Merry Christmas

Here’s something I haven’t heard for a while. You’ll laugh your ass off.

http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/reviews/music/o/the_abominable_o_holy_night1106.php

Christos Anesti! Alithos anesti!

Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Blessed Pascha!

One Of My Favourite Things

This is a story that Jim Forest tells in his lovely book Praying With Icons, a little gem I’ve been reading for over the past few months as I’ve been exploring the Orthodox church. I’m finding a difficult time praying these days. I just can’t seem to find the words. There was a time in my life when my prayers would just flow, swift and sweet. These days I hardly know what to say in front of God. I don’t know how to approach Him. I don’t know what my desires are.

It’s an annecdote that I’ve connected with – it makes sense to me. However there is a disconnect. I have a desire to slow down, to savour every moment, to be present. Yet I’m a 21st-century American, and I feel a compulsary need to keep pace with the world around me.

Enough already, here’s the damned story:

Another obstacle to prayer is preoccupation with time, living as we do in a culture in which the clock has become not only a helpful tool of social coordination, but too often rules our lives. In fact the clock can even be seen as one of the primary symbols of the secular age.

I remember an experience I had during the late sixties when I was accompanying Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and poet from Vietnam who was in the United States giving lectures. On this occasion, we were at the University of Michigan, waiting for the elevator doors. “You know, Jim,” he said, “a few hundred years ago there would have been a crucifix there, not a clock.”

My roommate noted a few weeks ago when I shared this story with him that I was the one who just bought two new clocks for our apartment (despite my preoccupation with time I am perpetually tardy). And this is a tension that I feel within me. I desire to slow down, to live my life not by the clock but by faith, by prayer, by stillness and simplicity. We are symbolic creatures and, as a society and as a culture, we have traded the symbols of faith and inner satisfaction for the symbols of outward existence, matter, and face-value productivity. The true depth of the paradox is that by giving up the inner (personal) meaning for the outter (explicit) meaning, we lose the marrow, the true stuff of life, that which truly sustains and satisfies.

Pleae note that I am not arguing that the inner, personal meaning exists in a vacuum devoid of others who share these inner sentiments (read: faith communities) nor am I saying that that which is explicitly outward and material will necessarily lack any personal inward meaning or sentiment. I can’t clarify myself much more at the moment – I’m tired and I just downed a Killian’s. (So much for a strict fast this Lent.)

All that to say that I like this little story a lot. It’s one that I want to carry around with me for a while. Maybe use it in a book some day. Who knows…

Also I talked to Marina at church today and she recommended a book to me: Slowing Down to the Speed of Life by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey. Maybe I’ll read it some day. Probably after graduation when I’ll feel more like I’m able to slow down and be present, right?

But for tonite: some deep-breathing, meditation, and then bed.

Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2″

On Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2″

I’m sitting naked at my desk which has been moved into the living room at 2am on a Monday night-Tuesday morning. I should clarify – I’m not exactly naked. I’m wrapped in the towel I used after exiting the shower an hour and a half ago. Tom cut my hair tonight; that is, he shaved me. I am now “shorn,” (one of my favorite words to say). I have been sitting around online, contemplating my MPR membership and how I can get an “89.3 The Current” bumper sticker, looking for a book online that was recently recommended to me (The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller), and now, finally, I have been doing some much-needed site maintenance on my blog. WordPress has added so much in the year-or-so that I have been pseudo-blogging. I’m hoping now that my undergraduate career is winding down (or would one say, “winding up”?) that I’ll have some more time to invest doing things like this. Updating the mysterious, ubiquitous online world about my life. And just think – I can do it from the comfort (and nudity) of my living room. Technology is wonderful.

I am in a constant state of awe these days – which is wonderful. It sure as hell beats feeling depressed, uninterested, or borderline-suicidal. There is so much in the world to do, so much to know. I’m leaving college as a more realistic, down-to-earth, and hopeful person (in my humble opinion). In short, I’ve been educated.

I wish I could communicate the current state of my worldview in a concise way. I say that I’m hopeful (and yes, I think at the core I am foolheartedly hopeful), yet I am incredibly cynical from day-to-day, moment-to-moment. It works for me. And I think most of my views are realistic. I think the world is a very dark, terrible, and heartless place. I don’t want to go too in-depth here, but take a look at our world. Look at how we have raped the earth of its vitality. Look at our utter disregard for human life and existence in all of its forms. Look at the war, the genocide, the torture that occurs just off the shores of the United States. And then look at the apathy that eats away at our fellow countrymen and, yes, even ourselves. This attitude of flippancy is, I think, just as destructive as the war, torture, and genocide because apathy is the starting point. Attitudes breed ideas, and ideas start wars, allow individuals to justify torture, genocide, and other heartless acts. Ideas are dangerous things.

Apathy may not be the right word because I don’t believe that culturally we have an absence of interest, rather I think our interests are misdirected; that is, I don’t believe we’re interested in the right things. We’re interested mainly in ourselves, both collectively and individually. We care about where our next pay check is going to come from, how we’re going to pay the rent, if we’re going to be able to afford another double-mint-skim-chocolate-upside-down mocha-latte from Starbucks. We’re concerned about America’s place as a global super-power. We’re concerned about staying at the top of the totem pole. Hardly ever do we consider the current shape of humanity in its global, all-encompassing, catholic sense, let alone do we see what the cold and ragged man sleeping on the streets downtown have to do with us in the warmth of our homes in our beds.

I’m rambling and I said that I wouldn’t.

Despite the shape of our humanity these days, I am hopeful. I am hopeful for the outcome. I believe that all will end well. Not to say that financially or morally or aesthetically I or my country will end up on top of it all. I might very well be destroyed along with my country. Things may get much worse before they get any better. But things will get better. Maybe not for me or for my children or my children’s children – but somewhere in the future there is something better in store, something that gives me hope, something that makes my heart jump and helps me to know that life is worth living, there is beauty in the world, and that humanity is redeemable.

I don’t know how to end. But these are the contradictions that I hold within myself right now. My conviction is that life is shit – but through the shit we can be altered, purified, and perfected.

And just think. All of that from a man sitting naked at his computer.

At Work…

I’m at work right now, doing first floor monitoring.  Which means I sit around down here on first floor and make sure that residents don’t kill each other (this is where the commons are).  Which, translated, means I sit behind a desk and do whatever the hell I please.  Meaning I spend time online instead of doing the paper work that I should be doing.

Sometimes I wonder how many people use their work time “creatively.”  That is, I wonder how many people waste company time like I do.  I don’t think I’m necessarily “wasting” company time.  I’m investing in my own psychological well-being so that I can be the most productive worker that I can be, right?  Right… that’s what I’ll just keep telling myself.

So things that I am thinking about these days… I dropped a class so I am not below full time.  I’m taking 8 credits this semester and graduating in May.  It feels incredible.  I am very ready to be done with my undergraduate career.  I’m sick of my school and hanging around it.  I have very mixed feelings about my educational institution, but overall, I can honestly say that the school disgusts me.  Maybe I’ll write more on that later.

A lot of people that I know are breaking up with their significant others.  Two of my roommates, a friend here at work, some other folks from school… i’s oddly comforting to me.  When I feel like I’m the only person in the world who’s young and single, it’s nice to know that there are other people (people you know) who are struggling and feeling pain and joy and agony about life and love.

I wish I knew how to blog better, that is to say, I wish I knew how to add some fancy things to my blog.  I really enjoy WordPress, but sometimes the things that I see from blogs generated from other sites intrigue me.  I’d love to add a side bar with current books that I’m reading and images of their covers, along with albums that I’m listening to and movies that I am enjoying.  I don’t know.  Maybe someday I’ll become successful at this blogging thing.

In the meantime I will just explore all the cool new stuff that WordPress is adding.  And maybe some day soon I’ll become a famous blogger.  Ahhh… my new aim in life.

A Half-Assed Lent

Lent is raping me.  Orthodox Lent began on March 2nd – some 20 days ago. The Orthodox traditionally give up meat, oil, alcohol, dairy products, and eggs for Lent.  I’ve done ok… alright, so I haven’t done that great.  I’ve made several late-night McDonald’s runs after work over the past two weeks… and Big Mac, fries, and medium shamrock shake equal meat, oil, and dairy in my book.  And probably in the books of most of my Orthodox comrades.  I’ve also grown accustomed to having a beer after work, and over Spring Break I felt like it was almost my duty to drink.  That’s what you’re supposed to do on Spring Break, right?

I’ve appreciated my half-assed attempts at celebrating Orthodox Lent.  For one, it has given me added incentive to eat vegeterian (something I’ve been trying to do on and off for a few years) and dairy free (something I should be doing regularly because of my lactose intolerance).  But beyond that, it has given me something to hold on to in the midst of what I might call my “crisis of faith.”  It’s not really much of a crisis, but I’ve just been disillusioned with the Church.  I haven’t been going to church much lately, Protestant or Orthodox.  I’ve had difficulty waking up for it on Sundays and overall have felt really no strong need or pressure to keep certain faith practices in my life.  I know I don’t want to rid myself of all semblance of faith and belief in my life, but I’m just having a hard time these days letting it spring up naturally from within me.  Maybe this is because it just isn’t springing up naturally from within me.

I do have faith though.  I believe that after graduation in a few months things will fall into place for me a bit more, religiously speaking.  I’ll start attending church again regularly.  I’ll read the scriptures and pray daily.  Not as ritual or because they are things that I should do, but because they are things that I believe give me Life.

I’m in a place where I don’t feel I have the time for Life.  Is that tragic?  Holding on to certain practices, like my fasting, half-assed though it may be, is at least giving me some hope for Life in the future.

On Evangelicalism

“The Christianity of Christendom,” [and I might suggest much of Evangelicalism] “takes away from Christianity the offense, the paradox, etc. and instead of that introduces probability, the plainly comprehensible. That is, it transforms Christianity into something entirely different from what it is in the New Testament, yea, into exactly the opposite; and this is the Christianity of Christendom, of us men. In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.”
-   Søren Kierkegaard

Me, Emoting

This necessarily must be brief.

I am full of emotion.  Anger, saddness, relief, rage, sorrow.  I could go on.  I won’t divulge at length, but suffice it to say that friendships and relationships frustrate me.  And frustration is an understatement.

One of my goals is to eventually write a coherent philosophy of human life.  Today’s chapter would land me on the side of pessimism.  I believe all of our human problems and troubles arrise from selfishness.  If we were not selfish creatures that feel a sense of entitlement and “deserving-ness” then a majority of our problems would be gone.

I believe that one of the most important aims in life (and one that I think is rarely if ever realized in contemporary culture) is losing the sense of self.  I could go on to qualify this statement forever.  For today’s chapter, I believe that it is important for the self to be lost in the living of life and the other to be esteemed most highly, even to be exalted and hallowed.  Many believe that this is an impossibility–and maybe within the structure of 21st century Western society it is–but in and of itself it is not impossible.  Extremely difficult, yes.  Impossible, no.

We must loose our sense of self.  Ego must be abandoned.  I as a essence can never be exalted.

I might be slipping into unorthodox territory here, but I don’t know if I believe that relationship is as essential as our society and our religion has made it out to be.  [Specifically, when I say "religion," I am referring primarily to Evangelical Protestant Christianity.  This is what I have known for my entire life, and since I am no expert on other world religions, I can make no well-founded claim to offer relevant and meaninful criticisms.]

Society and religion, I would submit, have come to a point at which relationship itself is worshiped, something I think is unhealthy and even dangerous.  I don’t think that I am saying that all relationships are unhealthy or dangerous.  I think, though, that the temptation in any kind of relationship, whether it be a friendship, a romantic interest, or a “personal relationship with Jesus,” brings in this sense of entitlement that comes from the “I,” the sense that there must be a trade-off, a symbiotic relationship, an economic benefit to both parties.

Someone will probably be able to argue me into a corner and then argue my pants off on this point, but this is something that I am feeling strongly about at this moment and something that I would like to explore in the future.

It is my belief that all relationships, all sense of self, and even all emotion is illusion.  I’m getting into weird territory here.  Maybe I’m more Eastern than I ever thought.  I don’t want to be a nihilist because I think that there is meaning and purpose in life, though I cannot say exactly what that is.  I don’t think that the purpose of life can be boiled down to a relationship or an orgasm or an ice cream cone.  I’m not a gnostic, because I believe that “the good” [whatever the fuck "the good" is] can become incarnate in the here and now–the spiritual embodied in the material.  Yet at the same time, I am not Post-Modern in that I do not believe that meaning and purpose is created solely as an outgrowth of individuality.  I think part of life’s meaning is losing the sense of self, denying the ego (a very Buddhist idea, admittedly) and being absorbed into something greater.  Perhaps this something greater is religion, or the church, or God.  The process of theosis, or deification, is very appealing to me.  I do not believe that I can become God, but I think, with grace, I might be able to become like Him.

I want to learn everything… and I’m not an alcoholic

So I’m not going to lie – I’m procrastinating on writing a paper right now.  I just thought I’d share the most magnificient website I’ve found in the past seven days.  It’s called 2BASnob and it’s all about learning about and discovering the best in beverages.  And since one of my life goals is to learn everything in the world and thereby to become a supremely interesting human being, I have found this site to be great fun.  Enjoy.