Archives for category: faith

Broken Hearts are Blue (and Red)

November 12, 2008 //

I know this is totally presumptuous and kind of manipulative even to write, but I wonder how God must feel when He watches the post-election reactions of many people who claim allegiance to Him. My guess: not so great.

Whatever your political persuasion, I hope we can all agree that the historic election of Senator Barack Obama as the next President of the United States is worthy of recognition, even celebration. While his election does not mean that racism in America has been “solved” it does reflect the significant progress we’ve made over the last hundred, fifty, and even ten years. As a person of color, I resonate with many reflections I’ve heard recently about how now we can honestly tell our children that they can be anything they want, even President of the United States.

However, the conversation among many Christians has been anything but celebratory.

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Categories church, communication, community, faith, politics

This Is Just To Say

November 10, 2008 //

I’m always having driveway moments with This American Life, even when I’m not in the car. This American Life always manages to weave together the most engaging narratives, in turn humorous and heartbreaking. A recent episode, Mistakes Were Made, discusses the non-apology.

Act Two of this episode reflects on a famous poem written by William Carlos Williams, This Is Just To Say:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

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Categories art, communication, faith, family

What Was that about Adding Stuff to the Bible?

November 7, 2008 //

Oh yeah, something about plagues and general badness…

Occasionally at church we get these crazed fundamentalist pamplets, flyers and even handwritten notes proclaiming certain doom because of our denomination and/or the current state of America and/or San Diego and/or just because someone’s feeling a little apocalyptic today. Ask Bruce Reyes-Chow — the crazies will conjure up any reason to launch their attacks.

Call it paranoia, but whenever we get these things I always feel like they’re going to be laced in anthrax (no, not them (and, seriously, Scott Ian: stop the Stryper-bashing!)).

Anyhoo… last week we received a particularly panicky looking pamphlet from some group, and on the back, in huge repentance-worthy blocky font is this message:

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Categories church, communication, community, faith

Music is the Currency of Community

October 24, 2008 //

Earlier this week, I heard one of my personal heroes, Ian Mackaye, deliver a Q+A session at the UCSD campus.

Ian, for the uninitiated, is a pioneering figure in independent music — founding member and singer of seminal punk bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, as well as current singer of The Evens, and one of the co-owners of Dischord Records.

I have never heard Ian in this particular setting, but I knew he was sharp from the in between song banter I’ve heard from him during past Fugazi concerts — for example, urging crowd surfers to do something truly radical and, instead of crushing the fans up in the front, to try getting passed to the back of the audience instead.

On this particular evening, Ian showed up without an agenda — he opened up the floor to any and all questions the audience had. Questions ranged from the silly (“Who would win in a potato sack race between you and Henry Rollins?” — which, by the way, Rollins would probably win; clearly, the man does many push-ups) to the political (e.g., the current election, war, etc.) and, of course, the musical (in case you’re wondering, Ian has been listening to Eddy Current Suppression Ring lately).

Ian is an extremely quotable person, quick on his feet. I love what he said about the significance of music:

Music is the currency of community

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Categories church, community, faith, indie, music

Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public

October 22, 2008 //

… one of many thought-provoking quotes from Cornel West in Call+Response.

[Seriously, every phrase the professor utters in this film is fully loaded with meaning — I was still trying to catch up three or four sentences later every time he spoke. His exposition on the idea of “funk” as it relates to the muck, mire and beauty of humanity is particularly compelling.]

Call+Response is a musical documentary film about modern-day slavery and human trafficking featuring artists such as Cold War Kids, Imogen Heap and Moby (more on the music below) alongside notable figures such as the aforementioned Cornel West, Madeleine Albright and Ashley Judd.

The raw stats, if we care to come at them in any realistic way, are sickening and overwhelming:

27 million people enslaved today — more than at any other point in human history
Human trafficking as an “industry” earns more annually than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined (in the neighborhood of $32 billion)

The film’s title is a play on the antiphonal music — the call and response — created by American slaves which gave rise to spirituals, then to the blues and, eventually, to rock music. Music made by an enslaved people to reclaim their dignity.

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Categories church, community, faith, family, justice