Another brick in the wall, part 2

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Back in my earliest days, there was this concept, based on Lee's previous teachings about building up, that we were like "bricks in a wall," and that the fellowship we had was the "mortar" that held us together. Gene Gruhler did not just dream up that metaphor about the building of God, he got it from Lee, but alas ... poor Gene was not up-to-date, and thus needed correction by our abusive "headmaster." .

Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album was hugely successful. I think it was the Number One album on the charts for something like 21 weeks.

I found the irony of the album and movie to be on two fronts. First, that the protagonist "Pink" had his father killed in the War fighting against fascism, then he gets disillusioned with the liberal post-war political/social/economic system and he himself becomes a fascist leader.

The second irony, a little more hidden, was that the "Allies", particularly the U.S and Great Britain, had successfully thwarted a violent power grab by Hirohito, Hitler et al, but the children of the supposedly sacrificial "greatest generation", we who were known as the post-war "baby boomers", were so disaffected. The album was about despair, isolation, anger, shame, frustration, and violence. So I wonder, if we had "won the war" why were the kids so unhappy? Why were we taking benzos and smoking reefer and cursing the "pigs" (police)?

Again, this wasn't some marginal album on the fringes of popular culture. It absolutely dominated the popular culture when it came out.

What does that have to do with local church discussions? Well, this former disaffected dope smoker used to love the meetings of the local church. As I said, we would all talk about what total losers we all were; all our failures with our parents and children and husbands and wives and bosses and subordinates, and how the mercy of God could penetrate any mess we got into. Every meeting turned into a celebration of redemption. I loved it. Here were people just as screwed up as I was, and it was okay. It felt like I was back at the keg party, only instead of plastic cups of beer they were passing around the Holy Spirit.

Eventually things changed. Big Brother kept showing up with a master program, and we all kept trying to line up with it, and failing. Eventually I left. I didn't see the connection at the time. I just felt, "Okay, back to Christianity". But looking back I can definitely see the dark clouds gathering... I have already written about being with the FTTA and hearing the "trainer" tell us, "Don't waste your time" with the poor, the sick, the crippled, the old; with those who have no way to repay us in this age. Just focus on the "good material". I was like, "Whaaaa?" Stuff like that kept surfacing, and it went from being the exception to being the rule.

Originally Posted by Ohio

That old nun, who looked just like the wicked witch of the west, just exploded all over me. My right arm had welts up and down from her tirade. Thankfully I remained silent and motionless during the beating, probably thinking that it will only get worse if my dad got wind of it.

The meetings of the local churches used to be a place where we could all tell our stories. And God's mercy would eventually shine through, in all of them. Nobody was beyond God's reach. It was awsome. It was like this great, collective, "Take that, Satan!" moment, from us all who had been abused by "the system". We really felt like we were stepping on the serpent's head.

But eventually "the system" took control. And so here we are, on a website called Local Church Discussions. See my point?