Songs for the edges
Creative Strategy #40: Write a new hymnal
Thank you for coming. Please be seated.
Nice view, huh?
This is the place where the earth cracked.
You’ve made it to the edge.
We at Paradigm Overload are grateful for your vote of confidence.
We know you could have chosen any Mind Fuck Cure out there.
But you knew a bargain when you saw one.
(PAUSE FOR SPONTANEOUS APPLAUSE)
New skeptics, New Atheists, Doubters, Recovering, or Curious,
we welcome you all.
Under everyone’s seat is a free iPod, a juice bar, two types of licorice.
Now you may see some wires down there.
In fact, your seats are electrified
and from time to time we will be administering
non-fatal amounts of electricity.
Relax. I’ve done it myself and no big deal.
The first one is always the worst.
At Paradigm Overload TM
we take the broken and harvest the most valuable pieces
then sell those pieces back to their owners.
Believe it or not, this process seems to help people.
We understand.
We feel the same.
Right now you feel
Pretty Fucking Stressed Out.
Toe to Toe with the Russkies.
Millions Killed By Pandemic.
Ukraine being plowed under.
While getting our daily dose of fascist orange sherbet
to cleanse the palette of any trace of
—decency, honor, integrity, humor, humanity—
we saw the most violent strike into the heart of democracy yet.
We butt pucker every time anyone says “Nuclear”.
And last week we got to hear “Chernobyl” for the first time since the Emmys.
I want this new world to end.
You can’t see yer family. Your friends die.
You hug your grandsons exactly twice in two years.
Your wife survives her first bout with cancer.
You uber a woman to CVS and she takes a covid test in your backseat.
Your children are almost safe.
Your oldest friend is about to forget you.
Your country was only 30 yards and 10 minutes away from 45’s second term.
We need a Fucking Break.
We are a planet traumatized, still hunkering down and hitting the mattresses.
Who knows how marred and warped we are?
We live on a precipice.
Will we cower under illusion?
Will we adapt or die?
We need a new musical playlist to get us through these crazy times.
I’ve been collecting songs that struggle with faith and its loss for a long time.
I’m calling it “The New Atheist Hymnal.”
Because I’m convinced there is a way to replace superstition with the human song.
Because it feels natural to seek communion even after our dogma and superstitions dissolve.
Because you don’t stop worshiping even when you stop believing.
This stuff is primal.
The muscle memory of wonder and awe never forgets,
and gratitude remains after the faith stops.
But we have to leave something behind.
When the architecture of unreason crumbles, much will be broken.
But I believe much more can be revealed.
We will have to find new words to replace the old archetypes that still rule us.
I’m not talking George Harrison pinching the Chiffons.
I mean new songs, Dude. True songs.
Songs that don’t sing lies,
“You were born worthless and depraved.
Life is suffering because you deserve it.
If you do anything wrong you are going to be punished Eternally.
Good thing I tortured my only son. And killed him.
Blood Magic was the only way to spare you from eternal pain.
But don’t worry. You will live forever and never die because
I forgave you.
See how much I love you?”
Aren’t you tired of being lied to?
We need new voices. New ideas. New solutions. New dreams.
Perhaps we will listen to the unheard.
Perhaps we can sing about the thirst for kindness.
The longing for hope.
The hunger for justice.
These must remain after the ghost stories are put to bed.
Prayers may just be flinging our hearts desperately into the void,
but even if no one is listening, our human hearts still need to be heard.
We keep sending out these bottles of Me, Me, Me into the dark ocean
where so so much is so so far away.
Will anyone answer these castaways?
Let us not wait to be saved. Let’s save each other.
If our brother and sister tell us they are hurting, we must not be silent.
We can harmonize and heal ourselves.
And when our absentee landlord finally shows up,
we can thank him for the rough draft, and show him our handiwork:
the care, the justice, the love that is in everyone.
And working together we can show him how we built a better world
and we can ask him to feel free to put the finishing touches
on a saner, kinder, freer, safer, better planet than the one he left us.
Let’s not wait.
I know. Shedding dogma is the easy part.
Wearing new skin is hard.
It's like coming out of a spell.
“I actually believed that? Immortality? Blood sacrifice? Resurrection? Miracles?”
That sickening feeling we all feel?
It’s not the dread of mortality, existential angst, nor humble “god fearing.”
It’s more like the feeling we get after we have been robbed.
It’s a moment of profound honesty.
It’s a final reckoning with Bullshit.
The moment when The Big Lie finally deflates.
Sooner or later you have to get onboard.
Get with the weirdoes who see the naked emperor,
who paid attention to that man behind the curtain.
We saw he was just a Carney Barker from Kansas with superb special effects.
These are our songs.
Open yer hymnals to page One.
Put in yer ears and go take a walk.
The thrill of sharing a night sky.
The dark beauty of the human heart.
And the honor of raising voices together.
The glory of hearing the rainbow of the human song.
These songs and singers bring comfort to the disillusioned in a way sacred music never can again.
As we begin our journey of disenchantment, let us humbly bow our heads and listen to our family.
—PO
New Atheist Hymnal. <link to my Apple Playlist
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