i make peace and create evil
27 November 2009
6 comments
from David Bazan, “In Stitches” (listen)
When Job asked you the question,
You responded, “Who are you
To challenge your Creator?”
Well if that one part is true,
It makes you sound defensive
Like you had not thought it through
enough to have an answer
or you might have bit off more than you could chew
(thanks to CJR)
“A shadow on the water/A whisper in the wind.”
It’s slightly creepy to me how so many songs about “belief” or lack thereof can be read as Emily read my own poem that referred to a “You.” That is, like a lost love or a fouled romance. As I said — CREEPY. I feel this way about a lot of classical music written as glorification to a deity as well, though, i.e. most requiems!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2jN8Yph-Ls&feature=related
Beautiful, no question. Still creepy.
And then there’s this totally nonrelated lovely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRq2bhegN8
Blurgh, here is perfect example of what I’m talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBJR8GeipuE
I’m not sure if it’s the incestuous suggestion? Or just this kind of borderline erotic suggestion around something that should be storge or agape.
The story of Job really appealed to me, even as a child – I just never had the courage to ask the question. “Just tell me what I did, Lord,” Job begs, and the answer is “Who the fuck are you to question me?” And saying Satan was the one who *actually* did the nastiness is a cop-out. Both parties treated Job like a lab rat. Interestingly, god gets more angry that Job questioned, than likely if he had merely cursed god. Maybe that was Satan’s plan all along?
And the “Jesus as Boyfriend” song-lyric metaphor is HUGE in Nashville.
How can it NOT be obvious that we hold ourselves to one particular expectation and we hold our gods to another? We have done this throughout time, whether it was pantheism or monotheism! It’s so inconsistent, but then, the need to believe it a bit inconsistent, begging as it does to make that proverbial leap *away* from the glory of the self and thinking and rationalization and *toward* the big nice powerful Daddy or Mommy who will kiss every hurt and make everything always make sense.
But I digress. I don’t know any well-adjusted person who would tolerate the same treatment that YHWH gives Job. It reminds me, quite frankly, of Mr. Deity’s Eve, wigging out of “beside the point” stuff. The only reason it IS tolerated it because of this schema that requires the god to be above the human, and frankly, this kind of tiered caste system makes my stomach turn.
Know ye not that ye are gods? (Hermes Trismegistos) This mindset, had it stuck, would have yielded a much more balanced world.
And I am so grossed out by that Jesus as Boyfriend thing that it’s almost enough to make me say no to K wanting to move there!!!
Yeah. Gross. I’m so withya on that one.
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This is the personal website of Dan Sanders, IT Security Officer-blogger-game designer. I created the World of Atkelem fantasy setting (see WorldOfAtkelem.com). Feel free to send me a note if you have questions, and thanks for visiting.
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