Nuestro Himno

How about a little question and answer?

Q: Does the United States have an official national language?

A: No. Just as we have no official religion, we have no language.

That being said, let us consider the following:

We Americans are a unique nation of immigrants united by a common language and a belief in principles expressed in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, not by our race, ancestry or country of origin. That is why the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, the Oath of Allegiance for new citizens, and the National Anthem – all important symbols of our national unity – were written in, and should be said or sung in, our common language, English.

These are the words of yet another frightened-of-immigrants Republican, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander. Alexander, along with fellow Tennessee Senator and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, introduced a resolution on the Senate floor proclaiming that the national anthem should always be sung in English. Here's what I'm going to wager: folks like Lamar Alexander are not as opposed in principle to the idea of a Spanish translation of the National Anthem as they are scared of being caught in a situation when that version might be sung and they might prove the ignorant ones.

The reason that our national documents are in English is because that's what was spoken. If things should change, so be it. In my view, the singing of the National Anthem in Spanish is a testament to the beauty of the idea of America: just imagine, we could be singing the National Anthem alongside one another, in a million different languages, and all know that we mean the same thing. That, you frightened Republicans, would be more powerful than you'll ever hope to be.

You people and your red state of mind are ruining my country. Stop, please.

Connection and Continuity

Usually, I take a moment each day to read some blogs. I have a few personal friends and acquaintances who keep them, there are the more-famous ones (dailykos.com for liberal junkies, the blog of the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the USA), and there is a great blogring for Presbyterian Bloggers (pcusablog.blogspot.com). I find it so amazing to read the lives of people I do and do not know and to discover what things are, to them, worth writing down.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's creepy. I imagine most of us do. We have our ways of explaining the practice away: it's an act of personal expression to blog - if you don't want strangers reading about your life, don't write about your life on the internet. But even if we have accepted that this is a twenty-first century bourgeois media concept that we really dig, it can feel a little odd for us.

But here is why I truly believe in things like blogging, like the Facebook, like myspace: I believe that connection and continuity are so important in this world. You see, we're all made of dust and we'll all be dust again in only a matter of time. And we are faced with a world full of mystery and challenge and hope and revelation and wonder. Even those of us who spend entire lives searching for the answers never find all of them - only some of them. And they tend to answer questions like who, how, where, when, what - but few of them get very close to that big capital-W "Why?". Sure, you've proven to me that evolution is entirely possible - but why? Maybe you explain away God by saying that we are genetically programmed to seek something higher. Why?! Why is there morality? Why is there a need for art? Why do I so love the sound of a thunderstorm?

There are clues. Even the wonder itself has an answer-like quality to it: there is the empowerment of not knowing. There are, for religious folk like myself, things like the Bible, which I don't believe to be the inerrant word of God but instead a powerful testimony to something that happened on this earth that seems unavoidably other-wordly. And there are connection and continuity. Why do we study history? Some say it's because we don't want to repeat our shameful pasts. I say maybe so - but I think the more important thing is that we desire continuity. We have a sense that, from Jesus to George Washington to Bela Bartok, we're somehow all in one boat that's headed somewhere. And even if we don't know where that is, we're fairly certain we'd like to make it. And things like the Facebook, like blogging, like myspace help us to connect to one another while we're here, so we can at least feel empowered by wondering at life together.

Nothing terribly triumphant or groundbreaking in these thoughts, I'm afraid; just something to put on the table.

Blessings to you all (all two of you who read me).

The V-Day Report

Some thoughts on Valentine's Day 2006:

• Not bitter like last year.
• I believe so strongly in love. Please see "My New Year's Resolution" below for elaboration.
• I wish, very much, that my love had a real, live object. At this point, Jesus is my valentine this year.
• "My Funny Valentine" is one of the best songs ever.
• In the end, things work out just fine.

I wish you Valentine's Days which are richly blessed and devoid of anxiety. Love, love, love.

Happy Valentine's Day. All of you.

Some Words to Share

Just wanted to share a hymn verse that I adore:

For the harvests of the Spirit,thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit,thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all that love has found us,
thanks be to God.

- Fred Pat Green


Have a great day, all.

Traitor!

So, I'm in here at Fido (as usual) and I had to take a picture of this guy because he should be charged with high treason. So here's the evidence of our culprit at Fido (I snagged the photo with my phone), and you may notice that his coffee cup is white like most coffee cups are, but then it's also fairly easy to see that the lid of said cup is white and that the brown hand-protector-thingy has a green circle in the middle.

GASP!

I know, right? Who has the audacity to come to Fido to get some breakfast (he was eating eggs or something) and bring Starbucks coffee with him? Sir, I hope you stumble across this blog so you can see that you are being exposed for being the infidel that you are. TREASON! A move like that takes some serious gumption - and not the kind that I admire.

Elegy and Reflection

In many ways, I really adore the mornings when I get up and go to John Paul II High School: there I am, coat and tie, coffee in hand, getting in the Volkswagen and turning on the NPR. It is truly exciting to really feel that I am getting closer and closer to the day when I can say that I am, in fact, a music teacher - not just someone who dreams of being one, or even a student studying to be one. Yes, somewhere between the caffeine and the public radio these mornings just make me feel alive.

This morning was a little different. Don't worry - the usual suspects were all in order: the tie was tied (and the outfit was appropriately Stuartish), the Volkswagen was tearing up the road and the NPR was as reliable as ever, except that this time it brought some bad news.

This morning, they announced, Coretta Scott King passed away unexpectedly.

Let me be honest for a moment and say that I don't know a lot about Coretta Scott King, and I wasn't any particular fan of hers. Admittedly, my reaction was not the same as if I had woken up this morning to hear that Ani DiFranco, Frederick Buechner, or Peter Sagal was dead. But Mrs. King was the other half to a man who has his own holiday in this country. And together they embodied the very spirit of a movement that is at once far away and finished and yet seems to continue on, unfinished as ever. Our most tangible connections to the soul of Dr. King, one of our country's most incredible heroes, are fading away quicky.

Lately I have been so struck by mortality and by the ways of progress in this world. I think of how our grandparents are becoming some of the only people left who were alive to hear about the tragedy at Pearl Harbor. And I am so overwhelmed by the notion that I one day will be explaining September 11, 2001, to grandchildren who know little of the day's details or implications. And I am worried about the day when I leave this world and soon, the tangible connections to my soul and history fade away just as quickly as I did.

As a Christian kind of guy, I think this is why it is so key that Jesus preached the love that he did. Love is what causes us to live respectfully and connectionaly, empowers us to feel connected to those we've never met and never will - at least on this side.

Interesting, isn't it? Maybe living life isn't about standing and being a warrior for what you believe. Maybe it's the subtle confidence and the quiet fight of love.

Here are two new sets of lyrics of mine.


O Love with Arms that Wrap Around
(Words by Stuart Hill, to the folk tune O Waly Waly)

O Love with arms that wrap around
Us as we stand on hallowed ground,
O Word of Life, O Spirit True,
O let us bind our hearts to You.

Teach us the beauty of this world,
That we may see Your Truth unfurled,
The music in a world of sound,
The hope that in the dark is found.

As we step forth into the night,
O may we carry forth Your light
In word and deed, in faith and prayer,
That we may meet Your presence there.


Whole Again
(words and music by Stuart Hill)

Lord, as the night takes the day,
We gather in and we pray
For strength and the courage to carry on in this way.
We come as people inspired,
We come with hearts that are tired
Of doubt and frustration and all that gets in the way.

Here we are, O Helper and Friend,
Weighted down by worry and sin,
So we come to the waters to be made whole again.

Teach us to make our amends
When like foes we treat our friends;
Teach us the patience to come and sit down and sup.
In our hearts let it be known -
The grace that we know to be shown
In bread being broken and wine poured into a cup.

Here we are, O Helper and Friend,
Weighted down by worry and sin,
So we come to the table to be made whole again.

Humbled we are by Your gifts,
Moved by the Spirit that lifts
Our words into prayer and our thoughts into quiet praise.

Here we are, O Helper and Friend,
Weighted down by worry and sin,
So we come now to worship and be made whole again.

Cheers for Wi-Fi

I just want to say that I am en route to Nashville, I have stopped in Black Mountain, NC, for coffee, and I wrote this entry with my Palm Tungsten TX. That's all - ciao.

Back to Nashville

So, today I'm headed back home-away-from-home to Nashville - any of you that read this, keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I travel, please!

Also, an incidental thanks to those of you who have been reading and commenting on this blog. I look forward to writing more about my life's adventures when I'm back in Nashville.

Thank You, God, for yesterday.
Thank You, God, for today.
Thank You, God, for tomorrow:
May I learn to walk in Your way.

My New Year's Resolution

So I told you about my new thing for respect and how it would be best to resolve to show a whole lot of respect.

It was a great NPR essay, I think, but for the moment I'm casting it to the wind. My new thing is showing love. My New Year's Resolution is to love more and better.

Love is the trickiest art out there, without doubt. It's really at the center of most things we do; that is, being happy is loving your job, being in a good loving relationship, showing love to your kids (even when it means punishing them), loving God if you're religious, maybe loving Ideas if you're not. Love is the primary subject matter on the radio (even in the guise of promiscuous sex - trust me, man does not live by nookie alone). Love infects our films. Love saturates our stories. Love changes us - and that's heavy.

Even the Apostle Paul knew it - and I think he's somebody that many of us trust. Love, he says, is the greatest thing among some pretty great things: the competition is fierce when you're up against Hope and Faith. But Love is, for Paul, the one that wins out. And I think he's right. And I think God agrees.

I also like what Don Miller has to say about love in Blue Like Jazz: that too many of us use love like currency. Give as a reward, withhold as punishment. Smile at the people you like, thumb your nose at the people you don't. Draw a line in the sand. Scorn the other side. I want to take it further: using love to divide happens even by using its conceptual entity as a divider. I must confess to loving that bumper sticker that says "When Jesus said to love people, I think he meant don't kill them." I even think that this is a message we should champion and put out there - but maybe the bumper sticker method isn't the best approach: comedian Demetri Martin suggests that bumper stickers are a sort of a shortcut, a quick way of saying "Hey - let's never hang out." Love? Maybe not.

Don Miller also says that he thinks Jesus calls us to make love a true, selfless gift - not currency. Jesus calls us to love one another without condition. That means, if necessary, loving contrary to pre-conceived notion. That means, if necessary, putting aside political differences (!). That means loving everybody and meaning the every part. Tricky, tricky. Trickier than Faith or Hope.

So here's what I say. I love you. I think that having this blog enables me to say that to a lot of people without enduring the awkwardness that would come with professing my love in person. And maybe that's a cop-out. But the truth of the matter is I'm not going to tell everybody that I love them.

I'm going to show them; at least, I'm going to try.

So, that gay-bashing, economy-worshipping, Bush-believing idiot over there? Love her/him. That contemporary church that keeps stealing our members? Love 'em. Every one. That unbelievably stupid, worthless, frustrating teacher? Love her/him. That jackass "friend" who gets every ounce of my effort and returns none of the niceties? Love her/him. I've got to do it; at least, I've got to try. It's what makes the most sense, even though it's tricky. Trickier than Faith or Hope.

I also want to point out why I began this entry by speaking a bit negatively about my respect post: Respect is not enough. Anne Lamott says you can love someone and not have any particular desire to meet him/her for lunch. We have to LOVE everyone. We can't love the people we want and respect the people we don't: that would be awfully civil and really rather admirable. But we must strive for more.

You can love someone without wanting to go to lunch with them - God, I love Anne Lamott.

Come to think of it, I love you too. God bless you.

Some Reasons to Believe in God

1. Nat King Cole
2. This picture I have of the sunset in Moyobamba
3. Bob, Ami, Patrick, Anna Hill
4. Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama
5. That deep longing in the soul for something more
6. The mystery of it all: just when you think you've figured it all out, there's an unanswered "why?"
7. That passage in Isaiah about springs in the desert
8. Music, of course

That's all for now. Happy New Year.

NPR Essay Attempt

There's a series on NPR called "This I Believe," in which celebrities and average NPR listeners alike share three-to-five-minute essays about their personal beliefs. Anyone is welcome to submit an essay, so I've been wanting to submit one. I'll probably write several before I actually send one, but here's one I wrote today.

As a college student, my public school days are not so far behind me; thus, I remember well the rite that was the first day of school: finding classrooms, seeing who changed most since we last walked the halls, coming to terms with the very real end of that heaven called summer. I also remember well one particular tradition: the reading of the classroom rules. And it seems to me that every teacher – in whatever subject – had a rule that went something like this: “Show appropriate respect towards yourself and others.” There were other rules, naturally: don’t talk out of turn, don’t throw things at the teacher, no yo-yos. But I recall many a teacher saying that, in an ideal world, they would only have one rule: the respect rule. And then, some clown (I’m sure it was me more than once) would do an awful impression of Aretha Franklin. And I would think to myself that my one rule in an ideal world would be Don’t be stupid, and feel proud of myself.

But I have to say that I get it now. And I believe that respect is more than just a fluffy concept that our teachers and employers and pastors and saviors throw at us for the sake of sounding moral and heroic. I believe that, in a world that needs saving, respect is just right for the job.

I don’t know what I believe about what happens when we die, but for C.S. Lewis, the key to understanding the meaning of the universe was this innate sense of right and wrong we humans display. Respect, you might call it. And I wonder if, long before I decipher the universe’s grand meaning, I might just find that respect is key to understanding the people that surround me. Whatever happens after I’m gone, I think understanding my company on this journey is a worthwhile goal while I’m here.

It’s hard to know what to believe about the environment. I always land somewhere in between supporting animal rights and thinking that they must be made out of meat for a reason. But I have climbed mountains and walked by streams; I have swum in oceans and picked blueberries near waterfalls. And I can’t help but feel Mother Nature is someone who deserves my respect.

Let me confess that I’m easily the worst among any of us. I say much more than what I mean, I jump to conclusions about people. I litter, I drive a fossil-fueled car, I find that the garbage can, being much closer to my chair than the recycling bin, proves a better place for my used aluminum can. But as I write this, December is drawing to a close and a new year is approaching, resolutions and all. I will make my usual laundry list: write letters to people, get better grades.

But this I believe: the best resolution I can make this year is to respect my friends, my family, my earth, my soul. As it turns out, my career of choice is teaching. Maybe my classroom will only have one rule.

O Come, Let Us Adore Him

I would first like to say that it is now 2:18am on December 26 (no matter what time it says I published this post), and Christmas has only begun. We will be turning on our Christmas lights for several nights to come.

Secondly, a word on "the Christmas spirit." I was worried that this spirit had forsaken me this Christmas: about half of my December was full of academia and exams and meetings and so forth, and the week I had at home before Christmas was awfully busy for those around me - the Nutcracker, the ending days of school, cotillion, etc. Yet I say to you early this morning after the first day of Christmas proper, that I have never in my life felt such wonder and awe at this holiday. I feel extremely blessed and wonderfully soulful.

The business sped all the way into Christmas Eve, which I spent doing last minute shopping, baking bread for Christmas dinner, answering the door and receiving presents from the neighbors, etc. Even as we approached the day we have marked to begin our celebration, the business spun us around. Finally, I found myself in Salisbury, NC, at the Hubbard Christmas Party - a party held by my dad's family which was a tradition for many years, was on hiatus, and was renewed this year. All the hints of the season were there: wassail, family, the "Chinese auction." But I was frustrated with the energy required to reintroduce myself to family who hadn't seen me recently enough to remember, to tell yet another person where I was in school and what I was doing, to make small talk of large subjects. But I think my Christmas spirit began a bit with the Chinese auction, and here's how that works: each person that plays brings a gift (which may be nice or funny), wrapped in some fashion. All the gifts are put in a pile in the middle of the room, and numbers are drawn. Beginning with he/she that draws number one, each person gets to choose a present, either from the pile or - beginning with number 2 - from a person who has already drawn. If one's present is stolen after one draws, one may choose another present from the pile. Basically, it's best to have the highest number (my sister, Anna, won with number 19) because you have the option of choosing the last gift left in the pile or choosing from any of the gifts that have already been opened. Many of the gifts are gag gifts - my great aunt Ann received an Austin Powers baseball cap that says "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?" - and it was in the laughing and joking that I first felt the Spirit of the season.

We were a bit late to choir practice for the 11pm Christmas Eve service, but we made it back with enough time, anyway. And the service this year was beautiful. I have learned, recently, that music just makes me cry, and that's that. There's usually one hymn each Sunday that gets me going. And Silent Night did, indeed, get me going. And I could feel all of us standing still and feeling peaceful and waiting in wonder as the Spirit moved over us. And I could feel the Spirit in my tears. And I swear there was divine intervention in the fact that I didn't smack a certain church member who complained, during a very holy moment, that we were sitting when we were supposed to be standing. It was truly beautiful.

This morning was beautiful, too, in a strange way. I actually became very frustrated with my family on the way to church, when I felt that I had been prematurely chastised for being late. But the first hymn this morning was O Come, All Ye Faithful, and by the end I was crying again and didn't really know how to be mad at anyone. And it was a beautiful service - the choir sang a piece called Gesu Bambino which was once a classic of our Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, and a soloist sang Sweet Little Jesus Boy for the introit, and it was simply lovely. Hanging around the house after church was fun, and after a while we went to the movies (the annual Hill family Christmas Day tradition) to see The Family Stone, which was a wonderful movie. It contributed another set of tears to my holiday season. We ate a really great supper together, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. I reveled in it all.

I have, of course, been in somewhat of a spiritual quandary lately: youth and intellectualism mix to make believing awfully difficult sometimes. And Christmas makes believing in Things Unseen easier, but it hasn't fixed everything. What has been so amazing to me, in the beginnings of this season, is the peace and fullness of soul I have felt, along with the overwhelming conviction that the universe has purpose and that earthly life is not the only life - and yet, an overwhelming conviction that the universe is full of mystery and I surrender that I do not know it all and never will. And I am thankful that the Lord of my tradition sent a son to save us all, to free us from the darkness of mystery and to free us, to invite us, to live in that same mystery's wondrous light.

Anyway, I have written all this to say that I am very blessed and humbled by what I have experienced so far. The company of my family, the friends I have gotten to see (Otto's house, despite being rather random, was completely soul-feeding), the joy of the season, the stillness - all has found me at a strange peace for which I am very thankful. I am going to do my best to keep this spirit alive for the just-over-two-weeks that remain of my break. And I hope that, when the break is over, I will feel freed to walk forward into the norm, seeing it in the new light cast on it by a holiday full soulful joy and spirit-led peace.

Thanks be to God.

An Open Letter to God and Whoever Else Is Listening

Recently, someone told me that it sounded like part of me had died.

I wonder, with fear and trembling, if they're right. A certain veil has been lifted from my eyes and reality won't leave me alone. So I'd like to tell you (that is, God and whoever else is listening) what kinds of reality I've been facing.

Believing in God is an awfully hard thing to do. You're raised with all these crazy ideas and you accept and confirm them with some degree of blindness and then one day you wonder if maybe your belief really boils down to a bunch of people who, like you, are afraid to die and thusly conjure an Imaginary Friend who guides their lives, teaches them lessons, and saves them from death by having a big party in the sky when it's all over. I know I may seemingly be stepping on toes here, but please understand that I'm stepping on my own toes as well when I say we believe something ridiculous, and that makes it hard. Have you ever thought about finitude? Heavens, what a scary thing. Religion surely eases the pain.

I want to believe in God, and I am pretty sure I do. But we all face those moments of doubt. I think what's most difficult about it is that there will never, ever be anything rational about it. There have, of course, been plenty of attempts to make belief an easier, rational thing: consider, for example, the theory of the First Mover: everything is set in motion (beautiful motion, I might editorially add), so there must have been a first mover. Maybe the world operates on its own today, but one day in the past, Somebody said, "Go." I like that theory; it's comforting. But I don't know how much it helps. There's also that philosophical work called The Wager, which essentially asserts that without God, life is pretty pointless and there's death without redemption at the end, so you might as well believe and hope for meaning. Sensible, right? But believing becomes no easier.

I'm reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It's my latest literary soul food to keep me going in my little dark doubt corner. I like it a lot, though he talks about Satan a little much for my Presbyterian mindset (chuckle, chuckle). But it frustrates me, just like Anne Lamott frustrated me with Traveling Mercies, when someone is so good at saying "I believe in Jesus Christ." Donald Miller emphasizes that something inside him causes him to believe. I'm searching for that something, but I keep looking for it in books on theology and in my own clever musings, both herein and in the songs I write. Thus far, the search proves not as fruitful as I hoped and more frustrating than I would like. But I haven't given up my hope for Hope. I think God's just waiting for me to come around.

I am convinced that there are things in this world which transcend human scientific truth. I feel pretty strongly that the finality of death is less a grand scientific end and more a Grand Beginning. But I'm still looking for the confidence to shout it from the mountaintop. And I will wait, God (and everyone else). I will tell myself to be quiet and I will wait.

Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by Thine help I'm come,
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand'ring from the fold of God:
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

Thanks be to God.


P.S. I intend this new blog (which I hope will have a new audience which will make new comments, ahem) to be a place different from my LiveJournal. The narratives of my life will work their ways in, I'm sure, but this is less an online journal and more a irregularly-published column. My apologies to any non-religious who may have found themselves frustrated with the fact that my musings, once artistic and political, have recently been zealous and God-filled. I still have ideas about other things; but These Things keep screaming really loudly for attention, and I find it exceedingly difficult to turn away.

The Latest Lyrics (edited 12.12)

[There is, of course, music that accompanies these two songs, which I am planning to record over Christmas Break and hopefully publish soon thereafter. Enjoy.]

Things Unseen

Pearly gates, pearly gates,
Won't you come, come to me?
Pearly gates, pearly gates,
Won't you come, come to me?
'Cause I want to see my Granny again,
And I want to find every long lost friend;
I want to sing with Nat King Cole -
Pearly gates,
Guard my soul.

Crystal river, cover me:
Let your water wash me clean.
Crystal river, cover me:
Let your water wash me clean.
'Cause I know there must be a prayer in my heart,
But sometimes it's hard just to know where to start,
And I get so jaded by the things I've seen -
Crystal river,
Wash me clean.

With sweetest sunrise to light my days,
And sweetest hymn-tunes to sing Your praise,
And sweetest faces, all is divine,
And, in the end, we will be just fine.
'Cause there ain't no devils hiding under my bed,
And I know the Darkness is only in my head;
I'll walk through this life, hamming up each scene,
and keep on believing
in Things Unseen.


Believe

A land of endless joy - who are you kidding?
The streets are paved with gold up there? Yeah, right.
And God and Jesus Christ are right there sitting
At the dinner table with you every night?
Well, I don't know 'bout you,
But all that I can do
Is say that's hard to believe.

The skies are always blue and mostly sunny -
A couple clouds to keep the balance right.
You may have laughed before but you don't know funny
Until you've heard the jokes God tells night after night.
Well, I don't know 'bout you,
But I find it so hard to
Know just what to believe.

I'm here - right here, O God, with all these questions:
I'm asking for answers or maybe just a sign.
I haven't lost my faith, O God, I promise -
But it seems sometimes my faith is on the line.
And I don't know 'bout you,
But, Lord, all I can do
Is hope I always believe.

The Pseudo-Proposal

This made me smile. A near-proposal to a chica who was in my small group at Montreat one time. Yes, folks, this is yet another reason that I love Montreat.

Review: Rent

For those who take their Broadway with a little extra reality and a side of pop culture, Rent proves a welcome alternative to flappers and tap shoes. The brash honesty about life in Bohemian New York City, the unabashed exploration of sex and AIDS and heroin, and the non-sectarian, love-driven message of morality strike lots of people in a way much different from the other shows out there.

I am one of those people, and I have been thusly struck - by the stage production, that is. The film was something different altogether.

Granted, I understand that taking a monstrously popular rock opera - which, on stage, benefits from two acts and an intermission - and turning it into a believable movie with convincing dialogue is, to say the least, incredibly difficult. I won't pretend to know how I would do it better, but I thought some things were missing, and glaringly.

The opening scene (that is, the real opener, "Rent" - the film (cheaply, in my opinion) hooked the audience with the overpopular "Seasons of Love") lacked some of the frantic energy and bouncing between storylines that makes it exciting and convincing onstage (exchanges between Maureen and JoAnne, Benny and Allison were left out). The added spoken dialogue (and some added plot-enhancers - notably, the engagement party) seems forced, and also makes the "sung dialogue" true to the original rock opera concept seem slightly out of place.

It is, of course, exciting to see most of the original cast back playing the roles, and the new actors and actresses played their roles beautifully. And the storyline is much easier to understand in the film. But the film was less raw and less compelling. A valiant effort, a worthy film, but not the Rent experience we need - especially for those who don't already know the show.

Base and Ordinary

At the moment, I was unaware of its profundity, but one of my life’s most important events occurred early in my sophomore year in college. In an introductory lecture for a course called “Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” our assignment was merely to sit in class and listen to a few selections, guessing at what each might mean. None of the examples was in English, yet it proved surprisingly easy to understand the subjects of the pieces, if it took a few guesses – the major idea, of course, being that the music spoke to us without the crutch of words.

I am struck by the role of religion in society. Those of us who believe and those of us who don’t are constantly at a war of sorts. We spend inordinate amounts of time arguing and speculating and wondering about what will happen when we die. Will it be just a grand transition to a better place, or will it just be darkness and decomposition – if that? I am convinced that our problem is that we spend so much time wondering what divinity we may or may not encounter in the future. I am as guilty as any of us might be, but this I believe: we are not enough concerned with the divinity we experience here. On Earth. Today.

Enter the role of the music anecdote: why is it that understanding the lyrics wasn’t necessary to get at the meanings of those pieces? Perhaps it was because all of us in the room were music majors and knew how to recognize the compositional devices that are traditionally used to convey certain emotions. The more convincing argument, though, is that something about the music spoke to our spirits. It is more sensible, if less logical, to understand that we have souls that speak languages beyond human comprehension, beyond altercations over God and Allah and Buddha and jihad and when you were “saved.”

Is there a God? I’m a Christian and I think so. But forget the stories of people being raised after the third day, of the world being created in seven days, and of Jesus riding on a white horse and defeating Satan in the ultimate fight scene. Let us consider those moments when we are convinced that we have souls and that they must be transcendent. Let us consider those moments where we understand that, if our lives are to have a purpose, there must be some sort of higher power. Let us consider the moments when the music strikes us so hard that we are left speechless and tearful, and we know it has to be a gift from Somebody Else.

This I Believe: there is a God, and he is smiling down on a world where his truth is revealed in more than just big, long books and religious rite. His gifts are here everyday, in the ordinary lives of people who have been richly blessed. We hear his meaning in the songs of our lives, base and ordinary.