If people appeared in Joyce’s dream as they actually are, then last strip Dorothy would’ve had huge bags under bloodshot eyes, and been dressed in the same t-shirt and sweatpants that she’s been wearing for the past week-and-a-half.
Joyce kept it hidden in her closet for a while, but started wearing it again after Amber took care of Druggo McStabbedalot. She must still make that connection.
Passage of time? Her abandoned home town, morphed into something alien? I’d say marriage, but I don’t know how big Joyce would be on a secular wedding.
It’s a very striking building. If you look it up on Google Street View, it looks kinda like a cathedral in brick. And those top arches are really prominent.
Not surprising that anyone who grew up in La Porte would have it in the background of their dreams.
Yeah, looks like this may well be a breaking point. (Certainly if she responds how I would bet she does – bottling it up and pretending to be Perfectly Normal to everyone, including potential resources like Becky and Dorothy who could both help her recalibrate.)
Well, whoever they are, they’re wrong. I know a little music theory and it just looks like some random musical notes to me. I thought maybe they’re going off the fact that he’s playing a hammered dulcimer, but I went and checked and the song doesn’t have that in it. If it was a mandolin maybe.
Nah, you can’t tell anything from the free-floating notes. They just indicate music is happening. Notes don’t mean anything unless they’re arrayed against a staff, which looks nothing like an actual staff; just five horizontal lines.
The core melody might be recognizable, though, at least enough to guess what time it’s in. And there’s definitely note progressions there. Could be nothing, could be significant.
I think the song might be ‘Sometimes by Step’
The chapter title is from that and the intro is hammered dulcimer. Also it’s thematically appropriate – which one would expect since the Willis took a lyric from it, no duh
I guess you could imagine it’s Creed which has a very long hammered dulcimer intro and could be very guilt inducing to anyone questioning their Christian faith – lol don’t ask me how I know
But ‘sometimes by step’ probably sheds more light on Joyce’s menyak state.
Bless her heart
Dunno if she’s gonna wind up an atheist but I still have nightmares about leaving religion and my family. It’s been about 6 years now.
I have That Album on vinyl, Cassette, and CD. Vinyl was for the house, cassette for the car, and CD was after both the analog recordings wore out or were destroyed.
We’re both showing our age… No, that can’t be it. We’ve both a wide musical range that includes classic mid 70’s rock. Yeah that’s it. Not old at all. 🙂
The Parasaurolophus thing was last storyline, right? Like I’ll find it if I cross-search Joyce and Dina?
And hoo boy. Went through the ‘underneath the trappings my faith is empty’ crisis when I was like thirteen and it is NOT fun. Suspected we were building towards it, but yep. Add on the fact she built her whole personality around it and… Well, Joyce is gonna have a rough time of things.
Hit someone’s tag, go to the URL, and before the last slash add ‘+character’ (and just insert who here) and you’ll search strips that tag them both. Super useful! (Only works with two at a time, I believe, but that’s usually plenty.)
And it’s always so much harder if your closest friends are atheist/agnostic. When I had a similar experience I felt lost because if I talked to my atheist friends they would just tell me to give up on religion entirely, and I wasn’t ready to do that. Likewise with my christian friends. I hope Joyce doesn’t give up on her faith entirely, I like it as a part of her character.
What gave it away? The dead dulcimer player, Joyce’s outfit, or falling through windows of buildings over a hundred miles away from IU or the dinosaur names in the windows she wasn’t falling through?
No, it was the openly gay Gender Studies teacher and the lack of a mandated Christian second opinion on each subject. Totally a dream, no way that could happen in RL America.
To me, cold water or cold air running over my shoulders that makes me relaxed.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m the only one who experiences that though. I never had a church, but there was a prayer tower in my town that I would go when I needed to think in high school.
Probably the same feeling you get from regular meditation, except you believe it’s caused by a powerful being connecting with you from a conceptual plane.
As an atheist, personally I think your own brain chemistry is a much more likely cause, but it’s cool if people find it valuable.
I don’t know what you’re supposed to feel, but I expect every Christian has his experience. I had a dedicated Christian tell me repeatedly that it’s “not experiential”. I didn’t say, “Then what good is it?” but I wanted to.
Well, I remember that when I was a teenager, I was told at church that if we pray for God to help us with our problems, they might not get fixed, but we’d feel the comfort of God’s love with us; presumably like the footprints in the sand deal, just knowing he’s by your side or carrying you through the worst parts of your life.
Turns out that you feel jack squat if you try this with depression, though.
Like flow. Like things are / will work out. Like you are a part of the universe and the that it matters. That you might be a small thing but even small things are valued. So like love in a relationship, but more generalized. Like you could stretch out and live in gods kingdom and transcend this world. So not something one can just summon at will.
As others have commented, it sounds very much like the experience sought in some forms of meditation. You can’t summon it at will, but there are definitely techniques for reaching it.
It is by no means unique to Christian prayer, but appears to be a near universal human experience, at least in potential. Generally interpreted as a religious or spiritual experience as understood within one’s culture.
Dealing with trauma isn’t a thing you ever really stop doing. Joyce will be dealing with it for this entire webcomic, and in fact long after the timescale for Dumbing of Age ends.
I play hammer dulcimer! I’d never heard of Rich Mullins before but I am excited that you drew the hammers right, even if he is holding them a little weird.
Faith musician who wrote “Awesome God”, and died young from a car crash due to not wearing his seatbelt. All the makings of a musician who’d become ingrained as a huuuge part of the culture, as evidenced by Joyce thinking of him here despite him dying before she was even born. lot of staying power.
He also gave a lot of his earning to charity, spoke out against prosperity gospel, taught music in impoverished areas and wrote a musical about Francis of Assisi. So he might not fit in the box labeled “Christian musician”. A Christian who would contrast sharply with Joyce’s brother with the sharp car. (May his name be forgotten)
Impoverished non-Christians he saw no reason to convert and preferred the company to to his insular middle class white listeners. He was the real deal, tbh
And Joyce immediately becomes intensely relatable again (okay, maybe she never stopped). Was legitimately just struggling with this within the past year. Just in the past month or so, I realized that I was raised in… what meets most of the signs of a cult, even if it wasn’t quite as extreme as what the word “cult” conjures in most people’s heads.
(Sorry, it’s another of my emotional, longwinded comments, haha.)
I say this because, even if Joyce is fictional, I know a lot of Joyces. Hell, I AM Joyce. And it was a huge taboo to ever talk about doubts or questions in my religion growing up, so for anybody else going through the Dreaded Faith Crisis, you’re not alone, I’m cheering for you, and they say it gets better eventually.
(I’m not quite to the “better” part yet myself, but I did finally tell my mom that “queer people aren’t bad, you’re just mean” today. I mean, I didn’t tell her that I’m one of said queer people and I’m not sure I will, but a few years ago, I never would’ve imagined saying even THIS out loud to her. So… I don’t know. Maybe hearing the voice of your conscience coming out of your mouth is better than hearing the voice of your parents’ God in your head…?)
Yeah, Joyce’s been super-relatable to me because I internalized the most fucked up parts of religion around me and it fed into my anxiety and compulsive tendencies in the worst way. My surroundings were much more mainstream, but when that shit’s all around you and you’re already prone to amxiety spirals, it doesn’t take much.
It takes a while. But there’s definitely a way out of that headspace and the other side can be so freeing after you devote that much time to being afraid. Glad you’re making your way out of it yourself! *Internet fistbump*
Joyce is relatable to me not for religious reasons (as far as I can tell, I have never had faith in the supernatural) but because I was brought up in an extremist right wing community and a lot of the struggles with de-radicalization mirror what Joyce goes through.
Ironically, doubt saved my faith in the fact that I’d joined a very extremist branch of Christianity full of faith. I had a mystical experinece of the kind that Joyce started to feel and ironically it told me that I was on a wrong and terrible path.
“Stop being an asshole” is a very good rule. My main rule I try to live by is essentially “leave the world a less shitty place than you found it” and I guess there’s a lot of similarity there, haha 🙂
I feel like all of our main cast is kind of hitting a breaking point at the same time. Joyce is having a crisis of faith, Sal and Amber are attempting to not self-destruct on each other, Billie is definitely self-destructing, Walky is breaking up with his second girlfriend in like two weeks, Ruth is barely out of the hospital, Danny’s still banjo Danny…
I mean, it IS college, I guess. I seem to remember most of my friend group having crises or breakdowns within the same year (and often same semester) of college tbh.
In addition to the requirements of the various narrative arcs, they are also at a point in the semester where the first exams are coming up and the first serious papers are due. The academic pressure will only get heavier from here.
Hurts the most to hear this kinda stuff from the people whose opinions we care about the most. Joyce’s subconscious knows how to throw a helluva emotional punch >.>
I’m one card short of a full deck…
I’m not quite the shilling…
One wave short of a shipwreck…
I’m not my usual top billing…
I’m coming down with a fever…
I’m really out to sea…
This kettle is boiling over…
I think I’m a banana tree…
Oh dear…
I’m going slightly mad…
Jeeez, pre-rad dream-Becky. It’s not a competition. And jeeeez, Joyce’s subconcious. In real life, Becky doesn’t judge you. She’s totally cool with letting you complain about your situation
“Oh, hello Becky from three months ago! What are you doing here! Wait, where have the Laws of Physics gone! Oh nooo! My brain is going weeeiiirrrd!!!”
FWIW, after the dream I had last night about settling in the town that was definitely the setting for Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content, I’m definitely empathising with Joyce right now!
I’m wondering if Joyce heard about Sal’s favourite dinosaur and, as she’s a little fixated on Sal, her subconscious is desperately trying to work out the significance of the Parasaurolophus!
As a former Christian, its a pretty troubling experience to have both faith and doubt bouncing around in your mind. The large number of Christians who don’t doubt/question their faith make you feel like an anomaly, and Christianity demonizes doubt. Even the existence of the different Episcopal tradition is a challenge to her faith. With so many traditions, how do you determine the right path? How do you tell the voice of God from your own Ego or Superego? Some people give up on faith, and some people double down on faith. We’ll see for Joyce.
Of course, since you’re not admitting questioning your faith to them, how many of them are filled with doubts they don’t dare mention for fear of being demonized?
Joyce has been taught she ought to be able to “feel God” when she prays?
I have only the vaguest idea what that is.
This seems like a real Emperor’s New Clothes thing and if that’s the kind of subjective nonsense Joyce’s church has been prioritizing then I’ve lost all faith in Joyce’s faith.
Feeling God when you pray, the basis of a mystical system, is something that virtually all religions have deep and lengthy experiences with. It is actually the basis of many forms of meditation and the entire branch of faith known as mysticism.
Mother Theresa wrote many letters talking about her struggles with the fact she ceased to be able to feel God’s presence when she prayed. It was a struggle that she no longer felt the deep spiritual communion with God she used to–but continued to believe and worked hard to live up to the standards of charity as well as poverty she felt was the way God wished her to live.
Albert Einstein and Spinoza would be a good place to start. Albert Einstein believed in a nonsentient impersonal mathematical perfection to the universe that he called God. He regularly prayed, meditated, and pondered this as well as used it to inspire his emotions. Pantheism where you revere the universe and nature in general (ala the Force) is also a good example.
People who have rituals, comfort, and all the nature of religion with stuff that has already been confirmed to be true or rely on human achievements as divine.
The Force may or may not be sentient but it is the collective sum of the universe and sentience in the universe. They know it’s real and it is the subject of their faith.
Now is the best time to share my favorite song from him. I may no longer believe but I remember his music from when I was younger and will never forget how much passion he had https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhGOosxTLrY
To help predict where we are headed, I took a look at Mullins in concert singing the song. Not so great on lyrics, but he talks about the song and live music is best. https://youtu.be/pmJMZuEKGYU
I don’t understand this arc at all. I have no idea who this guy is, why we’re in Joyce’s dream, or why we care. None of this even seems new, or triggered by anything in particular.
1) Rich Mullins. He wrote a bunch of contemporary Christian music that was the cornerstone of Willis’ (and likely Joyce’s) childhood church. He’s here as a hopefully benevolent adult who may understand Joyce’s dilemma.
2) We’ve been in character’s dreams before. It’s not new. It’s to illustrate thoughts/feelings the characters are having in more symbolic ways.
3) Well, ideally you care because you care about Joyce’s arc if you’re reading a comic about her but if you don’t, you care because you’re waiting to get back to characters whose arc you do care about. If you don’t care about any of their arcs, I dunno what to tell you. Time to kill? 😛
4) We actually haven’t heard anything about Joyce no longer (or possibly never) feeling god when she prays. We’ve seen her struggle with doubt or needing reassurance, but that info IS new.
Going into characters’ dreams isn’t new, but just jumping to them with no context or reason to care is…boring. This isn’t a new dilemma, thought, or feeling. It’s the same one we’ve already explored in multiple ways since day 1.
We get it: Joyce has some internal conflict between the faith she was raised with and the new perspectives she is growing. That’s been true the entire comic. Why are we randomly focusing back in on it NOW, enough to have a multi-strip dream sequence? Woohoo, she’s still conflicted about it…now if she’s gonna DO something about that, great. Otherwise, why am I watching confusing dreamscapes that don’t impact actual plot?
I guess I don’t like the idea of starting a new chapter with a dream sequence, then. Nothing to link it to something meaningful.
Also, Joyce is the least interesting character to me, so that doesn’t help. We have so many interesting plots and characters going on, so switching back to spend time with her, with no context, in a medium that doesn’t even allow for meaningful plot advancement…is just 5 kinds of frustrating time wasted away from the good stuff, lol.
Also, the dude in these dreams looks super creepy and I’d like to stop looking at him.
A) It’s a new storyline. We jump to new things in new storylines all the time.
B) The conflict isn’t new but this part is – we’ve heard nothing about Joyce no longer feeling god when she prays – that is huge and it’s not something we’ve heard Joyce struggle with.
So my experience with these churches growing up is they love the feel good conversion story and the faith through adversity story and the I hit rock bottom but He raised me up story but no one, NO ONE, had anything to say to the teenage true believer who eats sleeps and breaths Jesus but slowly realizes that he just doesn’t feel ‘it’.
Just pray harder, thats all. Pray more. Pray ‘like you mean it’.
After all, if you really ment it, you’d feel Him working through you. If you can’t, it’s because of you. You must have done something to make him hide his face.
No real support, unless you count all the well intentioned souls judgment as people pick through your life to rid you of anything they’ve decided God detests.
I remember contemplating drug addiction just so I could have my own I Couldn’t Do It On My Own But Jesus Made Me Clean story.
20 years later and I don’t believe any of what I used to. I don’t think I even believe in God at all anymore, but I still find myself sometimes wondering why the God I don’t believe in doesn’t love me.
I think that people searching for a mystical experience are missing the point. I have had the benefit of having several in my life but they’re not things that can be conjured at will. I feel like it’s better to find the spirit of God (or Christianity if you wish) in helping others.
I got more benefit from that than I ever did waiting for a God-High.
@Daggart Not sure if this is a helpful thing to say, but I’m certain that the God I do believe in does love you. I can imagine circumstances where having someone tell you that might make you angry, so I’m sorry if it does. Your hurt might need a different balm from the one I’ve got in my medicine kit, but this is the one I have.
I feel as though the inclusion of Rich Mullins in this arc could lead to an interaction of some sorts and might come as a bit of a comfort for Joyce. For anyone unaware, Rich had some different ideas on Christianity, especially when it comes to feeling God. He put it simply once when he said that it was more about obedience and faith than any feeling.
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the world as best as I remember it
Good thing Becky got all that haircut money from her house
Haircut money was from Billie, although she was really being paid to shut up and go away.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/cashbucks/
Subsequent haircuts then i guess?
If people appeared in Joyce’s dream as they actually are, then last strip Dorothy would’ve had huge bags under bloodshot eyes, and been dressed in the same t-shirt and sweatpants that she’s been wearing for the past week-and-a-half.
Yes, I can see dreaming about someone looking like they did in the past.
Next comic: Joyce looks up, sees Prismo and the Cosmic Owl, and realizes that Rich is just there to provide the music for a party.
… and then Jake walks through with a jar of pickles.
PICKLES!!!
Then Orgalorg ruins the party and the Party God tells Joyce that the party was in her heart the whole time.
*hammered dulcimer intensifies*
And how! Oof.
The big swerve is that this is all actually Rich Mullins’ dream
He wakes up, walks over to the shower, and there’s Patrick Duffy.
If I’ve learned anything, this is about where Joyce asks Ethan to give her all of his thing.
What girl doesn’t fantasize her first time being set to dulcimer jams.
He is the evil. Just listen to his “Muzak”.
BOY THAT’S A FAMILIAR ORANGE SWEATER THAT SHE WASN’T WEARING LAST COMIC
oof, no kidding. Last panel, i wonder if that’s what she is reacting to.
OH.
Oh. Oh shit.
Uh oh.
Hm.
Oh Hell. I just caught that.
Someone wanna fill me in?
That’s the sweater from the party. The one she doesn’t wear anymore in waking life because of the bad memories (and blood).
It’s the sweater she wore when she got roofied at the house party.
Joyce kept it hidden in her closet for a while, but started wearing it again after Amber took care of Druggo McStabbedalot. She must still make that connection.
It’s the return of Frowning Clock Tower from Joyce’s previous dream!
Is it me or is there a dinosaur species name in the clock tower?
Several dinosaur species as a matter of fact.
Only one, Parasaurolophus (which is actually a genus, not a species). It’s the only dino genus that’s particularly relevant to the dream.
Wait, is that what you meant by ‘several species’? I may have misread you…
They are probably feathery, so Not several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave…
Hadrosaurs probably weren’t feathered – we have no evidence of feathers, and solid evidence of scales in them.
Including P. Walkeri, apparently.
I was wondering what relevance this had to the dream sequence, but then I remembered:
We’ve seen this before!
What are the buildings with clocks one them?
The La Porte County Courthouse, from her last dream.
(Yeah, I’m not gonna dream about courthouses from now on if I can help it.)
It’s the county courthouse from Joyce’s hometown.
And its other appearance.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/thing/
That’s where I recognised it from.
I wonder why it is symbolically important to Joyce.
Passage of time? Her abandoned home town, morphed into something alien? I’d say marriage, but I don’t know how big Joyce would be on a secular wedding.
Yeah, I wonder that to. It doesn’t seem to be connected to church as far as I can tell. Maybe it just means home
Courthouse:: I’m suggesting it means ‘Judgement ‘
It’s a very striking building. If you look it up on Google Street View, it looks kinda like a cathedral in brick. And those top arches are really prominent.
Not surprising that anyone who grew up in La Porte would have it in the background of their dreams.
Sooooooooo much to unpack here.
1) Old haircut Becky is the one judging Joyce for not feeling god when she prays.
2) Mullins seems to be playing ‘Losing My Religion’.
3) Joyce is suddenly in the clothes she wore to that infamous party.
4) They’re in Gender studies class it looks like.
5) Joyce saying she’s normal and not weird and doesn’t have a problem in a panel where everyone knows she likes Jacob (except Jacob – hi, Jacob!)
6) The courthouse of her home town that no longer feels like home.
7) The window full of dinosaur names.
There’s a lot of punches to her faith lately.
Yeah, looks like this may well be a breaking point. (Certainly if she responds how I would bet she does – bottling it up and pretending to be Perfectly Normal to everyone, including potential resources like Becky and Dorothy who could both help her recalibrate.)
You can tell what song he’s playing just from the notes there?
Man, I really need to learn how to read musical notes sometime.
Someone commented on it on patreon.
Well, whoever they are, they’re wrong. I know a little music theory and it just looks like some random musical notes to me. I thought maybe they’re going off the fact that he’s playing a hammered dulcimer, but I went and checked and the song doesn’t have that in it. If it was a mandolin maybe.
They were probably joking and I didn’t catch it because I’m totally musically illiterate.
They’re just random notes. If he’s playing anything, it’s probably the opening hammer dulcimer section from a Rich Mullins song.
Fair enough. Then that commenter was almost certainly joking and I didn’t catch it because I’m totally musically illiterate.
“Losing My Religion” was an REM song.
Yeah, it’s a pretty good one! I just don’t know music notes from a hole in the wall.
The one that looks like a hole in the wall is called a semibreve or whole note, depending on where you are.
You clearly missed an god-pportunity to have him playing Losing My Religion. Would have fit beautifully.
it’s not really a hammer dulcimer song
Nah, you can’t tell anything from the free-floating notes. They just indicate music is happening. Notes don’t mean anything unless they’re arrayed against a staff, which looks nothing like an actual staff; just five horizontal lines.
The core melody might be recognizable, though, at least enough to guess what time it’s in. And there’s definitely note progressions there. Could be nothing, could be significant.
No you can get the rythm from just the notes but not the pitch.
I think the song might be ‘Sometimes by Step’
The chapter title is from that and the intro is hammered dulcimer. Also it’s thematically appropriate – which one would expect since the Willis took a lyric from it, no duh
I guess you could imagine it’s Creed which has a very long hammered dulcimer intro and could be very guilt inducing to anyone questioning their Christian faith – lol don’t ask me how I know
But ‘sometimes by step’ probably sheds more light on Joyce’s menyak state.
Bless her heart
Dunno if she’s gonna wind up an atheist but I still have nightmares about leaving religion and my family. It’s been about 6 years now.
Are those… dinosaur names in that fifth panel?
“Parasaurolophus”, which you may remember Joyce insisting could breathe fire.
No, science insists he can breathe fire. Truthfact.
Christian science. Gotta be specific.
That’s the only real science, so it would be redundant to specify.
If this doesn’t turn into a sex dream with Christian Music Guy I’m gonna be disappointed
Slightly disappointed to discover Galasso has not brought back Rich Mullins.
What I’d be playing on the hacked Muzak if it worked inside Joyce’s head. But it doesn’t.
Given the ever present figure of Rich Mullins, I’m making a case for the Alan Parson Project’s version of “The Raven” 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAE1XTvKLXA
Given Panel 5, “Karma Chameleon” with the chorus changed to “Para Para Para Para Parasaurolophus” would work as well. Alas no such recording exists.
Yet.
Dun Dun Dun! (to quote Elan) 🙂
Interesting song, I like it. Wonder if Daniel the Human will too…
I have That Album on vinyl, Cassette, and CD. Vinyl was for the house, cassette for the car, and CD was after both the analog recordings wore out or were destroyed.
We’re both showing our age… No, that can’t be it. We’ve both a wide musical range that includes classic mid 70’s rock. Yeah that’s it. Not old at all. 🙂
The Parasaurolophus thing was last storyline, right? Like I’ll find it if I cross-search Joyce and Dina?
And hoo boy. Went through the ‘underneath the trappings my faith is empty’ crisis when I was like thirteen and it is NOT fun. Suspected we were building towards it, but yep. Add on the fact she built her whole personality around it and… Well, Joyce is gonna have a rough time of things.
Yep! Last arc she said it was her favorite because the crest let it breathe fire! Knew that was significant.
Wait you can cross search Joyce and Dina!?
And the shippers rejoiced.
All the shippers. Of every ship. Because, like, it’s official. It’s in the website. Mechanically.
Hit someone’s tag, go to the URL, and before the last slash add ‘+character’ (and just insert who here) and you’ll search strips that tag them both. Super useful! (Only works with two at a time, I believe, but that’s usually plenty.)
I’ve used it for more than two.
Nope! I just confirmed you can search for three… and four… and five. Stopped there, so you might be able to go further.
What you’re saying is, I can group search any given hall meeting provided I remember who’s there? Sweet!
Why yes, you can pull up any unique encounter by listing the people present.
Oh, goodie! We needed that linked.
Oh wow! I’ve only done 2 successfully. Sweet! My archive diving just got easier.
And it’s always so much harder if your closest friends are atheist/agnostic. When I had a similar experience I felt lost because if I talked to my atheist friends they would just tell me to give up on religion entirely, and I wasn’t ready to do that. Likewise with my christian friends. I hope Joyce doesn’t give up on her faith entirely, I like it as a part of her character.
I’m starting to suspect this is a dream.
Nope. This is how every gender studies class goes.
If people had told me this was what gender studies class was like, I definitely would’ve taken it when I was in college.
“Please let this be a normal gender studies class…”
“With the Les? No way!”
“Oohhhh!”
What gave it away? The dead dulcimer player, Joyce’s outfit, or falling through windows of buildings over a hundred miles away from IU or the dinosaur names in the windows she wasn’t falling through?
No, it was the openly gay Gender Studies teacher and the lack of a mandated Christian second opinion on each subject. Totally a dream, no way that could happen in RL America.
Oh no, it’s that sweater.
She chooses to wear the tattered flesh of her vanquished enemies.
She changed clothes between yesterdays’ and todays’ comic!
You are suppose to FEEL god? What does he feel like?
Like a sneeze only better.
judging by some patreon comments, it feels kinda like my experience with dexedrine (an ADHD medication).
To me, cold water or cold air running over my shoulders that makes me relaxed.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m the only one who experiences that though. I never had a church, but there was a prayer tower in my town that I would go when I needed to think in high school.
Sounds like ASMR.
I’d imagine different to everyone who does.
Probably the same feeling you get from regular meditation, except you believe it’s caused by a powerful being connecting with you from a conceptual plane.
As an atheist, personally I think your own brain chemistry is a much more likely cause, but it’s cool if people find it valuable.
Should’ve said spiritual plane. Couldn’t think of the right word. Dangit.
I don’t know what you’re supposed to feel, but I expect every Christian has his experience. I had a dedicated Christian tell me repeatedly that it’s “not experiential”. I didn’t say, “Then what good is it?” but I wanted to.
“It’s not experiential” – wtf does that even mean?
If you don’t experience it, then how do you know it happened?
Well, I remember that when I was a teenager, I was told at church that if we pray for God to help us with our problems, they might not get fixed, but we’d feel the comfort of God’s love with us; presumably like the footprints in the sand deal, just knowing he’s by your side or carrying you through the worst parts of your life.
Turns out that you feel jack squat if you try this with depression, though.
I’m glad you carried through it, though.
Oh yeah. At that point, what was one more adult who let me down after assuring me they’d help?
I am very sorry and would like to give you an internet hug.
*gives hug that free floats in the air to be claimed or not*
*accepts*
Like flow. Like things are / will work out. Like you are a part of the universe and the that it matters. That you might be a small thing but even small things are valued. So like love in a relationship, but more generalized. Like you could stretch out and live in gods kingdom and transcend this world. So not something one can just summon at will.
As others have commented, it sounds very much like the experience sought in some forms of meditation. You can’t summon it at will, but there are definitely techniques for reaching it.
It is by no means unique to Christian prayer, but appears to be a near universal human experience, at least in potential. Generally interpreted as a religious or spiritual experience as understood within one’s culture.
Suddenly Joyce is naked in class.
And Jacob is there.
And Joyce feels god again.
I AM NERVOUS ABOUT THE SWEATER
Oh gods, I didn’t notice that.
I thought the trauma was effectively dealt with but oh well…
Dealing with trauma isn’t a thing you ever really stop doing. Joyce will be dealing with it for this entire webcomic, and in fact long after the timescale for Dumbing of Age ends.
True true.
OH GOD JOYCE IS GOING ULTRA INSTINCT IN THE LAST PANEL! HER EYES GLOW WITH POWER SO SHE MAY FIGHT SHAGGY FOR THE FATE OF ALL REALITIES!
…I should go to bed
Thanks, I’m gonna go be an animator, now.
You mean Norville?
Excellent Delbo ref. I need to try to make variations on that panel happen in my dreams.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iKLevhkVaMo/S9HOdy9AfdI/AAAAAAAABgs/ejmIGRs2CnA/s1600/issue51+dreamscape.jpg
I remember feelimg weird when I went to confession and it felt different than when I had gone when I was younger.
This is glockenspiel erasure.
Dang. First Dorothy, and now Becky. Joyce’s subconscious is being a jerk : (
I KNOW! How DARE it use Joyce’s girls against her?!?
EXACTLY.
Those are the people that love and support you, Joyce. Don’t use them to express your self doubt just because it will hurt more if it come from them.
Wow willis dug out beckyss old model sheet forr this now thats real dedication do u no how buried that thing mustv been
Buried in the rubble of the closet she left, and nuked from orbit just to be sure
This dream is weird but definitely better than Joyce’s previous dream.
So far, but as others have pointed out, the appearance of that sweater cannot be a good omen.
I still think she should ask Dorothy to rub her thing on her tummy
I play hammer dulcimer! I’d never heard of Rich Mullins before but I am excited that you drew the hammers right, even if he is holding them a little weird.
Faith musician who wrote “Awesome God”, and died young from a car crash due to not wearing his seatbelt. All the makings of a musician who’d become ingrained as a huuuge part of the culture, as evidenced by Joyce thinking of him here despite him dying before she was even born. lot of staying power.
He also gave a lot of his earning to charity, spoke out against prosperity gospel, taught music in impoverished areas and wrote a musical about Francis of Assisi. So he might not fit in the box labeled “Christian musician”. A Christian who would contrast sharply with Joyce’s brother with the sharp car. (May his name be forgotten)
I didn’t mean it in any disparaging way, but yeah, unlike many, he practiced what he preached.
Impoverished non-Christians he saw no reason to convert and preferred the company to to his insular middle class white listeners. He was the real deal, tbh
Here’s one of my fave examples of his dulcimer playing, an instrumental number: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0UUQJKCS4
And Joyce immediately becomes intensely relatable again (okay, maybe she never stopped). Was legitimately just struggling with this within the past year. Just in the past month or so, I realized that I was raised in… what meets most of the signs of a cult, even if it wasn’t quite as extreme as what the word “cult” conjures in most people’s heads.
(Sorry, it’s another of my emotional, longwinded comments, haha.)
I say this because, even if Joyce is fictional, I know a lot of Joyces. Hell, I AM Joyce. And it was a huge taboo to ever talk about doubts or questions in my religion growing up, so for anybody else going through the Dreaded Faith Crisis, you’re not alone, I’m cheering for you, and they say it gets better eventually.
(I’m not quite to the “better” part yet myself, but I did finally tell my mom that “queer people aren’t bad, you’re just mean” today. I mean, I didn’t tell her that I’m one of said queer people and I’m not sure I will, but a few years ago, I never would’ve imagined saying even THIS out loud to her. So… I don’t know. Maybe hearing the voice of your conscience coming out of your mouth is better than hearing the voice of your parents’ God in your head…?)
Yeah, Joyce’s been super-relatable to me because I internalized the most fucked up parts of religion around me and it fed into my anxiety and compulsive tendencies in the worst way. My surroundings were much more mainstream, but when that shit’s all around you and you’re already prone to amxiety spirals, it doesn’t take much.
It takes a while. But there’s definitely a way out of that headspace and the other side can be so freeing after you devote that much time to being afraid. Glad you’re making your way out of it yourself! *Internet fistbump*
Thank you! *fistbump*
Joyce is relatable to me not for religious reasons (as far as I can tell, I have never had faith in the supernatural) but because I was brought up in an extremist right wing community and a lot of the struggles with de-radicalization mirror what Joyce goes through.
I feel ya. Honestly Joyce is probably the most relatable portrayal of this that I’ve seen to date.
Hey there fellow queer friend raised in what was practically a cult. *sidehug of recognition*
*sidehug* 🙂
Ironically, doubt saved my faith in the fact that I’d joined a very extremist branch of Christianity full of faith. I had a mystical experinece of the kind that Joyce started to feel and ironically it told me that I was on a wrong and terrible path.
God saying to me. “Stop being an asshole.”
I try to live by that one rule now.
“Stop being an asshole” is a very good rule. My main rule I try to live by is essentially “leave the world a less shitty place than you found it” and I guess there’s a lot of similarity there, haha 🙂
So I saw book of Mormon recently and this page made ‘spooky Mormon hell dream’ start up in my head
Oh my gosh, that’s perfect.
Who doesn’t like hammered dulcimers? What is wrong with those people?
Think of the poor dulcimers. How do they feel?
“Hammered”
Like Billie, then?
So Joyce is have a weird dream about self hating because she thinks she doesn’t love god anymore or something?
Or that she’s not worthy of God’s love. Or not capable of accepting it.
Either way, fun, fun fun.
I feel like all of our main cast is kind of hitting a breaking point at the same time. Joyce is having a crisis of faith, Sal and Amber are attempting to not self-destruct on each other, Billie is definitely self-destructing, Walky is breaking up with his second girlfriend in like two weeks, Ruth is barely out of the hospital, Danny’s still banjo Danny…
Yeah, this’ll be an interesting arc.
It almost feels that instead of becoming their idealized selves they are feeling something like a DUMBING OF AGE.
I mean, it IS college, I guess. I seem to remember most of my friend group having crises or breakdowns within the same year (and often same semester) of college tbh.
Joe has reverted form and then punched it up a notch with aggressively vulgar teeshirts.
In addition to the requirements of the various narrative arcs, they are also at a point in the semester where the first exams are coming up and the first serious papers are due. The academic pressure will only get heavier from here.
IT. IS. A. UKELELE.
…. okay, show of hands. Before yesterday’s comic, who actually thought that “crisis of faith” and “dulcimer” would fit together in the same sentence?
Everyone in Joyce’s dream is so mean.
I’m so glad to see Becky again.
Just not like this…
Hurts the most to hear this kinda stuff from the people whose opinions we care about the most. Joyce’s subconscious knows how to throw a helluva emotional punch >.>
I’m one card short of a full deck…
I’m not quite the shilling…
One wave short of a shipwreck…
I’m not my usual top billing…
I’m coming down with a fever…
I’m really out to sea…
This kettle is boiling over…
I think I’m a banana tree…
Oh dear…
I’m going slightly mad…
…it finally happened.
This is one hell of an acid trip.
*chanting louder and louder*
“PARASAUROLOPHUS, PARASAUROLOPHUS, PARASAUROLOPHUS, PARASAUROLOPHUS”
Jeeez, pre-rad dream-Becky. It’s not a competition. And jeeeez, Joyce’s subconcious. In real life, Becky doesn’t judge you. She’s totally cool with letting you complain about your situation
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/chickenfingers/
As an atheist I have what feels like a reasonable explanation for why she wouldn’t feel God.
It’s interesting that she feels being able to do this is part of her being a normal and acceptable person.
Given she previously felt him when she prayed, this would probably not be the reason.
“Oh, hello Becky from three months ago! What are you doing here! Wait, where have the Laws of Physics gone! Oh nooo! My brain is going weeeiiirrrd!!!”
FWIW, after the dream I had last night about settling in the town that was definitely the setting for Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content, I’m definitely empathising with Joyce right now!
So not being Christian or American I’ve never heard of Rich Mullins but is he normally as creepy as he looks here?
Not really but 70s hair aged badly.
I’m wondering if Joyce heard about Sal’s favourite dinosaur and, as she’s a little fixated on Sal, her subconscious is desperately trying to work out the significance of the Parasaurolophus!
Sal’s favourite dinosaur is Pachycephalasaurus – the one with the big skull dome.
Parasaurolophus is the one with the horn shaped like a dick Joyce thinks can breathe fire.
As a former Christian, its a pretty troubling experience to have both faith and doubt bouncing around in your mind. The large number of Christians who don’t doubt/question their faith make you feel like an anomaly, and Christianity demonizes doubt. Even the existence of the different Episcopal tradition is a challenge to her faith. With so many traditions, how do you determine the right path? How do you tell the voice of God from your own Ego or Superego? Some people give up on faith, and some people double down on faith. We’ll see for Joyce.
Of course, since you’re not admitting questioning your faith to them, how many of them are filled with doubts they don’t dare mention for fear of being demonized?
Joyce has been taught she ought to be able to “feel God” when she prays?
I have only the vaguest idea what that is.
This seems like a real Emperor’s New Clothes thing and if that’s the kind of subjective nonsense Joyce’s church has been prioritizing then I’ve lost all faith in Joyce’s faith.
…It’s all up to you now Becky. Represent.
Feeling God when you pray, the basis of a mystical system, is something that virtually all religions have deep and lengthy experiences with. It is actually the basis of many forms of meditation and the entire branch of faith known as mysticism.
Mother Theresa wrote many letters talking about her struggles with the fact she ceased to be able to feel God’s presence when she prayed. It was a struggle that she no longer felt the deep spiritual communion with God she used to–but continued to believe and worked hard to live up to the standards of charity as well as poverty she felt was the way God wished her to live.
I gotta say, I’m having trouble imagining what a non-subjective faith even looks like. Then again, I have trouble understanding faith in general.
Albert Einstein and Spinoza would be a good place to start. Albert Einstein believed in a nonsentient impersonal mathematical perfection to the universe that he called God. He regularly prayed, meditated, and pondered this as well as used it to inspire his emotions. Pantheism where you revere the universe and nature in general (ala the Force) is also a good example.
People who have rituals, comfort, and all the nature of religion with stuff that has already been confirmed to be true or rely on human achievements as divine.
Alternatively, The Jedi.
The Force may or may not be sentient but it is the collective sum of the universe and sentience in the universe. They know it’s real and it is the subject of their faith.
Babylon 5’s Minbari?
Now is the best time to share my favorite song from him. I may no longer believe but I remember his music from when I was younger and will never forget how much passion he had
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhGOosxTLrY
I really hope Joyce doesn’t feel like she’s been soiled by her assault.
That would fucking suck.
To help predict where we are headed, I took a look at Mullins in concert singing the song. Not so great on lyrics, but he talks about the song and live music is best. https://youtu.be/pmJMZuEKGYU
My headcanon is that Mullins is actually the Cheese and trying to communicate with her.
Joyce is….The Chosen One.
The Prophet of the Dairy Multiverse Gospel.
In each universe…there is a Joyce.
Hmm previous Rich Mullins reference. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/crucifix/
ugh, I can’t STAND people who get competitive about their faith
also nice job with the Parasauralophus in the window
I don’t understand this arc at all. I have no idea who this guy is, why we’re in Joyce’s dream, or why we care. None of this even seems new, or triggered by anything in particular.
1) Rich Mullins. He wrote a bunch of contemporary Christian music that was the cornerstone of Willis’ (and likely Joyce’s) childhood church. He’s here as a hopefully benevolent adult who may understand Joyce’s dilemma.
2) We’ve been in character’s dreams before. It’s not new. It’s to illustrate thoughts/feelings the characters are having in more symbolic ways.
3) Well, ideally you care because you care about Joyce’s arc if you’re reading a comic about her but if you don’t, you care because you’re waiting to get back to characters whose arc you do care about. If you don’t care about any of their arcs, I dunno what to tell you. Time to kill? 😛
4) We actually haven’t heard anything about Joyce no longer (or possibly never) feeling god when she prays. We’ve seen her struggle with doubt or needing reassurance, but that info IS new.
Going into characters’ dreams isn’t new, but just jumping to them with no context or reason to care is…boring. This isn’t a new dilemma, thought, or feeling. It’s the same one we’ve already explored in multiple ways since day 1.
We get it: Joyce has some internal conflict between the faith she was raised with and the new perspectives she is growing. That’s been true the entire comic. Why are we randomly focusing back in on it NOW, enough to have a multi-strip dream sequence? Woohoo, she’s still conflicted about it…now if she’s gonna DO something about that, great. Otherwise, why am I watching confusing dreamscapes that don’t impact actual plot?
It’s the second page of a new chapter, give it a minute dude.
I guess I don’t like the idea of starting a new chapter with a dream sequence, then. Nothing to link it to something meaningful.
Also, Joyce is the least interesting character to me, so that doesn’t help. We have so many interesting plots and characters going on, so switching back to spend time with her, with no context, in a medium that doesn’t even allow for meaningful plot advancement…is just 5 kinds of frustrating time wasted away from the good stuff, lol.
Also, the dude in these dreams looks super creepy and I’d like to stop looking at him.
Heh, he looks creepy to me too.
But if you don’t think dreams can advance the plot, well, … Watch and learn, I guess? That or go do something else and come back when it’s over.
A) It’s a new storyline. We jump to new things in new storylines all the time.
B) The conflict isn’t new but this part is – we’ve heard nothing about Joyce no longer feeling god when she prays – that is huge and it’s not something we’ve heard Joyce struggle with.
C) This is absolutely going to impact the plot.
If this isn’t a dream someone needs to call the physics dept.
And the paraphysics dept
“Hey, guys? Can you switch gravity back to euclidean?”
“…the gravity machine broke.”
Gravity was never Euclidean. Gravity is literally the result of curved space-time.
May the Hammer Dulcimer forever reign.
I remember this.
Damn. I just..
Damn.
So my experience with these churches growing up is they love the feel good conversion story and the faith through adversity story and the I hit rock bottom but He raised me up story but no one, NO ONE, had anything to say to the teenage true believer who eats sleeps and breaths Jesus but slowly realizes that he just doesn’t feel ‘it’.
Just pray harder, thats all. Pray more. Pray ‘like you mean it’.
After all, if you really ment it, you’d feel Him working through you. If you can’t, it’s because of you. You must have done something to make him hide his face.
No real support, unless you count all the well intentioned souls judgment as people pick through your life to rid you of anything they’ve decided God detests.
I remember contemplating drug addiction just so I could have my own I Couldn’t Do It On My Own But Jesus Made Me Clean story.
20 years later and I don’t believe any of what I used to. I don’t think I even believe in God at all anymore, but I still find myself sometimes wondering why the God I don’t believe in doesn’t love me.
I think that people searching for a mystical experience are missing the point. I have had the benefit of having several in my life but they’re not things that can be conjured at will. I feel like it’s better to find the spirit of God (or Christianity if you wish) in helping others.
I got more benefit from that than I ever did waiting for a God-High.
Seconded. The God-Highs are rare, and sneak up on you when you were concentrating wholeheartedly on something else. Usually, on some*one* else.
@Daggart Not sure if this is a helpful thing to say, but I’m certain that the God I do believe in does love you. I can imagine circumstances where having someone tell you that might make you angry, so I’m sorry if it does. Your hurt might need a different balm from the one I’ve got in my medicine kit, but this is the one I have.
I feel as though the inclusion of Rich Mullins in this arc could lead to an interaction of some sorts and might come as a bit of a comfort for Joyce. For anyone unaware, Rich had some different ideas on Christianity, especially when it comes to feeling God. He put it simply once when he said that it was more about obedience and faith than any feeling.
Looks like you called it!
Having looked up what the hammered dulcimer sounds like in action, I can confirm that it is a bizarrely lovely instrument.