Blessings & Curses Pt 3: Unpredictable

Started the day off today (after the weekly phone call to my folks) with some 'Rage Against the Machine' & the thoughts from last post working through m y head. Though about how raging against the machine maybe doesn't do anything unless you take action....

...headed to church, saw '300' advertised on a billboard by McMahon stadium on the way down. Was practically vibrating through church. Very much all on edge, looking for action, looking, well, to pick a fight in some ways. It was likely a good thing that Cheri M was leading worship today. I was looking for some excuse to rage against the machine, but as I've mentioned before, I trust her as a worship leader; a true heart who is there not for her glory, but simply to be the vessel that points to God, or, maybe more acurately, just pour out her heart in worship...

...so the overflow of energy got diverted into the songs. Each song became declaration of war, recognizing God's Kingship & rule over all (which made me think of Kings in exile & how the majority of the world doesn't want God as sovereign & He doesn't force Himself on them)... but yeah, sung myself hoarse....

...managed to sit still & not explode during the two messages today... in between the two messages one of the leaders asked if anyone was hearing anything from God about what they should do. I wanted to pipe up & say that I thought we should go for lunch - 'cause I was hungry, it was past noon & I was hoping that lunch would bring about some point of contact or some 'mission' of being able to have some kind of 'action' in touching people's lives in some way.... but I chickened out. Figured lunch wasn't spiritual enough & my tummy was maybe rumbling louder in my ears than it should & maybe others had real reasons from God to stay there.... few others voiced anything & we ended up with a 2nd sermon for the day... nothing horrible, just another 20 minute delay before the clean-up process.

Wanted to add unpredictability to my day & ended up helping Cheri take her keyboard home (it fit in my car better than it fit in her already near full car). So dropped it off there & was in the SW so went to Moxie's 'cause that seemed sort of less predicable than what I'd had planned.... ordered a lovely painted turtle shiraz (yummy red wine... really liked the flavours on this one) & the chicken enchiladas & read some more in Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran". I've been berating myself for how slowly I've been making it through this book, but felt a bit better about it today as so much of what I read on her thoughts on 'The Great Gatsby' & the 'fall' (or 'rise' depending on your perspective) of Iran into full Islamic based control...

This may make more sense in context & I very much recommend the book. Not a fast read, but an incredible look into Iran & it's history & people. It really shows so much of just what they've gone through & are going through & how not everyone thinks the same way over there....

But some quotes from chapter 21 of "The Great Gatsby" section that spoke to me:

"Gatsby fakes everything, even his own name. .... yet what Gatsby inspires is curiosity tinged with awe. The reality of Gatsby's life is that he is a charlatan. But the truth is that he is a romantic and tragic dreamer, who becomes heroic because of his belief in his own romantic delusion.

Gatsby cannot tolerate the shabbiness of his life. He has an "extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness," and "some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life." He cannot change the world, so he re-creates himself according to his dream. Let's see how Nick explains this: 'Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang form his Platonic conception of himself. he was a son of God - a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that - and he must be about his Father's business, teh service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious [alluring] beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.'

...... The dream, however, remains incorruptible and it extends beyond Gatsby and his personal life. it exists in a broader sense in the city, in New York itself, and the East, the harbor that once became the dream of hundreds of thousands of immigrants and is now the mecca of Midwestereners, who came to it in search of a new life and thrills. While the city evokes enchanted dreams and half-promises, in reality it harbors shabby love affairs and relationships such as Tom and Myrtle's. The city, like Daisy, has in it a promise, a mirage that when reached becomes debased and corrupted. The city is the link between Gatsby's dream and the American dream. The dream is not about money but what he imagines he can become. It is not a comment on America as a materialistic country but as an idealistic one, one that has turned money into a means of retrieving a dream. There is nothing crass here, or the crassness is so mingled with the dream that it becomes very difficult to differentiate between the two. In the end the best ideals and the most sordid of realities all come together....

.... He could be dishonest in life and he could lie about himself, but one thing he could not do was to betray his own imagination. Gatsby is ultimately betrayed by the "honesty of his imagination." He dies, for in reality no such person can survive.

....[the novel] is also about loss, about the perishability of dreams once they are transformed into hard reality. It is the longing, it's immateriality, that makes the dream pure."

Somewhere in the reading of this, I caught the sounds of Bruce Cockburns' "Lovers in Dangerous Times" being played through the restaurant & I began to weep....

"Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This vibrant skin -- this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime --
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight --
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time
And we're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time "

The rest of my day was perhaps predictable. Oil change, car wash, home to rest, nap, watch TV, eat, tidy, bath.... but kept thinking on these things... so what does it all mean? Should we pursue dreams? Do they fall apart when we reach them? Can we change things? Maybe I should become a charlatan, turn my life into a big drama & become fool & spectacle... Maybe I should grow into a modern Don Quixote, seeing dragons where others see windmills & pure princesses where others see putrid prostitutes.... Would that insanity bring inspiration? Make people scoff & jeer & yet look into their own hearts & find that longing for something more, that hunger for dreams long forgotten or buried in the push to build a retirement package or pay a mortgage or to just afford that next meal.... Would any of it make a difference? In the 'Man of La Mancha', Quixote's life changes Aldonza to Dulcinea, his insanity helps her see the beauty of her own heart, the reality that she is worthy of love & this transforms her for eternity... Is that enough for me? If in my life I affect only one human soul, will that be sufficient or will the hunger for change, the drive of the dream, keep me chasing always something more....

....and yeah, I have been told (through Anne Lamott's & Madeline L'Engle's books) that the writer, the artist, the creative, must be 'faithful to the work'... Each 'creation' somehow comes from beyond us & we cannot figure the piece/project out before hand, we much let it evolve into whatever it is going to become. Trying to hold it to a rigid ideal will destroy the work - it will become contorted & contrived & have no real value (other than a sample from which to learn from our mistakes & practice our craft).... but to truly create means to listen to the piece, to try to hear & see what is being created......Maybe I should stop trying to find the one key that will bring the darkness crashing down, but instead remind myself to keep kicking at it & waiting for the cracks to appear....

...at the end of the day (& I use this phrase knowingly), I've thought again that I just need to be 'faithful to the work' in letting my life story play out as it will... there are things I can consciously change & improve, but there is a story being written for me that I need to listen to & follow.... You can claim it's God writing the story, that everything is controlled by His hand, or destiny or fate. You can say that it's the limitations of my environment, personality, genetics, etc. that bind me to choices, whatever you want to say, I figure that I am being created as much as I am creating.... I'm being chosen as much as I'm making the choices... and so I want to be faithful to the creative process in my life... to live in the moment & try to listen to what direction the 'work' is going.... I can't figure it all out before hand & then try to move towards making something happen (maybe, as hinted at in the book, trying to reach this rigid idea of the dream ends up killing the dream in the end). I need to live in the continual now & let myself shape & be shaped....