May 26, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
I knew that sign would be more polarizing than a candidate endorsement. I also knew I believed Black Lives Matter. Maybe more than anything, I was impressed with my daughter’s audacity, and convicted by the simplicity with which she suggested it. Because I must admit I did not have the courage to imagine putting that sign in our yard. I wondered if it would cause problems with any of my parishioners. I wondered if it would bother any of my neighbors. I wondered if they’d think things about me that weren’t true. I wondered if they’d find out things about me that were true. I wondered if a sign like that would be defaced. But I was proud of my daughter. So, I said OK. Well, that’s not true. I said let me talk to your mom about it, but in my heart, I had already said OK. And my wife agreed. I still wondered all those things, and so did she. But we got the sign and we put it up right in our front yard.
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
May 19, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Inspired
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Inspired
Of course, I’m not an actor. I’m a priest. But Nicholson had a profound influence on my life. I mean, I was a good little fundamentalist Christian, so his fast-living reputation was not really for me growing up. But he had this way about him that just bowled me over. He seemed always to be utterly himself in whatever he did – even while convincingly playing fantastic characters. He was the Joker, or McMurphy, or J.J. Gittes, or Col. Jessup, or Melvin Udall, but at the same time he was Jack! And I loved that. When I was in college, my buddy Wes and I visited Hollywood and made our film lover’s pilgrimage to Grauman’s Chinese Theater. This is the spot where many famous actors have put their hand and foot prints into the cement. I got down on my knees in front of Jack’s signature and placed my hands in his handprints. They fit perfectly. Wes’ hands fit in James Stewart’s. We floated away.
It's a strange thing to call someone your inspiration when you haven’t actually followed in their footsteps. A few years back I was at a concert and I ran into a comedian named Emo Phillips. He is not terribly famous, but when I was younger I had seen a stand-up special of his that was so absurd and outlandish that it had turned my idea of comedy upside down. I walked up to him that night and introduced myself. He was very gracious. I told him that he had been a big inspiration to me growing up. “Is that so?” he asked, “what do you do?” I said I was a priest, and without missing a beat he said, “Well obviously.”
May 12, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Where is God
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Where is God
Where is God when things are terrible? Where is God when I pray for the healing of a loved one and they get sicker? Where is God when I pray for their healing and they die instead? Where is God when people are being torn apart by AR-15 bullets?
Where is God?
I ask this question a lot, and I get asked it a lot. A friend who is really going through it recently asked me, and followed up by saying they were not asking rhetorically. It’s not a new question. Some biblical scholars believe that the Book of Job is the earliest story in our Scriptures. Which means not only is “Where is God?” not a new question – it might be the oldest question anyone who believed in God ever asked. And it’s important to remember that “Where is God?” is asked most frequently by people who believe in God, because we often think it’s a question rooted either in faithlessness or cynicism. But in my experience it is one of the most faithful questions anyone can ask.
Where is God?
I need to tell you that I will not answer this question in anything like a satisfactory way. So please know that going forward. Just the same, my first answer is that God is with us. This is the stated belief of the Christian – even when we don’t understand, even when we question, even when we doubt, even when we are furious with God. God is with us. When I was growing up, the spectacular Bette Midler sang, “God is watching us from a distance.” It was beautiful and it was believable, but it was also not true – at least not according to the Christian narrative. We say that God is here right now.
May 08, 2023 |
Built For Blessing
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Built For Blessing
The stated purpose of building this space was we had a
desire to bless this neighborhood, to bring people into the space to bless it,
a clarity of purpose that we would build a space that people could come in and
know that they are belonging, know that they are loved, and know that they have
a place in this world.
Who's it for? Anyone who wants it? A clarity of purpose. This place was built for blessing. That's what it's for. It was built for blessing a long time ago. It was built again for blessing, and even now we see that to be true. This place hosts gatherings. It hosts 12-step meetings. It hosts worship. Hundreds of people are blessed by this building.
Every single week we've got Clark students who show up on our front porch by the dozens, hang out on the porch, hang out with our people, come on in, study, get picked up by their parents, or wait for the school bus, and this is a place where they feel safe. We are blessing people and we keep doing that.
That is the work. It's the purpose for our existence. We're built for blessing.
Who's it for? Anyone who wants it? A clarity of purpose. This place was built for blessing. That's what it's for. It was built for blessing a long time ago. It was built again for blessing, and even now we see that to be true. This place hosts gatherings. It hosts 12-step meetings. It hosts worship. Hundreds of people are blessed by this building.
Every single week we've got Clark students who show up on our front porch by the dozens, hang out on the porch, hang out with our people, come on in, study, get picked up by their parents, or wait for the school bus, and this is a place where they feel safe. We are blessing people and we keep doing that.
That is the work. It's the purpose for our existence. We're built for blessing.
May 05, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Raise Your Hand
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Raise Your Hand
The first time I ever got kicked out of class was for arguing with my teacher. I was in 5th grade and Mr. Ahlers said that dinosaurs never existed. This was actually not the point of whatever he was teaching – it just came out while he was talking about something else: A very casual denial of dinosaurs. I raised my hand. He called on me. “I’m sorry, did you say there were no dinosaurs?” That’s right, he said, and when I asked him why he said that he said they weren’t in the Bible.
I attended a private Christian school, so Mr. Ahlers was allowed to say this, but I had never actually heard it before. I didn’t know one could just believe there were no dinosaurs. You should know at this point that I was not a science-oriented kid. I did not like educational programming – and to this day I still try not to learn anything while watching TV if I can help it. I have a son who memorizes animal and dinosaur facts and I love that about him, but that has never been me. But still, as a ten-year-old I had heard of dinosaur fossils and bones. Which is why I immediately asked him what about the fossils and bones.
Mr. Ahlers said that God had put those in the ground. I asked why God would do that and he said in order to test our faith. I expressed incredulity. He doubled down, “What? Don’t you think God could create fossils and bones and put them in the ground to test us?” To which I responded, “Of course I think he could do that, I just don’t think God would be such a jerk.” And that, my friends, was when I was kicked out of class.
I attended a private Christian school, so Mr. Ahlers was allowed to say this, but I had never actually heard it before. I didn’t know one could just believe there were no dinosaurs. You should know at this point that I was not a science-oriented kid. I did not like educational programming – and to this day I still try not to learn anything while watching TV if I can help it. I have a son who memorizes animal and dinosaur facts and I love that about him, but that has never been me. But still, as a ten-year-old I had heard of dinosaur fossils and bones. Which is why I immediately asked him what about the fossils and bones.
Mr. Ahlers said that God had put those in the ground. I asked why God would do that and he said in order to test our faith. I expressed incredulity. He doubled down, “What? Don’t you think God could create fossils and bones and put them in the ground to test us?” To which I responded, “Of course I think he could do that, I just don’t think God would be such a jerk.” And that, my friends, was when I was kicked out of class.
Apr 28, 2023 |
Listening for Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Listening for Love
First a word on anger: Anger is not anti-love. And it is a misguided understanding of love that makes us equate anger with hatred. As I wrote last year, God gets angry. And God is Love. Our Scriptures paint a consistent picture of a God who gets angry when they see people in positions of power marginalize and oppress the powerless in God’s name. God’s anger is not arbitrary but is inflamed by injustice and inhumanity. And God’s anger is not hate. It is an extension of love.
My parishioner’s expression of anger was an expression of love and an act of courage. And it reminded me of all the times I had sat on my thumbs and kept myself from confronting friends or family when they dehumanized others, because I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want to be unpleasant myself.
When we deny ourselves the natural emotion of anger as a response to injustice, marginalization, or dehumanization, we are denying the voice of God that stirs within us. And when I deem a woman’s anger unattractive, unseemly, undesired, I am denying the presence of that same God that dwells within them.
When we deny ourselves the natural emotion of anger as a response to injustice, marginalization, or dehumanization, we are denying the voice of God that stirs within us. And when I deem a woman’s anger unattractive, unseemly, undesired, I am denying the presence of that same God that dwells within them.
Apr 21, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Unprovable
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Unprovable
I have a dear friend from college who belongs to a different religious tradition. Though we believe different things and practice different religions, we’ve always liked each other, in part I think, because we respected that the other took their faith seriously. It’s been over 20 years and we are still talking about our faith with each other, and recently we were talking about the difficulty of being faithful in this hard world. He asked me if there was anything that kept me coming back, and I said, “Well, I mean, I heard God speak.” His response was similar: I love that that happened to you. I wish it would happen to me.
I don’t know why these things have happened to me, and not everyone else. Those who have confessed to similar experiences have been comforting in the moment, but it’s the people who have not had them that rattle me. Because I know these people and I am not better or smarter or stronger or more faithful than them.
What’s more, it’s this sort of inconsistency to which skeptics point when they are saying why they don’t believe: Any person can add 1 to 1 and get 2. Anyone can put water in a freezer and make it into ice. Anyone can recognize life is life and death is death. These things are consistent and reproducible. But you say God spoke to you and nobody else heard it? And you can’t make God speak again by going the same place and doing the same thing? Unprovable. You say you spoke with a deceased relative in a dream? Unreasonable.
It is strange what we feel the need to prove.
When we think about why someone loves us, we feel the need to prove we’ve earned it. We haven’t. You can’t earn love. But we want to prove it just the same.
Apr 07, 2023 |
The Phone Call
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
The Phone Call
When I woke up I felt peace. And then I never told anyone this happened. Because I was not interested in sounding unhinged. And I’m still not interested in that, so I still rarely share this story, and certainly am not sure how I feel about telling you here. I feel compelled to tell you that I do not normally hear voices, claim clairvoyance, or converse with the dead – though I’m not opposed to any of these things. My dad was also neither the first nor the last person I loved who died – though he’s certainly the one to whom I’m the closest. He’s the one I know and love the best.
I find it interesting that there are multiple occasions in Scriptures when mystical, divine things happen in the midst of dreams. It’s like God is deliberately leaving room for plausible deniability. Did Joseph really have those visions of himself as ruler, or was he just being cocky? Did Abraham really enter into a covenant with the Almighty, or was that just a story he told to justify his far-fetched hopes? Did Jacob really wrestle with God or was that just a metaphor for psychological struggle? Did Phil’s dad really call him on that dream phone to say goodbye, or was this just a way to cope with unspeakable grief?
Everyone outside of the dream is free to believe it is a flight of fancy. But in the sacred stories, the dreamer wakes up transformed and convicted.
I find it interesting that there are multiple occasions in Scriptures when mystical, divine things happen in the midst of dreams. It’s like God is deliberately leaving room for plausible deniability. Did Joseph really have those visions of himself as ruler, or was he just being cocky? Did Abraham really enter into a covenant with the Almighty, or was that just a story he told to justify his far-fetched hopes? Did Jacob really wrestle with God or was that just a metaphor for psychological struggle? Did Phil’s dad really call him on that dream phone to say goodbye, or was this just a way to cope with unspeakable grief?
Everyone outside of the dream is free to believe it is a flight of fancy. But in the sacred stories, the dreamer wakes up transformed and convicted.
Mar 24, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, When God Feels Like It
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, When God Feels Like It
We don’t get to conjure or control the manner in which God shows up. God is not a parlor trick. God has agency. God has a say. And whether we understand that or not says more about us than it does about God.
None of this is meant cynically or hopelessly. Quite the opposite. I believe we are made for relationship with God. And healthy relationships aren’t one-sided. In a good relationship, I don’t get to just decide when and in what manner my friend shows up. In a good relationship, I am pushed to recognize the otherness of the person about whom I care – and to respect it. Why would this not be true about God? Why do I think God has to be here for me in exactly the way that makes me comfortable? In what world is that a healthy relationship?
We Christians often seem obsessed with proving God’s existence. But if the God in whom we believe actually exists, they don’t seem terribly obsessed with proving their own existence. God seems content to show up in inexplicable ways and places, and then just as content as a silent observer.
Mar 17, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, But Through Me
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, But Through Me
I know there are some Christians that think pop culture is bad, evil, maybe even demonic, and I know that they are very vocal, but most of the Christians I have known in my life have been more open. They are able to see the value of the secular alongside the spiritual. Me, I think I’m more on the radical side of things. I don’t believe anything is secular. I see Jesus all over the place.
Speaking of the Beatles, I remember when my dad slipped into a coma and I thought he was going to die. I was in California and he was in Maine, and it would be at least 24 hours before I’d be able to get to him. The only comfort I could get that day was in the George Harrison-penned Beatles song “Within You Without You.” It had long been my least favorite song on that album, but for some reason it popped up now and wouldn’t let go. It was so simple and emotionless, and I heard George intone, “You’re really only very small and life goes on within you and without you.” Should that have comforted me? I don’t know, but it did. I heard Jesus in that song that day.
I got back to Maine, and he stayed in that coma for a couple more days. Windchill made it 30 degrees below zero, and I was driving back and forth from his house to the hospital, and it was George Harrison again, this time singing, “All Things Must Pass.” I did not know if my Dad was going to live or die, but I heard this long-haired British Hindu Hippie tell me this is the way of things and I believed him. And I heard Jesus that day.
Mar 10, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Conversions - Part 2
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Conversions - Part 2
I was 41, standing in my kitchen with my hand in a bowl full of flour and water and salt, and I did not hear God talk to me. I didn’t hear much of anything, other than the same Ella Fitzgerald album on endless repeat from the speaker on the kitchen counter. I was about 5 months into leading our church in a pandemic. I felt isolated and stir crazy and very tired of my beautiful family. I was insecure about the future of our church, which felt small compared to the fact that I was scared for the future of our country. On top of that, In the last month our dog had died, and we had moved into a smaller house. I was confused and exhausted and heartbroken.
For whatever reason, COVID-19 did not bring about a crisis of belief for me. That is not a brag, just a strange statement of fact. It had been 21 years since the moment on the hillside when I heard God’s voice and realized I believed. 21 years later, and I was pretty sure I believed in God at least once a day every day. But I was in despair because I wasn’t sure I believed in people anymore. I mean, I knew people existed, I just wasn’t sure why, or what we were doing with this gift of life. A lot of despair there.
And though I believed in God, I did not hear their voice. So, I did what many sensible White men did during the pandemic: I started making sourdough bread.
Mar 03, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Conversions - Part 1
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Conversions - Part 1
I had been raised Christian but had left my church as a teenager with no intention of returning to organized religion. I had not been traumatized and did not leave angrily. But I increasingly did not see a place for myself in it. In the intervening time, I self-described as Christian, but spent a lot of time really wondering if I believed God was real at all. It really bothered me that I couldn’t prove God’s existence. I mean, really bothered me. Somehow, in my childhood, I had assumed God was obvious, and when God became anything but obvious, and the church could no longer guilt or scare me into saying I believed, God shifted to an idea or a concept more than a divine being. I was even slightly embarrassed that any of the God stuff mattered to me. It did not seem very cool to care. But I did. I always did. I had no idea what to do with God. And then God spoke.
Feb 24, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Better Not Easier
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Better Not Easier
Earlier this week, I looked dozens of people in the eyes and told them they were going to die. And nobody got mad at me for it. Some of them even said Amen. It’s a day in the life of the church we call Ash Wednesday. It marks the beginning of Lent – a Christian season of fasting and penitence that leads up to Easter. The whole focus of the day is our mortality, and we spend our time together reflecting on the part death plays in our understanding of life.
Halfway through the service, people come forward and kneel at the altar rail. This is the place where we usually give them communion – that spiritual food and drink that connects them to their eternal life with God. But on this strange day, as they kneel at that same rail, I dip my thumb into a little jar and coat it with ashes, then smudge those ashes in the sign of a cross in the middle of their foreheads. While I do it, I say directly to them, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I do it over and over again. I get good at it – good at getting the right amount of ash on my thumb, on not getting ash all over my vestments, on saying the words as if I mean them, on making eye contact with those who want it. It becomes automatic. But one thing I am realizing each year I do this: It is not getting easier.
Feb 17, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, All The Things We Do Not See
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, All The Things We Do Not See
Some of my beliefs stayed put, some shifted. But my notion of the Democrat as enemy or misguided bleeding heart was forever obliterated. More assumptions shattered. More certainty undermined. I knew less and less what I believed about these people. I was too busy loving them.
Perhaps the best way to maintain strong opinions about people is by not engaging with them. If we can just keep them at a distance, we will know exactly what we think about them. We will not have to question our knowledge. All the things we do not see will keep us safe.
Our lives are mostly set up to reinforce our assumptions and buttress our prejudices. We know what we know first and then create little worlds that support that knowledge. We try to keep the people and things that will make us understand more and know less as far out of sight as possible. Think for a moment about who is not in your neighborhood, who you do not see in your day-to-day life. How does that construct your understanding of what is normal, what is lovely, what is good? Think for a moment about whom your church is set up to serve. Who is left out of that vision? Whose presence would be too inconvenient to the way you understand your faith?
Feb 10, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Just Words
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Just Words
When I was a bully, I didn’t think of myself as a bully. I was just a kid. I was not tall or physically imposing. I did not threaten the boy in any traditional sense. I did not touch his things or steal from him, gaslight or hit him. I was just mean. He showed up to my school in 7th grade and we were together for two years and I was just pointlessly, relentlessly unkind.
I was 12 and I didn’t like him. And I could tell you that I was trying to survive the disintegration of my parents’ marriage, the sale of my childhood home, an alcoholic family system, and my own adolescent hormones and feelings. And all those things would be true. But it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t kind. That I made some other kid’s life immeasurably worse instead of better.
I was a good kid too, by almost anyone’s standards. I didn’t break rules, smoke, drink, or do drugs. I was on Student Council and Honor Roll. I went to church every Sunday, and was deeply involved in Youth Group. I told jokes and had friends and got along with my teachers – most of whom I genuinely liked. I was honest. If you asked me if I was unkind, I wouldn’t have denied it. I would’ve said, well yeah to people who deserve it – but I’m not hurting anyone, just putting them in their place, knocking ‘em down a peg. Plus if it’s a joke and people are laughing, everyone should just lighten up, right? So I would say withering, mean things to some kid I didn’t like and I would say them directly to his face and people would laugh and I would think it was justified and that I wasn’t really hurting him because it was just words.
Just words!
Feb 03, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, That God of the Old Testament
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, That God of the Old Testament
When we differentiate, we are furthering the idea either that there really are two Gods, or that the one God had some sort of identity crisis or change of heart. Christians do not believe there are two Gods, and we do not believe that somewhere between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, God had a midlife crisis, had a kid named Jesus, got a therapist, bought a sports car and got a new outlook on life. In fact, one of the major recurring themes of the New Testament is the emphasis on continuity – how Jesus serves as a fulfillment of the hopes, dreams, and plans of God. Jesus is not seen as a course corrective or a constitutional amendment to God’s plan but as the human embodiment of the same God we have come to know in what we call the Old Testament.
The term “The God of the Old Testament” is antisemitic.
I understand that is strong language and that if you’ve used the term before you probably had no intention of being antisemitic. So I’m not saying this to shame you – I’m saying it to help solidify in your mind the damage this language causes and help you move past it so that we can begin to adopt new language and with it a better understanding of the God in whom we say we believe.
Jan 20, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Giving Up
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Giving Up
One of the best things about New Year’s resolutions is when you give up on them. I don’t mean when you miss a day, or start to slack: I mean when you just throw in the towel and say, ok this isn’t happening in 2023. 2024 will be my year.
I am ready to do that today.
You might remember in a previous blog I said that I was not going to try to be a better person this year. New Year Same Me, I said. That was essentially my New Year’s resolution: to be myself and not try to get better. But I keep wanting to try to be a better person anyway. I keep slacking and accidentally wanting to be less terrible. Friends, how do I win the fight against self-improvement? I think I’m throwing in the towel. I think I want to be better, whether I like it or not.
Each year, on or around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I re-read King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. This is a letter he wrote while incarcerated for marching against racial segregation in Alabama in 1963. I read to be inspired and challenged of course – but also to be convicted. Let me explain.
Jan 13, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Dumpuary
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Dumpuary
Dumpuary is a term coined by the now defunct pop-culture website Grantland. This movie season runs through January and February, basically post-holiday, pre-Oscar time. It’s during this time that studios dump the movies they wonder why they made, their least promising works. It’s a strange mix of smaller, cheaper movies that might just make some money during a dry moviegoing season, and larger movies that should’ve been a big deal but turned out poorly, and the studio has to release them anyway. Hence Dumpuary. It is just an awful time to go to the movies.
In case you were wondering if we are currently in Dumpuary, the movies that are being released in theaters this week look like this: The Devil Conspiracy, in which a biotech company made up of secret satanists uses the Shroud of Turin to try to clone Jesus and offer him up to the Devil. No, I am not kidding. Also opening is a reboot of the 90’s hip-hop comedy House Party, and an action movie about a plane called, well, “Plane.” This, my friends is Dumpuary.
But I’m a priest, not a movie critic, so we should talk about Jesus – and not the cloned one from that Devil Conspiracy movie.
Jan 06, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, New Year Same Me
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, New Year Same Me
This is a good time to say that Christmas cards are not for everyone, and they are not a status symbol or a sign of particular popularity. It’s like some odd club one gets into. Maybe you decide you’re going to send out cards just this one year. But it’s like the mafia – there’s no escape. Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in. Mostly we send cards specifically to the people who have sent cards to us. And for the people in our little Christmas card cult, sometimes that’s the only time we all check in with each other all year. If you don’t get a Christmas card from me and you want one, just tell me. That’s how you get on the list.
Anyway, 8 days later we returned home to a big stack of new cards. And it hit me: It was not that a large group of friends had written us off, it’s that this year they just happened to be as overwhelmed and behind as we usually are!
And I have to tell you this was a great comfort to me. There is such joy in finding out I’m not the only mess I know.
Every time the calendar flips from December to January, I hear the refrain “New Year New Me.” This is what follows Christmas. I am supposed to conclude my celebration of hope and salvation by deciding to become a different person, or failing that, a marginally better person. New Year New You. The assumption being that you are constantly in need of improvement. And, hey, maybe you are. But I keep thinking about the ways we measure ourselves and the ways we fall short of our own expectations.
Dec 30, 2022 |
Rector's Blog Throwback Series, The More You Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog Throwback Series, The More You Love
As part of our When Love Shows Up Throwback Series we are re-posting this podcast which was originally posted on August 25, 2022
Of course, I loved music, but somehow the number, the size of the CD collection became just as important as actually listening and enjoying the music. I assumed CDs, which supplanted both vinyl records and cassette tapes, would last forever, and that my collection would grow along with me and last me a lifetime. And then, of course, the iPod happened. And then streaming services, and everything changed. Up until very recently I was incredibly resistant to the new ways of listening to music. I still have a CD player in my car – and I still use it! I still love CDs to an unreasonable degree. And my daughter recently got a Discman (I have no idea how) and has been dipping into my collection.
But something has shifted in me in the last couple years. I don’t think about the numbers anymore. I don’t think about collecting. I just listen. In some ways this digital development has freed me to be obsessed not with CDs, but with music itself. As a result, my palate has expanded, and I’m branching out and trying new things – allowing new kinds of music into my ears and heart. I find myself appreciating genres and artists I wouldn’t have given a chance before.
There’s a book on my shelf that says on the cover, “The more you love music, the more music you love.” I have found that to be truer and truer since letting go of the numbers game.
Of course, I loved music, but somehow the number, the size of the CD collection became just as important as actually listening and enjoying the music. I assumed CDs, which supplanted both vinyl records and cassette tapes, would last forever, and that my collection would grow along with me and last me a lifetime. And then, of course, the iPod happened. And then streaming services, and everything changed. Up until very recently I was incredibly resistant to the new ways of listening to music. I still have a CD player in my car – and I still use it! I still love CDs to an unreasonable degree. And my daughter recently got a Discman (I have no idea how) and has been dipping into my collection.
But something has shifted in me in the last couple years. I don’t think about the numbers anymore. I don’t think about collecting. I just listen. In some ways this digital development has freed me to be obsessed not with CDs, but with music itself. As a result, my palate has expanded, and I’m branching out and trying new things – allowing new kinds of music into my ears and heart. I find myself appreciating genres and artists I wouldn’t have given a chance before.
There’s a book on my shelf that says on the cover, “The more you love music, the more music you love.” I have found that to be truer and truer since letting go of the numbers game.
