G is for God

od is good, right? Wikipedia says that "God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence." Being good, God should not wish upon us any kind of misfortune, or evil, except perhaps in the case that it is temporary and it brings about a "greater good". So then why does the overriding impression of religion in general verge toward unhappiness and denial rather than happiness and comfort? For centuries the devout have pared away their lives in order to get closer to God, they have fasted, gone on pilgrimages, abstained from sex, been insular and serious.

At the risk of boring you with another long quotation, here is an excerpt from "Eat, Pray, Love": "The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon the comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered to you in return for what you've given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple -- get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millennia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day."

But why should it be that way? Why is it so ingrained into our collective psyche that we must reject ourselves and our natural impulses in order to find God? Why does fulfillment not lie in the path to God? Why not do what we enjoy? For me, in my life, the state of happiness is the epitome of goodness -- it's when I feel the most "good". So, if God is good, and wishes us to be good, then surely I should make myself as happy as possible? Why all the negativity? Is this just an aspect of religious control that results from putting faith and religion in the hands of imperfect humans? I mean, if your religious doctrine is "Do what you want, whenever you want", you're not going to get a whole load of people turning up to your church or mosque or shrine -- they'll be hang-gliding and swimming with dolphins and having sex and doing crosswords instead of sitting around listening to what you're saying. Churches will go out of business! However, if you make people feel bad about themselves, guilty and ashamed (but subtly, of course), then they'll be queuing up at the door trying to learn what it takes to get rid of these bad feelings... which allows you to continually indoctrinate them, while spoon-feeding them placebos. Massive crowd control, and significant power. This is probably the sort of thing which lead to the concept of buying and selling of indulgences in Catholicism, which Martin Luther so vehemently opposed.

Of course, there are limits, but I think, on the whole, this hedonism is self-regulating for any intelligent human. For instance, I enjoy going out for drinks with friends. The alcohol relaxes me, and conversation is often open and humorous. But if I drink too much, then the next morning I sure don't enjoy it. I can then temper my next alcoholic excursion so that it's more balanced. I can drink a little less, and therefore hurt a little less the next morning. Another caveat is that one person's enjoyment can be another person's misery. One person may enjoy stealing money from another because that makes them richer, but the victim probably isn't going to enjoy being intimidated, and made poorer. But in a way that's regulated too. If it's something criminal, then, as a civilisation, we've instituted a police force to deal with that. If it's more of a personal thing, then there are consequences that act as future deterrents (social ostracism, etc.). A third concern is that, of course, there are things in life that we don't enjoy doing that are inevitable and unavoidable. Hopefully very few people enjoy having a loved one depart, but as yet, we have very little power over preventing that. We all have to pay taxes. Generally, we all have to work, which for some may not be particularly enjoyable (thankfully, I love my job!). And here the idea of the greater good comes into play: we pay taxes so that we have roads to enjoy, so that children can enjoy learning, so that lives can be saved. We work so that we can enjoy spending the money that we earn. The goodness is delayed, and perhaps not even directly delivered, but it is still a result.

Probably at this point many of the people reading this are thinking, "Hey, bozo, this already exists! It's called ATHEISM". And that's true, atheism is pretty much hedonism -- people just do what they want when they want, within the constraints of their pay packets and social norms. But this article is about God... so why can't we combine enjoyment with God? I think we can. Certainly within Christianity there are small movements of "Christian Hedonism" -- John Piper is a very well-known and active purveyor of this doctrine. I imagine there must be similar things in other religious movements. This is far from widespread, though. To me it seems clear that with a good god, and a loving god, beautiful and lovely things must flow. Disciples of this god should also be like him/she/it. Enjoy yourself, responsibly, and no longer be shackled by thoughts of guilt and imperfection and conscience-imposed misery! Take a lie-in every once in a while, indulge yourself in a little present on occasion, love and enjoy yourself, other people... and your god, because he would surely want you to.

E is for East Coast

very once in a while you come across a music artist who just seems completely different to anyone you've heard before, and they just blow your mind. That's kind of what happened to me when I discovered Jenny Owens Young's song, "Fuck was I". It was a song that spoke to me for its simplicity and its sheer truth. It came at a particularly poignant time in my life (see "D is for Divorce".) It was also the song that lead me into discovering a whole new movement of music, primarily coming out of the East Coast states of the US -- New York and New Jersey. Check it out:



I was watching a show called "Weeds", from Showtime. It was fairly big in the States at the time, and all the cool kids were watching it. The first show of Season Two contained J.O.Y.'s song, "Fuck was I", and its haunting and anguished refrain just had me hooked. I immediately found out who the song was by, and listened to the rest of her songs (on Myspace, I think, such were the times!). That song came from her first studio album, "Batten the Hatches", which was an independent release back in 2005. I ordered it, along with her "The Scrappy Demo" EP, and received both from the fair hand of Jenny herself. In 2007, she re-released "Batten the Hatches" under the Nettwerk label, and then in 2009 released her current studio album "Transmitter Failure". I have to say, I didn't like it at first. It was a lot more poppy and upbeat compared to the stripped-back, relaxed tone of Batten. I think I probably listened to it a couple of times, and then let it fester on the shelf. I went back to it later that year, though, with fresh ears, and was just blown away. The songs are definitely growers, and the whole album is really packed full of gems. I think it is probably one of the most listenable albums I own. Check her out playing some old and newer songs, courtesy of the SXSW music festival and Roxwel.com:



Jenny, along with many of her modern singer-songwriter kinfolk, plies her trade extensively through the internet. As well as being active on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream/Livestream and I daresay, Myspace, she uses the internet to her advantange, advertising shows and merchandise, and even raising money for her next album. Through Kickstarter, Jenny asked her fans for $20,000 to record and release a new CD. Within *28 hours* she had that, and more, such was the devotion of her fanbase, and the power of internet-based word-of-mouth. On day 2, she upped the goal to $30,000 and that was reached too. Currently, the project has been funded to the tune of $38,543 by 646 people. Most of these people will receive a copy of Jenny's new album, effectively buying it in advance and easing the financial nightmare it must be to record and produce an album.

But Jenny Owen Youngs is not out there fighting the good fight for singer-songwriters on her own. Oh no, she is surrounded by a veritable commune of folky friends... Brooklyn is bursting at the seams with blossoming talent. A similar tale of success belongs to Ingrid Michaelson, who found fame through an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Her songs are now heard all over the US, she has performed nationwide TV and she even wrote Cheryl Cole's recent UK hit, "Parachute", widening her renown. She recently duetted with Sara Bareilles at the White House, for President Obama. Ingrid's regular band contains two talented artists in their own rights, Allie Moss and Bess Rogers, both of whom have solo releases. Her drummer (Elliot Jacobson), bassist (Chris Kuffner) and keyboard player (Saul Simon-MacWilliams) also play with other singers, including Allison Weiss, another internet phenom who has raised money for her musical projects through her fanbase. Of course, musical collaborations abound. The last couple of years have seen joint tours by Jenny, Bess and Allison; Allison, Bess and Lelia Broussard; Allison, Lelia and Lauren Zettler. Allison also plays with the band Field Mouse, comprised of her roommate, Rachel Browne, and friend Andrew Futral (who is also known as the solo act, Age of Rockets). Jenny, Bess, Andrew and Saul make up The Robot Explosion. Lauren often teams up with (accomplished solo) guitarist Cameron Mizell. Many others have cameo roles: Hailey Wojcik, Julie Peel, Mercy Bell, Amanda Duncan, Joanna Burns, Dannielle Owens-Reid, Alexa Wilkinson, Maryanna Sokol, Katie Herzig, the list goes on. The endearing, and enduring, thing about all these talented musicians is that they're personable, they're personal, they're regular people with amazing skills, all willing to share them with you via internet updates, online webcasts, or if you're really lucky, at a show near you. Oh, and by the way, their music ROCKS!!