After a few weeks of vacation, I’m back with no other long vacations in sight, should be back to weekly podcasts. For lucky podcast 13, I’m highlighting the new podcast My Life Bytes and the podsafe band the Mountain Goats. In this episode I’m reflecting on the “dark side” of postmoderns – not Star Wars or Goth clothing – but our general pessimistic outlook on our future and our determination to still find meaning in it. The cool thing about My Life Bytes and what makes it a throughly postmodern and spiritual thing, is the intent to share stories of woe and dread as community and maybe find some consolation in a community of the mutually miserable. Well, its not as bad as all that but it is something we call in the church “the mutual consolation of the saints” – a churchy way of saying when life sucks and you feel alone, the people of the church are there to love you unconditionally like Jesus. My Life Bytes is not an spiritual or religious site but there is a search going on for meaning in the midst of bad times and failing that, a measure of comfort of knowing that you are not alone – sounds like the spiritual journey to me.
The Mountain Goats are a great podsafe band with some good tunes at their website but No Children is my favorite so far. The only embarassing part is that when I received the mp3 from the Podsafe Music Podcast, it came with a label “No Chicken” – which is what I called it when I recorded my podcast. My bad, still a great song – children makes more sense but I liked chicken. With determined sarcastic grimness, No Children goes to much the same place as Simple Plan’s Welcome to My Life and Green Days Boulevard of Broken Dreams, just with much less optimism. No Children is satisfied to sing of the paradox of in the search for meaning and community, you can find that even when with those you hate and when life seems to be just a slide into darkness. A regular tune for listening on my ipod right now. Hope you enjoy it and check out their web site. 
Despair.com is just a brilliant idea I wish I had had – a wonderfully warped take on Boomer motivational thought and pop culture, their calendars and art have an honored place in my office at church. Be sure to check out their delightful merchandise and De-Motivators.
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Hey Tom, I have been listening for a few weeks now, and trying to go backward to pick up some podcasts from the early times. I have always appreciated your insights and have enjoyed our e-mail exchanges. Even though there are few years between us in age, from this podcast I sense some real differences between myself as a Baby-boomer and you as a Gen-X’er. To say that “No Children” by The Mountain Goats is pessimistic is woefully understated. Perhaps it is merely my “modern” training, but I find no sense of hope in the lyrics. How do postmoderns find hope in the world if this is indicative of their (your) worldview? You know that I am not that thrilled with organized religion, although it is my “bread and butter,” so how does an old(er) “baby-boomer” pastor, like myself, bring the hope of Jesus into a post mordern world so filled with hopelessness and despair?
Actually, if you go here to the lyrics page for the CD Tallahassee (http://www.themountaingoats.net/lyrics/tallahassee_lyr.html#children) you’ll find that No Children is not nearly as pessimistic as some of the other tunes. Scary, huh?
Not all postmoderns are this dark, but many of our best and brightest artists are and that makes a difference.
What to do? Live the hope, grab hold of it and share it. Its there minutely at the end of the song –
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die
Even in the midst of the agony of divorce, any companionship is better than being alone. Perhaps he means it as “if I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.” I hear it differently, that we are both in the same boat together and its better that way when facing an ending.
To answer your question of how to bring the hope of Jesus into a world of hopelessness and despair – learn to live with the paradox. Only the hopeless are ready to hear a word of hope. Also, have a sense of humor that can bring out laughter in the darkness, as I recall one theologian who’s name I forget put it, “The cross is God’s joke on the devil.” Enter the conversation and listen instead of giving answers and in the give and take, let the Spirit lead.