What if Kurt was one of us?

Tonight’s procrastination is not like any other night of procrastination.

Ok, I kind of take that back. Most nights of serious procrastination end up about the same: It’s midnight, I’ve written about 300 words of a 2000-word paper, and all I can do is listen to the Beatles and cry.

I don’t know if that makes you want to feel sorry for me, but please don’t. Not only do I bring this upon myself, but I also don’t actually have any reasons to be crying.

But tonight seems different. I’ve gotten into a major Glee phase lately (maybe later we can go into details about what a “major phase” is), and I’m finally caught up on all the episodes… all except one. For some reason, the third episode of season 2 was the only video that I couldn’t find anywhere online, so that’s the one I skipped, moving on to the latest 3 episodes.

Then I downloaded all of the Glee music I could find from FrostWire.

Then I heard “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” sung by Glee’s Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer). It’s a version close to what Prudence did in “Across the Universe,” and I love it. The really strong bass line, the anguish in the progression of the lyrics… It’s all there. So I would have remembered Kurt singing it, and I didn’t. Of course it was from the one episode I missed.

I found it on YouTube, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. It will probably be removed soon, but I’d still encourage you to look it up.

I’m really not sure why Glee strikes me so much now. It’s pretty cheesy, it doesn’t really apply to me, all it does is make me wish I was back in high school with my jazz ensemble and that I could sing better. But lately it’s kind of what gets me out of bed. I know that’s an awful thing to say, but my class feels dead-end and inserting myself into fictional musical storylines just seems like what I need.

By now I managed to find episode 3 of the second season, and it might just be my favorite episode so far. It’s almost undoubtedly the most powerful episode ever of Glee, and it also is the one that hit most home for me. One reason is because of the Beatles song, another reason is because it had me choked up the whole second half, another is because it featured Kurt, my favorite Glee clubber, heavily, and it also reminded me most of some of my experiences in high school. You can’t sum up all of life’s questions and whether or not you have answers in one episode of a tv show, but I think it’s admirable that at least those issues are being brought up on national television.

And now maybe I’ll try to tackle some of them in my school paper.

Clouds

In church today the pastor said that God was always a “good” God. He is not capable of being anything else. So if something happens that makes you question God’s good-ness, rest assured that the trial or crisis you are undergoing is only for your eventual growth.

Well yes, ok.

First of all, one could say that about anything. Fate is benevolent because it is supposed to happen. It is just as easy for us to believe that Fate is “good,” or that the gods are “good” or that any omniscient force that cares about humanity is “good.” In any of those cases, that belief would then come with the idea that everything happens for a reason. And if the caring, omniscient force is “good,” then that reason must also be good, because courses of events are set in motion for the purpose of achieving the “good” end result.

Some would say that this mindset is sort of uplifting. When we’re suffering, we may think, “but this is just part of a master plan that is really going to work out for the best!” However… consider the following:

So if someone is going through a crisis that makes them want to commit suicide, all we have to say is, “no, just wait– God is good! So you will come out of this stronger than ever!”

Well, um, no.

A local girl who was abducted and traumetized 5 years ago did not come out of it stronger than ever. She’s not even stronger than ever now, after five years of intense therapy and counseling. She may not even be stronger than ever 20 years from now. Sure, it all may have happened for a reason, but who’s to say whether that girl will ever know what that reason is? Or, was she traumetized to teach someone else a lesson? And in that case, why in the world would God use that child?

I am not one of those people who likes saying things like, “if we had a merciful God, this war wouldn’t be happening!” or “If our God was only benevolent, this never would have happened,” or “How could our Good God let this happen?!”

Regardless of what message God meant by handing us the trials we face, regardless of what we’re supposed to take from it, and regardless of whether God is “good” or not, I think it’s up to us to make each experience meaningful to ourselves. It’s not just about finding the “silver lining in the clouds;” it’s about realizing that there don’t even have to be clouds.

Positive thinking carries so much weight. I would not ever condone feigning ignorance (pretending the clouds aren’t there), but sometimes they do only appear to people whose perceptions are skewed.

In the movie “The Bishop’s Wife” (the old version with Cary Grant), Cary Grant’s character says to Loretta Young’s character, “you are one of the few people I’ve met who know how to make a Heaven here on Earth.”

The point is not that there aren’t any clouds– the point is that we always have the option of being above them.

Procrastinating Christian

It wasn’t with much excitement today that I accurately labeled myself a “procrastinating Christian.”

It’s that feeling where you know you have tons to do–There’s all that homework, and the messy kitchen, and the living room floor because you have people coming over, and what is the source of that awful smell?!–but there is always something to do before you can get started on all that. But, at least you’ve made the list of things to do, right? I’m not sure whether we consciously or subconsciously decide not to do all that work, but somehow it just never gets done. Am I right?

There is so much that I need to do and figure out before I could do something like devote myself to a God about whom I know relatively nothing. It would be like ordering a bride in the mail! Still, the longer I wait, the more I feel like a seamstress (in keeping with the mail-order bride analogy). I feel like I’m going to expire for God. …And now I’m resisiting the urge to go for a cheese metaphor.

Anyway, I know what I’m waiting for. I have zillions of pseudo-answers lined up for when people ask me why I haven’t accepted God into my life yet and confirmed myself as a Christian. They are all true, because there are SO many things I’m waiting for, but there is only one for which I would ignore all the others. I am torn, knowing that I will be forever waiting in vain, but knowing that I can never turn my back on the remote possibilities, and also knowing that the remote possibilities would be less remote if I was a confirmed Christian.

It all comes back to Love, which apparently I am not familiar with anyway. If I knew God, then I would know Love. If I knew Love, perhaps I would know God. Which comes first?!

The Vault.

You know that part of “The Polar Express” where they’re trying to slow the train down before it hits the lake of ice, but the piece of metal flies out of the brake lever, so they can’t stop the train? For what seems like minutes, they grasp and grasp for that piece of metal, while it slips out of their fingers, down a grate on the floor of the train, down a man’s throat, until finally it is coughed up… only to fly out of the train’s window and puncture the ice, causing gashes in the surface that nearly signal the end for every passenger.

That little tiny piece of metal, and that moment where they’re so close to losing it… that’s what Love feels like to me, too much of the time. It’s exhilarating, and it’s definitely a rush of adrenaline, and that piece of metal is so precious and valuable… but it never really feels safe. It seems like it’s always something I’m trying to grasp, something that I need to hold on to but just can’t seem to get a grip.

I can’t remember the last time I really felt safe in Love, but I do know when it all fell apart. Ironically, it’s one of my most meaningful and cherished memories. At that time, I learned what it would take to fully be able to relax into Love and let it be my life.

Why is it so difficult to take that challenge? I hate feeling like I’m missing something, or like I’m too inadequate to be able to hold on to it. That’s not the way this is supposed to work. From a Christian perspective, if God is Love, and God made man in His own image, are we Love? I know we are capable of Loving and we are meant to Love, but what in the world does it take to access that? Why do I feel like by being born, I was given the key to this secret vault and told to open it and use what is inside to create and spread Peace, but I can’t use the key or access the vault or something?

WHY do I feel like I’m missing something?!

And why is it that whenever I receive a gift from people who mean so much to me, I feel like I’ve been given a clue?!

I want to give clues! I want to be a strong person who knows how to tell people to Love!

__________________________

Trust me, I know what this allegory is about, and it’s not Harry Potter. Or the Matrix. I wish it were that simple!

Which came first?

I have a conundrum for you.

The other day in church, the pastor asked, “Did you ever think about what the world would be like if God had not made music?” I had, in fact, thought about it, but this time was different.

I wonder, do you think God made the concept of music first and then humans, so that we could create it and enjoy it, or do you think he made humans and included in us the capability of making and enjoying music?

Illuminating Ruminating

[This article was originally a continuation of the post below, TwitterBurger.]

I can’t help it; I love looking at every single one of people’s Tweets. You never know what you might miss, I suppose… and some are really quite profound or inspirational. Take this, for example: I follow Deepak Chopra (if you don’t know who he is…look it up), and he has some really amazing quotes. Today he Tweeted: “We have fallen into the place where everything is music. -Rumi“

I would imagine that this has something to do with Rumi’s general teachings (I had to look this up too): He believed that he had been disconnected from his creator and had begun to think himself above it/him/her, but that he had the ultimate goal to reconnect with his primal roots and restore that relationship.

So at first, the quote that Deepak Chopra Tweeted seemed a little… derogatory, shall we say? towards music. If we have “fallen” to that place where everything is music, it doesn’t seem very positive. It makes me think of falling from grace, or “falling” as a sort of failure. So despite my unconditional love for music, my conclusion was that perhaps Rumi saw music as monotony? To say that “We have fallen into the place where everything is monotonous” would make much more sense, since monotony isn’t really something we strive for, and it could definitely be said that our world has become monotonous (despite all the Twittering).

However, even my extremely rudimentary Rumi research through Wikipedia told me that Rumi was anything but skeptical or pessimistic towards music. Apparently, he wholeheartedly believed that music was one of the best ways to get back in touch with his creator or God.

(At this point I must stress that if you know anything about Rumi, please tell me, because I’m completely at a loss and I’m a little distrustful of Wikipedia sometimes.)

Anyway, Wiki says that Rumi thought poetry, music, and dancing were the ways in which people were most spiritual and soulful. The idea of “whirling dervishes” (which I always thought were a kind of garden ornament) originated around Rumi’s time. They were so invested in the sounds that they would move in whatever way the spirit moved them, which often resulted in spinning. Pretty soon, this sort of dancing became a ritual, during which Rumi believed that the soul was damaged and repaired, and when it was repaired, there was a renewed devotion to God.

From Wiki: “In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth, and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes, and nations.”

Honestly, this sounds amazing. I was never one for believing that the soul could have just one point of revelation; rather, it is always evolving and maturing. But for the alternative, it’s an amazing idea. And of course, whether you believe the soul goes through one very powerful transformation or many, I do concur with the idea that music plays a huge part of it.

“Falling into music” is a little bittersweet, and actually I think I was partially right in my analysis of it. We’ve fallen into a place where everything is monotonous, but we can choose to see it as music, because that is all we have. And because music is so powerful, we can choose to make something of it and use it to our advantage, not just in the world but for ourselves, spiritually. And once we change ourselves, we are well on our way to changing the world anyway.