A Picture of Tom Prasada-Rao

July 15, 2024.Reading time 18 minutes.

Forgive me while I again look back and make a post about my dear friend, Tom Prasada-Rao. I have two memories, and one regret, rattling around in my head today that I want to share. Perhaps a decade ago now, I told Tom of my regret that we didn’t get together more often when he […]

Seeking Still

May 14, 2024.Reading time 2 minutes.

SEEKING STILL All my life I’ve searched for inner peaceTo make the voices ceaseA sweet releaseThat leads me to a calm And now and then I find a pathway thereSome moment without careA jewel rareLike truth inside a song But soon as I arrive, the destination’s goneI’m back upon a path that’s always winding and […]

Table Rules (“Crowded Table,” Highwomen Cover)

April 23, 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.

General Conference starts today, and I am thinking about this song and what might happen these next few weeks. I don’t think it’s an accident that I was introduced to this song by clergywomen colleagues. We were all sitting around a fire pit on a clergy retreat two years ago (I had my guitar…) when several […]

All That You Have Is Your Soul

February 16, 2024.Reading time 11 minutes.

It’s now more than a week past Tracy Chapman’s incredible performance at this year’s Grammy Awards Show. I can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s reminded me of my favorite Tracy Chapman song. Most people’s favorite is likely the big hit she performed at the Grammy’s. But mine has always been “All That You Have […]

Joy at the Joy of Tracy Chapman

February 5, 2024.Reading time 18 minutes.

I want to circle back to a theme that clearly resonated with people in my post on Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce last week. It’s a concept I’ve come to now understand has a name: “Freudenfreude.” Loosely defined as:“Taking joy/pleasure in other people’s joy or pleasure.” It’s a concept defined as the linguistic opposite of “Schadenfreude.”“Taking pleasure […]

“Give the People What They Want”

January 27, 2024.Reading time 12 minutes.

We saw the “Tina Turner Musical” this week, and a brief moment of the narrative has stayed with me, touched me deeply, and seems to speak deep truth about our need to be entertained, and perhaps even our continued fascination with Donald Trump. I know, that’s a lot. You might think the Trump association has […]

Same Old Lang Syne (Fogelberg cover)

December 12, 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.

“Die Hard” is to Christmas movies, what this song is to Christmas music. Listeners will no doubt forever debate whether it is, or is not, a Christmas song. One thing is clear: It definitely creeps into playlists this time of year. Over the past few months, I been learning it on guitar (because that’s my […]

Quadrophenia

November 3, 2023.Reading time 10 minutes.

We interrupt this week’s baseball posts for: Quadrophenia.The album was released fifty years ago this week. One of my all time faves, it’s at or near the top of my “Desert Island” list. Later, of course, the film version was released, and I bought this poster. I found the poster this week, in the same […]

We Are Bad at Seeing (The Emmaus Road and Stevie Ray Vaughan)

April 26, 2023.Reading time 18 minutes.

Meditating on it this week led me to recall those four bystanders that got shot by so-called “good guys with guns, a book by Malcomb Gladwell, and (weirdly) Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Strap in, folks…

I Remember Too

February 24, 2023.Reading time 7 minutes.

Earlier this week, I shared about Ash Wednesday, a year ago…some time I spent by the Roberts Forest fire pit, praying, crying, playing guitar. What I didn’t say then was that a song, in honor of my Mom, poured out of me that night. The whole thing took shape in about 20 minutes. I pulled […]