I Like God

Taffy - Lisa Loeb (mp3)
Just Like Zeus - Jenny and Johnny (mp3)

God is on Facebook. Almost 3 million people Like Him.

Jesus is on Facebook. He takes many forms. His most popular is called Jesus Daily. 5.6 Million people Like Jesus Daily.

The first thing worth noting is that, on Facebook, Jesus is more popular than God.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe God doesn’t really quite understand how the Internet works, or how to use those newfangled smart phones. Maybe Jesus is sitting in his wing of their palatial estate in Heaven, with his netbook and Xbox and iPad, checking out the entire world with the electronic powers of modernity. God, meanwhile, watches us the old-fashioned way, with hard work, sweat, and the perfect Omniscient Eyeballs app He uploaded to his own hard drive at the time of Genesis 1:1.

Or maybe this is one more moment where God is a jealous God, and he’s trying not to get too worked up that his Son is more popular than He is.

Jesus was a pretty nice guy in the 33 years he lived, so I imagine God would have a tough time being too angry about it. He would likely be proud of his only begotten son, that whosoever should Liketh him might have everlasting Facebook status updates.

But enough of the cute easy jokes.

In truth, I was strangely troubled that God was on Facebook. I was bothered at people Liking God.

Ultimately, I’m a believer. I believe in God. I can make jokes and trip the sacrilige fantastic because I kid the ones I love. Just ask my wife or anyone else in my circles of affection. I can joke with and about God because I love Him. Which is to say, I don’t Like Him.

And yes, there is a big, big difference.

It just so happens I have a prize-winning author supporting my point. The morning after I encountered God on Facebook, my BOTG pal Bob showed me the NYTimes op-ed from Jonathan Franzen, more or less the message he delivered at Kenyon College’s commencement. Please don’t let the following awesome excerpt keep you from reading the whole thing::

If you dedicate your existence to being likable, however, and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen, it suggests that you've despaired of being loved for who you really are. And if you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level, contempt for those people, because they've fallen for your shtick.


...A world of liking is ultimately a lie.

It’s fair to accuse me of overthinking the whole Like & Love & God thing, especially in Facebook terms. But I can’t get past it.

You can’t Like a deity.
You can’t Like Ganesha.
You can’t Like Anubis.
You don't invite these folks to the local bar for a few brewskis. They’re not peeps you run into at the office Christmas party. They’re friggin’ gods. Take ‘em or leave ‘em. Love ‘em or don’t. But neither they nor us benefit a whit from us Liking them.

Maybe some people think it’s better to invite the focii of their faith to Facebook. Better to include them in the party than leave them in the cold, right? Besides, if the language of Facebook excludes that silly overrated word "Love," then when in Rome... We’ll settle for Like.

I have several beloved relatives and friends who incorporate their faith into almost every status update. Bible verses. Mentions of Jesus. (Yeah, it’s only Christians who seem to feel this obligation.) I’m not the biggest fan of this approach, but at least it feels more real and from a more genuine place than clicking that I Like Jesus, as if that’s accomplished a damn thing.

Using what is a painfully superficial computer program to release a warm and fuzzy Jesus vibe feels like trying to explain a supernova using a pen light. If the catch phrase is “Don’t Limit God’s Power,” how much more limiting and sad can a deity get than to have their own page on Facebook?

I can see Jesus up in Heaven, holding a statue and crying, "You Like me! You really really Like me!"

* -- Side note: The Holy Spirit only has 97 friends. Holy Ghost! has 15,000, but that’s the name of a band, not the third part of the Holy Trinity.

When We All Get to Heaven

Somewhere In the Middle - Casting Crowns (mp3)
Everything'll Be Made Right - Superdrag (mp3)

Hipster youngster pastor Rob Bell has published a controversial new book, Love Wins. In it, he apparently offers the not-particularly-radical notion that Hell is either very small, temporary, or non-existent. If you want to watch his very intriguing "trailer" video for his book, watch here.

(Side note: For another recent version of this argument, see If Grace is True, a book I happened to like a whole lot, thankee.)

I first read Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis about six years ago and enjoyed it, although it felt like it was written in 5-minute spurts, as if he just jotted stuff down every time he sat down on the john. But it had its moments, and I found it to be a worthy side reading project for wayward lib’ral Christians, much like Blue Like Jazz.

I’ve known four pastors and preachers well enough to have had intense and personal conversations with them, and I’m related to two more, one of whom was my grandfather, whose fiery Baptist sermons were counteracted by private journal entries where he expressed one doubt after another about his own faith. I know two more who are about to finish or have recently finished seminary. Of those six men and two women, every last one of them has “The Gospel I Believe” and “The Gospel I Preach,” and with all of them, those two Gospels aren’t the same Gospel. They have a lot in common. Probably 80-percent of them are the same. But all of them have beliefs or doubts or concerns in their personal beliefs that get covered up, glossed over, or ignored when preaching publicly.

And all of their responses, in private, are along these lines: My congregation “can’t handle it,” or “isn’t spiritually open to it,” or “would kick me out on my dainty bum.”

I’m not saying confidently that There Is No Hell. I’m not confident about much when it comes to Christianity. I only know what I hope, and I know this hope has nothing to do with my own selfish desires. It’s not for my own protection or sense of being, but because it seems the most just.

And it’s this: We all get to heaven on airplanes.

The most saintly among us, like Mother Theresa, get private Lear Jets that fly them immediately up. The very faithful and good get first class and are sent off the runway in expedient fashion. The highly flawed are forced to sit on the runway for several years, not allowed to use the bathroom or unbuckle, and forced to sit next to the people you were most judgmental towards in your lifetime. (I mostly put myself in this category, but I might be shooting too high.)

The malicious, the cruel, the rabid disbelievers, and those whose misguided faith led them to do the most harm to others in the name of God, they’re forced to endure several decades of layovers. They don’t get hotel vouchers. They sleep, night after night, on uncomfortable airport chairs. They eat nothing but poorly-cooked fast food that rips the stomach up. The Starbucks is permanently closed due to repairs. The heat doesn't work. They don’t get Wi-Fi, and the cell reception constantly drops out at exactly the wrong times. The bathrooms smell and never get cleaned, and bile randomly spews forth from the toilets. And the only reading or viewing material is a recording of all the horrible things they’ve done in their lives, mixed in with all the good things they could have done had they taken different paths.

The only way their plane finds a pilot is when they have a Bill Murray-esque moment from Groundhog Day. When they finally accept their mistakes and repent for their destructive or wasted lives, they are granted passage and taken up.

Finally, there are those who choose separation. That’s, according to the wise old Milton, precisely what Satan chose. He was the first rebel. And maybe there are just those in our midst who, after death and granted full and total enlightenment, would still choose to remain separate. I cannot imagine a God who would force us to do anything, so I guess they’ll get their wish.

Maybe this makes me a Unitarian, or a Universalist. Maybe this makes me sacrilegious. Maybe this guarantees I’m gonna be stuck in that airport for several painful lifetimes. I’m sure I deserve it.

But one day, somehow, I’ll get there. And so will you. And when we meet, hopefully God will let us listen to some of our favorite music, even if it was a song by Judas Priest.

Another Reminder Why I Don't Get Old People

Take Control - Weezer (mp3)
Time to Check My Eyelids for Holes - Stereophonics (mp3)

I'm in our church choir. Sunday mornings, our choir processes.

There's not a thing about processing I find very appealing. I don't like the word. I don't like the idea of walking down the middle of the church with a choir book in my hand trying to sing and pay attention to where I'm walking and have all these people looking at me and keeping time with the director way up at the front of the church.

For someone such as I, an untrained and amateurish soul with a voice made for a large choir (as in, it sounds better when buried underneath dozens of other voices), there's just too damn much going on during a processional. The worst part of all is knowing that my voice can be identified quite clearly as I walk past people. There goes Billy, missing the beat again. He's as off-beat as Steve Martin listening to the blues.

This past Sunday, we processed as usual, and I'm making my way up into the back row of seats where all the men now collect when I hear this ominous thud, almost as if one of the pipes from the pipe organ had collapsed on someone. I look over to my right (I sit on the far right side if you're facing the front of the church, which is to say I'm looking at the left side of the front. Or something), and there's five or six blue robes huddled like they're getting ready to call Circle Right Option A Z Post Delta on Three or something*.

* -- sorry. It's football season.

As it happens, one of the many many many elderly folks in our choir fell on their way up the steps. And when I say "many many many," what I mean is that the median age of our choir is 95. What I mean is that, of the 24 regular members, and of the 35 or so total members, I am at 38 the second-youngest human. The third-youngest is almost 50. There's only five or six others below 60. The rest are, like, so old that they probably still use the word "colored" in ways that have nothing to do with crayons.

The spill in question was nasty. Fella tripped on his robe and ended up scraping a huge chunk off his right forearm as well as bruising up several areas of his face and getting several small cuts. His robe got all bloodied. Five different choir members had to leave the choir to tend to him, which represented a full quarter of the day's take.

It kinda makes me an asshole, but I knew this was going to happen. If Vegas had allowed it, I would have staked my entire life's earnings on one of our older members taking a nasty dive during the processional. It would be like placing a bet on the chance it might possibly rain in the next year. Were I a better person, I would have said something. I would have asked aloud, "Why are we processing with so many old old old people? Isn't this unsafe?" But there's always a back story...

You see, our previous choir director, who left being completely despised by 4/5 of the elderly folks in our church and in our choir, ended that great tradition when he came. They thought he ended it because he was a big ol' self-centered know-it-all closeted frosted-tips-lovin' choir director who had to assert his authority over them. In truth, he ended the tradition because he knew someone was going to get themselves hurt.

The old people, all of 'em, almost to a person, are the very people who went apeshit in demanding that we process. Now here's an even better part. Two of the most curmudgeonly old choir members who demanded the Return of the Processional (the new novel by JRR Tolkein!) ended up quitting the choir two weeks later because -- wait for it! -- that's right, they couldn't process safely.

Do you realize what I'm telling you, people?? Old people can be so damned stubborn that they'd rather be right from the sidelines than to be wrong and stay in the game. In fact, I'm pretty sure they'd take the same bet as I would, that one of 'em was doomed to get hurt. But by God, if that's the cost of maintaining a tradition, then that's the G-D cost, and that's the way it is, and that's that, so bugger off and let me die already in some traditional freakin' way!

Point is, saying something was pointless. So I was left to just ride out the processional storm out and wait for someone to fall and hurt themselves and hope it wasn't serious like a broken hip or worse.

And that's what happened, thank God. A fall. Bruises and superficial wounds. No broken hips. And a vote, coming Wednesday night, that the practice of processing into the choir loft on Sunday mornings be postponed until further notice. A vote I know will pass because I had the votes locked up before we even left the choir loft on Sunday morning.

Open Letter to God's Crappy Spokesmen

With God On Our Side - Buddy Miller (mp3)

The text located on the blog linked here -- and numerous others -- was sent to me via email by Johnnie Carter, MD, a man I don't think I know. Originally I was going to respond directly to Dr. Johnnie Carter, but I decided instead to make it an open letter to many stupid people all at once.

Here's one of my favorite segments:

Bottom line: my America is vastly different from Obama's, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my GOD to do what is Right!

For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs!

Here's another:

They have made every effort to remove the name of GOD or Jesus Christ from our Society !

They have challenged capital punishment, the right to bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code !

They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech!

Dear Stupid People, a.k.a., Drs. Johnnie Carter, Charles Stanley, and David Barton, and the other stupid people who read more than five words you wrote without turning green from infectious puke,

I respect that you have (in theory) earned some kind of doctoral degree, but I don't respect your right to annoy me via my business email with a bunch of ugliness cloaked under the illusion that you have any notion about God or what He wants. Your hypocrisy and the smugness with which you seem to espouse beliefs that even claim to originate from the same Bible I've studied has vastly more in common with the Pharisees and Sadducees whom Jesus decried than it does with His disciples or followers.

(FACT: You can't say Sadducees without saying "SAD.")

You introduce your spew by listing those things you don't share with President Obama. NEWS FLASH: You don't "share" anything with anyone because your particular brand of absurd Christianity imparts absolutely zero value on sharing. (Note: Sharing stupid opinions doesn't count.)

You are a fearmonger. You are a hatemonger. You are far too full of yourself to have much room for a higher power. God's priorities, I'm quite certain, are not in the order of (1) Death Penalty, (2) Firearms, and (3) Free Speech (from what corner of your sphincter, exactly, did you pull this one by the way?)

I don't know how you got my email address, but I politely request that you never again send me anything of this nature. I can handle untold numbers of political emails, but when you dare to have the audacity to speak for the God I worship, and when you dare to suggest God would be more horrified by your precious tax burden than he would with war, violence, and poverty, then you have far overstepped your bounds.

It's a shame you didn't work on Basil Marceaux's campaign. It's not too late to throw him on the ticket with Palin in '12.

Sincerely,
Billy

Written with God's full support and encouragement. As far as you know.

All I Need

All I Need - Bethany Dillon (mp3)
Flowerparts - Bob Schneider (mp3)

You're all I need.

Two teenage girls sang a song with that line in it at church this Sunday. It was a pretty enough song, probably originally by some contemporary Christian band, and the two girls did a fine job with the vocals. Unfortunately, when one is in a particularly cynical and dark place spiritually, then cynical and dark things can bloom from even the harmonics of hopeful teenagers.

They were singing about God. God is all they need.

Part of me wishes to hell that were true. Part of me wishes life could be so simple as narrowing down our needs to God And Nothing Else. Get rid of all the distraction. All the detritus. All the inessentials. And all that would be left is you and the one thing you need: an omnipotent, omnipresent, all-loving deity who cannot be seen, who cannot be touched, who cannot be held.

If all I needed was God, I could have managed an altogether different life. No aching need for that wacky notion known as a "soul mate." No overwhelming yearning to be a father. No longing for the acceptance of peers or even a need for friendship. Altogether different notions of success and mission.

And those two girls. They would be so much better off if all they needed was God. Their bodies would not be their enemy. They wouldn't fight-- and primp -- tooth and nail for the acceptance or approval of drooling boys. Shows like Gossip Girl would never make it past the first three or four episodes, because we'd all be too busy watching preachers and gospel programs.

The other part of me, though... finds the notion of needing nothing but God very unpalatable. I'm admittedly working in extremes here. I guess there are people out there who can say "You're all I need" and mean it only in the good and healthy religious sense. I guess there are people out there who say this and aren't part of some Yellow Deli or People's Temple collective.

Most of the people I know who truly sing this and believe this and try their damnedest to live this are... um... Truth is, they're probably better off. I can say they're clueless, or they're disconnected, or they're naive, or they live in a very unstable glass house of fantasy. And it's mostly true. But none of those things are in and of themselves all that awful if you're bound for Eternal Glory, right? So what if you don't fall in love and have a family or find your passion in things beyond hymns of praise or Holy Scriptures? We're just here for a few minutes in comparison to that afterlife. No big sacrifice if you keep it all in perspective.

Maybe I'm a believer who's too far gone. I need much. I find myself enraptured by the easy brilliance of this scene from The Jerk. Although we don't all need stuff in quite this literal a way, the scene is just one more reminder that all great comedy captures a pearl of truth:

We can't need just one thing.

We're not capable. Sure, we want to believe we can, because if we could just narrow it all down, life would be so much simpler and less messy that the one we're stuck in. AllMusic.com claims more than 400 songs include the words "All I Need" in the title. I'm thinking of making a song called "All I Need is a Unicorn," because both notions are equally fantastical.

When I try to imagine singing "You're all I need" about any one person, or any one thing, or even God, it gets kinda icky and scary. I need lots of people. Some of them are specific people, and some are in the abstract, but I need them all. I need people I haven't even met yet, people who might not even have been born as I write this.

The words "You're all I need" conjures notions of addiction, and not the kind of addiction that gains you favor in Heaven. I think of alcoholics and compulsive gamblers, of overeaters and exercise freaks, of unhealthily-obsessed lovers. I think of people who have lost perspective, and maybe some of their grip on reality along with it.

Even the most devoted of childless spouses end up buying a puppy or tackling separate careers. Even the most dedicated and devoted parent yearns for other ways to find meaning. And 99.9% of religious folks have needs beyond food, water and their Creator regardless of whether they can admit it to themselves.

Maybe this is the devil on my other shoulder whispering in my ear. Maybe this is just one more sign I'm in big f*#kin' trouble when I die. But I yam what I yam. I've spent most of my life trying very hard NOT to be so completely focused or obsessed with a single thing that the other important stuff in my life fades out. I'm kinda proud that, so far, I've managed this goal quite nicely. Life has always felt more like a never-ending mixtape than a longplay version of "Every Breath You Take."

We're on a big, cool planet with billions of cool people. Wouldn't it be a crime not to need as much of the good parts and as many of the right people as we can find?

After all, this is my Father's world. Right?

"All I Need" is from Bethany Dillon's So Far... The Acoustic Sessions and can be found on iTunes and Amazon.com. "Flowerparts" is from Bob Schneider's third studio album, The Californian, available only on iTunes.

Gym Rats

Editorial Note A: Due to technical difficulties, and because a week to God is however the f*#k long God wants it to be, The First-Ever BOTG Jesus Week has been extended to eight days. Unless He tells me to stretch it to nine or ten.

Editorial Note B: By God, we'll get at least the last week's worth of music up and running very soon. Probably by Wednesday (tomorrow) night.

THE FIRST-EVER BOTG JESUS WEEK
(sponsored by Yeungling)

Post #5: Gym Rats

Always Running Home - Paloalto (mp3)
Washed by the Water - Will Hoge (mp3)

I got a mix CD in the mail today from my good buddy Mark. It was the final product of an experiment which went far better -- and cost far more -- than either of us ever would have imagined.

Basically, he sent an email to 19 people in his email circle asking for songs that would perhaps inspire a little more gusto in his exercise routine. The "carrot" he dangled -- probably absent-mindedly, thinking only a couple of us would respond -- was that he would provide all participants with a CD of all his favorites. Mark ended up receiving almost 200 recommended songs, not including entire albums that got plugged by one person or another. I won't go into my theories on why Mark got so many responses, 'cuz all of them involve making fun of him for one reason or another.

What was certain, however, to all who know him was that Mark would obsess over this. He's meta-obsessive. He's never going to stalk Jodie Foster or anything, but his bulldog nature is unwavering, and once he's focused on something -- a person, a competition, a professional goal, a color of M&M -- he's going to bleed that passion dry and then keep squeezing.

Everyone also knew he'd follow through, not just on sending every CDs, but on using the songs for their original purpose -- to boost his obsessive exercising. Although he occasionally falls off the wagon, most of Mark's life has involved a heavy dose of physical exercise. Preferably in a form where he can push himself to an unreasonable zenith. Also preferably in a form where he can burrow into the weak psychology of others.

He's not a Gym Rat, but he is an Exercise Freak.

Exercise Freaks enjoy their rush even alone on an open road, on a basement weight bench, on a solitary mountain trail. Gym Rats require a very specific environment in order to feed their needs. They savor particular machines or benches. They feast off the social aspect, of people constantly buzzing around them, all of their endorphins and hormones bouncing off one another like radio waves. Exercise Freaks need nothing, need no one. Gym Rats need other Gym Rats.

I worry sometimes that, if I was stranded alone on an island, I would lose my religion. I wouldn't lose it all at once. It might even hang out for a while and keep me company, like Wilson the Volleyball. It would help keep me sane at times and even sustain me in those darker moments. I would eat dinner with it and want it by my side even if I gave up all hope.

But eventually, I fear I'd fall asleep and wake up only to discover that my religion had floated away while I slumbered, drifting well beyond my grasp, never to be retrieved.

Some of us, even those whose faith is carefully considered and deeply heartfelt, still need other living creatures around us to help keep that faith strong and reliable.

I'm more of a Jesus Rat than a Jesus Freak.

Will Hoge is a struggling but stubborn musician headquartered in Nashville. He is a touring rock madman who puts on one helluva live show. "Bible vs. Gun" is from his EP America. "Washed by the Water" was first performed at a Nashville concert to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina and was later included in his most recent album, Draw the Curtains.

The Great Disconnect In The Sky

THE FIRST-EVER BOTG JESUS WEEK
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Post #3: The Great Disconnect In The Sky

The Reivers--"He Will Settle It" (mp3)
Warren Zevon--"The Indifference of Heaven" (mp3)

One day a week or so ago, my wife and I were driving downtown to a restaurant when I said, kind of out of the blue, "Do you think that everyone is just practicing various levels of self-deception about God?"

It was a slow day on the radio, I guess.

She agreed with me. We kept driving, both trying to figure out in our own minds what I'd just said. Don't worry; this is not going to be an argument in favor of atheism or agnosticism or nihilism or the Yellow Deli. It's just a public wondering about how we interpret a higher power.

Here's what I think: there is a great disconnect about what happens up there in the sky or at least in that place where it's most convenient to look when we want to ponder things greater than ourselves. It all depends on whether you are inside of a situation looking out or outside of it looking in. F. Scott Fitzgerald first talked about "the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function," and it is this schism that we daily struggle with. Because, let's face it, our two basic views of God, or at least mine, do not reconcile, even in the slightest way.

FIRST VIEW: If you have a loved one in grave circumstances, say, in the hospital, then you are likely to see, or at least to wish for, God's presence and oversight in every yawn, every blink, every shift of a muscle. You talk to God, at least in your head. More likely, you beg and plead for anything, even the slightest improvement. You believe that God can and may or even will act. Even something as obvious and predictable as a rally after a powerful dose of antibiotics is ignored in favor of the power of prayer.

SECOND VIEW: If, however, you are not emotionally engaged, then on some level, you know that this is a silly, even dangerous, kind of understanding of God. You start with why a single swing, a lucky punch, puts a young man in a life-threatening situation. From there, you reject the oft-heard notion that this is somehow part of a divine plan that we mortals are not blessed to understand. Then you intuit that the God you think you know would never do any such thing, would not allow the random to rule more powerfully than his will. Furthermore, you know that He would not tease or dabble in a family's pain and upheaval. And then you conclude that God is not involved or even that whatever higher power there is doesn't have that role or ability.

I have certainly been on both sides of this one. When Robin was near death after a misdiagnosed appendectomy, you can bet I was talking in my head and praying, and even the note from Moms in Touch, a group I might have made fun of, was one of the most comforting messages I received. At the same time, I agree with Robin when she talks about her social work years with child sexual abuse cases and how no god could ever have a glorious plan that involved the kinds of things that were done to those children.

Musically, I suffer from the same dichotomy. Ever since John Lambert first introduced me to the Reivers' song "He Will Settle It," it has remained for me one of the most spiritual pieces of music I've ever heard. And, I've continued to make the assumption that the "He" in the title was a reference to God or Jesus, but there's no concrete evidence, just three verses of various kinds of despair and struggle and getting by, then the resolution of the refrain: "But I know, [H]e will settle it."

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Zevon's "Indifference of Heaven" seems equally appropriate to our condition most of the time:

Gentle rain
Falls on me
All life folds back
Into the sea
We contemplate eternity
Beneath the vast indifference of heaven

When things go badly, as they always do eventually (though in the song, Zevon ramps up the pathos even more to create some grim humor), it's hard not to think that whatever force is there that guides us is benign at best. At best.

And so, yes, I conclude, that we typically add our conceptions of God to our many other daily self-deceptions and that this is what we need to do, have to do, want to do, suffer from, take comfort in, and otherwise juggle with all of the other balls we have in the air. Which conception is the more deceiving? I haven't made that choice yet. I expect I'll try to keep both up there at the same time.

The Reiver's "He Will Settle It" comes from a mix cd known only in our family as "John's Greatest Mix." Perhaps he can tell you which CD it originally came from, but it is now out-of-print. Warren Zevon's "The Indifference of Heaven" comes from his perfectly-legitimate-to-download-from-archive.org concert of 1/12/96.

Praise & Worship THIS!

THE FIRST-EVER BOTG JESUS WEEK
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Post #2: Praise & Worship THIS!

Too Far Out - John Davis (mp3)
Undo Me - Jennifer Knapp (mp3)
The Pilgrim Song - Josh Bales (mp3)

There's this guy sitting at his computer with Last.fm playing random stuff through his speakers. A Newsboys song comes on, and instead of skipping to the next one, he listens. He's never gone to church. Wouldn't know Jesus from Shinola. But he listens. And something about the words and the music, they move him. A seed has been planted. This dude will become a Christian.

I'm sure the above or something like it has happened. But then, I'm pretty sure people have spontaneously combusted. Neither are events I expect to witness in reality.

I was in this cheesy church children's musical recently, and the woman who directed it offered the "Break a Leg" prayer for us before we went out there. "Dear Lord, if there's someone in the audience who's never heard of You, may we be the vessel for You to reach them...."

This isn't a unique prayer. It's muttered a lot before church events. And I'm, like, scratching my head, wondering when the last time a purebred Heathen stumbled into our Gothic religious monstrosities without the slightest clue about Jesus. It's not like you could accidentally mistake most churches -- even the newfangled warehouse-lookin' ones -- for a Wal-Mart or a carpet store.

That's how I feel about Christian music. It's not made to seek lost souls. It's comfort food for Christians. Anyone who sees it differently might as well expect another Spinal Tap drummer to spontaneously combust.

In spite of that, once every year or so, I'll dive in and buy an album by an artist whose work is expressly Christian. Musical Tithing, maybe. Like much of my Christian existence, I tend to keep this act to myself. I don't generally go bragging about it or asking my fellow music lovers, "Hey, have you heard that new MercyMe album? It totally kicks Christian ass." ("It really kicks Cross"?)

I'm more apt to discuss my admiration for Hanson than I am for Christian music. Where's the kitschy fun in Christian tunes? That kind of fun left once Stryper and DeGarmo & Key fell into obsolescence (which was, to be fair, roughly 30 minutes before they finalized their first albums). D&G's funniest/best/worst song was "Boycott Hell." Dude, I listened to that thing allll the time. It was the Deathstalker II of Christian music. I couldn't tell if they were serious or making fun of their own genre.

Amy Grant's rise to crossover recognition -- with plenty of help from U2 -- made it so Christian music in the 21st Century really isn't very different in instrumental quality and composition than all that good Satanic stuff.

Sure, the lyrics still frequently struggle. But that's only 'cuz Christian Rock is limited to coloring in the lines, while Satan Rock can go anywhere, say anything. John Davis' "Too Far Out," which musically could have come straight off a rollicking Superdrag album, still struggles with a chorus of "Thank you Jesus. Abba, Father. All things are possible with you."

I specifically chose the first two songs because they are in-your-face Yay Jesus songs. The final song I chose because I play this song many times over everytime someone I know dies, and I'd love to know it was played one day at my own funeral. I don't know a single song that has evoked more private tears from me, driving down the road in the strange privacy of my car, than this one has.

This isn't my Secret Sinister Plot to convert anyone. Not sure I could listen to lots of Yay Jesus music if it merely reminded me how I was going to Heaven while the rest of you bastards were headed on that Great Downward Spiral with Trent Reznor. Fortunately for me, I'm pretty confident we're all going to the same place. Christian music merely reminds me of a destination for which we're all bound. Whether you like it or not, dammit.

Nevertheless, if you ain't Christian, I don't see you downloading those first two songs and hitting Repeat until Jesus returns. It's just decent comfort food for us mostly-obedient sheep.

Baaaaaa.

"Too Far Out" is from John Davis' eponymous solo CD and could in theory be purchased in CD format on Amazon. "Undo Me" is from Jennifer Knapp's first CD, Kansas, available on iTunes. Josh Bales' albums can be purchased via iTunes.

WWJS - What Would Jesus Shuffle?

THE FIRST-EVER BOTG JESUS WEEK
(Sponsored by Yuengling!)

Post #1: WWJS - What Would Jesus Shuffle?

Poor Man's House - Patty Griffin (mp3)
Calling All Angels - Jane Siberry (w/K.D. Lang) (mp3)

If Jesus had an iPod... I'm inclined to believe Jesus wouldn't care much for songs about himself. I've never believed in a God whose ego needed stroking, and the only thing worse than an egocentric Old Man is a self-centered Son. Just ask the Bushes. Or, if you prefer, Daedalus and Icarus.

Seriously, can you think of anything less appealing in a hero than someone who sings songs about themselves? The thought of Jesus, walking on the other side of the street, whistling "The Old Rugged Cross" or "Nothing But the Blood" should nauseate.

So while Jesus probably shies away from Praise & Worship stuff, he hopefully enjoys ditties about the human condition, about how most of us hunger for spiritual food, about how our notions of the post-death future shape so much of our present. If Jesus didn't love Patty Griffin, I'm just not sure I could like the guy. I could love him, but not like him. Like my Aunt Belinda.

Doesn't seem like Jesus had much time for music while he was down here, actually. J talked and talked. And talked. It's possible that, being perfect, Jesus didn't need music. Perhaps Jesus was music. The perfect song taking human form, blood coursing through notes. A perfect glissando chord progression.

David, on the other hand, was the epitome of Biblical humanity. David wrote music, danced, sang, played instruments. He fed on music like a vampire on blood. It was the only way he found, other than prayer, that connected him to God.

I hope we all get iPods in Heaven, but they're probably obsolete. We prolly just think of a song and get to listen to it, much like Trinity learned to be a helicopter pilot in a matter of seconds in "The Matrix."Heavenly Rhapsody, or something. Dear God, I hope Cheap Trick isn't banned in Heaven.

Of this I am certain: Without music, I would have no soul.

Lambert, one of our regular visitors, passed along a blog by a man named Daniel Radosh. Intrigued by his writing, I followed his links down the rabbit hole until I discovered a highly amusing "debate" between him and another man on the topic, "Does Christian Rock Suck"? Like all debates, the sides are on the extremes while the reality lurks somewhere in the middle, but the debate was valid and enjoyable nonetheless, particularly for those of us who find ourselves drawn to religion and music in almost equal portions.

Can't rightly say where on that spectrum I fall. I get the guy who thinks Christian Rock sucks. I get the gal who thinks Christian Rock is the end-all be-all of music. I get the old lady who loves Elvis' gospel albums and the young lad who leaves the church parking lot cranking up some Eminem.

What spooks me is people who love music but feel nothing spiritual about it. Likewise, I can't comprehend people who are religious but don't enjoy music. Not sayin' these people don't exist. They do. In spades. I just don't get 'em.

My notion of Hell -- and I'm not being glib -- is life without music. Life without music is life without God.

My most selfish fear is of going deaf. How could I not, between my genetics and the abuse I've rendered on my ear drums these last 36 years, eventually lose my ears? Deaf feels more inevitable than death. If this seems unreasonable, 'tis precisely the unreasonable nature of this certainty which defines fear, right?

When preachers decry music as Satanic, I can't help but laugh, since even the crappiest of music still contains proof of heaven. Maybe some music is truly evil, in that it was created with the worst of intentions and the most dire of ambitions. But enough about Clay Aiken (ba-dump-kssh!). Even in the darkest of music lives the light of creation, and in that light, spirit. Jesus lives in AC/DC, although I suspect Angus Young might vomit black blood from the depths of his chest if he read such a thing.

I hear my religious beliefs echoed in every song I hear, even if sometimes it comes through more clearly than others. Sure, I feel closest to God when I hear a bagpipe band play "Amazing Grace." Something about that song, emerging from a chorus of those instruments, that vibrates through every fabric of my tissue. It doesn't matter if it's being played in the sanctuary of my church or on a street corner outside Ryan's Irish Pub in the French Quarter. Even soulless rock has soul, this distant beacon from a lighthouse buried deep in the fog of overproduction and slick black pitch.

Although I am occasionally attracted to gospel music and even "Contemporary Christian" music, the songs which draw me closest to my faith tend to be, technically speaking, anything but.

There's the scene from "Children of a Lesser God" where William Hurt and Marlee Matlin dance, and she's feeling the beat as it surges through the floor and into her feet. Although it frightens me to think of life with the Mute button stuck, I cling to the hope that even those without hearing still find ways to feel music.

So Hell is deeper than deafness. It's the absolute absence of tune, note, treble, bass. It's Will Ferrell with Voice Immodulation Syndrome.

and every day you gaze upon the sunset
with such love and intensity
it's almost...it's almost as if
if you could only crack the code
then you'd finally understand what this all means

but if you could...do you think you would
trade in all the pain and suffering?
ah, but then you'd miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving

When I hear Jane Siberry sing these lines, I hear sonic aftershocks of Genesis (the book, not the band). I feel a power bigger than the entirety of humanity, offering tiny drops of revelation to songwriters all over the planet throughout all of time.

I even feel God's aftershocks through Kevin Rowland. Or, well, I imagine I would if I ever had to listen to him... although I'd prefer feeling God through Patty Griffin.

"Poor Man's House" is from Patty's first album, Living With Ghosts. "Calling All Angels" is on Jane Siberry's When I Was a Boy but is also on the soundtrack for Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World." Both songs can be purchased on iTunes.

If I Had A Mountain (My 10 Commandments for the New(ish) Century)

Bob Weir--"The Greatest Story Ever Told" (mp3)
The Long Winters--"The Sound of Coming Down" (mp3)

I'm not God. I've never played him on TV, nor have I been asked to assume the role in a bad Steve Carrell movie. Nevertheless, I've been pondering those commandments brought down from Mt. Sinai lately and thinking that if I had a mountain and someone came up onto it looking for a 10-point list of supreme knowledge, I would, by all the laws of divinity vested in me by the State of Tennessee, have to deliver.

The beauty of my list (and of not being God) is that my list is much friendlier than the original. Oh, I'd like to think that my dictums are serious and important and worth following. And most of them don't offer much wiggle room. But because I am just one of "you people," as I was called today, I can use the First Person Plural instead of the Second Person, formal or otherwise. Any commandment I issue forth unto you I also issue forth unto myself.

And so:

1. We should not take credit for something that we didn't do.

2. We should be generous. Being cheap, especially in our treatment of other people, is offensive.

3. We should not let economics dictate our ethical standards.

4. We should no longer fully embrace capitalism. It is based upon ever-increasing consumption in a world where resources are finite.

5. We should be godly people and so should not lose touch with our planet. I'm not talking about recycling plastic bottles; I'm talking about getting in the dirt, the grass, the forest, the stream, the ocean, the snow, the hills, the mountains, the mud.

6. If we are men, we should treat women equally; if we are women, we should help our men to be men, thus ending the simultaneous gender wars.

7. We should find the boundaries of gossip. Zero gossip is impossible, but pointless gossip is manageable. If it has no impact on us, why should we seek to know about it?

8. We live in an information age; therefore, being uninformed is a sin. Especially about the workings of our government and about the conditions of the rest of the world.

9. We should seek to be enlightened beings, and so should put away barbaric things--the spanking of children, misogyny, racism, waste, entitlement, and anything else that corrupts us through the dual seductions of power and force.

10. If we say that we are going to do something, then we should do it. If we are not going to do it, then we shouldn't say it.

I would enjoy hearing your feedback, your additions, your deletions. By the way, "Bob" spelled backwards is "Bob."

Bob Weir released his first solo cd, Ace, back in 1970, and like the early Jerry Garcia solo cds, it's really just an extended Grateful Dead record. Not that that is a bad thing. "The Great Story Ever Told" comes from that release. "The Sound of Coming Down" is from the Long Winters' second CD, When I Pretend To Fall. Both are availabe at Itunes.