are you there god? it's me, margaret.

do you feel god (or whatever you believe) in your life? ok, do you feel his presence when you pray? does god "guide" you in making decisions? or does he make them for you or "tell" you what do?

i guess this strikes everyone a little differently. i am an agnostic and have been for at least 6 to 4 years. being raised a christian reformed protestant in grand rapids, attending church twice every sunday plus religious holidays, and going to catholic and then christian schools from age 2 up to graduation from high school, not to mention calvin college, has given me every opportunity to feel god in my life/heart/soul/whatever. every time i've had a "religious experience, it's been due to the euphoria/adrenaline/brainwashing of altar call style ministry, or when i've had great experiences in nature, or, more often, the beauty of music in a religious setting.

as far as the nature and music, beauty and grace in either forum need not necessarily be derived from god and such associations can be attributed to being taught that the sublime equals god.

to address the altar call, not to be confused with creed minus stapp, i have come to think of this as a slightly disdainful practice. twice in my life, once at a christian rock concert (yeah, i know) and once at a christian youth convention, i have "given my life to" or "opened my heart to" jesus. in both occasions, the atmosphere (dark, encompassing music, repeated, impassioned pleas from either a lead singer or a youth minister, and thousands of your peers in the throes of religious ecstasy) exacerbated my guilt over not being save yet and my ingrained need to have a religious experience (almost everyone else i knew having already apparently had one).

however, upon later reflection in a quiet, sober state, the joy and euphoria of the moment always slipped away like a thief in the night. so this "religious experiences" i had seemed to me nothing but a briefly stirred fervor. hardly evidence of god in any case.

so i am left with a suspect desire to know god, or at least if there is a god. one thing i gleaned from my religion and philosophy classes at calvin is that i must doubt and fight with my faith and really any idea until i am, as an adult, convinced of its merits (the unexamined life is not worth leading). besides, the pascal's wager approach always struck me as trivializing the core of the question of faith.

of course, a religious upbringing can be a double-edged sword. having seen plenty of hypocrisy and fatuous christians who have never once questioned their faith but rather simply slid along believing what they were taught without a complaint has left me a bit cynical and jaded. ok, maybe a lot. are all those people really genuine christians? if so, why haven't i been saved? many times in solitude i have tried to ask god or jesus or the holy spirit or anything to help me or make it's presence known or guide my decisions or even just give a feeling that there might possibly be a god. and yet, here i sit, unmoved. so if god really does move in peoples lives, why hasn't he done so in mine? has he chosen not to? is it my fault? what more could i be doing? i don't even want to hear about predestination. if god doesn't give us a choice or opportunity to know him and be saved but rather has decided for us who will or will not be saved, i'm not interested in him anyway. if he wants me to go to hell, fine, i will.

where does this all leave me? right where i am. i am open to the concept of god, to christianity, and am always willing to argue and discuss it, for how else can i figure it all out? if god has something for me, bring it. i hope i'm ready. but meanwhile, while i can't say there is no god, neither can i say that there is.

what, if you are still reading, you may ask, brought on this blah, blah, blah on everybody's favorite subject? i was innocently waiting for the store to close when a coworker, who had been talking about anything and everything all day long, to the point where we were actually considering murder, started to talk at me about how he had an interview this morning. then he said that although he had thought he was done working in construction and for that reason had made a career change (hence the jiffy lube), he felt that god was guiding him back to it. he went on to say that he really felt as if god wanted him to get back into construction. and then he said that he felt god moving his life in this direction. and, oh, by the way, he was running out of $ and this new job would pay $18/hour+.

yep, god works in mysterious ways.

p.s. among my friends, especially slippery amoeba, carlos, and ikyam, i have discussed this and other aspects of religion and i want to be clear that i respect all of their opinions and hope to go on discussing god with them in the future.

hopefully mostly at parties.

gk will have his revenge...

when i was a kid and we would go on our annual two week summer vacation to someplace it took a long time to drive (grand rapids isn't close to anything good outside of chicago, is it?), my father would bring lake wobegon days or some other rumination-on-tape of garrison keillor's.

i think this is why i still love a prairie home companion. he speaks of the midwest with a twisted, weary affection and clearly loves his home and his brethren despite a ruefulness that nears disdain. that's not far from how i feel about it. so many things about where i spent the latter half of my childhood exasperate me, but i miss that simple mindset of children. it's all possible and in fact probable. furthermore, you love where you are without realizing it. the kinship is not really noticed until it is gone. but of course it's only fleetingly gone, which is of what a prairie home companion always reminds me.

thinking about that makes me glad i am who i am, but regret goes hand in hand with memory. it's not that i regret all the things i've done and the choices that i made, but it sure is different than i expected, or rather assumed it would be as an eight year old. pain is all wrapped up in sweetness, and sadness is beautiful.

to sum up this rambling post, i turn to billy, jason, and kurt; i'm in love with my sadness, everything beautiful is far away, and i miss the comfort in being sad.

resolutely irresolute

ah, the new year. it never seems to matter much anymore, or at least less every year. my resolutions never amount to much anyway.
nevertheless, or should i say irregardless, it's the logical time to begin a new approach to living. here's my list:

1. be not lazy
i can get lazy for long stretches. no more.

2. buy me some tone
this means not only acquiring that elusive mark IV, but also getting inspired to work on my guitar tone. i also want to get another guitar.

3. keep writing music
the song(s) are coming along slowly, but there are ideas aplenty. it's just hard to be patient.

4. get the band back together
it's in progress but two things need to happen; we need the rest of the band and we need to live in the same city.

5. escape the jiffy lube for greener pastures
i don't hate everything about the jteam but it has to end. hopefully i will be able to work part-time at a shop and at a music store, but mostly i need to be around people for whom i have some respect. yes, i think i'm better than you.

6. listen to more music
i love finding new bands to immerse myself in and it inspires good writing. i'm doing it.

7. finish that which i started almost a decade ago
get myself a college degree. get rid of excuses. and then start another decade of schooling. oh, jeez, oh jeez.

looking at this list, i see that the band is well represented. good. it's the best thing i have going right now, and i can't wait to see where we are in 364 days. bring it, 2007. i am not afraid of you and i will beat you ass.