The Song of Mark

Today I uploaded a new, sparer version of the voice files for my verse gospel reading of the Book of Mark. I think without any music, just the plain unnadorned voice, it works better as a story experience. You can scroll down on the Gcast page and find a complete version of the gospel (71 minutes) with the music still there, if you like that better. If you are interested in hearing either version of this work, visit the site here:

http://www.gcast.com/u/jabez/Song_of_Mark.xml

This is a poetic retelling of Mark's Gospel, in rhymed couplets (ABAB), long meter. Listening to it is a hypnotic, transcendent experience. The full text for each chapter is embedded in the lyrics tag, so that listeners can read along at the same time. These materials are also available at nominal cost in book, ebook, or CD format: contact jabez.vancleef@verizon.net

Rock and Roll as a Political Force

Have you stopped to consider how widespread and influential a political force rock and roll music and lifestyles have been, in the scant sixty years they have been extant on the world scene? Rock music asserts freedom of expression, imperils tyranny, extols the blessings of a simpler life, disparages greed, and arouses the disdain, if not the fear, of institutions ranging from the Roman Catholic Church to your local police station. Try to imagine what the world will be like sixty years from now if the worldview and influence of young people and popular music have in the same manner continued to expand and articulate their franchise...

I see the medium of rock music as the most powerful teaching tool for my own particular goals:

• Encouraging a Radical Renunciation of Materialism through Knowledge of Mystics
• Teaching Human Rights and Civil Disobedience
• Preserving Indigenous Cultures and a Spiritual Connection to Nature
• Restoring Public Celebrations to Community Life
• Exploring and Developing New Choral Art Forms

It is a powerful tool because it is universal, because it reaches people simultaneously on conscious and unconscious levels, because technology helps us use it, and because nearly everything we say in this music has the tinge of newness and excitement.

Try visiting my band page, called Palimpsest, on garageband.com.

http://www.garageband.com/artist/palimpsestofhumanrights

I'll see you there.

Do Computers Worship A Deity?

I have just finished some housekeeping for my podcast called "Church of the Sentient Machine (CSM)" which is a set of worship music presumed to be used by our computers in their own religious ceremonies. Here's a link if you want to go listen to it. The content of the ceremony is metered verse which is based on the nine lessons and carols used in the quasi-liturgical observance of the Anglican and Episcopal Churches.

http://www.gcast.com/u/jabez/Sentient_Machine_Worship.xml

Introspection

All of these things I have written are meant to encourage people to stop and think for just a moment about how we, as a culture, have arrived at such a state of moral bankruptcy. I don't mean because of phenomena like gratuitous celebrity or disproportionate wealth, reprehensible as they may be: I mean because our civilization is slowly burning itself to death. We live by a mantra of incremental suicide. Only an inner spiritual quest will bring us to the kind of radical renunciation that is needed to preserve our world. Rather than seeking stimulation from vain and worldly possessions, we must experience a dionysian, spiritual splendor. Only in this way will we know again the kind of personal integrity of our ancestors, who were in spiritual harmony with the earth.



We must explore ourselves as the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing recommends:



Make you your sorrow earnestly,
And know not only what you be,

But also figure that you be,
For here’s the greater mystery.

For them who never felt of this,
An even greater sorrow is:
For they know only sorrow’s flaws.

This perfect sorrow, when ’tis known,
Purges the soul and makes it clean,

Clean of sin and clean of pain
That it deserves for doing sin;

Because of this, your soul is free
And able to receive that joy,

Which latches on to your life’s rope,
And reeves from you your highest hope,

Until you stir to stop the sting
And burn and burden of your being.

In sorrow, be it true conceived,
You have your holiest hope received:

That sorrow so exceeding deep
Who could abide or bear it up?

For were your soul not sometime fed
With comfort that the life you led

Had something worthy put therein,
How then could you bear the pain?