(no subject)

[violachic]

Okay. So. This is where I take a deep breath, try to focus, and decide exactly what it is I want to talk about. Its one of those nights where I can go on and on and on about everything in the world. divalibby made me (yes, she MADE me ;)) have ice cream in an effort to cheer me up, although I didn't really need cheering up. I just needed chocolate. So that was good. It was yummy, too. And the nice brisk (brisk meaning cool, and brisk meaning quickly) walk home from the train station afterwards was instrumental in making up for the enormous amount of stuff I ingested that I shouldn't have ingested. And, I'm nice and wide awake, even though I need to be up in less than six hours. Isn't that fun??

Libby lent me two books tonight, both of which I'm very excited to have in my humble possession for such the brief period of existence we call time I will.... uh... possess them. They are Guide to Quaker Practice, and Twentieth Century Music Theory or something of that vein. Sometimes my brain gets stimulated to the point where I'm very enthused about it being stimulated. Sometimes I can be in the middle of a discussion, or learning something or asking about something, or even formulating an answer to something, and I'll get this spark in the back of my head somewhere that just feels like I've achieved some kind of new level of enlightenment and understanding. And even though I leave said discussion exhilarated by what I think I understand that I haven't before understood, it doesn't always stay with me. I mean both the feeling of understanding and the feeling of exhilaration. Tonight was one of those nights, and in an effort to not lose every shred of what I think I may have caught in the rusty steel trap I call a brain, I'm going to try to recall here in print exactly why having these two books in my possession is important to me right now. Don't worry, I will cut it for those of you who don't have the time, interest or inclination to read every bit of ranting my poor brain and brain-to-finger connection can come up with. And I'll warn you, they're freaking long. I mean, FREAKING long.




I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why I've been avoiding church all summer. I know that one reason is laziness- I lack the motivation to haul my ass out of bed at 8:30 in the morning on a day I really have no concrete commitments. I also tried to articulate some things several days ago. And related to those reasons, I strongly believe, is another reason (with an as-yet-undefined set of subreasons attached) that perhaps may be the main issue here- or at least approaching the main issue.

Everyone, whether they achieve it or not, whether they admit/articulate or not, at some point in their life look for some kind of niche. For some, that niche involves their family; for others, the career they choose; and others, the lifestyle they live overall; and for some, even the politics or religion they choose to follow/practice. For some reason the last few years I've been feeling a deep need to find a "niche". I can't explain why, and I'm not even sure how important it really is in the grand scheme of things to find a "niche". But I've always been the kind of person who likes to define a cozy corner to crawl into and inhabit with my blankie and my collection of stuffed animals. I'm a nester. This doesn't mean I'm opposed to changing corners, but its nice to know there is a corner available when I need one.

I've very often felt that I fit partway into a lot of different corners, but there is no corner in which I fit all the way. But when I ended up at the church I attend now, I felt the most at home in a "corner" than I possibly ever have. While my theology may change and even waver, I identify religously most closesly to Christianity, and I like to think I'm a very spiritual person (when I say I'm a spiritual person, I do not imply anything related to being a moral or "good" person, or a "religious" person in terms of regularity or constancy of either faith or practice, and certainly do not imply anything related to righteousness). I tend to question a lot, having by nature a very independent and stubborn tendency towards things, and hold a lot of ideas and theories that do not tend to mesh with your mainstream Christian teachings. I have come to realize that I have a lot of what are considered "left-leaning" ideas towards political and social thought, as well. I do not condone blind followings of any kind. Therefore, it became very difficult for me to feel comfortable in your average mainstream American Protestant church setting.

However, my feelings of being pigeonholed or having assumptions made of me in my current faith community lead me to believe that I'm not sure if I'm expressing my faith or my spirituality in the way I'd really and truly like to. Something seems missing from worship from time to time. Occasionally, especially on high holidays, I will escape to a Liturgical church, such as the Lutherans or Episcopalians, and that can help. But more and more I've had the overwhelming feeling of not truly being able to be myself. While the Church of the Brethren is considered highly liberal in so many ways, when I'm at church or church-related functions, I look around and feel as if I stick out like a putrefying, icky, sore thumb. I like the word putrefying. Just thought I'd share. Members tend to be clean cut, well-groomed, quite staid people. There is a certain quiet, reserved air towards worship, and there is a lot of "old-school" thought that still remains fast, and it can be hard to shake. For instance, when we had youth sunday this year, we had a band- a drummer, a bass player, a piano player, and myself on violin- to lead singing. Some were songs that were definitely youth songs, and some were familiar hymns that were taken up a notch tempo-wise and beat-wise. We got a lot of deer-in-headlights looks. And we're supposed to be one of the loosest, most liberal congregations in the denomination. If I showed up one Sunday with my eyebrow pierced- which is something I've been contemplating for a long time now- I'm sure they wouldn't be shocked, but I'm also sure it would be very difficult for many people to simply understand why I had the desire to do it.

I also have no peer group there, but perhaps that is simply a weakness of the congregation, not the denomination itself. The only people my age are married couples with babies and young children, who have no interest in socializing with anyone else except young couples with babies and small children.

So where does this Quaker bit come in? I really want to try out something new. I read a lot of this booklet on the train on the way home tonight, and I feel as if so much of what I've read is someone else articulating how I feel about worship and religion and spirituality and philosophy and life and...and...and...

It feels like coming home. This doesn't mean attending a meeting with automatically feel the same, but the emotion is overwhelming enough that I feel strongly compelled to try it. Now that I've philosophized the hell out of this, I'll leave this subject alone for now. I'm sure I'll come back to it eventually. Soon.



I took this poetry class at the community college a couple years ago. I had a really wonderful teacher, and a great class. We were small enough that we got to know and respect and trust each other quite a bit. In the class, there was another girl who also had a passion for classical music. Her name was Jorie. That is probably only important because I couldn't think of her name earlier tonight, and it was driving me mad. She played piano and guitar, and greatly enjoyed singing. One day she read one of her poems in class, and it seemed to sound familiar. I realized after class that it sounded familiar because it seemed to be very much in the style of a piece of music. In fact, I believe I identified it to her as having very much the feel of a Shostakovich piece. So we got to talking about similarities between music and poetry, and kind of challenged each other to write poetry in the style of certain composers. One of my personal favorite poems of mine, "Requiem for my Childhood in the Style of Philip Glass" comes directly from that conversation.

One day, while leafing through my old theory book, I came upon the chapter for Twentieth Century techniques. Specifically, the part dealing with Twelve-Tone music and the matrix (no, not the "Matrix" involving Neo and Morpheus.... Geek) . While I don't have the ear for modern, post-modern and contemporary music I know I should as a well-rounded musician, I'm fascinated by twentieth century composition techniques. Probably because, once you've learned all the rules, you get to break all the rules and literally think outside the box. Or, I guess in the case of the matrix technique, inside a different box. Heh. I kill me. Anyway.

It gave me the idea of writing a poem in the form of a twelve-tone composition. So I created a phrase consisting of twelve different words, and worked up a matrix for them, trying to put them in prime, retrograde, inversion, retrograde inversion and all that. It was a very difficult task, and to this day I'm not sure if the matrix I made up really was comparable to a matrix done with notes. After all, there are only twelve half-steps (I'd say "notes", but I know if I did, somebody with a penchant for quarter-tones would call me on it) in the whole world you can work with, and there are distinctly more than twelve words in the English language.

Although creating the matrix was slightly daunting, using it felt almost impossible. My inspiration died there, because I really had no idea what to do with it from there. I tried putting something together, but I couldn't make it work, make it make sense, or have any sense of coherency or composition. I decided that perhaps the twelve-tone technique was suited exclusively for writing music and didn't lend itself at all to outside forms of expression.

But now I've changed my mind, and I'm challenged once again to write a twelve-tone poem. I've realized that I didn't experiment last time enough with subtleties, and perhaps once I have the matrix down and decide how to use it, I should focus on things like line breaks and emphasis of words and things like that.

So I have the theory book. And I'm going to study up on matrices. And I'm going to write a twelve-tone poem if I die from madness trying. Dammit.



Whew.


And if you're wondering, no, my brain still hasn't stopped whirling. Oh, its going to be a long night...........

Comments

[prrrn.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in your twelve-tone poem once you try it. I think it would take a really versatile set of words for it to make sense with different word orders, but it sounds like a good challenge! I might have to try it sometime when I have nothing better to do...

[off_coloratura]

I was raised Quaker, if you ever want to talk more about the SOF.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking about attending the meeting in Downer's Grove tomorrow morning. Anything I should know? I mean, I've read through that booklet and I've met and worked with Quakers before, but for some reason I'm really nervous about it.

[off_coloratura]

Don't be nervous. Quakers are cool and laid-back people.

If the meeting is anything like mine, there's a part where they'll ask anyone who's new to stand up and introduce themselves, and that's when you can tell them why you're there.

If you're nervous, then don't worry about speaking during worship, just meditate and worship during the silence, and listen to what other people say. (When I wanted to say something in Meeting, my mind would be going, "Should I stand up now? How about now? Has it been long enough yet? Okay, I'm going to say it now - oh, no, someone else is standing up." And I had been around Quaker meetings since birth. It takes a while to get into the flow of things.) Sometimes someone will read queries at the beginning of worship to meditate on as well.

There's a handshake at the end of silent worship -shake hands with your neighbors when you see other people shaking hands - and announcements, then usually, a potluck of some kind, and socializing. This is when you can ask folks at the Meeting what it's like, what activities they do, how they became Quakers, etc. etc. And since you introduced yourself as new, people will come and talk to you. They'll be happy to have you there, believe me.

And that's really it. Sit anywhere, introduce yourself, enjoy the silence, meditate, listen, and chat with folks once it's over.

There's not a lot of structure or formality involved. That's what I like about it. Church services with hymn singing, scripture reading, standing up and sitting down, and call-and-response always made me very nervous, because there was so much you were expected to do. When I visited protestant churches I was always frantically scanning my program looking for the next thing we were expected to do, terrified that I'd be the only one.

And I remember my first Episcopalian service, when the priest said "The lord be with you" and the congregation erupted: "and also with you." I almost jumped out of my seat. THAT hadn't been in the damn program! I actually got really upset that they had given me no hint in the program that I had been expected to do this. Put me RIGHT off Episcopalians.

Compared to all that, Quaker meetings are a picnic in the park.

Have fun!

[violachic.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks! Even though I'm a little nervous, I'm looking forward to it. I'm starting to think having such a meditative worship setting will really be nice. I was raised in extremely structured churches- Lutheran and Episcopalian- but I've gone progressivly unstructured every time I've changed churches. I'm excited :) 'Twill be something new.

My $.02

[karenb2.livejournal.com]

Wow. You have a lot going on there.

Some of my best friends (in high school) were Quaker. Later, one of my later best friends married one; he's Jewish with Zen attitudes, and his wife helpfully points out the parallels occasionally. Some of the coolest people I've met are/were Quaker.

A wacky person I know came up with a sensible-sounding idea: if it's taking too much time to find exactly the right place for religious practice, go for one that's close enough. (Values for "close enough" not specified, that I recall.)

Have you checked out any of the even less mainstream places, such as Unity Chicago (a friend once described it as spirituality thru musical comedy -- I think)? Also, there's Grace Place downtown, which leases itself out to all sorts groups. I know they've had Jewish singles events; I went to see an American guru of Indian practices named Ma there once.

Nothing says that you have to get all your religious practice in one place.* That's like saying once you get married you can't have any friends, and that's just silly.

*Okay, some traditions insist, such as very fundamentalist types and LDS, but it sounds like you're not interested in them for various reasons.

Re: My $.02

[violachic.livejournal.com]

I'm really attached to Christianity, so I probably wouldn't be comfortable practicing UU or Judaism exclusively. I mean, I love to tryout all sort of different experiences, but I think I'd need to stick to something at least remotely Christian. The reasons I'm drawn to Quakerism are very similar to why I was drawn to the church I'm a member of now- the committments to peace and social justice, and their non-mainstream attitudes towards a lot of things. But I think I need something even more, theologically and philosophically. We'll see what tomorrow brings! I did go to synagogue once with a class I was taking, and I'd definitely like to go again, if I can find interested people.