Gig, Gigere, Gigi, Gigatum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYa1jc5u_s

It's gig season! I'm out the door in a few minutes to an RPO Phils rehearsal, followed by wrap-ups of our run-out shows later this week, and then a week of Holiday Pops, shows for two different brass quintets, Christmas Eve services, school concerts, and did I mention I played a Messiah in Buffalo? It's great, but I miss J and the baby, not to mention the other people (mostly brothers and sisters) who I'm not seeing as much as I'd like.

...continued after gigging...

There was finally a break! Yesterday we took James out to meet Uncle Lux for the first time (also meeting his Great-Grandparents Dudley) and had dinner with the Blessed Mother and Father. Here are some of the scatteratti going on in the Smith household:

-M Laine is becoming a more and more polished artist. I watched her yesterday add watercolor to exquisitely drawn greeting cards (done freehand, no less!) and marveled at her skill.

-I'm in the mood, at a very unlikely time, for a Great Clean. I want to clean my desk at school, my choir room, our whole house (except maybe the bathroom) and both of our cars. Whence comes this impulse? I ought to act on it before it passes, but I don't know when I'll have the time.

-This  is the most interesting political idea I've heard in quite some time. Perhaps some credit to Neil Postman is order, for pointing out the discrepancy?

-I'm under constant temptation to provoke my coworkers at LCS by using the term X-Mas instead of Christmas, just to see what they'll do. It really is convenient shorthand.

-I read Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition, which is probably the first American political book I've read since the Education of Henry Adams. It was excellent, especially the essays on the Founding Fathers, William Jennings Bryan, and Herbert Hoover.

-This site and this site have become daily pleasures.

-Many thanks to Pax, who filled in for me at CPC so I could play a Rutter Gloria with the RPO brass at a church in Greece.

-I gave a short devotional at LCS last Wednesday, to be published shortly...

Raised Right by Alisa Harris

If I could chat with Alisa Harris, I'd ask her why she chose to subtitle her book "How I Untangled My Faith from Politics." The process she describes doesn't sound like an untangling as much as it does a reconciliation. She doesn't throw Christianity in the trash when she learns about the poor, but learns the true meaning of Matthew's gospel. She doesn't put her Bible on the shelf when she learns how corrupt politicians can be, but rather becomes as "shrewd as a snake." Still, she insists on delineating her faith (a socially conservative Pentecostalism) as something provincial and outgrown while only thinking about the Faith, the timeless and universal truth of which her parents were a variation, in doubtful language.

Alisa's story is a common one; she grew up buying into the unthinking fundamentalism of her church and friends, believing her little congregation privy to all truth. She traveled, and realized the world was a bigger place than she had originally suspected. Her story is printable largely because of the stringency of her particular background--a simplified version of Christianity with all the peripheral and minor doctrines magnified to distortion--and because of her ardent and over-susceptible childhood, which she paints as rather tragicomic.

I'm still not sure why the book, in the end, was necessary. Alisa becomes a Democrat, which is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do; but it doesn't sound like her decision was a reasoned one. She records no arguments or debates; she unveils no revelations. She simply finds the world big, weeps a bit, and then, apologetically, votes for Obama. She finds that the litmus tests of homosexuality and abortion are insufficient to keep her voting red; but says anything about homosexuality or abortion beyond "I once was much more sure about these issues." It's fine to doubt, and indeed, better to doubt honestly than to be stupidly sure. But did young Christians need another book of heartfelt doubts? I believe Ms. Harris to be a talented writer. Perhaps in her next book we'll hear some development on these doubts as she makes her way through the wide world.