Most of the music I listen to, I listen to because Danice introduces me to it. This is very convenient for me, because I have very little drive to actually discover new music on my own. Danice loves making best-of lists at the end of the year. I made a list of my own this year, and for some reason (likely egomania, but hopefully a drive to share what I love), I want to put it here on my blog.
These are not the best songs of 2013 (some of them didn't even come out this year, and many are guilty pleasures). Rather, they're the ones that got stuck in my head in 2013, the ones that instantly bring back memories of 2013, and the ones I hope I'll revisit in future years.
Yesterday, we told everyone we’re gay and in love, irreversibly becoming (in the minds of many) two women pointing their love all in the wrong directions and calling it good. We have become the Lesbian Pastors, our sexuality suddenly overshadowing all our other legitimate character traits. We have been called saints for our ministry among the addicted, the homeless, and the teenaged, but by revealing that we ourselves belong in a marginalized group, we will be called sinners and fools.
Early Jewish law does not assume the economic playing field is automatically level, rather it institutes regular playing-field-leveling events: every seven years, debts were forgiven and slaves were freed. Every fiftieth year was the year of Jubilee, when all land was supposed to be returned to its original owners. Since land was the primary means of wealth, those who had been forced to sell it due to hard times would have a real chance in the system again.
Even though this is one of the most common justifications and cop-outs I hear, I won't waste a lot of time on it.
Earthquakes, tornadoes and floods are inevitable.
Rain in Vancouver is inevitable.
Growing older is inevitable.
Death is inevitable.
Gentrification is NOT inevitable.
But it makes me ask, why are we privileged people interested in "doing something" about the DTES? If I'm honest with myself, it's not primarily to help all the people living in the DTES. It's actually to help myself. Because I'm uncomfortable with, or embarrassed about, or ashamed of the DTES. I'm ashamed at how money has been wasted. I'm embarrassed it hasn't done much good. I'm uncomfortable with the suffering I see.
Jodi said we shouldn't start on Easter
no right to celebrate life in the DTES
if we haven't tasted the death
so we did
twenty-one of us
made a pinecone cross
