For what it's worth, I can not recall a year of my adult life that was more depressing overall, as far as watching the news is concerned, than 2002.

Even the good things that happened had a down side. The SF Giants made it to the World Series, but blew a five-run lead in the sixth game and also gave up a lead in the seventh to lose to the Anaheim Angels. Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, but America shrugged and turned its attention to the pro-war and anti-environmental policies of George W. Bush.

Even 2001, with the pain and sadness that clouded its final three months, left me thinking that something more positive or profound might grow out of the tragedy of Sept. 11. But that opportunity to really come together as a nation seems to me to have been squandered, and maybe was never really as much of an opportunity as I had once thought.

I heartily recommend that you go see "The Two Towers" even though it's long. Unless you are truly turned off by the fantasy genre. If that's the case, I have no movie going recommendations for you at this time.

Watching football on Sunday afternoons doesn't seem as interesting now that I no longer have to follow the scores to see how my fantasy team is doing (since our season ended last week with someone other than me winning the championship. Again.)

I've started a new feature on my cheap home page. Each week, at a minimum, I plan to scour a few news sources looking for articles that have some bearing on the PoMoXian cultural shifts happening around North American and the rest of the world. Mostly I'm interested in American culture but I'll include stories from other places as well if they strike a chord with me.

Well let me comment on some of these stories, and why I put them on my homepage.

The lead story involves the movement to make Christmas celebrating and gift giving more environmentally conscious, citing a growing interest in ecological issues in different faith communities. Tempering materialistic consumerism in the churches seems like a PoMoXian trend. The recent "What Would Jesus Drive" campaign is mentioned. It could lead to an interesting conflict within the religious/political special interest community, if enough Christians become conscientious enough in this area to begin questioning the unswerving pro-Big Business views of self-appointed and well-financed leaders like Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, and other less-notorious figures.

The survey on religion in the USA yields some interesting results. My overall impression is that self-identified Christians tend to be a little more strongly opinionated in their views than the general public and those with non-Christian religious views. But the contrasts are not extremely dramatic. The biggest gap is between Christians and those who are not religious at all.

The New York Times has an interesting, somewhat unique series on the 10 Commandments. Some articles are more compelling than others.

US News and World Report has a good two-part cover feature on Billy Graham's "family dynasty" and the political clout of evangelicals in the Republican Party. A brief, helpful summary of where this movement is at for the moment.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune ran a short article on how Judaism, Buddhism and Islam understand Jesus.

Finally, from overseas, we read of an art exhibit featuring photographs of Jesus. (Obviously, these are creative, interpretive expressions, not actual snapshots of the Real Historic Jesus.) Some PoMoXian twists: the exhibit was conceived by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and it supposedly "has nothing to do with religion itself." Rather, it's dealing with the "history of photography, and art history." Heh, nice try. Obviously the guy is trying to dodge some unwanted controversy, or at least not give the zealots any raw meat to seize upon and perhaps physically disrupt or vandalize the exhibit. Personally, I don't see how religion can be avoided in an exhibit that focuses on depictions of Jesus. Maybe he's not trying to make a sectarian point or focus on any particular denomination or theology, but it's inconceivable that he could claim some kind of pure neutrality in putting the collection together. Unfortunately, he may be feeling some pressure to say this because of the heat that the exhibit would draw if it were assumed that this is another one of those "blasphemous art shows" that caused so much hue and cry here in the States over the past several years.

Anyway, I'd love for the collection to come out in book format, or better yet, visit Grand Rapids, after the runs at Paris and Jerusalem are concluded.

I just have some fairly scattered thoughts to record this morning. It seems like everyday some kind of depressing political or social development makes headlines, without all that much happening in a positive direction to balance the overall picture. I have a hard time imagining who might actually believe that things are moving in a positive direction in our nation at this time - regardless of political preferences or affiliations. The economy is crumbling, unemployment is up, deficits are piling up, the war on terrorism is just a colossal downer with very little sense of progress being conveyed. The recent re-emergence of figures like Henry Kissinger, John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams into prominent governmental roles is disturbing - this is the best they could do? It's not obvious enough that they are all tainted by past scandal and that a fresher approach might be desired at this time?

Basically, what I'm saying is that "leadership" in the USA is practically non-existent on the national level as far as I'm concerned. I don't have much confidence that our leaders are acting in the best interest of our people or the future, but are rather working to preserve their own current advantages and if possible enhance them even further. Not that I am particularly looking to the national government to assist me in my own life all that much, but I do believe that the policies that the power brokers are pursuing are destined to make things worse for a lot more people and better for only a relative few. And the biggest problem is that most of us are too busy and preoccupied trying to keep our own small ships afloat to do anything serious that would change the trends of war, exploitation and cynicism that are degrading the quality of life that we experience in the USA.

But at least it's a sunny day here in Michigan, and for December, that's a wonderful thing!

Well I've been away from this for quite awhile. Sorry.

Here's something that I found today that concerns me. It's about a new government program aimed at compiling all financial transaction data generated within the USA for the ostensible purpose of stopping terrorism. But as one expert quoted in the NY Times said, once such a system is created, it's very difficult to control how it's used.

http://www.darpa.mil/iao/index.htm

This link is to the DARPA homepage, which describes the overall project goals and how it's to be administered.

http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm

This link explains the "Total Information Awareness" system that is getting some national attention now.

Gotta love that logo too. What an evil portent this is! While we go about our business as usual, munching our cud and not really thinking about it all that much...

In response to this article on Yahoo! news...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20021010/ts_nm/iraq_usa_dc_7

I posted the following to the message board:

>>>Ari Fleischer: "The president hopes that this will send a strong message to the world and to
Iraq that if Iraq does not obey the U.N. resolutions that the United States is prepared to enforce
the peace."

Yes, the USA will "enforce the peace" by initiating a war. Orwellian Newspeak in pure form.

>>>Tom Daschle said the resolution was "a statement of American resolve and values."

Since when is it an "American value" to initiate pre-emptive strikes and overthrow governments
that fail to comply with our unequivocal demands? Which god died and appointed us as the
world's security enforcers?

>>>Daschle again: "Because this resolution is improved, because I believe that Saddam Hussein
represents a real threat, and because I believe it is important for America to speak with one voice
at this critical moment -- I will vote to give the president the authority he needs."

Translation: "I am caving in here and endorsing Bush's reckless unilateral power and oil grab
because it's politically inexpedient to oppose him. If the war on Iraq is 'successful,' I'll be on the
right side of the issue, and if it turns into Vietnam in the Desert or World War 3, people will blame
Bush, not me."

>>>Barbara Lee: "What we are doing today is building the framework for 21st century international
relations. It will either be a framework of unilateralism and insecurity or multilateral cooperation
and security."

Unfortunately, I don't think that 2002 will set the tone for the 21st century any more than 1902 set
the tone for the 20th. We're still carrying over from the old era. This century will be characterized
after the failure of 20th century methods of managing international affairs will be completely
manifest, just as WW 1 initiated the end of the 19th century style of governance, colonialism, etc.
My belief is that the West is in the process of "blowing it" and that Asia will eventually emerge as
the world's power center over the next few decades. Bush is just hastening the USA to its demise,
but Gore would probably have not been much different.

>>> Henry Hyde: Lee's amendment was "like slipping someone an aspirin who's just been hit by
a freight train," and would fail to confront the threat posed by Iraq.

Colorful but meaningless rhetoric. What is the freight train? What is the aspirin? All I see in that
comment is disparaging nonsense. It has no relevance to what Lee was trying to accomplish other
than to say that Hyde doesn't like it. That's predictable, so what?

Our elected leaders are messing up big time! We are screwed, folks!

I had a pretty remarkable evening this past Friday night. My wife was busy having several of her friends over to work on their Creative Memories albums, so I searched the paper to find something to do on short notice, and saw that the Grand Rapids Symphony was performing Berlioz'Symphonie Fantastique that evening. Back in 1983, right after I became a Christian, I went through a phase of "discovering" classical music. I bought at that time, a bunch of cheap cassettes featuring famous orchestral pieces, and I remembered that this was one of my favorites, because of the colorful and sometimes evocative sonic effects of the piece. If you're not familiar with it, I would recommend you find a recording and give it a listen, it's quite cool.

So I whipped on down to DeVos Hall and got in a surprisingly long and slow line for tickets, considering that there were just a few minutes before the performance was to begin. As I stood there, a man walked up to me and asked if I was alone. I told him I was, and he offered me a free ticket. The story was that his uncle "Buzz" had given him a pair of tickets that he couldn't use, so this guy, Stuart was his name, had an extra as well and so he was just looking for someone to give the ticket to and watch the concert with. And I just happened to be that guy.

The seats were right in the center of the mezzanine level, a great spot to view the orchestra. And what a nice program they put together! The guest artist was a pianist, named Leon Fleisher. He performed two pieces, the main one being a Ravel piano concerto written entirely for the left hand. The piece was originally commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, the brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Paul was a talented pianist destined for great things in the musical world, but he tragically lost his right arm in World War One. Undeterred, he continued as best he could to pursue a career in music and performed as many pieces as he could find for the left hand. Ravel was one of several composers commissioned to write such music.

As you could imagine, a left-handed piano piece is going to emphasize the low bass notes on the scale, but there was enough movement up and down the keyboard to provide plenty of variety and challenge. The music itself was grand, dramatic, sometimes grim in its martial cadence, but what I was most moved by was the thought of an artist maimed yet bravely pursuing his course in life. And of course, with the preoccupation with war, and our nation apparently on the brink of another campaign in Iraq, my thoughts were drawn to how many other young men are weeks or months away from having their lives changed by injuries suffered in combat.

Fleischer himself lost the ability to use his right hand some years ago due to a "repetitive stress disorder." In recent years, he's made some progress in recovering the use of his right hand and the first piece he performed indicated that it's coming along quite well. Though I'm not familiar with his career, apparently the crowd as a whole was quite moved and impressed by his valiant performance. One thing about the symphony, the musicians make it look pretty easy to produce the sounds they do, but what an achievement, to put all that together and make it sound so good.

After the intermission, the Symphonie Fantastique began. In the moments beforehand, I had realized that it was Friday the Thirteenth, the first time that day that I'd had that thought. How eerie, to be listening to this music, on such a "haunted" day. In case you don't know, the symphony is "program music," in this case telling the tale of a young romantic who overdoses on opium and winds up having bizarre visions of a witches' sabbath at the end. Well, I can barely begin to describe the music or its effects, but let me just say, it was quite an extraordinary sensation to let the music course through me - oh, the thoughts and impressions it produced! After it had concluded, Stuart and I chatted about it. He said he enjoyed it, but it was clear to him that the composer "had to be mad to conceive of such things." There was indeed, a kind of dark energy that seemed to be released, and I myself greatly appreciated Berlioz' willingness to really put himself out there, artistically speaking, to create such a memorable, ambitious, lush and romantic expression of his spirit. So very cool...

And after all that, I walked over to the Calder Plaza where the annual Mexican Festival was in full swing. A band was on stage, pumping out highly danceable Tejano rhythms to an appreciative crowd. Kind of a drastic change of atmosphere, but the evening was warm and lively, and I enjoyed a few minutes of walking around the tents and booths, checking out the crafts and other items of interest. It was one of those nights where I felt God was smiling on me, and it made me happy to be a free, living being.

Throughout this day, I've tried to keep my focus more on the families, friends and communities most directly impacted by the crimes of 9/11/01, rather than the politics and international implications of it all. Not that I'm of no opinion or lack concern about those aspects, but as far as I'm concerned, the "anniversary" is a time of mourning and remembrance for the dead, and gratitude for noble men and women who gave so much throughout the crisis and recovery - not a place to make partisan statements or further an ideological agenda. So I've been avoiding the speeches made by public figures, focusing more on the images of flowers being laid down, or the sounds of music, names read, bells tolling. As for those calls for vengeance, justice, defense of freedom and our way of life... I'm just not inclined to interact with all that because to me, 9/11 isn't simply about bad people who did an evil thing to the USA, though that's part of it. To me, it's more about how violence and history and fanaticism and hatred and ignorance and prejudice have gotten so many in this world caught up in snares that would move them to dedicate their lives to the irrational destruction of strangers, and in the process create so much pain, grief and sadness. Yes, there was a political and cultural "statement" being made by the groups responsible for the terrorist attacks, but the horror goes far beyond that, and reveals something dark and menacing that has taken root within humanity itself. I don't want to sound flippant or melodramatic here, but in some ways, I can see in the symbol of the World Trade Center attack, especially, an indictment against humanity similar to what we behold in the crucifixion of Jesus and the death camps of the Shoah, and in other "hearts of darkness" that have occurred in living memory. Though I lament the misery and corruption that somehow drove the hijackers and their supporters to carry out their hateful plans, and though I grieve for those who were injured or lost loved ones that day, it seems to me that 9/11 reveals a problem that is even more difficult to root out, and more pervasive in its scope, than first meets the eye. It's not just that people are sinful and capable of doing exceedingly cruel things to each other. It's also that so often we do those cruel things based on our own sense of righteousness and justification, even a calling by God, the ultimate source of authority and direction in our lives. How tragic it is that we humans can be so divided among ourselves as to think we ought to kill each other! And yet I recognize that same impulse within me, even as a person committed to non-violence and mutual understanding. Watching replays of TV from a year ago, I feel so keenly the impulse to wreak destruction on anyone responsible for the images I see on the screen. And then I understand what a thin barrier separates me from the mob howling for blood, ready to spill its own if only for the chance to take some of the "evil-doers" to their grave.

It's such a beautiful, sunny, but dark, cold day. Mixed emotions indeed.

So to finish up my story about the focus group (see the 9/5 blog to read the beginning)...

Sitting there in a room full of guys put me into this wierd nostaligic mood that, rather than make me thing fondly of the good old days, instead stirred up a fair amount of cynicism about how this music, produced mostly by cocky young men in the full swagger of success and rock star glory, was now being used to capture a select demographic of middle-aged guys who were mostly reduced to listening to "their music" during the morning and afternoon drive times, or perhaps during the day at work if they had control over the station and were in an environment where classic rock an appropriate style of music (like a car repair shop or construction supply warehouse, I suppose.)

The raw libido coming through the speakers when guys like Robert Plant, Mick Jagger or David Lee Roth hollered into their microphones was now little more than a fantasy for most of us, who've settled into a predictable groove of work 'n family, with a little weekend warrior action thrown in to maintain a degree of self-respect and connection with guys like us who are in the same predicament. The entire focus of this exercise was, I gather, to determine which songs would get us chronic channel-surfers to hit the station and leave it there at least until 30 or 40 seconds into the next commercial break, rather than flipping over to the competitor rock stations that just might have something more emotionally satisfying on it at the moment. Dan's promise to us was that, besides the $50 bucks, we would be rewarded by "better music" as early as the next day, when his scrupulously gathered, sifted and analyzed bar charts and trend-waves would be delivered to his unnamed but predictably familiar client. But I found his promise disingenuous. He was really giving us a chance to tell him what our favorite music was, but was asking us to choose from within a set of closely defined and limited options. It's not just a case of the list consisting only of those artists that I listed in the previous blog, but also that there are only a handful of familiar tracks from each of the groups in the category. Gone, for the most part, are the days of true "album oriented radio" where the DJ really knew his music and would occasionally play some excellent but "non-hit" cuts. I won't take the time with another list here, but each of the bands listed will only be represented by maybe five or ten songs unless their career spans decades, like the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith, but then the list might go up to 20 songs or so... less than one per year for the bands existence. It's all about familiarity, taking us back to those carefree adolescent days I guess. Well, I'll say thanks for the $50 bucks, thanks for showing me a little more detail about how today's mind-control propaganda mega-marketing superstructure works its magic, and the cookie 'n coffee, too. But as for me, I'm a CD-playin', commercial-free radio-listenin' type of guy from now on.

Yesterday I participated in a focus group aimed at getting demographic information on guys my age who like to listen to "classic rock" format radio. Even though I don't listen to that kind of station all that much (I'm more of a CD-listener myself), when I do put the radio on in my car, I will usually at least give those stations a try to see what they're playing. But they promised me $50 for my participation in any case, and that was enough to pique my interest.

So I showed up at the Grand Rapids Airport Hilton at 5:30pm, got my free cookie 'n coffee and waited in the hallway with about 50 other guys like me until we were ushered into a banquet room. We sat down, four dudes to a table, each of us with a little keypad and dial gizmo that was our tool for inputing the precious data that a local radio station had paid thousands of dollars to acquire. A semi-boisterous fellow named Dan greeted us. He said he was from San Diego, but he didn't spend much time there, since his job required him to fly all over the country doing focus groups like the one tonight. But he informed us that he was happy to be in temperate Grand Rapids, MI after spending a few days in sweltering Birmingham, AL, which was not only terribly humid but also abuzz with talk about the West Nile Virus, which actually has grabbed a few headlines here in the past week because of a couple of local cases of the disease that have been discovered. But none of us told him that WNV is a threat here in West Michigan.

Anyway, I won't get bogged down in a narrative of the whole evening. I will say that I had to work for my fifty bucks though. Here's what we had to do: Dan would hit the "play" button on a CD player, and that would launch a track of fifty excerpts from classic rock songs that are a staple of this radio format. The excerpts are what we call the "hooks" of these songs, a portion of the song that is instantly recognizable to a listener who (presumably) grew up in the sixties, seventies or eighties and listened to the big arena rock bands who to this day remain unequalled in their ability to reach the pinnacle of ballsy macho eloquence when it comes to playing guitar, bass and drums and yowling over the top of it all in a suitably studly manner. And that goes for the female rockers like Heart and Stevie Nicks too.

Our job, upon hearing each of these hooks, was to crank the dial up or down based on our emotional response to each song. This, I must say, was quite a fascinating process for me, since I am one of those guys who not only knew each song that was sampled, but could also give a pretty fair rundown on the specific careers, offshoot projects, original years of release and relative achievements in the pantheon of hard rock bands that flourished in that era. If I can take a minute or two to list the more prominent bands that we tasted last night, allow me to rattle off a few names, in order of how they come to mind:

Led Zeppelin, the Who, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, Queen, Rush, Jimi Hendrix, REO Speedwagon, Styx, Boston, Foreigner, AC/DC, Peter Frampton, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Guns 'n Roses, Heart, Thin Lizzy, Cream, Eric Clapton, the Beatles, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Fleetwood Mac, Foghat, Georgia Satellites, J. Geils Band, Georg Thoroughgood and the Destroyers, the Eagles, Joe Walsh, Kiss, ZZ Top, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pat Benatar, Kansas, Yes, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Jefferson Starship, Def Leppard, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, .38 Special, Steve Miller Band, Journey, Santana, the Doors, Rod Stewart, Alice Cooper, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Neil Young, Bon Jovi, Steppenwolf, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick. Well, that about exhausts the list of bands that I can spontaneously name without doing some "research." But I think you get the drift.

What I found rewarding about this was (besides fifty bucks) the chance to give my support to groups that I like and express my abhorrence of groups I didn't. I tend to favor late-60's/early-70's British Rock (Led Zep, middle-period Stones, the Who), early Aerosmith, anything fairly blues-y, and some of the grittier artists like Neil Young and George Thoroughgood. I despised the mid-70's and later "corporate rock" of Boston, Styx, Foreigner, etc. as well as the 80's bands like Journey that were even worse. But now I'm called away to dinner so I'll wrap this up and conclude later.

Sorry for any inconvenience!

Labor Day 2002. Yesterday I went to a worship service at All Souls Community Church, a fairly new gathering affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association. While I have some reservations about linking up with a classic liberal religious denomination, I've had a bit of interaction with the pastor, Brent Smith, through email and in person, and I see him as someone I could connect with intellectually in some beneficial ways. So we'll see what comes of that.

Anyway, the service and his message were on the topic of "the Work of the People" and he used as one of his readings, the passage from Genesis where God cursed Adam after the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was eaten. Adam's curse, as we all know, was that he would have to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Thus was the idea established, deep in the roots of our culture, that work was a punishment, a toilsome, wearying "sentence" that all men were condemned to endure over the course of our lives.

His take on this passage was that we should keep in mind, this is probably a story that pre-dates the Hebrew tradition, and he notes that many parallels to this story can be found in the literature of other cultures of that era. In contrast, the first creation story, of the seven-day process culminating in the appearance of male and female created in the image of God, is quite unique and distinctively Hebrew. Thus, he feels we are at some liberty to take a harder look at this notion that work is a God-ordained curse, since it can have a negative impact on how we regard our work, especially those aspects of work that make us something different that the animals.

Work is something we do, using tools, operating on levels of greater sophistication in our relationship to the world around us. At its best, our labor can be a vehicle whereby we are "reintroduced" to God, where, as Brent put it, a "mystic harmony" can be achieved as we realize a sense of fulfillment and belonging to the world and our community that we wouldn't find if we were once again to find ourselves in a Garden of Eden, where all needs were provided, where everything came to us so easily.

He talked about how Western religion comes to us in two basic forms - the Orthodox, which tends to look back to a point in time when everything was perfect, and sees us as having fallen from that state of perfection. It preaches a hope for an eventual restoration to a state that we once knew. The Liberal tradition, which Brent espouses, is more uncertain - it looks forward to an improvement in our condition, it hopes for something better than what we know now or have ever known, recognizing a pattern of ever-increasing complexity and gradual progress in our study of the trends of our past history. While I'm not completely ready to endorse this basic division of religious types (I haven't really thought it all through,) there's validity in what I heard him say. I personally see nothing all that attractive in a "return to the Garden" and when I listen to what many say about Heaven, it seems to me that they are envisioning something rather along these lines. Now rather than go off in a tangent of discussion about Heaven and Eden, I'll try to stay on the topic of work...

I see our work, both in the aspect of doing the many tasks it takes to sustain our present way of life, and also our efforts to bring a better world into existence, to have profound spiritual dimensions. Many people don't share this assessment. I'm particularly thinking of so much of what I see happening with the end of pure profits and subsequent indulgence as the goal. Think of all the resources that are just squandered, and for what reason other than flaunting excess, accumulating more power, indulging petty appetites. Not that I'm the model of thrift and simplicity, but I see so much waste. And in the process, so much bitterness and dissatisfaction from people who hate their jobs or go about their occupations so cynically.

We would do better to take some time to reflect on whatever we might see as timeless and nourishing about our labors, and view them as an offering to God and to our world. If we can't find those redeeming aspects to what we do, maybe a different method of earning our daily bread should be pursued.

Wow, I just received, through email this afternoon, my first response to this blog. So now I have some motivation to keep it a little more current. Here's what's happening in the life of PoMoXian...

My family and I went to an exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art museum of photographs taken on or after September 11, commemorating the events of that day and the efforts made by many to rescue the victims and honor those who perished. Seeing these (mostly familiar) images, which were mainly selected from news feeds, as well as some government and satellite images, left me with a hard-to-describe feeling. I'm struck by how iconic the images have already become - the towers with smoke and fireball bursting out of them, the mangled facade of the World Trade Center crashed in ruins, the ash covered survivors dazed and staggering in the debris, the solemn faces of firemen and rescue workers in the days following the catastrophe, and the funeral services that came later. It brought back a lot of the same emotions that I felt when it was all happening just last fall, but now with an added layer of "settledness" in the sense that we now live in a world where we know such a thing could happen. Now it's close to becoming a part of the historical landscape, for many of us at least, whose lives weren't directly touched by the death of someone we knew.

There was a book where people could write comments about the exhibit, and I saw that the book would be presented to a fire dept. museum of some sort in New York. As I expected, many of the messages invoked the "God Bless America" theme, and a few of them were even on the jingoistic side in their tone. I guess this is an honest reflection of the feelings that the exhibit stirred up in some people, but I saw just a terrible portrayal of cruelly-inflicted suffering caused by people whose lives must be wracked by such despair and sadness that they would intentionally cause the attacks to happen. I don't exactly feel pity for those responsible, because I believe that the hurt they caused is much more than anything they could have possibly suffered to justify such actions. But I do mourn for humanity in general, because so many of us remain chained to the idea that bloodshed and raw vengeance is the righteous path to travel when one is oppressed, victimized or humiliated. Thankfully, the many noble efforts and considered responses to what happened on September 11 give me hope that not all of us are content to be merely reflexive and condemning in our shock and anger. The important thing for us to do now is to communicate to our leaders and neighbors that greater destruction and harboring thoughts of hatred will not make us safer from the kind of people who would perpetrate such horrors on others. Love and truth are the only forces which can really transform the embittered and hopeless of this world, though we have to proceed in faith that, given time, they will yield the desired results. I find war to be the resort of those who are impatient and lack faith, and those who seek through strategems to increase their sense of wealth, power and control. It's a sad thing that those are the kind of people who most consistently strive and are selected for leadership in our societies.

Here's another try on my part to do this blogging thing. Guess what? Today is my birthday! Yep, I'm 41 years old. I'm not going to publicize this to my various Internet contacts out there, but if any of you buddies of mine happen to check out this blog, go ahead and wish me a happy birthday! send your email to daveblakeslee@attbi.com and I will appreciate you thinkin' of me...

So I bet you are interested in knowing what I got for my birthday presents? I got a new CD boombox, a nice Sony unit that I plan to take to work so I can listen to my music there. Also, a couple of shelf-rack storage units, one for videos and DVD's, the other for music CDs. I am starting a collection of Shakespeare on DVD, so I got Branagh's Henry V and Othello, and Julie Taymor's Titus which I haven't seen but I hear is supposed to be quite the production. Also, a new toolbox, which I really need, since my old one is rusty and banged up and just not very pleasant to use. And a bookstore gift certificate, and a copy of Ulysses Annotated, a commentary on James Joyce's masterpiece of modern 20th century literature.

I'm very pleased with these gifts! I got just about everything on my list, what a great way to start a new year in my life..!

OK, now I'm gonna see if this really works. You wouldn't believe how many blogs have been lost because something wierd and (so far) inexplicable causes them to disappear without a trace...

OK, maybe I am just really not quite with it or something, or maybe my computer is messing something up but I have tried to do some blogging but it hasn't worked all that well. I wrote some stuff with cool links and worthy substance, but when I posted it, poof, it disappeared somewhere into the aether never to be retrieved. This has happened more than once with Blogger so what is up?

Now I'm gonna post this and see if it works. If it works, I will be back to try some more later.

Blessings and love to you all,

PoMoXian

Here are a few quotes from emails I posted to the faithmaps group hosted by Yahoo. I recommend it both as a good place to dialogue intelligently with Christians of various stripes. I've been with the group for about a year, though I've been off doing other things until just recently. Anyway, here's more of what PoMoXian has to say.

(in response to a statement that "postmodern Christian" is an oxymoron)

Hey! Whose ox are you callin' a moron? Do you know who you are talking to? I am the one and only PoMoXian! I am a postmodern Christian in a philosophical sense! Even though I'm not really all that interested in Derrida and Rorty and the French intellectuals or other academic leading lights associated with philosophical postmodernism, I'm not at all hesitant to embrace the label in an effort to craft a new way of being Christian in a postmodern cultural and intellectual context. Which in my case at least means calling all
sorts of modern, premodern and postmodern presuppositions into question, with the net effect that I'm not anywhere close to being dogmatic on most theological issues as many traditional/conventional Christian brothers and sisters would probably want me to be. And I'm happy that way! :o)

Forgive some of the bluster here, since you probably don't know me, but I just couldn't sit idly by and let your statement go without a response.

Trying to establish a transcultural, transhistoric basis for understanding the "essence" of Christianity, is an endeavor that is grossly misguided. I don't see any need or possibility for an understanding of Christianity that is somehow utterly distinct from (and by extension, superior to) all other "Maps." I understand that the church has a long tradition of making such distinctions, and I must admit that I'm impressed by the many displays of intellectual and philosophical brilliance that have developed as a result of such endeavors, but in each and every single instance, what I basically see happening there is Human Culture manifesting itself in a particular way, which in the universal scope of creation is of some value, but still only one of probably infinite angles from which we can view the thing. The thing, that is, called Life. The fact is, I appreciate quite a few of the qualities that have come into this world as a result of Jesus and the movement that he started, but by no means do I feel compelled to endorse the whole kit and kaboodle. In my effort to extricate myself from some of the snares that the institutional Christian religion has created over the centuries, I found a healthy dose of pomo ironic detachment to be of much value, even though I can agree that I might apply it more liberally than others, and that my way is not suitable for each and every one. But I do think that a sweeping application of postmodern thoughtforms has its place and so I am happy to do my own version of the Johnny Appleseed routine on this list and elsewhere.

(... such as this blog...)

So what exactly is this PoMoXian thing about anyway? Let me offer a quick explanation.

I'm 40 years old, and I've been a Christian since 1983, when I was 21. Before that, I'd been a pot-smoking, alienated, punk-rock social outcast who didn't really know where or how to fit in. For a few years I played in a band called the Church Police, who achieved a small level of notoriety in the San Francisco scene from 1980-82. At the end of my time in that scene, I was burned out and fucked up, to use the vernacular of the time. Through an unusual chain of events, I left that lifestyle behind and embraced fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, returning to my home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live today.

Over the years, though, I found myself struggling to reconcile the various personality traits and interests that led me to embrace the attitudes and values of my pre-Christian life with the expectations of this church-oriented subculture that I was now expected to eagerly endorse. Rather than get sidetracked with a long rant about all the things I don't like about W. Michigan church life, I'll just say that I don't share a lot of the same passions of my brothers and sisters in Christ when it comes to our stance on social issues, the arts and humanities, intellectual and philosophical matters and how we deal with diversity in all its many forms. So after many years of trying to make it all work (mostly by trying to make myself change or repressing my frustrations, since others around me didn't seem to feel any need to accomodate my interests), I started feeling kind of claustrophobic. That panicky feeling of "what if I get stuck in this situation for the REST OF MY LIFE!?!?!" arose within me and I had to make a change. And that's what got me reaching for something beyond the ordinary, beyond the parameters of the conservative Calvinistic presbyterian evangelical biblical inerrancy new right republican family values style of personal expression that had penned me in for such a substantial portion of my life.

And now I'm PoMoXian, one who has grasped for the golden apple and found it within reach and downright tasty too. (more later)