my heart is a glorious machine;

I remember, back in the days when my family's life was pretty bleak*, my mother used to say: God is good. All the time, God is good: because He is, as a fact, not a trait, not something He's doing right now, not because He just did something noticeable for you -- in the slums, He is good, and in the starlight, He is good; when you weep, He is good, and when you laugh, He is good then too. Another way of saying it might be: God is Love. All the time, God is Love. Because Love properly is essentially Good -- the word's got cluttered with a lot of other meanings over the last few thousand years of English, but I think the the purest white heart of Love is the greatest possible expression of selflessness and goodness and God. When you act out of Love, you are acting as the hand of God. 

I'm reminded of this because it's really both those times -- I'm trapped in this ugly little town, I'm struggling to find work, still fighting off clinical depression, lonely, in debt, not in college... but the sun is blooming through hazy clouds, and there's a little fluffy calico kitten in my window, and I have some of the most amazing friends anyone could possibly ask for, and my parents are fun and thoughtful and aren't fussed when I bake in the middle of the night or run outside in the rain or listen to deeply weird music, and my bedroom is full of little clothbound worlds I can slip into, and I can write. And God is good.

* About four of the six years we spent in Massachusetts (when I was ten to fourteen) were by and large hellish -- Dad worked an endless series of jobs, some of them far beneath his expertise and intelligence, because we were desperate for money just to live on. We lived in one half of a duplex, not very large, that, while reasonably respectable, especially for our bad-reputation town, was in desperate need of repair. We had one car, which was mostly with Dad at work, and he worked all day and sometimes half the night (sometimes we barely saw him for days) -- which meant that the rest of us were essentially trapped in the house, especially as we couldn't afford to pursue many alternate routes of travel. We were isolated in our community, and the church we attended was a forty-five minute drive, and almost everyone else who attended was upper middle class, with beautiful homes, who didn't need to worry about food or new shoes or car repairs. In addition, we were still dealing with hurt and bitterness resulting from my father being told to resign from the ministry position we'd moved there for. I remember being in tears once because we couldn't afford to buy me a cheap camisole at Walmart to wear under a too-thin shirt for some occasion or another: not because I couldn't have a thing, but because of the humiliation and despair of not even being able to manage that much. It's a testament to how much we all loved the Boston area and New England culture that we still love it, even after that, and that I in particular want to go back.


So, anyway, I'm doing well, I think. When returning from holiday I tend to fall into something of a slump, and it's no different this time -- especially with the additional stressful circumstances -- but I'm stretching myself a little more every day, trying to make sure I accomplish at least one meaningful thing, and go outside, and drink enough water (I always forget to drink water unless I'm terribly thirsty... have recently begun to think my psyche might be vastly improved if I drank more). I'm thinking about alternate, outside-the-box ways of earning money, although my bucket's coming up a bit empty at the moment, to be honest. I'm a member of several money-earning websites, where you read advertisements and take surveys and things, which is great for, you know, a little extra pocket money, but the emphasis is on a little and extra. (Haven't got any actual money yet, because I haven't reached the pay-out rates yet.)  I have a reasonable amount of things that I could sell, especially old clothing, and even a few books, but I'm not sure of the best way to go about that -- apparently eBay costs you money, too? and I don't know how regular a seller I could be, anyway, or if anyone would buy my stuff on the internet. We might have a yard sale sometime soon, in which case I could sell a lot of clothes for fifty cents or a quarter, and would probably make a pretty decent amount of snack/book/online music money from it -- ten, fifteen bucks, maybe, I don't know.

I'm thinking about things I make -- I'm a good cook and baker, but how do you go about peddling your wares, especially in a small town? I could make pretty fantastic jewellery if I had the supplies and learnt a few tricks, but supplies are expensive! I have photography, which might actually be a reasonable commodity, especially if I go through some place like deviantART so that I don't have to print things myself. (I can't take pictures for money, because my camera is sort of rubbish. A few more paychecks and not-being-in-debt-anymore-ness, and I can start looking for a good price on, say, a Canon Digital Rebel, but of course we're looking at three to five hundred dollars there. Then I might seriously look into getting photo commissions for portraits and events and things.) I make music... a little... I'm actually seriously considering, right now, writing a few songs, experimenting with found sounds and weird percussion -- gathering up scissors and windchimes and pots and pans -- and seeing what I can do. Maybe I'll come up with something halfway decent (if incredibly lo-fi) and see if I can get a few friends and relatives to buy it for five dollars.

Speaking of music, uh... a friend of my father's, who is an amazing guitar player and tends to accumulate quality guitars in much the same way his shelter-running wife accumulates homeless cats, just unloaded me with a beautiful professional quality Yamaha acoustic-electric guitar. Which retails for about two thousand dollars. My father just wanted to borrow an amp for our church picnic on Sunday, but Mr Fitzgerald gave him the amp, and threw in the guitar for me. He's always been sort of interested in my music -- he and Dad have written songs together and things, and he's kind of a gruff guy who I think must be even more of a softie inside than my father (who is far, far more sentimental than he lets on, and he comes across as a reasonably sensitive guy anyway, albeit a very masculine sensitive guy with a great beard). Also he gave me a really nice electric guitar a few years ago. You guys, I can't even. Seriously. This guitar is gorgeous, and it sounds as good as it looks, and, again, professional quality. There are probably some well-known if independent musicians who haven't got guitars this nice. It's very unique and very me, visually, with whale-tail fret markers made of abalone, and a setting-sun-in-the-ocean motif rosette (it's an Alaska guitar! ^-^) .

I kind of figure that after this, I owe the world a little bit of music, at least. So here's an extremely rough and lo-fi cover of Patty Griffin's "Poor Man's House". (The yelling you hear at the end is Leandra, who really, really did not want a nap.) 

So. 

In regards to my previous post, which I didn't have enough time to write properly and now have equally little time to explain properly--rather, I have worlds and worlds of time, but little on the computer--I'm not leaving Christianity, or the church. I'm a little sick of the church, though, seeing as I've been hurt by nearly every single one I've been to, including the church that claims to be there for the people who got hurt by the church. I wish I could take a break from it, and then go far enough away that I could find a place that suited me, with pastors I felt I could confide in, but that won't happen until college. I will go to whatever church my parents go to until I move out, because I know fellowship is important, but often I feel as if that's all I'm getting out of my churches. The sermons at our current church are--not often very meaty. Add to that the fact that my thoughts towards the senior pastor are somewhat less than friendly. (Many of the people, however, are wonderful. I don't ever mean to discount them.)

I'm just tired, I think, of all the extra stuff. I wish I could find and practice a sort of pared-down Christianity--one that doesn't have the modern trimmings and trappings that mean nothing--among people who don't see Christianity as a sort of subculture, a sort of conformity; people who don't believe that to be a Christian means to listen to certain kinds of music and read certain kinds of books and watch certain kinds of movies and dress in a certain kind of way. (I'm not talking about modesty, either. I like modesty. But I find it somewhat odd that there seems to be a certain manner of dress among most of the Christians I know--I can't explain it, exactly, but there's a weird sameness to it. The colours always seem to be the same sorts.) 

Sometimes I'm reluctant to tell people that I'm a Christian, not because I'm at all ashamed of what I believe, but because of the connotations the title itself carries. People think of uber-conservatives, religious freaks, the Crusades, Christian media, and they also feel a certain seperation. So, I'm a Christian, you're a Bhuddist, and you're a skate punk. And you're a businessman. Let's all hang out in our corners of the room, eh? I don't believe Christianity is a way of life. Believing in God--the real God, not some composite made of all the bits that interest or please you--is life. It's life, the way it should be. It's a regaining of some of what we were created to be. Matt Slocum said, "We forget how it is supposed to be: we were made for perfection." And then we sinned. Loving and serving God is reaching back towards that perfection; it's the only way to truly be human. And in a way, yes, that would make us different from other people, but it doesn't put us in this other box on the other side of the table. "I've found truth. Maybe someday you will, too."

Does any of this make sense? At all? My father and I had a long conversation about this on Sunday, and he actually agreed with a lot of what I feel. He says I would like the churches in Africa, or Pakistan, or Bangladesh--people are there to love God, to worship Him, and to fellowship and grow with other believers. There isn't the pomp and circumstance and materialism show that many modern American churches feel is required of them. I'm sick of 'worship' bands that get applauded after every song, and play like it's a concert, instead of encouraging the congregation to actually worship God. (I was pleasantly shocked when I visited midenianscholar's church--the worship band was stripped down, and the leader wasn't showing off. He was instructing the congregation on what the songs really meant, how they should fix their minds on God isntead of just the music. It was amazingly refreshing!) I've been growing more and more frustrated with how much show is going on at my church. Last week, we had worship, then a special song, then an over-long movie clip, and then the sermon. Once in a while, a short film clip or a song or a skit is great--it gives you a sort of context. But having such things every week makes me feel as if the church is trying too hard to entertain me. Life isn't all about fun. I like having fun (although my sense of fun is--twisted, seeing as I get insane joy out of sitting around with people discussing weighty topics), but not everything needs to be fun. And just because something isn't fun, that doesn't mean that it's going to be dull. As an example, I feel uncomfortable calling the film Hotel Rwanda, about the 1994 genocide, entertaining. It had me riveted. It was possibly the only film to have me sobbing at the end. It was not dull. But it was not fun. It was, however, important.

If I could create my own church--which would be kind of a mess, because I would make an awful pastor and definitely need someone older and wiser than me instructing us all--I'd put it in a beautiful, wide-open building. I'd have art on the walls--not always specifically Christian art, although some of it would be. The rest would have to do with Creation and joy and beauty--people enjoying themselves, alone or together, or images that symbolise things such as love, or hope, or paintings and photographs of flowers, trees, landscapes, mountains, et cetera. I'd have a lot of windows. That way, when people came in, they'd be struck by beauty, and see the beauty of God through the beauty of His Creation. I wouldn't have a worship band. I might have a guitarist, or a pianist, and a string- or wind- instrumentalist, and a singer. The songs wouldn't be so popular that all the meaning's been choked out of them--they'd be written to be easy enough for ordinary people to understand, but not overly simplistic--songs with actual doctrine in them. The senior pastor would be someone with a great deal of integrity, someone who is a man of prayer, of deep faith--someone who knows what he's talking about. And I don't know. Maybe most people wouldn't want a church like that. Maybe a lot of people would. I just want something that's real. 

Well. I think I've lost track of what I'm saying again. I guess my real thing is this: I wish, in a way, that I had never been a pastor's child. Being involved in the inner workings of the church makes it so that you see all the absolute worst of it. It gets discouraging, especially once you get old enough to understand almost everything that goes on. I think my father makes an incredible minister, but I wish I hadn't had to see all that I have. It's made me a lot more cynical than I would have liked to be, especially at such a young age.