Joy Division

The Unknown Pleasures of Lent.

Lent approaches, as always, silently and without fanfare. This year, I will shape my Lenten writings around the songs of Joy Division. Consider it a commentary for a kind of Lenten soundtrack. Mind you, this is not a Christianizing of Joy Division in any way. If anything, it is a drawing of Lenten observers further

Don’t Walk Away [Ian Curtis Buried]

Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, passed away by his own hand thirty-three years ago, today. There was a time when that anniversary was not as important in the popular culture as it is now. Now, in the hands of two aging generations, Joy Division flourishes. Joy Division street art abounds around the world. The

This is the Crisis I Knew Had to Come

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrtXsFvIw7g Joy Division, "Passover" live at Ajanta Club, Derby, UK, April 19, 1980.

Worry: A Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

This sermon was offered at St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York on the first Sunday of Lent, February 17, 2013. Worry. Luke 12.13-34 I was an anxious child. I worried about being left alone. I worried about doing the right thing, whatever that was. I worried that other kids would pick on me. I worried. And as I

We played a flute for you, you did not dance. We sang a dirge, you did not mourn.

It can be easier to learn, to retain information in cadence. Rhythms offer repetition. A kind of re-membering, reattaching significance to each other and to ourselves. Gilgamesh, Iliad, Odyssey, Job, Aeneid, Metamorphoses. These are all poems, all ancient stories. These are also all religious poems. Gods are everywhere. And they interact with humans. There is