Heaven

Still trying to get a post together on the first chapter of The Predicament of Belief. In the meantime...


If I pictured myself living in England and walking the streets of Cambridge, there would be a really great soundtrack playing behind the events, through the days, and with the people sharing life with me. I don't know what soundtrack is carrying you through the days, but I am certain you have your own. If by chance you find a few hours or days that allow you to listen to something different, I have a suggestion.


There is a new CD by The Walkmen, entitled Heaven. It has been the soundtrack in my car and in my head this week as I drive around Lubbock, drop off kids, sit in the office, and go through these days. It will be part of the soundtrack of life this summer for me. This may not be England, and my walks (runs) may be in 30 mph winds and 98 degrees but this is the life I have and I'd just as soon have it be heaven as hell. This music may do nothing for you, but I thought I would share. Here is the video for the title track. It shows snapshots of the band through the years.




Something about the pictures in the booklet with the CD caught my attention. These guys are entering early middle age and appear to all have kids... somehow there music sounds like that to me. Here is a brief trailer, with the song Line by Line, they released for the album.



And finally, I found this quote from the band's web page regarding the album.

"All five members of the band have kids now and if the impact of parenthood is hard to pin down in a single lyric, there is definitely a new openness and emotional honesty to the songs. Most importantly, the old gang mentality has deepened, becoming something worthwhile and lasting. “I’m very proud of what we’ve done. We’ve stayed friends and those friendships have grown,” says Bauer. “We have survival experience and real love that children generate in your life.” Heaven is a definitive statement of purpose and commitment, from a band at the peak of its powers that is finally winning the recognition it deserves."




So with the life Holly and I have been living... kids, in-laws, parents, patients, each other... I was struck by a line in the quote above.


Heaven is a definitive statement of purpose and commitment... 


Are they describing an album or something a bit bigger?

Today (part two...Life is Beautiful)

The second song that resonates with what I have been feeling of late is a bit more direct. It is by a group called Vega4. Johnny McDaid was the lead vocalist and songwriter of the group, and he now happens to be part of a band called... Snow Patrol. No kiddin'.

I couldn't find a video that I really liked for it, so I made one. I put some pictures from life the past several months to it, starting with the day we said goodbye to you guys last August. These are a few snapshots of life since then. 

So anyway, the lyrics to Life is Beautiful are not as obtuse, not quite as difficult to grasp, as Holocene. They are somewhat more to the point, directly anyway, of what I was describing in the post earlier this morning. The melody is certainly more upbeat, more uplifting, less reflective. The interesting thing is both have a power to "lift" me. May you be lifted as you read, listen , and watch.

Here are the lyrics to Life is Beautiful:

Life is beautiful
We love until we die

When you run into my arms,
We steal a perfect moment.
Let the monsters see you smile,
Let them see you smiling.

Do I hold you too tightly?
When will the hurt kick in?

Life is beautiful, but it's complicated.
We barely make it.
We don't need to understand,
There are miracles, miracles.

Yeah, life is beautiful.
Our hearts, they beat and break.

When you run away from harm,
Will you run back into my arms,
Like you did when you were young?
Will you come back to me?

I will hold you tightly
When the hurting kicks in.

Life is beautiful, but it's complicated, 
we barely make it.
We don't need to understand,
There are miracles, miracles.

Stand where you are.
We let all these moments pass us by.

It's amazing where I'm standing,
There's a lot that we can give.
This is ours just for a moment.
There's a lot that we can give.

Today (part one...Holocene)

It is one of those days where my heart is full and there is a heaviness in my chest with the significance of this life. I am overwhelmed by how powerful the music is today, just as I am overwhelmed by my inability to control my own emotions on any given day- whether joy and appreciation (like today) or anger and frustration (yesterday), :-] . This life is nothing, if not beautiful and complicated. Somehow, when I convince myself I "understand" life, I make it less complicated, and at the same time, less beautiful.

I don't know how I made it so far in life convincing myself I had so much of it tucked away as if I understood it. I wonder if it was in large part because I felt like I was "supposed to". I am grateful for the process of unwinding all of this stuff I had so tightly wound. And though there are days were I get a little apprehensive at just how far this unwinding will go, the freedom that has accompanied it has been worth it. Of course, along with this freedom comes the knowledge that there will be days (every day, in some fashion) where I am confronted (for better or worse) by my humanity. And I am beginning to look at it long enough to see that even when it isn't pretty, it is beautiful.

Today, Justin is in Austin for the funeral of Laura's grandmother. She was 92.

I am doing his surgeries after mine today and seeing his patients after mine this afternoon. We still have house guests from the graduation weekend so the day is pretty full. Nevertheless, between cases this morning I came across this and it really got the wheels in my head and heart turning. It made me think and feel a lot of different things about my life and recent situations, even though much different than the author's.  I also thought much of your life and your situation, and share it hoping it will move your heart and soul in a positive direction.

One of the tough things for me about the time difference separating us is the difficulty in continuity of contact. Even if I finish this post and put it up today, I am not certain when you will read it. Likewise, even though I offer these words from my current situation to what I last heard from you, it may find you in a different place now. Certainly, as we discovered when we lived in the same town, the few hours from midnight to sunrise can sometimes bring an amazingly different perspective, and an entirely new emotional state. I hope today, you are in a celebration mode, appreciating your own life and that of your birthday girl.

Whatever emotional state you may be in, or for anybody else wandering by with their current emotional state... I offer a couple of songs that have found a home in me the past few days. The first video is Holocene, by Bon Iver.  I think his music carries an emotional weight to it, even before I spend time with the lyrics. Justin Vernon, of Bon Iver, said this of his song Holocene:

  "It's partly named after the (geological) era, but it's also the name of a bar in Portland where I had a dark night of the soul." He also stated that "the title is a metaphor for when you're not doing well. But it's also a song about redemption and realizing that you're worth something; that you're special and not special at the same time."

(Wikipedia)

Holocene

"Someway, baby, it's part of me, apart from me"
You're laying waste to Halloween
You fucked it friend, it's on it's head, it struck the street
You're in Milwaukee, off your feet

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Strayed above the highway aisle
(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
And I could see for miles, miles, miles

3rd and Lake it burnt away, the hallway
Was where we learned to celebrate
Automatic bought the years you'd talk for me
That night you played me 'Lip Parade'
Not the needle, nor the thread, the lost decree
Saying nothing, that's enough for me

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Hulled far from the highway aisle (Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
And I could see for miles, miles, miles

Christmas night, it clutched the light, the hallow bright
Above my brother, I and tangled spines
We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be
Now to know it in my memory

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
High above the highway aisle (Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
But I could see for miles, miles, miles

 The second video will be posted later today I hope.
Love you.

What a Predicament.

Hey Buddy,

I have invited a few friends to read the Predicament of Belief, and told them I would notify them as I posted my thoughts on line to share with you. Some of them may be following or even contributing to this discussion in the comments section, so keep it clean and don't say to much about all of those skeletons in my closet (ha ha). I hope some of them (my friends, not the skeletons) are following and feel comfortable commenting anyway.

I think I heard some of Philip Clayton on the Homebrewed Christianity Podcast and thought this book sounded like something I would be interested in. The timing was very interesting as more recently I have come to find a new peace in the fact that I won't "figure things out" and don't need to in order to live a full and faith"ful" life. 

The disclaimer in this deal is that I have not finished the book. I read about half of it, and restarted it, something I seldom do, after you said you would be willing to read together. So I don't know what their conclusions are at this point. I have found their style, process, and apparent integrity to be refreshing to this point.

Basically here is what I kinda bring to this book. There are reasons, some I cannot articulate very well, that produce in me a belief, hope, trust in an ultimate reality in some ways most consistent with the God of Christianity. Yet there are also things I experience in the world that make me doubt the existence of the ultimate reality (as I have been taught it to be by my tradition and culture). In addition, my day to day experience of life both adds credence to the existence of this ultimate reality, at times almost undeniably, but also at times strongly contradicts many of the things I have internalized about the ultimate reality and the role of the ultimate reality in relation to it. 

I have a certain degree of ambivalence toward trying to find out about the ultimate reality by reading a book. This is kinda similar to reading about falling in love. Nevertheless, I share with the authors an almost irresistible drive to pursue knowing as much as I can (which may not be much) about this  (part of the) world that seems so real and yet so foreign to me.

I have at least come to believe that it is in no way bad or dangerous to open and honestly seek to find the truth as best we can understand it. Seek and you will find. The truth will set you free. (I just made those up).

Anyway... onward. A few handpicked highlights from the preface. By the way The Preface is one of the least engaging and most dense portions of the book. But, I can't quote chapter 2 straight out of the chute.

On page viii at the bottom of the page they state "the predicament of religious belief in today's world..."

"That Predicament, as we understand it, has two facets: on one side, the difficulty of formulating traditional claims about what is ultimately the case in ways that take full account of all the reasons for doubting those claims; on the other side, the need to do justice to the axiological and theoretical power of those accounts of ultimate reality that metaphysical reflection and religious traditions variously suggest."

In my words...

We are stuck between a world we know exists and can see and measure and examine, and a world we cannot deny exists because of the very things we see and know and measure. We follow a tradition as old as humanity attempting to engage, encounter, and describe ultimate reality. Mostly, we find it more difficult to say what ultimate reality is. Yet we cannot help but say what it is not, when confronted with descriptions not matching experience.  

They end the preface by offering this book as "guidance for those who wish to go where reason and experience may lead.We dedicate this effort to all, of every faith or no faith, who approach the ultimate reality in that spirit."

I will try to post on chapter one in the next few days.

Foy for Friday

I love Foy Vance.  Saw this today and thought of you, me, the hand that holds us - imperceptible at times.  Thanks for being the song. I love you.


When nightmares come, 
keep you awake, 
baby close your eyes, 
I'll take the weight, 
if I go to speak, 
I will refrain and be the song, 
just be the song. 

when inner scars, 
show on your face, 
and darkness hides, 
your sense of place, 
well I won't speak, 
I will refrain and be the song, 
just be the song. 

flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys, 
flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys, 
flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys, 

and when you run 
far from my eyes, 
then I will come, 
in dead of night, 
but I won't speak, 
till mornin' light, 
I'll be the song, 
just be the song. 

flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys, 
flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys, 
flow down all my mountains, 
darlin' fill my valleys

You Must Be Somewhere in London

You must be somewhere in London
You must be lovin' your life in the rain
You must be somewhere in London
Walking Abbey Lane



Much Love,
PDR