Claws and Teeth

  When I was a little feller, we had a cat named Freddy.  I was taught that there was a God who'd designed the world, and people and cats and dogs and things like that.  (if you weren't raised that way, just imagine I said "evolution" instead of God in that sentence, if it makes you feel better)  I was fascinated with Freddy.  He was a large black cat with short soft fur, and he liked hunting.  And sleeping curled up in the bathroom sink basin on hot nights.

  So, I was basing my view of "What kind of worker is God anyway?  What stuff does He like to make?" upon His work in having made a three-year old's pet cat.  I was amazed at how quick and agile Freddy was, how he could hide in any room he felt like and you really, really couldn't find him, how he could end up on top of bookshelves and the like, sitting primly far above where I could reach.  And the way he could just ask to leave the house in the middle of the night and they'd let him go uptown on his own, and despite traffic and children and who knows what, he'd come back, often having killed and eaten something.  One time he killed a rabbit about as big as he was, and ate as much of it as he could and lay around blissfully for days with a bloated stomach. I was terribly impressed.  I certainly would not have been able to catch a rabbit, let alone kill it.

  My parents always had time for me, and always had to look after my needs when I was a toddler, but the cat was different.  If he got sick of us, he'd just hide where we couldn't find him, or simply leave and go uptown.  And one time he did something I was not prepared for; I was petting him more than he wanted, he tried to leave and I tried to pick him up, and he scratched my arm so that it bled.  Point made.

  I had to think about that one.  God made this warm, purring, fuzzy, acrobatic creature.  And He gave him teeth and claws enough to really hurt me.  And the more I got to know him, the more he seemed like a being designed purely to track motion and kill things.  All of his playing with yarn and balls of paper and sneaking around and pouncing on things seemed more like killing practice.  It was also clear that he found a deep and abiding satisfaction in using his teeth and claws on things.  That game he played where he'd grab hold of my teddy bear with his front claws hooked deeply into it to secure it while he raked it with his hind claws?  That was just practice for grabbing hold of struggling prey while he tore its guts open with his hind claws. (we had a German Shepherd too.  I didn't learn a thing about violence from her, though, as she was nothing but motherly to me)

  The thing about this was, all of this made him much more, rather than less, cool.  It meant when he jumped up on the bed purring, and wanting to rub his cheek scent all over me, he was in THAT mood, and when he wanted to go kill something, he was in THAT mood.  It meant when he was being nice, he was choosing that, and he had two sides to him.  Not like a Care Bear.  Not like the Jesus they told us about in Sunday School.  (He was described as being gentle, meek and mild and loving children.  Bit of a prat, really.  Samson was cooler.)

  Of course I learned that real people had two sides too.  My dad could hug me, but could also shout and hit and break stuff.  Made his kindness mean something.  And even socially, people were like that too. Compliments and generosity sometimes, slights and sarcasm at other times.  Dumb kids just thought that angry adults were mean.  I entertained the notion that losing one's temper was part of being a real person.

  Weird thing I saw: some people wanted to get hairless cats their kids couldn't be allergic to, get their claws and reproductive organs surgically removed, and then not let them out of the house, so they'd be "safe."  (Same thing with their cats.  For a few decades, vets have been routinely prescribing Prozac for cats who seem dissatisfied with their lot in life.  Any thoughts on reasons why?)  This just didn't seem right to me.  We wouldn't remove a baby's vocal chords to quiet it, would we?

  When I went to university and studied William Blake's poetry, he had a pair of poems that talked about "what kind of God would make a tiger, anyway?!"  They were in a book called Songs of Innocence and Experience.  The first one is about how nice and harmless and cuddly and innocent a thing a lamb really is:

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

  Now THIS was Sunday School stuff.  "Thank You God For Making Peanut Butter!" and so on.  God is nice.  He's our Pal.  The lamb is nice.  God is nice.  I didn't like that poem one bit.  The Tiger poem, on the other hand, is quite a bit different:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?


And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?


Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

  Now that kind of thing wasn't really talked about in Sunday School.  Sounded a bit like Lord of the Rings stuff, actually, in places.  We were told not to listen to heavy metal music (the lyrics of which sounded quite like that) also.  And the thing is, we thought all that stuff was cool.  Fire?  Spears?  Hammers?  Chains?  Monsters in the night?  AWEsome!  And there were huge parts of the bible devoted to slaughter, whores, blood, fire and mythic creatures with teeth and claws.  We coloured pictures of peanut butter and letters which said "Thank You God For Making Peanut Butter!" instead, thereby learning the necessity of putting an exclamation point after every religious pronouncement!

  They didn't teach us kids that cool heavy metal, Lord of the Rings bible stuff.  And, unsurprisingly, when some of the kids lost siblings in snowmobile or car accidents, or to cancer, and when kids lost parents, the "lambs are nice/thank you god for making peanut butter!" faith they'd been given was manifestly not adequate to deal with the shake up their world views were going through.

  And I've been to churches that have a Sunday morning service that's almost all about "God's our Pal!  We sure looooooooove Him!" I've been to churches that tell the story of Jesus without one harsh, revolutionary, judgemental word spoken by the man, and no blood, no death, and no pain.  Or they skim uncomfortably over those bits so they can get back to singing "We sure looooooooove Him!" songs without being brought down too much, like a bunch of khaki pant and golf shirt wearing Care Bears, swaying with their kids in time to the cheerful stuff.  

  The world God made (or "evolution" if that makes you feel more comfortable) and the people and things in it, it turns out, have claws and teeth.  (Of course there are lambs too.  And peanut butter.  And if you can avoid getting kicked by their sharp, hard little hooves, you can hold lambs and stroke them.  If you don't mind getting mud and lamb shit on your khaki pants) 

The Whys Have It

  (Note: after writing this blog entry, I wrote and quickly, sloppily recorded this song)

  There's been a lifelong progression as to why the sacrifices in my life were being made.  When I was a kid, I kinda had these things sacrificed for me (I had no say in the matter and was punished every time I expressed any interest in not making these sacrifices meekly and without question):

-the 80s pretty much as a decade
-being part of Canadian culture and my age group

-trying to be fashionable or cool

-expressing myself by my hairstyle and clothing choices

-all forms of entertainment and pop culture (including the music, television and movies of the time)

-dating girls who didn't go to our church

-alcohol

-smoking

-gambling

-voting 

-slangy, fashionable, vulgar or overly colourful language

-emotional expression in most of its forms

-discontent, questioning, defiance, dissent 

-any Christian replacements for pop music or videos or the like 

  Now, that may not seem like much (and I've never learned what the appeal of smoking, gambling or voting is at all), but what making these sacrifices does is it leaves you cut off from the culture and world going on around you.  The question always was "Why is all of this being sacrificed?  You seem deeply unhappy and your life is extremely lonely, boring, empty, pointless and depressing.  So, why?"

  To begin with, the answers were as follows:

-because God requires this

-because you will be rewarded for these sacrifices when you get to heaven

-because our church is the only right one, and you need to live like this to be a part of the Only Right Church

-because God will only bless you (add success into your life) if you make these sacrifices

-because God does not bless people who don't make these sacrifices

-because good people make these sacrifices

-because you're better than "all of that stuff"

-because you can hold a position of responsibility and respect one day in your church if you do

  Well, it turns out that as far as I can tell, God didn't want all of that.  I think this neo-pharisee, nouveau puritan lifestyle was actually sinful, self-indulgent and excessive, and something I have to get over on earth, rather than being rewarded/reimbursed for in heaven.  All abstinences are by definition immoderate.  Our church was wrong about many things, including about them being The Only Right One.  Also, despite making these sacrifices, I was never really a part of that church, and many people who did not really make these sacrifices at all were and are part of it to this day.  Things have changed.  Also, they now hold positions of responsibility and respect sufficient to involve excommunicating my whole family for not supporting their authority to excommunicate others, then they can enjoy going home and having a beer in front of the TV.  I have met many good people who do not make sacrifices of these kinds.  They are generally more joyful and healthy.  I was not better than "that stuff."  I was a religious prick.  As the years have gone by, I've seen God bless screwups and sinners, addicts and assholes of every stripe but a religious one.  Jesus treated religious people completely differently from how he treated everyone else.  And God has not blessed any of that sacrifice-making.  He has asked me to repent of the piety of it.   It wasn't just all for nothing.  It was actually misguided, life-damaging and bad.   And it wasn't just the What.  The Whys were all wrong too, it turns out.  Often, that's more important.

Harold Camping: The Boy Who Cried Rapture

  I'm of too many minds about all of this.  I know what it's like to grow up and believe there would be a rapture coming soon.  I know what it's like to have the advent of 1984, 1986, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2011 and 2012 greeted by all the crazy prophecy talk:

JIM: Did you see the paper?  Ships of shittim in the Gulf.  Like Mr. Lunden said there'd be.  The abomination of desolation in the temple.

MORT: Yes. The Lord is so good.  The Roman Beast.  The third horn and Lybia.  We know it's Ghadaffi, now that Hussein's out of the picture..

JIM: Yes, and Cyprus.  Hitler, too.  A grievous head wound of which he is healed.  The woman riding the scarlet beast.  Like in "No King But Caesar"

MORT: The Roman beast and the church in Rome.  CNN and Fox News.  The two witnesses.  Three days and creatures like scorpions with the hair of women.

JIM: Well, Babylon, anyway.  With the sixth seal and the fourth woe and the angel being told to write down the measurements.  Cubits upon cubits.  Seven plus eleven is 19 in Greek.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem.

MORT: And Obama playing right into Daniel 4.  With the four and the seven and the three.  Which add up to twenty in Hebrew numerology, which spells "LORD" in Greek numero-linguistic glyphs.

JIM: Yes.  How wonderful it is to know the Lord.  Not like that Jack Van Impe with his ignorant misuse of scripture!

MORT: Oh, certainly.  How sad it would be to be like the Baptists and be deaf to the clear teaching of the word of God regarding the false prophets and teachers!

JIM: Yes!  It's SO clear!  I just don't understand why everyone can't see it.  They must have their hearts hardened against it so they might not believe. 

I grew up surrounded by that talk.  By people who forbid us watching Star Wars or Ghostbusters because they delved into the occult.   My house was full of it.  So much so that on May 21st, it really made me antsy.  Superstitious.  Very divided in my thinking and feeling.  In 1984, 1986, 1992 and all the rest, it was just weird-to-others-but-normal-to-us stuff that people did in our houses, but almost no one much even knew about it, let alone cared.  The majority of the people in our churches had no idea about and placed no emphasis on this stuff if it didn't interest them.  They just thought that people who were "into that" were pretty smart.  For most, it was not an important part of their faith.  My dad was into it for a good while.  It attracts people who need there to be a clear right answer to everything, and to be someone who knows it.
  People in general are very interested in how the world might/could/probably will end lately.  The Mayan calendar.  Zombie apocalypses.  (Ships of shittim in the Gulf.  Like Mr. Lunden said there'd be. Two twos, which add up to five in newspeak.)  It's fun to imagine the end of the world.
  For the past two years, I've been added on Facebook by many followers of Harold Camping.  He's another one of these old dudes vivisecting the bible and trying to use it like it's a word problem in grade 10 algebra, but he's also an old dude with a 122 million dollar radio station and many thousands of followers who sell their stuff because the end is nigh, and give him all their money.  Their thinking never made sense to me.  But it sounded terribly familiar.  Human pattern-making gone mad.  Projecting personal issues onto text.
  Some Christians believe you get in God's good books by believing.  Some believe you do it by devoted following of a Christian lifestyle.  Some believe you need confession and priests and stuff.  Some believe you do it by having correct teaching and not believing anything false. Some believe you do it by careful, dutiful association with and submission to a community of Christians who form what they call a "church."  Many just think "I'm not such a bad guy.  God's going to tell St. Peter to let me in."
  But Christians who seem to me to be connected in some way with the bible feel it says this: 

God was making dinner, and humans were supposed to get to help, but were convinced to believe that putting dogshit from the lawn into the casserole wouldn't ruin it and make it harmful to eat, and then God became a human to show how being human is meant to be done (people are wrong, but don't judge them; people change, and let them; people learn and help them; people mess with you, but don't start a war).  It's almost like being in a group in school, and Jesus is in your group, and because of his exemplary work, you get to share his mark/grade.  So long as you say "I'm with him.  This is the work our group did."  If you say "I don't want to be in Jesus' group anymore.  I think his work sucks.  I'm handing in my own crayon diagram of a newly-redesigned nuclear power plant instead of his (I know his Dad invented the nuclear power plant, but who cares, right?)" then that's suddenly more of a problem as to what mark you get.

  So, the idea that:
God wanted things to go well, people tend to screw it all up, and that God works well with screwups and likes them, and helps us, and if we accept the help rather than saying "No, I'm OK. Leave me alone.  I haven't been shot, that's...a pimple.  I don't need an ambulance", then He's got us covered, things will be fine?  

Used to that idea.  Christians are sharply divided into two groups on one particular matter, though: will some people not benefit from God's bailout plan?  

-Some think that anyone who chooses to go with it (and they frequently make an idol out of their own capacity for, and past wonderful, mystic Choice For God) will be fine.  

-Others think that God chose who would be able to hear this message from the beginning, and so when people learn about it, if they have been helped to be able to hear, they will hear (and God knew who'd be able to hear, and worked in them to help them hear) and if they can't hear stuff like that, it's like planting a seed on the sidewalk.

  So, the Campingites were being interesting on Facebook this year. They were really stressing the idea that, if God has worked in you, you can't do a damned thing to avoid being damned, because you were already looked after and will be fine.  But then (and this is what confused me) they sort of claimed they were the only ones in the world Christian enough to know the day and the hour that Christ would return to earth to take with him the only people who God had worked in, who would be saved from the (zombie) apocalypse. 

 And then, they kept going on about how everyone should beg God's mercy.  "Why beg His mercy?" I would ask.  "If He's already worked with you, and you're set, why the grovelling and fear and stuff?"

 Their answers never made sense to me.  They said that begging God's mercy if He hadn't been working with you wouldn't do a damned thing for already-damned people.  They said that begging God's mercy if He had been working with you wouldn't do a damned thing to already-saved people.  And then it seemed that the begging (and the warning others to beg) seemed to be their favourite thing to do all the time, and the only relationship with God they ever spoke of. 

 I would ask them exactly where the peace (or joy or serenity or contentment or the other stuff God claims to have sent Christ to give Christians) was in their view.  They'd dismiss me in ways that made no sense and tell me to beg for mercy.  Because begging was the "only appropriate response to the situation" they'd say.

  They did signs and billboards and vans and radio and TV.  They were on CNN and Fox.  They seemed to feel that God would choose not to help the majority of the world's population, but then have the minority saved group "warn" the others that there was no hope for them, and to beg (fruitlessly) for God's mercy, though He'd chosen from before the foundation of the earth not to show them any.  Made no sense to me.

  And here was the weirdest thing: I grew up with the secret embarrassment of knowing approximately how weird parts of our religious belief would sound to "regular" people.  I grew up taking comfort in the fact that, apart from a few curious question-askers and people who studied theology professionally, no one was paying any attention.  And just like with Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, suddenly the entire Internet, radio and TV network lit up worldwide this week, looking on and laughing at people who spoke uncomfortably like how people did in my house.  I was in Subway (restaurant) with a musician I was doing final mixes for, and a veterinarian who also does music production work with her, getting a late supper, and the DJ on the radio was flipping out with boyish delight at how stoopid the rapture people were.  It was quite like being pantsed before the world.

  And it really further complicated the whole messy science vs. religion nonsense (You know, the bigotry which feels that there're no scientists who are informedly religious, and no religious people who are good scientists.  No good, live injuns.): 

"What's your religion?"

"Oh, I don't have any religion.  It's all bullshit."

"So, you have no beliefs as to how we came to be, where we came from, where we're going, how the world will end, what human existence is in aid of, how humans should act, any of that?"

"Oh, yeah!  I have all that.  But I don't just have beliefs... I have FACTS!  You know?  Not like religious freaks. They're all dogmatic and closed-minded to what's REALLY going on!"

"So, you believe in the modern grab bag of misheard high school chemistry, Dr. Phil relational dynamics, Oprah ethics and National Inquirer/New Age/herbs/gluten-free superstition?"

"No.  I don't believe. I KNOW!  Not like religious people who just believe what the bible says."

"How do you know what to believe?"

"I don't believe, I know.  I already told you that.  I know because the bible... I mean, because a recent survey I read about on the Internet by some guy, I forget who, said.  He said his research might indicate that (or maybe something else, he's not sure, and can't explain various things that happened and didn't happen.)"
"So you're a scientist?"
"No.  I dropped out of high school and now I work at Wal-mart.  But I know enough to see through religion!" 

"So the smartest of scientists, if they are religious men and women, get no respect from you?"

"None.  Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins get my respect."
"Have you read any of their books?"
"Well, no, but they're the shit, dude!" 

"Do you claim to understand Stephen Hawking's theories well enough to know if there are any holes in them?  Do you feel he is qualified to dismiss there being any merit whatsoever in work that was being done for centuries by the most educated men and women of the time?"

"There aren't any holes in them!  What are you, insane?"

"You can say this because you understand them, as well as the thinking done by theologians for centuries?"

"Well, no, but he's right.  I know that.  Because he's writing more recently than they are.  And he's really smart.  Just look at him!"

"So you believe him.  You trust him to know, and then you believe him."

"No, I KNOW.  Haven't you been listening?"

"What do you think about black and white, right/wrong thinking?"

"Oh, it's fucking stupid.  Religious people do that. Must be nice being wrong about everything and still getting up in the morning!" 

And on and on.  The Camping people were extremely arrogant and irritating (and in a couple of cases, said they hoped I had a family so I could watch my family suffer and die, hopefully for the entire period leading up to October 21st of this year, at which time the entire earth would finally be consumed, lucky/magic/divine seven months after the chosen few were airlifted out.)  

  But it is May 22nd today, and I wonder where they are and if they're ok.  The entire world is looking on so they can have a good laugh at People Who Thought They Were Right but Were Wrong.  Because that makes us right, and we LOVE being right.  And we LOVE laughing at people who were wrong.  Because we tend to screw things up.
 I have heard report of suicide attempts and people having sold homes, vehicles, property and businesses only to donate the money to Harold Camping to pay for more "warning the irrevocably damned to fruitlessly beg God's withheld mercy" stuff.  Only three of Camping's many followers who added me on Facebook have contacted me today.  One deactivated his account and did not answer my email.  Another privately claimed that have lost faith in the May 21st date a month prior to it, but had not said anything; another says that May 21st is still, somehow, correct, perhaps in a way not yet clear to us. (Because God's right, and the bible's right, so if we disagree with it, we're wrong and fools, right?  And the bible doesn't have to make any sense?) One flatly and bravely stated his error, and  apologized.  That makes him the best Campingite I know.

Christian Books I Actually Like

Normally I hate Christian books.  Thought I'd put up a few that I do like, just so people know about them:

   

 I like this book because it isn't a self-help book, and it isn't either  an anguished tale of growing up without a Christian upbringing, nor is it an earnest story about growing up with a (Baptist) Christian upbringing, and finding something more, something deeper.  It is a funny, unpretentious, both-feet-on-the-ground, artistic musing work about growing up with a Christian upbringing and looking for more, and learning to deal with the whole world and all of life, rather than just living a ghettoized Christian existence.  Funny, and with an aptitude for Kurt Vonnegut-grade "wording things in such simple terms they seem ludicrous" technique.  

 I like this book because it also isn't a self-help book, and it's about a (Plymouth Brethren) Christian upbringing really not working out.  I don't think I've ever seen this story told before.  It's about gradually losing faith in Christians and churches, but not in God, and trying to live a life, and about reaching forty, childless and without a wife.  It is very honest and occasionally rude and very funny.  It actually is a story, a real-life story, but told to tell a story rather than to make a point, and not because there was cancer, or work done in Africa, or a child born with a tragic defect, or a family member crippled by a debilitating accident, but still praising God.  There is none of that.  He's not a pastor, either.  Just a dude, trying to live his life in North America, believing in God but having lost all faith in "Christians operating in groups."






I like this book because it again isn't a self-help book, and it's not by a pastor explaining about how he learned what he learned, and what he thinks is important, and how he helps people until tears run down their cheeks.  It's a woman's story, and it's about the (Lutheran) Christian upbringing not really working out, and, at therapy having a shrink who was bright enough to know he needed a really clear picture of what kind of God she actually believed in (a snappy, sarcastic, cold one, it turned out) so they could talk about that.  She alternates personifying God for her therapist with real-life anecdotes about growing up in California as an aspiring actress, playing the photograph of John Candy's wife in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and a friend of Mallory's on Family Ties, and reaching forty, knowing it wasn't getting any better than that, and childless and husbandless to boot, and losing faith that God wasn't altogether too much like her father.

 I like this book because it is about growing up in a Plymouth Brethren group that was so much stricter and meaner than our group was that it actually makes me grateful.  This book is about a woman being ritualistically shunned by her birth culture for using birth control, and having her husband somewhat grudgingly refuse the church's pressure to divorce her because of her misbehaviour, and then trying to deprogram and live a life in the world outside that soul-crushing pressure cooker.  This is the second edition, as she had to remove some stuff that was in the first edition, under threat of lawsuit by the litigious Exclusive Brethren of New Zealand and Australia, who are, without exaggeration, a cult, by any definition.

Leathery Wings

  This one was about what happens when you try to repress the angrier, darker side of yourself and follow only your best intentions (that builds up like pus inside until eventually you are sick with it and you really need to be lanced like a putrid boil and/or given some kind of cataclysmic enema of the soul). I wanted kinda punk, and got Jay to do a White Stripes kinda guitar to it to make it sound less like Green Day, as it used to sound uncomfortably like "When I Come Around." Jay also sang the highest notes in the chorus. I'm handling  vocals, bass guitar, and "thickening" drop D snarly guitars on the choruses, along with an end "solo" and some percussion. Again, would like Tyler K to do a bass line that's more varied, if he feels up to it.
  This is designed to follow a virtuous, "good intentions" kinda song on the album, which is all sappy and pretty, and then gets rudely "interrupted" by this song knocking to get in.  The "trick" in this one is that the rhyme scheme, oddly, involves rhyming the first word of every line with the last word of the previous one.

Leathery Wings

I envy the sought-for, the hunted, the wanted

Flaunted the attractions that make life a game

Lame house of memory seems to be haunted

Cries from the roots of the mountains again

Leathery wings batter my ribcage

Leathery wings tear through my veins

Leathery wings disrupt my nightmares

Leathery wings sear my brain

Small parts go missing, the gears grind together

Whether the power is flowing or no

Go to the place where you stand in the weather

Rip it all open, let everything show

Voices hysterical shriek, laugh, they're frantic

Clinic for fear that has made you its own

Groan of black terror is swirling, gigantic

Stand on the stone and throw everything down

Open the iron door, let out the blackness

Cackles and hooting that rend the night air

Fair is the light that will transfix the darkness

Burnt to a cinder the dragon despair

Eugene's Poem

  My Facebook status today said:  
has drank a Monster energy drink to shake the chilly, wet, grey lethargy, and has installed new, non-grinding-noise-making power supplies in two of his computers, vacuumed the dust out of said machines, virtuously bought reasonably-priced DVDs of things previously pirated, deleted said files and shuffled data among hard drives rather than merely buying a brand new 3 Tb external drive, as he was very tempted to do.

  Recorded another of my songs that George did drums on.  This was an odd one.  I set myself an odd task.  Back when a song tune came to me almost every day, I decided "I'll just choose any odd poem a friend has written, and surprise him by making it into a song."  And I did.  There are supposed to be Irish elements in it, some of which can still be added to the intro and two quiet verses.  Like everything I do lately though, this one seemed to get louder and louder, which felt great at the time.  One good thing: I'm not worrying about being too careful.  Obviously.  Makes me wonder exactly how much frustration and energy there is that I'm clearly using music to vent...  Mark is apt to write poetry that is a bit silly, so I picked one that I liked:

Eugene's Poem

I've often seen wonder, more often seen pride

And I've let down the trappings but never complied

I've seen little creatures in puddles of light

Sharing their colours with all of the night.

I look when I'm lonely, I sing when I'm free

And seaweed is only the weed of the sea

Come sing with me comrade, come fly with me friend

These heart-aches I've kindled are not going to end.

When I have a heart-ache I drink me some cream

And ride floating planets, go drifting downstream

But I work when I'm humble, I dream when I'm sane

And I never rely on Rememory's Lane

But hunger is peaceful and lifetime is long

Loneliness lovely and sadness a song

Quack quack quack-quack quack quack quack quack quack quack

Quack quack quack-quack quack quack quack quack quack quack

The small fuzzy creatures with mint on their fangs

Will warble of pickles and lost hunger pangs

We'll wake up in hunger, we'll feed us on doubt

And dream on the light 'till it radiates out.

As Country as They Wanna Be

  I grew up with parents who thought rock and roll and jazz and pop were evil, and that one should properly listen to old hymns only, but a delight in old country music was understandable.  I prefer louder music, though I like a bit of wood in my rock.  I also have a baritone voice which would be better for singing country.  Normally I fight this, but this one song of mine is supposed to be country.  It's based on a bad pun.  I had written the song "Who Are You Anyway?" which admitted the realization that I really didn't know God like I thought I did.  Didn't get Him at all, actually.  I wanted a song which allowed Him to respond.  I dared to write one.

  It's called "Promises (God's Country)" and is mainly about things I always believed God had promised, but which, actually, He seemed to want me to know He hadn't.  The hard one was that, I was always taught that when the apostle Paul wrote to one specific group of people and said "As you supplied all of my needs, so my God will supply your needs," that this meant that if I never needed anything at all, God would get me that.  The idea was that if I didn't have it, I didn't need it.
  But then one has to ask: What about all the Christians who starve each day?  Didn't they need food?  The answer I've always been given to that one (that what they needed was to die and go to be with God in Heaven) never seemed to me to be satisfactory.  So I had a look and thought "Just because Paul said that one thing to that one group of guys, given how they'd treated him personally, what makes me feel that God has Himself promised to get me anything I need at any given point in time?"  This version needs Tyler to do me some real bass, and other Tyler to do me some piano.  A country fiddle would be great, too.

Promises (God’s Country)

 I didn’t promise that you would never hunger

I didn’t promise that you would feel no pain

I didn’t promise that the sun would never beat down harshly on you

On the just and on the rest I send the rain

I gave you life to live and I won’t say how long you have

I refuse to make your life decisions for you

Because they’re part of what I put you in this big world to explore

But I promise you that I don’t plan to bore you

I didn’t promise I would give you daily bread

You will see I won’t supply your every need

I didn’t promise things would work out in your lifetime

But I often add some growth if you plant a seed.

I didn’t promise that there’d be someone to hold you

I didn’t promise there’d be folks to understand

I didn’t promise to reward your good behaviour

But if you look for it, now and then you’ll see my hand

I didn’t promise you would live to see old age

I didn’t promise that you’d have somewhere to sleep

I didn’t promise that I’d keep you free from cancer

But not a tear falls down uncounted when you weep

I made a lot of things that I really hope you go check out

For everything there is a time and season

Enjoy the things you can and if you can, survive the rest

      I don’t promise you will always know My reasons