A Powerful Thing

I often, in my on-line life and elsewhere, deal with people who most assuredly do not believe in Jesus and who therefore think that the Christian faith is ridiculous and wholly without merit.

I am totally okay with that.  Yes, I am aware of the Great Commission.  I know Jesus said we are to go forth into all the world and teach His Gospel to every creature.  But, believe me, given all the shitty things I've done in my life, with all the mistakes I've made, I am in no position to proselytize.  Besides, this is America.  You can believe what you want to believe.  Hell, you can believe a horse fell out of a tree.  Richie?  He don't give a fuck.

For whatever reason, I just wanted to get that on the record.  And, for the record, I am a Christian.  I'm just not very good at it.

When I lived in Grand Rapids I used to play hockey twice a week with a bunch of right-wing nutbag fundies.  I mean, hardcore nutbag fundies.  Don't believe me?  Check this out: One morning after the skate when the endorphins had kicked in and I'd engage all of them in spirited debate, one of 'em said to me, "God hates abortionists and fags."  I said, "Show me where it says that in the Gospel!"

They all supported Bush and they were all hot for the war and they were all hot for all the rest of it.  The tax cuts for the rich, you name it.  In short, they were all for all the things I hate.  They stood for everything I stand against.  But, to a man, I loved those guys.  They weren't bad people.  They'd just been fed a line of bullshit and, like all of those good Germans in the 1930's, fell for it.  Propaganda is a heavy thing and because propaganda is a heavy thing, these things happen.  And, of course, some people are simply stupid.  Again, these things happen.

As far as the religion part of it, I can assure you that they absolutely did not think I was a follower of Christ.  Once, one of them asked what my church's position (I'm Lutheran) was on homosexuality and I said, "It's interesting you'd ask me that.  I was having butt sex with my pastor last week and I asked him the same thing!"

They'd hold that homosexuality was a choice.  A choice!  I'd ask them when precisely they chose to have sex with girls instead of boys and whether they'd found the decision difficult.  Was it, in other words, a close call?  Also, if it's a choice, doesn't that mean that one can change ones mind?  Could I, for example, decide all of a sudden that I no longer wanted to have sex with a woman and get all hot for one of them?

I told them one day after the skate that I prayed out there on the ice virtually every morning.  They didn't believe it.  "Oh, yes," I said.  "When the puck is down at the other end (I'm a goalie) at least once a game I thank God for giving me the opportunity to get some much-needed exercise doing something I find challenging, doing something I love doing, and I thank Him for giving me the chance to have fellowship with you idiots".

But, as it turns out, I digress.  I know, it is hard (some would suggest impossible is more like it) for one to digress when one has yet to make the original point that one is digressing from but bear with me.

My church--only two weeks after we celebrated our 50th Anniversary as a congregation--lost a founding member this week.  Not only a founding member, one of our most important members.  Marie was the Music Director at our church for over 30 years.  She was my Sunday School teacher when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade.  I'd known her a long time.  Long enough to know that without her and her husband, we might not even have a church.  Mind you, this is the church where I was confirmed, where I was married and where my daughter was baptized. 

Now, just a note on deaths.  I write this crap for myself.  I don't even know why I bother to post it if you want me to be honest since the writing is often merely a personal catharsis for the author.  For that reason, because I am sharing thoughts of a personal nature and am trying to be honest, when I am talking about the death of someone I know, I usually will not use the persons full name or even the persons real name.  I don't want embarrass the decedent or the surviving family members in any way, even inadvertently.    

I had a girl who I thought was a friend (all right, an ex-girlfriend from 30 years ago; all right, a girl I loved more than anything in the world Back in the Day) go behind my back and find out the name of someone I had written about who died not long ago and now (in Sparky Anderson speak) I don't talk to her no more.  That's how angry at and disappointed in her I am.  I was stunned that as nice as I'd tried to be to her after she had gone through a divorce and a job loss, pumping up her tires whenever and however I could, that she was nonetheless unable to respect my wishes.  So, like I said, now I don't talk to her no more.  And I don't give (SparkySpeak, again) no kind of a fuck if I never speak to her again.  If there is one thing I learned in 30 years years of not having her in my life, it is that I can live without having her in my life.  Besides, she once told me she was "fascinated" by Insane John McCain and when she said that I immediately thought to myself, "Why am I even talking to this broad?"  But, I'm digressing again...

For Marie's funeral yesterday a lot of people who sang when she was the Choir Director down through the years came back to honor her by singing in the choir at the service.  Bottom line: our choir which numbers 15-18 members on a typical Sunday numbered about fifty for the funeral.  We had a little bit of trouble just finding room for everyone where the choir sits.

Was it ever something!  Among the songs we sang (Marie had picked them all out before she died, not that she could have after she died, of course) was When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.  A song about Civil Engineering, apparently. 

Now, I've only been in the choir for a couple of years and the only thing I know about the music they hand me every week is that it seems that it is supposed to have some bearing on the sounds I am supposed to make.  How, exactly, is not at all clear to me. 

At the start of When I Survey The Wondrous Cross, there is a small italic "p" on the score.  Since in rehearsal everyone was singing this part about as softly as they could, I assumed the "p" means you are supposed to sing softly. 

Towards the end, however, there was not one, but two "f's" in italics.  Now, I have learned the italic "f" means "forte" and that means to sing loudly and with gusto.  This, as I said, had "ff".  Forte, forte.  The directions were telling me and everyone else to sing as loudly and with as much enthusiasm as we could muster.  So you had fifty people all singing as hard as they could.  What a sound!  It was a powerful thing.  I've never heard anything like it, much less been part of making something like that happen.  I was singing my ass off.  We all were.  I remember thinking, right in the middle of it, "God damn, Marie.  What do you think of us now?"

Like I said, I'm a Christian.  I'm just not very good at it.

A final note.  That girl I referenced earlier.  There was a note posted to my MySpace page from her which said, "I moved to (sic) Cheboygan Tuesday."  We don't even know where that is, but we wish her well.