Re: Good Dog Bad Dog classic album ?or list gone wrong?

["J. Marie Hall" <fionaeval at yahoo_com>]

hi patty!  and gina.  and john.  and rhys :)  and all
you lovely people.

it's snowing!  this is why i moved to northern
georgia--even if it's just a little, i get some of it
:)  i took my students outside to catch it on our
tongues.  true education.  am i gonna get sued?

:)

it does seem like this discussion has gotten snarky. 
but there's a lot of passion here--and we all know
what great philosophers of old might say about
passions (yes, i know there is a difference :)  ).

there's a lot of passion, b/c the church as a group
has some major problems that are easily seen here and
in our own objections on one side or the other.  we
feel passion, i guess, b/c there is something in us to
take a crack at them.  to positively be a part of
change.  but it's hard to know what that means.

here's a major problem: we aren't like those wonderful
bereans much.  we are known as a group (if you try to
lump us all together) that has sacrificed dignity for
folly (which isn't all that surprising...it would be
true anyway since belief in christ etc. is foolishness
to worldly wisdom etc.).  but even legitimately, i
think we have laid aside the part of worship that
includes the mind too often.  so yeah, passe and
ill-informed articles tick me off.  people who justify
art based on mediocrity ticks me off.

but another thing that has started ticking me off just
as much is the way we judge each other in the
church...the way we automatically assume the worst
just b/c it's characteristically christian (in a label
sense).  i know i do it.  i hear about some
contemporary christian "thing" and i say "just another
piece of crap to take away from all the beauty that's
here or possible...another mediocre slouch."  which
isn't fair, and i'm certainly missing out when i do
that.

what's worse is the relational byproduct.  there are
plenty of people i can completely misunderstand b/c of
a lack of thoughtful prowess or desire.  plenty of
hearts i don't join b/c of my idiotic pride.  now
who's the stupid one, eh? :)  i actually think i'm
smart (or could be).  in the grand scheme, what folly.

still, it's changing.  i'm valuing the church and what
i think it's supposed to be more and more.  now, i'm
not just hiding out in there instead of hanging with
people outside it--being homogenous in that other
sense--that other negative extreme, but i've stopped
marginalizing my very own bretheren.  the people who
are foolish, in whatever way, with me.  b/c i am
foolish.  no matter how much better or wiser i get,
i'm foolish.  compared to god.  and then forever in
the eyes of the world.

so i can see john's stance and nod a whole lot.  and i
can identify more recently with rhys'.

take care,
j. marie


=====
Like music, like painting, literature too wants to transcend its primary condition and become something higher. Art wants to move into silence, into the emotional and spiritual conditions of the world. Statues become melodies, melodies become yearnings, yearnings become actions."
- Ben Okri, "Beyond Words", A Way of Being Free

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