Be warned before you start. This screed is pretty long.

I wanted to say something on the particular subject that Deckman addressed in his opening post. And this, if you will indulge me, is a test run. I have just loaded the latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a voice recognition and dictation program, on my laptop and I wanted to give it a workout. So here we go:

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I've gone to churches to hear musical performances a number of times, and I've also sung in churches from time to time. For the most part, these were performances that had nothing to do with the church itself. The church was merely the venue.

Most of my early experiences with churches were reasonably pleasant. I can't say that my father was not a religious man, but he was not in the habit of going to church with any regularity. I think he found his religious experiences in nature. He loved to get out on a body of water such as Puget Sound in the small boat and just cruise around, under the guise of fishing. He never talked much about things religious.

My mother, on the other hand, was a "seeker." She recalled a time in her early twenties when she and a friend went to church of a Sunday morning and heard the same droning, boring sermon she had heard off and on every Sunday morning for most of her life. As they were leaving the church, her friend heaved a heavy sigh, and said, "That just wasn't enough food for my soul!" Mom said that was exactly how she felt. She read a great deal, often in Eastern religions, and dipped into the occult from time to time. Whenever we went to church, it was usually on a religious holiday such as Christmas or Easter. Then sporadically there would be periods where we would attend one church or another with some regularity, such as the Christian Science church a couple of blocks from where we lived, or a Unity church near downtown. Also, for a period of time, she attended the Vedanta Center (genuine Hindu swami presiding) on the north side of Capitol Hill on Sunday mornings. As I said, she was a "seeker."

My own religious beliefs (if any) are a slumgullion composed of a mixture of skepticism and speculation, liberally spiced with both ancient and modern philosophy, and fairly solidly anchored by my love for and fascination with science and cosmology.

Do I believe in God? Well, yes and no. I have a hard time buying the image of the big, muscular Father Figure dressed in a nightshirt, with the stern visage and long beard, who keeps careful accounts of who's naughty and nice, hurls the occasional thunderbolt, marks the fall of every sparrow, and who cobbled this whole, immense Cosmos together in seven literal days a mere 6,000 years ago.

On the other hand, I also have a hard time buying the idea that it's all just a random, mechanical construct with no underlying purpose or meaning.

I figure that if the Cosmos was purposefully built by someone or something, then that someone or something is so far beyond our understanding and ability to comprehend that for someone to seriously say that he or she knows the Mind of God, they either have to be a con-merchant or seriously bewildered.

Who knows? We all may be little bits of fungus growing in some celestial Petri dish, and what we think of as God is merely a lab technician in some Universal Laboratory.

I have an emotional prejudice against the idea that it's All Meaningless, and that when I come to fall off the twig, my awareness (Soul? Whatever.) will simply wink out. But—who really knows?

Nobody, that's who. No matter how hard they pound on the Bible.

But I'm cool. My mother was kind of into the idea of reincarnation a bit. I figure that when my time comes, if there IS an Afterlife, it will be a whole new adventure. But if not, I will have no "awareness" with which to be disappointed. So, no sweat.

I have been "assaulted" by a variety of weirdos who were hell-bent on saving my soul (I think their minister gave them a quota or something), but due to a course I took at the University of Washington back shortly after the Big Bang, "The Bible as Literature," I was well armed against such assaults. In the class there was absolutely NO religious discussion allowed. What we read was to be discussed as literary works, short stories, poetry, et al, and the prof stepped heavily on anyone who wanted to discuss any possible religious interpretations. Therefore, when someone started slapping me around with verses from the Bible, I was able to interrupt them and say, "Wait a minute! That isn't what that verse means!" then quote it back to them in context and point out what it really meant.

I could be a real pain in the ass to self-appointed soul-savers! (Fun!!)

My wife was raised in the Lutheran church, and went to church regularly all of her life, so when we got married, I started going with her. Despite the fact that she went to a main-line church all her life, she's an independent thinker, and she thinks very much the way I do. We're both members of Central Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill in Seattle. The pastors have all been cool, and the pastor who was there when I first joined, and all of the subsequent ones, were people I could have long, philosophical discussions with. They were open to all kinds of speculation and were not at all dogmatic.

In fact, one of them once held up a copy of the Bible and said, 'This is NOT the Boy Scout Manual! It's full of questions, not answers! And that's what we're here to discuss."

I can get thoroughly disgusted with some of these people who claim to be "Christians" (displaying a great deal of Pride—which is one of the Seven Deadly Sins—in the idea that they are saved and you, undoutedly, are not) who espouse ideas and principles that, according to the Bible, anyway, Jesus specifically preached against! Plenty of examples of this. Compare what Jesus says in Matthew 25:35-40 to the current crop of hard-charging evangelical "Christian" Right-Wingers who want to obliterate such things as Social Security and Medicare and eliminate all social programs—and then rant that they're trying to turn the United States into a "Christian" country as the Founding Fathers intended, thereby displaying their ignorance of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights as well. Bloody hypocrites!!

And I get equally disgusted with the kind of "Christians" who do little but dwell on other people's sins, are dogmatic and dictatorial, and emphasize the "Thou shalt nots" rather than talking about anything positive, such as forgiveness and redemption-- which, incidentally, is what Jesus talked about most of the time. It's this kind of negative mentality that will generously allow a kid to practice his lessons on the church's piano during off hours, and then, when he practices some scales and tries to work a bit on a piece by Fredric Chopin, they yank him off the piano for playing "that sort of thing" (was Chopin a Rastafarian or something?) and not "Christian music." With that sort of intimidation and general repressive atmosphere, no wonder the kid develops a life-long aversion to churches and religion in general.

To me, church buildings are bricks and mortar, and most of them have very good acoustics. They're intended to be that way, obviously. I have no qualms about going to a church to hear some non-affiliated musician or musical group perform. Nor do I have any qualms about performing in most churches provided I'm free to perform what I what (keeping in mind such things as good taste. I would not be inclined to sing "Sam Hall" with a stained glass picture of Jesus smiling benevolently down at me).

In the church to which Barbara and I belong, I have heard a number of concerts, including a couple of lutenists doing duets (very suitable setting for the Renaissance music they were playing) and I also heard an "early music" group who did several songs from D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy" (from which Ed McCurdy got most of the songs he sang on his "When Dalliance was in Flower and Maidens Lost their Heads" albums). Nobody complained.

I have also performed in this church, taking part in periodic social evenings within the congregation (singing programs of folk songs and ballads), and at one Christmas Eve candlelight service, I played the guitar and sang a duet of "Silent Night" with one of the choir members, duplicating the first time the carol was sung—duet with guitar accompaniment. I also sang John Jacob Niles's "I Wonder as I Wander," and then provided guitar accompaniment for my wife and another woman as they sang, in duet, the "Coventry Carol" and "Down in Yon Forest." Most appropriate for a Christmas Eve candlelight service.

But—there ARE churches—self-styled "Christian" churches like the negative ones I talk about above—that I would not enter under ANY circumstances.

Major point: Since Barbara and I are members of the church, for the concert on October 14th, 2007, we got the use of the church without charge. Just as a courtesy, I slipped a few bucks to the custodian because he had to hang around 'til the concert and reception were over and do whatever tidying up might be necessary. None of it went into the church funds.

But even if it had, that would not have particularly bothered me, knowing this church as I do. The pastor insists on taking a much smaller salary than is usual for pastors, and most of the church funds, provided by the Sunday collection plate and various contributions and donations from the congregation, go for such programs as providing nourishing meals in the large meeting room in the parish house next door for people down on their luck (without their having to "pay" for the meal by listening to a sermon). The church is also involved in an ongoing program of finding or providing safe and comfortable housing for the homeless or those with low incomes.

They "preach" service, taking their lesson from the text in Matthew 25:35-40 as mentioned above, and they practice what they preach.

Don Firth

Note: all of the above done by dictation, including additions and corrections and general editing and tidying up, without having to touch the keyboard.