Mental Maintenance
Fuck. I'm feeling too lucid to really write anything of substance.
From my New Orleans notes:
The camp has a settled in feel, despite porta-potties lining its road. Adults are rare, and the camp is filled with youthful energy. Walking down the road between the sleeping tents and the showers; I pass drunken students just back from a Bourbon Street bar, clutching each other and wreaths of multi-colored plastic beads.
Later, as I write barefoot by stadium light, three round and beaming Baptist students stop singing about damnation to ask if I mind. I don't. None of us pay attention to the words - we hear sweet voices exalted by an even sweeter mission.
It's so strange, the role music plays in religion. I was listening to these girls sing about fire, and being saved, and terrible agony. They seemed to pour so much joy into the song that I couldn't convince myself at first of the song's actual content. Even if I could protest, what could I rightly say?
It's not like they thought of the song's lyrics when they sang. They just enjoyed singing, and I'm not even sure they heard anything except hope in those terrible lyrics.
Is it their fault for failing to question? Can they help their ignorance? It seems that a questioning mindset is a skill which doesn't occur naturally in people, and I can't blame those girls for coming from some backwoods part of Alaska.
Even if they were ready to send myself, and all other non-Baptists to hell.
From my New Orleans notes:
The camp has a settled in feel, despite porta-potties lining its road. Adults are rare, and the camp is filled with youthful energy. Walking down the road between the sleeping tents and the showers; I pass drunken students just back from a Bourbon Street bar, clutching each other and wreaths of multi-colored plastic beads.
Later, as I write barefoot by stadium light, three round and beaming Baptist students stop singing about damnation to ask if I mind. I don't. None of us pay attention to the words - we hear sweet voices exalted by an even sweeter mission.
It's so strange, the role music plays in religion. I was listening to these girls sing about fire, and being saved, and terrible agony. They seemed to pour so much joy into the song that I couldn't convince myself at first of the song's actual content. Even if I could protest, what could I rightly say?
It's not like they thought of the song's lyrics when they sang. They just enjoyed singing, and I'm not even sure they heard anything except hope in those terrible lyrics.
Is it their fault for failing to question? Can they help their ignorance? It seems that a questioning mindset is a skill which doesn't occur naturally in people, and I can't blame those girls for coming from some backwoods part of Alaska.
Even if they were ready to send myself, and all other non-Baptists to hell.
posted by Fifth at 10:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home