Starflyer 59

I’m a big music fan. Listening to some sweet rock and roll is like a precious ear drug. Albeit not as deadly as the PCP. The first band that really started my journey down the crooked path of post-rock was Starflyer 59. Silver was a great album and i venture to say a classic “lost” shoegazer gem. Gold was icing on the cake. I have the 12″ LP. While Starflyer has long since strayed from their more avant-garde roots, their influence from the early 90s christian alt.rock scene is still bearing fruit. Below check out Michael Nau from Page France laying down a wicked acoustic version of “I Was 17″.

Now, compare that, if you please, to the original, which I have linked to below (MP4, M4a opens in a new window).

I Was 17, Starflyer 59

Radical stuff.

P.S. I have an original copy of the Plugged EP which, according to Wikipedia, has sold for “several hundred” dollars on ebay. If you have “several hundred” dollars and don’t want to go through the hassle of ebay please contact me.

Holocaust Memorial Day – January 27

Sobering article at the BBC about whether or not Auschwitz should be left to be picked apart by the natural world or preserved as a historical site. Speaks to human memory and our tendency to forget our history (even recent history).

Auschwitz-Birkenau must forever remain an unhealed, burning wound, which wakes people up from moral lethargy and forces them to take responsibility for the fate of our world.

As one Nazi on trial for war crimes said “A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will not be erased.” Collective guilt, a tendency to hide our sins, the gaps that come with historical distance as generations pass – all very difficult topics but important to consider as we move into the 21st century. Do we forget? Do we wallow? Do we seek forgiveness? Do we try and recompense? Is it easier for American’s to erase their guilt over past atrocities (after all, we elected Obama!)?

The Untimely Demise of Harry W. Schwartz

Another untimely demise? Yes. The Journal announced the closing of all Harry W. Schwartz book shops as of March 31. Another Milwaukee landmark dies off. The good news: the Downer Ave. location will reopen under a new name but continue to be an independent bookseller. Internet: 2, Local Milwaukee Indie Shops: 0. At least the world wide web can’t take Alterra away.

Any locals closing in your community? How do we hold on to these shops? Or have local indie shops outlived their usefulness – a quaint reminder of the local economies of yesteryear?

Chinese Catholicism and Chinese Art

Print magazine profiles the work of artist Wo Ye as she restores hundreds of stain-glass panels in China’s largest Christian church. St. Ignatius Cathedral was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution; 100 year-old artwork smashed, colored French glass scattered across the streets of Shanghai. Now, 40 years later, Chinese Catholicism is undergoing a renaissance of sorts. Europeans are no longer in charge and mass is being performed in Mandarin rather than Latin.

“We are Chinese,” says Bishop Jin. “And if the church is to grow, then it must be Chinese too.”

Wo Ye is working on a decades-long project to restore the windows St. Ignatius in a style that is uniquely Chinese. Mixing Chinese flora and fauna with hanzi as well as pictorial elements from the New Testament, Wo Ye is expressing christianity through the local culture.

To me the artwork says this: institutional christianity has over a thousand years of suppressing local expressions of faith. Think about it: European missionaries taught converts that they must conform to a regional version of christianity. To a certain degree we’re still doing it – glancing sideways at a girl with facial piercings, segregating our services ethnically and shaking our heads at people that don’t hold our political views and still claim to be christians. There are expectations on christians – there is a christian ethic, but it is not cultural or racial and knows no geographic boundaries. The emerging church, it has been said, is not a 29-year-old blond male with a goatee. Globally nonwhite, noneuropean christians are the majority.

So what are white, western christians to make of all this? Some will no doubt feel threatened. Others will welcome the diversity. In the long term we need to recognize that our era, our culture, and even our nation are just points on the timeline of the global kingdom of God. A kingdom that stretches across eternity, “a great multitude that no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language.”

Prayer, Healing, and the Legislator

The Journal-Sentinel has an interesting article relating to the prosecution of a Wisconsin couple over the death of their diabetic daughter (they are Christian Scientists). Legislators are working on a bill that would “strike a balance between protecting children and respecting their parents’ religious freedoms”. The Church of Christ, Scientist teaches that sickness in the body is a result of improper belief and that Truth treats, not only sin but also sickness. Christian Scientists are taught to pray for people experiencing sickness – that the physical sickness will disappear when the sufferer comes to a knowledge that physical sickness is an illusion:

Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, – neither in nor of matter, – and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. (Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures is available to read for free at Project Gutenberg.)

In some orthodox Christian Science circles an adult can lose their standing in the community for using medical care. And it seems physician care is a repudiation of their most core beliefs.

Are mainstream christian churches too dependent on healthcare and medical science? Do we still believe that God heals our bodies as well as our souls? Where do you draw the line on faith vs. medical care?