i found out today that my hebrew scriptures prof from my last semester was speaking at the teachers conference. i went to hear him speak, and he spoke well about isolation and finding spaces in popular media and all that stuff, and metal and gospel and the bible and socrates, and binaries, and hope.
hearing him speak, seeing him again, hugging him, and afterwards talking to him on the way to the next session, i felt loved.
also, watching korn videos in the empire ballroom of the hotel mcdonald, with its cellings plastered with hunting scenes and its marble furniture, and its elabrotee 1920s chandleiars, had a delcious and subversive irony.
Friday, February 28, 2003
this was amusing
Said the Petrograd student to Anya,
Theorizing with her in the bania:
"If you fancy a go,
Then I'd love to Foucault,
But if not, I won't try to Lacan ya
Said the Petrograd student to Anya,
Theorizing with her in the bania:
"If you fancy a go,
Then I'd love to Foucault,
But if not, I won't try to Lacan ya
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Latest Obsession:
Tobias Smollet.
Reason:
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
The Adventures of Roderick Random
A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages
The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
The History and Adventures of an Atom
gr9st titles ever
Tobias Smollet.
Reason:
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
The Adventures of Roderick Random
A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages
The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
The History and Adventures of an Atom
gr9st titles ever
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
the concluding ppgh of my peice about queer priests and pauline sexual ethics:
Look at Christ on the cross, and see that he has a penis, as plain as his arms or hands or feet, because Paul was fearful of Christ’s penis, the church has been too, so that people who are fearful of it along with the church and Paul are in power and control. Those who have acknowledged not only the presence of sexuality, but taken it as a gift, and reveled in the diversity of that gift are suspect. To be closeted is to be in fear, to come out is to be whole, to give Christ your self is to be liberated. I want priests who are liberated.
Look at Christ on the cross, and see that he has a penis, as plain as his arms or hands or feet, because Paul was fearful of Christ’s penis, the church has been too, so that people who are fearful of it along with the church and Paul are in power and control. Those who have acknowledged not only the presence of sexuality, but taken it as a gift, and reveled in the diversity of that gift are suspect. To be closeted is to be in fear, to come out is to be whole, to give Christ your self is to be liberated. I want priests who are liberated.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
its true, and i think my writing has suffered b/c of it. I have essays and proposals and reviews and everything like that, and i dont care, its not even writers block in the traditional sense , its just i have no ambition, and money is running out of the trust fund so school in the states isnt going to work, and i should find a job, but its not even laziness, its something far more fundmental. its that i am so afraid of failing and i thinnk 70 percent is a fail and i dont see anything improving and i dont see the point, but i dont see anything else i can do with as much talent or skill, its like i chose writing because i am shit at everything else, and now i have found out i am shit at writing and i am like what else, whats left, why bother, oh wait a minute i dont even have the skill set for a traditional office job.
i dont want to live like this, and i dont know how to change.
i dont want to live like this, and i dont know how to change.
Monday, February 24, 2003
i have become intrigued of late with the concept of transhuman, of changing the body to its natual extension.
I already enjoy a healthy interest in artifice.
MJ feeds into both.
I already enjoy a healthy interest in artifice.
MJ feeds into both.
Friday, February 21, 2003
The mission of our company
As William Hesketh Lever saw it
Is to make cleanliness commonplace
To lessen work for women
To foster health and
Contribute to personal attractiveness
That life may be more enjoyable
And rewarding for the people
Who use our products
-Lever Brothers Company
Lever Soap was the first people to make a complete glass front building.
Cleaniness is next to Godliness, in soap and buildings.
As William Hesketh Lever saw it
Is to make cleanliness commonplace
To lessen work for women
To foster health and
Contribute to personal attractiveness
That life may be more enjoyable
And rewarding for the people
Who use our products
-Lever Brothers Company
Lever Soap was the first people to make a complete glass front building.
Cleaniness is next to Godliness, in soap and buildings.
Notes on Images.
7-Farnsworth House, Mies Van De Rohe, an hour from Chicago.
10- Barcenola Pavelon, International Exhibiton, marble and travertine, 1929, Rebuilt 1981-1989
Koneig was a special case, obsessed with the techinal, he made houses to test engineering, made in mid 60s, case study house 18
17- Battersea Power Station, recast as Tate Modern
18-Liverpool Cathedral.
19- Johnsons Glass House in New Canaan Ct. Working on the Seagrams Building with Mies Van De Rohe anad Louis Khan, a classic of student aping master.
20- Former AT&T building, Taking a IS Style Building with the austerity and simplicity and fear of decoration and putting a giant peidmont ontop of it, added several layers of meaning, mnaking fun of classical ambtion, playing with forms, qouting other texts.
21) Michael Graves, A Hospital in Seattle, not the logical extentions of Johnsons first gambit.
22)The truly ugly car crash of EMP, fianced by a greedy man looking for a legacy, did nothing for seattle, also problems with function.
29) Center Pomipud, Lloyds is the Architect, could be about transpearncies of Instutions, really i think it was just fun to do..
30) Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, Near Central Park, NYC, mindblowing to look at, form dicate contents, and in the musuem corner near guggeinhem, met, moma et. al, a gauntlet. This site has a good essay on it :
7-Farnsworth House, Mies Van De Rohe, an hour from Chicago.
10- Barcenola Pavelon, International Exhibiton, marble and travertine, 1929, Rebuilt 1981-1989
Koneig was a special case, obsessed with the techinal, he made houses to test engineering, made in mid 60s, case study house 18
17- Battersea Power Station, recast as Tate Modern
18-Liverpool Cathedral.
19- Johnsons Glass House in New Canaan Ct. Working on the Seagrams Building with Mies Van De Rohe anad Louis Khan, a classic of student aping master.
20- Former AT&T building, Taking a IS Style Building with the austerity and simplicity and fear of decoration and putting a giant peidmont ontop of it, added several layers of meaning, mnaking fun of classical ambtion, playing with forms, qouting other texts.
21) Michael Graves, A Hospital in Seattle, not the logical extentions of Johnsons first gambit.
22)The truly ugly car crash of EMP, fianced by a greedy man looking for a legacy, did nothing for seattle, also problems with function.
29) Center Pomipud, Lloyds is the Architect, could be about transpearncies of Instutions, really i think it was just fun to do..
30) Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, Near Central Park, NYC, mindblowing to look at, form dicate contents, and in the musuem corner near guggeinhem, met, moma et. al, a gauntlet. This site has a good essay on it :
Thoughts on the International Style
1) Think about this, one style for cities, one unifed aesthic despite geographical location, a new world order in concerete and steel and glass. Is it a wonder that Le Corubiser did the UN
2) They look imposing, there is a small step between blocks and planes as elegantly simple, and between glass and stell cubes becoming cages.
3) The SEagrams Building in NYc, The new national Gallery in Berlin, Peabody Terrace Married Student HJousing in Cambridge, Salk Instuite in Le Jolla, Chadugah Buildings in Punjab, Neymeirs Bulidings in Brassila, all these slick concrete Plazas,almost inhuman in their scale.
4) The clean line is prrescriptive, a way to control human and natural Chaos but often fails, look at the before and after photos of Council Estates and Moderinst apartment blocks, they were meant for poor incomes, intended to bring order to the inner city, but the places now are violent, dnageous, over run , ugly.
5) The parilment Building terraces in Chadigah are rife with bicyles, hammocks furinture, makes thing human, breaks up the machine.
6) The Cult of the Machine makes factories look efficent, Art look like Product, and homes look sterile.
7) Seeing the Farnsworth House for the first time, Brian Felt naked in it, vulnerabel, even with the curtains and even with curtains.
8) It looks so sleek now, all of this modernist stuff, all of this nostalgia for it is nostaliga is for a time when taste was artstocratic (Michael Graves and Phillip Stark at Target; Martha Stewart)
9) Mies Van Der Rhoes Early Drawings look more like Mondrian or Malevich, and the arieal photos indiacte somthing similar.
10) Status was still important, you can tell money is being spent, the travertine stone in the Barcelona Pavillion by Mies
, Koneigs LA cliff side Dwellings
11) Eames, Jacobsen, Aalto, Corbu, all convinced of a grand plan tried to convince the middle classes, propghanda campaigns, that desire is now tired up into Holzers Maxim Money Buys Taste-but it is not taste they are buying it is Authenticity and Class Superoity.
12) The Industrial Loft lets the borgie play worker, like all of this grand and wonderful Subzero Fridges and Butcher Block Tables and Gardening books.
13) hundred of linear feet of concerte make a great canvas for graffiti, it makes things human, makes people feel like they are opposing a hegemony.
14) Stone is Cold, Brick is Warm. Steel is Cold, Wood is Warm.
15) Austerity becomes its own kind of Decoration, a fear of decoration is a fear of human touch.
16) Houses and Buildings that guide foot step and eye are facist.
17) A house is a text and imposes its own meaning, so is a shop and a facotory and everything else. This is why Gilbert Scott made such a great work in the Battersea Power Terminal, and even adding art and sculpture aand shops and cafes and books and libraries and reaserch facilites and guides and coat checks, it will never be the tate, on the third floor the windows open and you can still see the Turbines.
18) Buildings have an ideology. Scott also desgined the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool-
makes it look like a Power Station. AAltos Hospital work makes them look like Nordic Spas, Alumni Navy Building at the Instuite of Tech in Illinois looks like a gleaming missile.
19) Maybe this is also time and place. But Aalto and Mies and Corbu didnt change in America
19) Fear of Shit. All of these Buildings have a fear of shit. Of Decompsoing matter, of filth, of mess. Of what happens in the street, Brasilla, a city desgined on these principals had no side walks.
20) Many of these buildings were Academic or Government, adding to the feeling of Social Control.
21) These Architechts desgined furinture, refusing to allow for any differences in opinon.
22) FLW is often thought of as someone different, someone new, we can apply most of these to him. IS this modren ARchitechture.
23) Compleixty is not nessc. the best soultion. Occams Razor should apply, buildings are to live in, and buildings need to grow with owners.
24) We are organic, that which we create should be organic.
25) Mies and Louis Khan and Aalto and Neutra and SChindler and Saarien and Niemeyer make me ache with beauty, their rigidness, like a sonnet with not one word out of place, we live epics though.
26) Here i am refuisng to acknoweldge the difference b/w house and factory and school. Form and Function. A house is different, they knew this.
27) Did Johnson ever refute the New Caanan House
on his way to making AT&T 
, was AT &T that refuting ?
28) Post Modern Architerue steals ideas
, is Bright 
Gaudy 
, Decorative, and really no more functional then the is stuff, lets be honest.
29) Post Modern Archtechture is fun
, playful 
, reflexisve (img src=http://www.arcspace.com/tours/ake/images/1/TombaBrion.jpg> made for humans 
3) Can it be both ?
1) Think about this, one style for cities, one unifed aesthic despite geographical location, a new world order in concerete and steel and glass. Is it a wonder that Le Corubiser did the UN
2) They look imposing, there is a small step between blocks and planes as elegantly simple, and between glass and stell cubes becoming cages.
3) The SEagrams Building in NYc, The new national Gallery in Berlin, Peabody Terrace Married Student HJousing in Cambridge, Salk Instuite in Le Jolla, Chadugah Buildings in Punjab, Neymeirs Bulidings in Brassila, all these slick concrete Plazas,almost inhuman in their scale.
4) The clean line is prrescriptive, a way to control human and natural Chaos but often fails, look at the before and after photos of Council Estates and Moderinst apartment blocks, they were meant for poor incomes, intended to bring order to the inner city, but the places now are violent, dnageous, over run , ugly.
5) The parilment Building terraces in Chadigah are rife with bicyles, hammocks furinture, makes thing human, breaks up the machine.
6) The Cult of the Machine makes factories look efficent, Art look like Product, and homes look sterile.
7) Seeing the Farnsworth House for the first time, Brian Felt naked in it, vulnerabel, even with the curtains and even with curtains.
8) It looks so sleek now, all of this modernist stuff, all of this nostalgia for it is nostaliga is for a time when taste was artstocratic (Michael Graves and Phillip Stark at Target; Martha Stewart)
9) Mies Van Der Rhoes Early Drawings look more like Mondrian or Malevich, and the arieal photos indiacte somthing similar.
10) Status was still important, you can tell money is being spent, the travertine stone in the Barcelona Pavillion by Mies
, Koneigs LA cliff side Dwellings
11) Eames, Jacobsen, Aalto, Corbu, all convinced of a grand plan tried to convince the middle classes, propghanda campaigns, that desire is now tired up into Holzers Maxim Money Buys Taste-but it is not taste they are buying it is Authenticity and Class Superoity.
12) The Industrial Loft lets the borgie play worker, like all of this grand and wonderful Subzero Fridges and Butcher Block Tables and Gardening books.
13) hundred of linear feet of concerte make a great canvas for graffiti, it makes things human, makes people feel like they are opposing a hegemony.
14) Stone is Cold, Brick is Warm. Steel is Cold, Wood is Warm.
15) Austerity becomes its own kind of Decoration, a fear of decoration is a fear of human touch.
16) Houses and Buildings that guide foot step and eye are facist.
17) A house is a text and imposes its own meaning, so is a shop and a facotory and everything else. This is why Gilbert Scott made such a great work in the Battersea Power Terminal, and even adding art and sculpture aand shops and cafes and books and libraries and reaserch facilites and guides and coat checks, it will never be the tate, on the third floor the windows open and you can still see the Turbines.
18) Buildings have an ideology. Scott also desgined the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool-
makes it look like a Power Station. AAltos Hospital work makes them look like Nordic Spas, Alumni Navy Building at the Instuite of Tech in Illinois looks like a gleaming missile.
19) Maybe this is also time and place. But Aalto and Mies and Corbu didnt change in America
19) Fear of Shit. All of these Buildings have a fear of shit. Of Decompsoing matter, of filth, of mess. Of what happens in the street, Brasilla, a city desgined on these principals had no side walks.
20) Many of these buildings were Academic or Government, adding to the feeling of Social Control.
21) These Architechts desgined furinture, refusing to allow for any differences in opinon.
22) FLW is often thought of as someone different, someone new, we can apply most of these to him. IS this modren ARchitechture.
23) Compleixty is not nessc. the best soultion. Occams Razor should apply, buildings are to live in, and buildings need to grow with owners.
24) We are organic, that which we create should be organic.
25) Mies and Louis Khan and Aalto and Neutra and SChindler and Saarien and Niemeyer make me ache with beauty, their rigidness, like a sonnet with not one word out of place, we live epics though.
26) Here i am refuisng to acknoweldge the difference b/w house and factory and school. Form and Function. A house is different, they knew this.
27) Did Johnson ever refute the New Caanan House
on his way to making AT&T , was AT &T that refuting ?
28) Post Modern Architerue steals ideas
, is Bright Gaudy , Decorative, and really no more functional then the is stuff, lets be honest.
29) Post Modern Archtechture is fun
, playful , reflexisve (img src=http://www.arcspace.com/tours/ake/images/1/TombaBrion.jpg> made for humans 3) Can it be both ?
Thursday, February 20, 2003
TaTu-How Soon is now
The Chiffons-Sailor Boy
Velvet Underground-Candy Says
Elvis-Jailhouse Rock
Momus-The Homosexual
Doris Day-Secert Love
Eminem-Stan
Stephen Merrit -When my boy walks down the street
Jayne Country - Cream In My Jeans
The Stooges - Cock in My Pocket
Britney Spears - Satisfaction
Extra Fancy -You Look Like a Movie Star, Honey
Lesley Gore,-Sometimes I Wish I Were A Boy
The Beatles-You Got to Hide Your Love Away
Josie Cotton - Johhny, Are You Queer
judas priest - you got another thing comin'
Bowie-John I'm only Dancing
The Chiffons-Sailor Boy
Velvet Underground-Candy Says
Elvis-Jailhouse Rock
Momus-The Homosexual
Doris Day-Secert Love
Eminem-Stan
Stephen Merrit -When my boy walks down the street
Jayne Country - Cream In My Jeans
The Stooges - Cock in My Pocket
Britney Spears - Satisfaction
Extra Fancy -You Look Like a Movie Star, Honey
Lesley Gore,-Sometimes I Wish I Were A Boy
The Beatles-You Got to Hide Your Love Away
Josie Cotton - Johhny, Are You Queer
judas priest - you got another thing comin'
Bowie-John I'm only Dancing
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
thinking of choosing ashley and geneve over isis and the crowd, thinking of long phone chats with bryan
thinking of thomas and andrew and dana and all of the fondness i feel for them
i think that friendship, close and deep intimacies, are over looked.
that agape has been lost to eros.
thinking about the priesthood, and how these were the people who looked past asking about the celibacy question and moved onto other core issues.
thinking about how they are all new.
v. new
and how little time i have spent with peter (one convo a month) or danielle or erin or tara
kevan was at isis's party and i didnt want to see him.
high school was so long ago and im happy to be w/o it.
new is growing deeper.
old is leaving like dead grass
exception:glenys
thinking of thomas and andrew and dana and all of the fondness i feel for them
i think that friendship, close and deep intimacies, are over looked.
that agape has been lost to eros.
thinking about the priesthood, and how these were the people who looked past asking about the celibacy question and moved onto other core issues.
thinking about how they are all new.
v. new
and how little time i have spent with peter (one convo a month) or danielle or erin or tara
kevan was at isis's party and i didnt want to see him.
high school was so long ago and im happy to be w/o it.
new is growing deeper.
old is leaving like dead grass
exception:glenys
josh has stopped posting.
he sees no point.
this is for him:
working on this, listening to velvet underground on my headphones, in b/w songs of decadence and sin, i hear a song called jesus, and if tranny loving heroin addict lou red can beg for the grace of christ, why can't i. its an end of the rope song, a desperate cry.
before i get to the scripture, let me state my biases-i'm a liberal catholic, who 3 or 4 weeks ago was ready to give it all up, let me read you a section of what i wrote then-
I want the soul to reside in the belly, and not in the head.
There are people who think that all of their blessings come from god and all there curses come from Satan, I don’t want to believe that.
I want to believe that we conquer our animal natures out of necessity
I want to believe that to be human is to conquer our desire towards hatred and anger and violence not because god thinks it’s a good idea, but b/c it is the only thing that makes us human.
what happened, a bunch of things, one after the other- in addict recovery programs, they stack about hitting rock bottom before you can climb out again, thats where i was.
confessing to father stephen-my father confessor- this among other things, he gives me Genesis 32:22:27 to pray on-as pennace and because i need it, been wrestling with god .
jacob wrestling with the angel, he sends his family off, and hes sqauring off, the divine and the mortal, the man who holds the keys to kingdom and someone who comes from the kingdom, they spend hours-through the night, in battle-St John of the Cross described this as the long night of the soul, the blackness, the sadness, the meloncholy that sets in like black ink
when day light comes, the angel breaks jacob, causes him intense phyiscal pain, breaks his hip-only then when the body gives out, exhausted-then and only then does he recive the gifts of god.
I found this out, i started climbing out, there was a retreat, two days in the woods , with people who loved me, who refused to accept the usual discourses and discussion, and who broke me down, there were others who broke me down before, and others who built me up.
I'm moving too quickly forward
I grew up LDS, for this audeince i'm sure that this makes me an exotic, but ill tell you this in my daily life i am sure that it didnt make me any different then other protestants, with one exception, there was a hymn about families being together forever- and in my head that was the first hint that often a religion that was supposed to be about community, was about exculsion, that no matter how good it was to constructing a group who loved each other, it was also good at noting who wasnt loved.
i left the church, or was encouraged to leave when i was 17,
made a list, one by one i went to services and read, treated it like every other problem i had in my life, treated it like something that could be solved with research, trusted my gut- i got the non christian options out of my head pretty quickly, there are lessons though in some that had entered my head like a burr
i got to the christian list, and i elimanted them for stupid reasons, the service i didnt like, the music didnt suit me, theological nit picking
i was 18, near sucicdal, reading the number 9 bus from stony plane road to downton , i had an impression to get out near the basillica down town, there was four people sitting in the grass and i sat down beside them
we talked, thats what converts me, talking, and we did, for hours- first sitting in front of the church, then walking ot clement house, then arround a butcher block table-orange kool aid was served, and every objection to the church and to christianity was parsed
the next day, meeting fthr duncan in fort sask, and then eight months of meetings
easter, four years ago, became catholic.
this is the narrative we expect, and its supposed to end with me being happy, jesus ending all the pain
everyone qoutes John 3:5-6, there are whole movements about being born again, but if you read a few verses down 3:8 :
The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
look at that, the construction of it, being born of the Spirit is not one of force or conjecture or anything but the winds of god,
i canoe- or used to at least, its been a couple of years since i have been out on a real trip, but when you get that seventeen foot monster out onto the water, and there is a wind , you no longer have control, it is your job to work with the elements, make sure that you can see where it is going, and not to crash on rocks or low lying branches, its called reading the river, and to do it, you need to quit conversation and do nothing but listen, your body will react to the dangers and you will be safe. When you are really in danger is when you stop thinking, when you keep talking and then a sweeper catches you or you ground and you drown. God lives in quiet spaces, where you can pay attention to the wind,
i have changed i think i hope i pray
i don't want this to be a usual narrative, a boy mets god story that you have heard 1000 times before
i meant this as a challenge to drew, i didnt expect him to say yes, see i dont trust people. i dont like myself and am shocked when people take me seriously
why am i here, what am i doing in front of you, its none of my buisness, this isnt my church, this isnt my worship, i havent been here long enough, i feel like an interloper
i feel like me telling you how i found god, how will that help, when every 6 mos or a year i get so angry again
I dont know god, and no matter how hard i try he becomes more nebulous, in MArk 4:11-12. its almost like Christ is saying- you cannot know me, i speak in riddles so those who are smart enough, who are in the inner circle, will come to know me.
11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
Christ keeps mentioning innocence and lack of attachment and liberation and all of this stuff that startles the status qou, and i used to like to imagine myself as one of those who revolted along with Christ, but its something deeper.
i depend on things that are not christian , i depend on the succour of academics and philosphers, i wish to be subjective because i do not want to understand the words of Christ, the language of the parables is understood not because it is esorteric or complex, but because it is so simple and so life altering that those who have comfortable lives are blind to it.
The Saducess and the Pharisees understood law, the rich men understood wealth. Christ does not understand either.
Over and Over Again GOd refuses to acknowedge those who live for comfort , who refuse to become naked in front of him.
Tuesday I met with Trevor, and he offered to buy me lunch, I was hungry and accepted, I don't do this, neurotic about money it takes a certain level of comfort to accept gifts, and anyways i didnt really like him-sitting over a plate of chinese talking with absoulte candor, he asked if he could pray for me. i said yes hoping it would be at home, without me there. country on the speakers, head bowed, making a fool of myself in public as this man talks to god for me.
i had been thinking about jacob, and started this with jacob, and thinking about trevor and that prayer, why did it make me feel so uncomfortable, because i thought that faith should be private, and here was a man who intergrated it in everyday life.
a priest is a priest when he gets his hair cut and when he goes to the movies, and we should follow that example, though trevor is not a priest.
he sees no point.
this is for him:
working on this, listening to velvet underground on my headphones, in b/w songs of decadence and sin, i hear a song called jesus, and if tranny loving heroin addict lou red can beg for the grace of christ, why can't i. its an end of the rope song, a desperate cry.
before i get to the scripture, let me state my biases-i'm a liberal catholic, who 3 or 4 weeks ago was ready to give it all up, let me read you a section of what i wrote then-
I want the soul to reside in the belly, and not in the head.
There are people who think that all of their blessings come from god and all there curses come from Satan, I don’t want to believe that.
I want to believe that we conquer our animal natures out of necessity
I want to believe that to be human is to conquer our desire towards hatred and anger and violence not because god thinks it’s a good idea, but b/c it is the only thing that makes us human.
what happened, a bunch of things, one after the other- in addict recovery programs, they stack about hitting rock bottom before you can climb out again, thats where i was.
confessing to father stephen-my father confessor- this among other things, he gives me Genesis 32:22:27 to pray on-as pennace and because i need it, been wrestling with god .
jacob wrestling with the angel, he sends his family off, and hes sqauring off, the divine and the mortal, the man who holds the keys to kingdom and someone who comes from the kingdom, they spend hours-through the night, in battle-St John of the Cross described this as the long night of the soul, the blackness, the sadness, the meloncholy that sets in like black ink
when day light comes, the angel breaks jacob, causes him intense phyiscal pain, breaks his hip-only then when the body gives out, exhausted-then and only then does he recive the gifts of god.
I found this out, i started climbing out, there was a retreat, two days in the woods , with people who loved me, who refused to accept the usual discourses and discussion, and who broke me down, there were others who broke me down before, and others who built me up.
I'm moving too quickly forward
I grew up LDS, for this audeince i'm sure that this makes me an exotic, but ill tell you this in my daily life i am sure that it didnt make me any different then other protestants, with one exception, there was a hymn about families being together forever- and in my head that was the first hint that often a religion that was supposed to be about community, was about exculsion, that no matter how good it was to constructing a group who loved each other, it was also good at noting who wasnt loved.
i left the church, or was encouraged to leave when i was 17,
made a list, one by one i went to services and read, treated it like every other problem i had in my life, treated it like something that could be solved with research, trusted my gut- i got the non christian options out of my head pretty quickly, there are lessons though in some that had entered my head like a burr
i got to the christian list, and i elimanted them for stupid reasons, the service i didnt like, the music didnt suit me, theological nit picking
i was 18, near sucicdal, reading the number 9 bus from stony plane road to downton , i had an impression to get out near the basillica down town, there was four people sitting in the grass and i sat down beside them
we talked, thats what converts me, talking, and we did, for hours- first sitting in front of the church, then walking ot clement house, then arround a butcher block table-orange kool aid was served, and every objection to the church and to christianity was parsed
the next day, meeting fthr duncan in fort sask, and then eight months of meetings
easter, four years ago, became catholic.
this is the narrative we expect, and its supposed to end with me being happy, jesus ending all the pain
everyone qoutes John 3:5-6, there are whole movements about being born again, but if you read a few verses down 3:8 :
The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
look at that, the construction of it, being born of the Spirit is not one of force or conjecture or anything but the winds of god,
i canoe- or used to at least, its been a couple of years since i have been out on a real trip, but when you get that seventeen foot monster out onto the water, and there is a wind , you no longer have control, it is your job to work with the elements, make sure that you can see where it is going, and not to crash on rocks or low lying branches, its called reading the river, and to do it, you need to quit conversation and do nothing but listen, your body will react to the dangers and you will be safe. When you are really in danger is when you stop thinking, when you keep talking and then a sweeper catches you or you ground and you drown. God lives in quiet spaces, where you can pay attention to the wind,
i have changed i think i hope i pray
i don't want this to be a usual narrative, a boy mets god story that you have heard 1000 times before
i meant this as a challenge to drew, i didnt expect him to say yes, see i dont trust people. i dont like myself and am shocked when people take me seriously
why am i here, what am i doing in front of you, its none of my buisness, this isnt my church, this isnt my worship, i havent been here long enough, i feel like an interloper
i feel like me telling you how i found god, how will that help, when every 6 mos or a year i get so angry again
I dont know god, and no matter how hard i try he becomes more nebulous, in MArk 4:11-12. its almost like Christ is saying- you cannot know me, i speak in riddles so those who are smart enough, who are in the inner circle, will come to know me.
11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
Christ keeps mentioning innocence and lack of attachment and liberation and all of this stuff that startles the status qou, and i used to like to imagine myself as one of those who revolted along with Christ, but its something deeper.
i depend on things that are not christian , i depend on the succour of academics and philosphers, i wish to be subjective because i do not want to understand the words of Christ, the language of the parables is understood not because it is esorteric or complex, but because it is so simple and so life altering that those who have comfortable lives are blind to it.
The Saducess and the Pharisees understood law, the rich men understood wealth. Christ does not understand either.
Over and Over Again GOd refuses to acknowedge those who live for comfort , who refuse to become naked in front of him.
Tuesday I met with Trevor, and he offered to buy me lunch, I was hungry and accepted, I don't do this, neurotic about money it takes a certain level of comfort to accept gifts, and anyways i didnt really like him-sitting over a plate of chinese talking with absoulte candor, he asked if he could pray for me. i said yes hoping it would be at home, without me there. country on the speakers, head bowed, making a fool of myself in public as this man talks to god for me.
i had been thinking about jacob, and started this with jacob, and thinking about trevor and that prayer, why did it make me feel so uncomfortable, because i thought that faith should be private, and here was a man who intergrated it in everyday life.
a priest is a priest when he gets his hair cut and when he goes to the movies, and we should follow that example, though trevor is not a priest.
Monday, February 17, 2003
family meeting about the trust fund.
look i have never been consulted before, i do not know why i am being consulted now. i hate talking about money with my father b/c it boils down to you ungrateful wretch, i havent seen my sister in a month and she figures she has about 40 minutes to spend with us in a fucking dennys.
tell me why i should go ?
look i have never been consulted before, i do not know why i am being consulted now. i hate talking about money with my father b/c it boils down to you ungrateful wretch, i havent seen my sister in a month and she figures she has about 40 minutes to spend with us in a fucking dennys.
tell me why i should go ?
Sunday, February 16, 2003
friday night, went over to Bryans friends patricks, watched Donnie DArk ( well acted, elgantly constructed, brilliantly shot, written in a dry, dark and ironic way, the ending will fuck you over- somewhere b/w one of those indies caught in westchester and one of those how can we play with the audeinces mind)
after movie coffee and curly fries at keegans, and convo about sex, god ,politics, minority rights, queer theory, etc etc.
got home via bryans bmw ca 4 am
yesterday, were going to go to this mideast resturant with ashley and geneve, but had dinner at the checzh(sp) bistro praha, where i had sauteed mushrooms, gulash, and desert. then off to buddies, nothern leather- lots of hot men in harnesses, hit on a man named kent until about 8 minutes in, where he discussed his love of fisting, including a delightful anecdote about having two fists up his anus, and therefore being unable to feel his intestinal lining.
slept on ashleys floor.
after movie coffee and curly fries at keegans, and convo about sex, god ,politics, minority rights, queer theory, etc etc.
got home via bryans bmw ca 4 am
yesterday, were going to go to this mideast resturant with ashley and geneve, but had dinner at the checzh(sp) bistro praha, where i had sauteed mushrooms, gulash, and desert. then off to buddies, nothern leather- lots of hot men in harnesses, hit on a man named kent until about 8 minutes in, where he discussed his love of fisting, including a delightful anecdote about having two fists up his anus, and therefore being unable to feel his intestinal lining.
slept on ashleys floor.
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