Crazy Praise

I know there are some people who will say that you haven’t worshipped until you’ve sweated out your perm (read relaxer and perm are used interchangeably for black women [and others?] with kinky hair), but why? 

Admittedly, one can argue that the energy in a room is quite high and the aroma of sweat…and perfume, is it(?) might lend many to believe that high praise may have happened, but really? Really?!

Catharsis

Doing some light reading on the word catharsis.  It’s a nice word to say on the tongue, isn’t it?  Feels rather, uhm…cathartic.  Anyhow, turns out that we owe a debt to Aristotle for employing catharsis as a literary effect in his work entitled, Poetics.

Hear this you hip hop heads!  Rappers are not the only ones with “beef.”  Nor did you invent “answer records.”  Okay, maybe you did sort of invent the latter, but the concept of response is old.  Apparently, Aristotle wrote Poetics in response to Plato who believed that poetry encouraged men to be hysterical and uncontrolled.  Yeah, I have to admit that Def Poetry makes me a bit crazy! lol Why does everyone sound like Sonia Sanchez?  I surmise biting to be appropo in the misty world of poetry.  

Alright, so Plato —>poetry=hysteria.    

Aristotle —> poetry= < hysteria or less emotional. 

Aristotle felt it gave people “a periodic and healthy outlet to their feelings.”  In Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle’s Poetics, F.L. Lucas states that it is the “human soul that is purged of its passions.”  And straight off of the wiki files, catharsis “refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome either the characters in a play, or an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy).”

Even more interesting, is how the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht employed catharsis in his dramas by leaving significant emotions unresolved as a way to move theatre patrons to social action.  I’m not 100% sure of what this looks like and quite honestly, wiki has really just opened up a can of worms for me with this word.  I have a lot more research to do on it as well as this Brecht guy, not to mention Aristotle and Plato!  But I imagine if Brecht was as tiny as Spike Lee and could fit into his bite-sized Air Jordan’s  in 1989′s Do The Right Thing, we may have seen him demonstrate such a use of carthsis when Lee portrayed as (stutter) MMMookie threw a garbage can into the window of Sal’s Pizzeria after the restaurant was stormed by an angry Buggin’ Out, played by Giancarlo Espisito and his squadron of 4 because Sal wouldn’t “put no brotha’s on the wall!” Of course, then we have the the akward spat he and Sal had before he scraped his final pay off the sidewalk after Radio Raheem is killed by brut police force.  Pretty much all hell breaks loose. 

Even if you weren’t particularly moved to any action beside going to the bathroom, you probably felt a slight sense that you and your crew should do something, right?  Hopefully.

Anyway, the point is this catharsis thing is kind of interesting.  Lots of church folk have to fess up here, huh?  Some of what is being disguised as praise is really just a release of pent up emotion and passion, albeit frustrating or howering angst from the tragedy of our lives.  It feels good to let go.  But what is so different about sweating to the universal beat of an ill trained drummer and trance-like organists’ dinking on white and black keys and Richard Simmons sweating to the oldies?  Work-outs give me carb fits and it’s no coincidence, I’m sure that Napoli’s Pizza is directly across the way from the gym.  That ain’t right, ya’ll! But if good work-outs alone give me no restraint against carb cravings then what in creation is to prevent a Christian or non-Christian for that matter from leaving a sweat session at church, (being informed that they have duly worshipped God) and diving head first into a cesspool of sin?  It ain’t the clanging of that organ, that’s for sure.

Carthatic experiences are not sufficient to keep me from reviling God’s name.  They don’t even mean I’ve worshipped him. 

Crazy Praise

So, what’s up with all the crazy praise?  I mean, what profit does running around a building bring to your life after you’ve gone home Sunday afternoon?  What’s up with the screaming, the howling, and the charismatic wop?  Are you more victorious in prayer, killing sin, loving others, forgiving those who hurt you, giving, seeing and savoring Christ?  

I wonder about these so-called churches that maybe employ catharsis as a worship style to entice people to do something after they’ve felt a release of this pent up energy.  Give, give, give!  Your mind clear enough to “tithe” your entire pay check yet?  No?  “Cue Drummer!”  *Clank, clank, clank, clank!*

Why not expend that energy into crazy living? Just sayin’