Sunday mornin' coming down
I spent my morning in church and my evening writing the second installment of my RayK-as-an-angel story Wings of Desire. I maintain that these events are unrelated, but that's probably not true. I have little to no interest in cultivating a spiritual side - I'm a good Jewish atheist and I'm happy that way - but it's fun to mess around with metaphysics. Plus, the inspiration for the story (Wim Wender's incredible 1987 film Der Himmel über Berlin [Wings of Desire]) is such a twisty, turny, brain-meltingly wonderful, flawed little masterpiece that I feel this incredible sense of freedom when locking into his odd West German theological universe and making slash out of it. It's the craziest thing: I'm this analytical sort who likes her plots to make sense, her characters to be clearly-defined, and her dialogue to be pointed and related to the story. And then I come out with this...mess of philosophy and history and angels-as-observers who long to be mortals. I love it when that creative spark just fires and you hang on for the whole white-knuckled ride. I'm not sure the story itself is any good - I didn't even understand the first part and yet people liked it enough to ask for a sequel - but there's something really satisfying in creating sentences like this:
There are angels on the streets of Chicago. But one of them does not wish to be an angel any longer.
I just...I don't think like that. And yet there it is, on the screen, as if I'd conjured it by magic. It's grammatically awful and I know it doesn't make much sense, but there it is and I'm attached. Why couldn't my academic work have turned into something I loved despite itself?
Anyway. The church service this morning at Centenary United was good. I'd never been to a Christian service that put so much emphasis on "love thy fellow man". Unitarians are a good bunch and I know scarcrest wouldn't steer me wrong, but I was still worried. Everything turned out okay, however, and I really appreciated the sermon on the way God loves inner character rather than surface appearances. I'm not sure I totally agree with what the priest (are they priests in the Unitarian church?) said when he argued that God disregards actions and looks to the soul. For me, actions compose who and what we are - words are cheap and if you can't live your principles talking about them doesn't mean squat. But then I'm hardly equipped to argue theology. Two Sundays in a Baptist church before I graduated high school and one hour-long sermon today doesn't begin to qualify me, even if I'm beginning to see that not all Christians are fundamentalist nutcases who hate women and homosexuals.
I did mention I've only known Baptists, right? Small-town, Northern Canadian Baptists whose pastor held a Valentine's Day service entitled, "Male/Female Love: The Only Godly Love." I'm too far into my twenties to hold a grudge against a whole faith based solely on a few personal brushes with small-town religion, but it's hard to ignore the anguish it caused my best friend in high school and the way it troubled me personally.
Anyway. This was a post about religion, and it will likely be one of the very few in this journal. I've got it out of my system now, at least until I write the third part of this fic.
There are angels on the streets of Chicago. But one of them does not wish to be an angel any longer.
I just...I don't think like that. And yet there it is, on the screen, as if I'd conjured it by magic. It's grammatically awful and I know it doesn't make much sense, but there it is and I'm attached. Why couldn't my academic work have turned into something I loved despite itself?
Anyway. The church service this morning at Centenary United was good. I'd never been to a Christian service that put so much emphasis on "love thy fellow man". Unitarians are a good bunch and I know scarcrest wouldn't steer me wrong, but I was still worried. Everything turned out okay, however, and I really appreciated the sermon on the way God loves inner character rather than surface appearances. I'm not sure I totally agree with what the priest (are they priests in the Unitarian church?) said when he argued that God disregards actions and looks to the soul. For me, actions compose who and what we are - words are cheap and if you can't live your principles talking about them doesn't mean squat. But then I'm hardly equipped to argue theology. Two Sundays in a Baptist church before I graduated high school and one hour-long sermon today doesn't begin to qualify me, even if I'm beginning to see that not all Christians are fundamentalist nutcases who hate women and homosexuals.
I did mention I've only known Baptists, right? Small-town, Northern Canadian Baptists whose pastor held a Valentine's Day service entitled, "Male/Female Love: The Only Godly Love." I'm too far into my twenties to hold a grudge against a whole faith based solely on a few personal brushes with small-town religion, but it's hard to ignore the anguish it caused my best friend in high school and the way it troubled me personally.
Anyway. This was a post about religion, and it will likely be one of the very few in this journal. I've got it out of my system now, at least until I write the third part of this fic.