Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Friday, October 20, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Paper Boats - Nada Surf
What's wrong?
Nothing.
Are you sure nothing's wrong?
Yeah.
But you're sad about something?
Yeah.
So tell me what?
I don't know...
... I can't tell you.
... I can't tell you.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Sunday, October 08, 2017
Saturday, October 07, 2017
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Japanese Breakfast - Till Death
All our celebrities keep dying
While the cruel men continue to win
You'd reassure me in a way you only can
Get these days to go by like the swaying of a ship
Your shape in the dark
Out of state, licensed to me
Public pool, Miller moon
Don’t turn away, I’m still awake
Steering on hostile waves of panic
Like fighting a wheel that pulls to the right
I don’t deserve you but I’m giving it my best
Extol your sacrifice with fine caviars and aspics
Your voice, in the night
Sing me to sleep, soothe this insomnia
Haunted dreams, stages of grief
Repressed memories
Anger and bargaining
Your embrace, healing my wounds
Teach me to breathe, teach me to move
PTSD, anxiety, genetic disease
Thanatophobia
What in God's name would you find?
"If the answer to that, as I suspect, is, you would find an uneasy silence, and people thinking you were looking for some kind out handout, then what is the church all about? Cause to me that would be the essence of the church of what the church IS all about. It's about sin and grace. Emptiness and fullness. People who are in great need, and the great source of meeting that need in community with each other and with God. And if that's not being met, then all the programs (of christianity), and the buildings, and TV shows, and the what have you... are worthless... or so secondary as to be worthless."
Friday, July 14, 2017
Final Day at The Royal Commission
Whether we're rich or poor, male or female, a nineteenth-century
Swiss jeweller like Isaac Golay in his oversized frock coat, or a
twentieth-century American clergyman like me with a penchant for writing books,
or a young squirt celebrating his twenty-first birthday in the twenty-first
century like you, our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a
good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a
world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We
search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to
believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and
beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives
we live.
Buechner – The Longing
for Home.
After three years, today is my final day at the Royal
Commission.
On days like today – days of leaving, days of finishing one
chapter and turning to the next – it seems to me that the
layers that we fastidiously build up around our souls to protect them from the
rough and tumble of life temporarily thin out. For a moment, life is allowed to
brush up against us – undiluted, unrestrained – like water over newly unmossed
rocks.
On days like today, it seems I can feel the moment – the tip
tap of my fingers on the keyboard, the distant murmur of colleagues in another
room talking about god knows what, as well as the strange silence that offices
with so many people in them capable of making noise, or making themselves known
to each other, often have. On days like to day, I am aware that this brief
moment is one of many other moments I have had, and will continue to have until
finally my time is snuffed out, like a match.
But most of all, on days like today, I am conscious that each
of these moments, each one, is a precious gift. And when I think of that,
there’s suddenly somehow not enough beauty, not enough art, not enough music,
not enough tears, to express how grateful I am.
I have searched for a long time, it seems. And I’ll continue
to search of course. But it does seem to me, that to one degree or another, I
have found many of the things that Buechner refers to above during my time here
at the Royal Commission. A self to be. Work to do. A self to love and be loved
by. And some sense that in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of
anything, there is goodness and value and meaning in trying nonetheless. And
that is to be cherished.
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
Monday, January 16, 2017
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
When I Fall In Love
Listen to the violins on this classic live performance by Nat King Cole of When I Fall In Love. The rallentando at the end is the stuff of fairytales. If it doesn't send shivers down your spine then you have no soul.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Monday, October 31, 2016
We was cripples all of us
Pushing down hard with his fists on the table-top he heaved himself up to where he was standing. For the first time we saw he wanted one leg. It was gone from the knee joint down. He was hopping sideways to reach for his stick in the corner when he lost his balance. He would have fallen in a heap if Brendan hadn't leapt forward and caught him.
"I'm as crippled as the dark world," Gildas said.
"If it comes to that, which one of us isn't, my dear?" Brendan said.
Gildas with but one leg. Brendan sure he'd misspent his whole life entirely. Me that had left my wife to follow him and buried our only boy. The truth of what Brendan said stopped all our mouths. We was cripples all of us. For a moment or two there was no sound but the bees.
"To lend each other a hand when we're falling," Brendan said. "Perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end."
Excerpt from "Brendan" by Frederick Buechner
"I'm as crippled as the dark world," Gildas said.
"If it comes to that, which one of us isn't, my dear?" Brendan said.
Gildas with but one leg. Brendan sure he'd misspent his whole life entirely. Me that had left my wife to follow him and buried our only boy. The truth of what Brendan said stopped all our mouths. We was cripples all of us. For a moment or two there was no sound but the bees.
"To lend each other a hand when we're falling," Brendan said. "Perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end."
Excerpt from "Brendan" by Frederick Buechner
Saturday, October 08, 2016
Monday, July 04, 2016
Tuesday, June 07, 2016
Land of Talk - It's ok
It's OK, is my song of the week. Try to listen to it and not stop and think about someone you love.
If it has no effect of you, well fuck you, you have no soul.
Monday, June 06, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
This little piece of paper
Today I stuck my hand into the back pocket of my shorts and fished out this piece of paper. The way a magician fishes a colourful handkerchief out of a waistcoat pocket you were sure - as sure as you could be of anything - was empty.
Face down, the piece of paper looked like a receipt from some recent shopping expedition for asparagus or cheese or dinner.
I turned it over, impatient for it to explain itself. Why are you?
As I read, the poem unfolded itself, like an old man getting out of bed. And then the final three words. They stopped me racing through.
"You come too..."
My room creaked silent. It was a moment. I was ashamed.
Face down, the piece of paper looked like a receipt from some recent shopping expedition for asparagus or cheese or dinner.
I turned it over, impatient for it to explain itself. Why are you?
As I read, the poem unfolded itself, like an old man getting out of bed. And then the final three words. They stopped me racing through.
"You come too..."
My room creaked silent. It was a moment. I was ashamed.
Ashamed that I had approached this little piece of paper as getting in the way, much in the same way I approach many other more important things as getting in the way of my day.
Like the audience watching the magician perform his handkerchief trick, I haven't the faintest idea how this little poem slipped its way into my life. Unlike the magician, I cannot, in the back room of some theatre with the stage lights now off, explain the magic away as illusion.
Or at least, I choose not to.
Like the audience watching the magician perform his handkerchief trick, I haven't the faintest idea how this little poem slipped its way into my life. Unlike the magician, I cannot, in the back room of some theatre with the stage lights now off, explain the magic away as illusion.
Or at least, I choose not to.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Part Christian, part pig
"I am a part-time novelist who happens also to be a part-time Christian because part of the time seems to be the most I can manage to live out my faith: Christian part of the time when certain things seems real and important to me and the rest of the time not Christian in any sense that I can believe matters much to Christ or anybody else. Any Christian who is not a hero, Leon Bloy wrote, is a pig, which is a harder way of saying the same thing. From time to time I find a kind of heroism momentarily possible - a seeing, doing, telling of Christian truth - but most of the time I am indistinguishable from the rest of the herd that jostles and snuffles at the great trough of life. Part-time novelist, Christian, pig.
That is who I am. Who you are I do not know, and yet perhaps I know something. I know that like me you wake up each morning to a day that you must somehow live, to a self that you must somehow be, and to a mystery that you cannot fathom if only the mystery of your own life. Thus, strangers though we are, at a certain level there is nothing about either of us that can be entirely irrelevant to the other. Think of these pages as graffiti maybe, and where I have scratched up in a public place my longings and loves, my grievances and indecencies, be reminded in private of your own. In that way, at least, we can hold a kind of converse. And there is always some comfort in knowing that Kilroy also was here."
- Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
On Being a Comic Genius.
Last year, two great comedians published little self-promotional videos online. One was by Steve Coogan. One was by me. And I mean, I know what you're thinking: "But James! that's only one great comedian! Everyone knows that Alan Partridge sucks a big bag of awkward dicks! AH haaaa!" And I'm like, "Yeah I know!" I mean, he's only gone and bloody ripped me off hasn't he?
What's that you say?
Well, I published this in April 2015:
And here's me old mate Steve just ripping off not only my idea, but also my tone in October 2015:
I mean sure, his is... funnier, wittier, more self-deprecating, has better production values, and perhaps most depressingly, he looks less weathered at 49 than I do at 32, but still. Sometimes you just wish people had the bloody guts to at least send you an email saying, "Hey James, I am about to blatantly rip you off mate. Feeling awful. How can I make it up to you? Would you like a part in The Trip 3?"
What's that you say?
Well, I published this in April 2015:
And here's me old mate Steve just ripping off not only my idea, but also my tone in October 2015:
I mean sure, his is... funnier, wittier, more self-deprecating, has better production values, and perhaps most depressingly, he looks less weathered at 49 than I do at 32, but still. Sometimes you just wish people had the bloody guts to at least send you an email saying, "Hey James, I am about to blatantly rip you off mate. Feeling awful. How can I make it up to you? Would you like a part in The Trip 3?"
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Monday, December 07, 2015
GO! Cimb into your leaky little tub of a boat, and keep going.
“I have a feeling we have talked enough — that we need silence. Not much — three minutes; to spend three minutes not saying a damn thing. Can we do that? Are we brave enough to do that?”
I seem to only publish about Buechner these days. Buechner or music. Music and Buechner.
Why?
To share I guess. It's as simple as that.
Perhaps not to feel alone with it all swirling inside me.
Definitely, in the hope, however stupid it may feel sometimes, that it might latch onto something as important in you, and through that, create something undeniably important in each of us that we can yell together at the trees. Yell at the sun. Shout into the teeth of the rain. To proclaim together, "I feel... [what is it?] something like... truth!"
Whatever the reason, I guess I'm caring less and less about why I put this here. All I know is it's a conduit for hope and meaning and love in my life. A conduit because I don't think they are ends in themselves, hope, love and meaning. They are the means to an end that I can't yet name, but that I long for like I long for home. And for whatever reason, I can't help but believe that something about that end lies in the silence Buechner encourages us to be brave enough to try in the quote cited above.
I believe it might have something to do with having the ability to sit in ourselves, and for three minutes not say a damned thing, as Buechner says, and nevertheless, despite that silence, and despite it being in many respects the most meaningless thing we could do, to sit in silence contemplating nothing in particular - in spite of all that! - to be at home within ourselves, if only for three minutes.
So...
I share with you this address by Buechner, given in 1997 at the 250th anniversary of Princeton University. The text is available here. I encourage you to read along, if for nothing else other than to fully understand the power of the written word when it is spoken by its author!
And just for good measure, some Phoenix:
I seem to only publish about Buechner these days. Buechner or music. Music and Buechner.
Why?
To share I guess. It's as simple as that.
Perhaps not to feel alone with it all swirling inside me.
Definitely, in the hope, however stupid it may feel sometimes, that it might latch onto something as important in you, and through that, create something undeniably important in each of us that we can yell together at the trees. Yell at the sun. Shout into the teeth of the rain. To proclaim together, "I feel... [what is it?] something like... truth!"
Whatever the reason, I guess I'm caring less and less about why I put this here. All I know is it's a conduit for hope and meaning and love in my life. A conduit because I don't think they are ends in themselves, hope, love and meaning. They are the means to an end that I can't yet name, but that I long for like I long for home. And for whatever reason, I can't help but believe that something about that end lies in the silence Buechner encourages us to be brave enough to try in the quote cited above.
I believe it might have something to do with having the ability to sit in ourselves, and for three minutes not say a damned thing, as Buechner says, and nevertheless, despite that silence, and despite it being in many respects the most meaningless thing we could do, to sit in silence contemplating nothing in particular - in spite of all that! - to be at home within ourselves, if only for three minutes.
So...
I share with you this address by Buechner, given in 1997 at the 250th anniversary of Princeton University. The text is available here. I encourage you to read along, if for nothing else other than to fully understand the power of the written word when it is spoken by its author!
And just for good measure, some Phoenix:
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