I was doing a Christian meditation. I often will do a mediation that has nothing to do with any religion but every once in awhile I like to go back to my own traditions and heritage. At the end of the meditation of silence the narrator came back on and said to recite the Nicean Creed. I didn't and knew I couldn't because I don't beleive that God is going to burn people up and cast people away from him based on whether they recite the sinners prayer. I also don't believe a physical body will be knit back together and DNA and bones rejoined in a physcial ressurection. I also can't say that I believe virgins have children. So, I had to remain respectfully quiet through the creed and then end the meditation.
But, then I came across a post on facebook from a near death survivor. He linked to a young woman singing "It is Well." Here is the link if you are curious. They do an awesome job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNqo4Un2uZI
It took me back to my day's of worship at the Gadsden Vinyard Church from the late 80's and early 90's. I realized that although I may not still share the dogma I still have my faith. I miss Communion and I miss worship. Not because I think that God is a meglo mainiac sitting on a throne encouraging people to heap praise and bow and scrape for his favor. But, because I miss the feeling of being in the midst of something bigger than myself and tapping into the power and uncondional love of that something/someone.
It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men. ...C.S. Lewis
So, when we really find a source of worship it's the way God communicates his presence to us. Which lifts us up. Back when I was a practicing Christian it was this back and forth that I loved so much in the worship of God. I was getting so much attention from God through worship. So, it wasn't like I was heaping praise on a meglo maniac. I was reieing something that would carry me through the whole week. That's what I miss. Not the "I am but a worm" type sacntimounisous b.s. of the fundamentist. But, the feeling that I am known to the source of all creation.
I don't believe much in religion anymore. I also don't beleive the world is meaningless and I'm not into the cold sterile athiethism that would reduce all the people and actually all the creatures that have come before into nothing. but a brain fart.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
I'm a Baby Boomer but a later one. Born at the end of the so called Baby Boom. I don't remember Buddy Holly or the Big Bopper and I was really young when the Beatles were a thing. I think my first real exposure to Rock and Roll was when I was in Junior High. That's what we called middle school back in the dark ages.
My sister had a childhood friend named Tonya. She was a friend to both of us growing up and honestly it was as if we had known each other in a past life. It just seemed like we had always known each other. Even years later when I would see Tonya it was like seeing a long lost sister. Hard to explain but on the other hand I came to the concept of past lives in a two steps forward one step back pattern. I was not born into a culture that accepted such things and even now I'm not trying to convince anyone that reincarnation is a thing. I suspect that it is but I don't have any urgent need to convince anybody. Reincarnation might be like evolution. It just happens and doesn't really rely on how many people agree that it happens.
But, this isn't about what I believe as far as the reason for existence. I suspect that the reason for being here is much deeper and wonderful than any short sermon or dogmatic apologetic. This is more about pop culture and the things that are fun or make life a little more interesting during this short furious race into the infinite distance.
So, I was in General Forrest Junior High in Gadsden, Alabama and I think "Badfinger" was being played on the sound system in what was then the "new gym." My childhood friend Tonya was on the other side of the gym and for some reason during that song she seemed a little cooler and a little more interesting to my young eyes. The power of rock and roll.
My mother sang and my step dad played the guitar and Country/Western was the music that blared in my childhood. Not today's Taylor Swift or Luke Bryan lukewarm piss that they call country. No, I'm talking Loretta Lynn and George Jones and Meryl Haggard and Dolly Parton and Porter Wagner and Buck Owens. Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. But, full disclosure. I hated country growing up. It was my mother's music so for me Rock was king. I have since come to really appreciate the music and the ability to tell a story that Hank Williams had. Listen to an early cut of "Faded Love" by Patsy Cline. Right at the end of the song Patsy has a little hitch in her voice. A held back sob. I read where that was real y'all. That's soulful. She put her heart into it. She was singing to somebody that she pictured in her head. It wasn't just a plastic performance. How can you not respect that? Here is a reference to it from another site:
I've read on the internet (It must be true.... right?) where at the end of this version of "Faded Love" that you can actually here Patsy Cline's voice quiver because she started crying.
But, for me the steady driving force of "Slow Ride" by Foghat and the beery nights of listening to Skynard singing "Whiskey Rock and Roller" along with hearing Styx or Queen was the stuff. God help me I thought "Destroyer" by KISS was brilliant back in the day. Doesn't hold up well. But, then again these day's I'm not 18 and full of teen age angst and Pony Miller beers either.
I think one of the best parts of youth was the sheer innocence and passion of being young. It was also what made it hell for me. The Eagles wrote the soundtrack of my youth and this was while not a top forty radio song was one of my favorites. Seemed to symbolize those day's for me.
Movies have always seemed to be bigger than life to me. We had a neighborhood drive in when I was growing up called the Rebel Drive In. They would have dusk till Dawn marathons of old Dracula movies with Chrstopher Lee and other horror shows with Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. I was in the back seat of the family car with popcorn and hotdogs and watched in gleeful horror as Dracula turned to dust in the sunlight. His body decomposing right before my child's eyes in living color. I saw the bosomy chest heaving "Brides of Draccula" as they tore the throat out of an unsuspecting poor slob in the lower levels of the castle. But, on the other hand "what a way to go."
I think the horror movie that scared me the most was an old black and white movie called "The Haunting" by Shirley Jackson. The book not the movie was by Shirley Jackson. But you know what I mean. I have a little Halloween tradition in that every few years on Halloween I will pull this movie out and watch it again. It still holds up after all these years. Still scary and still you never see the ghost it's mostly psychological but so laden with atmosphere and you can feel the terror and the dread of the characters.
I really think the best movies take you out of your everyday life for an hour or two or three and it you still think about them years later then they must have worked on some level. The following movie was already an older movie by the time I saw it at the drive in as a kid. But, back then at about six years old or a little older this was etched into my brain. Thanks Mom. No, really thanks. I love horror.
