Veterans' Melancholy

I'm at the V.A. hospital. It's always so heartbreaking here: all these guys with their wheelchairs, their prosthetics, their hollow eyes, and their sad faces. Broken bodies. Broken hearts. Broken minds.

I know I have problems. But I am truly blessed. Thank you, Jesus.

"The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?"

-- Proverbs 18:14

Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves

Eva died a few months after this was recorded.

Eva Cassidy - Over The Rainbow

Joy Davidman on the Reality of Christ in our Lives

"For many contemporaries God has dwindled into a noble abstraction, a tendency of history, a goal of evolution; has thinned out into a concept useful for organizing world peace--a good thing as an idea. But not the Word made flesh, who died for us and rose again from the dead. Not a Personality that a man can feel any love for. And not, certainly, the eternal Lover who took the initiative and fell in love with us.

Is it shocking to think of God as a pursuing lover? Then Christianity is shocking. If we accept the supernatural only as something too weak and passive to interfere with the natural, we had best call ourselves materialists and be done with it--we shall gain in honesty what we lose in respectability. Here's a test to tell if your faith is anything more than faith-and-water. Suppose that tonight the Holy Spirit lifts you high into space, speaks a message to your conscience, then invisibly tucks you back into your safe little bed again. Will you consider the possibility that this experience is genuine? Or will you conclude at once that you must be crazy, and start yelling for a psychiatrist?"


-- Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain

Ray Lamontagne - Shelter

Don't Fear The Reaper

This came on my ipod mix today, and I thought it would be apropos after the week I've had. lol

Easter Eggs

God sent me a gift yesterday. (Actually, he sent me two: I may tell you about the other one later.) You know those times, when you're struggling, and you just "accidentally" stumble upon the exact thing you need, like finding an Easter egg in the grass?

I've been pretty hard on myself about those years after my injuries, when I became grumpy, and angry, and withdrawn. Well, I'm hard on myself about everything; but I've been especially hard about that. I watched a movie last night about a woman with debilitating chronic pain after a serious accident. And as I watched, I saw myself during those years, dealing with the constant, terrible physical pain, the stress caused by the limitations it puts on your life, the anxiety it creates about your future, and the problems it causes in your relationships with other people.

Just a small example: we're talking about serious, constant pain here; and doctors legitimately prescribe drugs that were legitimately designed to help bear that pain. But no matter how careful you are with them, how conservatively you use them, how responsible you are about taking them, every time you go to get a refill or a re-write, or anything having to do with them, you get judged and treated like you're some kind of pathetic addict looking for a fix. Or, for another example, you'll be standing in a line, waiting to check in for something at a hospital or clinic. And it's killing you, standing there: just excruciating. And the clerk fools around, and dawdles, and ignores the patients, and talks on the phone. And finally, when you just can't bear it anymore, you try, as politely as you can manage in your pain-ridden and frustrated state, to say, "Could you wait on us so I can sit down, please?" But it just goes downhill from there. And somehow, it always ends up that it's your fault.

So after a while, between the never-ending pain, and the stress, and the frustrations, you end up changing. I mean, pain itself has an effect on your personality, even without all those other factors. Think about a time when you've been feeling awful: sick, or suffering a migraine, or whatever, and how hard it was to be kind and friendly to everyone around you.

So the gift that I received was seeing, from a different perspective, myself during those years. And I decided to forgive myself. Quit calling myself names, and beating myself up. I'm responsible for my actions: I'm not excusing them. I'm just forgiving them. I was a flawed man in a hard situation--that doesn't make me a horrible person.

So, thank you, Lord, for showing me this. For your forgiveness. And especially for all the changes you've made in my life: the healings, the treatments, the improved health and fitness, and the interior changes, so that I no longer have to live like that.

"The Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations." -- Psalm 100:5

Hold You In My Arms - Ray LaMontagne

Blind Melon - No Rain

Vulnerasti Cor Meum

There is no bond more profound or powerful than that formed by two souls who have entered together into true worship of the Holy Trinity. And there is no worship that touches both Heaven and the human heart as deeply and sweetly as sacred music. Such a bond is indissoluble, because it is formed in, by, and through Him who does not change.



“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” -- Johann Sebastian Bach

God Only Knows

People are always talking about what a masterpiece Pet Sounds was, but I've never actually sat down and listened to the whole thing before. Ok, they're right. "Greatest album ever" might be a bit much, but it's pretty great.

Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca - Belle Nuit, Ô Nuit d'Amour

Wow. I mean...Oh my...just, wow.

"Fear will pass. But regret is forever."

-- Jillian Michaels

The Strongest Force in the Universe

Ray LaMontagne - Empty

Well I looked my demons in the eye,
Laid bare my chest, said 'Do your best, destroy me.'
You see I've been to Hell and back so many times
I must admit you kinda bore me.