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

"If I were obedient to the Lord one hundred percent (which I haven't managed to do yet), He would not love me more. And if I chose to be completely rebellious against the Word of God, He wouldn't love me less." -- Tony Kemp

The Man Comes Around - Johnny Cash

And suddenly, I understand.

She's not afraid of me. She's afraid of falling in love. Absurdly simple, like the answer to all riddles once you see it.

The problem isn't that she doesn't care: the problem is that she does. This explains everything, and finally reconciles what I know to be her beautiful, kind, and sweet nature with the way she's acted toward me. This is why she tried to pretend I meant nothing to her, when it is obviously and patently not true. I'm a threat because we were close, and she did like me: I'm a threat because there was a real danger that she would fall in love.

It wasn't that I was, like I thought, always saying the wrong thing and offending her: it was that I was saying the right thing and touching her, and she didn't want me to. And I guess she's been thinking that I understood all this the whole time, and have been doing it on purpose, disregarding her feelings, and so that makes her even more angry and frustrated. She's been trying as hard as she possibly can not to fall in love, and feels like I've been purposefully trying to make her fall in love, and so it feels to her like I'm trying to push her over a cliff. When really, I've just been struggling to hold on myself, grasping at anything I can, because I've already fallen over the edge.

I get it. It is scary as Hell. Especially to somebody like you, whose whole life has been order, discipline, and control. The Greeks believed that the first three primal forces of nature to come into being were darkness, chaos, and love. And it does feel that terrifying and powerful: as terrifying and powerful as primeval darkness and chaos. And I get that it's even scarier for a woman, because of your deeply passionate and tender hearts, and because for you, there is an act of surrender inherent in it that is beyond what we experience. You're in more danger of losing yourselves than we are.

But here's the thing: it feels like the Greeks were right, but they were wrong. The trinity at the center of the universe is not the trinity of darkness, chaos, and desire, but the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Surrendering to Love feels like you're losing yourself, but it's really finding yourself. It feels like falling into darkness, but really it's stepping into the Light. In truth, Love is Order. All you're really losing is the illusion of your own control. The only way to find yourself is to lose yourself. The only way to victory is to surrender. The only way to life is through death.

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.