Well, it’s been a long Saturday(but a good one!!) and I am now quite exhausted…but I figure it’s been too long since I’ve written a decent update. All my latest ones have been under 100 words! Terrible! So I’ve decided it’s time for a proper multi-page entry…so buckle your seatbelts, boys and girls…it’s time to rock and roll.

By update, I really mean I’ve had lots of random thoughts and I keep meaning to put them to paper yet I almost always have my best thoughts in the car where it’s quite impossible to write anything. Although I have been known to scribble in my notebook at stoplights…hmm, let’s keep that under wraps, shall we? But seriously, why do my best(and strangest) ideas come when I’m driving? Most annoying.

Anyway, something I realize anew almost every morning is the grandeur and might and beauty of God…as I watch the sun rise over Houston. I’m so very blessed in that I drive east on the interstate to get to work, and thus as soon as I get on the on-ramp, I’m struck full in the face with the sun striding up through the clouds…sometimes in a sky clear as crystal, other times(most times!) in a sky where the clouds diffract the light into a spectrum of gorgeousness. And as I see the light wash over the cars rushing off to work and money and ambition and power…and as I see the rays strike the skyscrapers so suddenly diminished in comparison to the massive clouds of brilliance overwhelming all Houston has to offer…I feel conflicting emotions of utter joy and deepest sadness. Joy to see the works of the LORD arrayed in the heavens. Sadness because so few see it so. How can everyone else driving to work not see the Hand of the Almighty????

And now pause for a piano interlude.

Because no, this party isn’t over yet! Consider the previous as Musings, Pt. 1. Part 2 will follow shortly, but before I dive into the scary contents of my thoughts, I thought I’d give you all a chance to catch your breath. Seriously, all you who read everything I write get mad props, because I don’t even fully grasp all that I’m writing! My thoughts(and everyone’s, I’ll wager) seem to be a interweaving of multicoloured threads…and to follow one thread to completion would be a marvel. But, enough on that tangent. Have I lost everyone yet? Ok, good.

Another thing I think about enough on my drive to work is the power and danger and beauty and poison and utter mystery that is music. I hinted at this subject in my last post, but as I didn’t have enough time to explain myself, I kept it vague. But now my time is unlimited and my fingers are spry and I’m ready to drown you all in a flood of words. Gosh, I really am getting long-winded in my old age.

But, music. One of the craziest and most beautiful of the creative gift our Father’s bestowed upon us. Driving off to work, I tend to play my favorite “pump-up” music to get my mind in gear for the work day…and one of the albums I’ve been playing a lot lately is one by Sonata Arctica. The album(“Reckoning Night”) is a work of pure genius. Remember that top five album thing I did a few months back? Well, if I repeated it now, I’m pretty sure this album would take at least the 3rd spot, if not higher. For me, the album’s melodies and rhythms and crazy awesome guitar and haunting piano and intermingling of raw emotion throughout struck me deeply. The songs range from heartrendingly sad to breathtakingly furious and they strike a chord in my soul. And why have I practically written a review of this album? Precisely because it echoes so well what I feel music does for everyone. I doubt everyone will feel the same I do about this album(and please don’t think I’ve fallen in love or pledged my life to these songs!), but haven’t you ever felt the emotions whirling within you when you heard your favorite album, or band, or song? Haven’t you ever felt like the song matches your deepest desires and feelings that you didn’t even know you had? Haven’t you felt like the music opened up a mirror in which you were looking at yourself? And this is why music is so beautiful and yet so dangerous. It opens us up to ourselves. And we are dangerous indeed.

Music opens up ourselves and gives the key of our emotions to the stereo. It releases our cries of longing and pleads of love into the open. The intellectual is subdued before the power of the emotional. At our depths, we are people who want to be loved. Who want to be wanted. Who want to be known. And our soul screams for meaning and begs for fulfillment. And in music, there is that faintest echo.

And I don’t want you all to think I’m decrying music as the work of the devil! Indeed, I love music(and will continue to!), but music is not the answer. It’s a thing of beauty that our most glorious Father has given to us! But it is not the balm that will heal our souls. It is not the jewel of great price. It is not the answer to our heart’s pain. But there is One who is.

And that’s all for tonight, folks. Enjoy the epicness of this post. And if anyone read all that, they get TWO cookies. That’s right. Enjoy the beauty of the night!! …and this little present for anyone who made it this far:

The orange disc slid across
the curve of the
early morning sky.
The traveler’s mouth dropped
open in awe,
so shattering was the
beauty of the sun
in the soft gray sky.

It seemed as if a
smear of purest light had
been dropped on a
dirty canvas.