Yay tiny grannies!

It's good to know that there are some in athletics who are as disturbed by the upcoming Focus on the Family Superbowl ad as I am. Thank you for speaking up, my good sirs.


And fuck you CBS.

Mother, Mae Shi?

Have you guys heard of (or listened to – the listening to it bit is the more important) The Mae Shi? The video for their song "Run To Your Grave," below, shows a bit of the energetic love for music that I find irresistible in music artists. Look at the wildly swinging drum sticks! Look at the fact that they have to clean up after the jam session! You can tell they're having fun! You can tell that they like music! {Side note - have you noticed that Youtube has cool new embedding options? They're neat-o!}




Although the Mae Shi have recorded my favorite Miley Cyrus cover ever (It's so good! It is! The video's not, though – sorry. Warning: WILL GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD) and a hilarious parody of Christopher Bale's meltdown (lol), I think that much of their music is very important. They join other Christian musicians who form rock bands but don't call their music "Christian rock," not because their music is any less Christian, but because their music does not belong to a world of easy-peasy worship songs. There's no "fall on your face with your knees to the rising sun" to be had here. Instead of showering listeners fine slurry of platitudes and beatitudes, the Mae Shi creates songs that question, sometimes harshly, the current state of society and Christianity; or that educate the listener on aspects of the religion; or that give personal testimony of God's strengths and religion's weaknesses. From Mae Shi's song "Young Marks":

I was born
to potential and limitless grace
with the flashing of light
it was gone when the smoke cleared
cast in ash and powder

I was raised to obey and respect but
at the edge of the lake
was dead and disruption
when the water splashed across my back...

I wasn't chosen
I didn't choose the path
my heart's not built to hold his love

I was schooled
in a place of tradition
but something was missing
in faces of classmates
eyes declared too blue, too deep

The Mae Shi's lyrics do what Christian musicians, as Christians and as artists, should be doing: discomforting, challenging, thought-provoking. They've moved past the rock songs that do little more than assert strength of the artists' piety. And by doing so, they've become ministers to a new group of Christians – those who, like me, are not satisfied to merely bend over and watch the older generations poison their minds and hearts with their enema bags full of dogma.

The Mae Shi are not the only ones. In fact, they're my latest fling in an ongoing music fetish. Before this, I have fallen in love with the now-defunct Pedro the Lion and Half-Handed Cloud (HHC's song Animals Are Cut in Two is quite possibly the most upbeat song ever written on the significance of Old Testament animal sacrifice, and proves that I wasn't the only one paying attention in Theology class). While they approach the issues in different ways (both lyrically and musically) and for different purposes, this growing group of artists recognizes and accepts a complexity in Christianity that has been ignored for years, perhaps even millennia. They look at their own confusion and bottle it. Note that Pedro the Lion's beautiful ballad "Priests and Paramedics" (a very nice live version) doesn't say whether the priests or the paramedics are correct. And even after performing very pessimistic pieces, these artists can still take comfort in the old, solid hymns (Pedro the Lion also performs a very peaceful version of "Amazing Love"), or in embracing feel-good messages – The Mae Shi sells shirts that proclaim, "I'm glad you're alive" – because isn't that what Christianity is about, too? In the end, it is this wandering that makes me trust them. I wonder if they realize that their faithful uncertainty makes them more disciple-like than surety.

In a time where the word "Christian" is fraught with implications of bigotry and ineptitude, and where "Christian rock" means playing electric guitar to the same old hymn books, these artists have found a greater depth of meaning and perhaps a wider audience for Christian ideas (not to mention a place in my heart) by venturing outside the pale. Mayhaps we of the flock could learn a little from these preachers.

Holy Water.

In these thirsty times, it comes to my mind again
like the dying echoes of day in these halls holy:
that squalid afternoon the silent Indian,
a young girl, entered this hushed cathedral
to sip from the Spanish priest’s blesséd water,
sated, maybe, at the tiny oasis in this unforgiving desert

of mercy. Condemning the girl to her native desert
fate, the parish priest pointed, furious, and again
made his sign over the ornate font of water
to make it respectable and holy
for genteel believers. Outside the cathedral,
in the godforsaken square, obsidian Indian

eyes radiated from under blowing wisps of ebony Indian
hair. The girl whispered in strange desert
tongues, and her words fell on the cathedral
as if the rain had come again
from the heavens so contemptuous and holy,
but there came no clouds bearing precious water,

so the priest continued to obsess. Over the tub of water
he cursed that uncouth girl, that beastly Indian,
who, like all of her kind, blighted the holy
places the missionaries had bestowed upon the desert
and unceremoniously profaned their benefactions. Again
the priest dreamt of pure blood filling the cathedral

with proper Latin veneration, as deserves a cathedral
graced by grandsons of conquistadors from over the water.
With each passing year, I have found myself wondering again
about the girl who spoke with nothing but a fierce Indian
grace. I have tried to imagine the dusty desert
paths she has since dignified with her presence so holy.

She is my sun-red rose in a bleached-bone field wholly
populated by upstart weeds that built up their cathedral
of thorns against the ancient, sacred desert
and dared to deem themselves the true priests of water–
yes, on these days I reflect on the miracle of the Indian
and whether she will ever sanctify our streets again.

It is then that I realize that the desert long ago swallowed the girl and our water
as if they had been a mirage, and the twin Babel towers of our holy cathedral
stand only to testify my prophesy: my angelic Indian will not come to cleanse us again.



I wrote this for my creative writing class and edited with much help from Ian and Christine. The form is called a sestina, which dictates the sestet/envoy form as well as the pattern of the end words of the lines. It was inspired by my short time in Chihuahua, MX, where very young Indian girls begged in the rich shopping district. The rich Latinos (those with more Spanish blood) ignored them.

May I have the courage to send it; may she have the courage to listen.

This letter has been coming for quite some time.

Dear Kathleen,

Honesty reigns today; this letter contains only truth. To me, a real friendship requires absolute honesty between two people. We have split because I was dishonest, and the state of our relationship has given me an interesting roller coaster. I have been angry, cried over it, dreamed about it, and declared myself done with it, but today, I face it. You were right that day in class. I was critical of your church. Although I denied it then, I admit it now. I hope that counts for something.

In continuation of my honesty, I must also admit that I see reason in the actions of your church. Sacraments are sacred, and are to be protected from those who would defile them. However, you and your church continue to cling to the millenia-old belief that you have the One Way, the only source of Truth, and that all other Christian faiths are merely imposters who have wandered and will someday return to the bosom of The Church. It is a logical fallacy, though, that old notions are wisest and that tradition keeps things as they should be; this idea killed thousands – millions – of people during the Inquisition, remember?

Wake up. Martin Luther was right, whether you like it or not, but your church would not listen to the voice of reason. Now other churches exist. They, too, believe in Him. They, too, share in His Sacraments. They, too, have the Light, though I think you would deny this if you told what was really on your mind. People outside of The Church now have relationships with Christ. People outside of The Church take part in the Eucharist. Without being Catholics. Without being confirmed Catholic. Without being baptized Catholic. Without being baptized at all. Does your god hate this, frown upon it, turn them away? Mine doesn’t. Mine loves. Mine accepts. Mine pulls His children to His bosom, just as He embraces Catholics.

But you really prefer others to be kept below your level, don’t you? You would rather be left to think that you have the Way, the Path, the Truth, inside yourself. If you hold yourself so high, others cannot criticize you, nor can they themselves measure up; they could never be as pious as you are, nor as chaste, nor as wise. You have the answer to everything; you know what everyone should and will do. How is that working for you? Do your friends fancy sticking around while you judge them and everything that they do, or do they prefer to listen to your criticisms from their answering machines? The fact is that you are insecure about who you are, what you have done, and what your place is in life. That’s okay, Kathleen. I think that we all are, really. What’s not okay is pretending that you are above reproach; by doing so, you hurt others. The duct tape job on your pedestal is unraveling. Was the Carpenter out when you made it? Did he refuse to make you a throne? Perhaps it’s because the Carpenter made one throne alone, and refuses to make another. You shouldn’t try.

There it is. I hope that I have not hurt you too much by being honest, and that you can grow from this, but if you are hurt, know that I, too, was hurt by you once, and that from that pain I have learned. I think that you are a good person, and I would like to be your friend, but I cannot face you without my mind being known. I wish you all the best, no matter the outcome.


In all sincerity,
Caitlin Carroll

soul snatches.

She holds the memory out for me like a trophy to admire. "Stella, she wanted to see me, you know. Before she passed. She calls me in and says 'You know, it was really special when you were there for me when my brother died.' I was there, you know." I look down at the idle vacuum cleaner leaning against my hand. Its cord dangles, unused.

Stella died at the age of one hundred one. She had outlived three husbands and most of her children. Tonight that was not important.

"They was gonna call 'er in'er room and tell'er, but I says 'No, gimme a few minutes an' I'll be up there so she don' hafta be alone when she gets the news.' That ain't right. Nobody should hafta be alone when they get a call like that."

I nod in agreement. That is enough for her, and she continues on cheerily polishing her shiny souvenir.

What a difference it'd make.

The answer is "one." Human life is so delicate, but so is the human conscience.

Shudder much?

I have always greatly admired A Softer World for its ingenuity and ability to teach a hard lesson in its abruptness, but this week's strip hit me hard. Quietly, it turns a birthday celebration and a friendly interchange of macabre jokes into something much more real: a contemplation on the effects of denying someone a day of birth. Suddenly, dead baby jokes aren't so hilarious; they're life or death.