Brooklyn Trip

  It's nice every once in a while to remind myself that I can just pick up, from my routine, humdrum life, and just take off and go somewhere far-ish away.  I'm not like some people I know who have to leave the continent every time they get a few days off work (Gina), but I did leave the country.  And I convinced my over-daddying brother-in-law Mish to come along.
  My friends live in Brooklyn.  It's a nightmare to drive or park near their place.  Every time I do, I have to continually go out in the wee hours of the morning to move the car so it doesn't get ticketed, and the last twice I went there, I got ticketed both times, and got a dent in my car.  So this time, I decided to park my car (van) at my uncle's house in New Jersey, and take the train in.  I wasn't sure how practical this would be. It turned out to be very practical.
  I'd heard there was a snowstorm in that area, but being from Canada, I assumed that, given a few days, they'd have it all cleaned up.  Good thing I didn't drive down with that assumption and try to park in Brooklyn, it turned out.
  Mish and I left before lunch on Monday and drove down at a leisurely pace.  I am now up to a three-for-three record of times I've been hauled out of my car at the border and handcuffed for having the same names and birthdate (including year) as a local felon.  As always, they were scared at first (eight officers taking up position tactically along the supporting pillars) and then apologetic and embarrassed.  Mish and I celebrated our successful entry into this somewhat paranoid country by stopping to eat at a Flying J for the all-you-can-eat buffet.  I can't eat much, but I love buffets for the variety.  We arrived at my uncle's place in New Jersey in the evening when it was good and dark.  We had to walk in a surprisingly chilly cold snap to the train station a mile away.  (My uncle and aunt were in Florida, so weren't there to visit with, nor to get a ride to the station.)

  The train swept us to Penn Station in New York City, which was packed.  [This picture, like the others in this post, is grabbed from the Internet.  I couldn't be bothered taking pictures which would look just like other people's on the 'net, and Mish had his videocamera to get notable stuff on.  There was a time when I used to photograph everything, and it really detracted from my enjoyment of really being at the given place, in the moment.]  Mish and I enjoyed seeing a Tim Hortons restaurant in the concourse of Penn Station in New York, because Tim Hortons is such a Canadian-seeming thing (it's a doughnut and coffee shop named after a hockey player).

  Leaving Penn Station and going down to the subway, we were soon in the dingy, greasy, oily, grey, depressing environment that's been down there beneath New York City for I have no idea how long.  It's all grit and blackened gum ground into the dead cement.  It always makes me think of Ron Perlman as Vincent in the 80s romantic/action TV show Beauty and the Beast, in his lion-faced makeup, heroically getting around New York on the tops of subway cars.  A look at the top of any subway car reveals he'd never fit, or would leave a greasy smear all along the roof for a few miles.

  Mish and I were travelling light, especially for me, though I did bring a modified XBOX (classic) loaded with games.  We arrived and saw that we'd been very sensible not to try to park a car in Brooklyn.  Not only wasn't the snow cleared away, it had been plowed (by earth removal equipment like bulldozers and backhoes) right over all the parked cars, trapping them in snowdrifts which also contained the mostly torn-open trash bags of the uncollected week's garbage.  I saw a shiny new SUV with a snowplow attached to the front and one of those inverted cone things which one can push or put on the back of a lawn tractor to seed the lawn with, attached to the back to salt the road.  The seed-thing was red, and made of plastic.

  Mish and I arrived in time to say goodnight to the kids, hung out with Michael and Bethany, picked up some snacks and played XBOX games.  Mish and Michael got kinda fixated on Rocky: Legends.  Burnout: Revenge, Soul Calibur II and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas were also big hits, as they hadn't played these before, being dads and all.

   The next day, Mish, Michael and I set out for the city.  We had a couple of plans in mind, including seeing the Dakota hotel, in front of which John Lennon was killed (I'd read Let Me Take You Down and was anxious to put visuals to what I'd read about), and seeing the American Museum of Illustration.  We had a long, chilly walk through Central Park, and got to the Dakota and were a bit sombre, then set off for the museum.

We had a slow, careful look at the art on the walls in the Museum of Illustration.  It was a bit different from looking at art in a modern gallery, as it is very accessible, used as it tends to be for magazine covers and, well, illustrations and the like.  We were amused by the Afrodisiac comic art displayed.

 As night fell, we went on a couple of missions of mine: to revisit The Strand, reported to be "The World's Largest Used Book Store, with 18 miles of books."  I got some graphic novels and things, and a free canvas tote bag to put them in.

 

Next we saw a store called Gothic Renaissance beside one (or part of one) called either Halloween Adventure or New York Costumes.  We had fun checking out all the stuff in there.

 You never did see so many choices in top hats, bustiers, frilly black shirts, severed limbs, Roman armour, wigs, props, hats and masks.

We then hit Forbidden Planet, the city's biggest comic book store, and goggled at more stuff that we carefully didn't buy all of, and I came out with a free canvas tote bag containing two t-shirts (a "Recognizer from Tron" one, and a "Captain Marvel's nemesis Black Adam" one) for $30, because that was the sale they were having.  Then we were hungry and adjourned to the nearest authentic-looking deli-ish place we could find, which was called Silver Spurs, and was great.  Kosher pickles and corn chips made on the premises, a myriad hamburgers, all of unusual size, and a decor which was an odd mix of industrial and western.  I had a sandwich on flatbread, with deep fried cajun spiced fish filets in it, with lettuce, tomato and some really awesome tarter sauce.  The washroom had some free postcards advertising Bored to Death, which I like, but only the main character was left, and not the Ted Danson or Zack Galifianakas ones.

  We then went back to Chez Michael and Bethany, where the kids had been playing Lego Star Wars II on my XBOX (they don't have a video game system and thought the XBOX was great).  The little one went to bed and I played an hour of LSW II with the elder son, who is about 7.  Then the room mate took over babysitting the sleeping children and the lot of us packed up Michael's 100% graphite (i.e. no wood) guitar and went to his studio to check out his stuff.  A long, chilly trek later we were in a studio in an industrial part of Brooklyn.  Right next door was an Apple/iPod repair centre office, with a Bill Gates welcome mat to wipe one's feet upon.  Paintings were admired, beer was drank (in my case, Michael gave me a giant bottle of Ruination beer.  In Mish's case, a six of Pabst Blue Ribbon in cans with the plastic rings) and Michael's bargain-bin records were played.  Stevie Wonder and James Brown, along with Johnny Cash and Billy Preson were enjoyed.  Then the graphite guitar (and a second guitar which was kicking around the studio) came out and we found there was no pick.  As artists use all the margarine tubs they can find, Michael took an Exacto knife and cut a pick-shaped bit of neon green plastic out of the cap for an aerosol can of varnish and I played with that, though it was rigid and curved.  Fun was had.  Then Michael's studio neighbor Joe, who makes quirky little sculptures with motors and gears, all designed to do a bunch of whirring and clicking, and then have the outcome of all the action be something anticlimactic like a small nail tapping or something, came in and we went and looked at all of his things, which were fired up and let run all at once, affixed to the walls of his studio.  Bethany gave me a neck and shoulder massage, as my muscles there have been tensed right up since probably October.  It was amazing.

 The next day Mish and I got up late and did the whole trip in reverse, taking the subway to Penn Station, eating some awesome pizza in the concourse (mine was chicken with sour cream and mozzarella), getting a train to New Jersey (I accidentally hit the touch screen an extra time and bought three tickets, so will have an extra one to use in future, perhaps, as they don't refund them.  The machine spit out some new gold little American dollar coins as change), walking a mile from the train station to the waiting van, then driving back up, stopping at the same Flying J for a repeat of the meal we'd had two days earlier, crossing the border with no trouble and getting home late, happy to be back in our cozy little country.

Now I have a metallic gold decorated Black Adam t-shirt to wear with a black suit coat to teach in.  How tasteful and chic.

Avatard

Went to see Avatar(d) with some good friends.  It was like witnessing a head-on collision between Battleship Earth and Disney's Pocahontas, or dating the retarded love child of Fern Gully and David Lynch's Dune.  James Cameron has effortlessly out-stupided Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer in one go.  A bigger piece of shit than Armageddon and the American Godzilla combined.  The 21st century's answer to the Final Fantasy movie.
Visually stunning, of course.  But then, so would being beaten violently about the head with a brick garishly painted in day-glo colours by a blind autistic child, be.

Getting Far Too Silly With my Examples For My Grade 11 Jane Eyre Work Sheet

Sample Jane Eyre Chapter Commentary Done Well:

 

Chapter 5: Jane Takes the Children To The Park

  In chapter five, Brontë depicts Jane taking the children to Blasted Heath Park, where they have candy, fly a kite, meet Bert the sidewalk artist and have a magical adventure inside his chalk drawings.  Brontë first introduces the aforementioned Bert in this chapter.  Bert strikes the reader as charming, funny and maybe a bit of an American doing a fake British accent.  Although Jane’s conversations with the children are those of a governess or nanny speaking to children who must obey her, the most important and revealing conversation in this chapter is the one between Jane and Bert, who speak as equals.  Jane is a bit sharp and critical at first, but soon starts to flirt right back at Bert, who obviously is trying to get somewhere with Jane romantically.  This is most unquestionably seen when Bert says “I find your whimsical feminine posterior undeniably pleasant today, Miss Eyre, comfortably ensconced as it is, pleasantly residing with ghetto aplomb behind its happy panniers to the wonder of all who gaze upon you.” (Brontë 178)  In this chapter, Brontë finally reveals that Jane is secretly a man.  I predict that Bert will be revealed to be a French illusionist in need of an assistant well versed in the art of female impersonation, and the two will elope to Paris, rather like in the Dickens novel Great Expectations.

 

 

Sample Jane Eyre Chapter Commentary Done Poorly: (what is wrong with it?)

 

Jane takes them to the park

  In chapter five, Jane took them to this park, were they fly there kite and meet Bert, the sidewalk artist and went inside his chalk drawings.  First they went to a zoo, where Bert danced with the penguins.  Then they went to a café were Jane and Bert sang a song.  And they danced on the ceiling with Jane’s uncle, which they defiantly enjoyed.  Brontë introduced Bert.  Bert strikes the reader as nice.  Jane is speaking with someone her society would consider her equal, someone she has authority over, or something who has authority over her.  “I found the liver pudding to my liking, though it was perhaps not quite up to Mrs. Poole’s usual efforts.  The paté was unlike any I have had the indisputable and unique pleasure of placing within my visage, though many a tasty morsel has been thus encompassed.  As if the gustatory delights unfolded from the murky shadows of your bottomless picnic basket did not suffice, I find the company of your darling wee charges quite pleasant as well, though doubtless you and I could lead the conversation into considerably darker and deeper channels without their precious ears taking in the heated descriptions of lands far beyond their ken.  I am rough and blunt I affirm, but know that this is my accustomed manner of speaking and that I will not change it a whit for anyone.  Why mr. whipstock (I cannot find it in me to call you bert!) I ejaculated.  Is it too much to ask that you confine your wayward tongue to exploring the repast I have provided and to discourse more app8ropriate to the hearing of these little ones?  Ah, but miss eyre, you really do raise a fire within my pounding breast.  I find your whimsical feminine posterior undeniably pleasant today, miss eyre, comfortably ensconced as it is, pleasantly residing with ghetto aplomb behind its happy panniers to the wonder of all who gaze upon you. mr. whipstock I really must protest! I of course replied, with a blaze of crimson burning hotly in each cheek.  Your manly crudity is undeniably appealing to my feminine nature, though it rankles somewhat and smacks of ill breeding as well.  He lit his pipe and gazed silently upon me for a time.  Finally the day grew dim, gentle reader, and with reluctance and a rising sensation of tingly warmth in my tummy I took the children by the hands and led them homeward to Hogwarts. In this chapter, Brontë finally revealed that Jane was a man.  I beleive that Bert will be nice in the next chapter to, and indeed, threw out the hole rest of the play.

 

 

 

[If you are curious what they've been asked to do that this work is samplematic of, it is this:]

 

 

Work For Jane Eyre

For the first ten chapters, do 1-6. (numbered here for clarity.   Do not number them when handing them in.)  After chapter 10, drop the plot summaries.  After chapter 26, start doubling up chapter entries (27/28, 28/29 and so on) I will not insist that this chapter work be typed, though I prefer it unless your spelling and handwriting is that of a goddess):

 

1. Chapter Subtitle (for example “Chapter 28: Jane Buys A Motorcar”)

2. Plot Summary:  Write a one-sentence chapter plot summary.  It must be no longer than one sentence and start with the words “In chapter __, Brontë describes/reveals/depicts/has Jane/relates…” and continue in present tense.  (Use a lot of “ing”s on your verbs unless you choose “has Jane…” or “relates”.  Try out “describes,” “reveals,” “depicts” and all the others.)

3. New Characters and Settings: Address the introduction of new settings, and new characters.  If it’s new and it may matter, talk about it.  This should start with “Brontë (also) introduces ____________ [new character / setting] in this chapter.  ________ strikes the reader as ____________, _______________ and maybe a bit _______________.”  (To save work, do not introduce more than three new people per summary.  Pick the three you expect are more important.)

4. Conversations: This is the main stuff.  Take note of the most important conversation you feel Jane has in each chapter.  If you haven’t already covered the conversation in the plot summary, do a one-sentence summary of who Jane speaks with and what the conversation is about.  In a Victorian novel, chapters with no long, eloquent conversations are few and far between.  Then briefly record whether Jane is speaking with someone her society would consider her equal, someone she has authority over, or something who has authority over her.  Then concisely note whether or not Jane acts in accordance with this societal expectation: note whether Jane is honest, rude, opinionated, forceful and/or blunt and etc., or whether she is quiet, meek and/or deferential and etc. (in other words, is she bowing to authority, position or status, resisting authority, position or status, wielding authority, position or status herself, or is she speaking comfortably as to a person of equal authority, position or status.

5. Use of Quotation:  Go back and, for your choice of 1-5, and not picking the same section for every chapter, support what you have said using a quotation from the chapter itself.  You should write something along the lines of “This is (most) [clearly/obviously/tellingly/graphically/ unquestionably] seen [in the words/when Brontë writes/when [character] says] “your quotation here, with square brackets to put fix verbs and pronouns so they work well.”

6. There are about two important secrets which are revealed in the last third of the book.  When Brontë finally reveals what she has kept secret throughout the book, record this.

 

Bonus: You will demonstrate extra ability if you personalize a chapter response by adding to any one of tasks 2-6, a short statement beginning with something like “I feel..,” “This reminds me of…,”  “I predict…,” “I believe…,” “I think…,”  or something similar.

 

"Get Over It!"

A few thoughts on When Something Bad Happens To You.

(I'm getting this from what it's like to be hit in the face.  Hasn't happened for a while, and it was never my parents who did it, but I think the basics apply)

There is a bit of a delay before you realize what has happened.  Confusion, doubt, denial can happen.  In fact, the deeper the wound, or the more sudden and damaging the Bad Thing is, generally the more "shocking" it can be, in terms of you going into a bit of a state of shock and not being able to grasp what is going on and what has Just Happened.  The parade of faces shouting "Get Over It!" are expressing their own frustration alright, but they aren't doing much good at this point.  You don't even know what "It" was.

Once you realize you have been Hurt in some way, feeling hurt is a pretty natural and proper response to it.  You have been hurt, and so you feel that.  You feel betrayed if you have been, and you feel abandoned, fooled or blindsided if that happened.  There is a real tendency to retreat slightly as this point, often to recover, or to get your head together as the numbness of shock is replaced by actually feeling what happened.  There is a tendency to want to warn others that they too could be hurt like this.  There is a tendency to talk with others who have been hurt too.  The parade of faces shouting "Get Over It!" are expressing their own frustration alright, but they aren't doing much good at this point.  You are still processing what "It" was, and how exactly "It" happened, and most of all, what "It" will mean to your life now.

Once it becomes possible to live a life which deals healthily with the fact that Something Bad happened once, but which life, you decide, will from now on no longer be Only About That, resolve sets in.  You have a life, with connections and activities which are in no way related to What Happened.  If What Happened kinda "sticks with you" a bit, kinda haunts you without defining your life, you may also now have a fraction of your life which you devote to fund-raising, blogging, support group attendance (creating or running), interviews, memorials, charities, novel writing, documentary making, whatever.   The parade of faces shouting "Get Over It!" are expressing their own frustration alright, but they aren't doing much good at this point.  You have both "Gotten Over It" and "Moved On" as much as you are going to, and this is The Scar.  When we are hurt, people have to learn to get used to scars.  Scars aren't weak.  They are a tiny part of ourselves where we were once hurt, and are now tougher there than other people, so it looks weird to them. Not every scenario in life is about being tough, but in that one area in which we Were Hurt, tough is what we've got.

All Hallows Eve

I am working on "modeling" analytical writing for my grade 11s.  I want to show how to analyze normal, everyday stuff with language suitable for English class.  I want to break the cycle of using overblown, pseudo English class writing which is almost completely lacking meaning, let alone analysis.  I think I'll show them opening sequences of TV shows and have them analyze the images chosen and connect them to the nature of the show.  Here is a sample of what I will give as an example:

 

    The opening credits to the live-action 1970s television show The Incredible Hulk make no attempt to inject cheesy comic book fun into the Incredible Hulk story, but try instead to present a dramatic, action-filled story shot through with audience sympathy for the plight of David Banner, played ably by a stoic Bill Bixby.  The opening credits have Ted Cassidy of The Addams Family’s deep voice giving the Hulk’s origin story as the video tells the story over music which is at first a strident, ringing piano riff, sliding into typical 70s orchestral music which combines drama and longing.  The first image is an extreme close-up of a red flashing indicator light which reads “DANGER.”  The cropping of the image is such that, until a slight snap-zoom out, the “D” is not visible, and the light warns of “ANGER,” the emotional state which triggers Banner’s uncontrollable transformation into the destructive, berserk green monster.  The opening credits provide a quick recap of the scientific process which inflicted this condition upon Banner, with quick cuts of the machines responsible, some x-rays and medical images, the transformation into the Hulk, and some fire and explosions to show how destructive the monster is, as well as a shot of Banner standing by his own gravestone to show that he now has no place in society.  A shot of Banner warning an investigative reporter away, with the now-famous, amusingly understated, “Mr. McGee, don’t make me angry.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” is included to introduce new viewers to the investigative reporter character who is used to require Banner to keep on the move and drive the story forward each week.  The montage ends with a paused split-screen image which combines one side of Banner’s troubled face with the unbridled fury of the Hulk’s own rage-contorted visage completing the image.  The origins of the character (a comic-book combo of horror-classic Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) are seen in this quite clearly. In fitting book-end symmetry, the beginning and end of each episode depicts David Banner, with a forlorn knapsack containing his meagre worldly possessions, trudging off by himself to the strains of a tear-jerking piano piece entitled “The Lonely Man.”

Today the intention was to go into the city to buy a new classroom TV from a pawn shop.  My classroom TV is nice to have, but is quite small.  I decided, on the off chance that the local, always-about-to-be-shut-down, rarely open pawn shop was open, that I'd call.  They were open until 3pm on a Saturday, so I went.  

Their TVs were disappointingly expensive, and really, none were very big.  In fact, they were all about the right size to put under your arm and climb back out a broken window with.  I was going to unhappily buy a medium sized Sony which had clearly been dropped, when I saw something up on a shelf with the radios.  It was a PC projector, which every classroom needs, and for only $200.  I got it.  Now I can project anything I can put on a computer, DVD player or VCR onto the wall, large as all outdoors.  I got waylaid by a BB gun scope which will be perfect for my replica of Han Solo's blaster from Star Wars ANH, and Rock Band 2 for Playstation 2.  I picked up those too, and took them to my parents' house.  When I have just been paid, I can really just wander around of a Saturday, bleeding money.

My sister was doing OK, though she's still undergoing tests to see why her heart rate goes through the roof when she exerts herself even slightly.  She's never tried singing into a game, so I just hooked up the microphone to their PS2, and she and I sang a bunch of the songs, collaborating to open up the new ones.  It was nice, because it got her out of the doldrums, and "into" something without feeling sick, and it was almost creative, somewhat emotive and we worked together.

The kids were quite excited about trick or treating, and we took them to the neighbors, who never get many kids, so make extra nice gift bags with toy dinosaurs and crayons and things besides all the candy.  My nephew was terrified at first, but soon got the idea that if he eagerly went into or up to houses, he'd get candy.  Then he wanted to go straight in and leave immediately as it was handed to him, without looking at the friendly adults who wanted to coo over his parrot suit.

Still...

I realize that working in a high school with teens all day rubs off on you. I realize that when you coach the Reach for the Top team (like a Jeopardy game played between schools) and some of the kids, though staggeringly well-informed, always start giggling hysterically when the answer to a question is something like "Joey Smallwood," and then kids just have to whisper "Small. Wood." to keep the giggles from dying down, that it tends to make you more juvenile. Still, when someone on Facebook is going on about truly loving a dear old hymn, and how the "praise" just wells up inside them until they are swelling with it, and how they loved it when they slowed the tempo and the HUGE organ just let all that burst out to soar skyward, I know that they are expressing a serious, personal, orgiastic (ha) religious experience. Why, then, am I thinking "Heh heh. He said HUGE organ." Juvenile.

Obeying Divisiveness

  The things discussed in the bible in the four gospels happened inside Judaism.  Judaism was everywhere, but when Jesus of Nazareth came, he had to "call people out" of it in order to get anything done.  The religious practice around him was all very religious, it was all very traditional and orthodox, but it simply didn't work, had lost touch with what it had once been, and didn't lead anywhere.  It was perpetually looking back and analyzing itself without connecting God and man.  When people spoke of God or of the Old Testament scriptures in Jesus' time, they became more and more abstracted, more and more apt to share what the traditional views and teachings on interpreting these things were, and what some alternatives might be.  Each teacher shared what had been handed down, respectfully, from generation to generation.  

  The original work was about God dealing with people.  Added to it were more and more layers of interpretation, extrapolation and speculation, until the original was more or less buried.  Learning about God or the bible in that day was learning what scholars and religious men thought.

  Jesus taught under his own authority, rather than addressing interpretations at all.  He took scriptures and raised questions with them instead of giving all answers, and what these scriptures might encourage people to DO, a second component altogether more troubling and interesting for anyone approaching the scriptures.

  So Jesus was dealing with Jewish people, but he was calling them out from the orthodoxy, the assumptions, the interpretations and traditions.  He didn't generally speak in synagogues or places set aside for endless religious discussion.  He gave love a new importance in spirituality.  He encouraged his disciples to forgive people, told them that the measure by which they were forgiving of others was the measure by which God was forgiving of them, and encouraged people to remember that God doesn't owe us things, and we don't earn favours from Him.  We ask Him for things because we think of Him as our Father, and fathers give children things.  It's not about a paycheck or a black belt, earned after hard work.  It's about His generosity (what can also be called His grace).

  Jesus instructs Jews and a few gentiles about how the "kingdom of heaven" works.  He wasn't talking about a place called Heaven, he was talking about what we might today term "God's system of running things and living."  Many of his sentences started with "the kingdom of heaven is like" and he was saying "God's system of running things and way for people to live works like this" rather than "Up in heaven, it's like this."

  God's system involved an end to selfish, jealous, judgmental greedy meanness and spite.  Humans at their worst are frightened, arrogant grabby creatures, thoughtlessly living lives characterized by all of these vices.  Humans who are in touch with God, and who grasp that they were created (designed, formed) in God's own image show His generosity, His unshakeable convictions about people He loves, His forthrightness, His unending creativity, His unwillingness to judge, and His ability to forgive.

  Jesus was here to remind humans what God was like, Who He was, and what a human being living according to God's way of doing things would be like to live around.  Every time Jesus encountered judgmental religious figures, purported to speak for God, he'd have to say "No.  Not like those guys.  These guys aren't helping.  They're fake.  They're transparently jealous, spiteful and vindictive.  The kingdom of heaven is like THIS:" and then he'd probably give an example in the form of a story or analogy.  He quoted old testament scripture not so people would think he was right (correct, traditional, orthodox, scriptural) but rather, because he knew those scriptures had worth in them, and points of their own worth pondering.  He mined them for these points, rather than using them to support his own.

  When Jesus has left the earth and gone to "prepare a place for" his people down here, a system is set up.  It involves human beings using him as a way to become reconciled with God, to be accepted and adopted by God under the umbrella of the acceptance that Jesus, as a human being, had won the hard way.  It involves human beings doing things the "kingdom of Heaven" way, rather than the traditional, orthodox, flawed, all-too-human way.  Mainly, it was to be characterized by deference, unity, sincerity, helpfulness, grace, love and peace.  Because the world needs that.  It always has.

  It wasn't easy.  The apostles wrote things, trying to help the growing groups of Christians not fall into merely creating a "Christian" system of men which was just as ineffectual as the traditional Jewish one had been.  Great care was taken to try to stop these new Jewish Christians from becoming religiously oppressive and intolerant of others, to keep them from repeatedly turning their backs on each other and splitting into warring factions competing for power and followers.  Many letters were written telling these people that, if they hated their fellow man, they couldn't claim to be Christians, that they were to defer, to submit, to tolerate, to be considerate of and long-suffering to their brothers, that they were to be united.  Jesus had audibly prayed to His Father that these people would be one in exactly the same way he and his Father were.

  The apostles set up leaders to shepherd people, to kindly help new converts not think Christianity was about rules, about lifestyle or dietary abstinence, not about Jewish traditions like circumcision or not eating pork, not about competitive piety.  The Christians were to defer to one another and to these figures as well.

  But things went very wrong.  Eventually, the leaders were no longer shepherding new converts into paths of unity, tolerance, long-suffering grace and generosity.  Eventually, factions and divisions and spiteful religious spats were happening.  Leaders were fighting each other and demanding supporters.  Paul the apostle wrote of the people getting pulled into this (often by their own zealotry about what was "correct" or "scriptural," yet ironically acting horribly and unscripturally in trying to fix things they felt horrible or unscriptural).  Some said "I am on Paul's side in this argument" and others said "I am with Apollos.  I think he's right." Others said "I am on Jesus' side.  What we're doing is what he wants and the rest of you are wrong."

  These people were missing the point.  Christianity is about unity and tolerance.  It remains unspotted by incorrect teaching because its teaching is strong and has a clear sense and identity so long as no one is watering it down or subverting it in order to pursue their own agenda.  The teaching says not to be judgmental.  Too many Christians did things like judge someone to be judgmental, and then decide to punish the judgmental person and anyone who sided with her, demanding that everyone be obedient to their power and right to judge judgmental people to be judgmental and punish them once sentence had been handed down.  Nonsense had been made of sense.  Stupidity was being used to defend against it ever taking hold again.

  As we go through history, we find the Christian community increasingly divided up into groups which not only are not united, but who, at various points in time, have had members of other Christian groups punished, tortured and killed.  We had the Inquisition.  We find people who call themselves Christians going off "in the name of God" to kill every Jew and Muslim they can find, seeking to send them to Hell, rather than teach them about Jesus.  There was no longer any Christian teaching which had seductive power, which worked, which people wanted to try.  Now there were traditions, interpretations and systems which threatened anyone who wasn't orthodox.

  Every year nowadays, some Christian church or other at some point on the globe has a "split."  We know that there are Methodist churches, and Free Methodist ones.  We know there are Presbyterian churches, and Reformed Presbyterian ones.  The groups divide and redivide and subdivide, like little after-explosions popping all over the globe.  The point of Christianity (tolerance, acceptance, love, unity, long-suffering spirit, grace, forgiveness and so on) seems lost.  Men stand up and preach that the government, or the President, or the church down the road, or a character on TV, anyone, really, is The Enemy and to be feared and opposed.  Christians stand for nothing besides taking stands against people and things.  They'll stop at nothing, so they certainly aren't stopping just because of anything Jesus said.

  This is a mess.  I'm often accused of "just being negative," and "generalizing my own experience of a divided group until I think that all of Western Christianity is like that."  I think I'm seeing something real, though.  Something problematic.  I see traditions, interpretations and questions of who should be the religious authority figures, how much power should they have, and the like, taking up all the head-time and heart-time of the Christians I meet.  Each time someone finds out I'm a Christian, they always ask "What church do you go to?" to establish what my allegiance is, what stand I take and who I side with in this ceaseless global display of disagreement and disunity.

  I tell them I don't go to a church.  Atheists, Satanist, pagans and Christians alike agree: you can't be a Christian and just not go to a church!  What is the defining characteristic of a Christian?  Why, church attendance, of course!  And which church one picks, and which ones one doesn't is of vital importance.  Otherwise, the brainwashing will wear off.

  I grew up going to a church.  I was taught to obey the authority there.  Not only obey them, but in a very Winston Smith way, to try never to think, feel or want anything the authority system wouldn't understand or approve of.  The word "brainwashing" refers to the process of taking a person with a presumably "normal" mind and doing things with it to manipulate the person and break or reshape his will.  There aren't as many, or as good, words to describe being born into a system designed to break and shape wills, to grow up with a brain which was never allowed to grow normally, tearing itself apart inside from the strain of trying to fit into that unnatural shape, and then finally breaking free of its moorings to lurch drunkenly into the world, a stunted, misshapen dwarf of a psyche trying to stand upright on crippled feet, not knowing how to do anything other than judge everyone and everything as a sole means of interaction.

 I obeyed this system until I was an adult.  I didn't have a TV.  I didn't go to the movies, swear, smoke cigarettes, dance or embrace popular music.  I was told I had to attend the street address the church occupied, and that five times a week, plus youth group activities.  I did all of this.  I was told that it wasn't right to attend any other Christian group's functions, because they weren't correct or pleasing God the way we were.

  Then there was a split in my group.  Suddenly half of the people who'd been telling me where I had to attend, and that I had to attend stopped attending there and went somewhere else and wanted me to go "have to attend" there with them in their new place of disobedience to the authority figures in the place I was in.  I decided to obey the ones who said I had to stay, rather than the ones who said I had to go with them.  Eventually, my thinking became so unorthodox (this happened, the more I took an interest in what Jesus said and did, and talked to a broader and broader circle of people about that stuff) that they decided to kick me out, and they did.

  Now I am told that, as a Christian, the "problem" people have with me is that I am "not integrated into the Christian Community," and that I am "not under the authority of any church system."  Well, I can tell you that going to one segregated church does not integrate one into our divided, shattered Christian Community.  It doesn't even necessarily integrate you into that individual church, especially if you're judged to be growing steadily unorthodox.  So, I meet up with Christians in groups of two or three of us.  We talk and I see how much connection and openness can ensue.  I find that people tend to reserve connection and openness for their immediate families only, though they tend to claim to connect with others at their church.  And then they marvel over how much warmer, more sincere, and connected they feel to people they are typing to on an Internet forum or something.  I find that Christians in general grow up holding themselves back, keeping themselves in reserve, not connecting wholly, trying to show a pure image which they've concocted, or at the very least a "censored" version of their heart to others.  This is a judgment, yeah.  It's also just me voicing frustration about not being able to connect.  That's real.  I wish I knew who all the Christians around here were, and had some sort of passing acquaintanceship with them all.  We're not like that, though. We separate so we can avoid dealing with people who are different from us, especially in matters of professed doctrine or styles of worship.  I don't think that's going to cut it when God asks "Why didn't you all hang out and get along?"  I don't think we can just say "Well, I wasn't too into these guys' worship style, so I never spoke to them or bothered introducing myself" or "Well, they didn't come to our church, so what else could we do....?"  We gotta pull our heads out of our churches and see the light of day.

  I have no idea how to "put myself under the authority" of "Christian leaders" in my "area."  They all disagree and would give contradictory orders, particularly about the main point of where I should even show up to hear what my orders are.  No matter what I do in terms of meeting up with Christians and talking with them about Christ, no matter what I do, the message is the same a) that doesn't count because b) it's not what we think of when we think "church"

  I don't think what goes on in churches is anything like what went on when the apostles were writing.  I know that the apostles never wrote separate letters to warring factions, accepting schism as a means of dealing with Christians you disagreed with, nor did they write to one faction to show their support for one side over the other.  I know that apostles did not divide among themselves and take followers away from each other.  I know that apostles did not ever teach Christians to cut other Christians off and stop having dealings with them.  I know that apostles did not appoint elders in one church, and also separate ones in an unaffiliated one down the street, and tell the local Christians to "just pick one and be subject to it, unless you think it's unorthodox and unscriptural, in which case ignore their authority and go somewhere else and be subject there until you catch them being unscriptural as well."  That's all nonsense.  What's going on is nonsensical.  I can taste it.

  So, I find a gulf between me and many other Christians.  When asked "Are you doing what the apostle Paul said to do?" most will say "Yeah."  I will say "I don't know how one does it anymore.  I do what I can, and it doesn't involve church membership, because I'm certain that's nothing he'd have had anything to do with."  That's not good enough for most.  And the more like Jesus I try to act, the more tempted Christian people are to nail me to something.