This is My Life

In the past few weeks I have written two articles: one for Catapult, the e-zine of * Culture is not Optional, on Romance and sexual intimacy for their Subversive Love Issue that came out on Friday, another article on Goth Eucharists, for the Spring issue of Kilter. I finished the article on Goth Eucharists, Yesterday Morning and went to the editorial meeting last night. I recommend checking out either publication, though Kilter is a print magazine with online presence, so to get the full feel of it you'll have to purchase a copy or subscribe which you can do on Kilter's web page. And Catapult regularly puts out thoughtful and thought provoking articles, and I should link to them more often and not just when I have an article. Well enough with the promotion.

Kilter and Catapult represent two vary different networks and communities. Kilter is the magazine of Gothic art Chicago and is intended as a forum for the "dark arts, music and culture in Chicago. Catapult and *CINO was founded by a group of young Christian Reformed, about 6 years ago, and although their network expands beyond this particular denomination the origins and theology behind the publication and the organization still has a Reformed feel. Part of me feels like this should feel surreal to me, yet it doesn't. However, I don't think I have ever really lived only in a singular setting, network or subculture. Even in the small town I grew up in the church community I was in was not coextensive with the entire community and being in California in the 70's secularization had occurred even in the small town so I went to school with kids who not only went to different churches in town but who also didn't go to church and eventually even some Buddhist.

I am thinking of all this because on Monday, I met Kate and some friends for Lunch at a little middle Eastern place on Clark in Roger's Park. the place was across the street from the tattoo parlor of a new member of Reconciler. I had not been to the parlor so I went to see him. He was working on a tattoo, I met his new peircer and we talked about where he wants the icon he has commissioned me to paint for his shop. As I left the shop and headed to Metropolis Coffee and thought about the editorial meeting that evening for Kilter It all felt very normal and yet so odd. I wondered if the peircer i meet realized the guy with spiky hear, a kilt and big platform buckle boots was the pastor of the tattoo artist he was now working for. then I saw another member of Reconciler at Metropolis coffee and we talked about the "Bishops visit on Sunday to Reconcciler" he is a poet and teaches English to students at a Yeshiva and looks the part. I couldn't help wondering as we stood in the middle of the cafe if anyone who over heard us and then looked at us what that would seem like.

Then in the evening off to meet up with contributors and editors of the magazine Kilter. At the meeting I realize that I am now the most involved I have ever been in any Goth scene, and I am doing so as a pastor who is turning 40 this year. This all only feels a little odd if I stop sort of step out of my own skin and think about it. From inside this all seems quite "normal" or at least feeling like I am fully coming into what I hoped my life path would lead me: into a very heterogeneous space, where I traverse many different worlds. It is I hope being in the world but not of the world, that is being the Priestly Goth.