Unknown's avatar

Dancing a Sacred Song

by

I like to look around in places where we aren’t supposed to notice other people. One of my favorite places to look around is church. People do surprising things at churches. The only churches I’ve ever gone to regularly are contemporary, postmodern types where it’s not really clear what denomination anyone is. I can’t really see myself being happy anywhere else. I am too much of a pluralist to find denominational churches appealing. And one of the pluses of non-denominational churches is that they typically have really good contemporary music. I’m not much of a singer so I really like worship bands that are loud. That way the loudness can kind of drown out all of my self-conscious thoughts about being a bad singer. Plus, I just like hearing music that sounds like music I might hear on the radio. It makes it feel like I might be worshiping all the time, not just on Sundays when the worship team is leading the congregation in Psalms.

Anyway, the best time to look around at church is while everyone is singing. Everyone’s kind of into their own thing. I imagine if you were some sort of psychologist and knew what all the signals meant, you could really tell a lot about people based on what they do while they are supposed to be singing at church. Some people are spending time with God. Others are doing what they think makes them look like they are spending time with God. There are a couple of people who are more concerned with what their neighbor is doing. Some dudes are standing with their arms crossed. They can’t even soften up at church. Parents are busy trying to keep their kids from going somewhere they shouldn’t, which always kind of strikes me as silly because one of the best things about worshiping at church is when one of the small kids breaks away from her parents.

Corinna Phillips and Kim Lyons by Barbara Jewell © Barbara Jewell/Lois Greenfield Photography Workshop!

She never really goes anywhere. She just stays there right in front of her parents and starts to dance. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because of the simplicity of the thing. She doesn’t comprehend all of the metaphysical things we are taught to think about when we are worshiping – raise your heart to God, let the words be a prayer to God, praising God as a community is important, and all that sort of thing. Instead, she hears music, and she dances. She probably knows that she is in God’s house and that God loves her very much. And so for her, it’s kind of like dancing in front of her grandparents. And it kind of makes me think that we spend all of this time stressing out about God’s will, and we really shouldn’t. All of that stressing out could be avoided if we just started dancing. We won’t always get it right. But that’s okay because God has our back. Sometimes the little girl tries to climb up on the pastor’s chair on the stage, and at that point, her parents have to lovingly tell her to come back.

Unknown's avatar

Script It

by

My college does this really cool thing where they go and teach middle schoolers about writing. So every Friday they graciously let me go spend time with 12 and 13-year-olds. I think mostly I have very little business being around children. I’m not a very good disciplinarian, and I like talking to them more than I like teaching them. But whether or not the students get anything out of it, I love hanging out with them.

Yesterday was our first day of this year, and so we spent our first lesson doing introductions. Introductions are interesting things. As adults, we’ve figured out how to finagle the system. Growing up should really be called “growing better at avoiding meaningful interactions with other people.” When we introduce ourselves, we use a script. When you ask my name, I will say Spencer, maybe Spencer Smith, but never Spencer James Smith. When you ask me what I do, I will answer student but never how I sometimes sit in my apartment eating Rice Crispies and watching marathons of The Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. And when you ask me how I’m doing, I will always say good. Even if it’s not.

Twelve-year-olds haven’t figured that script out yet. They still value things like creativity and individuality. Certainly, by the end of the year they will be much more scripted, but for now, they are pretty honest. Funny thing is, though, that their educators only push them more and more towards the script. As part of the introductions, each student in our class was asked to write a brief bio, the contents of which had been determined for them – a couple words to describe themselves, their likes, their dislikes, their fears, and their hopes. Amazingly, though, even given physical scripts, the students were themselves.

They talked about fearing robot uprisings, being hurt in football, and losing loved ones. They talked about loving school and hating school. They talked about their dislike of the difficulty of dieting. And they talked about being adopted, their compassion for famine in Africa, and moving to a new country. And I learned all of these things from a 30-second scripted introduction.

I have a friend who is obsessed with being genuine and another who is obsessed with innocence. I laugh at them when we are together because they think they are arguing when they are actually agreeing. Innocence allows us to be genuine. As we learn more about the world, we also learn that it sometimes makes people uncomfortable when we are completely honest.  And so we stop being honest and genuine. And we start saying things like “My name is Spencer. I am from Springboro, Ohio and I am 20 years old. I like ice cream, pizza, and reading. I dislike exercising, peas, and textbooks. I fear snakes. I hope that one day I will graduate. And one day I would like to visit Egypt.” Who’s the twelve-year-old now?

Weekend Bonus*:

Someone said she sought someone
Per positions plagued perilously,
Ergo ego  economically
Now new inquiries inside.
Commonly commenting
Ego
Responded, “I am Spencer.”

*I’m going to try and do the same assignment that we give the students each week just for fun. This week’s: acrostics.

Unknown's avatar

Writing to God

by

I think I started to get semi-serious about writing right around the time that I started to get semi-serious about girls. If you’ve ever gotten semi-serious about girls, you know it’s a complicated matter. It motivates you to do things like dress better, play sports, and pretend that you have to shave. The problem with getting semi-serious about girls, though, is that you very rarely finish anything. You write a little bit, then cry a little bit, write a little bit more, talk to a girl, cry some more, write, sleep, dream about girls, pretend to shave…. and nothing ever gets done. And it’s just a hassle.

I tell you all of this because what I really want to say is that I started to get semi-serious about writing because I wanted people to like me. I thought if I wrote my moody pre-teenage feelings poetically enough on my Xanga people would say “Ooh, he’s moody and poetic” and then they would immediately associate me with other moody and poetic people like Johnny Depp and John Mayer.

Moody and Poetic Teenage Writing

Here is some moody and poetic teenage writing.

Over the years, writing and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship. He helped me get a girlfriend in high school. And then I didn’t talk to him for a while. But then he selflessly got me into college, and I started hanging out with him again. Then he made me into a hipster, and I couldn’t forgive him for a while. The thing is, though, that I’ve never really been fair to writing. I’ve been using him for ulterior motives even before I knew what that word meant.

One night, when writing and I were on the outs, I went on a run because I was feeling kind of alone, and when you are feeling alone and you and writing are on the outs, there isn’t much else to do but to run. And while I was running, I was kind of talking to God because God is easy to talk to when there aren’t people around and the night is dark and you are in a golf course. While I was running and being with God, I realized that writing should be a little bit like talking to God. When you talk to God, it’s kind of hard to be selfish. Being selfish with God is a bit like meeting the president and asking him why they served cold food at your school that morning. It’s just not something you do. Instead, when you are talking to God, you start to realize all of the things you care about and all the people you care about. That’s a really beautiful thing, and it dawned on me that night while running and talking to God, that writing should be beautiful in that way.

So I’m making a commitment. Writing should be like talking to God.

The title of this site is “Spencer Writes,” but it’s only that because it’s cute and catchy. What I really want it to say is “Spencer Writes About People He Loves” because there really isn’t anything else worth writing about.