My Tent on The Beach

Hi world.  This is a weird Wednesday…odd things have been happening and, thus, they take center-stage in a Weird Wednesday list of note:

Weird Wednesday List of Note

1. My office smells like cancer.  Not in that I know how cancer smells, exactly, but that whatever chemical I’m ingesting through my nose right now will surely cause a fatal disease.  My office is a converted chemistry lab…converted in that they’ve put a computer and a chair on an old lab table.  The “hood” is still here; I could fire up the bunsen burners if I wanted to; and the amount of corrosion going on atop any metallic surface is enough to make anyone worry.  So when I say it smells toxic, I’m actually not over-stating this in the least.  I’m leaving in a minute before the chemical headache sets in.

2. I ordered new winter boots and they came on the most blizzard-laden day of December.  This is sheer luck but I’m glad they’re here.  No more messing around with shoe-boots.  I went for it.  Hunter Goddess boots–this means, 100% water-proof, up to my knees, insulated genius.  They were expensive but I will never have to order another pair of winter boots ever again.  I could muck out stables in these things.  Thankfully, my hatred of horses (get off me) will prevent that grossness…but I’m actually just going to wear them home.  Very exciting.

3. I’m feeling some kind of dissertation love today.  I put out my first “snowball” pitch for research “subjects” and have been bombarded by people who are willing (and actually VERY ABLE) to help.  I’m overwhelmed…both with the generosity of the responses and the relief that I may actually be able to actually drive this elephant (random Apollo 13 reference).

4. I just ate the most amazing donut.  Yep.  At 3:49.  And it was delicious.  It was also lunch which means I now have “mad” sugar rush going on.  It’s actually incredible.

5. Choir tonight.  CHRISTMAS MUSIC.  If ever there’s time to be in a church choir, it’s at Christmas.  What a delicious season.

Summary of list: today’s been a good Wednesday.  Amidst everything else, I’m feeling generally good about the plates I’ve got up on stilts, spinning away right now.  The feeling might be fleeting, but I’m just riding it out while I still can.

Confession: I went to church twice today.

I know.  It might be getting out of hand.  But here’s the thing.  I went this morning for choir and that is a wonderful, fantastic thing…but it’s also become a little job-like.  I love jobs, don’t get me wrong.  But I sometimes find it hard to seek out my spiritual center when I’m trying to remember if we’re breathing on the 8th or the quarter, if ya know what I mean.

So this evening, I went to Loyola to just be there.  Not sing in the choir. Not be in charge of anything.  Just go and listen and think about this past week that was horrendous but very valuable in terms of lessons learned.  In some ways I needed to give a little thanks…that things had moved in the directions in which they were intended.  In others, I needed some guidance.  I always need guidance.  And here’s what I heard: “Wait. It’s Not Your Turn.”

It shocked me how much I’ve lost touch with the idea that 1) I don’t always get what I want right now and 2) that other people, rightfully, might get there first and that’s okay.  They’ve earned it.  There’s a funny reality about the confluence of doing graduate work and living alone.  It can be a black hole of humanity.  That sounds very melodramatic but I’m serious; I can go for literally weeks and not see more than a handful of people if I don’t work at it.  What this means is lots of time focused on me in my own little world.

In some ways, I’ve never been more relieved to hear it’s not my turn…mostly because it implies there are others around me…that I’m part of a bigger picture because, honestly, that truth can really get lost in this type of life.  Writing, thinking, writing, not eating, thinking, writing.  I haven’t even been watching tv…

Thank God it’s not my turn. I forget, in the midst of everything else, that I don’t always have to fight for my turn, hold my place in line, argue for my point of view.  I can let those things go every now and then and know that it’s not my turn and that things have to transpire before it will be my turn.  This is the craziest sigh of relief I’ve ever taken.

It’s not my turn.  It’s not my time. For some things.  If I need to wait, I can let them go and just hope that I don’t lose that little paper number when it comes time that it’s called.  Everything in it’s time.  Everything.

I’ve been going on autopilot the last couple days.  My energy is low, low, low.  I’ve been stressed out to the point that it should be called, “stressed in” (in that much like backdraft, the lack of oxygen in a burning room will first suck everything into it and then blow it to smithereens).  It’s a phase…I think the natural valley after a month of high-energy “I’m moving and it’s summer and I got Active for the Wii.”  But it’s these times when I think some of the greatest things can happen because, for whatever reason, I’ve just had to let go of my strangle-hold on everything…and have found wonders on the other side of over-management.

For instance:

1. I sang in a concert last Sunday that turned out to be one of the greatest moments of my life.

2. I realized I like the world a lot better without my IPod.

3. The Madonna della Strada Chapel in the evenings is a beautiful place to be.

4. I’m much more capable and interested in my culture special field than I previously thought.

5. A friend of mine from years gone by appeared out of nowhere and apparently is now living in Evanston.

6. House guests can make life a little more worthwhile if even for a short time.

7. Transitions don’t have to be horribly painful.

8. Everything in it’s time.

I reflect on this all the time.  For some reason, the lesson of letting go takes time to sink in.  I’ve never trusted it.  And I think that’s precisely the problem.  I’m learning…slowly.

Well, it was bound to come out eventually.  I go to church.  A lot.  It’s kind of funny how it happens.  I’m not naturally inclined to go as often as I do but because of my involvement in church music, I end up sitting through a lot of masses.  How many?  For the past three weekends I’ve been to no less than 4 masses per weekend. This situation is completely typical for professional musicians who earn their livelihood singing or playing or directing or…whatever.  (When I mentioned it’s been a lot of Church to Steve, the director at Loyola, he was like, “Yeah…I’ve been doing this every Saturday since I was 14.”  When I said the same the to Paul at Mt. Carmel his response was basically “Pfffff.”  He’s been doing this every weekend for…well, a long time.)

And in all of these masses what I’ve realized is I’m listening to horrific homilies.  That doesn’t mean every one.  Some are way better (thank you Jesuits in general) than others (I’ll point no fingers but I have a couple folks specifically in mind).  But in general, the preaching that I’ve heard in the Catholic church around here is piss poor.  I’m actually educated in Theology to a point and over-educated in philosophy and sociology…and I’ll tell you, the flock is being misled by the misinterpretation and mis-appropriation of gospel messages.  Frankly, I’m starting to find it disgusting.

It’s hard to choke down homilies that are clearly used for political or personal gain while watching everyone in the congregation doing the polite “the priest is talking” nod.  I can’t stand the choice to abjectly ignore the “social gospel” (sorry people, but Jesus was the first socialist) in favor of pushing asinine institutional regulations without any nod toward critical thinking or application in one’s life. (Does wearing shorts to church really mean your eternal soul is in question?  If it does, I’m coming to realize I’ve been barking up the wrong tree for a long time.)  There’s a difference between preaching and pontificating.  We’re getting too much of the latter confused for the former.

Of course, there’s a clear solution to this problem.  All of these frantic homilies (if they’ve been thought about for more than 12 seconds or not stolen off of  “homilies.com”), flush with pleading and prodding about tithing (Catholics are particularly good at hiding this notion around the phrase “put it in the collection basket”…) and literal re-investment in the church (like, the money kind) come from men who needed the power the Church could promise them in this role.  And now that the institution in this country is seriously changing, laity are treating it differently, and becoming very savvy at reading the signs of the times themselves (which was once the purview of church), the power is dwindling.  And these insecure men parading around with their fake power are starting to get desperate. (This isn’t about gender slander…if women could be priests, women would be doing this too…actually probably more vindictively).

The solution to the preaching problem is finding people outside of the institutional structure who are still invested in the message of the gospel and not as a business.  Nuns (technically religious sisters) are writing up a storm and, whether I agree or disagree with their points, they’re pastoral.  They have Jesus’ words and intentions at heart.  They understand figurative imagery and language and have imaginations that expand the bounds of the possibilities.  A lot of men’s religious orders are doing this too.

I wish I could find this stuff at church.  I’ll still go because of the music and the community.  But I think it’s interesting that to find what I need spiritually…I’ve turned to the blogosphere.  And I’m one of the very faithful.

I’m not sure whether I should be surprised or not.  I’m fairly convinced, though, that my guilt response is deeply embedded.  Thank god for the guilt.  It reminds me of who I am.