Dance, then, wherever you may be...

[moominmuppet]

From my last post:

The other is something kind of amazing for me. I'm singing out loud again. Sometime in my teens I lost all my confidence in singing aloud, even in large groups. Its been something that has weighed on me for years, and been one of my biggest personal fears to overcome, and well as a deep personal grief, given my view on the voice

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Re: let the circle be unbroken

[moominmuppet]

*smile* That makes me think of my enduring fondness for Johnny Cash, and why I'm very comfortable introducing his music to kids despite the sometimes strongly religious themes. And yes, good music is good music, and there's some wonderful stuff out there inspired by Christianity.

Chad plays guitar, and would like to get back in the habit. I'd like to encourage this new singing thing in my own life, so we're talking about plans to do more of that together, especially with Kidlet. I'm coming up with some lists of songs we might want to start playing with.

In going back through the song book I mentioned, I'm thinking I'm going to do what I normally do, and put things into a spreadsheet -- of all the music in there I love, which are secular or very broadly applicable, which are mildly religious in nature in a general "creator figure" sort of way, which are explicitly Christian stories, and which are religious pledges of faith. It's the very latter of those that makes me most uncomfortable to actively teach to a child in my life, given that I left the church most specifically over the ethical issues I had with speaking promises I no longer believed. FWIW, I have no problems at all with what Kidlet casually encounters in any direction, this is about what messages I specifically send or enforce in his life. Teaching what is to me Christian mythology is no different in my eyes than teaching/exposing children to all other varieties of human mythology, and I believe this is an arena where everyone should have as much background and context as possible. I just don't necessarily feel comfortable teaching him explicitly Christian pledges or religious statements that strongly contrary to things I or his parents believe. (for example, I love the music of "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love", but cannot bring myself to teach someone that sentiment, because it reinforces a belief that I consider actively harmful and untruthful about non-Christians.)