it only works if you talk back.

So I’m at my parents’ place for Christmas, I’m here for a few days and for the first time it appears that my parents are cluing in that I’m a vegetarian (despite repeatedly affirming that, so I assumed that they got it) and suddenly it seems like the apocalypse because the question essentially boils down to “what do you eat?” which seemed funny to me, in a weird way… a weird way to start off Christmas…

This year has been the first time where at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, it has been just my parents and I. Years past, we would have people over, we would go to other peoples’ houses… this year. It’s the three of us, and considering that Thanksgiving was a gong show, I had fairly low expectations for Christmas… actually, I thought it would be worse because it would be so much more prolonged.

It wasn’t off to a great start by any means, while we don’t do any sort of big dinner or anything, I wasn’t expecting to be the only one eating the meal my mom made (though I know she basically only made it for me). Curry pasta, with ground round and veggies… doesn’t that scream Christmas? what if I ate standing up while my parents played a table game? yeah… it was a tough few hours, and I buried my nose in my book to escape.

6:30 was soon approaching, which was when my mother’s church was holding their candlelight service… let me just say that I do not like this particular church very much, I do not like prosperity gospel teachers, and as such I went in solely because it was one of my mother’s only requests at Christmas. That doesn’t make the service any better, unfortunately. There were 6 terrible female vocalists and one weak male vocalist, they sang all of 2 Christmas songs (out of probably 8 songs), the rest of the songs were completely unfamiliar to me, in between each song was an awful mini-sermon, and the sermon itself was pathetic. I never thought I would ever say that the “special music” numbers of any service would be the best part, but they were… and they weren’t that good. Not to mention that it went entirely too long, for no reason. I know I am a cynical person, and it didn’t help the situation at all, thankfully it has past.

8:15 – we get back to my parents’ house and the reality is that, unlike previous years, no one else is coming to join the three of us. So we plate up some food and eat, then I go downstairs to check what was on TV. D3: The Mighty Ducks had just started, and what could be better than watching a terrible hockey movie on Christmas eve?!? Nothing.

10pm – this is probably the earliest we have ever opened gifts too, and for once I actually had a gift for both of my parents. Like, a legitimate gift (ok, my mom’s wasn’t really great, but she got exactly what she wanted). I was most proud of my dad’s gift: The Montreal Canadiens centennial DVD which has some really awesome footage/interviews (and I secretly also wanted to watch it, so I figured I’d kill a few birds with this stone). If you care at all about what I received, it includes Star Trek on Blu-Ray, a few gift cards, and some cheques from relatives.

10:30 – I make the best suggestion of the evening, ring in the birth of Christ by watching “100 Years of Glory” the feature-length documentary on the DVD set I gave to my dad. 110 minutes covering 100 years of history, really well done with some great interviews. And that’s what brought me and my dad into Christmas day.

1:02am Christmas Day – I end this blog post wishing you a very Merry Christmas

David Bazan’s break-up record with God has struck a chord with me (no pun intended) these last few weeks. It’s not that I find myself doubting everything about my faith, not that I want to abandon it, but I do find myself questioning a lot of things and I’m not sure how all these pieces can be reconciled.

I suppose this revolves mostly around the subject of Genesis 1-11. This semester I find myself in 2 classes which propose contrasting views of Gen 1-11, and as I find myself embracing less and less of a historical concordism with the content I wonder how that can still fit with the core tenets of the faith. Looking at Old Testament theology, and looking at the importance of the theological matter in Gen 1-11 is linked (not blatantly, but it is implied) with historical truth.

I’m not sure how I can deal with that, I’m not sure where I stand with that. I don’t know if I can affirm Genesis 1-11 as historical, literal reality. And I worry because of all the loudmouths that would say my salvation is dependent upon my belief and affirmation of a literal rendering of Gen 1-11. It’s hard to ignore those loudmouths sometimes, and it’s harder still to ignore those who aren’t so obnoxious.

Then there’s the other side of the fence… David Bazan’s honest struggle with the story of a magical fruit which explains why the living die. This ultimately leading to his current “rejection” of the faith and ultimately his “agnosticism”. This seems to be a clear rejection of a literal reading of Genesis 3, and one which an evolutionary creationist would certainly empathize with and understand. But it seems that no one gave Bazan the option to reject a literal historical interpretation while affirming the theological truth within it…

And I wonder whether or not that option should even be available. It would certainly seem easier to fully embrace young earth creationism, or to affirm some sort of deistic evolution (I don’t think I could ever bring myself to the point of seeing the world as dysteleological) but to stand between the two and affirm the theological truth within Genesis 1-11, but to reject a literal historical reading is somewhat contentious.

There are days when this doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue… but then Thursday comes… and Friday isn’t much better…

Ultimately, I have no idea what I’m saying. I have no idea what I believe. It’s hard to be a decent human being… never mind trying to fit the Christian faith in there…