Losing My Religion

I was feeling pretty irresponsible about not posting here for a long time, then I saw that most of the other UCUer blogs I check haven't been updated in as much time or more.

The other week I was pondering over when and where I would go if I had a time machine. My first thought, of course, would be to go back to ancient Palestine and see Jesus while he was still walking around on this earth. I examined my motivations for doing that and came to the conclusion that that was a bad idea. Even if I only saw him from afar, He'd know I was there and that I shouldn't be. I'm sure my appearance would cause alarm anyway. But more than that, what if He talked to me? What if He asked me why I had come? I couldn't give Him any excuse because He'd already know my hearts intentions, even if I didn't have words for them. Knowing what I know about Him, and that very few of those around Him did, I doubt I could escape the enormous guilt of being a sinful human before Him. But then who's to say that He wouldn't have some kind of words for me. The only problem is every reason I can see to go there is indicative of a lack of faith. Whether it's to see what he really looked like, to hear the sermons from his mouth, or anything else.

I decided in the end that it might be better to somehow be present in the Jerusalem church at or just after Pentacost. I'm always baffled by the way of life described in Acts 2. I wonder how far the church has drifted from that original model. I often wonder if I really do have much of the Holy Spirit in me, because my thoughts, words, and deeds almost never bear out what is described in the NT as indicative of its presence within me. That touches on a whole other disturbing topic I'm not gonna write about now. I have an email chain that I might post here later with more thoughts on that.

Also, I've been itching to start producting electronic music again. I got a brief taste of it several months ago when a friend loaned me his 25-key MIDI keyboard and another friend let me "borrow" the music production software he was using. I told myself that if I ever finished a complete song to my satisfaction that I'd take the plunge and buy the program outright. Well I never got quite that far, although I generated about 20 lame to mediocre starts. So deciding I want to try it a little harder this time, I up and purchased the mighty M-Audio Axiom 49 to toodle around with on my "borrowed" software. I actually started running out of keys with the O2, so I figured I'd go in grand style and get something worth using. (The O2 is cute, but pretty limited.) I found it for just over 40% off through Froogle, and there's another story about the place I bought it from, if you want to hear it some time. (that means leave comments!) Unfortunately, it's on backorder until who knows when. They said 1 or 2 weeks when I called, which have now elapsed. Maybe it'll ship this week. Anyway, I had a nice chat with one of my co-workers last week about how relatively affordable it has become to set up a studio and start producing music. For maybe $2000 you can get everything you need, except neighbors that won't complain about the bass coming through their wall. (Yet another story.) If you wanna do it the pre-software-emulation way you would need to spend well over $10,000 on synths, sequencers, samplers, drum machines, effects boxes, mixing equipment, and even with your massive arsenal of hardware (which you need a big rack and lots of patch cables for) you'd still be limited by the combinations thereof. Now, by the power invested in fast CPUs and USB, you can have it all, minus inspiration and musical ability. Time will tell if I have either of those...