False narratives: Thanksgiving edition

Heard on this morning's news that the U.S. economy is doing better than expected...but then again, what did you expect the government to report? Heading blindly into another Black Friday spending flurry, they want the sheeplike masses to trample each other into the slaughterhouse...sorry, I meant Walmart/Macy's/insert big box store here.

And kicking off this crazy spend-fest is the Thanksgiving Holiday. So spend a few minutes with family being grateful for all you have, then rush headlong into every retailer to grab up a bunch of crap you (and your loved ones) don't need. You're in luck, too, because many of these greed merchants open their doors on Thursday, so you don't have to wait for the real reason for the season. Black Friday has become the black hole on the soul of America.

But that's not what I wanted to address in today's Thanksgiving post. The holiday now overshadowed by the nation's spending spree is not really a holiday at all. This day of "thanks" for the bounty at harvest time actually bears roots older and across the Atlantic than the colonialist Pilgrims. And let's be clear, the picture painted on kindergarten walls across America, isn't anywhere CLOSE to the truth. In fact, the first celebration on American soil may have happened c.1619 in Virginia, nowhere close to Plymouth Rock!

If you research it, even the American tradition, has taken on several variants--from excitement over the British exit of the colonies (the original Brexit) to the salvation of the Union post-Civil War. This European harvest celebration was co-opted by Puritans, who made everything in life about religion, to be a moment to thank the Creator for that bounty. It was convenient to the nation's white leaders to then assimilate the story of the 17th century Pilgrims and their salvation by the Natives that first winter. They twisted that story around to become the Pilgrim's benevolence to the Natives, then packaged it as the first Thanksgiving and peddled it to school children. It's the story I grew up on. How quaint.

Leave it to the white men in power to rewrite the story as it suits them to paint their ancestors in the best possible light. I mean, our forebears were so gracious to the indigenous Americans. They have so much to be thankful for, don't they? Oh wait. They don't? They actually celebrate an anti-Thanksgiving called the Day of Mourning. That stands in stark contrast to the story I was told.

Just like Black Friday and the robust economy, the Thanksgiving Fable is just another bill of goods being sold to us.

Now, I'm not knocking the idea of gratitude, of thankfulness. These things are, indeed, virtues. But the premise for this holiday is bogus. We should make every day Thanksgiving Day! We don't need to buy some bill of goods that the men in power have sold us. Nor do we need to rush out tomorrow afternoon and SAVE HUNDREDS on our Christmas shopping! You can, in fact, save 100% of your hard-earned money by staying home and enjoying your family or some solitude.

Sins of the Father: American Hypocrisy

It was our Christian European forebears who first landed on America's shoreline, and the white colonists who followed, that cemented our fate. As the Old Testament says over and again, the sins of the father will be visited upon their children.

The Scripture noted above is followed by three more in Exodus and Numbers, each talking about future generations of family, down to the fourth. We may be well beyond that generation in America. I mean, I've traced my own ancestral roots back to my 6th great grandfather, a Revolutionary War hero from Maine. It's apparent, at least to me, that the sins of his British ancestors, some of them Quakers, are still being visited upon our ilk.

I've been watching the fictional drama on Paramount Network, Yellowstone, featuring producer/lead actor Kevin Costner, which deals not-so-delicately with the tenuous relationship between non-native and Native Americans near his fictional ranch in Montana. Each episode reminds me of the hypocrisy of Manifest Destiny, white privilege and American power. Today, the Biblical-rooted idiom, "sins of the father," kept repeating in my stereophonic brain. And this blog post began formulating therein.

No more succinct indictment of American hypocrisy has been made than this by the Brown Political Review last November:

If the United States wishes to punish human rights violations abroad, it must also come to terms with its own flawed record. To be clear, the United States’ claim to moral authority has never been strong. From the genocidal colonialism of indigenous peoples under the guise of Manifest Destiny to the forced internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II, the history of the United States is rife with severe human rights violations (Source: "The Man in the Mirror: Human rights and American hypocrisy," 8 Nov 2018, cached on Google).

The above article goes on to remind us that "the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), joining Iran, Eritrea, and North Korea as the only countries refusing to participate in the council." That's sadly telling.

It's the proof positive, to me anyway, of the snowballing effect of Manifest Destiny. We see it in the current administration's stance on everything from women's rights to the rights of immigrants and foreigners and the LGBTQ+ community. The hypocrisy is that we forget history (doomed to repeat itself), our own heritage, our non-native origins.

A Foreign Policy article, The Heart and Hypocrisy of the American Empire (19 May 2019), describes
"American power" or Pax Americana as "overbearing, lustful, and mendacious." I call it sinful. It sickens and saddens me that this is both our heritage and our legacy.

In Rob Larson's article earlier this year, Capitalist Freedom is a Farce, he quotes American icon Frederick Douglass, who railed against unfettered capitalism, "Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other. . ." It led Larson to conclude, "capitalism limits both positive and negative freedom...the dynamics of capitalism generate unbelievable concentrations of private power," tending toward monopolies.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   ~Lord Acton (1887)

That's one way to say it. We are, as a nation, enslaved to the Almighty Dollar. Let us not pretend that we operate under some divine right or that our allegiance to this nation is somehow ordained by Almighty God. That's not the bronze calf at who's altar we worship. Let's be clear about that. Capitalist America is greed-driven. It's power is not god-ordained in anyway, don't be fooled by the inscription upon our currency, "In God We Trust." It might as well read, "In This Almighty Dollar We Trust." Yet, that paper currency isn't worth the pulp it's printed upon.

Yes, our hypocrisy runs deep.

The sins of our father's father's father (well beyond four generations, now) is certainly visited upon us today. This shouldn't be a source of national pride or patriotism. For me, it is a source of great shame.
As the people said in response to Pontius Pilate (Matt. 25:27), "His blood be on us and on our children." We sacrificed human dignity and sanctity upon the cross of Manifest Destiny. It's blood is surely on our hands, America.

The Illusion of Control

I have a friend who is a chronic worrier. She blogged about it yesterday and my comment went as follows:

I think that I have a normal amount of anxiety about things. I’m certainly not an over-worrier, but I do overthink things a lot, so I can sorta relate. What it boils down to for me is CONTROL. Worry gives us a false sense of it. Many things that we do or believe give us the same false sense of control. Because bottom line is, we don’t. We control our attitude, our thoughts, our emotions and our actions ( to varying degrees of success :D ), but that’s about it. I realized a couple of years ago that I really only control the space immediately around my person. I can put one foot in front of the other, but by the time I take the next breath, make the next move, I could drop dead from an aneurysm ( somewhat fatalistic, I know ). But it helps give me perspective. I can control my breathing, I can remain aware of my surroundings and avoid pitfalls, control how I perceive things, but I can’t control outcomes, other people, the unknown… That helps me to keep a healthy balance, knowing realistically what I control…and it’s not much!

I have been thinking that lately the blood is increasing
The tourniquet's not keeping hold in spite of our twisting
Though we would like to believe we are
We are not in control
Though we would love to believe

(D. Matthews, "Dive In" lyrics)

As Dave Matthew's sings, "We are not in control though we would love to believe." And many people do believe they have control--control over situations and circumstances, control over others, control over outcomes--but as Science Daily points out, the "Illusion of control is the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over." So for instance, you're in conflict with a friend, a partner or lover and you are trying desperately to smooth things over, so maybe you hold back, tell a partial truth or try in some way to protect their feelings. In reality, you don't want to give over control to that person, allow them to have the information (the whole truth), to process it and to react. It could be that you're afraid of the reaction, so you control the information to try and control the outcome.

It's no different than the chronic worrier who somehow tricks herself into believing that all that worry is going to better prepare her to face some perceived difficulty or potential tragedy. It won't. Worry doesn't produce positive results. It's basically a waste of time. Same goes for the person who tries to control outcomes. It actually inhibits the other person, it doesn't help them. If you feel that you're trying to protect them (i.e. act in their best interest), what you're probably doing is trying to protect yourself and serve your own self-interest. It's counterproductive.

Best-selling author Brene Brown writes in The Gifts of Imperfection, “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.” To allow someone else the freedom to respond however they respond to new information, to have feelings, to be heard and validated for those feelings takes vulnerability. If you believe you can control their response (i.e. control the outcome of the exchange or dialogue), then you are not operating from a place of vulnerability, therefore, you are not fully engaged and connected to that person. It's a complete illusion if you believe you can control the outcome, somehow. You don't control other people. You only control you.

Some people seem addicted to this illusion. They refuse to give up control. It would somehow put them in a place of inferiority. But the truth is, none of us have control--not over others, not over the unknown, not over outcomes. Embracing that reality and letting go of the illusion is a place of freedom. The illusion never gave you any real control, anyway. It was a lie you kept telling yourself.

I was a control-freak for a very long time. I always wanted what I wanted, when I wanted it and I wanted it my way...always. I had ways of manipulating people or forcing my will, my beliefs onto them so that I'd hold the power in the relationship. Amazing how many of those relationships either faded away or ended badly. They weren't real, lasting connections. They were simply power trips.

I thought I was in control of my life. I thought I had enough information (like you can ever know enough) to be in full control of my future, my spiritual life, my marriage, my other relationships. I was very egotistical and proud. My feet got knocked out from under me more times than I could count. Each time, I was reminded that I'm actually not in control. Quite humbling.

Humility is a great starting point, a teachable moment. I learned a lot from having my house of cards fall to the ground. I've had to return to humility too many times to count. And I'm sure that I will again. But humility and vulnerability are where I feel most real, authentic and connected to humankind. The vanquishing of that illusion of control has freed my mind. I've willingly let go of it. It did not serve me well, at all. It never really gave me control of anything.

Like I told my friend, the worrier, I can only control me--what I think, how I handle new information, my reaction, my choices and decisions. I need to let go of everything and everyone else and just control my mind and emotions. Be honest. Be authentic. Be humble and kind (as the song goes). Embrace vulnerability and have real connection with others. I hope this makes sense and maybe even resonates with some of you. Love, light and peace, my friends.

Live, Love and Think Positively!

I know I've posted a lot of heavy and negative stuff lately, like my socio-politico-religious rants, so I wanted to post something more positive and life affirming. You're welcome!

Humanism v. Monotheism in the Context of Individual Rights

Defining Terms and Values

hu·man·ism noun

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The Humanist values what it can see, think and feel. They value the cognitive capacity of human beings to rationally consider all sides of an issue without the aid of religion or what I call “magical thinking.”

mon·o·the·ism noun

the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

The monotheist, and for most Americans this translates Christian, values only what is taught in Holy Scriptures as “the law” or “the word of God.” It sees the world in terms of black-and-white, us-and-them, right-and-wrong, saved-unsaved, heaven-or-hell, righteous-sinner… There is no gray area where life is actually lived. It is filled with “magical thinking.” The fact that you have to conjure up some image of what this deity looks like—in most opinions, male—acts like or thinks like is where imagination comes in, thus “magical thinking.”

Let’s apply these terms and values to the debate on abortion and individual rights.

Liberal-minded Christian with Humanistic Leanings

As a liberal-minded Christian, with Humanist leanings, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro choice” stance is human dignity, liberty and Constitutionally-protected rights. It is not about the life and death struggle, the tug of war between mom and baby. It’s about the inalienable rights of the woman who has already survived the gestation period and several years on planet Earth. How do the rights of an embryonic life form, with nothing more recognizable than a heartbeat, trump the rights of a living, breathing human being? Have you seen what the fetus looks like when there’s a detectable heartbeat? It resembles a blood-red jelly bean.

Conservative-minded Christian View

As a conservative-leaning monotheist, which I once was, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro life” stance is the belief that life is God-ordained and begins at the moment of conception. It’s not even a question about women’s rights or even the health and well-being of the mother. It’s merely the fact that a life has been conceived in a woman’s womb, that sacred space where they believe God miraculously breathes life into the cells of this fertilized egg, a zygote.

I’ve batted for both teams, so to speak. I don’t speak from a limited understanding of the issue, of what’s at stake. I see both sides of the coin. But it does, indeed, boil down to a matter of individual rights, and whether you default immediately to the fetus/baby’s side or to the woman/mother’s, you have to choose who’s rights are more at stake here.

The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken, nearly 50 years ago. But it wasn’t so many years before that, women were fighting for equal rights, and black women for equal rights was only a decade older than Roe v. Wade! 

So let us look at equal rights, shall we?

EQUALITY

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” which, at face value, seems to be like a wholly monotheistic ideal. But is it really?

At the time this declaration was penned in 1776, chattel slavery was a widely-accepted practice in the American colonies. Brought to the colonies by the Dutch in the early 1600’s, one could argue that the very republic was built on the backs of non-white slaves. That fact alone stands in complete contradiction to the opening assertion of the Declaration. Were not the slaves endowed by their Creator?

Slavery was an institution supported by the Church and justified by Scripture. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is this concept of equality for all found, certainly not equality for slaves or women. Off the top of my head, the Book of Hebrews is the only place I can recall where equality is preached at all! And there, it is equating the Christian to the Jew as “God’s chosen,” “his children,” “joint heirs” in the promise of Abraham. I would argue that even that Scripture is only saying the Christian male and Jewish male adherents are equal in God’s eyes.

Even the Creation Story itself doesn’t promote the myth of equality. God created Adam from the dust of the Earth. Eve was created out of Adam. From Genesis forward, I don’t see a single shred of evidence where women share an equal footing with men. That patriarchal system, established in “the beginning,” was by God’s design. It influenced the very men who wrote the sacred texts, the bishops who canonized The Bible and the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Even the founding fathers of our nation didn’t all share the same views on monotheism v. humanism. This concept of equality that they immortalized in the Declaration was a myth. It wasn’t supported by Scripture, even though it has very religious overtones, and it wasn’t even practiced in the colonies by the men who wrote it. They believed women inferior, slaves inferior (lower than livestock) and any non-white inferior to them. So what was this equality they spoke of? An ideal? An unrealized goal?

I would say, yes.

Women, slaves and non-whites had to struggle for equality and most didn’t achieve it until the last half of the 20^th Century. It wasn’t achieved in 1776 with the Declaration, nor in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, nor even in 1920 with the success of the suffrage movement and adoption of the 19^th Amendment. The dream of equality, heretofore just a myth, is just now being realized in the 21^st Century, and not just for women but for “all Men,” gay, straight or otherwise.

Is this a God-given right or a human right? I’d argue the latter.

Left to well-meaning monotheists, this right would never have been endowed upon anyone but the white men who codified the rules, enforced them, preached them and interpreted them. We’ve only seen cracks form in the patriarchal system of control handed down to us from Abraham, and later Moses from Mt. Sinai.

Humanists would argue that we haven’t gone far enough. Their view is that monotheism and patriarchy have done enough damage, run their course. Let the idea of inherent human dignity be the sole driving force behind equal treatment under the law—no God required.

That’s at the heart of the abortion debate—human rights.

I don’t feel that the woman’s right to chose what to do with her pregnancy is anybody else’s business. Like “all Men,” she has bodily autonomy and unless that fetus is grown in a test tube, it certainly depends on the “host,” as some have labeled pregnant women. They are not merely hosts. They are living, breathing life-support systems. They can determine for themselves if a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted. They can make this medical decision for their own bodies and fetuses, just as any human being has a right to bodily autonomy.

Granting women this right, which took from 1776 – 1973 (grasp that span of time for a moment), is a logical step towards this ideal which our forefathers set out in the Declaration. That is nearly 200 years to realize this dream of equality for a woman to be given equal treatment under the law. Are we now to repeal what took 197 years to establish?

Patriarchy, bred of monotheistic ideals, would certainly answer that question with a resounding YES! The establishment would have us believe that the Supreme Court made a mistake. The most outspoken of those on the far right would make a case for a theocracy—a system of shariah-like law practiced in other monotheistic states.

The humanist in me must reject such magical thinking. God did not descend with his scepter in hand and “bippity, boppity, boop!” life was created miraculously in a woman’s womb. It took a man and a woman, and not necessarily in an act of loving, consent. Still, biologically-speaking, two humans of opposite sex had to join forces to conceive. Life, for a humanist, is not a God-ordained miracle. It is biology. Period.

In that sense, the human beings involved in “pro-creation” are ultimately involved in bringing this life to fruition or choosing to end the gestation period. Even in that case, the male co-conspirator doesn’t have more say over the gestating than the women who bears the sole responsibility. Her body equals her choice.

Their religious-sounding, monotheistic rhetoric aside, the 56 men who declared this myth of equality, even while holding women and slaves in submission, couldn’t foresee a time when abortion would strike at the heart of this myth. But now that the myth, the ideal, has been realized it can’t be stuffed back into it’s 1776 packaging. We won’t return to an 18^th, or even a 20^th, Century mentality, no matter how hard the right pushes us in that direction.

Thousands of Cups of Tea

It was January 2009 and I had been reading the NY Times Best-Seller, Three Cups of Tea, after seeing it's author interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning, a show I watched religiously on Sunday mornings. I was living in Indiana and his story so inspired me, that I began raising funds to send to the Central Asia Institute. Here's what I wrote (February 4, 2009) on a friend's Facebook timeline:

I just finished reading "Three Cups of Tea" about Greg Mortensen and the Central Asia Institute. They are combating terrorism in upper Pakistan and at the Afghan border by educating impoverished children that would otherwise attend madrassas (basically becoming jihadists that hate America). 

We can support a teacher's annual salary over there for just $260, so I've plegded my $10 and I'm looking for 25 friends to match that. Are you in?

I was all-in, you could say. Inspired by this man's work, I wanted to do what little I could to help his organization educate, primarily girls, in remote parts of the Himalayas. I was even enlisting my friends' help.

According to Wikipedia, his first book "stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks [and] has been published in 47 languages." It was followed by a sequel, Stones Into Schools, which I also read. I'm surprised to find that I didn't blog about any of this in 2009 or thereafter, because it turned into a scandal.

In April 2011, CBS News which had introduced me to Greg and his book, did a damning expose on it's "60 Minutes" program. It interviewed Jon Krakauer who'd written a conspiracy theory claiming all of Greg's first book was a lie, that he didn't stumble into a remote village and share three cups of tea with tribal elders after failing to reach the summit of K2. The program that aired in 2011 called into question everything I believed about Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute, who I'd given my money. It even led to a criminal investigation in Montana which did NOT result in charges, but did show some impropriety. That investigation led Mortenson to repay $1M to CAI. He had been a bad manager of the non-profits money, but he wasn't a thief or a liar.

My curiosity over this story led me to recently Google Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea. What I found really surprised me. Not only was Krakauer a crack and just trying to get rich on Mortenson's coattails, but CBS News hadn't even done their due diligence to verify his claims. Not once did Steve Kroft or his crack team of journalists travel to these schools located in remote mountain villages and talk to the natives!

https://vimeo.com/86945374 (video link)

My Internet search this morning led me to a new documentary, 3,000 Cups of Tea, by Jennifer Jordan and Jeff Rhoads. It attempts to tell the real story of what happened and show evidence of the success of the schools that Greg Mortenson founded. The documentary team actually does the journalistic work that CBS News failed to do by going into the schools and into the villages to talk to the beneficiaries of Greg's dynamic work. They talk to men in the village where Greg shared his "three cups of tea" and documented on film their eyewitness accounts of seeing him stumble across the bridge fresh off his K2 climb. The film also calls into question the journalistic integrity of the American media and how irresponsible they have become in telling people's stories or getting to the truth.

Greg's reputation was nearly shattered in April 2011 by Steve Kroft and his colleagues at CBS News. I found it greatly ironic that the same news source who introduced me to him and his work was the same who attempted to shatter his reputation two years later. Were they THAT afraid of having egg on their face? Well, guess what!

You can learn more about the 2016 documentary film here. I can't wait to watch the whole thing! I'm surprised that CBS News hasn't done a second follow-up to apologize to Mortenson and the CAI, but where are the ratings in that?

White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism

If I could start any non-profit I wanted tomorrow, I think it would be an educational program to treat middle-aged (and older) white males in denial. Their disease? Denial of white privilege. It's an epidemic that seems to only affect that demographic.

Disclaimer: I'm a 50-year-old white male who has benefited from white privilege my entire life.

My co-patriots would like to claim that I'm a guilt-ridden, self-loather who thinks reparations are in order and we should all self-flagellate. Sure, make me a victim in this scenario. But isn't that what "they" do? If you listened to all the alt-right propaganda, it's people like me, in the media, on the streets, waging a war against whiteness! Their way of life, their race and even their gender are under attack!

Poor little white dudes.

The predominance of white privilege has shown it's ugly face throughout history, but I don't need to prove it's existence. To me, it seems as obvious as the nose on my face. To others who've benefited from it THEIR WHOLE LIVES, it's become a "dirty word." We don't like to face our own prejudices and shortcomings. I get it. But denying it's existence would be like spiders denying that they benefit from webspinning, or lions denying their royal jungle lineage. To further this metaphor, white men have existed at the top of the cultural food chain for so long, we even mold our deities in their image. Have you seen most portrayals of Jesus Christ?? I grew up believing that Jesus was a fair-skinned, blue eyed Westerner with a British accent.

Anthropologists best guess


Fighting the denial of the blatantly obvious would be the mission of my non-profit. I would force my target demographic--men who look like me and a lot less like the Jesus pictured above--to look into the mirror and get real with themselves.

In thinking on this idea yesterday, I had a moment of real gratitude. I said thank you to the Universe for my health, my intellect and my good looks. Yes, I'm a frumpy, aging, white man with graying brown hair, wrinkles around my green eyes and a gray goatee. But I could walk into any establishment, even after a long period of unemployment, and talk my way into a job. No one would bat an eye as I sauntered into the building because I fit the model of "normal" in our white-bred, Chrisley Knows Best society.

All I'm asking of my Wonder Bread, milk toast brethren is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes; consider for one minute what their world might look like if they looked like confused, Arab Jesus (see photo above). What would their middle class American suburban experience have been like if they'd been born with brown skin, a disability or even as the opposite sex of their OWN race? Because even white women have been marginalized throughout world history. EVERYONE EXCEPT WHITE MEN HAVE!

But to accept that truth would be to accept all the baggage that comes along with it--from patriarchy to slavery to abominations of every sort (think Hitler and Nazism). We've got a barbaric past. But why own any of that when you control the narrative? See my post last year in the wake of "kneegate" in the NFL.

Men, since the dawn of time, have controlled the narrative. We wrote all of the ancient, sacred texts, the basis for our morals and laws. Then, we made all the rules, we enforced the rules and we protect that patriarchy with a fierceness not even matched by the Spartans (or the Nazis). And because we were simply born into the ruling class--dominant gender, dominant race--we believe we get to continue making all the rules, writing the white-washed narrative and keeping everyone else in the margins. That has been our man-given right since the dawn of time, right?

And all I want is for my brothers all of white mothers to own up to it. Well, that's the first step, anyway. I really want them to go further and consider what this world has been like for people outside their Truman Show bubble. Understanding breeds compassion and empathy.

Denial of white privilege breeds the opposite. In today's American political climate, it's given us the resurgence of white nationalism. It's that militant side of white America who is ready to take up arms to stave the non-white onslaught. You know, all those rapist Mexicans that want to steal our jobs! Too much? Sorry, not sorry. Those are the outlandish claims being made (mostly on Fox News) by the alt-right.

"They" are so worried that someone else is going to usurp white control of everything and take with it all the power, the pen and the privilege. They will rewrite the rules and the narrative--this mythic, monolithic "them" (non-whites). Diversity of skin tones, gender identity and ideas scares the ever-loving shit out of the white aristocracy, especially those on the alt-right. They literally feel that they are in the fight of their lives. The world has turned against them--their government, the media, the people they've oppressed and marginalized for eons.

Maybe they SHOULD be scared! Maybe it'll make them re-evaluate their stranglehold on society and all of it's "norms." But, sadly, it hasn't. It's made most of them dig foxholes in their mostly white, cookie cutter, McMansion suburbs. It's forced them to drag us back, as a nation, into the white ages of Cleaver-land. I'm talking 1950's black-and-white sitcoms, where Father Knows Best and you can Leave It To Beaver.

Life was so much easier for whitey back then, wasn't it? We didn't have "the blacks" rioting and burning down their own neighborhoods and scaring us half to death. We didn't have "the gays" pushing some gender-twisting, liberal agenda down our throats. We didn't have "the gentler sex" demanding equal pay or speaking out (think #metoo). We didn't have "the godless atheists" challenging our WASPy ideals and core beliefs. It's SO scary being a white person these days!

The threat to white privilege has caused this huge backlash and talk of border walls, national (meaning white) security and bringing God back into the classroom. And it's not just non-whites under attack anymore. We have to dominate and control our women, once again, by rolling back advances like abortion rights (Roe v. Wade), voting rights (women are incarcerated, as well) and affirmative action (it benefited women, too). We have to continue to marginalize the voice of gay, white men, even, save their voice be heard and their "chosen lifestyle" be normalized (think recent PBS show, Arthur, debate). Everything non-Christian, non-white, non-male is in the crosshairs because White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism!

It's akin to someone's most deeply entrenched personal issue becoming exposed. The defenses go up immediately. Fight or flight in full effect. Same goes for WASPy, white America. They are deeply afraid of exposing their sacred right (think Manifest Destiny) and having it trampled. Because you understand that to give ANYONE else rights (think #blacklivesmatter) is to somehow diminish THEIRS! Anything that threatens their centuries of control is to be pushed back, demonized and utterly defeated.

I don't feel guilty about it. I didn't make these rules and I certainly don't defend them. My white ancestors were not slave owners. They were immigrants from all parts of Europe, some who were literally despised when they got here (think Irish potato famine refugees). I've totally enjoyed and benefited from my white man card and all the privileges it served up to me. But I wasn't raised to despise anyone who didn't belong to the club (membership certainly has it's privileges). I was raised in a multi-racial, middle class, Midwestern city neighborhood. I walked to school and/or played with neighborhood kids that were African-American, Asian-American, European-American...notice these all have qualifiers. We are all immigrants from somewhere else...NON-natives. So PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU MY WHITE BROTHERS, get over yourselves!!!

Let's end white nationalism today and embrace all cultures, all Americans and even those trying to become Americans. Let us willingly lose our privileged status, the us and them labels and be more courageous. Get out of your foxholes, lay down your defenses and embrace diversity. It is about to be 2020 for God's sake! Let's let go of 1950's stereotypes (ding, ding, ding...it wasn't THAT GREAT back in the old days!) and fully embrace the moment we live in. It's not scary. It's exciting. Change is good. Lay down the crack pipe. Let love rule!

Value and Worth

We ascribe value to so many things, important and unimportant. We apply labels--good or bad, sacred or evil, worthy or unworthy. Think about the activities you feel are worthy of your investment; the causes that are worthy of your sacrifice. These are the things that hold supreme value in our life. We call the ideals and attributes we treasure, "our values."

The problem in our thinking is the skewed perspective and faulty definition we hold of wealth. For instance, we consider Fortune 500 executives as wealthy simply because of their financial value. But think about that. What value does a dollar bill really have? Only that which we ascribe to it. There was a time when that value was based upon the gold standard, and our currency held value in direct correlation to the gold our government held in reserve. But the U.S. Dollar's value in correlation to world currency fluctuates all the time. So what is a dollar really worth? The paper it's printed upon? The ink and artwork? The time and manpower it took to print?

Currency is merely the paperwork that allows us to trade commodities. It is consumable. Some people hold more power than others, but does that mean they are wealthy? It does if you ascribe value to currency. Those Fortune 500 execs are certainly powerful and wealthy, if their value is only found in the amount of currency they possess. But what do we know about any of those people and their core values? Do they have great familial relationships? Do they possess humility, vulnerability and emotional courage? In essence, are they "good" human beings and do they possess a high sense of self-worth?

In my opinion, the people who possess a high sense of self-worth are those who feel loved and accepted. They have a sense of belonging. They are connected to others and to causes that are worthy of their time and investment. I would consider relationships highly important. Financial currency would be, on my classification scale, very UNimportant. Why?

Because as the old saying goes, "You can't take it with you." And even if you amass great financial fortune, pass that fortune onto your children and grandchildren, it will at some future generation lose value, depreciate and/or deteriorate until it lacks any value at all. Conversely, the values that you impart to your offspring will carry them through life. And if those values are cherished and honored, then they will be passed down for many generations without losing value.

Let me ask you this--how many funerals have you attended where the eulogy was all about the financial wealth of a person? How many obituaries or virtual memorials give a spreadsheet of someone's assets and liabilities? How many tombstones are inscribed with words like, "He amassed great financial fortune." Highly unlikely, right? In all my years of genealogical research, I've seen thousands of tombstones and they'll have inscriptions, such as "Beloved husband and father," or "United in life and in death" (for couples). And at the end of nearly every obit or online memorial, you'll read, "In lieu of flowers or memorials, please donate" to this worthy charity or cause. Because the value, the worth, is not in the unimportant things, like how much cash they left behind, it's in the important things like relationships and giving back to the world.

How we define wealth, defines us.

Are you ascribing value to things of great import? Are you investing in yourself and in others? You are worthy of love, belonging and acceptance. We all are worthy.

CHOOSE LOVE! Start with you!

Precedent Setters, the Church v the Court

As I blogged last week about Roe v. Wade, the precedent-setting Supreme Court case from 1973, I believed my case for upholding this nearly 50-year-old ruling was airtight. Well, arguing the points on Facebook did little good to convince anyone. The anti-abortionists on the right cling to their argument equating the medical procedure--for whatever reason--as murder. This is the reason states who are now trying to outlaw abortions are not even allowing exceptions for cases of rape, incest and mother's health. Regardless of what stats, logic or legal precedent you throw at them, it always comes back to "life begins at conception."

The basis for Western morality are the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (Torah/Bible) which were written by Middle Eastern Jews and canonized by European Bishops (the Bible anyway) centuries ago. Wikipedia says, "Which books constituted the Christian biblical canons  of both the Old and New Testament was generally established  by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements, for the ancient undivided Church." To be clear, that was 16 centuries ago or SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS! There has been a lot of evolution, science, social change and reinterpretation of the text in that vast expanse of time. Laws that govern current Western culture, still largely based on the moral code of these ancient texts, is revisited and reinterpreted all the time. But let's be, again, very clear that we are talking about a law book canonized 1,600 years ago.

Anti-abortionists want everyone else to buy their theory that this ancient law book trumps all other laws and sets precedent for all time over our current system of governance. That is simply insane!

The precedent for current-day America was set by American judges in the last half of the 20th Century. It was nearly 50 years ago, in my lifetime, that the debate was settled and precedent set--for current day, not 5th Century Europe and certainly not 400 BC Judea! The social norms and mores of those times are mostly irrelevant to the world we inhabit, halfway around the globe, 16 - 26 centuries removed.

That law book, which is a religious artifact, does not set precedent. Our democratic republic is quite simply NOT a theocracy. The separations put in place to protect government from becoming such, are spelled out just as clearly in our Constitution as the right to privacy. The 14th Amendment that protects that right, and served as the basis for Roe v. Wade, was instituted in 1868. So the anti-abortionists, want to erode the protections our forefathers laid out over 150 years ago and wipe away the precedent set by a nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling. Why? So we can return to the barbarism of animal sacrifice and demanding virginal blood be apparent on the marital bedsheets?

They don't merely want to roll back the 1973 protections. They want to return America to the pseudo-safety of the 1950's, of shaming women into having babies that were the products of non-consentual sex, of women remaining silent and knowing their place, of back alley abortions and non-sterilized coat hangers, of putting woman at risk and removing their liberties as equal citizens! It is asinine and insane!

We can't let them lord the control of 5th Century Bishops over our country, our mothers, sisters and daughters any longer! The Supreme Court has spoken, our American forefathers have spoken and the precedent has been set for nearly 50 years. Your ancient religious text doesn't trump that. It's precedence was outdated by the time the Bible was canonized. It's relevance for modern Western culture lacks any real viability--as most of it's taboos on sexuality and women's rights have been long shattered. There will be no dragging back of my America to the dark ages! Not for my generation, not for my daughters', or their daughters' either. Period, end of story.

TRUTH BOMB!

My latest abortion rights rant

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion

This is the hot topic these days with Bible belt states pushing back against what has already been established as constitutional in this country--a woman's right to choose what she does with her body and the fetus developing inside of it. The debate for the pro-right, pro-religious agenda, "pro-life" side ALWAYS comes back to "life begins at conception." But now we have ultra-right leaning states pushing even further in attempting to call masturbation murder, as if God ordained every sperm out of every male body on the planet to be the next human baby. That's absurd!

But the "life begins at conception" argument is NO LESS absurd. Not every egg that receives the fertilizing sperm and becomes an embryonic cell is meant to become a contributing member of society--some of them don't even develop into multi-cell organisms, others don't make it past the first month or first trimester, some will develop abnormally with major deformities and become babies who have to be cared for all of their lives or become wards of the state, while still others will become rapists, arsonists, terrorists or serial killers. My point is that NOT EVERY LIFE CONCEIVED is destined for a productive and healthy existence on planet Earth! And what's even more important, we are reaching critical mass on this planet--just ask the polar ice caps!!

And even if you believe that God ordains EVERY SINGLE life from conception, then you believe that he condones rape, incest and sex slavery! Each of these evils produces children.

What's more, if your belief is that every woman who conceives should be forced to carry the baby full-term, and it survives the 10-month ordeal, will you also support this child by paying to improve public education, housing options, transportation options, providing free public health care and higher education??? No, I didn't think so. That'd be socialism.

But get this--we DON'T live in a theocracy or an autocracy, where one diety or person in power gets to "play god" and decide which women can abort their pregnancies and which can't. Most would agree that rape, incest and other abuse victims should be given that right. So if some are allowed and some aren't, that's where my problem lies. It's as stupid as the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It's okay to be gay in the armed forces, just hide who you are (and go kill people!). Who are WE (collective population), or THEY (god or government leader) to say who is OK and who ISN'T???

Our government, even approaching 2020, is still by-and-large run by powerful, wealthy, white men (who are insanely rich on the corporate tit) and so I'd ask (for my daughters' sake), WHO ARE THEY to tell them what to do with their bodies or their fetuses. Are any of these "sugar daddies" gonna help my girls through the pains and emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy, or the anguishing pain of childbirth, or the 18+ years they will need assistance in raising my grandchildren?

All human beings have rights and one of those rights, recognized by the courts, is bodily autonomy. The University of California Santa Barbara defines this right as such:

Bodily autonomy is defined as the right to self governance over one’s own body without external influence or coercion. It is generally considered to be a fundamental human right.

Since the planet does not NEED any more babies and even those conceived in the womb are not guaranteed to survive or to be contributing members of society, then there's no need to assert a divine will or manifest destiny to every living embyo. Therefore, we should default, first, to this basic human right, that ALL humans, even women, have autonomy over their own person. Secondly, we have the 14th Amendment and the 1973 Supreme Court decision. As arbiters of the Constitution, they get to tell us, as society, what is allowed and what's not. And last I checked, abortions are allowed.

Before you try and box me into some stereotype, I AM PRO-RIGHTS! I believe in human rights, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights, right to die, right to work, etc., etc...EVEN gun rights, though they should be way more restricted than say voting rights or driving privileges. I believe people have the right to do what they want to with their bodies, to love and marry who they want to, to copulate consentually and either have the babies as a result OR NOT, to smoke pot (it's a plant not a drug) if they want to, to own and shoot guns if they want to...it's not our place to infringe on people's rights for ANY REASON, especially not religious-based reasons!

Quit fighting what's been a social norm (and a legal right) for nearly HALF A CENTURY! No one wants to return to coat hangers or to fight battles over individual rights that have already been won, whether they be civil, women's, LGBTQ+ or otherwise! We WILL NOT return to the 1950's in this country, so please take your seat and enjoy the ride.

Drum Life

I started playing drums around 1978 before I was 10 years old.

It must've been around that time my Uncle Greg, who was more a big brother to me than a younger half-brother to my mom, put together this ramshackle drumkit in his mancave of a basement. Well, it was his parent's basement and Grandma Wright--Lord love her!--put up with our noise making! The foundation of the kit was a 4-piece, Ringo-style kit with pearlized shells, but my uncle had added other drums, like a snareless snare drum that was gerry-rigged with cable and tape as a "rack" tom and then there were the mismatched cymbals.

Let me backup and set the stage for you, so to speak...and there was actually a stage. In the northwest corner of my grandma's basement, under the guest bedroom and bath, sat what today we'd call a mancave. In there, my uncle had his workbench, a converted model train table cluttered with projects in various stages of completion. He was a tinkerer by hobby. Across the room, he'd built a one-foot high drum riser out of plywood and two-by-fours that he covered with artificial turf, the bright green scratchy kind. Atop that riser, sat his ramshackle drumkit that would've looked appropriate as part of Fat Albert's Junkyard Gang.

Now the masonry walls were painted a deep blue, a shade darker than royal, but lighter than navy. Upon that backdrop, my uncle had hand painted the Journey "Evolution" album cover and something from the Prince collection, who at that time was still the artist KNOWN simply as Prince. Now the painting may have come sometime later, probably the 80's, but this is how I remember Greg's mancave. Against the wall sat his behemoth homemade speaker cabinets with two woofers--12- or 15-inch, I'm not sure which. Suffice to say, those suckers were loud. They were powered by this pieced together Hi-Fi system that was my uncle's crown jewel!

His album collection contained the hottest rock on vinyl from that era--Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Toto and the like--so that's what he liked to play along to. The first songs I remember him playing for me were "Hot Blooded" and "Hold the Line," at such extreme volumes so as to hear the music over his heavy-handed playing. I wanted to emulate him, emulating Foreigner's Dennis Elliott and Toto's Jeff Porcaro. When I took the 5A sticks in my hand and felt the pedals beneath my feet, there was a jolt of energy and something took hold of me. Those sticks would become my magic wands, of sorts.

I played for countless hours--to my grandparent's chagrin--along with those records, trying to get every nuance of Jeff Porcaro's 4/4 blues pattern with the triplet feel and matching the power of Elliott's hard-driving pulse. I would eventually work up the nerve to try capturing Neil Peart's essence on 2112 "Overture/Temples of Syrinx." That album, brought over by my uncle's buddy Gary Davis, transfixed me for hours and launched my lifelong love affair with Peart and his band, Rush!

Long after Uncle Greg's flirtation with the drums ended, I began making magic on his ramshackle drumkit in the basement. He'd be out with girls during his high school days (Class of 82) or playing basketball with his buds in the backyard and I'd be hammering away Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose" or Journey's "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" inside. In fact, that Journey tune was probably the second song I learned after "Hot Blooded." Those two and "Hold the Line" (Toto) were the first three songs I ever played on a set of drums. Prior to that, I'd only played pillows on my bed or mom's couch with two Lincoln logs.

I'd eventually graduate to much more diverse music, starting with Styx, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Triumph, but everything I played I learned by ear. I'd already trained myself to listen to the beat of any song first, to learn the drum pattern and to play in time along with records or the radio. I think that's the best way to learn to play the drums. Playing in-time with vinyl records was better than trying to match the speed of the metronome because music has a pulse and a groove. There is no way to simulate that any other way, unless you have recorded rhythm tracks with which to keep time.

When we moved away from Indiana after my high school graduation in '86, my uncle offered for me to take his drumkit with me. It had been scaled down to the original Ringo-style foundation and a couple of cymbals, but it was the perfect size to fit our Tallahassee apartment bedroom, the one I shared with my brother. My parents would never buy me a set of drums. Apart from the expense, they didn't have the patience or hardness of hearing like my grandparents in Princeton (IN). However, they graciously acquiesced because they knew how much my passion for drumming had grown.

It was in that small apartment bedroom at Cameron at Woodcrest in Tallahassee (now Live Oak at 850), that I worked up the nerve to play publicly. So that when asked to play in front of the youth group at church, I did and I was hooked on the live playing experience. I cut my teeth playing for youth group, adult choir and orchestra and eventually the "first string" worship team at Christian Heritage Church. That's where I cut my teeth on the drums and learned various forms of music, including gospel, R&B and big band swing--everything learned by listening, "by ear." Thus launched a lifetime of drumming passion, a pursuit that continues to this day, mostly as a side gig.



It wasn't until the Spring of 2012 that I decided to join a local cover band in Fort Myers Beach that I actually played paying gigs outside of church music. I loved it so much that I've been a gigging drummer in local cover bands ever since!

14th Year on Blogger

In the age of YouTube and social media, blogging seems to be a thing of the past, but I began this blog on this very week of April 2005. Hard to believe that was 14 years ago. My youngest daughter was about to turn 2. In a couple of months, she'll turn 15!

So happy birthday to my blog!

Nolesrock is an online persona I created during the days of message boards and chat rooms. I was very active in talking college sports on ESPN-hosted forums in the mid-to-late 90's and that's where I came up with the moniker. It stuck and so my online usernames have usually been some variation of Nolesrock. Don't believe me? Look at my Facebook URL from when I first joined in 2009.

www.facebook.com/nolesrock

Here we are 14 years after I started blogging--mostly about spirituality, music and life. Then I landed a job in 2011 as a part-time journalist and freelance writer. The blog was loaded with newspaper articles I had written in my short time on the Island. Then it went nearly dormant. My posts these days are few and far between, but when something strikes me, I blog about it here.

Most of my thoughts and ideas go down on paper in spiral notebooks I call "My Journal" which I've kept faithfully since 2012. That's when life turned upside down--my own doing--after my wife and I separated. The fall of that year found me living alone on Fort Myers Beach and my wife and kids living 7 hours away in Tallahassee.

There are good times and bad times filling these blog archives. There are rants, raves and tidbits of wisdom sprinkled in here and there. There's a lot of spiritual wrangling and questions. There are a few attempts at answers. But life happened in these 14 years, some of which I captured in writing here.

I fancy myself a freelance writer still, but most of it is just ramblings and musings I write by hand in my journals. I have a few novels I've started, including one that is finished, if only in rough draft. I haven't written professionally in a couple of years. That is soon to change.

But I will keep this blog as long as Google sees fit to keep Blogger around. It's been a good run. Stay tuned.

My Musical Dark Ages

We all experience dark periods in our life. Mine have come at different times, caused by different circumstances and challenges. But my musical dark period was self-inflicted and started around the time I was nineteen.

BACKGROUND

Now, my involvement with church music started early enough when my parents started listening to Keith Green and The Imperials, dragging us all to the Jesus '77 festival in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. On the heels of that experience, we were attending a Baptist church where my parents were volunteer youth group leaders and I got to hang with high schoolers when I was but a junior higher. I liked the music they liked, to fit in. But we're still not talking about my Musical Dark Ages. These kids were into Boston, Queen and REO Speedwagon. I hung with a troubled youth who was closer to my age and he introduced me to Ozzy's "Blizzard of Oz" album.

Juxtapose that with the disco-infused gospel music of The Imperials in the late 70's, featuring Russ Taff. Our church also hosted this gospel rock outfit out of Ohio who called themselves The Friends of Jesus. Their albums tended to border on Bee Gees-style rhythms, too, but I was just finding my way musically then. A friend of my parents handed me a cassette by Christian rockers, Rez Band (they'd shortened their previous name, Ressurection Band, to be more hip, less Christian-y, I guess). Rez Band was edgier than the stuff my parents listened to and was my first foray into CCM, or Contemporary Christian Music, a musical subculture that really exploded in the 80's.

I didn't go to church much during high school. I didn't listen much to that crap from the 70's, either. I befriended guys in my neighborhood and in high school who loved Rush and the other groups I was growing to love in the 80's. My connection to others was usually through the music we listened to, like my coworker, Dan, at Little Caesar's, my first job that didn't involve cutting grass, babysitting or delivering papers...and also involved coworkers. Dan was next door neighbor to a quiet kid from my school who loved early Sammy Hagar and Motley Crue. In fact, the three of us went to see Hagar in Terre Haute circa 1985. Dokken opened up for him. It was an incredible show!

Back to where this story started, in Tallahassee, age 19, still living at home and taking my first college courses at a TCC satellite campus near our apartment. Enter Preston R. Scott into the scene! Yes, THAT Preston Scott--former WTXL Sports Anchor, Tallahassee Ford spokesman and talk radio fixture. Before all of those ventures made him a local celeb, he moved here in 1987 to become the youth pastor at the church I attended. It was a heavily music-centric church where I got involved in youth ministry and music.

Now, I was attending church not so much to fit in with my peers, but to win the approval of my parents with whom I'd been at odds through most of high school. I was a misfit. I could have been in the cast of Freaks and Geeks. Now, facing adulthood, I wanted to connect with my parents and with something bigger than myself, so I poured myself into church activities, like youth and music. This was late 80's during the time rock music was on trial for lyrical content, backwards masking and corrupting our youth. With encouragement from Preston, I jumped wholeheartedly on that band wagon and burnt all of my secular music in a grand display at a youth function one night.

Enter my Musical Dark Ages.

MUSICAL DARK AGES

My musical dark ages began in earnest in 1987 and lasted about eight years. I fully emersed in the CCM subculture during that time, abandoning all of my favorite music which was "secular." (as if music itself can be inherently good or evil, secular or Christian).

All of this came to mind suddenly this morning while I was reading a Rolling Stone article on the new King's X book. King's X, one of the best power trios to ever cut their own path (akin to Rush), was once stigmatized as a CCM band, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I've been a lifelong fan of the band, but had no idea that Ty Tabor and Doug Pinnick had worked behind the scenes on some CCM albums I had, like Morgan Cryar's "Fuel for the Fire" (Pictured, left). This vocal hack was sold to people like me, hungry for secular music alternatives, as Jesus' answer to Bryan Adams. I mean, just look at the cover. The guy couldn't hold Bryan's mic cable, but the production was slick, the music catchy enough and it was markedly more cool than The Imperials and Keith Green.

I became a regular at The Christian Bookstore on Thomasville Road and bought up every CCM album on CD* I could stomach, ranging from Amy Grant to Stryper. But even before Preston had convinced me to devote myself wholly to this "more wholesome" rock music, the previous youth pastor, who fronted a house band called Don Carr and Sold Out (they sold me on going to church at Christian Heritage in '86), brought in a real rock star to perform at our church.

*Remember, the 80's was the dawn of the compact disc (CD) and I didn't buy my first CD player until we moved to Tallahassee in the mid-80's. I think Whiteheart's "Don't Wait for the Movie" might have been my first CD purchase.

Rick Cua, former bassist for The Outlaws, had just released his rock anthem "Wear Your Colors" and he brought his band of big hair, big amps and an even bigger double-kick drumkit and transformed our sanctuary on North Monroe near Lake Jackson into a concert hall. I ran a spotlight for that concert and became a big fan. In fact, Cua's touring drummer, who's name escapes me, was the first who taught me to twirl my drumsticks! Anyway, Cua and Carr had singlehandedly convinced me how cool being a Christian rockstar could be. This was right before Stryper became darlings of MTV.

By the time I destroyed all my old music, I was following bands from the CCM subculture like Whiteheart, the Allies (whose frontman, Bob Carlisle, would later score a mainstream hit with "Butterfly Kisses," I know, gag me!) and Petra. All of these groups was trying so hard to mimic their secular counterparts. I'll never forget hearing the opening lines of Allies "Long Way from Paradise." The Butterfly Kisses guy could belt some blues-laden rock-n-roll--"WE GOT LOUD GUITARS AND A ROCKIN' BAND!" and the Allies launch into a Led Zepplin-esque romp! I was hooked. But that was the kitschy way they won over hungry CCM fans like me.

Now, I'm not dogging all of these musicians/bands. In fact, some of the music, very little of it, has stood the test of time and I still enjoy it today. Some of the bands had VERY talented artists! Take the drummer from Whiteheart--Chris McHugh--for example. He has been Keith Urban's musical director and drummer for years! That guy still rocks! His bandmate in Whiteheart, Gordon Kennedy, penned the smash hit "Change the World," for Clapton. So it wasn't all kitschy Christian crap...but much of it was. And I was listening to it exclusively, largely missing out on the Grunge music period of the early-mid 90's.

I know.

Enter King's X, bringing us full circle. A friend of mine handed me a cassette copy of their first album, "Out of the Silent Planet." He was a church friend, one of my first from the Don Carr and Sold Out days. He'd gotten the cassette but didn't care for it much. Like most of the music industry, he didn't know what to make of them, telling me they were a new Christian rock band. I was blown away by what I heard. Looking back, I think they were the drop-D precursor to all that followed in the 90's, like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. In fact, they opened for Pearl Jam in the mid-90's, and no they were not a Christian band.

I wore this cassette tape out on many road trips to Atlanta in my black Pontiac Fiero. The dischordant guitars backdropped against beautiful, Beatles-esque harmonies was like nothing I'd ever heard. These guys were groundbreakers and I was hooked from the first song on the album!

Thankfully, I'd get a chance to see King's X live at the Cow Haus in the early 2000's and hung with them after the show. I absolutely LOVE Doug Pinnick, their frontman and bassist! All three of them are cool, laid back and mega talented!

Anyway, this probably began my metamorphasis and slow drift out of my Musical Dark Ages. I eventually gave most of my CCM collection to my brother and sisters. I began collecting 70's music first, the stuff like Wings and Stevie Wonder that always transported me back to my innocence and childhood. Eventually, I made my way back to hard rock and metal, and even gave myself a crash course in grunge music. I never returned to the artistic deprivation of my musical darkness. That period still haunts me to this day.

Reading that King's X article this morning was a revelation of sorts. Once I learned that Pinnick and Tabor collaborated on the Morgan Cryar album, I looked up the opening track, "Pray in the USA." Hearing that song on YouTube sent me right back to 1986! I remembered owning that album on CD, how it made me feel at the time and how deep in the musical darkness I was.

Thanks for indulging me on this musical foray into my dark period.

Anti-Christian Believer

I haven't expressed many religious views in some time and that was partly the basis for this blog which began in 2005 or thereabouts. And as I was showering this morning, I thought about the deconstruction of my faith that has been occurring in spurts and starts ever since that time. So let's talk about that, shall we?

MONOTHEISTIC MYTH

Some of the world's great religions--Christianity, Islam and Judaism--purport this mythic creative being who is so above our human consciousness so as to be nearly incomprehensible. But is "he" really?

On counterpoint, the humanist idea purports this idea of the fully realized self--the perfect human, if you will. But is that idea really so different? Allow me to explain from my own personal upbringing.

The God of my childhood was certainly created in human image and explained to me as a loving, yet militantly disciplinary parent. I mean, uber-militant, like say your prayers or risk hellfire. Scary, right? Juxtaposed to his sense of fairness and justice, was the loving father figure who, once in his good graces, couldn't lavish enough love on you. As I grew to understand this concept of a perfect being of the most perfect love, I realized God possessed both masculine and feminine characteristics. I mean, even the Bible describes him/her as a mother hen gathering us like chicks under her wings.

But in all those descriptions, meant to put God in terms we could understand, he/she is merely the perfect parent or fully realized human--God in our image.

Is that so different than the humanist view of a supreme being? To me, this idea purported by monotheism that he is something more is a vain attempt to explain how and why we are here.

INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS

The argument of the intelligent design community is a full spectrum away from the randomness of the chaos theory. But let us be honest. Isn't it just as plausible that aliens of a far more advanced reality designed our universe as it is that a God creature did it in a mere six days? And what's so intelligent about a black hole anyway? Did those designers say, "Yeah, this is great and all, but you know what this galaxy needs? A huge vacuumous drain!"

I'm only halfway joking, here. If I am supposed to believe there is this incomprehensible being "out there" somewhere looking over this intelligent design he created with a word, why can I not consider him/her and alien being. Maybe she's an alien mother hen that exists in another realm---a highly creative chicken with a sadistic sense of humor.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN

My deconstruction of my faith has caused me to become very anti-Christian. Especially in today's polarized social climate, I have very little tolerance for the bigotry, sexism and homophobia of ultra-right-wing Christian expression.

My own Christian experience ran the gamut from Catholic to fundamental Baptist to the zaniness of Pentacostalism. I minored in religion at Florida State University to try and make sense of it all. What I came away with left me convinced that they are all basically full of shit. And the crazy part is that the Protestants don't seem to understand that the book they so highly value was given to them by Catholic Bishops from the 4th - 6th centuries, who couldn't have been any further removed from the Christ figure if they were meeting on Neptune, instead of Europe. And these bishops had an agenda. Why do you think some books were in and some were out? Because they picked what fit with their worldview, theology and bias. And the world--Catholics and Protestants, alike--have been lapping it up like it's water from the fountain of youth ever since. We don't even question it, not even when it clearly contradicts itself, at least I was raised not to question it.

My father, to his credit, did question the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. That's why we left and became Baptists in the late 1970's. He had what he describes as a conversion experience in a charismatic Bible Study that led him to a spiritual retreat called Cursillo. Just before we moved to Florida, however, my mom got very interested in the Charismatic movement in the Church, an outgrowth of the hippie church movement of the late 60's. She and my dad read a book called "Walking and Leaping" by Christian author Merlin Carothers. Once in Florida, they sought out a church that was "filled with the Spirit" and that's how we became CathoBaptiCostals, term I like to think I coined in the mid-1980's.

I always said that this upbringing gave me a well-rounded view of Christianity, but it really didn't. It was all pretty much based in fundamentalist ideology. It just took very different approaches to the foundational salvation message. It wasn't until college and even into adulthood, when I first encountered liberal Christians on Internet message boards, that my fundamentalism was even challenged. I'd never considered Christianity from a liberal or humanist worldview. I didn't know those kinds of Christians existed, or at least I never validated their brand of Christianity. I looked down upon such blasphemers as fake Christians.

When I go to church now, which is infrequently, I surround myself with these liberal types, who believe in justice, equality, inclusion and such. But I go to that church with a very anti-Christian mindset. I just don't trust Christians very much anymore. I totally get why a large portion of the world hates and distrusts them.

I still want to believe in goodness, in love, in fairness and justice, I just don't believe that it all starts with this other-worldly being who we cannot really comprehend. It'd be just as reasonable to assert that it started with highly evolved beings from another galaxy or whatever.

The theology and the book it is loosely based upon don't interest me as much as the result. How does your belief define you and make you treat others? Are you a decent human being? Are you a responsible, charitable and compassionate inhabitant of this planet? Do you make others better by your being here? The results, the actions, are what speak the most to me.

Well, I've run out of steam, so we can discuss this more later...