Filed by Trevor at 11:21 pm under Atheism, Religion, The Arts, UU

I’m energized by speaking to rational, intelligent individuals with worldviews completely opposite from mine. Similarly, I find myself drawn to objects — whether fine arts or otherwise — that are simultaneously beautiful and grotesque, or even terrifying. To my delight, on Sunday I got two handfuls of both.

Now, I’m not the sort of person who goes on and on about how much he’s looking forward to the sermon on Sunday, but that is exactly the type of obnoxious person I’ve been ever since I found out that my minister was going to preach on Richard Dawkins’ provocative book The God Delusion this past Sunday. I had even planned to bring one of my friends from work, an evangelical Christian with whom I’ve enjoyed numerous lively debates with and, to my surprise, who was rather receptive to the idea of tagging along to check out the left-most wing of liberal religion. The fact that his chosen date of attendance fell on Dawkins Sunday was a happy accident; I was that much more eager to see what sorts of discussions this would elicit. We’d even planned a leisurely breakfast beforehand, something I was especially looking forward to after a particularly bad week at work. True to form, that morning found me waking up in a panic after oversleeping — with three hours in total — and I scrambled to make myself look presentable. As I grabbed a glass of water on my way out the door, I called my friend to apologize for being late and announce that I was on my way.

Poor guy was sick. Bastard! Congratulate me — I didn’t go back to bed, even with two hours to kill.

Ridiculous morning antics aside, I have to say that out of a lifetime of church attendance, most of it involuntary, this was my favorite Sunday of all. From beginning to end there was a palpable electricity in the air — I think everyone was as eager as I to hear what Karen had to say, particularly considering the fact that atheists have been treated essentially as non-entities within American society. And she didn’t disappoint. To my surprise, Karen announced that despite her initial skepticism at Dawkins’ cheeky prediction that readers of his book would “be atheists when they put it down,” she would no longer identify herself as a theist, but rather as a rational mystic — a revelation on par with a Catholic priest proclaiming at Mass, “You know, I think Dan Brown had a point.” Now, I think in any church, whether it be Unitarian Universalist or otherwise, there’s a tendency to regard our ministers as being on a higher spiritual plane than their congregations, their beliefs solid as bedrock, unmoveable. So maybe this proclamation wasn’t as weighty as I stated, but to have a minister admit such a shift in her theology was a welcome moment of humanity, and I found my trust that much more strengthened.

By the way, for all of you pagans, humanists, and atheists out there, here are the lyrics to the special version of “Amazing Grace” we sang at the end of the service. I think everyone got a huge kick out of it — I was giggling like an idiot the entire time. Cause you know, kiddos, being a heretic can be fun:

Amazing Place
© 1998 Barbara Hamill Stocker

Amazing place, this world I find,
No gods nor creed need be.
I once believed, but now my mind
Unbound, at last is free.

A mind that’s free to plan and build
For all humanity
Will find its life and dreams fulfilled
In true eupraxophy

I need not strive for heaven above
Nor fear no hell below.
So free to live in peace and love
In kinship I will grow.

No prayer of mine need e’re be heard,
Just rationality,
For reason reigns o’er holy word
For all humanity.

I had intended to include the specifics of the metamorphosis of my own theological beliefs, but I think that is material better left to a later date, as there is more to be written than will fit in this current post. I will say, however, that I no longer find the term “Christian” to be an accurate description of my theological beliefs, as I believe it tends to connote a sense of self-righteousness and judgment I don’t wish to align myself with. I hesitate to write this for fear of offending anyone in the Christian community — namely my brothers and sisters — and thus I would like to stress that, more than anything else, identifying myself as a Christian is quite misleading. While my fundamental beliefs have changed little, my priorities have shifted entirely. So from this point on, I will refer to myself as a theist — but then again, I haven’t read Dawkins’ book yet. Stay tuned.

So anyway, feeling positively sanctified, I hopped in my car and headed north to Long Beach to surprise my dear friend Barrie at work, as she had transferred to the Long Beach location not too long ago — I felt a lunch date with Amy was in order. On the way up, it was nice to soak in the coastal weather, as it not only reminds me of my years living in San Diego, but it was also a welcome reprieve from the alternating torrents of wind, rain, and unseasonable heat that’s been plaguing Southern California for months. Furthermore, it was wonderful to just sit back, have a couple of beers, admire the harbor, and feel like a rich person for a couple of hours. Of course, it would have been nice to actually be rich, since I wound up spending $50 on lunch. The price of wealth!

I should point out that had my friend not canceled in the morning, my impromptu lunch on the harbor never would have happened. But as I had six hours between church and my concert in the evening, basically the day turned into a grand exercise in the lost art of killing time. And how!

The week prior had also found me in great anticipation of attending the world premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Requiem by the L.A. Master Chorale, so I had to cut my time in Long Beach shorter than I would have liked. But with that being said, I really don’t know why I always think I’m leaving at the perfect time to escape L.A. traffic. There is no escape. You just get in line behind the others and wait your turn, even at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, I always love visiting the Walt Disney Concert Hall because it’s in a part of L.A. that actually resembles the L.A. in the movies, where the air is clear and streets are clean. I also love it because the peasant seats are located directly behind the stage and actually provide a much better acoustic and visual experience than the nosebleeds, which actually cost a bit more. And coincidentally enough, exactly a year prior I was in attendance at another LAMC event, this time with Meredith Monk — who is just as brilliant as everyone says she is.

My choir director is the one who prodded me to attend this particular concert, stating rather ambiguously, “I’m curious to hear your opinion.” Therefore, for me to say my expectations were exceeded would scarcely be an accurate summation of my feelings. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly hardened son of a bitch when it comes to music, but this piece shook me. There were literal screams from the choir during the Dies Irae, sonic booms from the percussion section (six of them!) that jolted me out of my seat, and an 11-second grand pause after the Lachrymosa on the heels of a crescendo so deafening and terrifying that upon collecting myself, I found to my surprise that I had the railing in front of me in a death grip — my mouth quite literally hanging open. I’ve never done that before. When I got home, I immediately wrote an email to my choir director:

I was terrified…It’s literally the first time I’ve gotten chills during a piece that felt more like pin pricks, bee stings, like Satan was blowing in my ear. I’m so thankful music like this exists.

God, I hope they recorded that concert — it kills me to think that the next performance of this piece could be years off, as not only does it call for a choir with insanely gifted singers, it also calls for a children’s choir and full orchestra. I spoke to my choir director about it again today as I dropped off some music at her house, and she said basically that after singing this work, she has determined that Rouse has written something the human voice has not quite been able to accomplish. The implication being, of course, that he is attempting to push the medium forward. Speaking specifically to this form of creative expression, today’s musicians are capable of much more than those even fifty years ago — a fact I am certain is true for other areas of the fine arts. Schoenberg even made reference to this: when responding to criticism that no living person could perform his music, he stated simply that 20 years from then it would be more than possible. And he was right. (By the way, if anyone has the actual quote, I would be very appreciative.)

All things considered, this work needs to be heard. It needs to be recognized. And history needs to remember it.

Needless to say, it was an enormously satisfying day for the soul, and when I finally got home I did what any rational person would do on the heels of such a spiritual experience — I went and got In ‘n Out. But the most spiritual event of the day? I didn’t get lost once, not even schlepping my way from unfamiliar freeway to unfamiliar freeway in a large arc from Costa Mesa to Long Beach to L.A. then back home.

OK, I did accidentally get on the 110 instead of the 101, but the 110 eventually runs into the 210, so I still maintain my innocence. Just give me this one, OK?