If I Ever Feel Better

I haven’t been watching The Hollowmen on the ABC up to this point.  The comments I’d heard from people who worked with me in my government days weren’t glowing and I wondered if it was a great concept with flawed execution.  But this week, a lot of people have been talking about the show going where I have been so many times - the listing of a new drug on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

As someone who’s worked for the government on pharmaceutical issues and for Big Pharma on government issues, how could I resist watching a TV show about it?  Fortunately, the episodes are available for download and, if you’re interested, you can get an insight into what my life has been like the last three years.

Not that it’s spot on in every way.  The Working Dog guys are pretty smart and they get the process - and the ultimate solution - spot on.  The main thing that doesn’t ring true is the visit to the pharmaceutical company itself.  It’s a little bit too much like the public perception, rather than the reality of 2008 where money is a little bit tighter.

It’s just so strange watching a TV show and thinking “I’ve been in that meeting.”

If the particles, in their colliding
At the speed of light (or a bit less)
Bring forth black holes from space-time biding

Then all your work will have been for nought
Except the knowledge (hollow victory this)
That our end was as unlikely as our start

We’ll go out in a flash of dark improbabilities
With pink elephants, fish on bicycles
And the winnings from ten straight lotteries

And if the thing doesn’t work at all
We can thank our lucky stars
And be confident that was rises will fall

But keep waiting if you are a pessimist,
A larger hadron collider may yet
Do the trick and we’ll cease to exist

Last month, one of my musical heroes passed through my city and I didn’t go and see him play.  Part of that was because his recent music isn’t doing it for me like it used to.  The other part was a slight feeling of betrayal, one that just won’t leave me.

See, David Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) meant something very special to me once upon a time.  It seemed like it was possible to be a serious, cool Christian guy, operating in the world of indie rock and being frank about your faith and your doubts.  I’m someone with a LOT of doubt, but strong beliefs as well - a contradiction and a tension that makes it a little difficult to fit in with either the believers or the unbelievers.   Pedro the Lion’s songs captured that feeling.

Now maybe I had him up on too high a pedestal, one Bazan would have been the first to tell me to get him right off.   I sang “Of Minor Prophets and Their Prostitute Wives” to a bible study (easier than preparing a study on Haggai, and catchier).  I quoted “The Secret of the Easy Yoke” in a sermon.  I loved his irreverence mixed with deep conviction.  He seemed to be like me, only cooler and more talented.  The only way from that kind of adulation is down.

But last year when I was in Seattle, I read an interview in the local indie rag where Bazan said he no longer considered himself a Christian.  He was an agnostic, probably.  It was serendipitous - I was in Seattle for one week only and the story wasn’t reported widely - and it broke my heart a little bit.  Clearly I’m not the only one who felt that way - Joel Hartse in the latest Patrol Magazine clearly went through all the same emotions.

For me, it was kind of like reading Tanya Levin’s journey into unbelief (blogged about here) last year, when I could see so many parallels with my own journey.  When you see yourself walking down the same path as someone and then you see the destination they reach, it seems like only a matter of time before you get there too.

At the same time, it hardens my resolve not to end up where they have.  It’s so easy to let your disillusionment win over, to let the shit you’ve seen distract you from the truth about Jesus.  I heard a Rob Bell talk earlier this year when advised people to “doubt your doubts” - to subject your anger and questioning to the same critical thinking you put your beliefs and passions through.  Because often they’re less well-grounded than the things you’ve held to all these years.  Often they don’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

I don’t know what’s happened to David Bazan.  I do know that I’m not him.  I’m a different David and I’ve got my own path to follow and I suspect I’m going to like where it takes me.