On Earth as It Is in Heaven

This line from the Lord's prayer gives me hope in my future in music. In heaven they can tell the difference between truth and lies. They are not fooled by phony musicians. They can see right through them. In heaven my songs are doing quite well, with me singing them. Only through my voice can the spirit of my message be truthfully delivered. Only through my God fearing hand can the monies earned by it be faithfully distributed. After my experience, I wouldn't try to pull anything on anyone. Believe me. I'm happy to say that I've moved on to new songs that I have no recollection of writing in the past. I've learned to appreciate what has happened to me in the last couple years as a source of bitterness and sadness that makes a noticeable improvement on my art. I won't be able to post them until I get things straightened out with my internet service provider, but that's just my little problem. It's just a couple hundred dollars. I'm sure I can manage it. In the meantime, I can always add more to my online journal. I guess you could say that in being able to pass my life onto you in this fashion, there's more to a person than just flesh and blood. With that thought in mind, time to think of another bad title for the next blog. And don't worry, this coat ain't going nowhere.
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© 2010. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved.

If the Shoe Splits Bear It

Sometimes I'm kind of glad that I've been limited to person-to-person feedback because a lot of my readers get my message wrong. I can sum up their failure in a few words. Essentially, they lack either the ability or the will to put themselves in my shoes. Instead, they try to put me in their shoes, while criticizing a thought that came from another shoe store altogether. This includes musicians who perceive me as being somehow separate from my songs, as though my songs didn't come from inside me but, as would seem to be the case for them and for most people, by blindly strumming a guitar and spitting out thoughtless words. Language must have failed me when I tried to explain how to take advantage of being the centre of your universe. Such a setup does not make my life share the characteristics of yours. Once and for all, because I am mentally exhausted, you control your universe by losing yourself in the lives of those around you when necessary. Sometimes I must tap into my self, in order to produce original music, but then I offer it to others as a portal into my universe, though I still don't get paid money for it. This makes forgiveness the greatest power you can have because it is a selfless act, freeing you of your personal grief by respecting others for having different or conflicting life paths. That's how to pilot a universe.
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I Think They Are a Sham

It says somewhere in the Bible to go out and spread the Word across the four corners of the earth. It was clearly written a long time ago. Everyone who is old enough to talk knows who Jesus is now. They've heard of him on all five continents plus Australia. Good work. Not everything in the Bible ought to be taken as a commandment. We must look at it in context. Beyond spreading the Word and making it available to everyone on the planet, what's left? For some, it would seem, forcing it down the reluctant throats of strangers is necessary, and scaring the shit out of people with tales of eternal damnation. I have trouble seeing how Jesus would want souls brought to him by force. The motivation to repent and to follow him must come from within or it is meaningless.
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Hollow be They Name

Some time ago I observed a trend among young people to speak the words outlined in the Scriptures which purport to drive the Holy Spirit from their speaker's lives forever. At the time I was firm enough in my atheism to commend people for taking this step. While saying that you deny the Holy Spirit is serious business, I'm not sure it would be enough to forsake you from the loving kindness of an almighty God. In order for this action to have its desired effect, you must do more than mouth the words from a page; you must mean them from your heart. Given that the participants were led into this act by others, their personal conviction seems questionable. We think we mean it when we say things. I occasionally lose my temper and shout insults that I want taken seriously in the heat of the moment. Later on, however, my anger turns to shame. Unable to go back in time and handle the moment better, I find myself asking my God and my target for forgiveness. It's called repenting. And it's a way to prove that you didn't mean what you said or did. My God understands that we can't be wholly repsonsible for our actions down here. And he has a soft spot for young people. The flip side of this involves prayer. To stand up like a zombie during mass and rhyme off words that have been pummeled into your subconscious is likely not nearly as effective as knowing what you are saying as you are saying it. My favourite prayer is the Lord's prayer, and I stil find that I must go back over the words and acknowledge their meaning once or twice if I am saying them in my head. But it's an excellent prayer, well worth the effort.
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Mad to Doubt You

When we had to pick our own names for the Sacrament of Confirmation, I chose the name, Thomas. He was the apostle who doubted Christ's resurrection, right up to the point where the risen Christ, wounds agape, stood before his amazed eyes and said, 'Happy are those who do not see and yet believe.' It's a compelling account, but while I am artistic and endowed with insight, my logical half has always tended to get the better of me. Many psychoanalysts would find me crazy for trying to share the details of what has happened to me over these last few weeks. Few of them could probably draw as well as I do, or write a decent song. People used to watch me draw or hear me sing and tell me I had a gift from God. I never fully believed it until now. I, like my ancient namesake, needed concrete evidence. Even when it was presented, it wasn't convincing enough until I re-experienced it. I'm ashamed of this. I would be happier if I could be like the countless millions who believe without evidence. It's no secret that I've been unhappy. Now I know why. I can find no other explanation for what has happened to me this year than providence. From what I can now tell, I have relived virtually every moment of my life from a previous year, with each song or blog produced by the experience restoring my memory and marking each leg of my journey. Along with my memory returned my purpose. Having no memory of the past, I set out this time, probably very much like the last time, to undo the Bible with my blogs. Look at me now. I can't stop thinking about Jesus. I would like to give you the details of my conversion, but they are too personal to be taken seriously as objective evidence, though entirely real to my eyes and ears. I don't want any more ambulances showing up at my doorstep if I can avoid it. I don't mind ending up with a bit of egg on my face as I look back on all I have said these last few years. It's a small price to pay for eternal life in a heaven where the angels rock and where pleasure abounds in perfect harmony with appetite for pleasure - but that's another blog.
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Christ Heist

When I was atheist, I surfed around the internet looking for something to believe in. I stumbled on a documentary film that, among other things, aimed to expose the story of Christ as a myth. To begin with, it's a no-brainer to apply logic in mocking faith. Faith is not logic. It is not gathering by deduction, but knowing from the outset, as artists tend to experience. All the same, I will attempt to challenge some of the points made in this film as logically as I can. According to its well intentioned author, Christ did not live because other gods sharing his characteristics predated him. On the surface this seems credible, but I prefer to think that such similarities were more prophetic of Christ's appearance than dismissive of it. There's also the likelihood that Christ's image was altered over time, here and there, to help make the conversion of pagans more smooth and comfortable. Quite frankly, I see these obscure but interesting pagan deities as occupying lesser positions around Christ than anywhere else. As any decent logician will tell you, just because B follows A does not mean A caused B. There appears to be some glaring shortages in fact checking, as well, with claims of crucifixions and virgin births that do not appear in the historic record. From there the film focuses on the stars and how they apply to the dates chosen for Christ's precisely unknown times of birth and [mortal] death. This fails to address the question of whether or not Christ walked the earth as a man. He calls the historic reference to Christ by Josephus a forgery. Where's the proof? What if Josephus had an experience like mine that caused him to suddenly write against the grain of everything he had said up to that point? (I pity him if he had to go through it twice.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd rather believe in Jesus than in the author of this film. I get far more out of my faith in my God, and so would anyone else, I imagine. But it's a satisfying film for atheists who can't get Jesus out of their heads. Just don't bet your potentially immortal soul on its virtue. I might have said that I agreed with the author's analysis and aims. At the risk of pulling another Josephus, I must now say that I disagree with them. Chalk it up to faith - something which I think it's pretty dangerous to try to take away from people in a world as mixed up as ours. On the other hand, its author followed up with a much better documentary, which details the present day money system and explains the mystery of inflation for laymen such as myself. Very good work there, in my humble opinion. P.S. January 2, 2013: I now have reason to believe that George Carlin got that bit about the contradiction of a loving God who would let us end up in Hell from me, along with other material he has used since '07. If so, I may need to ask that it be removed from this film. Sorry, George. RIP from Weird Uncle Dave.
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Next Best Thing

I'm in a great mood, having just come from church. (The Anglican service is almost identical to the Catholic one, and served me well by having it's doors open in the neighbourhood I was visiting.) I want to keep what I have to say in a positive vein, so please don't be upset by it. To wish that you could write songs like me is to deny me any credit for my suffering. Lots of people write songs, but it takes hard suffering to give the music an edge. To learn the guitar is a physical struggle that most would find unappealing. Reading good books to fill your head with words is not a very popular activity for people with friends and TV sets. Giving way to the music in your head would leave you in a state of poverty for much longer than you would find comfortable. Even after you gain recognition, you might find it hard to ride a bus when every single person on it knows your face and is talking about you behind your back. Strangers might make off with your music and make a fool of you in front of the whole world. And, after all that and much more, others will make you the target of their envy. Are you sure you want to write songs like me now?
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