I’m trying to think of the last time I heard “Hey Jealousy” on the radio. What brought this up was lying on the chiropractor’s table this morning, waiting, and listening to the country-pop station the radio was tuned to.

(I tried listening to modern country music stations for a while several years ago. I found that after 4 days I had literally heard their entire playlist. Not playlists. There was only one.)

“Hey Jealousy” is an awful track exemplifying everything that’s wrong with modern popular music. It’s barely even music. The chord progression is painfully stupid. The performance, musically, is boring. The lyrics are insipid and poorly sung. The concept and message are utterly immature and forgettable. The world would be a better place if it hadn’t been recorded. And, fifteen years later, it’s nearly vanished from the airwaves, thanks be to God.

Being an atheist means that I specifically do not believe in the existence of spirits. I don’t have one, you don’t have one, there aren’t a bunch of body-less spirits roaming around doing un-physical things in our world, and there isn’t a “holy spirit” manifesting the truth of things to you or guiding you from moment to moment.

I gave up my belief in things of a spiritual nature around the same time I lost interest in glam metal. You may wonder why that’s important. Well, you see, I had observed that the emotional high and general euphoria I experienced when listening intensely to my favorite music was remarkably similar to the spiritual high and ontological euphoria I felt when doing “spiritual” things, bearing testimony, reading inspiring scripture, praying intently, and so on. In fact, as I tried to distinguish between them, I found that I couldn’t, and more than that, neither could anyone else! Yet I was asked to believe that in churchy matters, when I felt this feeling, it meant something, and when I was listening to popular music, the exact same feeling didn’t mean anything. (This from the same group of people who think it’s okay to say “crap” but not okay to say “shit.” Hmm.) This is not logical.

So, rather than accept that the Holy Spirit was bearing witness to the truth of Bon Jovi’s greatest hits, I let go of my belief that the Holy Spirit was bearing witness to anything.

It’s emotions; it’s chemistry. The brain is a big place where we don’t understand most of what goes on, and I find it much more believable to think that certain combinations of input produce certain chemicals that lend themselves to a feeling of oneness with the universe (some hallucinogens produce this feeling on-demand) than to think that there’s an invisible, unmeasurable, non-incarnated being twiddling bits between my ears to let me know in the most obfuscated way possible that this doctrine or that belief is correct, and by the way, it bears witness to different and even contradictory beliefs depending on which part of the world you’re in.

And consider this: how different are twenty thousand adoring fans, lighters drawn, swaying in time to an anthem they know by heart sung by their favorite rock band, from twenty thousand true believers in uniform, prostrate and attentive as they’re led in prayer by their dear leader? It makes perfect sense that a mammalian species that evolved to thrive in groups would desire the transcendent experience of belonging to something larger than itself, and not really care where it got the feeling as long as everyone around is feeling it too.

So I changed my mind, and let go of my belief in things spiritual, and not long thereafter, I discovered I don’t like hair metal anymore.

Hmm.

I’m okay with using the word “spiritual” to describe an experience as long as we have the understanding in place that we’re not talking about spirits: we’re talking about a fairly specific chemical and emotional reaction that humans have to certain sets of stimulus. I’m okay with acknowledging a need for “spiritual” stimulation–in fact, that’s why I’m writing this post. Giving up religious spiritual pursuit and glam metal at the same time has had an impact on me that I’ve only this week begun to realize. I need “spirituality.” I need that stimulation.

I guess I needed to say all that about the reason for my unbelief, because I said it, but the actual point of the post–the reason I started writing it–is to acknowledge that I need “spiritual” stimulation and I haven’t been getting it for a while.

Service always and only begins with listening.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it can be summarized in these two questions:

1. What do you really want?
2. How can I help you realize that desire?

A powerful and generous listening is able to cut through the noise people make and leave them validated and genuinely understood. You can know you are listening to people generously if they trust you and take your coaching, if you offer any. This is because you have created a future for them in such a way that they see it as a way of fulfilling on their desires.

This is incomplete. There is still refining to do.

I’ve been complaining for a long time about the people who I blame for lying to us all, specifically, those who hold leadership positions–any kind of leadership positions–and spreading and promoting the lies about homosexuality, masturbation, pornography, the “institution of marriage,” etc.

I’m asking myself a new question since a couple of days ago. Is it possible that who I’m really angry at is myself, for having drunk the kool-aid they mixed for me for as long as I did? I don’t feel like that’s the case, but it seems like a logical explanation, and it does make a few things make sense.

I’m mostly writing this because this train of thought isn’t going much of anywhere between my ears–I feel very much that I’m not seeing the process all the way through. So I’m writing in an attempt to hold myself to account for this line of thought.

What would it mean if I were actually blaming myself for having believed the lies that the lying liars told? What would it mean about myself? What would it mean about them? What would it mean about the world? What if I made the whole thing up?

I carry a grudge against the people who drink the kool-aid because it hurts not just themselves, but others as well. I wish the Universe were structured such that a person could do whatever they want without hurting others, but it’s just not that way.

So I’ve been angry at the people who lied, angry at the people who believed them, and angry at the people who knew but did nothing.

What if I take responsibility that I’ve been in each of those categories?

What can I say about it? Well, it’s not a church.

But I started by calling it at church a few months ago.

I had the idea of transforming what it means for a church to be a church, all the way down to nothing, and starting over from scratch. I wondered what would arise in the clearing created by completely dismantling the idea of church.

I’ve been accumulating and organizing ideas for a few months about how it could work and why it would be better for people than whatever else is out there, and decided this morning that it’s time to start getting people together on it. I have probably an hour’s worth of material to present, maybe a little less, and once that’s done I’ll ask for people’s questions and ideas.

In a nutshell:
– A complete revamp of the concept of repentance, recovery, transformation or whatever else it’s known as
– People having a social gathering that makes a difference for them–leaves them better than when they came–better meaning that they are more the way they choose to be
– Participating in polyphonic music as an access to building a society of people who are of service to each other

And other exciting ideas.

My place. Sunday. 10:30 AM. Be my guest.