And once again, my deepest condolences on the loss of your sister. I’m not as close as I could be to my own siblings, but I still can’t imagine how painful the loss of one of them would be.

A marvelous ode to Sam, and I wholeheartedly agree that “Cruel Inventions” and “Martinis and Bikinis” are both impossibly beautiful and impressively thoughtful. The contrarian in me doesn’t find quite as much to love in the more recent CDs, especially “Fan Dance,” which was disappointingly “samey” for me. I’m also *totally* over the wordless moaning that she does as background music for Gilmore Girls, which is starting to bug the hell out of me. But I can forgive her an awful lot because of those previous gems.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about spiritual matters lately, too, prompted in part by the recent death of my (younger) sister. She wasn’t religious, and in fact had absolutely no love lost for the Catholic Church in which we were raised. Yet she was one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever known despite her years and years of struggles with alcoholism and depression and physical problems. She was also very spiritual and reflective in her own unique way.

We were back in the parish where I grew up last weekend for a memorial mass. The priest gave a marvelous sermon on what he termed those who are “officially religious” and those who are “unofficially religious” and how my sister was clearly the latter, which is by far the more important of the two. When we were up the previous weekend to help sort through my sister’s things, the same priest gave an equally marvelous sermon about the importance of the separation of church and state (think the polar opposite of what you’d hear on the 700 Club). Being back in that church, which is run by a thoughtful, liberal religious order (in a college town that’s conducive to those things), gave me great comfort that there’s tremendous good in the world, which made me feel supported and helped immensely. It brought home to me why being a practicing Catholic for my whole life has been a good thing for me despite some having some real issues with many of the people at the top of the hierarchy. I guess I’ve always been able to focus on the humanist and humane parts of the message and the mission.

I think it even helped my wife understand why I see positives in a Church that frequently sets her off. (She’s now attending a Unitarian Universalist church after growing unhappy with a UCC church she’d been going to for years — if she “flunks” out of this church, I guess she has nowhere else to go .) In fact, she marvelled at how the priest’s sermons wouldn’t be very far out of place at her church. I guess my point, to the extent that I have one, is that the “brands” aren’t that important and can be downright misleading (or at least oversimplified), and what matters are the communities and the desire to do good and to be good. It thinks that spirituality in its purest form.

Sorry to prattle on.

Tom

I think the FSM would be a superb Halloween costume, and pretty easy to design, relatively speaking. It might be a little sacrilegious, I guess, but somehow I don’t think His Noodly Appendage would mind.

Marcia: I guess the reason I don’t read philosophy anymore is that I’m not in college, or at least I’m pretty sure that was the last time I did any serious reading of serious philosophers. I’ve actually been in the mood to re-read Kierkegaard in particular lately, but I dunno—I’m not sure I even have the right brain for reading philosophy anymore. (I had an MTV reality show on as I started typing this, which is indicative of the problem: is it possible for there to be a person who reads philosophy and watches “Laguna Beach”?)

Funny, I don’t like the word “spiritual” either, though I’m not sure why; I guess it’s primarily because of its New Age-y connotations, but also because of its imprecision. That’s why I’m more comfortable calling myself a believer—it’s not much less vague, but it’s a little more meaningful, at least to me.

And thanks to you both for tolerating my esoterica in between music posts. (I should warn you and anyone else who’s reading that there’s going to be an information-architecture-related post here soon, which almost everyone will find irrelevant, I think; actually, I’m thinking about using a separate part of the site for the IA-related stuff, because it really doesn’t quite fit here amid the musings and the music reviews and the stories from my past.)

It’s funny you should write about this, as I was just yesterday thinking how little attention I give that (spiritual, but I dislike that word) side of things these days and how unfortunate that is. It would be easier, I think, either to be a straight-up atheist or to be able to really embrace some religious group. Alas, that’s not where I find myself.

Why don’t you read philosophy any more? I might ask myself the same question, I suppose.

Anyway, good post. I like Sam Phillps, too, though I don’t own nearly enough of her stuff.

Marcia

I took one of those internet tests and it told me I was an atheist, which sent me off in a huff (“Some nerve! I am not!”). But then I was watching the movie Kandahar and caught myself muttering about how modern people can let several-thousand-year-old mythologies cloud their reason, and I had to admit the test had a point.

I have been thinking of going as the FSM for Halloween. Sacreligious? Funny? Both?

BTW, I love the “Are you with me?” Is that new, or am I the last person on earth to notice it?