Senseless Beatings

A Call to Walk into the Sea

Longtime followers of Senseless Beatings will remember our vow to not make vapid and meaningless music:

 http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=410147325673 .  

In After History, we attempt to illustrate the way in which the Holocaust and Nuclear warfare is the finale of human history, and as a result we are living after history; we are born into a time where the myth of progress has been disavowed.  After History, we are beyond the dialectical movement described by Hegel, Marx, and Sartre, and find ourselves in a sort of parmenidean stasis.  Our current system of exchange, this disgusting ‘late capitalism’, seams permanent.  Each of us, no matter our agenda, seems doomed to a Sisyphean fate. 

How, without progress as a goal, can we begin to feel a true sense of worth? Without direction, where can we find meaning?  Religion? If there can be no progress, of what use is a God of progress?  The God(s) of the onto-theological tradition led us down the road to The War.  An all powerful God became an ultimate weapon; demagogues with “God on their side” felt as though they could kill with impunity.  No, a God of power could not be the object of faith for a person after history. Traditional beliefs that posit a Deity as the ground of Being would not keep; we needed Caputo’s Religion without Religion.  Religion without religion is for lovers, and as Paul tells us, 

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  

A religious love such as this undoes the system of exchange.  It allows for a gift that doesn’t require reciprocation.  This religion without religion doesn’t command us to fear God, but instead gently calls us to be better than we are by being less of ourselves. This call to be less, to be weaker throws a wrench in the system of exchange.

 Freud calls the religious experience an oceanic feeling; a feeling of oneness with the universe. Unlike Freud, we believe this oceanic feeling only comes through acting in selfless love; love is the way to the sea. As such, the metaphorical act of walking into the sea, is the act of dying to the world in order to truly be together in love.  This love manifests itself in sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, acceptance, and unity.  This sea, this kingdom of God, happens here in our hearts; One could say it never really happens; it can’t be described.  It can’t be fossilized. 

We Will Walk into the Sea is the exploration of this religion without religion as an answer to being thrown into a time after history.

You can listen here: http://senselessbeatings.bandcamp.com/album/we-will-walk-into-the-sea

For more elucidation read: 

The Weakness of God by John Caputo 

Father

We take for granted that a good father is amazing. Dad is strong; he can hold us, protect us, and guide us on our way.  But one day, he has to go.  It is the inevitable absence of the father that is the greatest teaching he can give us.  He dies, falls out of relevance, and becomes a memory.  His weakness, absence, and final feminineness is his final and most important lesson.

  The father’s final lesson is that the edifice of masculinity eventually falls through like sand through an hour glass. The attempt to control and to plan is always a failure; Cosmos is a short lived myth.  The death of the father gives us the freedom to be weak. His solid codes are revealed to be lines in the shifting sands of time; good/evil, presence/absence, true/false, being/nothingness…all left in question.  

The father’s death stirs us to live beyond these dualisms…beyond systems. Within the incredible uncertainty that follows death, there is a call.  The father’s non-being alerts me to the need to embrace the possibility of death…own up to the fact that we will all die; and no power is ever going to change that.  Everyday has become an absurd gift; a chance to give, to forgive, to love, and to one day be weak enough to sit with my father in a place beyond good and evil, a place that can never be here.

Walk into the Sea.

Pre-order for We Will Walk into the Sea

You can now pre-order our upcoming LP, “We Will Walk into the Sea”.  Upon purchasing you will be able to download 7 tracks, and on January 3rd, 2012 you will receive the full album and loads of bonus content including acoustic performances, remixes, otherwise unavailable recordings, an essay concerning the oceanic nature of religious experience, videos, artwork, and more.  http://senselessbeatings.bandcamp.com/releases

Knots

http://senselessbeatings.bandcamp.com/track/knots

I wrote this song after I saw my grandmother in the hospital over the summer, and I didn’t think she was gonna make it.  Perhaps some of you who have been through similar situations with people you love can relate to this one.

Forgiveness

http://senselessbeatings.bandcamp.com/track/forgiveness

Forgiveness is beautiful; it can’t be captured in ordinary language because it isn’t of this world. In a world where every action has a reaction, forgiveness stands as a non-action that tears at the structure of ordinary exchange. Where there once was “an eye for an eye”, forgiveness turns the other cheek. Forgiveness upsets the balance of power; forgiveness takes a beating—endures it in its fullness—and prays for its assailant. Forgiveness wants nothing in return; forgiveness is incomprehensible; it receives no rewards and requires nothing.