking me or kicking me or incessantly bumping me with an elbow… and I can remember this happening to a whole lot of other kids, too… and it always produced the same kind of effect: a hand shoots into the air, waves down the teacher, and then, “Mrs. So-and-so… Jerk-boy won’t stop touching me.”

Right. Well. Apparently this phenomenon is not left alone for children. Apparently it remains a problem even among adults. In fact, it’s an area of considerable concern among Catholics.

You see, unbenknownst to me, it’s a relatively knew liturgical practice for congregations to join hands during the Our Father (aka the Lord’s Prayer) which is prayed at every Mass. Prior to this practice, people pretty much never as much looked at their neighbor in Mass. Not even to shake hands during the Sign of Peace. Again, a new revelation and surprise to me.

So, instead of everyone adopting the new practice, a lot of people have started whining (surprise, surprise… I’m not really surprised, just find it interesting… and I have my opinion… on with the show!!). It’s amazing to see the extent some of these people brag to not hold hands. Astounding. “I sneeze in my hand just prior to the prayer,” says one. “I just refuse to give it up,” says another. Some people are more charitable, “If someone comes reaching, I’ll give in” or “I adopt an ‘when in Rome…’ attitude.”

…but woe be it to him – such as me or Jason – who would come along and say, “Ya know… I kinda like it. I mean, the Mass is a communal celebration, a communal meal. Why must community be left to singing and the fact that we all go through the same motions? Why can’t I (and the whole parish for that matter) actually join with my neighbor in an act of visible prayer similar Sign of the Cross?”

The way I look at it, the Our Father is a communal prayer. I understand that Jesus says, around the same time that He gives us this prayer, that we are to pray in private… but I don’t think Mass counts as a public exhibition of my prayerful piety: I’m surrounded by a bunch of people doing the same thing. Not only are they doing the same thing, but they are (suppose to be) doing it for the same reason. So why not join hands as an outward sign of the very thing we are preparing for inwardly – namely, being one Body through the consumption of the flesh and blood of our Lord.

Some don’t like it because they’re now distracted from the prayer. Some people don’t like it because they don’t know whose hand it is they are holding (Lord help them if they are Eucharistic ministers). Some people don’t like it because it’s icky. All of those reasons pretty much look selfish in my book – it’s essentially saying “My neighbor just plain ain’t worth it.”

The first objection is pretty much the only one worth consideration… and my consideratoin goes like this: the whole Mass, you’re praying, listening, responding all in your happy isolation. I do not see it unreasonable for a little variety in your prayerfulness in having to join visibly with the community in a single prayer that doesn’t last more than a minute. As a matter of fact, I think it’s good for you. That’s right. Farty Marty to your left is your brother, you’ve got love him regardless of his oderous magnificence, you’ve got love him while loving God foremost, and this is one way you can show that’s true. It’s the small things that show the truth. This is a small thing. Such a small thing that I imagine with time, it’ll probably lose some of its meaning to you through routine and repition. What else is new. That doesn’t discredit the idea. Otherwise, a lot would be discredited today. And it means a lot. It meant a lot to me when I started to attend Mass as a Fundy Protestant.

I won’t be heart broken if the bishops get their act together and decide to squash the practice… but I imagine I would be disappointed. It is such a beautiful sign.

Thus concludes my friendly rant. Inspired by Him, some stuff tangential to what this guy said, this guy, too, … and I think that’s it.

So, when I went to college, I had narrowed down my major to three related yet very distinct majors: math, computer science, and chemical engineering. After a week of my chemistry classes, I knew ChemE was not for me. Math… what would I do with math after graduation? And Computer Science… …now that was cool… It’s a lot of math and algorithms, which I love, and I get to apply it towards making games. Very cool. So, CS it was.

But now, I’ve been watching the show NUMB3RS…. and I love this show. …makes me kinda wish I had majored in Math after all… except I know I just don’t have the studiousness to be a permanent student/teacher. I got to be doing something a little more practical.

Maybe someday I’ll get back to it… or maybe teach math in like a highschool or freshman college or something… Dunno… I just know I really love math, and I kinda miss it. NUMB3RS makes me all swoony for it.

Not exactly what I’m looking for, but it’s a little more userfriendly I think. Waddaya think? Like the new way better? Or the old way?

At home
Drawing pictures
Of mountaintops
With him on top
Lemin yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
And the dead lay
In pools of maroon below

Before Columbine, Colorado there was Richardson, Texas. In Richardson, Texas, a kid named Jeremy walked into his classroom and blew his brains out in front of his teacher and classmates. Jeremy inspired Eddie Vedder and was then immortalized after a fashion through the lyrics of Pearl Jam. Jeremy was an anthem of sorts to any lonely, abused kid in highschool… an undercurrent that threatened to turn into a riptide, pulling our souls into the dark deep to be lost.

Daddy didn’t give attention
To the fact that
Mommy didn’t care

Today, I see Jeremy as a warning, but the people that it should be warning didn’t listen to Pearl Jam. It was their children listening. And these children didn’t hear a warning – they heard a siren song. They identify with Jeremy – his isolation, his suffering, the failure of his parents – and in a lot of ways, Jeremy emboldens them down the wrong path – into the riptide and out to the deep.

King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world

Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today

I watched the video with my wife. The video is everything a music video should be: it should make more alive the story a song is telling. Of course, if all videos tried that, we’d quickly see how shallow many songs are. Lisa had never seen it before, and it upset her. The girl I was perhaps closest with in highschool loved it – a fellow soul: in some ways near misery.

Clearly I remember
Picking on the boy
Seemed a harmless little f***

He hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurtin’
Dropped wide open
Just like the day…
Like the day I heard…

What is it about adolescence that leaves us feeling so alone, isolated, alienated? I hope to remember to re-read this in 10 years time and pull out my Pearl Jam albums to remember my time in this confusing age. But most importantly, I hope I remember to be able to listen, appreciate, and engage my children in their culture, on their turf, and hopefully keep them grounded in love.

Daddy didn’t give affection
And the boy
Was something Mommy wouldn’t wear

Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today

Some things can’t be taken back… Some healing just isn’t for this lifetime… Some injuries have to be carried for a lifetime like a festering disease… Like the face of Jeremy, etched into the minds of his teacher, his classmates, and his parents… You can’t forget it… You can’t erase it… You can only hope that the limited healing from the disease can keep away another outbreak…

Try to forget this…
Try to erase this…
From the blackboard

A good page on the real story of Jeremy

This blog needs a story. That’s how I kicked this blog off, and it is what’s been missing these past few months. Music has been on my mind a lot – namely how it has shaped my life. I think I’ll be adding a new category under “Uninteresting Me” entitled “The Blur through Music” that captures my life through music. So here’s the first entry.

Most people say they had the most fun in their life in college. I had my most fun in high school. I was on top of the world there. I did everything. I was not the coolest guy around, but I was known and respected – though I did not realize it then. It’s all a blur, and I remember it most vividly through music.

I was a band nerd. I entered playing the flute – I was technically solid, but there’s a finesse that’s needed to make a flute player great. I do not have that finesse. But all it takes to be a great piccolo player is technical ability. So I switched. Solid air support, near pitch perfect intonation, decent vibrato, and mad finger skills made me perhaps one of the finest piccolo players in all Cobb County and perhaps the state. Being a piccolo player doesn’t get you into honor bands though.

My freshman year of highschool, I had yet to enter puberty in full force. My voice was still that of a young boy for the whole year, and I left for summer at the end of that year just scraping over 5 feet tall. When we had to sing our parts, I was a beautiful, boisterous flute part.

There was one particular piece, however, that proved to be particularly problematic and troublesome for me. It is entitled “Of Sailors and Whales” and has an interlude where the band’s parts were to be sung between male voices and female voices. For two weeks I tried to sing the male part… but I just couldn’t do it. It hurt to strain to get low enough to even seem like I was blending with the tenor of the male choir. If I had kept it up, I probably could have really damaged my throat… and so, one day after giving it my all… I raised my hand… and meekly asked the question I dreaded to ask: “Should I sing the girl part?”

Oddly enough, the thought had not entered into anyone else’s mind that perhaps I was having a hard time with it or even that perhaps it would be easier for me to sing the female voice. Once asked if I should sing the female voice, my band director laughed for about 10 seconds then started crying for the next 5 minutes because he couldn’t breath – as did the rest of my friends and classmates. I had single-handedly ended class half a period early. I was embarassed to be sure, but I was more relieved that it was okay that I sing the female part. I’d like to think it was good humor that I was able to laugh along with everyone else – it was funny despite any personal embarasment. From then on though, singing rehearsal was “Girls! …and Spencer *snicker*”

Thankfully, after the summer, 8 inches of height, and a new voice, the jokes of my castrati persona was laid to rest.

The Webboard makes the Baby Jesus cry. Every time I go there (particularly the theology board), this sentiment is confirmed for me.

The thing I hate most about Reformed theology is the separation/distinction in what the Gospel means and what the Gospel does. This epitomizes the kind of thinking prevalent on the webboard. The Gospel means: if I believe in a few dogmatic things about Jesus, I’ll be saved. As a fruit of belief, I will then… pick something good: help the poor, be courteous to my enemy, tell other people about the good news. But it’s wholly random and doesn’t mean a whole lot as it could be anything and the lack of something shouldn’t be too much cause for concern.

Then you’ve got folks who for all intent and purposes are on these classic webboarder’s sides yet exhibit a deep unrest about the whole approach – as though there is to be more unity and less dichotomy between what Christ did, our “faith” in that, and what we do.

Yet another reason why I’m happy to be Catholic: the Church has always taught that Christ’s story is our story. We don’t believe apart from Christ’s narrative – we enter into it. So what we believe and what we do are all tied up together. There is no dichotomy: just one way to be: a way of believing and living together as one. You’d think for all the unity and one-ness that we find called for in Scripture, you’d find it in our lives as well.