I've accidentally created the perfect station on Pandora. I made one based on Apollo's Fire, because I liked their Christmas album so much, but it turns out they do traditional folk music too; so I've got a station playing Baroque, Celtic, Bluegrass, and various related pieces, in both secular and sacred varieties of each.

Dear Youtube;

I don't care about Prince. I didn't care that he was alive, when he was alive. I don't care that he's dead, now he's dead. I didn't like his music when he was alive. I still don't like it, now that he's dead. I have never, ever, watched a video of his on your site, and have clicked "not interested" at least a hundred times on the videos you have been incessantly suggesting in the last few days since he, apparently, died. How can your algorithm possibly still think that anything by or about him should be "recommended for me"?

P.S. I don't care about Merle Haggard either.

C.S. Lewis on the Supernatural

"I believe in miracles here and now. . . .We ought all of us to be ashamed of not performing miracles and we do not feel this shame enough. We regard our own state as normal and theurgy as exceptional, whereas we ought to regard the worker of miracles, however rare, as the true Christian norm and ourselves as spiritual cripples."

-- C.S. Lewis, Petitionary Prayer

The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash

Rosebud

This is my grandaughter in Hawaii, whom I call Rosebud, the premature one with the holes in her heart, who you were praying for. Perfectly healthy and happy now.

Also got a message from my daughter in law this evening, telling me what a wonderful man I raised, what a good husband and father he is, and how happy and in love she is. That pleases me.

The Main Thing is Not to Panic

My daughter Bethany was riding to work this morning with her friend, heading down the highway at 50 mph, when the friend, who was driving, had a sudden seizure. No history of seizures, no explanation. Just out of the clear blue. The car went out of control and was about to cross over into oncoming traffic but Bethany kept her presence of mind, took the wheel, redirected it into a field on the other side of the road, and managed to bring it to a halt without either of them or anyone else being injured.

I am thankful to the Lord for his grace, that no one (and especially Bethany) was hurt. But I am also very proud of my daughter, for keeping her head and not succumbing to panic. It takes great courage and strength of character to react with cool determination in a life-threatening situation.

But that's not the end of it. She also showed another kind of courage, when the policeman who responded started acting like a dickhead like so many cops do, and yelling at and threatening the poor girl who'd had the seizure and almost just died, and who was completely disoriented and in a state of shock. Bethany stood up to him, put him in his place, and made him back off and leave her alone. Well done, sweetie. My daughter has more balls than most men.

Why--when there's Mozart?

I was out yesterday. As often happens, as I was in a store looking for what I needed, my mind was being assaulted by the soul-crushingly awful banality of what passes for music in our time. Just mind-numbingly stupid, both musically and lyrically. The sheer idiocy of it is staggering.

And then, this morning, as I was looking out on the rainy Spring morning and listening to Mozart, I thought, "Why? How can such ugliness even exist when there is this?"

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." -- Isaiah 53:3

This is why I love him so. He knows. He understands.