Saturday, April 23, 2011

A Screamo Easter

There are three Sundays in particular that cause me consternation: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. These celebrations are so meaningful to me and the christian faith, that I struggle to communicate them with creativity and pathos appropriate to their inherent specialness.

Easter is coming in a couple days and my soul wants to scream He Lives. The music for the season communicates powerfully with their words but the tunes are reminiscent of marshmallow peeps.

The best rendition of Christ the Lord Is Risen Today that I could find is this one. It is up beat and modern, but in a smooth jazz/r&b sort of way. To communicate the joy and rapture that ought to be bursting from our hearts, the jazz should be rough and the blues sexy. I feel like if I gave voice to my soul I should scream it out half choking on the emotion - I want to hear P.O.D. or Blindside's rendition!

We cannot celebrate Easter hard enough!  Death, the grave and hell conquered by the unfathomed awful rising of the triumphant King!

Monday, April 11, 2011

The Aesthetic Thread

I have come to see an aesthetic thread running through my life. It is there in my tastes in music, art, literature, food, and drink. The spectacular thing is that this thread resonates with my passion for God like the string on a violin.

Holy Longing marks my relationship with God. I have a passionate desire for intimacy with my Divine Lover that has its root in Eros and stretches for Agape. There is a bittersweet quality to our intercourse, my God and I. When I feel surrounded by God’s presence I feel joy and comfort, satisfaction and wholeness, but I also feel tears well up and a lump come to my throat. I rest in God’s presence and at the same time I mourn that I am not consummated and consumed in divine rapture. I have chosen words that may shock the reader with erotic connotations. This is appropriate because the holy longing I am describing is wholly a function of Eros. It is the divine spark and divine madness spoken of by philosophers and mystics alike.