I know it’s been crickets and mothballs around here lately…sorry y’all. Busy working on a Sekrit Projekt(ssshhhh!) that will debut soon.

I’m thinking of writing another book. The title would be Christians Are Weird( yes, that means you too).

I’d push for this photo as cover art:

You get a million imaginary dollars if you can figure out why I've used this photo...

But I think I’ll hold off on that until I can write such a thing with love.  Then again, maybe not. I’m pretty sure a book like that would get *published*.

In other news, I’ve been gigging with some friends under the title Delta Buoy Collective…I haven’t shouted myself out in a minute but our myspace is here.

In other other news…y’all who pray…pray for a sista. Please. Thanks.

Y’all,  sometimes a trend just needs to die.

No, really y’all. Die. Dead.

Wow, Ray Boltz is gay?

Like this Ray Boltz?

Huh. World is full of surprises.

Controversy, controversy, politics and trolitics, as the old Girl Scout rhyme says. Going through my newsfeeds for the day I realized something; only in parts of the world where things are good does the news consist primarily of arbitrarily famous peoples business. In part of the world where the news is all about how many people died and what disease is popular and which war is happening–not only do I have no idea who’s famous, but I don’t know who those famous people are sleeping with, either.

Oddly enough, I appreciate that luxury.

Was looking through my tag cloud–you know, that bundle of randomly sized words over there–>

and discovered that free music and Christianity are the two things I blog about the most. God is moderately addressed. Jesus is mysteriously absent from the cloud. Hm.

So I was thinking about that, and reading some old blogs and realized that yeah, I don’t really talk much about Jesus in this blog. I suppose because this is a forum for my gripes and grumbles, mostly, and I don’t have any about Jesus. I can bang the drum and fuss and muss about Christianity and its many unintentional let downs any day. I can complain about the politicization of God and the commodification of spirituality and the dubious relationships and manifestations that art has developed in their wake all day long and for many many pages.

But Jesus. Hm. What I think and believe and feel and experience about Him–that’s private. That all goes in my real-life, ink and paper, private journal. Because it’s good. And I have learned to keep the good and beautiful things in my life to myself–they’re too precious and too tender to be smashed by unappreciation.

(To which you may say, but what about that thing you spend most of your time doing. You know, evangelism? To which I reply, yeah, but that doesn’t count right now and in my current state of mind. I’m talking about the deeper, more intimate parts of my relationship with Christ, not that getting to know him rush, which is not so much beautiful as it is awesome, and in this culture, often exciting/entertaining. I’m talking about being a roadie vs. turning up to a gig with a ticket you won…and probably being presumptious/pretentious in the process but its not intentional. Just roll with me here…)

I tend to do that a lot, I think. Bad habit. I feel a bit hokey expressing happiness and joy for some reason, and so I tend to reserve that for people and forums that I really trust, instead developing(I think) an undeserved reputation for being even-tempered, servant hearted(whatever that means) and deep yet fairly joyless.

Someone once compared me to this.

I smiled politely at the time, then went home and cried in that bizarre mixture of fear, anger and sadness that comes from feeling grossly misunderstood. (The same way I do when someone complimentarily calls me ‘aggressive’, ’strong’ or worse, ‘hard’.)

See, nobody ever calls the oracle just to say hi. Nobody ever loves the oracle–although people do use the the things she says and the way she is to go away and love other people.  The oracle, meanwhile, sits at home looking after other peoples children and baking cookies and serving up hokey old platitudes to feed other peoples needs. Nobody ever really wants the oracle. They just use her to meet their needs and walk away until the next time they need somebody to miraculously turn up and show them how to do something they already know how to do.

No black woman wants to be told she reminds anybody of the flipping oracle. It’s about two steps away from being compared to this;

And here I go bitching and moaning again.

Maybe I should just start writing about Jesus, damn the vulnerability of appearing a little less hacked off with the world and a little more happy with my personal life. Bump introspection, I am learning the hard way to keep all of that to myself unless it’s all beatific and nice. And while I’m at it, I should probably write a lot less about Christianity and whatever other things are pinching my nose.

Meanwhile, the next person to compare me(kindly or otherwise) to any wisdom spouting black woman on a screen, page, or personal need meter is getting a red pill up the nose.

What all this has to do with Beyonce and those other idiots will be shared eventually, I promise. Then again, maybe not.

Hope y’all are having a good night.

I feel really ill. It’s raining. There was dirt on the shower floor this morning, and white paint(?) all over the back of the bathroom door. One of my housemates had some sort of porridge for breakfast this morning that involved most of our pots, bowls, and countertops, and very little washing up. (I hate porridge!) The radio is playing the same Pussycat Dolls song again. Some random Scottish guy is killing sea eagles. Meanwhile, some random Pakistani guy keeps feeding the pigeons on this street and they’re responding to his generosity by ungratefully splattering every square inch of the sidewalk with creamy white pigeon poo. There’s a spider the size of a terrier posted at the front door like some sort of bug bouncer. There are goofy commercialistic Christmas decorations up everywhere in town already. And did I mention it’s raining, and I’m ill?

I should feel miserable. But I don’t. You know why?

Because I just got to whine about my petty, unimportant problems in public.

No, really, Ifeel fine today. But this morning on my way to Tesco to pick up some comfort mood(meaning, tofu, chocolate and pineapple…would have gotten some blueberries but good heavens, I’m not paying £2 for some watery out of season blues! I’ll just wait until next summer I guess. ~sigh~ Can’t wait until I can afford to do the whole urban homestead thing and just grow a few bushes to satisfy my cravings. Blueberry preserves saved in the deep freeze for February, yum. Wait, do blueberries grow well in England? Hm…need to find that out. That is a major factor on where the heck I decide to settle! Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah,  on the way to Tesco I was thinking and…) I had a thought. It is so easy to get bogged down in the little things that influence our moods. It’s so easy to get caught up in protective emotions to the exclusion of everything else, especially for us groovy Western types who are used to thinking that our comfort=good happy feelings and our discomfort=bad evil feelings that are often someone else’s fault even if the results of said discomfort are good. Hm.

I’ve made quite a few Latino friends here in England. My brain has a built in device that automatically detects the happiest music, spiciest food and most enjoyable parties in any given area, so I guess it was inevitable. In getting to know these friends however, I’m a bit surprised at how often their responses and ideas to things in mixed cultural company are dismissed because they are Latino and therefore ‘emotional’. ‘Emotional’ often brings with it implications of instability and unreasonable actions. However, that isn’t the case with these friends at all. Hm.

I like almost all of  the English expressions and phrases that I hear, even if I don’t understand a lot of them intuitively. (Ask me one day about the embarrasment that resulted from misunderstanding the phrase “did I heck!”). However, there is one very uniquely English expression that I cannot stand. That phrase is “I can’t be bothered”. It’s ruder counterpart, “can’t be arsed” is enough to send me into a mouth-foaming enraged rant.  Basically it means, “I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. I can’t muster the energy to do this because it might make me uncomfortable or frustrated on some level.” That mess ANNOYS me, in capital letters with a splash of lime and sour bile. Don’t get me wrong, Americans express this same sentiment just as often, but something about its usage in England is just so bald and blunt and unreasonable, to my culture-crossing ears, at least. How on earth was there ever a British empire with that kind of attitude floating around? Hm?

Now watch the trench there, we have to make a pretty big inductive leap at this part of the path…

Emotional is not bad. Emotional can be good, but not the self-serving reactive ‘emotional’ that has wormed its way into the truth-dodging lexicon of English-speaking Westerners. Dare I say, even the way that very progressive and otherwise world-changing Christians use ‘emotional’ is often wrong. Being emotional only for the sake of saving oneself discomfort or further emotion is an incomplete and restrictive way to live. Using your emotions only to get what you want is just as selfish as using your money to only serve your greeds instead of your needs, or using your time to only do what you want to do and never what you need to do. Emotions are, I think, most powerful when they prompt someone into living as a whole person. Let the good feel good, and rejoice in it. Let the bad feel bad, and do something to fix it.  But I think as a culture, as a spiritual group, as a whatever, people collectively need to stop using emotion to manipulate others and themselves into taking a lesser interest in the world around them in the name of temporary personal enjoyment and instant mental gratification. In other words, emotions are at their best and (I think) their most powerful only when they’re not all about you. And they’re especially bad and manipulative when they are only used to self-serve and project one’s own discomfort onto the world so that one does not have to deal with life situations properly.

Oh dammit. This means one has to go and do all that porridge-y washing up now. Damn.

Huh. It’s stopped raining. Which obliquely reminds me…

Take a look at this;

And this;

Which do you think is more disrespectful?

I don’t talk about politics, I really don’t, but it’s hard to get away from at the moment.

However, this is just some ridiculous fraggle-naggle…

*smh* Does Focus on the Family ever remind anyone ELSE of Octavia Butler’s “Christian America”, in Parable of the Sower?

Non-news related, vaguely spiritual post coming up soon, I promise…

So a few days ago, I read about this, in the Guardian. Basically,  Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made some  offensive, sexually explicit phone calls to Andrew Sachs concerning his granddaughter as part of a late night prank call radio show. (All three of those names belong to UK-famous entertainers, for those of you reading this from elsewhere.) The BBC has had to make apologies, Ross and Brand have been suspended, and there’s been all kinds of media brouhaha about it. Sach’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, has actually requested the pair be fired and is considering making a complaint to the police. I peeped at the transcript of the phone call and it is hideously disrespectful. I’m actually confused as to why anyone thought this would be funny in the first place.

I bring all that up to say, despite all, am I the only one who thinks the following quote, from todays news story about the grand-daughter’s point of view, is absolutely hilarious?

“Baillie, who has just returned from Vienna where she was performing with dance troupe the Satanic Sluts, said Brand and Ross were “beyond contempt” and that broadcasting the interview showed “an appalling lack of judgment”.”

Just thought I’d point that out.

Holy schnikeys, do you see the size of the cobwebs over by the Barack Obama post? I really need to pay attention to this place more often…

I am having a ridiculously chilled night. It’s been a long, busy day. Everyone else in the house is away. Now I’m home for the night and indulging in the following embarrassing things;

1)An extremely non-nutritious dinner and

2)A Michael Jackson music video marathon.

Sh’mon y’all. Be real. Can’t nobody tell me that this wasn’t the ISH back in the day. Nothing says more about pop culture in the late 90’s than a plasticized man doing the wop with a bunch of fake Egyptians. Except, perhaps, the Free Willy theme song.

Speaking of Egyptians, I’ve been working with a lot of real Egyptians lately, learning a lot about the culture, the language, and the food. (Foul medames = yum. Even though the name doesn’t read all that appetizingly. However, when you consider that I’m having croissants, chocolate and beer for dinner tonight, maybe my opinion is not to be trusted on what is and isn’t good food.) In any case, the biggest thing I’ve learned from my Egyptian friends is that Black American people who derive a lot of cultural pride from popular books on Egypt look extremely silly in the company of loads of modern Egyptians. I did, at first. Mentioning the Metu Neter in their presence earned a lot of condescending looks and a really long, multi-session history lesson. It’s interesting. Egyptian people know their origins, history, and where they come from. American Black folks don’t have that luxury. And interestingly enough, I’ve learned more about being Black from Egyptians than I have from the most conscious folks I knew back home. I can’t even begin to describe the osmotic education I’ve received from my Nigerian, Ivorian and Congolese friends and acquaintances. The books don’t get it half right–and I mean the mainstream AND the so-called “conscious” ones.

My people need to travel more, is all I’m saying. Our history and identity is out there if we go looking for it genuinely instead of reactively. Seeing is believing.

Oh, snap.  Scream just came on.  And wow, Janet is like, one-eighth of the dancer that Michael is.

Do you know what? Michael Jackson is a scary dude. But in the fine tradition of art and artists, I wonder if he would be the icon that he is if he wasn’t scary? I mean, if MJ had emotionally metabolized his childhood in a way that resulted in relative normalcy, would anybody even know who he is? Or would he be singing for fun to his coworkers at the call center and thanking God that he didn’t turn out like Gary Coleman did?

OH WOW! Earthsong just came on y’all. I gots to go. Next time you see me, I will have spent a portion of my Sunday night stomping my foot in tandem with the King of Pop.

*now where’d I put my cape…?*

So what’s been up with me lately? This blog might as well be called Things That Are Really Pissing Mel Off.

Because of that, I’m making an effort today to write about two things that do not irk me in any way, shape, or form. One is the incredibly well-written book Jesus For President, by Shane Claiborne(who also wrote the highly-recommended book The Irresistible Revolution) and Chris Haw(who’s a lot harder to pin down in parentheses). The title is perhaps a bit misleading in the current culture, but that only points to how relevant and necessary this book is.

In any case, I’ m really bad at describing books, so forget me…here’s a quote that jumped out at me:

“Much of the world now lies in the ruins of triumphant and militant Christianity. The imperially baptized religion created a domesticated version of Christianity–a dangerous thing that can inoculate poeple from ever experiencing true faith. (Everyone is a Christian, but no one knows what a Christian is anymore.) Our hope is that the postmodern, post-Christian world is once again ready for a people who are peculiar, people who spend their energy creating a culture of contrast rather than a culture of relevancy. If we are to be relevant to the world we live in, we must be relevant nonconformists.”  ~Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus For President, p. 240.

In other not-really-news, the onslaught of summer music is already insane this year. Lil’ Roach Wayne has an album coming out in some strange soon interval of time, but meanwhile the track “A Milli” has already been jacked and remade by everybody east of the Mississippi. My favorite’s gotta be this one by Brooklyn baby Lil’ Mama…I got a lil’ soft spot for femcees anyway, and my girl destroys Weezy on this. That’s what he gets from dropping her guest appearance at the last minute, right?

The link again, in case you weren’t paying attention…

 I sooooooo want to write about the following things; the idiocy of the general American public who need the Obama “fist bump” explained as being not of terrorist origin; the idiocy of the American lawmaking bodies in blocking anti-global warming legislation; the piglike self-centered short-sightedness that’s become the norm for human interaction; and oh, yeah, the rest of my ranting thoughts on femininity in the current culture.

To be honest though, I get so frustrated as soon as I think of any of the above things that I can’t work up the mental spit to articulate anything. Maybe I’ve been reading too much of The Angry Black Woman, but I am about two seconds from saying bump it all and going all Earthseed on folks. Minus the freaky space doctrine.  And the whole bit about God being change.

Oh, never mind.

I think that one of the most interesting things about many of the counter-cultural movements is that they are often essentially just copycatted from earlier movements, then legitimized by their spokespeople. Said spokesperson usually comes from a background in which, left to his/her own devices, the system works.  Kudos to them for recognizing that a system is not correct just because it works, but me being me, I still have to point a glaring inequity out. It’s that there are tons of people who already live completely counterculturally  because the system never worked for them, will never work, and therefore has never been an option. And they get ignored until the golden boy or girl stands up and says something about how they live, at which point it becomes a fad, popular, catalyst for mainstream change.

Now my problem isn’t that life isn’t fair. (Although it isn’t, and that is a problem, but since I’m not five years old anymore, I better think of different words to say it with.) My problem is that often, these refugees from the system who’ve become parts of and joined movements/lifestyles/communities that live antidotally (as in, a living antidote to the poisonous byproducts of the world), never mention the folks who paved the way for them except for in the most sweetly marginalizing and inconsequential of “other” terms.  This isn’t intentional. It’s just that it sometimes takes a while to free people from their bondage, especially if it’s not recognized as bondage. And the tendency for people who live in the extreme Western mainstream to view themselves as normal and everyone else as somehow deviant and in need of becoming more “normal” like them, is rarely recognized as bondage. 

Which is, I think, why all these “emergent” and “new monastic” and “incarnational” churches and church movements that are getting so widely recognized these days can get away with conveniently ignoring all of the work, often in the same style and theology, done by black and brown and rainbow churches. Sure, there’s MLK Jr. quotes by the score, but what about the scores of Christians of color who are today hard at work and deeply in love? And then we all wonder why there’s still such a racial schism within the church, huh? Perhaps it’s because even the innovators, the people at the forefront of all the new things God is doing, are still often clueless about how deep that rift often is and how much hurt is still being handed out because of this issue.

And by the way, NO, random well-meaning white person reading this and thinking, “oh, well I have a friend/co-worker/employee/acquaintance/ministry partner/maybe-even-a-spouse who is black/Asian/Latino/Martian”, that is not enough. Not unless you also realize that nine times out of ten, that person is giving up a substantial portion and amount of their own culture, lifestyle and comfort to be a part of your life or organization, and probably puts up with ridiculously large amounts of intentional and unintentional hurt as well, from BOTH sides of the fence. But because we like/love/respect/appreciate/”have a heart for”  you, and we believe that the benefits of knowing you often outweigh the cost, we don’t say this. We just suck it up until it doesn’t matter anymore and hope that by living our lives in your midst and liking/loving/putting up with you anyway, one day you’ll realize that not only we, but all that comes behind and before and in front of us, all that it means for us to be who we are and how we are, is worth just as much as you and yours and deserves respect, reverance, and acceptance.

Yet somehow, after all of that, when the topic of incarnational church comes up, the black church and other “ethnic” churches are nowhere in sight? 

*And before anybody says anything, I know it goes both ways…but did you? And heaven only knows, the black church isn’t perfect, but still…