15 Most Personal Songs (a musical apologetic) --#15 Rush, "Subdivisions"

The top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a geniune person in this human experience. #STformativesongs\

#15 - Subdivisions by Rush

This song reminds me to be involved with and a part of people rather than letting myself be pulled into a separate existence away from them. As a blend of introvert and extrovert with a tendency to pull away when things are stressful, I need this reminder to open up my emotional property lines. 

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Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In-between the bright lights
And the far, unlit unknown

Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass-production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out

Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out

Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths, we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for…

 

Flipping the Script... Yes, Please...

As those of us who claim to believe and follow the Christianity that so many politicians tend to swing around like a "vote for me" sign weigh our choices, let's be sure not to forget the character we're supposed to aspire to. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23, NASB)

Sometimes I feel like we have these two backwards, and by "we" I mean those of us who claim to be "little Christs," particularly when we approach the public forum.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The acts of the flesh are obvious: ...hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions... (Galatians 5:19-20)

Vonnegut on the Beatitudes

 

Yes, I've Been Asked This... Many Times

Okay, I tried to avoid getting political and keep things light here on my own page but have been attacked on another page because if I don't support Trump how can I dare call myself an American and say I love my country. 

Well... I'm glad you asked.

I love my country. Period. It's a blessing to live in a country with so many liberties even though we aren't where we need to be yet.

I love America enough to want to make it better, more welcoming, compassionate,  and provide equal possibilities for all people regardless or race, gender, religion or sexual leaning. 

I want to make the country I love a place where people all are considered innocent until proven guilty and not prejudged by the color of their skin or the neighborhood they live in or the God they choose to serve. 

I love my country enough to want all faiths or the lack of them on equal footing with no preferential treatment given to any one of them in terms of monuments, plaques, or school prayers. 

I love my country enough to want to change the improper perception that poor means lazy.

I love my country enough to believe that the wealthiest citizens should love it too enough to bear their responsibility to fund a still greater share of jobs and security to those who can't. Rather than that extra 100 million they could never spend.

I love my country warts and all and want to work with it to make an even more amazing place for all of us to live together. 

I love my country not just because I love the idea of the USA but because I love the people, all races, all religions, gay, straight, bi, trans, cis, etc., native born, immigrant, refugee, rich, poor, those needing help and those able to help,  of my country.

I love my country because of its people, not its history. I love my country in spite of its history, like I said, warts and all.

I love my country because it is the great melting pot experiment of blending ideals and people to embrace and define all of us.

I love my country not because of what it is, but because of what it's capable of being.

And I will always vote for the candidates I believe can best deliver that world, whether left, right, middle, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, etc., whether DC insider or outsider.

Why? 

Beacuse I love the USA.

Looks like nephew Wormwood might have been listening after all... and moved to the "new world"...

"I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them…

“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘Cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war effort or of pacifism.”

-- Good Old Uncle Screwtape (by C. S. Lewis)

Christmas Incarnation -- The Crux of the Whole Shebang

Here at the onset of Christmas, let's get one thing straight: Christmas is fun. Songs are fun. Carols are a blast. Presents are fun. Remembering family and friends and spending time together is fun. The story of the birth of little baby Jesus is fun.

But that's not what Christmas celebrates.

Wait... What?!

I had you with me until that last part, didn't I? Well, I stand by my statement. Christmas isn't about the baby Jesus and no crying he makes and all of his visitors (some of whom may or may not be biblical, but that's a post for another time).

"Okay, smarty-pants," I hear you saying. "If Christmas isn't about the birth of Christ, then what is it about?"

Challenge accepted.

Are you ready?

Christmas is about the incarnation of Christ into the world. It's about something way, way beyond mere humanity emptying itself ("it" because we only ascribe pronouns to something that cosmically powerful in order to help us keep it in a box we can open and shut and package and name) and putting what it could of itself in a tiny package of human flesh. Christmas is about incarnation, pure and simple.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, KJV)

Christ (somehow one of a triune God whose physical nature I can't even begin to remotely comprehend) became human. The closest approximation I could make is that I might feel bad for cockroaches who are getting close to poison so I let my big, human body become so completely cockroach that I could help those vile creatures hope to avoid the poison. But even that pales in comparison to the bigness of the truth of what incarnation really is, and not just because Christ genuinely loves us and I couldn't care two figs about a bunch of gross cockroaches.

God loved us and loves us so much that he sent Christ as his son to become human and take on all our sins and then die in our place. If that sounds like mythology, it's because it is, but not just mere mythology. It's the best story that can be imagined. It's the greatest myth of all. It's Prometheus with redemption attached. But best of all, it's true. It's history. But that doesn't make it any less mythic.

(Having typed that, I do realize that to those outside my faith admitting something that sounds so ludicrous that can make me seem like a clueless idiot who would believe anything. After all, it's designed that way. The wisdom of God comes off as foolishness to men after all.)

Christmas Thoughts