Musical mysteries and missed meaning

I have what I hope will be a quick and relatively simple observation and ponder-ment. As I listen to new musical artists, it occurs to me to ask, in the form of an "I wonder...", whether their music might be unnecessarily opaque.

Now hear me out. I'm not trying to dog on good poetic lyrics, or dumb down art, or promote myself or any particular person or style of music or whatever as superior. That's not my spirit in this. But I have a couple of initial questions for those who intentionally bury the meaning of their art so deep in personal experience (or whatever kind of experience) that their hearers need to do more than just keep listening to it, in effect busting out shovels and sweating for hours just to try and uncover some meaning so they can connect with the song or the artist or whatever it is people are trying to connect with in the music.

(Okay, sure, maybe there's some meaning that emerges in the dialogue of connecting, but some songs are so vague that maybe a song about how cute bunnies are ends up coming across as a political statement against the current state of health care. Maybe I just don't see it, or maybe it's my personal baggage, but I'm operating out of the assumption here that the art is more meaningful when it intentionally connects people to each other and to God, and to things in the world that smell of the depth of experience of everything God is and does. There's certainly more to be said about that aspect of art, but I think that's a fair enough statement to be able to get to some of those other things.)

So here's the first question: in a marketplace where there are so many options out there, and such a saturation of the airwaves with bookoos of artists coming at you through every possible medium, can you really afford to be misunderstood? Maybe you can. This isn't a huge question for me. It just feels like the situation is unfortunately similar to a resume - if yours is difficult to read or sloppy, it gets tossed aside in less than seconds.

Here's my more important question. Are you trying to be like Jesus with all his subtlety and mystery and "wow" moments? (I'm operating out of the assumption that many people are aiming for this in the obscure elements of their art.) Here's the thing about that. Jesus may have been frequently misunderstood, but he hid his treasures out in plain view. Think about the stories he told. Wheat. Sheep. Weddings. Traveling. These are all things that the vast majority of his audiences understood from day-in/day-out ordinary life. He talked in plain language. He may have juxtaposed images and mixed metaphors a little, but my impression of his delivery style was that he wasn't gaudy and didn't overload his points with too much stuff.

I'm not saying don't try for subtlety or mystery. But my take of Jesus is that he wasn't trying to be misunderstood. I think that just happened because of the nature of human hearts and what we love more than him, so that ultimately we don't hear what we don't want to hear. Might I suggest, then, that art is more like a "connect-the-dots" picture and less like an "assembly required" product in which the manufacturer forgot to include the instructions. The aim, in the end, is to be understood.

So my appeal would be for intentionality in a certain level of clarity and transparency in song-writing. As far as I can tell, the way to go about this is to really think about your listeners even as you try to understand yourself and your world, and put to language what you're seeing and experiencing. Hopefully then the process can be valuable to you and the product valuable to them.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Logic. It is just a tool utilized by whatever dominant spirit you're experiencing in any particular location or situation. Rationality. The only one limited to the way you see things is you. God certainly isn't - has he ever been?

The Difference Between Men and Women (and also my usual sort of quasi-theological ramblings)

Okay World-
Here it is. The definitive word on what really separates the men from the women. You ready for it? Yes? Good - then let's talk about...

Carrots. Yep, that's right. I like 'em cooked, my wife likes to eat them raw. What the helk*? Actually, what really rubs my rabbits about all of this is that I can force down a handful of raw carrots (as I did today), and STILL not have consumed a whole serving. 14 baby carrots. That's what they say is a serving. I reached capacity somewhere around 8 or 9. Oh, and you buy a candy bar, like a bigger one (but still not that big, definitely not "Texas-sized"), and you're probably looking at 2 servings. Bogus. Totally bogus. I'm like 99% sure that the government is screwing with us on this. But to get into that here would test even my limits of appropriate use of tangenting in a blogging event. Plus, you haven't even gotten to the asterisked footnote yet. So I reluctantly digress.

Okay, so that probably didn't have much to do with men and women. But I do still wonder... why this difference between my wife and me? Is it just about carrots, or is it something deeper than that? Maybe y'all can help me with this. Help me broaden my mind. Help me uncover the deeper issues. Any thoughts?


*By the way, those of you who regularly resort to using the word "heck" - thinking that you're somehow better off for euphemistically avoiding the "H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks" word - you owe me a debt of gratitude. You're welcome... for me showing you a better way. It seems pretty apparent to me that more and more people truly value transparency and being "real" to the point of not trying to maintain "appearances" that are really of no substantive value to a person (not cussing, not smoking or drinking, not wearing spandex) - that is, why maintain hypocrisy if you're heart's not right? Aim for the heart, and the behaviors will change, right? So, in the process of making real change, you're left with a difficult decision: Do I keep up the appearances whilst trying to have a real change of heart, or do I throw caution to the wind, let the tongue loose, and potentially lose myself in the process of trying to arrive at a changed self? Friends, I have revealed to you that oh-so-prized middle road: Do both. Take "helk", for example. You're not actually cussing by saying "hell", neither are you pulling that lame act of substituting words that no one really says when they stub their toe in an empty house (thus "heck" or "shoot"). You're doing something much better. You're getting some of the frustration out, while still maintaining a measure of dignity and reserve. And both the sailors and the pew-warmers will know what you mean. Again, and not to sound like a broken record, but... You're welcome.

So you're not satisfied with your job.

Let me rephrase that: I'm not satisfied with my job. (The "why" is a totally different conversation - there's actually a lot I love about my job - I just tend to not be equipped and/or wired to handle many of the typical tasks required on the job.) What do I do with that? For the next few minutes, take a walk with me through my brain (scenic hike? cave spelunk? mad dash? haunted house tour?) as I try to navigate the treacherous waters of personal discontentment. I'll be attempting to change course.

How do I go about deciding what to do with unsatisfaction? My first thought - laying all my options out on the table and choosing the best option or hybrid of better options - probably won't help anything. Too consumerist. It won't get me to the root of my problem.

I'd rather try to listen for God's voice concerning his will for my employment. What is he saying? How do I hear his voice in this?

I thought of a biblical image that could possibly serve as a metaphor for my current situation. Maybe this is sort of a thing where God is bringing all these "animals" (jobs) to me so I can name them and see that I don't fit with them.

Whoa there. I've got some alarms going off in my head. (Seeing as you're walking through it with me, you may have heard them. Or perhaps you don't speak nerd, so you weren't really sure what you were hearing. Either way...) This worries me some: the fact that I'm looking for the kind of fulfillment that comes from a marriage relationship from my paid employment. Just earlier this week, I read an article that said something important regarding this search for fulfillment (the article is located here - it's a historical survey of Christian understandings of vocation). One of the more contemporary understandings (Christian understandings might be a little generous - perhaps it would be better to say quasi-Christian syncretisms) involves the capitalist or Marxist stance:

...the pursuit of a vocation became an end in itself. This is true for both capitalism and Marxism. Both encourage us to look for personal fulfilment through the work of our own hands. Once people worked to live now they are living to work. ... Work once degraded, is now worshipped, and demands great sacrifices.

(This excerpt is found under section 6, the one entitled, "A New Distortion!")

'Work to live' vs. 'live to work.' How true is that? Definitely true for workaholics, I would think. And maybe what my problem is involves a lesser measure of that spirit. Both problems involve a worship of the work of my own hands: I am satisfied when I have accomplished something that has really allowed me to express my identity, to the benefit of other people. So I find myself seeking fulfillment from something other than God - to be filled by a spirit that's not the Holy Spirit.

Are there positive values in this view? Sure - helping people is a good thing. But if in my attempts to help people I keep feeding my ego through self-worship, sooner or later I will end up more self-absorbed than altruistic. (And perhaps my motives aren't really all that pure so as to only be satisfied when other people are benefitted.)

You may or may not find this convincing. I think it would be helpful to think towards an alternative to seeking personal fulfillment through work or vocation. What does it mean to 'work to live' instead of 'live to work?'

How about we start here: God is the ultimate Provider - of everything. He provided the breath that animates us. He provided the Garden to sustain us and to be the place where we lived and worked. He provided us with companionship: man and woman, becoming one flesh. I'm also thinking particularly of the blessing of imaging him (being made in his image). What's significant about working the ground? What's significant about, "be fruitful and multiply?" Both things allow us to be like him. We get to be in on the joy of creating, sustaining, and growing new life! Work the ground - get a little sweaty and see your cucumbers busting off the vines! Be fruitful - get a little sweaty (it's fun!), have children, and see your own "spittin' image" learn and grow to be a joy to God and people! The Hebrews obviously saw a connection - "be fruitful" - sounds like a garden or orchard to me.

Work to live. I think when I first read this, I actually heard, "work to survive." That couldn't be further off the mark. Work to bring the image of the Creator God to full expression in you! See Jesus's version of life (life overflowing and full) happening as you get your hands "muddy".

So I'm not satisfied with my job? Maybe I'm working to express and enhance the wrong image. Maybe my problem isn't that I'm in the wrong "garden" - it's that I'm not trying to bring God-life out of the soil I'm already in. After all, God was the one in charge of placing Adam in Eden. He doesn't seem to have any problem knowing where to put people.

What do you think? If you've got any suggestions about how even the most seemingly ill-fitting work can generate that kind of life, then I'm all ears. Unless, of course, you see me on the dance floor - then I tend to be all left feet.

The Good, the Bad, and the Fake (News)

My instinctive reaction to this article in the New York Times, about the proliferation of personalized digital advertising, was to attempt to respond in such a dryly sarcastic way that this blog post would have required a disclaimer advising readers to first retrieve a cup of water before continuing to read.

(The basic scenario: by using cheap labor from around the world, advertisers can produce thousands of versions of each ad, enabling ad networks to utilize data about consumer buying habits to customize advertising messages to each person through their computer, cell phone, or TV.)

But such a reaction seemed inadequate, since I don't really know much about advertising, and sarcasm tends to be way more effective when it hits the mark. I suppose I just had to get over the initial horror of the thought of how much this plague of advertising frenzy was sure to become increasingly epidemic as "developing" economies provide the "low-cost" labor necessary to produce terabytes upon petabytes upon exabytes upon zettabytes upon yottabytes of useless information (thousands of versions of the same ad, so you do the math) so that:
-Companies can better know how to manipulate people's minds ever more intrusively and effectively, and
-Consumers can be spared the inconvenience of wasting time seeing ads that don't cater to their addictions.

Okay, so I ended up being sarcastic after all. But I'm also sad. Sad because I'm newly reminded of a very old problem - people (self included) never seem to tire at dreaming up new ways to exploit each other and consume without concern for each other. It's like we're all digging a gigantic mass grave together because we see everyone else digging, and they all seem to be having a good time.

It seems to me, at least at this point in time, that there are basically three types of news, which you could probably lump into two types if you were so inclined: The Good News, the Bad News, and the Fake News. The last two could probably go together, like I said, though they come off quite differently. A quick explanation:

The Fake News - this is the news that sports itself as good news, though if you buy into it, you'll eventually find out it didn't measure up to the expectations with which it was so boldly proclaimed. "Lose Weight Fast!" "Ba Da Bup Bup Ba!" "Improve Your Love Life!" Even if its promises are not explicitly stated, your satisfaction is usually guaranteed. But even Snickers' satisfaction doesn't last. Diminishing returns. Spiraling addictions. Out-of-control debt. A rather short list of things you typically don't even find included in the fine print on the back side of the label.

The Bad News - this is the socially acceptable form of terrorism for Americans: "Are America's Bridges Safe?" "What Your Government Isn't Telling You" "Could Your Prized Dietary Staple Actually Cause Cancer?" If fear is a powerful motivator, why not use it to effect change? In general, why not use power if it is available to you to use to whatever ends you see fit? Don't success and popularity legitimate the use of power, anyways? (This particular type and my examples for it are, admittedly, a little off topic, and should probably be the subject of another post, but seeing as I don't typically blog all that often, I do what I can...)

The Good News - this is the story of one Jesus of Nazareth who was not only greatly anticipated by the Jewish people through their prophets, widely hyped up during his time, and undeniably powerful in both his message and his miracles, but also lived out an ethic of meekness and used his power for God's purposes (not his own), and for the benefit of humanity rather than to make a buck or have a comfortable life or whatever. And he currently has all authority that exists anywhere, which makes even our human governments and institutions (as well as people as individuals) answerable and accountable to him. What's so good about that? His rule is characterized by things like: life, light, healing, hope, love, justice, service, and peace. Just look at his earthly ministry. He lived it - it's not just propaganda or empty rhetoric.

I'd set up a blog poll to see which type of news most people prefer, but I'm not that web-savvy. Sorry.

... edit from wife: I hijacked the blog to add this: ...


What's the point? Is there one, beyond just the opportunity for not-so-veiled and self-indulgent sarcasm after I said up front I would avoid that approach? (It's just so hard to resist!) Yes - and that point is that, beyond my irritation and dis-ease with the state of things, I'm hoping for something. And that hope is, that, as the engine of consumerism gains in ever-increasing sophistication, so too will those who follow Jesus gain in ever-increasing maturity the ability to speak Good News to unsatisfied, unwhole, un-free people who will hear it and receive it as truly Good News. Liberating, freeing news. News that delivers what it says it will deliver.

In the world of marketing, personal choice reigns. But it's a rule of tyranny. The only truly important choice you need to make is which master you want. The offers are on the table: They hope that you'll buy, and don't care if it's ultimately into the slavery of debt and addiction; He hopes that you'll accept his offer to buy your freedom.