Top 25 Albums of 2010: 5-1

5. Eux Autres Broken Bow

I sometimes ask myself why I care about this stuff.  I’m nearly 32.  I’ve got two kids, a wife, and all those other grown up responsibilities.  What do I care what a couple of indie kids have been cooking up in their garage?

The short answer is I care because they care.  Eux Autres are going nowhere fast.  They will never headline the Paramount.  You’ll never hear them on the radio.  If they’re lucky, maybe Volkswagon will use one of their songs to hawk the Jetta.  Yet, here they are putting out their third album over the last five years.  They make music because they love making music.  I can’t help but hear that in every note.  I notice it in every fiber of my being.  I listen to their art because they’re passionate about their art.

Eux Autres are a two-piece brother/sister combo out of Portland, OR.  They write songs in English and French.  Their instruments are minimal:  Electric guitar, skeletal drums, and key board.  Their songs are simple: call and response vocals peppered with the standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus.  What Eux Autres lacks in polish, they make up for in passion.  What Eux Autres lacks in big budgets, they make up for in songwriting.

Take every hit song you’ve ever loved.  Imagine it its rawest form, stripped of any gloss, shine, or pretense.  That’s what I hear when I hear Eux Autres.  Its two people making the three-minute pop song in its rawest form.  This doesn’t mean their lazy.  It doesn’t mean there’s no talent, resolve, or finish.  It’s the aesthetic they capture and embody.  And as the album charges to the albums middle and Heather Larimer shouts out “you’re alight / you’re alight / our tongues were never tied” begging you to sing along with her, you know you’re part of something special.

Eux Autres "Go Dancing"

4.  the Radio Dept. Clinging to a Scheme

Without a doubt, the i-pod has changed the way I listen to music.  While the advent of the cd meant we could make mix-tapes and highlight individual songs, the cd was still tailor-made to be treated as a single, monolithic entity comprised of smaller units.  You listened from front to back with limited shuffle or skip.

Since I purchased my first i-pod five years ago I have started listening to more and more singles.  It’s easier now than ever to make playlists centered around certain songs.  Yet despite this, I can’t shake the album.  More so than any other album on this list, Clinging to a Scheme is an album’s album.  Comprised of ten, if not interchangeable cuts, it stands as a testament to the unyielding power of an album that’s meant to be listened to as a whole.

The Radio Dept. first emerged in the early 00’s as a neo-shoegaze act.  Heavy on the reverb and distortion, they used raw noise to get their point across.  Over the years, two albums and countless singles and eps later, the Radio Dept. have polished their sound to a more subtle haze.  If colors could sound, Clinging to a Scheme would be 32 shades of grey.  Perhaps unnoticeable at first, the patient listen begins to notice the shifting from one tone to the next, feeding into another, before cycling back to the first.

Certaintly, the Radio Dept. kept some of their earlier shoegaze qualities:  the fuzzy distortion is still there.  The electronically altered vocals and layers of keys make for a vast and deep sonic palate.  But it’s the muted restraint that helps you dig in and hear just how much is going on.

MP3: the Radio Dept. "Heaven's on Fire"

3.  Beach House Teen Dream

I was never prepared for this.  Beach House’s self-titled debut and sophomore follow-up Devotion came to me like a breath of fresh air.  I couldn’t think of a more appropriate name for a band.  They made music for a beach house.  Not some MTV party house, but a Washington coast beach house.  This was the music of a grey-sanded beach, 35 mile an hour gusts, and watching the pouring rain arrive on shore type of beach house.  Beach House took the unrelenting greatness of Mazzy Stars “Fade into You” and made it their own:  a guy, a girl with the most frighteningly beautifully breathy vocals you’ve ever heard, some drums, and a keyboeard.

But after releasing two outstanding and well-received albums that have seen them increase their fanbase and press coverage, I wasn’t quite sure what they could do to up the ante.  Well they did it.  Never did I think they would make an album that sounded so big.  It’s as if they pulled the covers from their chins, and moved this sound directly to the club at 1 am.  But not just any club.  This is a David Lynch film type of club.  This is the band that is playing as your mind begins to melt.  You fall in love with the chant of “I’ll take care of you”, you’re whisked away with the refrains of “Nooorw a a a a ay”.  You’re moved to dance with the beats of “Walk in the Park” and “Used to Be”.  Beach House has made the complete album with Teen Dream.  It might just be the album they’re forever measured.

MP3: Beach House "Zebra"

2. Math and Physics Club I Shouldn’t Look as Good as I Do

Complexity hides defects.

A four year wait for a full-length that features only 10 songs seems like an awful lot. Suppose though, those four years were spent crafting a batch of the perfect indie pop songs. Every day was spent trimming, refining, and re-arranging every guitar strum, every drum hit, and every lyric.  Suppose the end the result sounded so effortless, so simple, so perfect, you could only ask "what where they doing those four years?"

I'd like to think that's what's happening here. This is, by all means, not a complex record. It's three guys, ten songs, and a few chords. The lyrics are of the romantic variety (with a bit of tongue-in-cheek tom-foolery) and the choruses big.  I think it takes more work for this to sound effortless than they probably get credit for.

Where the band really hits the mark is its uncanny ability to take the little things and build upon it.  Take opener “Jimmy had a Polaroid”.  The song is a simple ode to the pleasures of taking pictures in the park or spinning your favorite record.  In a world that seems like it has gone made, songs like this remind you of the simple moments of life that make it worth it.  When the band tackles traditional topics like love and loss, they do so without ever sounding generic or trite.  As someone who is happily married I can relate to songs like “Will You Still Love Me” because I recognize my own shortcomings.  “I’ll Tell You Anything” speaks to the person who just wants to make the partner happy.  And who hasn’t felt the universal question of “is this love or is it just loneliness”.  That they whip it all together in a great big sing-along only heightens how accessible it all is.  This is why music is universal.  The best of the bunch write stuff that we all understand and make our own.

MP3: Math and Physics Club "Love or Loneliness"

1. Allo Darlin’ Allo Darlin’

I’ve been dreading writing this one.  What do you say about an album that has so completely floored you that your only option is to simply stand back, smile, and dance?

The best place to start is the Rendesvous Club in Seattle.  Lindsay and I got tickets to see the band play in October.  By that time, we’ve had and loved the album for awhile.  Like everyone else in the room, this was our first time seeing them play live.  Allo Darlin’ is the debut album of this UK-based band and this was their first US tour and first time in Seattle.  The show sold-out quickly.  Of course in this case, a sell-out meant 65 people.  But it didn’t matter.  Every person there was flat-out in love with this band.  I’ve never experienced anything like it. This was not a scene.  This was a celebration.  And the band brought it.  They described the night as a “slow boil”:  Starting slow and gradually building throughout.  To the band, it didn't matter that there was only a few dozen people there. They played like 300 or 3000. There was pure joy in their performance.  There was no place they’d rather be.  When they sang the refrain to "Silver Dollars" ("we do it/because we love it"), it was the truest sentiment that they could have offered.  I’ve been to hundreds of shows in my life.  This one took the prize for my favorite rock moment.

Musically, Allo Darlin’ falls in line with the path blazed by the Vasalines, Talulah Gosh, Tiger Trap, Belle and Sebastian, and Camera Obscura.  They’re thoroughly schooled in the indie-pop/twee/DIY aesthetic.  There is an optimism, joy, and celebration in the minute of life.  Every single song is full of good-natured declarations of hope and the power of change.  It’s full of humor (sample lyric from a song about punk pioneer and serious dude Henry Rollins that is not on the album, but serves as a nice illustration: "Henry asked the DJ to play some Abba Dude/and he raised his tiny fist to 'Dancing Queen' ".  There’s hand-claps, ba-ba-ba’s, and the power of the mighty ukulele.  Oh, and references to Weezer, Johnny Cash, the Just Jones, and Woody Allen.  With the exception of maybe the last one, every song demands to be your favorite.

I may be asking too much of it, but I could see this very well reaching the cult status of If You're Feeling Sinister.  It’s that solid of an album.  At the very least, trust me on this one.

"Polaroid Song"

"My Heart is a Drummer"

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 25-21 | 20-16 | 15-11 |10-6

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 10-6

10. Sambassadeur European

About five years ago bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Rapture began to make noise.  Much of their methodology involved mining the great northern European sounds of the early 80’s and updating it for the new millennium.  Often these bands drew much of their influence from the more punk-influenced dance bands such as Gang of Four and even later-Joy Division.  Dance and punk no longer became opponents in a war for club supremacy but co-existed in juxtaposed explosions of artistic freedom.

Concurrent with the dance-punk movement is a similar drawing from the well of the 80’s.  Only this movement took the lighter dance sounds of New Order and combined it with the preciousness and longing of Field Mice and the playful side of the Cure.  One of my favorites of the bunch is Sambassadeur.  Simply put they make grand European pop with a tiny twee flair. The songs are big, pretty, and grow. Unlike some artists (say, Jonsi) they don't get too cute or too precious or too enamored with their simultaneous bigness. But while they certainly have moments that seem to lead to the dance floor, it never slides into what you might call dance music.  At it’s core its grandiose dance music for people who don't like to dance.

MP3: Sambassadeur "Days"

9. Northern Portrait Criminal Art Lovers

Pretend Morrissey and Marr let bygones by bygones.  Pretend they secretly re-united and recorded an LP.  Then, instead of releasing it as the Smiths, they released it under a pseudonym.  Then, you being the uber-fan, scoured album after album trying to find this secret Smiths record.  With Criminal Art Lovers, the debut full-length by Northern Portrait, you might think you found it.

It’s easy to accuse Northern Portrait of hero-aping. Everything that made the Smiths the Smiths can be found here.  Grand, melodramatic vocals, bittersweet and caustically humorous lyrics, and bouncy guitar melodies.  It's jangle and hook my friends.  And it might not work if the songs weren't so catchy.

And much like how the Mary Onettes, who have also positioned themselves as an un-ironic 80's throwback who has a penchant for big chorus abd sweeping arrangements, what they lack in originality, they make up for in execution. On their 10-song LP, there isn't a loser in the bunch. As a whole, the album rises and falls, slows and picks up pace for the full 45 minutes, making an enjoyable and diverse listen. As an individual collection of songs, they shine. The albums first single, "Crazy", only takes one listen before you get the chorus, "crazy/why is this happening to me/crazy" stuck permanently in your hand. The title track "Criminal Art Lovers" bounces along with enough pep to leave you dancing.

MP3: Northern Portrait "New Favorite Moment"

8. She & Him Volume Two

Let me say this: I think She & Him are a benefactor/penalized by their own success. It's hard to imagine Volume One ever being noticed as much as it was if it wasn't made by M. Ward and a movie-star. That Volume One was noticed and well-receive made the lead-in hype for Volume Two even much more. That it was done as well as it has, I think, led to a lot of hipster backlash who refuse to enjoy/celebrate something made by M. Ward and a movie star. Thus, I think this is now in the love it or hate it crowd. I love it. Zooey Deschenel knows her voice. She knows her limits, she knows her strengths, she knows how to work it. She also knows how to write a catchy lyric. I'm not a huge M. Ward fan, but I like what he does with She & Him. He writes 60's inspires simple ditties that make themselves known but never overpower. This one, I believe, has staying power.

She & Him "In the Sun"

7. The School Loveless Unbeliever

In my world the Scotish popsters Camera Obscura rule the world.  In this world, The School  are the Welch Camera Obscura acolytes. Loveless Unbeliever is 13 simple songs crafted with a chorus in mind. They're fun. They're cute. They demand singing along. And there’s a subversive biting edge that makes the whole pill a bit more dangerous.  While this might not come as a surprise to those of you who are used to the bouncy keys and the swooning strings of Camera Obscura, there are differences.  Amazingly, the School are even more lush. Their gentle cooing vocals serve as a counterpoint to the chamber orchestra that dotes the ornate but preciously cute soundscapes. They're more willing to let the songs stretch out their legs and grow.

It's sound can most easily described as early-sixties girl groups meets Northern Soul, add some twee and indie-pop and shake around. No song stays to long. They draw you in with quiet hooks, competent musicianship, and just enough quirky percussion to make you notice. Add the breathy and sweet vocals of Liz (no last name...how twee!), and it's got a great foundation. When you consider that every song could be a single and begs repeat listen. We've got a minor classic.  In many a lesser year, this would probably be in contention for my favorite album of the year.

The School "Can't Understand"

6. Gigi Maintenant

 

There’s an old Digable Planets song where the group philosophizes about what it would be like “if the sixties and seventies were now”.  (Answers: 8-track walkmans, Isaac Hayes would have his own 1-900 number, and M.C. Hammer would be a pimp.  Remember this was the early 90’s.)  If you want to know what the early 60’s would have sounded like, this is probably a good guess.

In terms of retro revivalists of the early 60’s, She & Him got most of (deserved) glory.  Really, much more of it should go Gigi’s way.  Conceived as a NW super-group of sorts (Mirah, Parenthetical Girls, Karl Blau, Owen Pallet, etc.), this album is all Phil Spector. Alternating between male leads, female leads, and group choruses, this album doesn't pretend to be anything other than a good time looking back and a supposedly more innocent time and updating it for a modern audience. As an album that hangs on its numerous out-of-the-park singles, this a spectacular album for 1960 or 2010.

MP3: Gigi "No, My Heart Will Go On" 

Top 25 of 2010: 25-21 | 20-16 | 15-11

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 15-11

15. Patty Griffin Downtown Church

14. Tift Merritt See You on the Moon

Just so you don’t think I only listen to indie rock, here’s my two americana albums of the year.

Of the two, Tift Merritt is the more diverse.  Merritt seems more willing to break free of the confines of americana and embrace a wider musical palette.  She certainly embraces the typical singer-songwriter and rootsy stuff that generally passes for the genre.  Merritt, however, dips into soul and even into a bit of adult-contemporary soft pop rock (think Sheryl Crow).  Merritt is talented enough writer to make it sound her own without sounding derivative.

Patty Griffin made a gospel album.  This, as one would expect, is a good thing.  Produced by the great Buddy Miller, Griffin showcases her always getter better voice with numbers that have shaped her as an artist.  I’m not a big gospel music fan, but I am a big Patty Griffin fan and she didn’t let me down.  And the album closers “We Shall All be Reunited” and “All Creatures of Our God and King” are stunners.

Patty Griffin "Move Up" (Live)

Tift Merritt "Mixtape"

13. Belle & Sebastian Write About Love

Although it’s a coincidence that Belle & Sebastian and Damien Jurado fell next to each other in this list, it’s fitting.  They both suffer from the same fate:  a large and consistent back catalogue that features a fair number of stone-cold classics.

With that, it’s not entirely fair to compare Write About Love to albums/songs that preceded it.  It just doesn’t stand up to albums like If You’re Feeling Sinister, Tigermilk, or The Life Pursuit.  There is no “Boy with the Arab Strap”, “Piazza New York Catcher”, or “Lazy Line Painter Jane”.

Instead it’s another standout collection of Belle & Sebastian doing what they do best.  The 11 songs alternate between the jangly twee-pop and plaintive ballads.  They feature the same bittersweet storytelling of love and loss, joy and pain.  It continues the large sound forged by the previous two albums.  But rather than being a re-tread, dance-fueled numbers like “I Want the World to Stop” push the band in new directions.  The more familiar songs like the title-track continue to refine and perfect a formula that has been working for years.  The patient listener is able to pick up on just how well the band has been able to tweak what they’ve done well for so long.

It might be more of the same, but more of Belle & Sebastian’s same is a winning deal.

Belle & Sebastian "I Want the World to Stop"

12.  Damien Jurado Saint Bartlett

I don’t know how he does it.  Jurado keeps making strong album after strong album.  In a fair world, the attention bestowed on Bon Iver and Iron & Wine would go Jurado’s way. Instead, Jurado seems content with his cult followers and growing number of acolytes.

The pre-release hype of Saint Bartlett centered on Richard Swift's production. Considering Swift's pedigree is one of an immaculate producer who mines the past for updated time capsutle's of am gold and 50's and 60's minimialist rock 'n' roll and the fact that lead single "Arkansas" was a little nugget of late 50's rock meets Jurado's folk pop sensibilities, the hype seemed to be warrented. Then opening track, "Cloudy Shoes" and its multi-tracked vocal, layered, and dare I say lush orchestration, comes along and it seem like Jurado has re-invented himself.

Then the rest of the album comes along, which sounds a bit like every other Jurado albums. The final 8 songs alternate between Jurado in his guy and a guitar storyteller and Jurado in his low-fi, a guy with an electric guitar and an amp, minimalist rockers. He tells a good story. His sad sack, stock characters seemingly transcend their usual origens and become someone you care about due to Jurado's attention to songwriting detail. He checkers his stories with enough geography and artifacts to root them in a real history. Finally, the low-fi rockers give the album a balance that keeps it from getting too bogged down.

Still, there is no killer singles that allows it to rise drastically above some of his best work (e.g. Rehearsal's for Departure's four killer tracks strewn about a pretty unimpressive six tracks makes it seem much better than it is.). As a result, it's MOR Jurado. Not nearly as good as I Break Chairs, Ghost of David, Caught in Trees, or some of his outstanding eps. But, overall it's consitancy and variation makes it much better than and now I'm in Your Shadow and On my Way to Absence.  Plus, MOR Jurado is better than a whole lot else out there.

On a personal note, one of its best songs "Kalama" is the name of my hometown. It's a dinky, blink of a town on I-5 in southwest Washington. It's full of sad sacks, losers, drinkers, forgotten dreams, deadbeats, and dead ends. It's the perfect setting for a Jurado song.

Damien Jurado "Arkansas"

11. Jonsi Go

Jonsi is best known for the nymph that fronts Sigur Ros.  Wait, Sigur Ros doesn’t have a nymph as its vocalist?  Then who sings?  Jonsi?  Oh.

Colored me surprised by how much I liked this.  Sigur Ros had made a great career of these operatic, grandiose, stirring spectacles.  It was music from and for another world.  Consequently, Sigur Ros was perhaps the most exciting band of the 2000’s.  But I for one had grown weary of it.  Each progressive album felt more and more like a re-tread.  Things got so bad, I didn’t even bother with Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust.  The notable exception from that album was lead track “Gobbledigook”.  “Gobbledigook” told me that the band wasn’t content to operate on its own insular plane.  They began to look outward and look to their peers for inspiration.  In “Gobbledigook’s” case it was the giddy playfulness of the Animal Collective.  It worked.

On Go, Jonsi splits the difference between the ground well-traveled, but well loved by early Sigur Ros and combines it with the laughter of “Gobbledigook”.  Not surprisingly it’s the “Gobbledigook-esque” tracks like “Go Do” and “Lillikoi Boy” that got me.  They sound like Jonsi found a crayon box and when to town with a youthful abandon.  Playful and definitely childlike, Jonsi recaptured the wonder of those early Sigur Ros albums and does it in the brightest of colors.

Jonsi "Animal Arithmetic"


Albums 25-21 | 20-16 | 15-11 | 10-6 | 5-1

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 20-16

For albums 25-21, visit here.

20. The New Pornographers Together

Seriously, how good are the New Pornographers if Together is one of their lesser albums.  95% of the bands out there would kill to make an album this good.  The New Pornographers are a collective who makes powerful power-pop anthems.  Their hooks are the hookiest, the choruses the catchiest, and the vocals are the biggest.  Put it in, turn it up, and shout along.

The New Pornographers "The Crash Years"

19. Bubblegum Lemonade Sophomore Record

It’s fairly obvious Bubblegum Lemonade mastermind Laz McLuskey probably has a better record collection than you.  In a fine Scottish tradition, Bubblegum Lemonade mine the vaults of Jesus and the Mary Chain, toss in some Beach Boys, and add a pinch of Scottish twee.  The result is a bouncing collection of tunes that takes the ghosts of rock past and brings it into the present.

MP3: "Caroline's Radio"

18. Very Truly Yours Very Truly Yours

  

Remember the Sundays?  They had a minor hit in the 90’s with “Summertime”.  Well, here is their 2010 counterpart.  Very Truly Yours makes pretty, if non-descript, breezy, autumnal pop songs.  It’s an album to put on when you need to smile, when you need warmth, when you need to be reminded that the world isn’t a terrible place, when you need to know that there is joy and beauty all around.

MP3: "I'd Write You a Song"

17. Arcade Fire The Suburbs

  

Whatever accusations you made about me for my placement of Sufjan Stevens, feel free to do with Arcade Fire as well.  The only difference:  this album rules.  Every song is a fist pumping anthem.  It might very well be their best album yet.  It features the thematic complexity of Funeral and Neon Bible with an ever increasing prowess as musicians.  Arcade Fire might very well take the throne of kings of rock.  Why so low?  I just don’t listen to it very much.  Also, it could probably stand to be a bit shorter.  If you disagree, make your own list.

Arcade Fire "Ready to Start"

16.  A Sunny Day in Glasgow Autumn, Again

More than a great name, A Sunny Day in Glasgow continue to put out strong neo-shoegaze albums.  As a genre, shoegaze tends to slide into My Bloody Valentine worship.  At it’s most generic, 40 minutes with a shoegaze album mostly makes me want to reach for Loveless or Slowdive.  A Sunny Day in Glasgow certainly follows in the pattern of Loveless:  it’s three minute pop songs layered with layer upon layer upon layers of guitars, sequenced to sound like a monolithic whole.  The key, as far as I can tell, is the “three minute pop song” core.  There has to be something to build on.  More often than not, Autumn, Again succeeds.  Need proof: check out the catchy as I’ll get out “Drink Drank Drunk”.

You can download the album for free here.

For albums 25-21, visit here.

Top 25 Albums of 2010: 25-21

25.  Best Coast Crazy for You 

24. Tender Trap Dansette Dansette

Tender Trap’s Amelia Fletcher is an indie pop icon.  It’s been 24 years since she first recorded with the seminal Talulah Gosh.  Since then she’s only been the main player in iconic bands such as Heavenly, Marine Research, and now Tender Trap.  By any stretch of the imagination this has been a great run.  Most impressive is that 24 years later she’s still making exciting and subversive fuzzed out sonic blasts of sing-along fun.  On this album, "Girls with Guns" and "Do You Wanna Boyfriend?" are some of the catchiest songs you'll hear this year.

If Amelia Fletcher is the icon, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino is the bratty newcomer.  Although she often gets lumped with the new (and probably already gone) niche genre chillwave, I think Best Coast has much more in common with the indie and noise pop bands like Tender Trap.  Sure, she’s from California.  Sure, she has stupid lyrics about boys, cats, drugs, and general slackerdom.  But, really this is a pop album that’s cranked up the distortion. Each song is a two minute ball of fury.

Best Coast "When I'm with You"


Tender Trap "Do You Want a Boyfriend"



23. Sufjan Stevens Age of Adz
22. Sufjan Stevens All Delighted People

Why so low you ask? Perhaps I’m annoyed with Sufjan Stevens’ success? Perhaps I don’t get what he’s doing here? Perhaps I’m a fan who wishes he would stick to what he was doing before? Or perhaps I simply don’t like the deconstructed cacophony of noise that these two albums represent. Don’t get me wrong, Stevens is an immensely talented man. In most regards these are a triumph. They’re risky. They push boundaries. They challenge how one listens to music. There is so much go on, it's impossible to get bored with them. I also find them to be an indulgent (not the first time this accusation has been thrown at Stevens) puddle of colliding noises. There is so much going on that it’s hard to find the melodic core that has been totally deconstructed. That being said, there is something going on here and it’s likely that five years from now I’ll revisit this list and wish I had these much higher.

21. Jenny and Johnny I’m Having Fun Now

I’ve never understood the Jenny Lewis backlash. Sure, no one likes to hear a former child actress and current music star sing about how bad life is. Chances are, we’ve got it worse Jenny. Still, I think Jenny Lewis occupies that place where people secretly enjoy her albums but will never give them too much critical acclaim. Jenny Lewis plays to her strengths. She’s got a fine, if not exceptional voice that she keeps in range. And she’s got a razor sharp wit that’s fine at tossing acerbic barbs. Her one-off album, I’m Having Now Now, is a collaboration with boyfriend Jonathan Rice and is true to its title. It’s a brief barnstormer of an album that has tints of Americana and even the Byrds. Despite its politically charged tones, it’s a joyful bouncing record that’s, well, fun.

Patience with God

What if atheism is not a disease that needs eradicated?  What if it isn’t an enemy that needs vanquished?  What if atheism isn’t the opponent of faith?  What if atheism lays on the same continuum of faith?  What if it is the atheist—the vocal, passionate, and suffering atheist—who stands in solidarity with the kenotic Christ?  What if it is the atheist who best understands the derelict cries of the godforsaken Christ of Golgotha?

In his new book Patience with God, Thomas Halík argues that the atheist is blessed in his solidarity with Christ.  Rather than crushing him with fine crafted arguments in favor of God’s existence, the atheist stands in the same pilgrimage of faith.  She simply needs more patience with the periods of God’s hiddenness.  Instead of an enemy of faith, he is the prophetic voice of protest against a world gone mad, a God who is absent, and a world of violence and shame.  She gives voice to the secret doubts of the faithful soul.  Rather than eradicate the disease that is atheism, the person of faith, the person of the Church, is obligated to stand in solidarity with the sufferings of the impatient atheist.  It is in this moment of solidarity that the faithful approach God’s own kenotic (self-emptying; see Phil. 2) activity.

I for one have found the atheistic/theistic debates tiring.  From a purely rationalistic/apologetic standpoint I haven’t found either position particularly fruitful, helpful, or even overly convincing.  At the end of the day, both the atheist and theist have his or her reason for believing what they do.  While not airtight, most arguments have their plausibility, internal consistency, and external weaknesses.  While this language is pushing the case a bit, as a Christian most indebted to Barth (and I’d say the overall testimony of Scripture) I find many apologetic arguments abhorrent.  Arguments for God’s existence cannot be a preamble to faith.  The testimony of the Bible is one where the existence of God is taken for granted.  God’s existence can be assumed because God was not silent and has revealed himself first in Israel and definitively in Jesus Christ.  The question in the pages of the Bible is not, “is there?” but “what kind?” of God might we know.  In fact, following a thread of Zizek, I might add that the monotheist who takes the atheist as a serious rival is actually a polytheist.  Taking the god of atheism too seriously posits and creates the existence of another god that stands next to and in opposition to the God of Scriptures.  But I digress.

Thomas Halík is a Polish Roman Catholic Priest.  Secretly ordained during a communist regime, he has spent the years following the velvet revolution coming to grips with what it means to live and serve openly as a man of faith.  Specifically this means living on the edge of the post-atheist, post-communist east and the post-Christian west.  As a Catholic, Halík takes his cues from popes past and present, Vatican II, theologians such as Karl Rahner and Luther, authors like Doestesky, and philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzche (yes, you read that correctly) and Simone Veil.  Most significantly, Halík draws deeply from the wells of a little known mystic saint:  St. Thèrése.

St. Thèrése de Lisieux was a 19^th century monastic who is perhaps best known for her deep anguish and spiritual conflicts near the end of the life.  She felt Christ slowly departed from here leaving in a desolate place “where no sun shines any longer.”  Rather than rebel against the God that left her, she resolved “to accept even the strangest thoughts” out of love for God.  God’s absence became a means for her to mark her solidarity with both Christ’s godforsaken cries on the cross and to mark her solidarity with unbelievers.

This, I believe, has great value as we grow and evolve in our faith.  It is practically common knowledge that at some point in our life, our faith grows cold.  The excitement and exuberance of young faith simply dies.  For many, clinging to the embers of a love grown cold isn’t enough.  And we grow angry, disillusioned.  “The church has failed me.”  “God has failed me.”  But what if we perceive this as an opportunity?  What if we mimic the patterns of Jesus and name our godforsakeness?  What if we follow the pattern of St. Thèrése and view this as an opportunity to identify with those who have no faith?

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the subtitle of the book: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us.  At the end of the day, this fine volume is a prolonged reflection on the Jesus and Zacchaeus story found in Luke.  While longer and more detailed than Henri Nouwen’s seminal Return of the Prodigal, Halík attempts many of the same things.  Job one is to see the potential Zacchaeuses around us.  A Zacchaeus is a person on the margins.  Someone who falls between the cracks.  Someone not easily seen.

This is a book for people on the margins.  This is a book for those who have grown weary with evidence driven apologetics that serve as a preamble to faith.  This is a book for those you who have lost heart with the hand grenades tossed back and forth between the Church and the atheist academics.  This is a book for people who want to find another way of faithful living.  It’s quieter.  But it’s powerful.  It’s a life of water slowing filling in the cracks.  It’s a life of subtle movements and resolute prayer.  I also think it’s the way of the kenotic Christ.

Failure and Loving Your Self

I used to be a youth minister. Say whatever you will about youth ministry, but in my experience it was a lot more than fun and games.

I recently re-read something I wrote about a particularly difficult time. In a one week span I faced one extremely poor evening gathering where nothing went right and another event that hardly anyone bothered to attend. And don’t forget the kids. One student was facing losing his one remaining parent to cancer. Another student was charged with a sexual felony. Then there was the girl who was kicked out of her Mom’s house and was couch surfing at 14. And there was the football game I got asked to attend, but I couldn’t. Oh, and I was also going to school nearly full time and had all the other normal responsibilities of being a husband/friend/son/sibling/juror/adult.

Basically, I could look down a list of names and events and pinpoint exactly where and how I was failing as their youth pastor. Why couldn’t I do more? Why couldn’t I get this person back on track? It wasn’t hard to slip from “I’m a failure as a youth pastor” to “I’m a failure as a human being.”

Thankfully, these moments of pity, regret, and incompetence were, for the most part, fleeting. But they raised a question: what about when those moments aren’t fleeting. What about those who live in the shadows of believing that he or she is truly a failure?

To add upon the woes is the well-meaning pastor, author, friend who points the Great Commandment as the essence of life: you need to love your God with your whole self and love your neighbor as your self. After pontificating on why and how we love God (“with my whole self? But I’m a failure.”), he or she moves into on how we’re to love our neighbor (see opening paragraphs about how I’m lame at that) and finally ends with an encouragement to love our self because that is the basis of how we love our neighbor.

The listener/reader hears: “I’m a failure and don’t really like myself right now. Thus I fail at loving my neighbor since I don’t really do enough. And because I fail at loving my neighbor, I fail at loving God.”

The well intentioned word of grace becomes a word of condemnation to those floundering in their own desperation.

Is there a better way to “love your self?” I think there is. I was recently reading I/2 of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Barth doesn’t often get credit for his devotional writing. Clearly people haven’t read this section.

The first word is God’s free act of grace. We know ourselves and live our existence as pardoned sinners. He draws heavily on Luther in speaking of our standing as the pardoned sinner. Or in psychological terms: the forgiven failure.

“Behind him there is only the impossible, the sin which he was committed and the abyss of death. It is true that that is always behind him and to that extent he is still a sinner, and under sentence of death. He is saved only in Christ. But it is behind him. He is saved in Christ. He is a sinner pardoned, a peccator Justus.” (I/2, 370).

In loving our neighbor as our self, we see in our neighbor what we see in our self: a pardoned sinner. A redeemed failure.

“We can and should love our neighbor only as the people we are, and therefore ‘as ourselves.’ We cannot meet him in a self-invented mask of love. We can only venture, as the men we are, to do what we to commanded in word and deed and attitude.” (452-453)

This can only take two forms: one of humility and prayer. In humility as pardoned sinners at the service of our Lord. In prayer of reaching with empty hands to receive the love of the God who first loved us.

“In the last resort we can only love the neighbor by praying for ourselves and for him: for ourselves, that we might love him rightly, and for him, that he may let himself be loved; which means that either way prayer can have only one content and purpose: that according to His promise Jesus Christ may let his work be done for and to ourselves and to our neighbor.” (454)

I wish I could go back five years and hear this. I hope I can recall this in five years when I’ll need to hear again. I am a failure. I fail to love rightly. I fail to love well. But I am a pardoned failure and I encounter other pardoned failures. As a people of pardoned failures we live in light of the God who first loved us and pledged his very self to us. As pardoned failures we humbly pray with open hands for each that God’s work might be done and that we might receive love both from God and each other.

Amen.

Talking Scripture and Tending a Garden

Although, I doubt I’ll ever have to seriously face this question: how does one end a massive three-volume 2700 page Old Testament Theology? Most theologies I’ve read don’t really end well, they just end. That’s why Fuller professor John Goldingay takes the cake. For Goldingay, the Old (or First) Testament isn’t a dusty prolegomena rendered irrelevant by the New (or Second) Testament. It isn’t a historical relic to be dissected by history of religions schools. It’s a witness to the revelation of God and has words or instructions for living not just then but now. Here’s how he ends the book.

In the twenty-first century, what might be the structure of a life shaped by the First Testament? Here is a Decalogue. You can choose which you obey. But do some of them.

• Praise God at dusk and at dawn.
• Relax and sleep for the time in between.
• Grow things to eat.
• Tithe what you grow.
• Keep out of department stores and shopping malls (beware the Internet too).
• On Thursdays, pray laments for people who are suffering.
• On Fridays, think about the fact that you are going to die.
• On Saturdays, have a day’s rest (you can tend your garden if it’s not your regular work).
• On Sundays, talk with your friends or family about Scripture.
• Three times a year, hold a week-long holiday with your friends or family, and celebrate what God has done for us in nature and in delivering us.

Those are just regular, rule-of-life kinds of things. This volume is full of other things to do when occasion demands or invites. (Old Testament Theology, Volume 3: Israel's Life)


Brilliant.

In Defense of Black Friday

By mid-morning on Black Friday, my Facebook News Feed was plush with greetings of “Buy Nothing Day”, sarcastic tidings of “Happy Black Friday”, and plenty of condemnation of the evils of the unofficial holiday falling annually the day after Thanksgiving.

We didn’t do much shopping on this day this year. Our only purchases were the Christmas ornaments we put in our stockings every year. Of course we bought these locally at an independently owned small business. Since it was the “right” type of purchase at the “right” type of store, I can only imagine we were granted immunity in the blanket condemnation of Black Friday shopping.

Although we didn’t shop much this year, that doesn’t mean our household is morally opposed to it. Far from it. In fact, we’ve gone shopping on Black Friday in years past. Further, I think there is good reason to do. Finally, I found these Facebook statuses mean-spirited and frankly missed the mark. (As any status, tweet, or blog post probably will.) So, here are my reasons why we might not want to give those poor souls who shopped Black Friday the benefit of the doubt. And if not the masses, at least your aunt whose present you’ll be opening in two fortnight.

1. Shopping can be a time of togetherness.

Many of the people who shop Good Friday shop together. This is a time they anticipate all year. It’s a significant shared experience that deepens the bonds of friendship. Together, they wake earlier than they normally do. Together, they plan their trips. Together, they spend time waiting in lines. Together, they laugh. Together, they share. We Christians talk a lot about fellowship. Is this the wrong type of fellowship? In my mind, the Christmas season is a ripe time celebrating and enjoying the bonds of friendship and family. Who am I to say that can’t be done waiting in line at 6:00 am at Old Navy purchasing a sweater for someone that will wear it once a week ever winter for the next five years. Somehow I think if somebody forked out a couple hundred bucks to sit in bleachers and sing Alma matter, they’d be getting a free pass on this one.

2. Shopping can be a time to think of others.

Most people I know don’t shop indiscriminately. There is no anonymous abstraction of a person. Instead they shop with a specific person in mind. They consider the needs, wants, personality, and character of the intended. In shopping for others they examine each other by looking deep into the very character of the person. The gift chosen, purchased, and given is a type of the sacramental giving of Jesus Christ at his last Passover meal where he lifted, broke, and gave the bread to his companions. The gift is given and received with great joy because it was a personal encounter between to functioning humans.

3. Shopping can be a time of stewardship.

One of the most common charges against the shopping on Black Friday is rampant consumerism. People spend, spend, and spend some more. I can’t speak for other families, but I imagine there are many like ours. Our budget for the year is set well in advance. As best we can, every dollar is accounted for before it is spent. We don’t spend indiscriminately and we try not to spend wastefully. In fact, most of our extraneous spending is reserved for two times of celebration: birthdays and Christmas. Well in advance, we know exactly what we’re going to spend on gifts. Our giving is based on a budget. Living on a budget means looking for the best value. All things considered, Black Friday has good deals. And buying gifts at a lower price means, gasp, we’re free to spend less, give more, and all those other so-called more important things.

4. Giving is a an activity fit for the occasion.

In the Christian tradition, there are two high holidays: Easter and Christmas. Both are a time of celebration. Both are a time of feasting. Unless you make and grow everything yourself, feasting entails consumption through purchasing. It demands going out and making choices about what it is you’re going to consume and/or share. This is simply the nature of the game.

Listening to the self-righteous criticism on the anonymous, yet actual living and breathing people who might just be sitting in front of you at Church, persons who spent their day after Christmas purchasing gifts, I can’t help but think of two gospel accounts. The first occurs just before Jesus’ arrest. He was in the house of Simon the Leper. There a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. The disciples were indignant: “Why this waste? This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Instead of rebuking the woman, Jesus rebuked the disciples and commended to woman for her generous waste. Christmas is a time of celebration. It’s a time of generously giving, and this can be done in the name of Christ, to others. Instead of a waste, perhaps it might just be an act of worship. In condemning those who shop Black Friday, do we really wish to place ourselves in the shoes of the disciples?

The second is similar. Historically it had to deal with those who were unable to understand what was happening with John the Baptist and Jesus. In response to the dual charge of too much celebrating and too much fasting, Jesus described the crowd gathered as a child who called out in the marketplace: “We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.” They missed the point. There is a time to laugh and celebrate. There is a time to cry and fast. They got the two confused. Could it be that it was those out at 5 am scouring for the perfect gift for family and friend to open on Christmas morning are the ones who could read the times? Could it be they’re the ones who hear the piper and know it’s time to dance?

5. Conclusion

This isn’t meant to be a blanket endorsement of unbridled consumerism. I get the necessary critique of spending wastefully. I think rampant consumerism can be and probably is a problem. However, I don’t believe taking pot shots at people who happen to be out on the day after Thanksgiving trying to find something nice for someone they love is the way to do it.

Isaac of Stella on Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

“The Wisdom of God truly takes many shapes, even though it is very simple, and although it is uniformly one, it is nonetheless found to be many-sided in many ways …
For this reason it often happens that those who disagree about the same Scriptural passages or who espouse different ideas about things can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit. This is only provided that there has been a decision made not to disagree with the truth of faith, the building up of charity, and the rooting out of cupidity. Everyone is vigilant about these matters when it comes to Sacred Scripture. Fore everyone involved is in agreement about things one way or another, at one time or another. But there is no room for choice between one Spirit and another. On both sides of the issue, as has been mentioned, there exists a harmonious relationship with truth and charity.” (Isaac of Stella. Cited in Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: Volume 1—The Four Senses of Scripture, p. 81. Emphasis mine.)

I believe that in these two brief paragraphs, 12^th century English theologian, philosopher, and Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella deftly moves us to a point where we can begin to maneuver between two opposing tensions in understanding the Biblical witness: 1) the move towards an open reading of the Scripture where we read the Bible in concert with others with a critical openness to a plurality of voices and interpretations. This is the move towards Jerome and Origen’s “infinite forest of meaning”. It also is the move where the reader recognizes that Holy Scripture is a living Word that continues to reveal the character, person, and will of God. 2) The move towards a closed reading of Scripture where we narrow our reading towards a point where we can claim to identify what the text meant in its original setting and thus what it means today. In its most charitable, a closed reading simply qualifies Origen and Jerome by simply rejecting heterodox and heretical views. In its most extreme, it allows only one meaning of Scripture and rejects all other interpretations.

First, Isaac affirms what we have already noted: there are multiple interpretations of Scripture. This is obvious enough that it hardly seems worth noting. But Isaac does affirm that there are real differences of opinions. Conflicting opinions are not a semantic game of saying the same thing in different ways: “you say ‘bachelor’, I say ‘unmarried man.’ You say Revelation is like a historical political cartoon obscured by time and I say it’s as an eschatological document outlining the future events.” Make no mistake, the next time you are in a Bible study or are reading two books or hearing two sermons or having a conversation over a coffee and a genuine difference of interpretation arises, it is not likely you’re saying the same things different ways.

Second, Isaac, while recognizing that there are multiple possibilities of meaning, simultaneously recognizes there “can be in the highest agreement or harmony with the Holy Spirit.” It is often assumed that harmony or unity requires total conformity as if we’re grieving the Spirit by reaching different conclusions. Naively, people sometimes point the existence of denominations as proof of the total disunity of the Christian Church as if their mere existence was an affront to God. Similarly, divergent possibilities of meaning seem to negate a Spirit-guided reading of Scripture because if the Spirit is a Spirit of unity and truth how could two people come to opposite opinions? Interestingly, Isaac doesn’t seem particularly troubled by multiple possibilities of meaning as long as the opinions are reached in the Spirit, according to the rule of faith, and with the posture of charity. (Of course, the East/West split notwithstanding, the Church was relatively normalized, at least compared to today.)

Isaac’s qualifications are huge. Much too large to squeeze into one blog post. But they point us in a good direction: one of charity and generosity where the person sitting next to might know as much as you do. Briefly, the rule of the Spirit involves an understanding of Holy Scriptures where the one Holy Spirit legitimately guides two prayerful people into two different possibilities of meaning. Although there are surface differences that cannot be discounted as differences there is a structural unity provided by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The structural unity or foundation is found in a commitment to what Isaac calls “the truth of faith”. Alternately this might be called the rule of faith. In architecture, two buildings might take very different forms with two very different purposes. A hospital is not a house even though they are both buildings were people can sleep, cook, and eat. However, the two buildings are sound when they adhere to fundamental rules of design. Similarly, a Spirit led reading of Scripture that arrives a different interpretation is sound as long as it corresponds to the rule of faith—those things that all Christians at all times hold to be essential and fundamental to the Christian faith.

Multiple Possibilities of Meaning in Holy Scripture

In one of his letters, Church Father Jerome described scripture as “in infinite forest of meanings”. Likewise the towering Origen referred to the vastness of Biblical interpretation as “the exceedingly broad forest of Scripture.”

In the esteem of these two great minds, Scripture defies easy explanation. Instead the world of the Bible is a vast and sprawling forest. It is a world that is rich and lust. It is a world that is full of twists and turns. It is a world that defies simple solutions. It is a world that opens up new discoveries around every bend. It is a world that never exhausts its riches. It is a world of multiple possibilities of meaning.

With the poetic license of a Jerome or an Origen, the infinite forest of multiple possibilities is an alluring prospect. This touches the nerve of the Protestant sola scriptura by identifying the thickness of Scripture. As an infinite forest full of multiple possibilities of meaning, the Bible is alive and active today. It is more than capable of speaking truth and providing direction in the labyrinth of today and tomorrow’s moral quandaries. The faith of late 18th century France, the urban American church of the 21st century, and the rice patty farmers of Southeast Asia all read the same Scripture but with different eyes. Each person or group enters that broad forest and gleans meaning.

Yet, at the same time, I think there is uneasiness in affirming multiple possibilities of meaning. One of the core understandings of Biblical exegesis is thinking of it as a process that seeks to penetrate what the Biblical text meant as it left the pen of the Biblical author (or was edited by his redactor, or arranged by his editor, etc.). This view of exegesis seems to tip our hat to the impossibility of multiple meanings. The task of the interpreter is to come to the correct meaning of the text and correctly convey that text to his or her modern audience.

Is this not the very nature of a commentary? The commentator researches the historical context. He places the book in a literary, grammatical, and canonical setting. She uses all the tools of ancient and modern research to penetrate the old forms of thoughts. He converses with other commentators along the road, voicing his pleasure or disapproval. At the end, she offers her analysis on what the text means.

And what of heterodoxy or heresy? Certainly, we might all agree, the forest of Scripture isn’t infinite. There is a boundary between the lushness of orthodox Biblical meaning and the wasteland of heresy. There are certain interpretations that exclude other interpretations.

Is it possible to have it both ways? Can one, with Origen and Jerome, affirm the possibility of multiple possibilities of meaning and guard against heterodox meanings? Can one read two commentators who come to differing conclusions about the significance of a text and agree with both? Is it possible to attend two churches and hear two sermons on the same text and agree the Word of God has been proclaimed? Is there a via media that simultaneously affirms both the wideness and narrowness of the Biblical world?

I believe there is. I hope to explore this a bit over the next few weeks. As a thought experiment I’m going to look at some authors, past and present, who have attempted this same process.

My hope is that my next blog will look at Irenaeus and Isaac of Stella and the deposit or truth of faith and the place charity plays in interpretation.