I don't really write anymore, I just wander through my head and transcribe the trip.  Ramble ramble.

I really want to find a way to articulate how I feel about religion now, particularly Christianity, and what about me is spiritual?  When I say I am spiritual, what does that mean?  It does mean that when I listen to Salvation is Created, I feel deep and full and worshipful of something, it stirs me, how can you not worship something listening to this music?  Maybe this isn't the best soundtrack for this post, it is sweeping me away, and I need to be here, with my brain, to think for a bit.

What do I mean when I say I'm spiritual?  What is my relationship to Christianity?  Is it fair for me to be moved by things like this song, when I have no commitment to the faith community or their authority or anything that they represent?  It doesn't matter what is fair, it moves me, it would move anyone with half a heart.

I am a friend of faith, I am not put off by it.  When we went to see the Lee University Music EXTRAVAGANZA, I think Sam was a little confused, and Ann was polite, but Becca was downright pissed, she feels nothing but bitterness and jealousy for that kind of Christians.  Man, when I heard Campus Choir singing, I remembered it all, and I knew they meant what they were singing, which was nothing at all but "Praise praise praise," which is a song I can appreciate lately, and even though I don't mean it in the same way they do, I can sit and listen and love it, love every second of it, feel myself moved.  You've got to recognize that there is something moving in their music.  Maybe it's not the Holy Spirit, maybe it is just the power of music, of three part harmonies and anxious kids, but isn't that the Holy Spirit anyway?  What is this big separation, what are you looking to prove?  There it is, feel your heart moving!  That is the Holy Spirit, and I'm not talking about some lofty theological concept, I am talking about your heart moving, that's the ticket.

The spiritual is right in front of us.  Now I can't be sure, but I think someone who is truly religious would find what I am saying repulsive.  They would say I'm mistaking the effect for the cause, or something like that, they would say I'm taking the kick drum over the Spirit, but I think they are wrong, I think the kick drum is the Spirit.  Once, Cody Case said "I used to worry so much about whether I believe in God, and eventually, the question just didn't make any sense to me."  That is how I feel.  The question doesn't make sense to me.  I do not take Christian doctrine and penal substitutionary atonement and the trinity and biblical authority and the evil of gayness and the importance of prayer, I don't take those things for granted, no no no, but!  Everything is spiritual.  Duh.  Of course I can learn from a tree, of course it has some kind of spiritual authority to teach me, as does the singing bird as does the grass as does Bump as does Jesus of course, everything lives so beautifully or so uglily, and it says "Here, this is our song, would you like to join?" and I say "Oh yes!  Oh please, can I?" or I say "Blech, goodness no, thank you."  It is usually reality television and Sunday morning services that I am saying no to.  It is usually falling leaves that I am saying yes to.   And of course everything is holy, and divine, of course.  I wouldn't call it transcendence, that doesn't quite make sense, for everything to be transcendent, because then what is it transcending?  But everything is more than we think, everything is holy.  God is not in one place or one way of life, she is absolutely everywhere, yes even in the murderer and rapist, and that is what is so filthy about rape, is that you've got something holy ravishing something that is holy, because if we are just nothing, then who cares about rape?  Oh, how everything is holy.  Now, is killing holy?  I am asking, so as to test the limits of this idea that everything is holy, because killing is an easy, obvious thing that seems wrong.  Is it holy?  It is sacred, because it is the way of things.  I am not talking about war.  War is filthy.  But the act of killing is necessary, ask the cheetah, ask the bird, for heavens sakes, even the bird must take the life of the worm, this is the truest thing in the world, that life eats life, and that means killing, extinguishing, except for plants, in their leafy paradise, the plants who need nothing but sweet sunlight to carry on, the rest of us though, the rest of us just can't survive without killing, and we can't think it's ugly if it brings us life.  We have to approach it with humility and as a solemn act, we must thank the life that gives itself, not because it will curse us if we don't, but because otherwise we will forget that death begets life, that our lives are made of death, that this is the way of things, and that one day, we will be folded into the whole thing, we will beget life through our dying, something will feast on us, it is just true.

I have trouble talking about how I am spiritual, because I think ordinary things are spiritual.  These lessons I learn from trees and poetry are the same ones some people are learning from Jesus, but they think mine are not spiritual, because they came from a tree, instead of Jesus.  But I think the lesson is what is spiritual.

So far, I have said nothing significant.  None of this will help.  The problem is that I don't know exactly where I fit, and neither does anyone else, and I think that is a little confusing for all of us.  I don't want Ricky Gervais to think I am an idiot.  I don't really care if you think I'm a heretic or crazy, but I also don't want Amanda Rodriguez to doubt my genuine appreciation of her life of faith.  I once told her that demons are real, in a metaphorical sense, that it's all just a matter of language, that it's all true, and she said "Yes, but I don't believe it is true in a metaphorical sense, I believe it is true."  And I know just what she means, and I think there is a real distinction there. or maybe there isn't at all.  When I see someone behaving awfully, I could say "A demon's gotten a holt of 'im," and I could mean it, anger is a sort of demon, people act in ways they don't actually want to act, people are possessed by their emotions, they are blinded by their anger, and one way to talk about this would be demons.  But when Amanda sees this happening, she doesn't think the anger is the demon, she thinks the demon is causing the anger, so that's a difference, yes?  But I'm wanting to know, what is a demon?  Does it have horns and a windy red tail and a pitchfork?  Because if not, if it's just a spirit to you, then what is a demon besides a ball of anger?  If we're just talking about the way evil gets accomplished in the world, then anything that causes people to behave in ways that aren't good or that aren't in accord with what they actually want to do, that is a demon, that is how a demon works.  like the Screwtape Letters.  That book is very apt at describing how evil is perpetuated, or more importantly, how good is thwarted.  I guess the difference is whether there is a mind with a will moving these things around, or whether they are just forces.  But I don't know, maybe there is a will behind it.  I guess for me, that is not the relevant question.  I think what is relevant is-there are things causing you to behave in ways you are not wanting to behave, and becoming conscious of these things and their workings can help you to become more of the person you are wanting to become, and also, when other people do awful things, remember that maybe this is not who they want to be.

This has been useless, but very interesting.  What I like about this is that there is so much to talk about, I love going through everything religious and saying "Yes, but is this still true?  If you strip away the nonsense, is it still true?  Let's see, let's play."  Now some may think I am an idiot for wanting any part in the conversation, but I am just having a good time, and I think I am getting closer to truth.  Fuck the naysayers cuz they don't mean a thing, this is what style we bring.

Some things, say the wise ones who know everything,
are not living. I say,
you live your life your way and leave me alone.

I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they
are afraid of being left behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry!
and they have said: Thank you, we are hurrying.

About cows, and starfish, and roses, there is no
argument. They die, after all.

But water is a question, so many living things in it,
but what is it, itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming

generosity, how can they write you out?

As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside
the harbor. I am holding in my hand
small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist.
Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep.

-Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

"Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. 'Do you wish to buy any baskets?' he asked. 'No, we do not want any,' was the reply. 'What!' exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, 'do you mean to starve us?' Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off, - that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and standing followed, - he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth anyone's while to buy them. Yet not the less in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?"

-Thoreau, Walden