Response to Georgia

This is my gut response to Jason Ericson's last two "early October" posts. Based on a counter-movie of sorts called Zeitgeist. It's riddled with factual inconsistencies and sensationalist ideas, but there was one idea that rang with me, and it came from the Zodiac.

I don't know what you get when a shaky idea is butchered, but it's probably something like the following:

Approx. every 2150 years, the Sun appears to rise under a the next sign in the zodiac. That is each sign represents an age, and the age of Jesus Christ is the last 2000 years, since it's been Pisces.

So perhaps 'the end' won't mean of the entire world, just maybe the end of Christianity. If there even is a Rapture, maybe it's a dual purpose, saving the faithful and clearing out the world for a new worship. Not necessarily the end of God, Heaven, religion, morality, whatever.

Of course, in either case, it's I see it kind of like this: Christianity has been around for a little over 2 millenia. There was stuff before it, so while to people who only live ~100 years, it's all we'll ever know. Good reason to follow it. But still, view it as a semester of school; student: The body of Christ. Let's be vulgar and say the grade is people confessing that JC is their savior, whether they mean it or not.

Now with some barf-worthy webbrowsing of generous approximations and if we lump everyone that basically positively mentions Christ (yikes: Christians and Islamists?!) the numbers come out to 2.1 billion + 1.1 billion = 3.2 billion. Which is I mean, at least half of the world population, right? So that would be around 52%, which is.. well, it's an F. And let's toss in another billion just for good measure. awesome. 68%. D+. My favorite.

I think at this point, it would be best not to go into classroom behavior, because that might imply a Parent(s?)-Student-Teacher(!?) Conference and no one wants that.

So I guess what I'm saying is maybe the End will be a relief. I don't doubt that a period of transformation following such a domineering and adolescent system of belief won't be painful and devastating, but isn't that what conscious life is about?

ps. Hey. Yeah it's been awhile. But what is time, really?

Weird

Saturday:

I was asked to dinner by a Korean exchange student in return for helping him find the SOHO Salon in Bellevue where he had gone specifically to get his hair cut.

I had plum wine for dinner which is super sweet and pretty thick, for a wine. I liked it.

Holden Village

It was like I had been reading the story of my life upside down. It took so long for things to make the sort of sense that is acceptable to the human mind. I worked hard for my purpose, to find reasons to justify my existence and actions.

And then I got to the Village.

Now I don't know what to say. As one of the director's said (and my mom reminded me) "It's not Shangri-La." I'm torn up that I cannot see the place that the electricity for my appliances comes from, the hands that prepare my food, the workers who take care of my plulmbing infrastructure. All of the sudden, I feel like I'm living a sort of robot cubicle world, that I'm disconnected again.

Even this, I'm aware that I'm just sending electrical impulses that will be translated into more electrical impulses so that people 10, 20, 50, 500, 1000 miles away can view these ideas. I never want to ride in a plane again, to travel at 500-600 miles per hour, to miss the journey that is so often said to mean more than the destination.

I felt grounded there and I now I feel cut loose, like I have to fight for peace again, live in paradox and absurdity. I loved Vespers every night and Eucharist every Sunday, even just the rhythm as much as the day. I used to fear the Eucharist as a longer service than normal but by the time I left, I had a gentle longing for it by the time Sunday arrived.

Bottom line is I have a compulsion in me that will either be killed alongside part of my morality, or will have to obeyed, resulting in welcome, difficult, and revolutionary changes. I mean, But very quiet revolutions.

I think the one bridge, dangerous and frightening, between my existence then and my existence now is living life as though I were on the verge of death. I can remember distinctly playing 4-5 times a day as though I was going to die in the next 3 seconds. Everything over. It has many roots and my experience with it has been beautiful, but also difficult.

I may try to chronicle my experience, but no selection or grouping of words can do that experience justice.

Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison.

Christmas?

So let me do a little recap of xmas articles I've seen in the last few days:

1) Santa-on-a-cross

2) We wish you a minimalist Christmas

3) No use for Yule

Gotta say, overall I'm pretty happy.

In Tim news, in the midst of a discussion with my mom about why exactly I had spent 544.5$ on a Playstation 3 after I had failed two of my classes in part due to video games (not quite like it sounds, but definitely just as awkward/defensive) somehow we got to talking about what I was like as a child which yielded this story:

When I was about 4, because we were still living in Seattle my mom was telling me the story of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, specifically the bit about the Red Sea. I can remember thinking that it was all well and good that it was opened up for them or whatever. But then, apparently, she told me the part about God closing the sea on Pharoah's army. I guess I looked up at her and said, in all seriousness, "That naughty, naughty God".

Substitution

I've felt a lot of lonliness this semester, maybe this college career. It has resulted (predictably) in reflection on lonliness.


I love how angsty this gets.

There is this paradox. People have spoken of feeling alone when they are surrounded by people, at a party or workplace por ejemplo. And this experience is certainly not foreign to me. I think that feeling can be named 'alone'. What I've been experiencing is almost the exact opposite. When I'm completely alone, when walk up the stairs, returning to a cold room with not even the traces of company, it's in those moments that I become aware of this closeness to someone. When no one is around, that is when I believe, when it's true, when I feel more tangibly than anything the presence of someone I love. My imagination plays a role, of course. That's probably why this person is most often a woman. Which sheds light on another interesting side: waiting. Because after I've settled in my room and it's clear no one is actually here, I usually engage in this sort of active waiting, or preparation. I do work, mostly. But it is always this attitude that this whoever could come walking in at any moment. And there's two layers to it: the first is the obviously longterm one, that this presence I feel or expect to feel is just the deepseated desire for one other human being that, in the word's of a friend, I would "do passionately and often". And no mom, that most certainly would not be the extent of the relationship (but if I have anything to say about it, it'd be a factor for darn certain). The second kind of waiting is that although I'd be far from bored or disengaged, when that person arrived, you could bet cash money just about everything except for them would be the farthest thing from my mind. That's the second kind of waiting.



Of course, there is no physical presence. I mean that's the whole point of this message.

In place of sharing kisses and conversation with my lover, I heave a sigh to my God. And it feels good.

Rent-a-Rower: Uncommon Projects

Last weekend, I got to ride in an elevator just shy of 100 years old, built in 1908. It's the oldest elevator in Tacoma. At that time I was helping a church move their organ out of storage. So we moved all of those pieces, saw cotton/canvas insulated wired that powers the bellows and stops from the console. It took about 5 hours. The organ is going to take about a year and a half to construct, apparently.

3 months = 1 Sentence

My thoughts are like clounds: big, beautiful, and complex but more than anything, fleeting.