Sparrowman’s Perch

I don’t know why I dwell on this subject so much these days.  Today, I’m trying to overload an answer to both philosophical understanding and to personal identity.  One notion of term, definition and meaning came into play within the past few days as I listen to various factions discuss things in the media.  This one is anti this or pro that—anti or pro depending on who is doing the talking.  Then there are the names that people use for other people when folks need to generalize the other or even vilify another so to make a point.  “They are mother-killers” or something similar.  Society today seems bent on polarization and polemics run amuck in the public square in which folks just want their voice segment for their 15 minutes of fame.  True dialogue is dead.  

One item of dialogue that I learned was to eliminate pejorative or condescending terms so to encourage the dialogue.  So the discussion that begins with  “you baby-killers obviously hate children…,” gets changed to “you are obviously strong about your pro-choice position…”  for instance.

Somewhere in all of this kind of thought within the past week or so an ancient personal memory fell off the shelf in some cob-webbed brain cavity.  I’m not sure of the exact occasion of the original event but I do think I was 5 or 6 at the time when it occurred.  I came home from school one day and asked, “Mummy, what’s a nigger?”  She looked a bit shocked and basically told me that’s a bad word.  I added something like, “Well, I am one—that’s what [so-and-so] said.”   I can’t remember her exact response.  I’m sure she said that I wasn’t one but we didn’t talk about anything further.    Probably she did say something like, “We are all God’s children and He loves us all.”  I think that I wasn’t quite satisfied with that answer but that’s what I had to live with.  Those were very first lessons in identity.  Name/term, definition, identity/meaning.

Fortunately in those very young days I didn’t have too much of that to deal with.  I did get something like “why are you so dirty all of the time?”  from an occasional fellow student or a relative of similar age.  Of course when junior high hell began, everything was no-holds-barred.   Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you.  Yes they do and they can last forever–and sometimes I got all of those.  That memory with that word opened and filled my recent day like a broken jar of 30 year old mayonnaise.  It still stinks.

(I cringe and feel a need to slap something every time I hear the phrase from a towns-person answering a news reporter in the movie Mississippi Burning, “You know…, we take good care of our niggers down here.”   Such a perfect application of a pejorative with a possessive!) 

Anyway, I never could get used to political correctness.  This is only because once I got it down exactly what was correct then the politics would change so whatever was correct before, ain’t now.   Nonetheless, I have been big on trying to use terms for people of differing viewpoints that are used by the people of the differing viewpoints.   I hate names–those condescending ones especially.   

A name.  That kind of name.  A term with a definition.  What meaning does it give or do we give to it?  Whatever the it is.   However, that particular aforementioned term is filled with meaning for me, but not the same one that I learned while growing up.  The meaning now points to those who use it, their ignorance, their closed mindedness.  They have no desire for true dialogue.  

So what words do we choose when we discuss things that greatly differ from us—one’s beliefs, creeds, orientations, etc.?  Do we really wish to understand the other or are we satisfied that our terms suffice with our own presuppositions and prejudices?  Are we proud to cleverly construct even new terms and use them though they inadvertently insult the other?  

In all of the great and small debates I unfortunately give no carte blanche to any group to have immunity from such contrivances of hate terminology.  For I find this in liberal and so called progressive circles, in Christian enclaves, both blatantly and subtly even within academic institutions—places where “folks should know better”.   Polarization and xenophobia needn’t continue it’s runaway rate in our society.  It begins with each person in reflection of what things, names, descriptions can mean for the other.  But I only assume that poeple really want to dialogue in the first place. 

"From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view."

 - Edgar Allen Poe’s Alone

I know this guy too well. He’s in my brandy, in my wine. I should have visited his grave when I was near.
And yet, the raven flies and finds its home.
Sleep now, but tomorrow is a hopeful new day.

I need to be thankful for my work or my job.  But which is it?  Both have different meanings for me.  (Here we go with the definition/meaning thing again.)  

I always pictured myself involved in a work, an opus.  This notion is different from a job.  For a work/opus is similar to a vocation, something that I can be, in a sense, married to and then be able to “reproduce” myself.  For instance, if I were an architect, my buildings would probably survive long after I was dead.  If I was some sort of  scientist/researcher, I could endeavor to come up with something that would be known as “the [Sparrowman] Procedure” which would aid in the discovery of  such-and-such.  Then there’s my original and actual goal:  to teach and research theology on a university/seminary level.  My “specialty” would have been the post-apostolic, pre-patristic period theology with an emphasis on pneumatological thought and activity.   This period was an era of great transition within the Church and is greatly under-studied and misunderstood by a majority of Christians today, especially in regards to the thought, teachings and activity of the Holy Spirit.   In fact, a good chunk of The DaVinci Code plays with the material of this period and I would have been one of the people that the news media would be currently interviewing.  “Dr. [Sparrowman], can you tell us about the Gnostic literature in relation to the development of the canon of scripture…” Actually, today’s news media would likely ask something similar to, “So, what about the secret relationship with Jesus and Mary Magdalene?”

That would have been my work, my life, my baby.  It doesn’t exist and it will never exist.  That’s that.

But, like everyone else, I have to provide for myself, so hence, I am therefore thankful for my job—something that I do that provides me a decent living.

Many of you know by now that I have a love/hate relationship with computer science or general information technology work.  I don’t feel that I’m great at it, but I do what needs to be done and can usually figure out how it needs to be done, but begrudgingly.  My current job pays decently—not the $40,000+ that everyone said I should make starting out.  

My place of employment helps me to like what I do or at least makes that kind of work and life a bit more bearable.  It’s research oriented and populated mostly by PhD geologists.  I don’t think I can work anywhere but within an academic-related institution.    The atmosphere is pretty much laid-back, casual.   The building itself is situated near a lake and is surrounded by woods (but with ever-encroaching development).   I have no real pressure and people are friendly.  I can’t really complain, so even though I do stuff that I really don’t want to do, I have to be thankful that I exist and work in an atmosphere which is generally pleasant.  (Some notion of applied dasein here.)

It bugs me that I have college-degreed friends and acquaintances who are working at Walmart or McDonalds for survival.  I am happy that I do have some friends who find fulfillment in what they do in their chosen profession.  All in all, for me, for what I have and where I am, I am thankful.

Sidenote:  Many factors exist and are coming into play that can greatly change all of the aforementioned.  My new boss just quit, they are talking about moving us to a converted warehouse somewhere else in the county, there may or may not be employment possibilities for me in another state, for instance.   

Yes, it felt a bit like Monty Python the other night at 123 Pleasant Street.  A friend from Maryland was visiting me for a few days and we decided to check out some activity in Mo-town.  We saw a poster at the Blue Moose of a band (picture at left) that was in town and we decided to check them out.  They were the Asylum Street Spankers.  You’d think that someone smashed together a bluegrass band with the remnants of a defunct punk group.

This group was different.  Try to classify them and you are left shaking your head since they were able to mix and match all sorts of musical genres: country-western, alternative, modern pop, 1920s and ragtime, swing and jazz, even a bit of rap.  

The flyer said that this group was “irreverent”.  True enough, this performance is not for youngsters or for anyone who can’t stomach some dock-workers’ poetry.  (Hmm…, I saw another friend of mine from church there.  Then again, he saw me there, too.   Hmm.  But we’re Episcopalians and we are everywhere.  But so are Roman Catholics.)   After one of their tunes, one band member said, “and that was Sick!”  He was actually introducing another member named…, Sick (the guy with the mohawk). 

Nonetheless, I found them to be entertaining.  At times during a song in a 1920’s style about a body decaying in the ocean, I imagined those Edward Gorey drawings of (PBS’ Mystery) dancing around in some weird beach setting.  Another musical entity was “where country-western murder meets gangsta-rap”.    Sometimes I couldn’t help but to think that Dr. Demento  would love some of this.  Sure enough, one of their songs, “Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your S.U.V.” (sung to the tune of  “Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the Old Oak Tree”) is currently #5 on the Doctor’s Top Funny Five List!

More importantly, they were tight, talented and versatile.  At the end of the performance there were piles of instruments on and in front of the stage.  They played them all and they played them well–add to that their vocal abilities and harmonies. 

I almost felt the need to go to confession after it was over though.  (Yes, we Episcopals have that, but not as a sacrament).  The performance really was something completely different.  My buddy and I had a good time although we were more in a mood for some loud rock. 

Check out their blog on MySpace—they have some streaming audio samples there, but again, they’re not for all audiences to say the least.
http://www.myspace.com/asylumstreetspankers