Attention decline,
Look and you'll find,
Not much at all,
Consciousness call:
Music ADHD.
I feel much like Professor McGonagall in using that last Scarlequain. Penned in October of 2013, I've been dying to use it in a post ever since, and today, I feel justified in doing so. The past several hours have seen me listening to Symphony No. 2 Allegro Maestoso by Mahler, Concerto in Bb Minor for Piano and Orchestra by Tchaikovsky, various Rage Against the Machine (culture shock switching genres like that, I know), and a little bit of Fall Out Boy.
"Oh dear," you're probably saying to yourself at the moment, "here comes another musical rant. Must I listened to this cultured gobbledygook?" (Believe it or not, the y is not changed to an i in this particular circumstance...yay English...) The answer is no, you don't. Pardon me if I step on any toes.
"I've been dying to tell you anything you wanna hear, 'cause that's just who I am this week."
Thank you Fall Out Boy for pulling my readers and me away from another musical rant. Thank you Fall Out Boy for dragging my readers and me into a rant I've been avoiding. Sometimes to say what you want to you have to trash new ideas, pull from old ones, and just start writing. So let's start with some poetry.
Followers of God,
A horrid facade,
Stained; caught; lured,
Makes insecure:
A Christian Mask.
Attending chapel at Bryan College has never really been my favoritest thing in the world (pardon my descent into less-than-eloquent English...sometimes I can't help myself). There have been several people who have led chapel (who don't anymore, and now, in my opinion, chapel is struggling a bit. As is the entire music department, but that's another rant for another time...) who have been extremely influential on me spiritually. But as I said, they are gone, and chapel isn't what it once was. Which is why the previous chapel speaker at the Engage Conference we held at the beginning of the semester rocked my world/boat a bit, so to speak.
Recently, I have been very upset at the local church. I said everything that the speaker pointed out as faulty. I didn't want to attend a local church because the people there are a bunch of self-righteous cover-ups. I understand why agnostic friends say they don't want to be Christian because they're all hypocrites. But the speaker challenged me to change that. I can't change the people who continue to hide behind their mask. I know they have their dirt just like I do. A lot of people know. But since wearing the Christian mask is something most everyone does, nobody bothers to be Real (there goes my Romanticized capitalization again...), because nobody else is.
I have a tendency to trust people too much - to be too vulnerable. It opens me up very quickly and creates bonds faster than should be created. So coming to college like that has allowed me to get burned multiple times, and it has caused me to be more careful. But in becoming more cautious, retreating into myself has made me put on my Christian mask again. I am too scared to be honest. I am too scared to let other people know I'm not a saint. Just like Fall Out Boy pointed out, I become what other people want to hear. Tickling their ears? Scripture was right.
So this is me trying to be different, and encouraging you to do the same. Take off the Christian mask. Be a Christian underneath the mask. Be a Real Christian - a fallen human being who still makes mistakes, and makes them daily. Admit to that dirt, but point out that you're forgiven through Christ's perfect sacrifice for you. Other people may not forget and forgive like He does. And that's ok. Sooner or later, you will find (as I have) that there are a few people that will take off their mask and join you. And those people are well worth exposing yourself to.
So this is me. Telling you I have dirt, asking you to see me for what I am (blemished, but wonderfully saved), and asking you to join me. No matter how much dirt you have, you're always welcome here.
"In three words I can sum up everything I know about life: it goes on."
-Robert Frost
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."
-Oscar Wilde
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Purity lack,
Bleed-through black,
Hide no more,
Honesty's shore:
Off-White Converse.
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