jhimm

View
Track

User biography

Submitted by jhimm on 24 September, 2007 - 15:38.

Country: United States of America

i’m 34, married, and just moved to Chicago in July of 2007.

i grew up in NJ in what slowly turned into a very fundamentalist, very charismatic United Methodist church.

i attended Gordon College from ‘91-95 to become a high school math teacher. after a short time in that field, i switched to computers and now do software engineering and data modeling in the medical field.

i converted to Roman Catholicism around age 25. after 4 years at Gordon, witnessing the endless squabbling of all the various protestant franchises and a year living with Jesus People USA (an intentional community) here in Chicago, i decided that the notion of schism was inherently flawed, and since i can’t speak Greek or Russian, and therefore couldn’t join the Byzantine tradition (in my experience, English speaking Orthodox churches are very hard to find), i became a Catholic.

i have been for some time very reluctant to call myself a Christian. life circumstances took me away from the parish that wooed me into the RCC and none that i have been to since have had anything like the sense of purpose that one had. the current political climate and the militarization of the Christian Right makes me even more hesitant to identify in a way that others might mistake for inclusion in that mindset or condoning of it. i have been interested in Taoism for a while now, and find a pleasant synergy in the notion of “the way” and Jesus’ words about himself as “The Way”. so, i have taken to identifying myself as a Follower of The Way (Tao) of Jesus. i also find great potential in the Japanese notion of wabi-sabi, a philosophy which embraces the imperfections of the physical world as having their own inherent beauty. roughly translated with the notions that “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect”, this seems to be a wonderful mantra to guide us on our walk in “The Way”.

as a musician who is depressed by the avalanche force growth of rock band worship concerts over the past 25 years and the near complete eclipse of a more contemplative approach to music as an aspect of liturgy and worship, i am always looking for opportunities to explore the possibilities there. i have been in a number of live performance groups in the past 15 years or so and have always tried to make them an opportunity to demonstrate an alternative to the “rock and roll lifestyle”. as age makes it less and less graceful for me to remain a bar and night club performer, i am becoming more and more interested in music as contemplation, on the couch, guitar or midi controller in hand, headphones firmly in place. i would love to get involved in some kind of “open source” musical project.