Sic Semper Tyrannis

A Pretty Good Way to Start the Day...

And now I present to you the results from my latest blood draw with notes from the doctor and nurse...

posted by Mike @ 7:47 AM 7 comments

My New Road Bike!

I recently (i.e. since the marathon in April) started training for my first bicycle century--100 mile ride. As of yesterday, here is the bike I'm going to do it on--a 2008 Giant OCR C3! I've put 82 miles on it in the last day and a half.

Upgrades over my other bike (the flat bar road bike which I shall now use exclusively for the daily commute to work):
-5 lbs lighter
- clipless pedals
- a more aerodynamic riding position

Life is good!

posted by Mike @ 9:20 PM 4 comments

Abondoned Ideas Volume 2

For all of the video-game-designing readers that might be out there, I offer the following concept free of charge.

The name of the game in my head is Ted Nugent's Rock n' Roll Safari.

For those that don't know-- Ted Nugent, also known as "The Motor City Madman," was a rock n' roll guitarist and bandleader in the 70s and 80s. Ever heard the song "Cat Scratch Fever?" "Stranglehold?" Ever heard of the early 90s band Damn Yankees? That's him shredding on the guitar. Ted is also a vocal conservative political voice, a gun nut, avid hunter and sportsman. Pretty weird dude.

In my head, the game was a first person shoot em up type a la Halo or Wolfenstein 3D. (Remember that one? I played it obsessively in my early college days!) Endorsed by Ted Nugent, it would feature shooting up animals in a variety of environments: the African Plains, the swamps of the Southern United States, the Rocky Mountains, outer space? That's the "safari" part. The "rock n' roll" part was originally that it would just feature a sweet awesome soundtrack.

But now, since the invention of Rock Band, I have rethought it. I think that the plastic guitars should be involved somehow. Maybe equate the guitar playing to taking the lives of animals? Like, if you get so many notes correct in a row, the guitar shoots a zebra on the screen? I don't know.

That's about as far as I got before abandoning the idea.

posted by Mike @ 2:36 PM 1 comments

A Month of Sundays Part VII

Yesterday was Sunday, which has meant a new church experience as of late.

Against my better judgment I went to a friend’s church. (Why “against my better judgment?” Well, what if at the end of the service all I could think to say is “Dude, that was weird!” I’m not looking to be in the business of offending people. Better to avoid the possibility, I thought.)

Anyway, from what I could tell it was non-denominational. An 11:00 start time is absolutely perverse, but I have dealt with that in other posts already. This was the second service of the day and was one of those “multiple campus”-type churches.

My friend Joe plays guitar. I really got more out of watching him do his thing during the music than anything else. There were about 25-30 people in attendance, which made the high-energy rock band and dual screens showing video of the musicians and singers feel a little superfluous. I felt like I was attending the “little mega-church that could.” Perhaps the earlier service was a bit larger.

Things I liked: I like walking up to a building and someone opening a door for me and saying hello. Bonus points when their skin is a different color than mine. That was one thing I noticed about this group of young-ish (ranging from 10- late 40s in age): they weren’t all pasty white like me.

The music was the sound of “contemporary praise and worship,” which means rock drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar and Joe doing his best impression of The Edge from U2. As I watched these people up front, leading worship, singing with eyes closed, hands lifted, dramatic and all-- I wanted so badly to feel the same feelings…to tap into whatever it is that they apparently are tapped into. But even more than that, I wanted even more badly to believe that these people were truly in the moment like they seemed to be.

Is it really possible to be this excited?

Is it not just a conjurer’s trick? (I spent many years in a band. I know that the best way to invoke a response from people was usually to “fake” that emotion yourself. Move around to make people want to move around. Thrash about to make your audience want to thrash about.) Does praising God through music work the same way? Through the power of suggestion? “Act ecstatic or reverent to elicit the same response?” I hope not!

I don’t know if there is a reason behind it or not, but I noticed that the band played improvisationally behind announcements at a couple points, which proved to be an exercise in focus for me. My ear naturally gravitates toward musical sound. (This is why I sometimes fade in and out of conversations at restaurants or anywhere else there is "background music." If you have experienced this weird quirk of mine...now you know why at least.)

Things got weird for me after the musical time. The sermon or message was delivered on the giant screens, a video I presume. As I listened to the middle-aged guy talk about change and the gospel, wondering where he actually was, I had an argument with myself inside my head:

“Mike, this is really weird. There’s this talking head up there, speaking authoritatively and every now and then he asks people to repeat. As if he can hear them. It’s like George Orwell. Institutionalized passivity. The Great Oz.”

“I know it seems weird, Mike, but this is how many, many people do ‘church’ now. Anyway, it’s really not all that different than listening to a live, in-person speaker. It’s not like you’re interacting with a pastor when they’re delivering a sermon anyway. For that you need to go to an African American church!”

After basically watching TV with these folks for what seemed too long, (I find that I get antsy more frequently with my new active lifestyle), it was time for the response, which seems to always come down to deciding to be a Christian of some sort.

After that were some amazingly well-produced, high-energy videos promoting upcoming events involving the other “campuses” throughout the city and we were dismissed to the sound of funky music from the band.

posted by Mike @ 4:34 PM 3 comments

A Month of Sundays Part VI

On Sunday I visited another church.

This time it was different, though. The other times I went to churches I had never been to before. This time I decided to do a Thomas Wolfe-ian experiment and visited my first childhood church experience- the Lutheran church. Unable to go back to Savannah, Georgia and recreate my ABSOLUTE first church memory, (getting yelled at by a lady for running around and playing hide-and-seek in a darkened church sanctuary!) I visited the little Lutheran church that we went to for about three years off and on when my family first moved to Oklahoma back when I was in fifth grade.

Childhood is obviously a powerful time for people- all kinds of new experiences, neural connections being formed in the brain, new habits unrolling, a worldview shaping, etc. And the idea of God and church being thrown into the mix at this time? Pretty overwhelming when you look back!

And “look back” I did. Since I had insider knowledge I realized that some things don’t change much. The building and grounds are all largely the same- four walls, a steeple and a parking lot surrounded by a lot of land. Over the last twenty or so years this church never built on an additional wing, never added services or offered choices of worship styles to accommodate an influx of new people or made any of the changes typical of a “successful” church. They still recite the Divine Order of Worship, (I can still sing the tunes in my head), they still sing every verse on hymns and stand on the last one. They may have switched out more comfortable chairs for the wooden pews and gotten a new pastor, lost some of their folks to old age and the regular movements of life, and Lord knows I’ve changed since my junior high years, but Sunday felt like I had travelled back in time.

The strange thing was that there were still some older people left who remembered the thirteen year old version of me, which I didn’t expect.
“How are your mom and brother Todd?”
“Where is your mom now?”
“Are you living here?”
“You used to play the guitar…”

The best line I heard... when I said that I have a church family of Nazarenes here in town, a lady slyly said “They’re good…but we’re better!”

I really wonder how a church like that has survived through the generations. There were about 50 people present in that sanctuary (which seemed so much larger to my shy, childhood brain.) The average age was the oldest I’ve seen yet, probably in the mid to late sixties (probably due to the fact that the church is very close to a couple retirement communities), with a handful of children present.

Let me speak for a moment in crass commercial language. How does a church like this compete in what is unfortunately a marketplace? In the last few weeks I’ve seen what draws the young and hip- the excitement and energy. I’ve also seen the church situations where one can advance in social standing by immersing themselves into a larger pool of like-minded folks. This unassuming building, this small group of folks, can offer neither of those two things.

I looked around, wondering what has kept these people together through those changing tides and times? The couple young mothers with their noisy kids sharing the same air as octogenarian choir members...what has kept this thing alive? If I were indeed writing a book I would have interviewed some of these folks and gotten some of their stories.

So, what was the service like?

Lutheran worship is by the book. Literally. Everything is written out as if the congregation and pastor were speaking the lines of a play, (“the most boring play ever written,” if you asked some folks.)

A Diversion:“Thy and My”
One important note on theology and memory: There is a point in the liturgy where you are supposed to sing “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” Turns out I remembered the tune correctly over these years but the words slightly incorrectly “…the joy of MY salvation.” That’s a big difference, theologically-speaking, contained in less than a syllable: God’s salvation vs. My salvation. Hopefully God has not been offended over the years for my incorrect thoughts!

There were some very strange feelings welling up in me. “This used to feel so normal, so routine.” No longer. I’ve already discussed my problems with reading things aloud, even if they have had been passed down over hundreds of years. And then there were the silences- waiting for people to walk from the back of the room to the front to read the day’s scriptures, waiting for the pastor to walk from the altar to the back to sing with the choir, and then back, the un-polished-ness of it-- the silences were brutal. I realized for better or worse, that I am used to a pretty well-oiled machine of continuity in church services.

I also realized how hard these people are working to make even this simple worship service happen. Go to a larger church with some “professionals” around and you can hide or blend in and go months or years without anyone asking anything from you. Not so in a church this size. (Within five minutes after the service I was recruited to play guitar!)

Again I am left with questions: why would someone engage in this activity on a Sunday morning? Is it a convenient, regular meeting place and time for your friends and support network? Is there something to the liturgy or the act of performing the liturgy? Is it just what they’ve always done? Is it the sermon? The hymns?

I shall continue to think on it…

posted by Mike @ 3:58 PM 2 comments

"Admit That the Waters Around You Have Grown"

I was at the grocery store the other day and heard the absolute classic (and still very much relevant) Bob Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” It was shocking to hear a work of prophetic importance and depth in that context: strolling through the pasta isle.

Why is that, I wonder?

Grocery store music probably sounds a lot like it did twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, most of the stuff that serves as background music at Crest and Buy for Less, (my two primary haunts) was released in the late 70s or 80s. Interspersed among that faire might be a Backstreet Boys or Celine Dion ballad that takes me back to junior high bus rides.

I’m sure there have been all kinds of research studies performed to determine the exact types of musical elements that make people want to purchase more stuff. Apparently unobtrusive pop music performed well in those tests, for I hear an awful lot of comforting, numbing sounds whenever I’m buying food. (Strangely, though, the music that makes you want to buy food apparently is not the same kind that makes you want to buy pants. To buy pants in a department store, you need actual muzak versions of hits without vocals.)

But then there was Bob Dylan!

I like living in a world where I can be surprised like that.

posted by Mike @ 9:27 AM 1 comments

A Month of Sundays Part V

So, Sunday morning turned out to be an experience EXACTLY like what I was looking for when I set off on this little experiment of mine. I went to a Divine Liturgy service at a Christian Orthodox church and it was something totally different!

I’m not going to even fake like I know the ins and outs of Orthodoxy and their theology and history and branches and all that hoohaw. Those kinds of academic minutiae become less significant to me with every passing year anyway.

Here’s what I can tell you. Yesterday was pretty much the exact opposite of what I witnessed the week before at the mega-church. When I walked in the door I was overwhelmed by the art in the sanctuary. It was all over the place—iconography. I did enough research on the internet beforehand to know that you are not supposed to talk upon entering the church. I saw a guy silently shush! some whispering people in the atrium area as I was getting my bearings.

Looking into the sanctuary I saw priests in robes, I heard what sounded like cantilation coming from one corner of the sanctuary, (cantilation: you know how in movies that take place in the middle east, there is that “foreign” sounding singing going on? Or in movies where a kid has to sing for his bar mitzvah? Kinda sounds like that…) a platform and then behind it another room containing an altar in a “holiest-of-holies” kind of configuration where the priests and altar boys hung out. On the left was a choir.

I found a place to sit just in time to stand up and this thing was off and running and I was pretty much lost in space and time for the next hour and a half or so, never knowing when to sit or stand or cross myself. I just watched a family in front of me who really seemed to know what was going on. The dad sprang up out of his seat when the time came to stand and we got quite a workout through the duration of the service.

The liturgy was printed out and it was in English, but here’s the thing—it was sung! And these weren’t strophic “songs” (i.e. verse, chorus, etc.) where you could catch on with the repeats. This was more like chant. So, even if I did know where we were in the service, which wasn’t guaranteed, I had no chance of participating, having not had the tunes ingrained in my head since childhood as I’m sure some people present had. (And even if I had grown up with the tunes I still would have struggled to participate since I somehow managed to sit in front of two of the most tone deaf women I’ve ever heard! It was like I had two devils sitting on my shoulders, each one determined to distract me from the beautiful sound of the choir leading the congregation!)

After the lengthy time of call and response type stuff, one of the official dudes in robes read an epistle, the Gospel text was sung (!) and then there was a short homily delivered by a guy looking like one of the Byzantine paintings come alive—lanky with a short beard…His message was about the unity of Christians—pretty abstract stuff about how all Christians are unified by the name of Christ, how it’s a symbol of God’s character and how to find God’s plan for your dating life (just kidding about that last part.)

Then, a really interesting thing happened at communion time. This is when I really lost track of what was going on. Basically all of the “official” guys in robes paraded from the altar with the bread and cup and banners and cross and went to the back of the room and then back to the altar, signifying (I hope) the love of God shed abroad to all the world.

In preparation for the communion, the choir was singing, priests were praying, there was incense slung, all these voices over one another. It’s funny to me that this was just as overwhelming to my senses as the loud drums and rock spectacle from the week before.

At this point I might as well talk about the music and other aesthetic matters. The music I heard in this service was probably many hundreds of years old and its models were probably close to a thousand years old. There were no instruments played, other than the human voice. I also noticed that there was no “us and them,” no musicians and an audience watching. It really felt more like one big choir, some people knowing the music better than others. The choir was more of a device to keep everybody in the same key. The melodies employed ancient modes (different from those used in the Catholic church) that bring to mind deserts of the Middle East and time. It is foreign to my musical experience and probably the experience of most Americans outside of the Orthodox community.

Which I found kind of cool.

This was not the sound of trying to make the Gospel hip or “relevant” through catchy pop music or emotional string pulling. People in some churches get up in arms about how out of date hymns are because they were written in the 1800s. Well, go back in time another, I don’t know, 400, 500 years? and place yourself in a non-Anglo Saxon culture. That’s the musical scene we’re talking about here. Its irrelevance to pop culture, and even to regular life was strangely attractive to me. To me it was the sound of people doing what they have done as a worship practice for centuries. That’s deep.

And then there were the paintings covering the entire, beautiful room. Icons of Bible stories and sad-eyed saints with circles behind their heads depicting halos and skinny, six-pack abs Jesus. Why do saints never smile? There was writing in both English and Greek? maybe Arabic? Visually, it was all quite beautiful to me, and I’m sure all of my head-tilting and golly-gee gawking at the ceiling and walls and stained glass made it clear I was a visitor.

Speaking of which, come communion time, I know enough to realize that when visiting a church it’s safest to assume that I am not invited to the Lord’s Supper. The guy to my left was invited and when he came back, he slipped me a piece of bread! Now, I don’t know how regular of a gesture that is in a church like this, but that small, silent act by a complete stranger was very meaningful to me. Here I was an outsider. Here he was- an insider, bringing me back a piece of the love of God as he knew it. I like that.

After all the rows had been served, there were a few announcements, just like at any church, and they moved to the ending bit, dismissed by rows to approach the altar, kiss a handheld cross and the priest’s hand and file out. Which I assumed was similar to how other churches shake hands with the pastor on the way out.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it! Mike Stutzman kisses the hand of no one, priestly garb or no! :-) I tried to summon the courage to do something so far out of my comfort zone, but failed. I watched each row file down there, hoping to see just one person merely pass by, or just kiss the cross, which would give me tacit permission to do likewise but wound up leaving into the hot, bright noon time sun, still curious about what I had just experienced.

posted by Mike @ 10:33 AM 3 comments