Today is Friday, and here at joebunting.com, we dedicate Friday’s to helpful exclusion.
At Lauds today, like every Friday, we gathered in a circle around the host. Bread was turned into body, wine into blood, and one after another came to receive, with bowed heads, the sacrifice.
All but one. Her head bowed lower than the rest, she received a few words of blessing instead of God. A dear friend, being Orthodox, could not receive the host without breaking an obligation to her tradition. I watched as she passed the blood, brow creased and eyes misty but not raining. Rain threatened to mar my own face.
Because even though my head had not bowed quite so low, I had no such obligation, and the blessing that I received was already beginning to slide through my veins.
I love conflict, but the I can’t say we Christians do it well. How we managed to turn a table serving unity and forgiveness into a place of division is beyond me. I know all the arguments. I even agree with some of them, but they are insufficient. There is no excuse for thise crime we have committed.
My teacher, Telford Work, once said to me, “At this table, the problem that he has against us is much greater than the problem we have with each other.”
Worse yet, there is no one to be angry with. The Orthodox institution is a faceless beauracracy. The Catholic institution has a face, but he hides behind bullet proof glass and under the skirts of cardinals and other sentinels of tradition. The Protestant insanity is a mob of chaos.
Today is Friday, and here at joebunting.com, we dedicate Friday’s to helpful exclusion, but I don’t know who to ask to leave today? Luther? Calvin? The fools responsible for 1054? Or the greatest fool of all, myself?
No, today we will break tradition, because it’s a bad tradition that needs to be broken. “Peace I leave to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.”
I loooove conflict. I swear it’s saved my life more than once. Just yesterday I came out on the backside of a big conflict with some of my roommates. It was over something small, but the implications of the small thing were huge. My friends’ willingness to confront me helped me see things in a very different light, and it wasn’t pretty.
Why do I love conflict though? It hurts; it’s lonely; it forces us to confront things in ourselves that we would rather ignore. What’s so great about it?
Well because I’m not perfect, but I want to be (I’ll get there too). The harder the conversation, the more it hurts to confront something in myself, the bigger chunk that I’m asked to give, the closer I am to that goal. Most of the time, it’s baby steps. During conflict, it’s giant leaps.
And you? Do you need to get into a fight with someone? Are you holding anger in and not confronting people that have hurt or annoyed you?
Well, what are you waiting for?! Get after it. For your sake and theirs. I promise you, you will learn more in those painful minutes and in the (often devestating) aftermath than you will in a year of playing it safe. Even if you fall on your face, at least it will be because of a fight. At least you’ll go down in glory and honor.
Here’s how Shakespeare put it:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
My friend Sarah told me she was on here the other day and was disappointed because she couldn’t find any songs to listen to. It’s true, I don’t have nearly enough music on here (especially since I’m supposed to be a musician). I can only apologize and try to get more up.
Here are some reasons (not excuses) why there isn’t that much music on this blog:
- It was really hard to get music on Blogger. I had to go through Last.fm which I don’t really like. It should be easier here at our new location.
- I don’t have many recordings I’m happy with. I have a lot of bad recordings, but they’re not professional enough to put up here.
- I don’t like recording, mostly because I set my standards higher than I can achieve. I’m a perfectionist and become easily dissatisfied.
There are other reasons, but I don’t want to sound like I’m whining.
Anyway, don’t worry friends, we’ll get some more songs up soon. In the meantime, enjoy the one song I do have here.
This is part 2 to Friday’s post.
Because we are all black clumps. All our wings are broken. You can ignore or embrace it. I tell you this, though, life’s greatest contradiction is that if you dare to embrace it, you heal and fly again one day, but if you ignore it, you will be flightless all your life.
My music is about embracing our broken wings and finding flight. Embracing despair and finding hope. Embracing death and therefore finding life.
It is ironic that my friend Roy posted about two young crows just as I was writing about one. His post is short and poetic. I hope you read it.
Hello!
Welcome to our new home. Take a look around, make yourself at home, admire the furniture and the paintings on the walls. If you need anything I’ll be in the kitchen
Your friendly host,
Joe
Chris Bathgate is a very impressive artist. His style is eclectic folk with a brash amount of rock and a healthy serving mellow indie. For the sake of our conversation (and remember, every post is a conversation) go buy the song “Creak, Cure, Dawn” from Amazon (or iTunes) HERE.
While you’re there, you will want to pick up the song “Yes, I’m Cold” too. It’s the reason I fell in love with his music in the first place.
“Creak, Cure, Dawn” begins:
Cain came and he weighed my name against the sun
With cold coalescent moon for each deed I’ve done
What a crazy image! Cain, who according to Genesis committed the world’s first murder when he killed his brother Abel, is here is playing judge against our boy Chris. Cain must be huge because he’s got a giant scale with the sun on one side and a lot of little moons on the other. I’m not sure what “each deed I’ve done,” means here, whether it’s each good deed (like a boyscout) or each bad deed (like each sin committed). It changes what Cain is judging and who he is.
On a side note, it would take about 63 million moons to fill up the sun. Maybe Chris realized this, maybe he didn’t. If he didn’t, he might have put the moon in because he associated the sun and the moon together. Quick! What’s the opposite of the sun. The MOON!
In reality of course, they’re not opposites. If the sun is a beach ball, the moon is a speck of dust. Maybe he did know this and wanted to show the impossibility of measuring up. Either way, it’s a cool image: the ginormous Cain with his scale, measuring a jar of freezing moon specks against a burning sun.
These days, it’s not very common to hear a song with a reference to the Old Testament, which is dumb because a lot of people know the stories. The song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen (covered by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, and Imogen Heap, among others) takes advantage of that and is loaded with references, but it’s over 20 years old. Cain is an interesting person to have as a judge. Normally you wouldn’t think to put a murderer in that role, but I suppose it depends on what he is judging. I’m not sure what that could be, and while I have a lot of ideas, they’re too much for this little post.
I’m an English major and so could probably write a 4 page paper on those two lines, but I’ll spare you (for now). I just wanted to give you a taste. Go listen to Chris’ album. You won’t be disappointed.
