A Tribute to Folk Musicians

Folk legend Tom Paxton in concert (with Billy Heller). Photo ©2013 Charles "Rain" Black

As I see it, one big difference between pop music and folk music is this: Pop music is about the singer, while folk music is about the songs.

In pop music you can have a terrific singer and mediocre, formulaic songs and the result is an Idol or Diva. In folk music, that dog won't hunt.

In folk circles, great singers simply add to the appeal of great songs. However, some pretty mediocre singers achieve great fame as folk artists because of the power of their songs. If you doubt this, just think about Bob Dylan for a moment.

Folk musicians are a peculiar lot, in a positive way. There are folk artists out there who are exemplary singers/musicians. They are as talented as any Grammy winning pop artist, but most of the general public hasn't heard of them. Part of this is because of the nature of the business. Most labels tend to shy away from folk musicians, in part because they aren't as marketable as a pop performer. The driving force behind pop music is to make money for the record label, with the artist managing to benefit as a result.

Doing this requires appealing to the lowest common denominator among the target audience, with a great deal of effort put into getting people to part with their money in exchange for music, without allowing them much of a chance to decide whether the music is actually worth it. This is done mostly by marketing departments convincing the listener that they are not cool if they don't buy the songs. This, in turn, entails appealing to the most unthinking, visceral aspects of human experience such as sex, wealth, having a good time or the pain others have caused in love affairs, all in a way which declares that being self-absorbed is a good thing.

In pop music, the real subject is usually self as the observed, whereas folk music is often about self as the observer. That's why you don't hear many folk songs about sex, booty, bling, how much of an asshole someone's ex is or how broken-hearted the singer is over losing a non-asshole lover in the melodramatic, self-absorbed way pop music does. (Ok, you do hear songs about the last two, but often they explore the subject in a different way).

Folk songs tend to take these same topics to psychological and lyrical depths that pop songs rarely broach. For instance, while a pop song may go into why the ex is an asshole, or the singer is broken-hearted, a folk song will explore the fact that the real reason the singer is broken-hearted is because he, not the ex, is the asshole.

The pop music industry isn't apt to entertain such introspection, simply because its entire raison d'etre is the celebration of narcissism, including the idea that it's almost always the other person's fault if things don't work out.  Deep contemplation of one's own imperfections isn't a province of pop music.

Unless the song has a really, really good "hook". (The "hook" is that part of a song that everyone keeps singing, even if they can't remember the rest of the words to the song.)

The narcissism of pop  also leads to a tendency to create a musical version of the world that is more hip, more sophisticated, more extravagant, more dramatic, more indulgent than real life. That's where it's truly at odds with folk music, because the heart of folk music is in fact folks. People, and their simple, everyday experiences.

An entire folk song can be built off of the experience of waking up to the scent of Wisteria, and the thoughts, emotions and memories that scent evokes. No clever hook or tagline is needed for such a song to be considered successful and appreciated. It's successful because the listener thinks "Yeah, that's the same way I feel".

Alternately, the listener may appreciate how the song facilitates visiting a part of the singer/songwriter's world, a world filled with different experiences. A good folk song can either bring forth a rush of memories or create new memories for the listener, depending on what the listener has experienced in his or her own life. Such as song can, in fact, be a catharsis for the listener, leading to thoughts and emotions that can be life-changing.

Yeah, that's a lot of thinking going on, which is something pop music doesn't really want people to do too much. Not that pop songs can't do the same thing: it's just not the main reason a pop song is written or recorded. Pop music tends to want to divert people's attention away from anything to serious and concentrate on how good the pop song makes them feel.

This brings up an area in which pop and folk probably have their biggest divergence: social awareness. Folk is frequently identified with protest songs, and rightly so. Being a music of the People and for the People, folk is driven by the need to express the experience, and therefore the needs, of the People. While a pop song saying "Now's the time to PARTY!", a folk song asks "How can you party when this sort of thing is going on?"

Not all folk artists get into protest songs, but the genre itself would not be folk music if not for the numerous protest songs folk artists have produced. Folk music has always been identified as being an aspect of the moral conscience of society, at times reminding us of injustice when we really don't want to be reminded. This is probably the biggest reason why folk isn't more popular, because the message of many such songs is the antithesis of the self-indulgence pop music tends to celebrate.

If the music industry could be likened to a cruise ship, pop music would be what all the passengers see on the upper decks: the entertainment, the food, the facilities and the service all intended to make them feel like royalty. Folk music would be the crew that labors below decks, preparing the meals, keeping the ship running efficiently, making sure the ship stays on course and doesn't run aground.

One thing all of this means is that on the same night Beyonce sells out a 10,000 seat arena, an equally talented folk singer is playing to a few dozen people in a club or smaller venue in another part of town. The folk singer knows that Beyonce is making more off this one night's performance than he is likely to make all year, but that doesn't matter (too much). That's because even to the performers, pop music is about the singer, while folk music is about the song. So that under-appreciated (compared to Beyonce) folk singer is often happy simply that his songs are being heard by people who will appreciate them.

The Beauty of Imperfection

Many Native American cultures have a practice of intentionally introducing mistakes or errors into man made objects. From Navajo rugs to Huron pottery to Tlingit carvings, these small, sometimes almost unnoticeable flaws, are a way of honoring Creator by declaring that only He is able to make something perfect. Yet, His greatest work, creation itself, is filled with imperfection.


Human Beings strive for perfection in so many things. This is especially apparent in how we tend to our own appearance.  We will subject ourselves to such things as smearing our faces and imbuing our hair with chemicals intended to cover imperfections and control the natural unruliness of our bodies. We now have software which can quickly eliminate imperfections and even make us look thinner and/or change our eye color and skin tone to make us appear more perfect. We seek out surgeons to cut away or alter parts of our bodies we find imperfect.

We are the only species on earth so dissatisfied with the way things are about ourselves that we do physical harm to ourselves to correct imperfections.

Nature is not perfect. Even those elements of nature which are the closest to being perfectly formed-mineral crystals and snow flakes-still display minute imperfections. Natural fractals (things such as a young fern or a nautilus shell) are  as close to "perfect" as living organisms can be, but still have imperfections.

Why do we want to surround ourselves with perfection, even to the point of altering our bodies? We could say it's pride, and that would be part of the answer. However I think it goes beyond pride into seeking a sense of safety. Here is what I think.

 Perfection symbolizes an absence of disease or destructive forces. It subconsciously places a barrier up against death and decay. It leads the viewer of the perfection into a place of safe perception, that tells the inner child that nothing bad is going to happen. It indicates the ultimate in growth and security, the unassailable state in which the perfect thing is superior to anything lacking perfection, and is therefore immune to the ravages of aging, death and decay.

It's all terribly unnatural.  The demand or expectation of Perfection implies that both growth and aging are unwanted aspects of living. Perfection is static, unchanging. Ergo it is also dead, it's lifelessness indicated by the lack of any signs of growth or decay, both of which are necessary for life. Fixation on perfection is actually a fixation on death, the death of stasis. That which does not change is dead, no matter how beautiful and alive it may appear.

We dismiss imperfect objects such as flowers from our lives because they are not beautiful enough. That lack, however, is not within the flower, but within our own capacity to appreciate that the imperfect flower is honest. Nature simply does not produce perfection, owing to the fact that there is such an infinite number of variations in life that natural perfection is impossible.

Yet we want to maintain the illusion, the lie of perfection because in it we find the safety of denying our own imperfectness. This lack of perfection is inherent in everything from the fact that we age, change and die, to noses that are a bit too big, or ears that stick out from our heads, or the asymmetry found in every human being's face. These changes and imperfections can appear chaotic to us, disturbing the safety of order and predictability. We want things to be perfect because that allows us a sense that we are in control of things that we really can't control. We dislike imperfection because we fear the death and chaos which it symbolizes.

As an example consider how we use flowers for decoration, but insist on flowers that are "perfect".  Those "perfect" flowers in a vase are already dead, and will eventually wither away. In seeking to maintain the illusion of perfect beauty, as a subconscious effort to deny the reality of death, we have actually brought death into our presence.  We can try artificial flowers, but those are even more indicative of death because they were never alive. Pots of living flowers are no better, as the simply display their natural "imperfection" by going through the cycle of life as they always do.

The very fact that the beauty of flowers is so fleeting, so temporal, should tell us that beauty, as far as creation is concerned, is not a permanent state of life. Nor should it be, because if beauty existed without change, we would take it for granted and appreciate it far less. Imperfection is the provenance that life involves both growth and decay, the achievement of beauty and its loss, the promise that youth must progress into adulthood, and adulthood into death, because to be stuck at any one point in the cycle of life is actually a form of death in itself.

Another aspect of imperfection in nature is that it's often imposed by an outside force. A lovely flower is chewed by insects, marring it's assumed beauty. Yet those scars tell us that the flower has participated in the Circle of Life by providing sustenance for other creatures. We consider them pests, but nature considers them part of an entire cycle of life, one aspect of the unfathomably complex organism that is our Earth Mother. We are just one part of that living being, our earth, yet we presume to dictate what is beautiful and perfect and right based on our own self-centered perspective.

I've learned to not only appreciate, but in many ways prefer imperfection. It reminds me that my own imperfections, whether inherent or the result of growing older, are natural. They are as Creator intends things to be. Imperfections in nature are reassurances that having them in my own life is normal, nothing to be feared or avoided. Rather my own imperfections are to be put in proper place, accepted as part of who I am. Perhaps some of my imperfections are even a mark of beauty in their own right, indicating growth in an area of my life that would otherwise by static and lifeless.

In any regards, I know that since Creator allows imperfection in the rest of creation, yet still declares it all to be good, then my own imperfections don't give Him cause to reject me. And that, as far as I'm concerned, is perfectly beautiful.

Bear and Cricket

Young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot by a cop than young white men. One way colonists have of attempting to rebut those who protest a white cop shooting a black man is to bring up the extremely rare incident of a black cop shooting a white man, or similar black on white violence. 

In the mind of the colonist, such things balance out. Fourteen shootings of unarmed black men by white cops in a three month period after Michael Brown's death is offset by a single incident of an unarmed white man being shot by a black cop. Colonists don't recognize the latent prejudice in this, because to them and those who have succumbed to colonization, the life of a colonist is worth more than the lives of dozens, hundreds of even millions of colonized.

Here is a story given me in a dream years ago, meant to address this attitude of colonists toward Native Americans. Given the recent events following the shooting of Michael Brown, and how colonists are grasping at ways to say that it's really the fault of the victims, I think this story is appropriate for all victims of colonization.


Bear and Cricket.

One day, Bear was wandering through a field, gobbling up all the sweet blackberries he could find. He was so intent on eating his fill of berries that he paid no mind to where he was stepping. He took a step as he reached for yet another pawful of berries and heard a faint cracking, then a cry. He also felt something prick his toe.

Bear took a step back. He looked down to see what it was he had stepped upon, and saw Cricket, wounded and dazed, emerging from the ruins of his home. Cricket looked up at Bear and cried,

"Look what you have done! Why didn't you watch where you were stepping? Many of us live in this field, and there's no telling how many you have injured in this way. What are you about, anyway?"

Bear studied Cricket for a moment as he finished chewing a mouthful of berries. Then he took a deep beath, exhaled, and answered Cricket.

"I'm eating berries so I will be fat for my winter's sleep, of course. I have that right. It's not my fault you were foolish enough to build your house in front of the berry bushes, where you should have realized I would be walking. It's your own fault. Besides, when I stepped on your house, it pricked my toe, and it was quite painful."

Cricket as incredulous. "What? How is it my fault that you were so intent on stuffing your belly that you paid no attention to what you were doing?"

Bear puffed himself up. "Because I am Bear, and you are merely Cricket. I am great: you are small. I should not have to look out for you, but you certainly should pay attention to me. You should know such things. Now, you have disturbed my foraging and hurt my toe. What do you intend to do about it?"

Cricket was speechless. Finally, he calmed down enough to reply. "You have destroyed my home, injured me and killed some of my family. Yet you ask what I am going to do for you because you had to stop stuffing your belly and your toe hurts? What are YOU going to do about the disaster you have visited upon me?"

Bear narrowed his eyes at Cricket. "You should be grateful that you are still alive. I could crush you completely you know. Now, hush your complaining while I return to my berries." With that Bear stepped over Cricket and grabbed another mouthful of berries.

Cricket, still dazed and in tears, limped back into the ruin of his home to see what was left to save.

A Thanksgiving Memory.

Thanksgiving always brings memories of my father, especially, because he died around this time of year. One memory that crept out of the closet of my mind was about shopping trips to Sears. It was back when Sears was the #1 retailer, and had fascinating things going on like canister vacuum cleaners set up to blow air through their hoses, suspending a beach ball in the air. Or on hot summer days, window air conditioners turned up full blast with plastic streamers billowing on the delightfully frigid stream of air. But the best part was the huge (to me at the time) candy counter.

Every time we went to Sears (which back then meant once or twice a month) we would stop by the candy kiosk. Even if only my dad went, and mom stayed home, he would still bring me along just so I could get some candy.

I was pretty consistent in what I wanted: milk chocolate stars. Sure, sometimes I would get adventurous and want chocolate covered raisins, or those quarter sized chocolate patties covered with sprinkles. One time I even got peanut brittle. But I would always return to the delicious simplicity  of chocolate stars.

They always bought 1/4 pound for me. I would watch in breathless anticipation as the lady behind the counter weighed out my selection and poured it into the white and red striped bag and hand it to my mother or father, who would then hand it to me with the requisite instructions of "Don't eat it all at once. Save some for later". I would nod dutifully in response.

I would of course pop one into my mouth immediately, and delight in the sensation of letting it melt slowly away, the lasting taste of chocolate on my tongue as the delicious star disintegrated offsetting the desire to chew it up for a burst of chocolaty goodness. But, true to my nodded commitment, I earnestly put forth my best effort to not eat all the chocolate stars in haste. Sometimes I would even eat one or two, then give the bag back to my mother to hold until we got to the car or arrived home, since either situation qualified as "later".

These chocolate-garnering ssoirees were also my first introduction to the concept of inflation. I would look at the price tag on the bin of chocolate, and try to figure out how much my quarter pound would cost. At the time I didn't think much of why my bounty clutched in that paper bag went from costing 15 cents, to 18 cents to 20 cents, then more as the months and years went by. "It's called inflation": my dad explained it all, when I asked about it. I think I was 8 at the time, and I really didn't comprehend that a 3 cent increase in the price of my quarter pound of chocolate reflected a $10 a month increase in the cost of groceries, or a new car costing $500 more than the last time dad bought one. In the mid-60s, that was a big increase in either expense.

Such things were beyond the concerns of a young boy who loved his parents for little things like buying him chocolate stars. Yet, as I look back on my life, it seems the simple things like that are the way I knew without doubt that my parents loved me and wanted my life to be filled with happiness and security. 

When I grew into my teens, a quarter pound of chocolate stars was no longer enough to satisfy my budding teen narcissism. It took things like the right pair of jeans or shoes, eventually inflating to musical instruments costing hundreds of dollars. It's interesting, but now, whenever I reminisce about my dad paying for my bass trombone or my Les Paul guitar, I wince at the thought that I was so demanding. 

Now when I think of those chocolate stars, the handful that would make up one quarter pound, and cost only a few pennies, I am most thankful for parents who loved me that much.

To blog or not to blog.

Once or twice a year, I take a look at this blog and realize it's as neglected as a Green Party voter during election time. (I know this from personal experience.) That's when I tell myself I will resume my efforts at keeping it alive, kicking and presumably relevant and interesting. The result is a week or two of regular posts, then I get distracted once again.

What is the distraction, since I do a lot of writing that ends up on Facebook? Well...it's Facebook.

Social media wisdom holds that I should post appropriate content on this blog, then share the blog on Facebook, tracking shares, likes and comments. What happened though, was I found shares of blog entries got much less attention than my direct posts on Facebook. My theory on that is it was due to people not being sure that the blog was actually mine. My FB friends and followers have come to expect certain things from me directly on FB, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them looked at my blog shares and thought it was not my original writings.

The thing is, this blog is supposed to help my photography and writing progress into my primary sources of income. To do that means a quantum leap in hits (or at least a solid progression. Quantum leaps take Search Engine Marketing dollars I don't have.)

I'll admit my creative energies with photography, writing and music don't seem to extend into enough discipline to manage promotional aspects very well.

So here I am again, trying to motivate myself to update this blog on a regular basis, such as at least twice a week. My methodology is going to be to post any essay length ruminations here (essay length being more than 2 or 3 paragraphs) and save Facebook for short, scathingly clever and effusively witty remarks.

What this also means is that the nature of my blog posts is going to change a bit. With "Eye Guess" I'm going to concentrate mainly on how I view things as a photographer and story teller. I'll do a lot of sharing about my photography and how I make photos, as well as share things about story telling and music, with a video thrown in now and then.

My other blog, "The Mad Mohawk", which has been sitting idle for a couple of years, is where I will post my social and political commentaries and some of the crazy ideas I have for improving things.

The List of Rules

Once upon a time, a very wise and loving father looked upon how his children were behaving, and saw that something must be done to teach them the right way to live. They were unruly and selfish, constantly arguing with each other, filled with greed and violence. This was not how their father wanted them to live.

He called them together to discuss the matter. He asked why it was they behaved in a way that was contrary to not just what their father had taught them, but to common sense as well. He asked what must he do, as their father, to make sure they behaved as they should.

They replied that they were no longer children, that they could make up their own minds about how to behave, as long as their father made it clear what was expected of them.

“Show us what you consider the difference between good and evil. Make up a list of rules, and we will follow them, to the very best of our ability.”

Their father looked at them, a subtle smile playing on his lips. They asked for the very thing he had been planning on doing. Everything was going according to his plan. The father spoke, “Very well. I have just such a list right here. I will give it to you, along with promises to reward you greatly for abiding by the list. Be aware, though, that there is also punishment and dire consequences for breaking the rules. If this is truly what you want, do you swear you will abide by the list?”

He handed out the list, and the children gathered to look at it. There was some grumbling about a few of the rules, yet when they looked at the list of rewards, and how so many of the rules looked so easy to follow, they eventually nodded their heads in agreement.

“We will follow these rules. We expect the just rewards for doing so...”

“And the just punishment for failure?” their father interrupted them?

“Yes, of course. But we shall not fail. We are quite able to keep these rules,” replied the eldest of the children, a hint of indignation in his voice.

The father gazed at them sternly, yet lovingly as well,”Very well then. From this day forward that list will govern nearly everything in your lives. You will start following it immediately."

He watched as his children hurriedly began discussing how to comply with the list of rules, and took the first steps toward what they thought would be a life of reward for their discipline and work.

It soon became apparent that some of the rules were harder to keep than they thought. How could they not work on a certain day, yet still do the things needed to go about their lives? It turned out that wasn't too hard to resolve: they simply did extra work the other days to get ready for the day they couldn't work. However, many of the other rules meant giving up certain things they enjoyed, which was of course a difficult thing for some of them to do. They soon realized they didn't really miss those things that much-some of them were harmful habits anyway-but especially because their father was generous with his rewards when he saw them comply with the list.

What was not so easy was obeying rules when their basic human nature, their emotions and desires, ran counter to the rules. It was hard not to be jealous of a sibling who had more toys. If someone was mean to me, many of them thought, how can I be expected to treat him nice in return? Eventually they saw how hard it was to keep some of the rules, but rather than admit it, they pretended they were still keeping them. Sometimes, doing this meant they had to change the meaning of the rules to make it look like they were keeping them. In many cases, they resorted to bragging about the rules they did keep as though that made up for breaking other rules.

All the while, their father watched their behavior in near silence. Occasionally he would let them know he was not pleased with how they behaved. When this happened, some of his children would make an effort to correct their behavior out of genuine remorse. Others would pretend to be sorry, but keep on breaking the rules in secret. A few of the children simply said they were sick and tired of the rules and would do what they wanted.

After many years, it became obvious that the list of rules caused as many problems as it solved. This wasn't because of the rules, but because the children simply were not able to keep all of them as they had promised. As it is in life, words written on paper look much easier to follow than is the actual case. The rules can be objective, unchanging words on paper, but people are naturally subjective, and as changeable as the weather.

There were as many ways of dealing with the list as there were children. Some kept nearly all the rules faithfully. Some chose only those rules which were easy to keep. Some pretended to keep rules, but didn't. Some tried as best they could, and were very sorry when they broke a rule. Others simply said they would no longer follow the list.

Their father observed all of this in knowing silence. Even though some of his children thought they were fooling him (because they thought the were fooling their siblings), he knew what each of them was doing. Finally he called them together to discuss the list of rules.

“So, you have had this list for many years now,” said the father, “and I have been watching you carefully the whole time. Some of you do very well, considering the great number of rules on the list, and others of you shame yourselves with your selfishness and contentiousness.”

At this, the children became disquieted. They started grumbling among themselves about who their father meant was doing well and who was being selfish.

Their father continued,” and yet, no matter how well or badly any of you have done, not a single one of you has succeeded in following the list as you promised. As a result, none of you qualify for the ultimate reward.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as the children looked at each other in disbelief. Then all at once the cacophonous protest erupted. The children shouted at each other, at their father, at no one in particular. Finally two of the children stepped forward, convincing the others to let them speak.

The first child stepped forward and got right in his father's face, “This list is impossible to keep. We may just be your children, but we deserve better. We deserve something fair. You set us up, giving us this ridiculous list, promising a reward, and now saying we don't get it because we didn't keep all the rules?”

“How were we ever supposed to keep this list? We know you can keep it, of course. We may be your children, but we aren't you. It's unfair to expect us to keep this list as you would.”

“You claim you love us, but it's obvious to us that's not the case. You gave us this list, knowing that as we tried to follow the rules, some of us would act differently than others. Instead of the rules making our lives as a family easier, it resulted in so many arguments about the rules, how to keep them, who was or wasn't obeying, that we are worse off than before. But you knew that would happen! You knew it would happen but gave us the list anyway. How cruel! No real father would do such a thing. We demand you tear up the list, and give us our rewards anyway, because this whole thing was unfair.”

For a breathless moment, the outspoken child stood before his father, ragged breaths coming forth as he expected some sort of reaction: an angry retort, perhaps even a slap to the face. Instead the father gently leaned forward, laid his hands on his child's shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead.

The child, now torn between an even greater anger toward his father (for not acting as the child had expected) and bewilderment over his response, moved back toward the rest of the children in uncertain steps, his eyes never leaving his father's unfathomable gaze.

The second child spoke humbly, his eyes fixed on the floor.,”Father, some of us have tried our very best. We really have. We thought we could follow all the rules, but we found out we couldn't. We are too flawed, to apt to make mistakes despite our better judgment. Even the best of us can act in selfishness. That list is... impossible to keep, as my brother said. But the fault lies with us for not realizing this from the start, and spending all these years trying to keep it instead of asking you how we could deal with such an impossible list. Forgive us for being so arrogant.”

Finally he looked up into his father's eyes. He lunged forward onto his knees and grasped his father's hand in his own, “Please, father, please tear up the list. We aren't truly able to keep it correctly, because we don't know how... we aren't you. No matter how highly we think of ourselves, we don't really know your thoughts, your heart, your nature. We lack something inside of us... each of us is lacking... that's why we fail...”

The father gently pulled his child off his knees and wrapped him in a loving embrace, a smile on his face. He took a few moments to whisper something in the child's ear. The child perked up greatly at the words he was hearing, and soon a joyful grin replaced the tear streaked expression he had worn moments before.

The father stopped speaking to the child, who reluctantly released their embrace. With a nod, the father motioned for him to return to his siblings.

The father stood and held the list up before him. He loudly declared, “I will not tear up this list. It reflects the way things are meant to be, because it comes from my very heart. My own spirit is the spirit behind the list. I would sooner kill myself than dismiss these rules”

Again a mixed reaction from the children, ranging from anger and indignation to wonderment to bitter resignation of the inevitable failure the list imposed upon them.

The father lowered his voice to a whisper that cut through his children's muttering as clearly as if he had been speaking in a silent room, “I have a much better solution. I agree the list is impossible to keep fully. That was my intent from the beginning...”

More indignant muttering.

“That being the case, “the father continued, unfazed by the growing discontent among some of his children, “I offer the only solution what will work. I offer myself, my spirit.”

With that, the father took a deep breath, an impossibly long and enormous inhalation that seemed to draw all of time and space into himself, leaving nothing but a spot of light in which he stood before his family. He then exhaled, his breath like gentle fire washing out over his children like the tide flowing in to erase footprints in the sand and remove detritus. Some of the children closed their eyes and inhaled the breath of their father. Others obstinately shut their mouths and refused to breathe.

Yet none could deny that the fire had washed over them, and that as a result, the entire universe had changed.

The father looked out over his children, loving the most rebellious and selfish as much as he loved the most loving and faithful. “That is all I have to say for now.” With that, the father turned and posted the list of rules on the wall, where his children would always see it. The children looked at each other, with mutterings both benign and hateful, and eventually went their various ways. 

All but one.

The lone child meekly approached her father, who had sat back down in his chair and was idly humming to himself, eyes closed. “Father?” the child asked. The father opened his eyes and smiled.

“I knew you would be the one” he said happily, and held out his arms for his child to approach. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her as she leaned her head on his shoulder. She listened to his humming for a few moments, and found it filled her with peace and joy. After a few blissful moments listening to her father's song, she spoke:

“This was the plan all along, wasn't it? I mean, from the moment you gave us life, you knew what we would be like. You knew that no matter what, if you didn't do something drastic, we would become nothing more than selfish, unmitigated brats. At least compared to you, that is. I mean, we can be really good when we want to, but it's not quite enough to be that sort of good, is it? That's because that sort of good is only on the outside, only temporary, and often only because it means we get a reward for being that sort of good.”

She paused for a moment, expecting her father to say something, but he simply continued to hum the quiet song, his head leaning against hers, his eyes closed.

“I guess what I'm saying is there are two sorts of good we can be. There's 'list of rules' good, where we can point to one or a bunch of the rules and say See, I'm being good because I keep these rules. But then we forget about the rules we don't keep, as though it doesn't matter when we are bad. And the fact is that for a lot of us, the most important rules are the ones we break, because they're the hardest for us to keep. Like loving our enemies or not fighting over stuff, or being more willing to give to someone than get something from them.”

“Then we make a big deal out of keeping the easy rules cuz we hope that will keep people from noticing that we're breaking the ones that matter the most. And that's why you said we had to keep all the rules to earn the reward, cuz if we could say that we kept some of the rules, but not all of them, and that we deserved the reward as a result, we would miss the whole point of what the reward is.”

At that the father stopped humming and opened his eyes to regard his child.

“Cuz, well, we spent all this time trying to keep the list of rules, thinking the reward would be some great thing each of us wanted, like a lot of money or a big house or to be better looking or to be in charge. But those sorts of things are only the rewards you get by breaking some of the rules. I mean, anyone can get that stuff on their own, really, often just by being selfish enough to make themselves more important than anyone else.”

The child looked up into her father's eyes.

“The list, the list is meant for us to realize that the only way we can really keep it is if we have you inside of us, if we share your spirit, like you gave us just now. That's how we keep the list: not by following each and every rule, but by letting your spirit guide us into becoming like you, and acting as you would act. That way we know more than just what's on the list. We know why there is a list to begin with. And when we know that, when we know that the list is really all about love, then we can keep the parts we are best able to keep, each of us, personally, and not fret over the parts we don't keep because we realize it's not our fault if we make mistakes for being imperfect. It's only our fault if we know we could do something but refuse to do it.”

“So the reward is not something we get from keeping the list. It is the list, or more so, it's your spirit inside of us, gently making it so we can let the you inside of us keep the parts of the list it's important for each of us to keep, ourselves, without fretting whether someone else is keeping the list the same way. The reward is knowing why, and knowing you, and moments just like this.” Then she closed her eyes and hugged her father ever so tightly.

The father smiled, closed his eyes, and resumed humming his sweet, soft song.

The Beginner's Guide to Becoming a Modern American Churchian

How to be a Modern American Churchian:

The key is to learn to dismiss important aspects of Scriptural teaching and Christ's example combined with semantic gerrymandering. If all else fails, keep relying on the fragments of Scripture which support your point, even if the verse(s) is taken completely out of context and your interpretation conflicts with other verses in the Bible. Follow these guidelines and you will be able to proudly proclaim yourself a Christian without any of the messy business of acting as Christ would have you act.

Examples:

The Bible says to help the poor, feed the hungry etc. (Deut. 15:7-11, Lev. 25:35, Prov. 19:17, Matt. 5:42, Matt. 25:34-46 and dozens more)

Churchian Solution: claim the poor and needy are that way because they are lazy and entitlement minded. Assume they are not only unemployed, but aren't interested in working. That way you can quote 2 Thessalonians 3:10 about how those who don't work don't eat. It's even easier if you follow Word of Faith doctrine, which implies that poverty is a consequence of sin and lack of faith.

Don't forget to partially quote Mark 14:7, about always having the poor, being blissfully ignorant that Jesus was referring to Deuteronomy 15:11, which is a commandment to always provide for the poor of the land.

The Bible warns against greed and the seeking of wealth (Prov. 28:25, Lk 12:15, 1 Tim. 6:9-10).

Churchian Solution: Related to the above, cite verses that talk about how God wants His people to prosper, how hard work earns a reward, and how ultimately you will use your wealth to further the Gospel by tithing.

The Bible warns against exploiting workers.(Deut. 24:14-14,Jer. 22:13, Mal. 3:5, Col.4:1)

Churchian Solution; Using the two Solutions above, claim that workers who complain about wages are actually lazy, entitlement-minded sluggards who barely deserve what they are paid. Point out how profits made at the expense of exploited workers are used to bless people. Make obscure references to Old Testament scriptures that support the idea that God favors Capitalism. The ringer is the Parable of the Workers (Matt. 20:1-34) which can, with the right twist, be used to justify never paying an employee more than what the boss thinks he's worth, and never giving any raises.

The Bible says to love and do good to your enemies. (Matt. 5:44, Luke 6:27-36, Romans 12:19-21).

Churchian Solution; This can be done in two different ways, or a combination of the two. First, redefine love, generally exemplified by the statement “love the sinner, hate the sin” so that any animosity you display toward your enemy is redefined as actually being love. Second method is to cite verses which talk about God pouring out His wrath on His enemies and the enemies of His people. In other words, favor the Old Testament over the New to handle this one. Be sure to declare those you hate to be “enemies of Christ”, “Accusers of the brethren” and “heretics” because somewhere in the Bible there are verses which exempt those people from the “love and do good to your enemies” verses, right?

The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31, Matt. 22:39).

Churchian Solution: This one is very easy: simply use a definition of “neighbor” which limits it to people who are like you.

The Bible says to welcome aliens and strangers. (Deut. 10:18, Lev.19:33, Exodus 23:9, Matt. 25:35, Hebrews 13:2)

Churchian Solution: It takes a bit of effort to become stiff-necked enough to proclaim that the laws of man supersede the laws of God, but that is the best way to handle this one. Point out that illegal immigrants are technically criminals, even if they are children, as a way of saying that their guilt according to man-made law abrogates any need for you to apply the Word of God.

The Bible says to be humble/avoid self-righteousness (Luke 18:9-14, Philippians 2:3-11, James 4:6) to seek peace, (Mt. 5:9, Romans 12:18) and to never try to force your will upon others (1 Cor. 13:4-5) and don't trust in man made methods to achieve spiritual goals (Ps. 118:8; 146:3, Jer. 17:5-6).

Churchian Solution: Someone's got to defend the faith and make sure people behave righteously, right? Why not use whatever means are necessary, including political activism, because the most important thing is to make society as comfortable as possible for Churchians maintain the status quo of using Jesus Christ to justify all sorts of selfish behavior.

This is just the basics. As you learn to apply these principles, you will eventually find ways to use Scripture and modern American doctrine to oppose all sorts of things ranging from gun control to teaching basic science in school.