Tag: religion

Paul Simon and religion

Paul Simon will be releasing a new album in the spring of 2016.

paul simonTerrestrial friend Dan, the proprietor of the Albany Weblog, scratched his chin:

Roger, it recently occurred to me that many of Paul Simon’s songs from the Simon and Garfunkel era were very religious and strongly flavored with his Catholicism, but after he went solo that overt religious bent seems to have mostly disappeared. Usually we see religion creep in to his or her work as an artist grows older, not the other way around. What do you think?

Well, everything I know about Paul Simon suggests that he was not Catholic but, rather, a secular Jew. Indeed, in Hollowverse: “Simon was raised Jewish and his mother was devout, celebrating all of the Jewish holidays and regularly going to Synagogue. However, his father wasn’t nearly as devout as his mother.”

He followed his father’s example. Still, he refers to himself as a Jew in the title song of the album Hearts and Bones.

In How Can You Live In The Northeast, he seems cynical about ALL religion.

How can you be a Christian?
How can you be a Jew?
How can you be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu?
How can you?

Weak as the winter sun, we enter life on earth.
Names and religion comes just after date of birth.

I suspect you haven’t heard his 2011 album So Beautiful or So What, which is filled with religious, and even specifically Christian references. Christianity Today put it on its Best Album list. In this PBS interview from early 2012, Simon said, “For somebody who’s not a religious person, God comes up a lot in my songs.”

The question got me thinking about Paul Simon and religion more generally. One’s music/art can surely be shaped by the majority culture. Here’s a list, obviously incomplete; links to the titles go to the lyrics.

Simon & Garfunkel

Go Tell It On The Mountain from Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964) – a cover of a traditional song
LISTEN here or here

Blessed from Sounds of Silence (1966) – a variation on the Beatitudes
LISTEN here or here

Bridge Over Troubled Water, the title track (1970) – “When you’re weary, feeling small…”
LISTEN here or here

Solo Paul Simon

Have A Good Time from Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) – more cheeky with the intentional poor English: “God bless the goods we was given…”
LISTEN here or here

Slip Slidin’ Away (1977) – “God only knows, God makes his plan. The information’s unavailable To the mortal man.”
LISTEN here or here

Spirit Voices from The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) -“And all of these spirit voices Sing rainwater, sea water. River water, holy water. Wrap this child in mercy – heal her. Heaven’s only daughter. All of these spirit voices rule the night.”
LISTEN here or here

Wartime Prayers from Surprise, 2006- “But when the wounds are deep enough And it’s all that we can bear We wrap ourselves in prayer.”
LISTEN here or here

How Can You Live In The Northeast from Surprise, 2006
LISTEN here or here

These all from So Beautiful, or So What (2011)

Getting Ready For Christmas Day – “Ready, getting ready, For the power and the glory and the story of the Christmas Day.”
LISTEN here or here

The Afterlife – “After you climb up the ladder of time The Lord God is near Face-to-face in the vastness of space”
LISTEN here or here

Love Is Eternal Sacred Light – “Evil is darkness, sight without sight A demon that feeds on the mind.”
LISTEN here or here

Paul Simon will be releasing a new album in the spring of 2016.

Traipsing thru the theological wilderness

I mean chair-throwing disdain, and I had to referee at least a couple times.

This is a continuation of my own theological wilderness journey, which I wrote about here.

TV Guide.Aug 20 1977After I broke up with the Okie, I dropped out of college in December 1974 and lived for a semester in Binghamton, which I’ve mentioned, especially how my mom saved me from afar. I was a handful of blocks from the church I grew up in, yet I know I didn’t go there in the winter, which could have at least been a break from my frozen state.

But I must have gone at least once after I was in Boys in the Band in June 1975, a play about gay life. I recall being in the parsonage next door when the male minister had expressed some possible romantic interest in me. It was not upsetting, but it was surprising; I heard much later that he traveled 90 miles, to Syracuse, to meet up with potential connections.

New Paltz

Returning to college in New Paltz, I lived in a coffee house run by the college chaplain, Paul Walley, who had helped me to drop out without academic penalty. I lived there with two guys, both named Mike. Our rotating job was every Saturday night, to make the mulled cider and host folks who would sing there, and clean up before and after.

I remember only three things about that time. One was an unrequited love. Well, that was probably overstated, since she probably didn’t even know. I do recall a bunch of us singing Take Me To The Limit, and I must have had a drink or two because I could hit the upper harmony.

One of the Mikes, the dark-haired one, performed the 18-minute Alice’s Restaurant Massacree at the coffeehouse. Oh, and Mike and Mike HATED each other, for reasons I didn’t understand, with a great passion. I mean chair-throwing disdain, and I had to referee at least a couple of times, and finally had to get Rev. Walley to intercede.

After finishing college in May of 1976, I was depressed and directionless. I recall opening the passenger-side door of a friend’s car, while it was traveling 20 mph, threatening to exit the vehicle, though I did not.

1977 – the year of my discontent

Eventually, I found my way to my parents’ sofa in Charlotte, NC in early 1977. If they went to church, I did too, to one of the AME Zion churches, the same denomination I used to attend back in Binghamton. It was “nice,” But it was all rather perfunctory. I knew all the words by heart, but they had ceased to MEAN very much.

Though, in fact, there was a time that the parents were doing flea markets a lot and did not go to church much, which was fine by me. I didn’t much enjoy the flea market, because some of the competing vendors seemed to take an instant dislike for me because I used words with more than two syllables.

By the summer, I had made my way north, hitchhiking from Charlotte to Binghamton, where I stayed briefly. Then I crashed on the sofa of my sister Leslie and her then-husband Eric in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Eric had a new agey quasi-theology that was too fuzzy for me.

My part-time job in Manhattan, somewhere in the 50s, was as a telemarketer, selling TV Guides to former subscribers, and the annual version of the Encyclopedia Americana, or was it Brittanica, to those who already owned sets. I worked 6 pm until midnight, four or five nights a week, calling the west coast in the later hours.

I had a LOT of time on my hands during the day, especially since my sister was modeling in Boston quite often. I’d take the subway, well, everywhere it’d go, and I became rather expert at it in the three or four months I lived there.

One day, somewhere near Macy’s, on 34th Street in Manhattan, some waifish blonde young woman started talking to me about something – I didn’t catch on right away, as she was rather cute – and did I want to come up to their house in the Bronx and learn more?

Very soon thereafter, I traipsed up to the Bronx building, which looked more like a residence. It was the local headquarters for the Unification Church, known derisively as the Moonies, after its founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who had founded the denomination in Korea in 1954. A handful of non-followers were there with the believers, and we’d always have something to eat, as we engaged in rather interesting philosophical discussions about life’s meaning.

Pretty much from the second visit on, the Moonies including the aforementioned blonde woman, wanted me to come up to their place upstate, though they never specified where it was. I’m now assuming they meant the Unification Theological Seminary, in Barrytown, Dutchess County, NY. I was always “too busy,” but the truth was that I was nervous about the religion’s cult image, and charges of brainwashing. When I moved out of my sister’s place in September, the flirtation with the Moonies ended.

Next time: what SHOULD have been the most significant religious event in my life.

March rambling #1: wipe out cancer in a decade

Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 10.52.08 PM

Louisville doctor says the breakthrough treatment could wipe out cancer in a decade. Even better, one of the subjects in the story is my friend Eddie, the Renaissance Geek!

Keefknight Cartoon: Colon. One of my brothers-in-law died from colorectal cancer in 2002, at the age of 41.

Why I Left the Right: How Studying Religion Made Me a Liberal.

The White House Welcomes Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church. See this powerful documentary in full (60 minutes).

The Disappearing Soldier.

Kintsugi: The Art of Embracing Damage.

K Troop: The story of the eradication of the original Ku Klux Klan.

Agrippa Hull, Thaddeus Kosciusko, and how Thomas Jefferson didn’t hold up his end of the agreement.

Nancy Reagan rejected Rock Hudson’s plea for help with AIDS treatment sent just months before his death.

Seattle Seahawks Kam Chancellor Wanted to Buy a Gym and Gym Employees Called the Cops on Him.

Formerly freewheeling Aubrey McClendon, now deceased.

Disney is screwing American families.

I was a telemarketer for four months back in 1977. If you hate telemarketers, you’ll love this robot designed to waste their time.

Dan Van Riper: Some crappy-looking old junk from my buildings.

Actor George Kennedy, RIP, who I remember from Cool Hand Luke, Earthquake, the Naked Gun movies, and a whole lot of episodic TV.

Making rubber bands and bagels. There’s a point in the processes where the two batters looks very much the same. Seriously.

shaft
TIME Magazine names male author Evelyn Waugh on female most-read list. (HT to Shooting Parrots.)

Why It Hurts So Much to Step On a LEGO. “Resistance, shiny hardness, and mega-strength.”

Study: Chocolate Makes You Smarter. Of course.

The long and tangled history of Alfred E. Neuman, of MAD magazine.

Russ Heath’s Comic About Being Ripped Off By Roy Lichtenstein.

Music

Billboard: George Martin, and Beatles – She’s Leaving Home, Strings Only (1967) and Dustbury’s favorite George Martin production, other than Beatles material.

The five best soul albums of all-time, according to St Paul & The Broken Bones

When I was in college, I played that first Emerson, Lake and Palmer album a lot. I could do a fair representation of the Moog ending of Lucky Man, sans instrument. Also, listen to Karn Evil 9 2nd Impression. Now Keith Emerson, ELP Keyboardist, Dead at 71.

With “A Group Called Smith”, Gayle McCormick was best remembered for her release in AUGUST of 1969 of Baby It’s You. She lost her battle with cancer and passed away in ST. LOUIS, on MARCH 1st, 2016 at age 67.

Joe Cuba – Bang Bang. #63 in 1966.

I think Rossini’s overture to William Tell is underrated because it’s so familiar.

B is for Baha’i

The Okie and I saw Seals and Crofts perform in NYC on November 12, 1971 – Bahá’u’lláh’s birthday!

bahaiA few months after I married my college sweetheart, the Okie, in 1972, she decided to become a Baha’i. She said that I ought not to have been surprised, since she had been thinking about it for seven years. This I did know.

In Persia, modern-day Iran, there was a guy named The Báb (1819-1850), who was a John the Baptist-like herald of the faith. “In the middle of the 19th century, He announced that He was the bearer of a message destined to transform humanity’s spiritual life.” That second messenger was Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), the “Glory of God”, “the Promised One foretold by the Báb and all of the Divine Messengers of the past. Bahá’u’lláh delivered a new Revelation from God to humanity.”

Indeed, I was intrigued with the notion of “progressive revelation,” among them Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh, who were Manifestations of God” for different times.

“In His will, Bahá’u’lláh appointed His oldest son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921), as the authorized interpreter of His teachings and Head of the Faith. Throughout the East and West, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became known as an ambassador of peace, an exemplary human being, and the leading exponent of a new Faith.

“Appointed Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957), spent 36 years systematically nurturing the development, deepening the understanding, and strengthening the unity of the Bahá’í community, as it increasingly grew to reflect the diversity of the entire human race.”

The most famous Baha’is you might have heard of was the singing duo Seals and Crofts, who the Okie and I saw perform on November 12, 1971 – Bahá’u’lláh’s birthday! – in New York City, with the then-unknown group Boz Scaggs opening for them.

Seals & Crofts put out several albums, with many of their songs – notably Year of Sunday [LISTEN] mentioning the Baha’i teachings. Interestingly, proselytizing was antithetical to Baha’i beliefs, but the duo had found a way to both make popular music and share their faith.

Well, until they released the song Unborn Child, which was both commercially toxic and, though the faith discouraged abortion, was chastened by some Baha’i body – the Universal House of Justice, perhaps – since this song was too preachy; the faith allows for abortion in VERY limited circumstances.

Ultimately, I never became a Baha’i, primarily because the Okie was proselytizing to ME. As an isolated member of the faith, she’d missed that lesson. I MIGHT have spent more time looking at this iteration of faith. Instead, I moved to an even more agnostic state of mind.

abc18
ABC Wednesday – Round 18

Christianity and me, Part 1: Losing My Religion

By the time I got to 10th grade, I had started carrying around my Bible.

losing-my-religionArnoldo Romero is one of the regular ABC Wednesday participants. On his E is for Ecclesiastical post, he talked about his faith journey. Hey, he’s a PK, or preacher’s kid; I know a few of those.

He wrote, “I have even considered going into the ministry at a couple of points throughout my lifetime.” I responded, “When I was 12, most people thought I would become a minister, and I tended to agree,” to which Arnoldo responded, “I’d love to learn more about your spiritual journey and what led you to have a change of heart about going into the ministry sometime.” My answer: “That’s going to take a blog post. Or two.”

Or more, because, somewhere tied in there, I need to respond to an earlier question from Arthur – no, I haven’t forgotten – about the author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and specifically his atheism.

Let’s start at the very beginning. I was raised in the church, specifically Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton, NY. AME stands for African Methodist Episcopal. Like the AME Church, founded a decade before in Philadelphia, the AMEZ church was founded as a result of racial prejudice on the part of the M. E. (white) church, this time in New York City, “licensed a number of colored men to preach, but prohibited them from preaching even to their own brethren, except occasionally, and never among the whites.”

I was baptized when I was five months old. My paternal grandmother, Agatha Green (nee Walker) was one of my Sunday school teachers. The junior choir, under the direction of Fred Goodall, who was there for decades, included both my sister Leslie and me.

When I was nine, I was “saved.” I was at someone’s house on Oak Street, about a half a block from my church, but I wasn’t with folks affiliated with my church, and in fact, I’m not remembering whose house it was at all.

What I do recall was watching a Billy Graham crusade one afternoon or early evening on television. The evangelist Graham had a regular column in one of the Binghamton newspapers at the time. On the TV, he did his usual altar call, where he asks if we in the audience, as well as those gathered wherever he was, wanted to accept the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It sounded good to me. So I said yes.

The secretary to the principal of my school, Daniel S. Dickinson, was named Patricia J. Gritman. Though I don’t remember the process, at some point, Pat asked if I wanted to go to a Bible study at her house on Front Street, a half dozen blocks from where I lived. I attended Friday Night Bible Club for at least five years, as did Leslie. We memorized Bible verses, some of which I STILL know; sang songs; and, according to Leslie, ate a lot.

I was still attending Sunday school at my church, As I got a bit older, my father, Les Green, led a group of kids, including Leslie, our cousin Debbie and me, in a group called the MAZET singers, MAZET being an anagram of our church’s acronym.

At school, I tried not to lord my religion over others, but issues came up. For instance, the vast majority of my classmates found a way to cheat on some written tests in biology, but I was unwilling to do so, to the detriment of my grade.

By the time I got to 10th grade, I had started carrying around my Bible. I didn’t discuss the Book unless asked, but it was my statement of faith.

If someone were to ask me what I was going to be in this period, I probably would have said “a minister.” I got the feeling that others in my church thought so. I was becoming familiar with Scripture, and I was an active church participant, reasonably intelligent, and very well-behaved.

Around that period, I started attending another church on Sunday evenings, Primitive Methodist Church in Johnson City, a primarily white church. Usually, I’d walk about 0.6 mile to my friend Bob’s house, then we’d walk over 2.5 miles to the service; sometimes, we’d walk back, too. This was a more, for lack of a better word, fundamentalist POV.

A funny thing happened, though. As I got even more knowledgeable about the Bible, I found it more confusing, at least if one were supposed to take it all literally, as opposed to reading parts of it as allegory. Part of the problem was sheer mechanics. Genesis 1’s and Genesis 2’s creation stories deviate from each other. If Adam and Eve were literally the first people, who did Cain and Seth have children with?

More problematic was the notion that we American Christians had to send missionaries all over the world to save souls, lest they all go to hell. The narrative was that some person, even a child, in India who wasn’t even aware of Jesus Christ was sentenced to eternal damnation? I had a great big problem with a loving Jesus being part of that, but I received no satisfactory answer. There were other issues, too, but that was the big one, presumably tied to John 14:6.

Then, I started poking at even the most prosaic issues that Christians I had associated with had been telling me. Some thought going to the movies was sinful, or maybe that Disney movies were OK. Playing cards were wrong, even though my Sunday school-teaching grandmother taught me how to play canasta. I never much bought into these minor issues, but they made me much more cynical about the whole faith thing.

Little by little, doubt crept into my previous impenetrable fortress of faith. In retrospect, I find it interesting that I never made any active attempt to find a church when I went away to college in New Paltz, even though there were at least three within walking distance.

(To be continued, at some point.)
***
Some R.E.M. song.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial