Sufjan Stevens Band • Page 15

mad · May 29, 2019

love this man

chhholly123 · May 29, 2019

So cool that he's donating a portion of the proceeds to the Ali Forney Center—such an incredible organization.

The songs are great too.

irthesteve · May 29, 2019

This whole EP thing is amazing

Argus · May 29, 2019

Lucas27 said:

Illinois and Carrie & Lowell are his two masterpieces in my book.

I’d say it depends on if you like the more ambitious side of Sufjan (then it’d be Age of Adz or Planetarium) or the more intimate side of Sufjan (then it’d be C&L or Seven Swans). If you’re looking for something more in between like Illinois, then All Delighted People and Michigan are the ways to go.

As amazing as Carrie & Lowell is, I have a hard time going back to it because it's so sad. Illinois and Age of Adz are my two favorites.

smowashere · May 29, 2019

Digging these new songs!

username · May 29, 2019

These songs are very good and I would certainly endorse this direction for his next record

ItsAndrew · Jun 12, 2019

LOVE YOURSELF

HAPPY LOVING DAY!

RuPaul says: “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Both suggest that self-love is what makes us human: you cannot love others without loving yourself. Which also means that we must cultivate love as a private and personal practice before we can extend love to others. To love yourself, you must know yourself. And to know yourself, you must love yourself. Love then is a sublime and universal understanding of self and of others. Love is a discipline of one’s own self-consciousness. Love is beautiful. Love is just. It must endure, it must evolve, it must expand, it must be born-again.

We have other very clear descriptions of love : “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

If loving others means loving and knowing yourself, then the failure to love is a failure to be oneself, a failure to be human; an inexcusable and unforgivable crime, and an offense to your humanity. It’s no secret that human history is an incriminating record at times entirely absent of love. We divide and conquer, disenfranchise, enslave, ostracize, oppress, debase, diminish, destroy, and utterly annihilate on the basis of superficial distinctions among us. I wish I could reasonably account for the motivations. Money? Greed? Power? Political and religious entitlement? Ego-mania?

How about self-loathing?

The serpent seduced Adam and Eve into eating the fruit on the basis of a hypothetical divine intention: “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” After they ate the fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

This seems to suggest that self-consciousness (awareness) is linked to two concepts: justice and shame. If Adam and Eve were living in harmony before knowing jurisprudence, then eating the fruit and knowing the difference between good and evil broke the spell.

The result: shame. The consequence: division—from God and from each other. They are cast out of the garden and cursed. The resulting histories as revealed in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity (and Game of Thrones, etc.) are not a happy ending. Instead the story of humanity is fraught with disobedience, violence, deception, bloodshed, failure, foolishness and folly. The story didn’t end well for Adam and Even. It doesn’t end well for humanity either.

This knowledge of good and evil and subsequent division and shame is one of the great mysteries of humankind, and an unresolvable contradiction of being human. We are made in God’s image, but we suffer the incongruity of not being God at all: as (if) God, but not of God. Knowledge is prone to power and power is prone to corruption and corruption is prone to the inevitability of chaos (entropy).

On this planet, we have been granted the distinction of greater consciousness, which grants us greater privilege, power, and stewardship over the natural world around us.

What have we to show for it?

Shame.

It’s astounding how much of our world still continues to teach us to feel shame. For the color of our skin. For our poverty. For our wealth. For our education. For our religion. For our privilege. For our special need. For our sexuality. For being naked in a garden.

How do we break this pattern?

Love.

My sense is that with knowledge and power, Adam and Eve must be born-again, through love, to a new way of seeing, living, and believing, in order to learn to love themselves in fullness—their bodies, each other, the world around them, the entire universe—in order to begin the great stewardship of being human again.

This is our calling as well: to be human again. To have awareness without shame, we must undo everything the world has told us about our worth. We must go back to the beginning. We must be born again. We must be, and know, and love ourselves.

“Be beautiful. Be yourself.”

“If you can accept your body, then you have a chance to see your body as your new home. You can rest in your body, settle in, relax, feel joy and ease. If you don’t accept your body and your mind, you can’t be at home with yourself. You have to accept yourself as you are. This is a very important practice. As you practice building a home in yourself, you become more and more beautiful.” —Thich Nhay Hanh

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another as I have loved you.” His love was touch, healing, instruction, service, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, and, ultimately, self-sacrifice, an act which illuminates profoundly on the laws of self-love and self-worth. “You have value.”

Why else would he have bothered if it didn’t cost him everything? We are made valuable because of the sacrifice of love.

And so this is our duty at every moment. To love without compromise and without equivocation. To give it our all, to the end, until we have nothing left to give.

The message here isn’t very deep.

So why does it feel so impossible?

We are called to do one simple thing called love.

We need to try harder. Do the work.

My song is love. My prayer is peace.

My head is full of questions but my heart is full of love!

XO,

Sufjan

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Jun 13, 2019

LOVE YOURSELF

Horrorca · Jun 13, 2019

v touching as expected

love you Suf

mad · Jun 13, 2019

mad said:

love this man

bears repeating

DaydreamNation · Jul 16, 2019

Sufjan Stevens and the Curious Case of the Missing 48 States

irthesteve · Jul 16, 2019

I read some of that article yesterday but was kinda bummed that there's no actual information in there, it's mostly just a synopsis of his career

ItsAndrew · Jul 16, 2019

When is the next album coming out Sufjan I need it now.

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Sep 18, 2019

ItsAndrew · Oct 17, 2019

The Decalogue is up on Bamdcamp now!

The Decalogue, by Sufjan Stevens, Timo Andres

zmtr · Oct 23, 2019

sonder · Oct 24, 2019

zmtr said:

Can confirm. Listened to the album this morning getting ready for work and wanted to go back to bed and hold my cat.

figureitout · Oct 27, 2019

Almost unbearable to listen to this since my mom died last year, but at the same time these songs mean more to me than ever.

ItsAndrew · Dec 12, 2019

Dying for a new album and tour next year.

irthesteve · Dec 12, 2019

Same

ItsAndrew · Dec 12, 2019

Whatever he releases will be my AOTY if he releases anything, most likely.

irthesteve · Feb 4, 2020

BE STILL MY HEART

2020 KEEPS ON GIVING AND GIVING

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

ItsAndrew · Feb 4, 2020

HOLY SHIT

irthesteve · Feb 4, 2020

"In philosophy, an aporia is a puzzle or state of puzzlement."

irthesteve · Feb 4, 2020

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

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