I do have a fundamental belief in God, and I always have. It's difficult for me to discuss or defend. For me it is disorganized religion. In a way, I wish I could subscribe to some systematized belief. But I don't. ~Nick Cave
I don't date "Christian" women even though I am a Christian myself (ugh). Yeah I had a Jesus experience in 1975 and experience Jesus pretty much every day. I can and have studied the texts in their original language. I am ridiculously educated in theology, ancient history and the Bible.
So why don't I date "good Christian women"? Well first they are not good, and rarely honest...and are typically horrible in bed because someone suggested the opposite of what the Bible teaches: that the body is bad and to be denied. Which means that the God-given grace and intimacy of sex is often denied and that is justified by some quasi, even anti-biblical notions inspired by preachers who are angry, or repressed. or perhaps even sexually conflicted themselves.
Well that is all bullshit. When Jesus, the Son of God had a physical body after gestating in a woman for nine months was his flesh bad? When the warm blood of God spilled on the ground 30 years later at Golgotha was that bad blood? When my sons and daughter were born was their flesh bad?
C'mon. Extract cranium from rectum and read on.
And who do you think thought up the orgasm? Did you know the clitoris is the only female organ that serves only one purpose? Pleasure.
I don't date Christian women because they are boring, know less about life and theology and what it is to be fully human than a good Pagan woman or an agnostic (who by definition simply admit they don't know...their gut just tells them organized religion is, for the most part a sham). Give me a woman who has a healthy distrust of religion any day. Because she is right to feel and think so.
A woman I dated years ago, and who was a devout Pagan asked me "Your being a Christian, what would you do with a Pagan woman?"
"Oh the things I would do..." was my reply.
Now note there is a clear demarcation between organized religion and God. In fact, if you read the Old Testament and also note how the "religious ones" of the day treated Jesus (in the New Testament) the picture is pretty clear that "Religion" is always the enemy.
Now Nick Cave is an amazing lyricist and one of the three artists I am gonna draw from in this article. The other two are Bono and Madonna. But I start with Nick Cave (Of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) because this guy has a rawness and honesty that makes him godly in a grounded and real sense.
Cave's sense of the rawness of Gospel (he was asked to do the intro to the Gospel of Mark, just as Bono was the Psalms a few years back in a new edition of each separate book). Madonna was not asked, but I'd love to read her intro to the Song of Solomon).
Here is Cave's She's Nobody's Baby Now:
I've searched the holy booksCave gets the incomprehensibility of God, just as it is with male -female relationships. It is not cynical. It's a chronicle. Love songs and poem reflect the same...heartbreak, disappointment, expectations, joy, sadness, loss, connection, longing, intimacy, hunger...the list goes on but fits both relationships.
I tried to unravel the mystery of Jesus Christ, the saviour
I've read the poets and the analysts
Searched through the books on human behaviour
I travelled this world around
For an answer that refused to be found
I don't know why and I don't know how
But she's nobody's baby now
I loved her then and I guess I love her still
Hers is the face I see when a certain mood moves in
She lives in my blood and skin
Her wild feral stare, her dark hair
Her winter lips as cold as stone
Yeah, I was her man
But there are some things love won't allow
I held her hand but I don't hold it now
I don't know why and I don't know how
But she's nobody's baby now
This is her dress that I loved best
With the blue quilted violets across the breast
And these are my many letters
Torn to pieces by her long-fingered hand
I was her cruel-hearted man
And though I've tried to lay her ghost down
She's moving through me, even now
I don't know why and I don't know how
But she's nobody's baby now
She's nobody's baby now
Nobody's baby now
She's nobody's baby now
So, I write articles like this one and the women I date eventually ask or predict that there is gonna be some problem over this with me. They are not seeing me then. They are seeing them in me.
I am not them.
I do not join those who create the artificial and fantasy of a "we-they" dichotomy and are not capable of making love at 3 a.m. and then (at her request) talking about Jesus or God because she feels open, loved and safe.
Plus they are pretty sure I am not a moralistic judgmental asshole. Hypocrisy using takes some distance in time and situation to fester. And when you are laying naked in bed and spent it;s hard to entertain such.
Some assume that being relational with God is a narrowing, when in fact, it is quite the opposite. Show me a person who believes in nothing and I'll show you narrow. I can see the image of God in the broken down man asleep and drunk in the park. In fact, my life was once saved by a homeless man in Bolinas. But that's another story. Even if he had just watched, it would not have changed the reality of his beauty. (Still I appreciated his intervention).
One of my good friends, a beautiful woman I dated for a couple of years, admitted that after discussions (which she brought up) that her intellectual questions had been answered sufficiently, but that it was in a sense "irrelevant until she got that tap on the shoulder" from God. I quite agree and also that it is out of my jurisdiction. Which is why it is never a problem for me. I value honesty, kindness, intelligence and someone comfortable enough in their own skin to want you and to be intimate should real relationship develop.
Yes, I get my cues from God in a sense...but again in a very relational way, never in a list of rules. And most all of us from any tradition value and hunger for these same things (or as one bumper sticker in town says "There is a lot more that unites us than divides us").
It is hard enough to find the above traits without laying down some conditions on agreeing theologically, or even experiencing God in the same way. And it certainly takes all the fun out of everything. Again, Nick Cave on heroin and drugs "I started taking them because they made me feel good. I stopped taking them because they started to make me feel bad."
So Madonna sings:"Nothing Fails"
I'm in love with you, you silly thing
Anyone can see
What is it with you, you silly thing
Just take it from me
It was not a chance meeting
Feel my heart beating
You're the one
You could take all this, take it away
I'd still have it all
'Cause I've climbed the tree of life
And that is why, no longer scared if I fall
When I get lost in space
I can return to this place
'Cause, you're the one
Nothing fails
No more fears
Nothing fails
You washed away my tears
Nothing fails
No more fears
Nothing fails
Nothing fails
I'm not religious
But I feel so moved
Makes me want to pray
Pray you'll always be here
I'm not religious
But I feel such love
Makes me want to pray
When I get lost in space
I can return to this place
'Cause you're the one
I'm not religious
But I feel so moved
I'm not religious
Makes me wanna pray
I'm not religious
But I feel so moved
I'm not religious
Makes me want to pray
Nothing fails
No more fears
Nothing fails
You washed away my tears
Nothing fails
No more fears
Nothing fails
The line between love for God and the love between a man and a woman has always been understood by musicians, artists and poets. It's primordial and innate and not theological in the scholarly sense (believe me...all they can do is tell you where love has gone horribly "awry"). Want bad sex, date a theologian or a fundamentalist.
Prayer is better and we all pray. It may not be traditional...and best not to be in my opinion.
The next time you are making love to the man or woman you love it more likely you will pray in the throes of passion "Oh God..oh God!!!" than "Oh mistake of nature! Oh cold universe doomed to dissapate with entropy!! Oh Yes...Entropy!!! Oh Entropy and dissolution yes yes!!!"
Well I am not religious, but life makes me wanna pray and I make no apologies for either.
Sure, Madonna has made a lot of money playing off the religious/spiritual longings of people and how it is bound up with sex. She is, on some level, totally manipulative in this way. But at a certain point, when you have your $134 million deal and everything you do is watched by some part of the world what else is there?
My own guess (and it is truly that) is even her choosing her name was some sort of attempt to both exploit her broken Catholicism and save it at the same time. I feel the same way often about Protestantism. I feel the need to uncover the nakedness of faith and love and hope and joy that is masked by the religious impulse that always mutes or distorts these things.
I was once attending a service. I was raw from a battle with alcohol..like a man without an immune system in a room that is far from sterile. The young preacher, a man I respected and love, was simply reading from the Psalms, and with no defenses left I started to weep at it's beauty. I had to leave the room and clean up (God forbid anyone see a big strong Scot like myself weeping like a baby). Came back and heard more of the Word. I started crying again and had to leave...again.
Later in the week I talked the pastor. Told him I left because I was not sure such a young congregation would understand how natural it is to have the beauty and truth of the Word hit like the beauty of Pacific ocean waves as they slam into your body on thae way out. It also is salty like tears, and powerful, old yet young, just like the Word.
Understand. I was not crying for sadness or remorse. No, this is one little church where I am never judged. To be sure as I was living with my girlfriend at the time there was a raised eyebrow ot two. But if they feel I am a better sinner than they are they get to explain to Jesus how His sacrifice is not good enough for my sins.
Good luck with that one dude.
And I cry at beauty in a good way. I cry at the beauty of the ocean and its throbbing beat, crash and pullback. Like the Psalmist in the 98th:
4 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth;
Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.
5 Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
With the lyre and the sound of melody.
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn
Shout joyfully before the King, the LORD.
7 Let the sea roar and all it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy
All of which nature does. And I think why people often see God more clearly in nature than in the pews of a church.
Which beings us to Bono, a man who early on saw that there was no distance or divide between the secular and spiritual. Who understands what I call the "running argument with God" whether you believe or not.
In the Rolling Stone interview with Jann Wenner, he says:
Look at the people who have formed my imagination. Bob Dylan. Nineteen seventy-six — he’s going through similar stuff. You buy Patti Smith: Horses — “Jesus died for somebody’s sins/But not mine . . .” And she turns Van Morrison’s “Gloria” into liturgy. She’s wrestling with these demons — Catholicism in her case. Right the way through to Wave, where she’s talking to the pope.
The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues, on one hand — running away; gospel, the Mighty Clouds of Joy — running towards. And later you came to analyze it and figure it out.
The blues are like the Psalms of David. Here was this character, living in a cave, whose outbursts were as much criticism as praise. There’s David singing, “Oh, God — where are you when I need you?/You call yourself God?” And you go, this is the blues.
Rock and Roll, the Blues, Gospel music (which has been at the core) has always been about sex and love at the core. Love for a man or woman, love for or questioning God (which from David we see are the same).
It's probably why "Religion" has mostly been against such music..."the Devil's Music" and why current "Christian" Music is so awful. It is fear based and refuses to take on the full range of human existence. You won't find Nick Cage, or U2, or Bruce Springsteen, or Sting, or Bruce Cockburn, or B.B. King, or even Madonna averting the obvious matrix.
Epilogue:
I am not proud to be a Christian at all. I find the label embarassing and off.
The first use of the term was derisive (in the only reference in the New Testament). I will admit it now and always follow it up with "but not the asshole type". Sure I am an asshole in other ways...just regular human ways, but I don't hide behind any fake piety. And I don't judge the faith or non-faith of anyone else.
I will Join Bono and the lads in the defiant (but personal) I will follow (from Boy) which is about grace. I will actively love my neighbors. I will own my own bullshit and ask forgiveness of those I wrong. A will believe in beauty and don't care a whit if it came through some far off "creation" millions of years ago, or through the long process of evolution.
I don't care about that. I care personally about how faith, hope and love are at the core of my being (just as St. Paul suggests). I am not surprised when this is a common experience under the layers with the people I meet, if I take the time to listen long enough. I don't go search for it...I don't really have much of an agenda except perhaps that if a relationship does not work out that in parting the other person is better for having been loved by me.
I care about the truth and speaking it. Which is why I use the terms fuck and shit (and some choice others) to describe obvious reality.
And as for sex, I would find it meaningless and boring without love accompanying my decided lust. We are like dogs, but also like gods. So a woman can take my breath away for a moment and ruin it with ten minutes of blathering on (usually about themselves..which is my territory...but at least I know it).
There is an old saying "A man who enters a whorehouse is looking for God". Of course, he won't often find God there or recognize God. It's all a setup for anti-love and commerce.
Better to live in the tension, so I leave you with I Will Follow
I will Follow...
I was on the outside when you said
You said you needed me
I was looking at myself
I was blind, I could not see
A boy tries hard to be a man
His mother takes him by his hand
If he stops to think he starts to cry
Oh why
If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
I was on the inside
When they pulled the four walls down
I was looking through the window
I was lost, I am found
Walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
If you walkaway, walkaway,
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
I will follow
Your eyes make a circle
I see you when I go in there
Your eyes, your eyes...
If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway..I will follow
If you walkaway, walkaway
I walkaway, walkaway...I will follow
I will follow
I will follow...
Is it about God or a woman. Maybe both?
