Easter service mimosas. Need I say more? I had a sweet morning gig today at a Lutheran church, and I got to witness my first Easter day service. (I was one of the few people in the world raised entirely without any spiritual or religious tradition whatsoever, so I have a strange perspective on these things.) While I always have a hard time with some aspects of Christianity (like J.C., and capitalizing the word "He" while speaking), there are some really beautiful, loving, and heartwarming parts, at least in my opinion. If I allow myself to forget the language in which the text is embedded (Only those who love HIM will be in the kingdom of heaven) and instead focus on the spiritual parts (Live your life so that the world cries and you can rejoice for a life fully lived), I do pretty well. The first church service was at 8:30, the second at 11 AM, and we had to be there at 7:45, so it was pretty rough at first. We played some movements from a Vivaldi Gloria, and hymns and stuff. Nothing tough. The first service was a challenge, in terms of being awake and functional, and the whole service was almost like another rehearsal: the sermon was not amazing, there weren't that many people there, and the whole experience was just ok. But after our halftime break (when the kids when on the easter hunt and we all drank mimosas and soy latte's), it was an astonishing change in scene. The sermon was really impressive and powerful, and I found myself writing down some nice phrases in my moleskine. (yes, I'm a wannabe hipster.)
One of the things that the pastor talked about today was living life fully, something that is always a topic of conversation in Buddhism and other spiritual traditions. This usually comes across through focusing on the breath, or developing a keener awareness of the present moment. In Buddhism, we tend to believe that humanity is asleep, living in a dream of dulled sensations and awareness, and that in order to make a change in behavioral patterns, we have to become aware of them, and aware of ourselves. The most direct way to do that for some is meditating, yoga, tai chi, or a host of other contemplative practices. Those have been my means, but it was so refreshing to hear of a Christian tradition discussing daily living.
Today he talked about the circuitous mind patterns we indulge in "If only...then I'd be happy" in which we bemoan the current situation and blame our mental state on it. The pastor's response was, rather than asking "Why me?" that we instead ask, "What does this mean and how can I better serve God?" Erasing the God part, at least for me, I replaced it instead with "What does this mean, and how can I better serve humanity? What part of my life am I not living?" and that works just fine. Rather than make excuses for our emotional states, we can approach conflicts with a curiosity rather than firm judgment, and a simple awareness of the situation, whether pleasant, neutral or negative.
Another thing I really like this morning was this story from Winnie-the-pooh in which Piglet asks Pooh what he thinks of when he wakes up. Pooh replies, "What I'm eating for breakfast." Piglet says instead, "I wonder every morning what exciting thing will happen today."
Well, that's just awesome. It's a weird reminder that day to day life can be exuberant and joyful, rather than a monotony, and that each minute is an opportunity that someone else wishes they had. Love and happiness are available to us to give or receive at every moment, whether you believe in J.C. or not, and it is always nice to be reminded of this.
Also, the gig was awesome, simply because I got to improvise (with the youth group played a Latin song about Christ having risen) and I spontaneously played some solo Bach as a prelude and I owned that shit and I love it when you play in a church and everyone is just so gosh darn happy to have you there.
listening to: a dash of animal collective and mia. my hard drive failed on my macbook, so i'm not sure how my monstrous music collection fared on my external drive.
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