Manifesto

Soundtrack[CLICK HERE]

Back in my Christian days, that song by LSU (Mike Knott with an interchangeable backup band) was a favourite of mine. It reiterated how Evangelical Christians gain what they perceive to be some sort of freedom from the shackles of sin, some sort of liberation into God’s grace, only to sacrifice it in order to look good for other Christians. Instead of talking about their faults, their struggles, and their doubts, they hide them away, ashamed and embarrassed by them. Those who don’t hide them are often ostracized.

I preached on this once. I remember doing a sermon on the role of the “watch” from Ezekiel. It was the watch’s responsibility to blow his horn if he saw the enemies coming, so the Israelites could prepare for battle. If he didn’t blow his horn and the camp was slaughtered, the blood was on his head. If he did blow his horn and people ignored it (why would you do that?) then it was their won fault. In the Bible, this is likened to the role of the Prophet, to whom God gives a special vision of the future consequences of certain actions. I likened it to Christians, who I thought had a similar responsibility to spread the good news of atonement to all who had ears to hear.

But it didn’t leave it as a simple “if you don’t tell your friend about Jesus they’ll go to Hell and it will be your fault” message. I admitted how hard it was to share, and how awkward it was. The solution, I thought was for Christians to be honest about their experiences with God. This is extremely hard, so to practice, we should start in the church, where there should be a strong supportive environment.

To illustrate, I took my brothers trumpet and blew. Out came a horrible, awful sound. I didn’t know anything about playing the trumpet, after all. Then my brother played something, and it sounded much better because he had practiced.

As I have explained elsewhere, the entire foundation of my Christianity has deteriorated, leaving me with little to build on. I have the notion that expressing Love to each other, a respectful, empathetic sort of Love, is important. But that feels sort of vague.

I am prepared to reattach another piece, with a few modifications.

I hereby state that I believe open, honest discussion about feelings and experiences are an important part of expressing and receiving the kind of Love. Furthermore, any attempt to shroud or hide this, especially behind a guise of objectivity, damages that expression.

This came up in a debate I was having with Minako recently. I was talking about how I thought news anchors should be free to express their opinion and experiences about whatever new story they were covering, and that to abstain from clearly expressing said opinion/experience is simply expressing it an a more subtle and deceptive way. Minako feels that this is entirely unethical, and that objectivity should be strived for in journalism. As so often happens in debates with Minako, things continued to spiral away from the original topic (Why didn’t the two fictional anchors on Sports Night name the players who they speculated had been traded by the Dodgers in the fictional deadline deal?) and ended with how can I say these things if I don’t follow the news and don’t do anything to back up or support those who agree with me. I was, of course, perturbed by this on many different levels, but it lead me to this addition to my personal manifesto.

First, I firmly believe that it is damn near impossible to escape our subjectivity when talking about a topic. Even if we state something that is a clear, agreed upon, and verifiable fact, the way we state it, the tone of voice, the words we choose, and the order we place the ideas, betray something about how we fell about the fact. Or even worse, is an attempt to fool the other person into believing that you feel a certain way about something when you don’t feel that way at all. Objectivity is the worst impression, in my mind, because it is so razor thin that no one can really achieve it. The laugh of a news anchor, the tone of voice in which he/she reads the intro, the placement of the story in the lineup, even the particular adjective he/she chooses to use, all paint the facts with a certain tint. And if the general masses believe that tint to be Objectivity, then they believe something entirely false.

But beyond news anchors, what responsibility do the rest of us have to tell each other what we honestly think or feel? I mean, is it any of their business anyway? What right do they have to my inner thoughts and feelings about things?

Well, none of course. Which brings me to the clause that I have added to the whole honesty thing: honest acceptance of your failings. You could also word it as “lowered expectations.”

We live in a society where people don’t trust each other, where people too often view each other as enemies, threats, or a means to an end. If someone suddenly spoke in an unrestrained honest manner about everything he/she thought and felt it would be the equivalent of martyrdom. They would be crucified for poor manners, inconsistencies, and anti-socialism. We live in a society that can’t handle the truth about each other.

Brave people can shrug this off and lead a live in which they are completely and brutally honest with everyone they meet. I am not that brave. I am not even half that brave. I suspect most of you aren’t either. But rather than beat myself, and you, up about that, I try to be as honest as I can in every situation I think of it. I try as often as possible to reflect on questions that people ask me and give honest answers when I think they are appropriate. I need to work on phrasing things more accurately, and in taking more time to reflect, but I am working on it. There are also many, many times when I don’t answer honestly, when I say something to gain an advantage over someone, or protect myself, regardless of whether it is an accurate reflection of my own thoughts and feelings. And I am learning to accept that as part of my faults.

I am also writing this blog. I try my hardest to express as clearly and honestly and as possible the things I am thinking and feeling here in this blog, even if it is gross, unpopular, or compromising.

I strongly believe that, as people strive for more honest interactions, we will see each other as human beings, worthy of Love, and able to give Love in return. I may not being saving people from Hell with my brother’s trumpet, or giving editorials about the election results and the state of Canadian politics, but I believe each time I try to punch through the masks with something honest, I make it a little easier for people to Love each other, for me to Love you, and you to Love me.

Fishing

I still have lots of freewrites from the book, but this is one that just came out tonight.

I don’t like the way you look at me. Out of the corner of your eye, as you walk through the door, rush through the door, through the room. I don’t like the way I want to stop you, to hold you still, to keep you still, until I get my bearings, until we can move in concert, until we can perform the choreography so seamlessly, the audience isn’t sure if we are actually two separate people. I don’t like the way you walk ahead of me, just two steps, and glance back from time to time with an upturned lip and a grunt, as if I were the thing that kept you from going to where you wanted to go, or at least kept you from getting there as fast as you wanted. I don’t like how you try to hold your breath so you don’t make any noise when we are in the dark together, or how, when you can’t hold it any more, you open your mouth as wide as you can and breath as slowly and carefully as you can so that it makes almost no sound. I don’t like how your turn on me when I finally make you too slow, when the hooks I have sent flying toward you finally catch in your skin and dig deep enough that you can’t go forward without ripping your flesh open. You snarl and show your teeth, your eyes wide with rage. You crouch down, threatening to pounce on me, and I have nothing to defend myself except this expensive light weight fishing rod that your dad bought me (which I still don’t know how to use properly). I promise you that I am only a sport fisherman, catch and toss back, just for a moment, just to hold you in my hand and enjoy the catch before I throw you back and cast my line again, hoping you will take my withered and saturated bait, hoping that you will grab hold of my line, hoping that you will come to me when I real it in, struggling just enough to make it fun, to make it seem like a sport, flapping just a little when I hold you in my hand and when I gently remove the hook, maybe even rub salve on the wound so it will heal. I only want to hold you for a little while, before you frantically swim away from me again.