On Boundaries

I've been talking to a friend about the nature of boundaries. Maybe this is a late 20's, early adulthood question for our times that wasn't so much one in previous generations. Or maybe it was, who knows. We were discussing whether or not there's a relationship between a kind of hedonism and depression. Most of us need boundaries of some kind to be able to focus and be productive. Karla has a ton of boundaries, for example, and is able to be hugely productive, being a full-time graduate student, a full-time youth minister, going on tour guiding trips out East, getting ready for marriage. This would bury me, because I don't have the same capacity to set boundaries and be focused. If I write a paper for example, I'll write a little, have a thought, which will lead to another, less relevant thought, look up some poem, write a few lines of my own, stare at the wall contemplating some new thought. Go to the kitchen to refill my hot chocolate. Tell myself to focus, then return to the computer to write another page. Karla, however, can sit and crank out 6 pages straight, because she can mentally focus and block out other distractions. Her thinking is more logical-linear, mine is more contextual-associative. She's good with numbers, I'm good with languages. I thought about my students' low expectations, low performance vs. my Honors students, or students from richer neighborhoods who are pressured and driven to succeed and get into the best colleges. My low performing kids, whether through cultural expectations, genetics, parenting, whatever, have little ability to set boundaries. I have to constantly reinforce boundary. "It's not time to talk, give me that ipod, turn down your music, hand over that PSP, that camera, time to begin, be on time, write down your HW somewhere where you'll find it later." I feel like a drill sergeant some days. But these kids need some sense of boundary to be productive at all. We as people need some sense of boundary to find fulfillment, as well. I'm reading "Love and Will" by Rollo May, in which he addresses the shift in thinking about sexuality in our century to much of our anxiety and depression. This may seem like a fairly conservative conclusion to draw, but for me, at least, it rings true. Without some sort of boundary on desire, it spills in every which direction, and instant gratification leads to a kind of hollowness around it. The friend of mine with whom I've been discussing the issue is a burning man refugee of sorts. During his marriage he felt the world around him was passing him by. People are having all sorts of naughty fun and he wasn't at the party, so to speak. This is a very seductive idea for a lot of workaday people I think. You come home tired with all these worries and pressures. You fill up your gas tank so you can go to work the next day and suddenly you see three young, beautiful women in sequined mini-skirts headed for Shangri-La, it seems, filling up their gas tank for a night of the town. Or, in my friend's case, many people he knew were part of the Burning Man community with more open attitudes toward drugs and sexuality than existed in his marriage and primary community. He romanticized the idea of being in a band, touring, going to bacchanalian Burning Man revelries, being open to new experiences, etc. He fantasized about a world with fewer boundaries. Although it's more complicated than that, these ideas had much to do with the marriage suffering and the subsequent divorce. Now, a year later, he's able to see value in those boundaries he resented. This rings true in other areas as well. Take the Beats for instance, whose works appealed to my inner teenager, when I was a teenager...well, in my early twenties, too. Even now, there's a pang of longing attached to their work. The conventional line is that the Beats thumbed their noses at the mindless conformity of the late 40's and early 50's, through laissez faire lifestyles, pursuit of authentic connection, accompanied by physical, sexual, psychological indulgence of all kinds that was integral in shaping the countercultural 60s. They obliterated boundaries. Let's track for a moment the trajectory of some of the Beats, shall we? Kerouac died an alcoholic living with his mother in his forties. Neal, well, I'm sure someone knows, but by and large he seems to have lost all his friends and lovers. Burroughs shot his wife in the head by accident, spent many years in Mexico and Morrocco molesting children and is hailed as some sort of genius for Naked Lunch, makes an appearance in Drugstore Cowboy. Ginsberg probably made out the best of all of them. I have a fond place in my heart for On The Road, its sense of frenetic energy, its prose, its embrace of Americana, the pursuit of metaphysical freedom, but I'm not sure those gone cats drew the right conclusions about what constitutes a life well lived.

More accessible

I was going through some of the other blogs I've linked to, admiring some of the writing and the experiences shared. I had an interesting experience coming across an album review by Barry Taylor, postmodern prophet whatever, pseudo-pastor of a pseudo-church called New Ground in West LA, very intelligent, philosophical mind, well connected in "the biz," fashion connoisseur, art connoisseur, teaches at both Fuller Seminary and the Art Institute. Knows his Lacan from his Derrida, I can tell you that. Anyway, he taught a Theology and Popular Music class at Fuller in my first year, which was very good (Simon Frith, anyone?). During the course of the class, it became very clear we have quite divergent tastes in music, or so I thought. I could definitely go without Morrissey, or even Toots and the Maytalls (sp?) for that matter. On his blog is a review of perhaps one of my favorite new musicians of the past few years, Ray LaMontagne. I loved his first album Trouble. Might be in my top ten all time. His second album, however, was a little disappointing. I had pretty much one song from the album in rotation for a few months, that's it. But here was Barry's review discussing how deep and soulful the second album was, how much he liked it, etc. and I was moved to give it another listen. Now, I have to admit, I was of two minds on the issue (when am I not?). He described LaMontagne's second effort as "being perhaps less accessible" than the first album. I read that a lot in music reviews, "such and such album is perhaps less accessible than so and so's first album, but is ultimately more rewarding." What the hell does that mean? If I parse the base line and listen closely to the drum fills, magically on the 15th listen I will suddenly really like it? Hm. Oh well, maybe so. Mostly, however, when I read the words "less accessible" my mind now inserts the word "sucks" or, on occasion "boring," or perhaps even "musically uninteresting" (take that Joel Hartse, you sycophant). On the other hand, I was willing to give this album another shot due to this review of someone whose opinion I value, well, sometimes. And I suddenly realized the extent to which I am severed from community. Things like this used to happen all the time. Someone recommends something, you check it out. My primary community these days, however, is inner-city High School kids, whose imaginative horizon often extends as far as the next Taco Bell, it seems. They often accept whatever popular culture crams down their throats, whether its packaged as rebellious teen fare or not. Everyone wants to see Spider Man 3. Everyone wants to see Pirates of the Carribean. "That moobie's tight, Mister, joo should check it ou." My roommates are not exactly counter-cultural in this area either. I crave insightful, thoughtful recommendations from an actual human being, not mindless automatons nor TV and internet marketing masquerading as "reviews." Interesting to get some sort of nudge and input and a sense of expanded thinking from a blog on a toothache filled Saturday morning on three hours sleep. That's all for now.

Weekend Thoughts on Summer Escape

Sitting in the doctor’s office, I picked up a waterlogged copy of The Economist. A surprising read, actually. I’m not much one for figures and graphs and, well, economics, but there was such a variety of topics covered on a global scale and with real insight. Nice for a change. Makes you realize how much a lot of our other rags are becoming dumbed-down to cater to our ADHD-riddled populace. Made me want to get a subscription, y’know, soon as the finances get stable. Karla’s housesitting, so I’m sitting at a desk in La Canada and last night we watched – gasp – cable television. Watched the Jazz thankfully pummel the Spurs. One of the first games I’ve caught all year. Deron Williams looked like he’ll be around for a while. Ditto Carlos Boozer. They pretty much fulfill the old Stockalone roles on the team. You can see them running the same plays, setting the same screen and roll sets, etc. Don’t think they’ll win the series, fun to root for though. Watched Chariots of Fire for the first time (Best Picture, 1981) which started off veeerrrrry sloooowwwly, but picked up later on. Interesting meditation of what drives people.
The Travel Channel this morning is making me want to go back to Europe, or at the very least makes me miss the old days. There’s a sense of adventure and randomness associated with those memories. Going out with friends, no telling who you might meet or where you might end up that night, or with whom. Don’t know if I could keep up that lifestyle indefinitely, but nice memories on a sun soaked Sunday in La Canada. The cheesy all-American couple’s trips through Venice, the bubbly woman’s reports from Copenhagen and Geneva so much more enticing than Not Your Average Travel Guy’s fairly average travels through Philadelphia. Travel is transformative, but it’s not just visiting the locales that I miss, though, I kind of miss that part of my identity. The worldview, the self-understanding, that is in many ways very different to implicit American values. In fact, it’s very un-Americanness is part of the allure. America’s youth-oriented, Disneyfied culture seen as a kind of foil. Shallowness, materialism, individualism, cutesy-ness. We’re a culture of quaint and cute. But there are upsides to American culture, the embrace of different kinds of people, the positive attitude. But I do miss the value of tranquility and community from back home. The anxiety being, how much will that forever be a thing of the past given marriage and settling down? Will my children ever know that part of who I am, or just become conformist American automatons? All valid worries, but at some point, you have to release those fears and let things come as they do. On the way out of the doctor’s office I saw this true Californian, 40-ish gent in a shiny new black BMW, hair done like he was a member of Fall Out Boy or something, tattoos, Ray Bans, the works. I guess that’s the cake-and-eat-it-too promise of California. Other places you might be expected to grow up, assume traditional lifestyle roles to be respectable, to earn an income, to make your parents proud, whatever. Here, you can be Peter Pan and earn a six figure income. That’s sort of the charm of the entertainment industry, I suppose. It’s interesting to listen to prophets of postmodernism waxing philosophical about how, these days, such boundaries no longer exist, we live in an age of different identity structures, conceptions of the self, definitions of success, etc. etc. and then to go visit family in Oregon or New Jersey or wherever and it’s clear that you can’t simply say across the board that we live in some newfangled postmodern age where everything has shifted, the old ways are irrelevant, etc. Things aren’t that easy. Things commingle and collide.

The Real Press Junket

The Real Press Junket:

The Red Eyes. The band’s very name conjures up images of late nights, long flights, or perhaps even illicit substances. It is also, incidentally, the name of a band. Local music aficionado Ramon Hernandez sums up the band’s impact: “Did you say Red Ice?” Having departed from the bands Dead West and Dean is Dead in mid 2005, guitarist Colin Johnson, vocalist Marc Shaw, and multi-instrumentalist Jason Farman pooled their collective futility into a new project: The Red Eyes. “I don’t know what we were thinking at the time,” says Farman, “maybe we just had too much time on our hands.” In any event, the members soon hired snobbish drummer Jaime Pitts with his unfortunate surname and slightly better than mediocre bassist but all around good guy Eric “Roshi” Mulligan and began reworking their mid-tempo, folk-rock sound into a more trendy Brit Pop, given the recent actual success of bands such as The Killers, Bloc Party, Kasabian, and others. No matter the songwriting quality, the band always had an ace up their sleeve: “If you could make the vocals sound more like Dave Gahan, I think it would really work for this song,” became a kind of battle cry, a mantra around which the band rallied. With the production prowess and marketing ideas of chronic stoner Billy Baker, the band’s first album “Up All Night” was underway. With at least two memorable tracks and some filler, this album hit the market with aplomb. After their self-financed CD release party in the same rehearsal studio where the successful band Keane had actually just practiced, the band had the momentum to hit the LA club circuit, playing at least nine shows in a year and a half. Due to this blistering pace and blitzkrieg marketing, the instant classic “Up All Night” flew off the racks at the breakneck rate of just under three units per show. After months of knocking on the door, the band finally played the world renowned Spaceland venue in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles. After the previous band’s fans trickled out during the show, die hard fan Rob Strong remained, leaning against a post, soaking it all in. “Oh, my God, they were just so on tonight. Great energy. A really voluptuous sound. Did you get that down? I rarely use that word in a sentence. It just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Vol-up-tu-ous. That’s awesome.” With the extra money they made from selling chocolate Easter bunnies door to door, the band reentered the studio after months of shows. Says Johnson, “We had a few new ideas, and the Easter bunny thing went really well, and we figured, hey, we’re in a band, we know this producer guy, why not record some more songs?” The boys did just that. Boasting at least one memorable track, the aptly named “Let it Die,” look for their new EP flying out of trunks everywhere from Pasadena to South Pasadena in Summer 2007.

Decisions...and a novel

Sooo, I watched the season Finale of Lost on Wednesday. Not much to say there. Not much revealed. The story has been more bogged down this season than helped by the flashback, or, in this case, flash forward sequences. On Thursday, school sucked. Although Karla and I did find a cool coffee shop in Monrovia to study at that evening. On Friday, besides staying up til 5 am with a throbbing, I-want-to-rip-my-face-off toothache, I'll confess, I did much research on the viability of an MA in Lit. vs and MFA in creative writing. All things being equal, that is, funding, possibility of a teaching post, or at least the possibility of following up with doctoral work, I'd do the MFA, no question. These programs are usually a mix of lit. study and workshops anyway. I'd be there in a heartbeat. Then there's the problem of finding a program that you like. Then there's the slightly larger problem of finding a program that will accept you. Right now there's also the slight problem of what work to submit. I've been working on a novel lately, about which I am by turns excited, frustrated, energetic, and apathetic. I've submitted some poems to Lit. Journals, but no word yet, so I won't exactly have a shining CV. On the other hand, I grew up in Germany, went to college in Seattle, went to Seminary to study Theology and Art, I worked with Special Ed. kids, and I now teach at a Title I High School in downtown LA and coaching Varsity basketball (poorly). This should count for something, right? Back to the novel, though. I've been wanting to write one for years. Not sure if I'm a mature enough writer yet, although, even if this one doesn't ever get published, I'll be learning a ton about the writing process, my voice, etc. Let's call it fertilizer. Although, frankly, whether in fiction, poetry, or music, I'm a little tired of producing "fertilizer." What's a lazy, disorganized pseudo-artist to do? Well, at the very least I found an authentic voice...which is nice. I've been trying to write a story for years that was somehow On The Road crossed with Dostoevsky, but, like, in Central Europe. I also produced roughly five beginnings that sounded like cheap Cormac McCarthy rip-offs. Then I hit on something. Why try and write like these people? I may love their work, but I sure as shit ain't them. A friend of mine said that, in her fiction workshop from the author of "writing from the inside out" she was asked to identify the theme of her life. She passed on the task, and here's what I came up with at the time "compartmentalization in the face of constrictions, displacement, passion, compassion, indulgence and consequence, need for depth of intimacy, simultaneous search for/avoidance of wisdom." I'm not so sure how accurate this is, reading it now, but I do know I've been discounting two very important things: my own voice - snarky, some might say, and personal experience. From uptight German school to Evangelical German church plants with an American pastor (my Dad) to an international school full of sophisticated Europeans and displaced Americans, Australians, Canadians, you name it, to traveling around Europe with basketball teams, to smoking weed in Brussels after graduation, to driving along the coast line in Australia, to living in a basement on the outskirts of Seattle, cursing God, to the small, "safe," Christian college with many shallow people and dorm meetings to determine if the girls Spring dresses were causing the boys "to stumble," to classes where my favorite professor invited us to embrace the infinite in the Blakean sense, "the miracle is right here," he'd say, "right here," to Summer debauchery back in Europe, waking up late, the days filled with friendship, laughter, cars, books, beer, basketball, billiards, and girls, to the insane asylum that is Los Angeles, and our little corner of it in particular, with Peter Pan pastors of non-churches and Tribes of the pseudo-Christian lost re-embracing faith in these postmodern times, hedonist Seminarians in acting classes, Topanga Canyon Burning Man Toys R Us kids clinging to some shadow of the 60s, two seasons: hot for nine months and grey for three. The freeway society, so transient, so busy. All this is grist for the mill. Fodder for the cannon. The raw material for the industrial, Baconian society that is my disorganized brain. I had an epiphany, a moment of clarity, a stroke of genius, call it what you will. It was so Euclidean in its simplicity: snarky+life experience = my authentic voice. Now I'm thinking less "On The Road" and more "Big Lebowski," except without the film noir touches. Derivitive, you say? Pish-posh. There's so much absurdity in this town, The Big Lebowski should have spawned a whole sub-genre. Alright, enough.
ttfn, everybody, ttfn.

Music: Four Good, Four Bad (an uncalled for rant)

Four new albums I'm excited about:
Ryan Adams - Easy tiger
Josh Rouse - Country Mouse
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Jesse Malin - Glitter in the Gutter
Alright, so the last one isn't so new...but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Stumbled upon the itunes indie spotlight, which is focused on singer-songwriters this week, one of my favorite genres, but I have to make a confession, which is sacrlege or heresy or whatever among hipsters, especially neo-Christian-hipsters. Seriously, this could get me shot in Silver Lake, but it has to be said:
Connor Oberst sounds like the whiney kid in second grade who always wet his pants. Do we need more whiney, brittle white boys spilling their angst on us? I suppose I fit that bill more often than not, but still. Maybe there's some self-loathing at play here. I'll have to ask my therapist. I've had so many people who know I'm a Dylan lover recommend Bright Eyes. Really? You think so?
Second, what's the big deal about Sufjan Stevens? Maybe I haven't given him a fair shake, but I suffered through Seven Swans twice through way back when and couldn't name a single line or remember a single song title or melody from the album. I remember it being like glorified elevator music, but, y'know, sincere. Not that it was bad, just fairly typical for the genre and kind of unremarkable. Good enough for the background and...oh well, you get the point. I go out of the way here, just because these two artists specifically are recommended to me so often.
Another guy who has been granted Sainthood in these here parts is Elliott Smith, whose stuff is interesting and I like in theory, yet I always feel extremely drowsy by the third song or so whenever I put him on. Not that that's a bad thing
Lastly, I've tried to like him. I have had three or so of his songs in heavy rotation at one point or other, but another New Dylan who just doesn't pull his weight is Jackie Greene, except for "I'm so Gone." I suppose part of the draw of the modern troubadour is the subversiveness. You take a song like "Momma you've been on my mind" which leads you to expect a conventional, sentimental piece, which is subverted with a lyric like "I don't even care who you'll be waking with tomorrow/Momma, you're just on my mind." The point becomes memory, or the ways in which past experience shapes the present, not banal romanticization. Along with Dylan, Elvis Costello, Leonard Cohen, and other "singer-songwriters" do a better job at playing with convention and not falling into trite sentimentality. Greene swings and misses with "But I guess the good die young and life just isn't fair/Emily's in heaven and she's waiting for me there." Sounds like a Mitch Albom rip-off (which is funny if you scroll down, cos I actually like Mitch Albom) Even Death Cab, with "If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks/I'll follow you into the dark" if dripping with sentiment, is a powerful and memorable line. The difference, I suppose, is the use of figurative language, always a good device for a lyricist. And another thing! How did what was supposed to be a four line blog turn into the curmudgeonly ramblings of a never was? And so good night unto you all...

of gamers and grace

Sooo....for roughly a month and a half, the group I affectionately call "the dork brigade" has descended upon my room for every break and lunch to play their video games. I was of two minds on the issue. First, video games rot your brain and all that, and what the hell are these kids doing bringing their gamecubes and xboxes and playstations to school. Y'know? School. where you go to learn stuff. That place. The kids had beeen kicked out of the room next door for leaving their lunch plates, ketchup wrappers, cans, etc. on the floor after lunch. So they pleaded. Could we use your TV at lunch, Mr. Shaw? I considered, then accepted, provided they learned their lesson and clean up after themselves. After all, these are the outcasts, the orphans and widows of the school (see below), the kids others avoid, the ones with high GPAs and low self esteem, who experience cheap vicarious thrills through their onscreen avatars. And they all look like they spent the weekend staying up late at the Dungeons and Dragons table, but using frequent curse words to feel less dorky. Since then, an increasing number of students arrive in my room every day to play smash brothers death rattle 3000...or whatever. The mob is anywhere between 15 and twenty students and the noise swells to deafening levels when one student is about to defeat another or commits some other heroic act, such that the entire corpus of students begin yelling, whooping, laughing and carrying on. Now, teaching at an inner city school can be strenuous enough, even at a slightly more advanced one such as ours, with the constant resistance, inattention, seeming futility of getting 100 some odd fifteen year olds to improve their spelling, but the gamers are starting to give me a headache. When other students or faculty or staff come in to visit, it is not unlike trying to carry on a meaningful conversation at a night club, the bow-chick-a-bow booming in the background. By sixth period, I have a short fuse. Now, recently, I had a faculty meeting and had to leave the room. Unfortunately, I also left it unlocked. When I returned, there was a hole in the cheap wall right next to my door in the hall. One of the...less advanced students (who might have scored thirty a game for the JV kids if he had had the grades to be on the team, and who incidentally looks like he was dropped in bong water as a child, with perpetually squinting red eyes) decided to goad the gamers by flashing the lights off and on. In a school with no windows, this has a dramatically annoying effect. The gamers, being interrupted and hardly able to contain themselves, went berserk. Instead of hitting Mr. 4-20, and risking suspension, one of them smashed the wall instead. Now? Outcast or no outcast, have fun finding a new room. More than likely, for the students this is less of a blow than you would think, and they'll find another sap within a matter of Periods...tbc?

Interesting Exchange

I recently received an email from an old High School friend, a beautiful soul, really. She's teaching religion in the English public schools now and asked me if I was religious. We haven't spoken for years and after an MA in Theology and the Arts at Fuller, etc, she, being interested in world religions, etc. thought to pose the question. I think it's interesting at this point to reflect on the effect of studying theology on faith. Academic enterprise is colored by enlightenment thought, such that one steps back one remove from that which one studies, taking in the wide array of opinions from a variety of thinkers on a given topic. One has some critical distance, which, incidentally, I think is important to be able to think critically, to adjust, to ask questions, to be truthful, to make an accurate appraisal, to see the big picture, etc. etc. Another, less fortunate outcome of this is that studying and recofiguring different pictures of faith does not necessarily foster faith, just as reading a book on prayer or meditation will not necessarily induce prayer or meditation. This is a simple truth that most pastor's wives will tell their Seminary bound children. This is folk wisdom. INterestingly, as an English major, one spends the majority of one's time with the primary source, a given piece of literature one reads once or twice, discusses in class more in-depth, and finds some secondary sources to augment and buttress one's argument in the final paper. In theology, however, you spend more time with, shall we say, secondary sources, so that it is entirely possible to acquire an MA in Theology, or even emphasize in biblical studies and know more about Barth, Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, Calvin, Moltmann, Pannenberg, Zwingli, Luther, or whomever than direct contact with source material i.e.the Bible. Now, this may be different for different people, sometimes it takes years to relinquish emotional and psychological baggage from approaching or mis-reading a text, but still. In fact right now, I'm struck by the fact that I would much rather read Brian McLaren than crack open the New Testament. Am I innoculated against it by countless sermons? Am I a reprobate?
I'm wondering if one of the benefits of the whole postmodern brouhaha (besides the Message) will be new ways of encountering the Bible, not as moral yardstick of a life ill lived, but as an anthology of stories embodying and communicating transformative truth. I still struggle with reminding myself of this. And I don't just mean the Epistles and a few bite size portions of the Gospels, but Micah, and Amos, and Leviticus, and Lamentations, all of which I have glossed over at one time or another, but couldn't tell you all that much about, if pressed. Well, a little maybe.
Sitting in my knickers watching Harold and Maude after a long week. It's been recommended thrice in the last month or so, and I see why. (It's the black humor =)

Thought I'd post what I wrote to my old friend Charlotte in the good old UK:

I could give a sort of run down of what I believe and how that fits in with what other Christians believe, buuut, hm. Three authors I go back to on the matter are:
Brian McLaren - "Finding Faith"
Anne Lamott - "Traveling Mercies" or "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith" aaaand
Marcus Borg - "The Heart of Christianity"
I mean there are other, more hoity-toity ones I like too, but these sort of provide a good sense of what I believe...sometimes. Basically, it would be a less conservative version of Christianity that sees the undercurrent of the Old Testament as the vision of shalom or wholeness on both personal and social levels as the whole point of God's relationship with Israel, and then Christ as a subversive truth-teller who fully embodies and points toward God, who somehow uniquely ushers in Kingdom, or Shalom, or Wholeness, which would have to consist of peace and justice (the whole emphasis in the old testament on whether or not people are taking care of the "widow and the orphan" or the social outcasts, and being punished if they don't, community, stewardship of the earth, which are all huge issues of course. I'd also say that've so individualized and privatized faith that we lose much of the original meaning, it's challenge to accepted power structures, political, economic, and spiritual. Now, other issues, virgin birth, things like that, I have a little more difficulty with. With close reading, it seems to me some of the biblical authors took on some poetic license and used symbol in their storytelling. But as an English major and one with a symbolic imagination, this is every bit as powerful as modern "journalistic" truth, if not moreso, because of its resonance. On the other hand, Hamlet tells us "there is more on heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy," meaning we in the West don't have enough of a sense of the Spiritual, which affects our overall health, and leaves us open to go down blind alleys in search of spiritual anything, so I wouldn't count out things only because they sound fantastic, but I also have to temper what I hear with what I've experienced.
I've been so preoccupied with practical considerations these days, job, budget, wedding, lesson planning for kids who really don't care what lesson you've planned...you're just an impediment to their socializing. Thinking about next steps these days, but not getting very far yet. I just got used to getting a paycheck, don't know if I want more school just yet. The point partially being I'm sort of failing in following even my own vision of some radical, subversive, imagination-filled, compassion-centered life. Although I do have a sense of what is toxic and destructive, and try to fight against it, or at least avoid it.

Apartment hunting

Spent yesterday looking for apartments online in and around Padadena. Is it worth $1300 for a 1 or tiny 2 bedroom apartment with antiquated fixtures in an old building and no central AC? I say no. Karla and I sat on my bed and sifted through the options, sending out the odd email, writing down phone numbers. This as much as anything else may have hastened our departure from Los Angeles. We recently went on a loft tour downtown, where studios go for $300000 and 1 bedrooms start at $350000, For comparison sake we took a look on craigslist Providence, where that could get us a three or four bedroom house, spacious and colorful. For a quiet writing soul such as my own, this sounds just about perfect right now. Of course, who knows what our jobs and financial situations would look like if we moved, but, hm, might be worth the risk at this point. What would be sacrificed in a departure from LA? Two or three friendships, the weather, a secure job, the small comfort of a "sense of place," the cosmopolitan sais quoi that every metropolis has. Another question arises, would we be following a call, or just leaving our dissatisfaction with LA? Yet another question, how tired am I of discussing postmodernism? Even in the second year of seminary, listening to other students evangelize postmodernism began to wear thin.
Speaking of which, I just heard from an old friend, Ben Snedeker, who is winding down his MFA in creative writing at Emerson College. We were together in a small writing class in college and I can't help but feel a little jealous, like this wouldn;t be financially feasible anymore, but is what I should have done instead of going to Fuller. In seminary, i was constantly looking for creative, thoughtful outlet, but never found something approaching the college writing workshop experience, and didn't foster that side of my art very much. Feel like I missed my window a little bit, but then again, I'm only 28. On the other hand, do I really want to keep racking up degrees and incur more and more debt? Why do I feel like I need the structure of a program to grow and be productive instead of just writing? No matter what decisions I make it seems, I'm weighed down by a sense of regret or lost opportunity. What would I regret if I got an MFA?
My friend Jonas called from Boston, with plans to potentially make a pitch for his uncle's multi-million dollar company. Going to the Northeast would bring me closer to this old friend. Maybe this budding businessman and soon-to-be groomsman in my wedding should sponsor my future MFA. =)

Reading and Time

Trying to find time to read these days. Time and energy to concentrate seem to be hard to come by. I did notice my reading habits from college and graduate school are not a great help when you work full time and have other obligations. Taking 7 books to a coffee shop for four hours or so just isn't feasible anymore. For some reason, this has taken me a long time to figure out, so that I've been taking, say, 4 books down to a coffee shop, knowing full well I had an hour and a half and 50 essays to grade. Hmm. Aaaanyway. I put down my pen, stopped speed reading, and decided to take it one book at a time. The problem now being I have 40 or so books on my shelf of which I have read roughly 30 pages. The pattern goes something like this. I get a new book, I take it along with three others to a coffee shop, read 30 or so pages, move to the next book, read 30 or so pages, move to the next book, do some journaling, stare out the window, reflect, get a phone call, go home, get busy for two weeks, get interested in new books either online or through recommendations, buy them, start over. I guess, in adult life, slow and steady wins the race. I picked up Gogol's Dead Souls, being an aficionado of 19th century Russian Lit. with its psychology, philosophy, theology, history, its passion and depth, its redemptive suffering. Gogol strikes a different tone. I'm not far into the book, but there is a sense of Gogol sketching archetypes of Russian society and playfully mocking them. The main character, Chichikov, is not the most sympathetic, and so we don't always identify with him, which creates a sense of detachment from the whole affair. I find myself identifying more closely with this tone than perhaps some of the more redemptive and "Romantic" depictions of life in other literature, but so far, it's too much my own way of seeing, that I'm not stretched into new perspectives, part of the joy of literature. Granted, it's still early on in the novel, but it makes me consider a point about the writer's voice. As a wannabe writer, I'm constantly looking for kind of writing mentors when I read. As a result I'm constantly pulled this way and that, impressed by many different kinds of good writing. Recently, someone told me to "tell your own truth," which was empowering, but here I come to a conflict. The kind of work I value points toward redemption, it sacralizes, it transcends. My own tendency, however, is to mock, criticize, point out incongruity, to strike a less hopeful tone. On the other hand, I'm tired of cynicism in myself and others. In her new book "Reading like a writer," Francine Prose quotes someone (Nabakov? I can't remember) saying basically that "whoever you are, whatever your prejudices, whatever substance you are made of will invariably show up in your writing. What if there's a gap between who you are and the kind of stories and worldviews you see as necessary, valuable, etc.? Maybe the world needs more Dostoevsky, less Gogol. Thoughts?

Hmmm

Just reread some of these posts. Good thing I'm not self-righteous. Hmmm, yeah, have to work on that.

Anyway, have a look at an article by mentor and friend Dr. Doug Thorpe

also have a look at friend Ty Denney's inspiring/sobering account of travels through the Middle East this month...

Jeremy spoke in class today

Hung out with an old friend last night from my Fuller days, who now has an 18 month old and not the highest paying job in the world as an admin. assistant for an admittedly cool outfit.
www.sandamianofoundation.org
he found connection with a Mennonite church in Pasadena and has been wrestling with the idea of non-violent resistance to injustice in the world, reading guys like Walter Wink. We discussed the visceral emotional response of his family and friends to this, who question his faith etc. because he is seriously wrestling with this issue. We live in a country that thinks it is chosen by God, manifest destiny and all that, therefore anything this country does is blessed or backed by God (so the theory goes). God-talk and Jesus stufff is for your private life, turning the other cheek and all that, but not so useful in affairs of state. Religion has become privatized, governing only the personal life. It seems like taking the Gospels seriously entails this: the sermon on the Mount has both personal and social/political/economic implications. This can get lost among the bake sales, vacation Bible schools and men's breakfast, promise keeping stuff of contemporary middle class churches, who sort of accept the political and economic worldwide situation, not seeing how we in America are the contemporary Roman Empire, exploiting the Third World left and right. We talked about the four immediate responses to the non-violent resistance idea: what about Hitler? (see Bonhoeffer) what if you came home from work and someone was raping your wife? what about the Old Testament?
These may be valid objections to varying degrees, but certainly none of them apply to the rich man's war on trumped up charges we're currently involved in. My friend mentioned the same day the Virginia Tech kids were shot, a suicide bomber killed 50 students in Baghdad. Both tragic, but somehow one accepts the violence from "over there" the insanity of war and the Middle East and so what if a few more brown people die. NPR read out the names of the victims in Virginia Tech on the radio, rightfully so, but are these lives more valuable than the victims in Iraq on a daily basis? Is there such a thing as an us-them? Are there only people? Only us? All children of God? Was even Hitler beyond God's grace? Is anyone? Who gets to decide? These feel like very un-American sentiments. I mentioned my experience watching three documentaries back to back to back about victimization and tragedies in Northern Uganda (my friend is headed there with his work to shoot a documentary in two weeks), child sex trade in Manila, kids trying to make it from Southern Mexico to the US ending up homosexual prostitutes in Tijuana. Are we complicit for not doing anything about it, for flipping from Desperate Housewives to in-depth discussions of Anna Nicole's varous partners. There is a different kind of smog in our country hanging overhead, and already I am so preoccupied with my own daily mundane problems, my own trivial obsessions, I have lost perspective.
Ahem, but in the midst of this discussion, we mostly just laughed a lot, which was good.
In other news Karla wants to move asap when we get married, although we probably won't make it for another year at least. For some reason, Providence came up, it's close to Boston, not too big, mild winters, close to Europe, good schools in town. We'll see how deep this rabbit hole goes. Of course, there's the whole "job" thing, but we'll see what God stitches together.
The only question remains, should I get an MFT, a PHD in English Lit., dabble in creative writing? or stay the hell away from incestuous academia altogether?