Welcome to the Taleings!

Hi! If you've found this blog, then you're probably wondering, what is this "taleings" stuff about anyway?

Well, tailings (note the different spelling!) are the leftovers of a mine - the things that weren't considered valuable at the time, but were cast aside for being different or "worthless". In early mining, the tailings were just left to weather in the environment - and they would sometimes poison local streams or wildlife areas. In more contemporary times, the tailings are recovered, recycled, and reclaimed in some way that benefits the area around the mine - or at least, that's how it's supposed to work.



In most cultures, a tale is a story told for some purpose - to entertain... to explain... to influence... to distract... to educate... and so on. But every time a story is told, there is a subtext - a reason that story was told at that particular time and place, or perhaps a deeper meaning to that story than appears on the surface.

Taleings, if you follow the portmanteau, are the remnants of a story that remain after its surface meaning has been removed. In most cases, that would be the subtext - but it may also be stories that didn't make it to market, those that have been cast aside for being different or "worthless".

But here's the thing: archaeologists and anthropologists love to find tailings, as they show what a society finds valuable and what they find different, common, or uninteresting. And there are always surprising things in the tailings - things that, though initially perceived as worthless, later are found to be of immense value. Hold on to that thought, because I'll be coming back to it.

Sidetracking for a moment with a personal story:
By college, I was used to this outsider status - but there, I discovered that other people, who had been made to feel the same way I did, were more numerous than those who had treated us poorly to start with. Over time, we grouped together, and discovered our worth, despite our many and varied interests and our childhood trauma. We, who had once been the tailings of society, were now proud of our "geek" and "nerd" status. We embraced post-post-modern thought, and sought out each other's stories, valuing them for their similarities and differences both. Like the anthropologists, we had discovered the value of being cast off.

Growing up, I enjoyed reading books. A lot of books. In fact, in fourth grade, I got in trouble for reading in class... as did most of the rest of my class. We were, to my knowledge, the only class that ever got in trouble for reading too much. But most of the rest of my grade school years, it was unusual to read as much as I did. And, since we moved just about every three years, there was no time for people to get to know me on a long-term basis. Nearly every new place we went, I ended up feeling outcast, ostracized, or different.

 In many ways, this sense of new-found hope can be summed up by Felicia Day and the rest of the cast of the Guild (strong language warning):

Yes, there are problems with the video - just because society has swung to viewing you as cool does not mean that you actually are - or that "cool" is something that you should want to be. But the taleings of this video suggest that loyalty and sacrifice will be rewarded. The shots at the end of the video are especially moving to me, as they show young Codex (Felicia Day) falling backwards into a pool after being pushed juxtaposed with contemporary Codex falling backwards onto a crowd of adoring fans. In both cases, she has her arms outstretched in the classic crucifixion pose. In one reading of this, her loyalty to her sense of self, whether as a child or as an adult, has transformed her sacrifice into adoration.

And now we come to the third component of this blog - Christianity, and especially the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Sidetrack #2:
 I'm a seminary graduate now "seeking a call" (aka, looking to find a church who needs a pastor, and would be compatible with my leadership style). The church has claimed a monopoly on truth for many, many years - and emphasis on the mono prefix, meaning "One". Just as society has moved away from a fixation on one cultural identity into which all must fit - which created many of the pressures to ostracize the different that I and other "geeks" and "nerds" experienced - the church is slowly moving from that model as well. But the culture at large has yet to see that move - highlighting, instead, the radical fringe that insist on rubber-stamp theology, and "one proper way of worship". Fortunately, there are Christians who hold other points of view - that theological doctrine should be questioned, and weighed, and measured, just as cultural doctrine should be. My tradition follows a creed of sorts, right from its separation from the Catholic church - and the creed, though it is in Latin, still translates well today. "Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda" - "The Church reformed and always reforming". Here are the "talelings" of that statement as I read it: The Church must constantly be examining itself from within and without, changing itself as new understandings of God are revealed over time. These changes won't always be effective, but stagnating is never the answer, and the change is never for change's sake alone.

You see, the church has been creating its own pool of outcasts - its own tailings. In its zeal to mine for truth, the church has often ignored Jesus' reminder that God wants us to care for the outcast, the fringe groups, and the ostracized. Treating the church like it's a social club - or worse, a team sport - has led to the "church nerds" and "church geeks" being excluded in many of the same ways. And just as the nerds and geeks of society have found their way into pride at our exclusion status, so too are many people becoming proud of their exclusion from the church.

But here's one more thing: the tailings of the church are the very people the church is supposed to be serving.

So, my hopes for this blog are that it will help to record and link the stories of the outcasts, the ostracized, the subtext, and the nerds and geeks in an unique way. You see, I'm also an audio reporter and engineer. I'm hoping that interviews with people will be a big part of this blog, as a regular monthly podcast feature. I'll put language warnings where appropriate, but won't shy away from posting things just because of language usage. I encourage conversation - talk back, say what's on your heart and mind, and we'll have some good discussions - but do not attack people personally. There are no bad people, nor good people - just people that experience different pains and traumas, different highs and joys, but share the same humanity at their core.