Anne, Jens and Friends

Sometimes I find words trying to escape me, to be spilt onto the page, like some pushy bully cutting in line, because they find some sort of validity there – some permanence on the page, or screen, or whatever. Sitting here in an Indianapolis airport at the end of March, sunlight gushing through the windows, the words are trying to escape. Bullies. No front cuts!

Reading Anne Lamott and listening to Jens Lekman spurred on this bout of writing. We’ll get to them in a second. But it can be anything, really. A good conversation (thank you for the best one I’ve had in a long time on Tuesday night, Aubu). Traveling. A certain temperature. Contentment. Sadness. Josh Ritter. I guess they collectively call these things inspiration. But it can be just as quickly be trumped out by, but not limited to: Boredom. Self-consciousness. Emptiness. Sucking at writing. Reading too much Perez Hilton.

Let’s talk about Anne Lamott and Jens Lekman now.

So D.O. told me to read Anne Lamott. I D.O. whatever D.O. tells me to do (take a minute to cringe, compose… and we’re back). She’s good at writing. And she writes about commonplace things in a way that points to their importance – the profundity of the ordinary. My favorite author, ever, is F. Scott Fitzgerald. I once said I’d sacrifice Scotty (my younger brother) to be able to write like him. (This is problematic for several reasons, not the least which is I don’t think Scotty wants to be sacrificed – do you, Scotty? Cuz we can do this right now.) Anyhow, I am starting to think the same about Anne Lamott.

Take this passage, from pages 264-65 (cite your sources!) of Traveling Mercies, for example:

“The truth is your spirits don’t rise until you get way down. Maybe it’s because this—the mud, the bottom—is where it all rises from. Maybe without it, maybe whatever rises would fly off or evaporate before you could even be with it for a moment. But when someone enters that valley with you, that mud, it somehow saves you again. At the marsh all that mud and one old friend worked like a tenderizing mallet. Where before there had been tough fibers, hardness and held breath, now there were mud, water, air, mess—and I felt soft and clean.”

She has a way of taking very, very specific tangible things – tough fibers, hardness, held breath – and applying them to a universally understood concept – pain. I like that because I can understand those things. On top of that, she’s hilarious, uses the F word in all the right places, doesn’t act like she’s OK, and one last thing: she’s good at writing.

Now for our Swedish friend, Jens. Well, Jens is like that friend of yours who’s a little guarded, a little off, took a long time to get to know. He’s hilarious, but only in a way that you can appreciate if you’ve known him a while. He has a bad haircut. You’ve known him for a year and a half, but only now could you really say (or even want to say), “Yeah, we’re friends.” But he’ll be around for the long haul – at all the most important events in your life, bad haircut in tow, because he really has nothing better to do. I know it sounds peculiar talking about a musician like that – someone I’ll never befriend. But this is how I imagine Jens Lekman in my mind.

He wrote these lyrics, and I love them. I think they better describe what it feels to be in like with someone than The Hills or The OC or The Next Sitcom With a Smoking Hot Cast That I Will Unabashedly Dive Headfirst Into, ever will. And they make me giggle because they’re so true.

I saw on TV about this little kid
Who had a pig for a pet
His mom had once been attacked by a dog
So a pig was the closest thing he could get
This has of course nothing to do with anything
I just get so nervous when I’m talking to you
All I think about everyday is just kissing you
And all I’m feeling is that feeling that feels refreshingly new.

Moral of the story. If I ever tell you a story about a kid who had a pig for a pet, pucker up!

OK, so Spring is upon us. In honor of season of love and rain and renewal and warming temps, here’s a list of songs that should make for an ideal soundtrack to the season:

“Scenic World” by Beirut
“Kanske Ar Jag Kar I Dig” by Jens Lekman (quoted above)
“Cherry Tulips” by Headlights
“Miniature Birds” by The Grand Archives
“Here We Are” by Patrick Park
“A New Chance” by The Tough Alliance
“Hard Days 1.2.3.4.” by Loney, Dear
“The Great Salt Lake” by Band of Horses
“Ballad of Carol Lynn” by Whiskeytown
“Painting by Chagall” by The Weepies
“Midnight Coward” by Stars

xoxo.

Jens.

Sex God (Provacative Title!)

Several months ago I chewed through Rob Bell’s Sex God. Believe it or not, it really lived up to its title: it was about Sex and God. And how they go together. Or how God invented Sex. Or maybe it was about strip clubs. I’m not quite sure anymore, but I did like a lot of what Rob had to say. A lot of it was conjecture, but what I like about Rob’s conjectures is that they don’t straddle the line. He says what he means. Even if what he means isn’t necessarily true all the time.

One Rob-truth especially stuck with me – perhaps because it’s a Truth-truth: it went something along the lines of “...something serious -- something hellish happens when people are treated as objects, and we should resist it at all costs. (p. 22)" In my words: every time we dehumanize someone we bring a little bit of hell to Earth.

If it’s a Truth-truth then I am guilty of bringing a hell of a lot hell to Earth:

Every time I judge someone’s importance based on what they do (or don’t do) to make a living I bring Hell to Earth. By doing so, I have deconstructed an entire identity down to a job. Jobs are not human.

Every time I look out for myself and glance past others I bring hell to Earth. Pretending that other people do not exist might just be the definition of dehumanization. Invisible people are not human.

Every time I flippantly discount someone’s importance because of what they’re wearing I bring hell to Earth. I have torn their worth down into some sewn together pieces of fabric. Fabric is not human.

Yes, it’s a Truth-truth. I think. Either way, I agree. In fact, an idea like that can really change the way you see people. And the way you view yourself. And the way you view the world. It’s one of those ideas that can shift your paradigm; it did all of those things to me. It affected the deepest parts of me because I know that I have brought Hell to a lot of people in my life – in my mind and in my actions.

Rob’s argument is that Heaven is a perfect relationship – with God, with one another. To God, relationship is of the utmost significance. He craves relationship with us and he wants us to cultivate relationships with one another. When we trample on that which God considers the most important, we have brought hell to Earth, because if Heaven is a perfect relationship, then hell is isolation. And isolation begins when we dehumanize someone, because we have deemed them unworthy of time, of attention, of relationship.

So what do we do with this? We ask God to make us painfully aware of when our hearts judge – and thus put distance between – one another. We ask God to heal those relationships that are busted up. We ask God to do these things, and then we act. We act as a sort of glue to a world where everything is broken by loving those who need love, by loving those who are impossible to love. Relationship by relationship it’s possible to bring a little bit of Heaven to Earth. I think what God is saying in Isaiah 58 in regards to sacrifice also applies here:

“…Share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, clothe him, and do not turn away from your own flesh and blood. Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.”

Random Smatterings from the Past Couple Weeks.

Here are some random thoughts from the past week, in bulleted format:

• Had Once, the delightfully simple Irish movie that almost no one saw, ($14 mil in revenues (maybe that's a lot for a movie that cost only $100k to make? (I apologize for the triple parentheses))) not won the Academy Award for Best Song for the stunning "Falling Slowly," I'd have written hate mail the entire cast of Enchanted -- animated characters included. Not even kidding. I'm not typically the hate mailing kind, and I know the Academy Awards often honor the wrong film, but it would have honestly made me a disgruntled human; because Falling Slowly was the best song in a movie last year. All that said, I was extraordinarily happy when Glen and Marketa won. If you get a chance, rent it. It'll give you goose bumps and the feel-goods. And **(For Guys Eyes Only Section)** you might end up holding hands with whomever you see it. Unless it's Brian Pattillo because that's who I saw it with (the first time). He wasn't too into that hand holding business. Prude! Here's a link to an interview with the two stars of the movie -- it's great to see a couple of wonderfully gracious people get some recognition.

• I saw There Will Be Blood with my Pop on Wednesday. Interesting movie to see with your Pop (or your Old Man or Dad or Mom -- whatever you call the father figure in your life) because of all the relationship dynamics between father-son. Frankly, it's a painful movie to take in (or probably more accurately -- it takes you in), but it sticks in your stomach like the marble pound cake I just consumed at the World's Largest Coffee Chain. Pop and I have talked about it quite a bit, trying to figure out what in the world it was supposed to mean. One thing we and the rest of the world agree on is that Daniel Day-Lewis is mesmerizing -- in the same way that baseball-sized hail is mesmerizing. And Furbies. Hideous, destructive (I can think of at least 10 ways Furbies are destructive!), but just try to look away. You judge who looks more frightening:

OR

OR

• Life outside of relationship is not life. This has never been more obvious to me. Nothing has been beaten into my head more the past year. It has probably been the loneliest year of my life so far. Not in a woe-is-me, curled-up-in-the-fetal-position-quoting-Poe sense. More in the literal, I-have-been-alone-A-LOT sense. In hotels. In airports. In small Midwestern towns. In massive neon-tinged cities. In rental cars. Deep relationship with God and deep relationship with other people make life worth it, but they have been hard to come by. Deep relationship with myself does not. And frankly life falls apart when I don't recognize this -- or do recognize this, and choose to live otherwise. As a consequence, I have never craved deep, messy, honest relationship more than I do right now. As a consequence, the ugly part of me is waging a fairly successful assault against that very idea with the shallow ("I'm doing fine"), clean ("I'm doing fine") and dishonest ("I'm doing fine"). So, let's be friends. And if I ever say "I'm doing fine," threaten me with Furbies until the truth comes out.

• Quickly, go check out these 3 bands!:

1. The Grand Archives
2. The Felice Brothers
3. Headlights