Welcome Back and Welcome Home

I've spent a lot of Christmas break with my new equipment (an upcoming post will highlight my rig, for all of you audio geeks). Because of my illness, I was unable to record nearly as much as I had hoped. Here are two teaser tracks. The first is fairly close to being done, in the sense of having final tracks and decent effects. Obviously, there will be more singing and more verses/chorus and a bridge.

The second song is closest and dear to my heart. Most of you are familiar with it as well, as I've performed it live on many occasions. I recorded all of these tracks today and sang through my illness. But boy are the falsetto vocals off on the late "thought" in the song. A lot of the audio files will be re-recorded... but... I thought I'd give you a little taste of what is to come. Enjoy.

I Don't Suppose

Pennsylvania Skies

Yeah... I'm Advertising.

I have gone more than a month without posting for several reasons. Most of the items I baked during Thanksgiving and Christmas were repeats. So the pictures were not worth posting. Also, most of my time has been spent writing and recording songs, so I do not get around to baking very often anymore.

Though my posts are historically personal or related to my music or baking, I'm going to break out of the mold for a few posts and shamelessly advertise my personal bests of 2006/2007.

How to go to M.I.T. for free

The OpenCourseWare movement allows you to access syllabi, lectures, reading material, etc. from hundreds of courses at M.I.T. Even better, it's spread to Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, and dozens of other U.S. and international universities. I've "taken" a few courses at both M.I.T. and Notre Dame thus far. Once Notre Dame gets more philosophy courses online, I'll be digging in a bit deeper (though their Intro. to Philosophy courses would be great for any of you that have not read much philosophy). M.I.T. has one of the best philosophy departments, if linguistic philosophy, logic, positivism, the philosophy of science, etc. float your boat. I have also begun to take several courses in M.I.T's music/theater department. Fascinating stuff. A bit more edifying and profitable than browsing YouTube or ESPN. Check it out for yourself; hundreds of courses are being added each semester.

Fogo de Chao

As most of you know, I am a lover of food. And when the quantity vs. quality debate ensues, I'm inclined to defend quantity, so long as the quality is above a certain level. Give me three Chipotle burritos and you can have your stupid little piece of fish on a bed of over-priced vegetables.

But what if you could have both? I can say without reservation that Fogo de Chao is the best restaurant I have ever experienced. And experienced is exactly the right word. The restaurant caters to all of your senses, not just your taste buds. We might as well start with taste, though.

Fogo de Chao features all-you-can-eat Brazilian meats, side dishes and a salad bar. The meats range from beef ancho to picanha to filet mignon to lamb chops to pork tenderloin to sausage to chicken drumsticks to pork and beef ribs. I believe there are about 16 different cuts of meat. Typically, you sacrifice quality at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. This is NOT the case with Fogo de Chao. I tried all of the meats except for the pork tenderloin. Each meat was the best I had ever tasted. Near the end of the meal, I realized there were no condiments and I had not touched the pepper shaker. Typically, I load up my plate with hot sauces, horseradish, ketchup, pepper, etc. Not a single meat required the addition of any kind of condiment.

Rather than ordering a certain cut of meat, there are waiters assigned to each type of meat. They sprint around the restaurant and cut you freshly cooked, sizzling pieces of succulent, heavenly meat. You can get everything from rare to well-done meat and I did not experience a single cold or even lukewarm bite. A single cut of one of the meats would cost 20+ bucks at a steakhouse. I consumed about five pounds (I prepared myself by eating nothing but lettuce for several days; according to eating contest participants, it stretches your stomach due to its high content of water, but contains almost no calories. It paid off).

The salad bar is equally amazing. I honestly could not identify half the items, but I believe I had artichoke hearts, several Brazilian cheeses, hot peppers, asparagus, some pickled meats and several other unidentified but tasty side items. The cheeses were exceptional; again, the best I had ever tasted. At your table, the waiters constantly bring out fresh side dishes of seasoned mashed potatoes (incredible), fried plantains (I've tried these in central America and don't like them, so I didn't taste the ones at Fogo de Chao), a strange kind of roll that tasted as though it contained egg whites and a fried cornbread of sorts. No butter. Again, wholly unnecessary.

My water was refilled about 18 times throughout the course of the meal. Darin and I were in the back corner of restaurant. Neither the salad bar or kitchen were visible from our seats. Yet Darin counted on several occasions the number of seconds that expired without a crazy Brazilian cutting meat in our vicinity. He once got to twelve seconds.

The wine and alcohol selection looked superb (I'm largely ignorant of everything except beer). More than a thousand wine bottles line the walls, extending from the floor to the ceiling (probably more than 20 feet). The atmosphere is quite noisy for a fancy restaurant, thanks to the constant interaction between the diners and the Brazilian meat-cutters.

Our meal lasted close to three hours; we were constantly waited upon but never rushed. We estimated that about twenty-five different men and women served us throughout the course of the night. Each one was constantly smiling and there were no mistakes, spills, etc. Clean plates, drinks, and side dishes appeared constantly; most of the time, we were not even aware of their presence until a waiter had already moved on to another table.

I know very little about heaven, but I imagine the room being prepared for me resembles quite closely a Fogo de Chao restaurant. After we finished, Darin and I felt like personally congratulating each of the waiters. It was more than a dining experience; it was a performance.

Amazingly, I scored a free dinner for two (the restaurant in Philadelphia very recently). Our bill would have been about 100 dollars. The price for lunch is around 25 dollars per person, however, so I expect to be returning. For all you meat-loving men, this restaurant is paradise. I doubt I'll ever find a better dining experience. Even the bathrooms are spectacular. The sinks look as though they are hand-thrown clay, with concentric ridges rising up the bowl.

The night was not, however, without its tragic moments. Darin and I have often been jokingly referred to as a gay couple. This has also occurred not-so-jokingly at our old gym and perhaps in other public places. Thanks to the dazed looks of amazement and silly grins on our faces (due to the ridiculous nature of the restaurant, NOT the person sitting across from us), several waiters presumed we were a couple. When one of the managers asked where we were from, Darin did not help our case by replying for the both of us "We live in Hershey. I teach and Dan is still a student."

Later, Darin ordered a strawberry cream dessert. It arrived on a froofy place-mat. The waiter looked at him with a glint in his eye, and asked with his marvelous Portuguese accent, "You like another spoon??"

But I'd be willing to undergo far worse to enjoy another night in the restaurant. They have a number of locations in the US and several restaurants in Brazil. Go. You won't be sorry.

The iPhone

So far, I've described exemplary opportunities to indulge two of my interests that should surprise none of you: learning and eating.

This last advertisement might take you by surprise. As most of you know, I have opposed cell phones since high school. While I only occasionally deride owners of cell phones, I made it my personal goal to never own one of the silly devices during college. I succeeded. Recently, I began to use a track phone. This was not my choice; my parents secretly bought it for me after a moron rear-ended my Civic with his Ford Excursion during a snowstorm. I am willing to concede the usefulness of a mobile communication device under such circumstances.

Come June 2007, however, I may join the other 99.9999% of Americans and buy a real cell phone. Or should I say an iPhone. This baby runs OSX and seamlessly integrates the features of an iPod, PDA, cell phone, GPS and more. I'll let you peruse Apple's presentation of the phone, since they present it (as always) in a stream-lined and beautiful manner. Finally, a cell phone worthy of Daniel "the Legend" Kearns. I'm sure my friends at Case will strip me of my title. But it just might be worth it.

As mentioned previously, I've been doing a lot of recording lately. Thanks to a week-long illness, I can't sing right now. But I'll be posting several unfinished songs (shocking, I know) in the next week or so. Since a lot of you have been asking about my latest equipment, I'll also post some pictures of my studio. Let's just say I'm like a pig in a pile of slop. This analogy is accurate on so many levels.

More updates coming soon. Sorry for the long period of silence.

Some more baking pictures

Partusch says his life is falling apart, because I haven't posted in awhile. I've made a quite a few items during the past couple weeks, but I forgot to take pictures of many of them. Thanksgiving was a success, though. I made a cranberry sauce from real cranberries as well as dried cherries, cloves, cinnamon sticks, etc. I also mashed some red-skinned potatoes with some chives, butter and garlic... and it was an instant hit. Other than that, it was pretty standard Thanksgiving fare.

I made a pumpkin-pecan pie the other week. The pictures don't really reveal the "pumpkin" part of the pie, but it was essentially a two layer pie with pumpkin on the bottom and a caramelized pecan filling on the top. I actually tried this one... and it was quite good.














I made a cranberry coffee cake today and it was another hit with the Kairos Krew. Getting the cranberry jelly just right was the trickiest part. I was also pretty happy with the way the layering worked out.

Some old (but new to you!) pictures

A number of weeks ago, I drove out to Cleveland to speak at Chi Alpha, hang out with my best bud Ben, talk with a number of leaders in different Christian groups, etc. Oh yes. And bake. And eat a lot of Chipotle. And drink a lot of Troeg's with Ben. Anyways, here are some of the goodies I baked: There's the 'La Bete Noire' (the black beast) which I kicked up a notch by using white chocolate and strawberries on top. I also made a blueberry upside-down cake and an orange marmalade crostata with toasted almonds. Yum. I think I made oatmeal date bars and cranberry biscotti as well, but don't have pictures of those. Sorry. Enjoy.

The baking goes on...

This week, I baked a pine nut torta with marsala-poached apricots and prunes as well as a German chocolate cake. In a pan. With a coconut and pecan icing.

Coffee Shop Performance

On Friday, I played at a coffee shop with Gretchen. We performed some originals and covers by the like of Johnny Cash, Mark Kozelek, Over the Rhine, Death Cab, Iron and Wine, David Wilcox, etc. I also played a set by myself, including one of my new favorite songs (I'll record it and post it up here sometime over Christmas break). Speaking of which... I'm selling the majority of my audio equipment right now (including Cassandra, my first love) and upgrading to a professional digital recording unit. Prepare for some awesome recordings over Christmas break. Anyways, here are some pictures from the coffee shop gig:

Pumpkin Carvings

Although the Kearns family typically scoffs at holidays (and Halloween especially), this year we decided to carve ourselves some pumpkins. Keith's (my bro-in-law) parents are here for a few days, in addition to Steve-o, so we had quite the carving contest. Here are the pictures:










My pumpkin is not included in most of these group shots, because I spent far more time on my masterpiece than the rest of the family/in-laws. Very rarely will I brag about my visual artistic abilities, but I'm going to posit that this might be the greatest Jack-O-Lantern carved this year. Notice the curvature of the inside rind, such that you don't notice the thickness of the pumpkin as you look at the image. Notice how I thinned out the rind in certain places and scored some lines the entire way through the pumpkin and others merely on the surface to achieve a depth and range of colors foreign to most Jack-O-Lanterns. And most of all, notice the sheer amount of burnination. TROOOOGDOOOOOOR!!!!!

More Baking

More baking this weekend. I'm told both recipes were quite tasty, though as usual, I didn't try either one.



Here's a chocolate hazlenut tart. Note to self: buy crushed graham crackers next time. You might feel like a more accomplished chef if you buy whole crackers and mash them yourself, but it takes about 20 minutes to get 1.5 cups. Pretty much pure chocolate and hazlenuts on the top layer, so the tart was very heavy. Almost all of my chocolate products have been flourless (or close to it).







































This is an Autumn trifle with roasted apples, pears, and pumpkin-caramel sauce. You basically line the bowl with ladyfingers (brushed with sherry) and then layer the a cinnamon pastry cream, some roasted fruit, and the pumpkin-caramel sauce... then it's another layer of lady fingers followed by the cream, apples, and sauce. I got some pastry bags from the bakery at Giant and tried to apply some fresh whipped cream decoratively, also using thin pear slices to add a bit of flair. You have to utterly destroy the trifle to eat it, though, which is a bit tragic.

Baking Extravaganza

So I told you this blog was reshaping itself to be an outlet for my music.

Times have changed.

My stupid microphone isn't working.

Owning a Mac with an Intel processor requires me to upgrade my software (75 bucks).

But I have been baking like a fool. So I thought I'd share my wares. You can't taste them over the internet, but you can feast your eyes on their scrum-diddly-umptiousness.

First off, a Chocolate Cranberry Torte. There's very little flour in this cake; mostly just butter, chocolate, cranberries and chambord (a French black raspbery liqueur). The torte/icing is whipping cream, chocolate, more cranberries and more chambord. And that just isn't enough liqueur, so I also made a glaze out of cranberries, sugar, chambord, etc. A few drops can be seen on the cake... I let folks drizzle the rest over their slices. It's a rich, heavy cake; you can probably get 16 slices or more out of the cake. I added mint leaves and dried cranberries for some flair.




Next up, an almond cream puff pastry with raspberry jam. Surpisingly, this turned out to be the hit item of the night. The pastry crumbled quite nicely in the mouth, and the almonds and raspberries combined for a sweet and tart tango in your mouth. OOoh yum.









Finally, I whippd up a Cranberry-Apple Ribbon Pie. I created two butter pie crusts. I placed the first in a pie pan and layered the bottom with a cranberry jelly. I put a mixture of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples (peeled and cored) in addition to sugar, lemon juice, corn startch, flour, and cinnamon on top of the jelly. I draped the second pie crust on top, scored the edges, and cut out a steam vent. One hour later... voila!

Wake Me

Dude. What a stupid drum beat.

Don't worry, I know.

And too much compression on the vocals.

But I actually think this might be one of my most promising songs. I'm going to try to add a (real) bass guitar and a few more tape echo-type guitar tracks. I like the interwoven sound thus far.

I also think the lyrics have potential, as they contain a lot more imagery than most of my songs. But I'm still working up some more verses and some changes to the existing structure...

Is the strummed guitar too much in the chorus? It seems to muddy things up, but I also like the effect. Maybe a mixing issue...



Lyrics:

Wake me from my slumber with your gaze of steel
On the broken glass of shattered dreams I guess I'll kneel
I never thought I'd get this far with you and me
And now it's time to go
This way
Cause I don't know (I'll probably change this line...)

Have you ever seen the moon wrestle with the sun
For it's precious birthright
Cause I've seen that fight
And I don't know if I can take it anymore (also being changed)
Have you ever seen the moon's beams
Startled by the break of day
Cause I've seen that way (also being changed)

To Be Honest

I wrote this song while I was listening to the Arcade Fire a lot, but I didn't quite get the lo-fi sound they've got... so I'm actually thinking about running some of the orchestral sounds through a distortion box and making it 'dirtier' sounding.

I also noticed that I have a habit of writing long introductions with a bit of singing, then increasing the tempo/volume of songs. I'm not sure if I should do this all the time...

Lyrics:

To be honest, it's been quite awhile
Since I caught your face
In this old rundown town.
To be honest, I'm not growing younger
And it seemed much younger
When you were around.

I actually have some vocal tracks during the main part of the song, but they sound terrible, so they aren't included in this mix. I'm also planning on changing the effect during the intro... I was trying to be Elliot Smith, I think.

I meant to cut the guitar track short, but I guess it does give you an idea for the next chord progression.

Does the song work without a drum beat and just the occasional percussion, or should I put something in the background?

Snow

An instrumental ditty that reminds me of Christmas. Part of my soundtrack/instrumental project.

Is the 'pulse' too strong, making it sound like a dopey march?

I don't want it to sound like a Hallmark commercial.

I've thought about adding a soft, distorted drum beat to the organ section... in more recent recordings, instruments fade back in and it builds up again... but as usual, the song isn't finished.

Let me know what you think.

Silent War

I wrote most of this song during my last semester at Case. My early exit from college seemed to screw up some of my friendships, as a lot of folks felt as though there was still work for me to do with the parachurch ministries at Case... but I felt called elsewhere. There are more lyrics, but I have to find them...

I'm definitely changing the drumbeat... it's there as a metronome more than anything right now.

I haven't decided if I should keep the verses 'minimalist' with just a couple guitars, or if I should add a bunch more instruments. Right now, I'm leaning towards a 'Guster' feel, so I'll probably keep the instrument count low.

I'm a pretty big fan of the guitar interlude at the end, although I'm aware the very last electric guitar to enter the mix is a bit off. I haven't decided if the chorus should be singing overlaid on top of some of those tracks, or if I should have the instrumental break and then return to something simpler... comments?


Lyrics:

I thought that leaving would be harder than this;
Every time I say goodbye it feels like Judas' kiss.
I didn't come here thinking that I'd start a war;
But now it's looking like I'm not gonna sit here
And take it no more,
And I guess that you could that marks the end of a friendship
And the start of a silent war.

Bad Boy

This is actually a cover of Mark Kozelek covering AC/DC! Ha!

I may throw in a few more guitars and some harmonies and touch up the vocals... but I posted this for kicks and giggles more than anything else. Hope you enjoy it.

Dark

A little more industrial sounding than most of my music, eh? I've been fooling around with Propellerhead's Reason 3.0 this week.

I tried recording a few vocal tracks, but I think I need a girl a la Massive Attack/Bjork/Portishead to make it sound cool. I'll probably just develop it instrumentally and keep it as a "soundtrack" piece. It would probably be good slo-mo music for an action movie, right?

Again, thoughts/comments/critiques are welcome.

Almost

I wrote this song last summer, after purchasing a guitar amp.

I sang some random lyrics for vocal effect ... the actual song will have "real" lyrics.

Is there enough of a transition between the intro and the verse? Does the drum beat work, or is it too happy?

At one point, I was a big fan of the rhythm guitar... but now I think it might be a little too loose and floppy-sounding.

Thoughts?

I Don't Suppose

One of my latest songs... no vocals during the chorus because my microphone isn't working correctly.

Most of the songs I've written this summer are in this style... lots of little guitar flourishes, lots of half-muttered lyrics.

The lyrics are probably fairly obvious... it's one of those "morning after" songs, where you realize you made a mistake by saying too much or too little the night before. At the same time, however, you realize the general sentiment or conclusion of the matter was unavoidable and perhaps even the 'right' one... but the means to the end could have been a bit more thoughtful.

So far, I've kept the song pretty simple (at least in the recording you're hearing). My main concern is deciding whether I should leave this one for the acoustic guitars, or add a piano and bass and other stuff.

I experimented a bit with a shaker and a sleighbell to give it a stronger pulse, but I don't have that in this recording, because it sounded a little too driving.

I guess I should actually upload several different versions of the same song so you can compare... I'll work on that this week.


Lyrics:

Verse One

I don't suppose I've ever been called a coward,
At least not to my face.
But by God the way you looked at me last night,
Your eyes begging me to stay.
And I won't be caught idly supposing that your,
That your offer's still, still good tonight.
I guess you can call me a cynic,
Or just the loser of one too many fights.

Chorus

Well there I go repeating myself again,
When the truth is you won't be calling me anything at all.
... this line in progress ...
... this line in progress ...

Verse 2

Well look who's talking now, why it's my old good friend,
Mr. Know-it-all himself.
And he leaves you wondering
Just when exactly I suddenly stumbled upon
All this wisdom, insight, knowledge, shit and wealth.

Chorus

For Your Listening Pleasure...

I've decided to move a slightly different direction with this blog. Lately, I've been recording a lot of music. Unfortunately, I'm absolutely terrible at producing "finished recordings". Generally, I lay down a few tracks and then feel inspired to write a new song. Even when I DO stick with a song, I tend to get stuck in the mixing/mastering process and lose what little creative vision I began with.

I'm also quite fearful of placing my music in public domain, since it's never as "perfect" as I'd like. But I've decided that I should start posting my "unfinished" songs for your listening pleasure. More than that, I'm hoping for your comments. And not the, "Wow... what a great song... You rawk!!!" kind of comments, but rather the, "The drum track sounds atrocious. The third line of your lyrics is contrived. The song needs more rhythm and less random synthesizers..." kind of comment.

Essentially, I'm hoping that the public can help me refine my song-writing/recording skills and perhaps I'll even have a few "finished products" lying around by Christmas. As soon as I get some webspace, I'll create a post for every song and perhaps put up the lyrics and some comments about the direction/feel I'm searching for, additional tracks I'm recording, etc.

Note that the link to each song is the 'title' of the post. Feel free to save the file to your computer and proliferate it to the masses.

Full with Desire, Empty of Delight

In my last post, I listed a number of C.S. Lewis quotes on 'joy', noting the presence of deep, inconsolable longing as a large part of his definition. As well, there must be a present, if transient, enjoyment and delight in the moment itself. Thus, while my Greek lexicon defines 'chara' as the experience of gladness, I would submit that an equally appropriate definition would be the desire for delight.

Over the last week, I've run about 40 miles (and a lot more in my head!) while contemplating why my relationship with Sarah fell apart, how I'm supposed to respond to my birth mother, where God is leading me next year and in the years to come, and both attitudes and behaviors that need to change in my life. I believe a lot of this centers on joy. Contentment has never come easily to me. With greater and greater clarity, God has been voicing a truth to me that now seems obvious.

I am always consumed by desire, but rarely filled with delight.

One of my clearest memories came but a few weeks ago. As I boarded a plane to return to America, I felt the all too common mixture of dread and eager expectation. Since the day I knew I would be traveling to Korea, every morning had begun in this conflicted manner. A part of my soul yearned for time to be cut short, that I might arrive in Korea sooner. But another part hoped I would wake up in a different world, where such a voyage would not be necessary. This part of my soul realized that my ache for the quick passage of time was founded upon my inability to concentrate on anything in the present more than a true desire to return to Korea and meet my birth family.

It was a bit strange, then, that I felt this same dread and expectation on my trip back to America. For weeks, my thoughts had been focused on the trip to Korea, not the return to the United States. But suddenly, all of the thoughts I had experienced about Korea reversed themselves: "How will my birth family in Korea receive me?" turned into "How will my friends and family at home receive me?" How radically had a week in Korea changed me? Would others detect this change, perhaps even before I could? Would my heart feel at rest, at home?

(Yes, I will connect this rather biographical post with my musings about joy and desire and delight at some point. But people are very curious about my trip to Korea, so this is a good way to tackle my personal experiences and my theological musings at the same time. My apologies to those of you who are only interested in one or the other.)

The height of my emotional exhaustion occurred at a rather surprising point in the flight. A few hours after taking off, the flight attendants began passing out our first meal. A tray of Korean food was placed in front of me. Amidst the cramped, poorly lit, dismally stale airplane, there appeared the perfect image of Korean aesthetic and simplicity. Each vegetable was precisely aligned, the kimchi cut in a perfect rectangle, the colors of the meal arrayed with careful attention to the ying and yang. Every object on the tray sang out in unison, praising the Korean ideals of balance and poise.

The purity of this experience, stirred in with my realization of it being the last truly Korean memory I would have for years, served as the final emotional pull to unwind my heart. In this horrendously crowded but unavoidably impersonal airplane, I began to cry, then sob, then weep. While I've developed the tendency to tense up and shed a lone tear rather often, I am not one to weep. And if I do, it is not in public. But for one of the first times in my adolescent/adult years, I no longer had control. Looking back, I feel a great deal of pity for the stewardesses, who flurried about and tried to help me, but could not speak enough English to know what was wrong. I clumsily handed them my tray of uneaten food and buried my face in shame and embarrassment; for a Korean man to cry in public both shocked and discomfited those who could hear me, and I could tell. My ineptitude at being a Korean was complete.

After regaining my composure, I decided to wash my face in the bathroom. Making my way aft, I stopped for a moment at a rear window. The cabin had been darkened at this point, but strange, thick shafts of blue light pried their way into the last few rows of the airplane. Moments before I pressed my face against one of the rear windows, I cast a quick look about me, fully expecting every pair of eyes in the airplane to be focused on me. Instead, I saw a man awkwardly sprawled out on two seats, attempting to sleep for a few hours. Several women sat next to each other, eyes glazed over and drawn into the small screens on the seats in front of them. In Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Vietnamese, the headphones and subtitles blared forth their polyphonous cacophony of silent noise.

My eyes fluttered back to the window. It took me several moments to recognize what I was seeing. Tens of thousands of feet above the earth, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour in a lone airplane, I experienced for the first time the suspension of time I have always desired. Far to the west, at the edge of my periphery, a slivered moon glowed with a searing but hollow intensity, as if God had etched a small carving into the firmament and let the pure white burn of His glory shine through. As my eyes moved east, the deep void surrounding the moon tempered bit by bit. Like the temple curtain, torn in two at the moment of Christ's death, the horizon to the far east ripped apart at the seams, revealing clouds that burst forth with the power of the burning blind of the sun.

Were this all my eyes were beholden to see, I would still count myself as one man in a billion. How many men in ages past would have given all of their possessions for this one moment? It seemed as a myth to me, a story in which my youth or the love of my life or my soul itself would be demanded as payment for the magic of being simultaneously blinded by the sunrise and chilled by the cold of the darkest of nights.

But quite astonishingly, the painting was not yet complete. My eyes dropped below the horizon into a sea of churning motion. Beneath me lay the Aleutian volcanoes and mountains, dancing in and out of the cover of clouds and mist. Occasionally, the bright greens or blues of a lake or the stark white of a glacier would emerge from the sweeping, reckless mess of snow and stone below me. The perfect stillness of the sun, moon and sky above the horizon accented the swirl of the landscape below the horizon. The sheer, sharp dark of the west stood in stark contrast to the burning haze of the east. I sat, entranced, for nearly an hour. At any moment, I expected the scene to disappear forever. After this seemingly eternal span of time, a disturbance did indeed divert my focus. Many dozens of miles away, a pinpoint of light appeared, nestled among the mountains. Even as the light grew stronger, it diffused so quickly that I could not identify its source. But as I began to see not one but many burning lights, it dawned upon me that I was watching the sleeping city of Juneau.

I often prefer the potency of words when I try to communicate an idea or memory or emotion to another. But here, they completely fail me. The beauty was overwhelmingly ineffable. These sentences must be read in order, one at a time, but the image I just described assaulted me in a single sustained moment. For once in my life, I felt the joy C.S. Lewis describes. My heart burnt with desires of every sort. I desired to be with Sarah, that we might share this moment together. To a lesser degree, I desired to be with anyone or everyone, that all might see the extent of God's beauty. But at the same time, there was the deep desire I have spoken of in many entries over the years; the desire for the fullness of beauty, a desire for the day to come, when joy will be complete. Yet these desires came as no surprise to my heart, though their extent was stronger in this instant than few others in my life. Instead, the surprise came in the unavoidable delight my heart felt in the moment.

Why have I always been a man, driven from one place to another, unsettled and relentless in my pursuit of pursuit itself? A portion of this is universal to all man; we were not created for this world as it stands, and shall never find our satisfaction here. But I believe a great deal of my restlessness also has to do with a fundamental imbalance in the way I typically experience life. Those who know me best also know that I often have a vacant look in my eyes, as though dispossessed (or perhaps possessed). The strength of my desires and the weakness of my delight causes me to withdraw from this world and its joys. Again, words begin to fail me.

Today, I turned twenty-two. Much to my dismay, in many ways. I've always hated my own birthday (probably because it's supposed to be a time of delight, and I've realized how poor I am in delighting!), and this year seemed in many ways the hardest of all, because my heart is in so many different places at once, and I seem to be without the emotional strength or stamina to find an abundance of joy in my current circumstances.

That our joy might be complete, Jesus Christ must be the 'joy of man's desiring', but equally the joy of man's delight. I have often believed I lacked a full joy because my desires were misdirected. While this is undoubtedly the case in many circumstances, I am now beginning to realize that even in those rare moments when my desires are properly focused, I continue to lack joy because I fail to delight in the here and the now. I also realize I have failed to appreciate many around me, or seemed to lack an appreciation for the very same reason. Rather than delighting in my fellowship with someone, I'm too occupied with my desires and what could be or what might very well be in the next life. But too much desire draws me away from this world and the people in it. So I apologize for the distance I have forced between myself and everyone I know, and have begun to embark upon a new journey wherein I might continue to be consumed by desire, but also be filled to overflowing with delight. For much too long, I have felt solely the pang of joy, the inconsolable longing of joy, and the sorrow of joy. I pray now, because I am driven to desperation, that I might also know the comfort of joy, the peace of joy, and the delight of joy.

Our best havings are wantings...

I'll be helping with the worship music at my church for the rest of the summer. This coming Sunday, Steve will be speaking on Joy. Thus, Wes (the worship elder) and I are focusing on songs that pertain to joy; specifically in the context of sadness of Christ's leaving this world, but the overwhelming joy brought by the Holy Spirit.

I am also quickly taken to Hebrews 12:2, where we are told, "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

What is the joy that was set before Christ? The Greek word is 'chara', the experience of gladness. My own translation might be the desire for delight, where desire is the experience and delight the gladness, but that will be the topic of my next post. Whenever the word 'joy' is mentioned, my mind is also immediately drawn to a few C.S. Lewis quotes I mulled over, time and time again, during my road trip (and since then, I might add). I hope the following quotes resound in your heart as they do in mine. As the quotes are fairly lengthy and I could not help but include a great deal of them, I will try to add a minimal ammount of commentary and save most of my thoughts for my next post. There, I hope to explore the relationship between desire, delight and joy.

"It [joy] was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what? ... Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time; and in a certain sense everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison ... And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, 'in another dimension' ... [it was] an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy ... anyone who has experienced it will want it again ... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures of the world."

"Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing."

"All joy emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings."

"In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, . . . I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both . . . Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth's expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited . . . . Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies . . . Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself . . ."

"The experience is one of intense longing . . . This hunger is better than any other fullness; this poverty better than all other wealth. And thus it comes about, that if the desire is long absent, it may itself be desired, and that new desiring becomes a new instance of the original desire . . . The human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given - nay, cannot even be imagined as given - in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal experience."

"You have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw - but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported . . . All the things that have deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want . . . which we shall still desire on our deathbeds . . . Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it - made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand."

C.S. Lewis seems clear on this point: Joy is not the end, the telos, the culmination of all positive and negative emotions. It serves instead as a gatekeeper, releasing, luring, and enlarging our desires for a greater thing than the joy itself... Joy is an arrow pointing to heaven, an uncertainty, a longing, a hunger. It is not mere giddiness or excitement or happiness.

Perhaps my most radical misunderstanding of joy has been perceiving it as the opposite of sorrow. They are not opposed to one another, but imperiously commanding bedmates and lovers. As Jane Kenyon would say, "the soul's bliss and suffering are bound together like the grasses". Our best havings are wantings. The greatest joy is panged with the greatest and most inconsolable longing and sorrow. There must be desire and delight. More to come soon.

My favorite verse of the one song I'm insisting we sing on Sunday:

O Joy, that seeketh me through pain,
I dare not close my heart to thee.
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And find the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

What's Your Name?

A typical conversation in Korea:

Random Korean: Hello.
Daniel: Hello.
Random Korean: What's your name?
Daniel: Daniel Lee Kearns.
Random Korean: No, your real name, please.

Sometimes, I attempted it in Korean. That conversation would go something like:

Random Korean: Annyeong haseyo
Daniel: Annyeong hasimnikka?
Random Korean: [some random phrase I assume to be 'what's your name']
Daniel: Che ireumin Daniel Lee Kearns eyo...

(By this time, it either switches to English or they give up. Because my Korean is so poor).

But there is a clear expectation for me to share my real [read: Korean] name. The funny thing is, I have a lot of ways to answer the question, "What's your name?"

When I was born, I was given the name Lee, Yung-Koo.
When I came to America, I was given the name Daniel Lee Kearns.
A few weeks ago, I discovered my Korean name was given to me by my adoption agency. My birth mother never saw me, and did not name me. Thus, at the age of twenty-one, I was given a new Korean name by my birth mother: Kim, Yoo-Jin.

I love the Hebraic attention to the meaning of names, and I hope to choose names for my own children (heh.. not sure about the whole marriage business... but hopefully?) that have significant and appropriate meanings. Time and time again in the Old and New Testaments, God orders men and women to give their children specific names. I think especially of John the Baptist's father, mute, and given the sole responsibility of naming his son.

Daniel means 'God is my judge'. Yoo-Jin means something like 'realizing the genuine truth'.

The significance of a name often appears as a 'chicken or the egg' dilemma from the eyes of man. A name in the Bible often carried the premonition of the man the child would one day become (Christ being perhaps the greatest example). But does the child grow into his name, and become that person because of the expectation? Or in the case of God's explicit choosing of a name, does it simply mark the child with a role or function or attribute he will become/display regardless of his awareness? Perhaps it's a needless question of causation that cannot be answered because of God's existence outside of space and time. But given my multitude of names, it's something I contemplate.

I'm overwhelmingly grateful for the 'el' in my name; a Hebraic tokening of God. My life has been filled with judgment and expectations, perhaps especially because of my status as an adoptee, a Christian, a natural leader and a strong student. Growing up, I was often told I had to be an accomplished scientist or pianist; others told me I would be a pastor one day. I was driven by the judgment and expectations of others to succeed in everything I attempted. Sarah often told me I am too hard on myself and this is also true. Growing up, I applied an enormous amount of pressure to myself because I felt it would be dishonoring to myself, my birth mother, and all underprivileged children if I did not take hold of every educational and circumstantial advantage I was given by my family in America. I judge my own mistakes harshly and abhor giving up.

But day after day, I am forced to return to my name. Gabe, I know you mock my recent use of my full name, but it was not solely because of Sarah or my family. It's because Daniel is a fuller use of my name, and retains the 'el', the focus on God as my judge and not man or myself. So the name of Daniel functions in a number of ways.

It functions as an ideal, as I struggle to keep God as my judge and no other.
It functions as a retroactive truth; for God is indeed my judge and I am in a covenant with Him, though I could not know that this would be the case when I was named.
It functions as an encouragement, an encapsulation of something I aspire to...

Yoo-Jin intrigues me for a plurality of reasons. It was given to me after reaching adulthood. It was given to me by the woman who held me in her womb for nine, tortuous months. Yet it was given to me by a woman who had never met me when she gave me this name, but simply communicated to me through letters and e-mails. Furthermore, I know my birth mother and I interpret the name differently. Yoo-Jin. Realizing the genuine truth. My birth mother named me Yoo-Jin because she was finally able to discover me as I truly am. Always, she had ideas of the kind of infant, the kind of boy, the kind of man I would be. But now, she realizes the genuine truth. This has been a both ecstatic and devastating experience for both my birth mother and myself, but I have to save that for another post.

For myself, Yoo-Jin could not be a more significant or multi-faceted name. Perhaps it would be the same for anyone, since it is the task of every man's life to realize the genuine truth. But there are so many truths... and a Truth... that I have realized over the past twenty-one years and specifically the past few months of my life, that I could not help but weep when I was given this name. Realization is a process. It is a dawning, an awakening. As a child slowly realizes the significance of the world about him and the difference between his parents and an inanimate object, as he acquaints himself more and more each day with the language of his family and begins to enunciate words of his own, so I have grown in my realization of who God is, and the centrality of His character and work in my life.

The story of my adoption has also been a story of realizing the genuine truth. Finally, after twenty-one years, I know where I was born. I know the names of the man and woman who gave birth to me. Slowly, I am learning more about where I came from and how the first ten weeks of my life and my Korean blood must be reconciled with my family here in America. I am realizing how each one of my names contributes to the whole and complete 'me'.

I could not possibly finish this post without a strong eschatological postlude. And as I discuss the multiplicity of my names, a look toward eternity comes effortlessly and with great hope. For in the midst of my confusion over my identity and the many places I have come from and the many names I have been given (some or all of them against my will), I anticipate receiving a new and final name. One day, perhaps in heaven I will be asked for my name and I shall reply with the name God ordained for me from before the existence of time itself. Then, and only then, shall all the questions that haunt me be answered, and these tears of confusion be wiped away.

Ten months later... I'm back.

It's been ten months since I last posted, but expect the blogging to begin again.

A quick update on my life, since a lot has happened quite recently:

I graduated from Millersville University with a B.A. in philosophy. I'll be heading to Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) in the fall to pursue a Master's of Divinity. I'm still not sure if I'll end up pursuing more education with the intent of becoming a professor or enter a pastoral/ministry type of position, but I've got a number of years to figure it out. And the choices aren't exclusive of one another anyways.

About nine months ago, I found out my birth mother was alive and living in Seoul, S. Korea. At first, we communicated very slowly through snail mail. By March, however, we were communicating quite quickly through e-mail and a third-party translator (she only knows a little English, I know almost no Korean). One of our topics of discussion concerned meeting in person. I asked her if she would be interested in coming to America for my wedding, as I assumed that would happen within a year or so. She responded by telling me that she could not leave Seoul because of her parents waning health. Furthermore, her parents decided they would like to meet me, so visiting Korea became a priority. I ended up booking a flight and flying to Seoul from May 24-31st. I'm sure a number of posts may discuss all of this more deeply; in this post, I'm going to put up some pictures and also post the e-mail I wrote to my family and friends from Seoul. For some reason, the e-mail did not get through to everyone, so this way I can be sure all can read it.

As a final update, I am no longer dating Sarah Wingate. We were a day away from pre-marital counseling and I thought we would get married, but it now appears as though things are over. I guess that's why I have time to blog again. Here is my letter from Korea, followed by some pictures and further comments:

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Seoul, South Korea; the land of the morning calm. I
wanted all of you to know that I arrived in Seoul safely and
everything has gone smoothly in terms of getting to my hotel, meeting
up with my social workers, my birth mother, Liz Lee from Case, etc.
God has been extremely sovereign; my adoption agency, my birth
mother's apartment, my hotel, and Liz Lee's apartment are all within
about ten minutes of each other. You would find this especially
amazing if you had ever been to Seoul. The city is home to over 20
million people... apartment buildings and enormous business towers
loom on for miles and miles. Apartment complexes remind me of ant
hills, with tens of thousands of people living on mere acres of land.

In many ways, I find Seoul extremely disconcerting. The population is
enormously homogeneous. You can literally go hours on the street
without seeing a single non-Korean. It is very unlike an American
city, where different colors, races, ethnicities, etc. are so heavily
prevalent. Ever since I got on the airplane, there has been a
struggle between myself and other Koreans. The Korean cultural
expectation is that you will be fluent in the language and traditions
of Korea no matter where you grew up and no matter what circumstances
you were raised in. Thus, I am mostly viewed by older Koreans as a
third-rate Korean... and if they find out I'm adopted, it's even
worse.

On Friday, I met with two social workers at Holt International (the
agency I was adopted through 21 years ago), and then met my birth
mother and her parents. I can't really put any of this in words,
other than to say it was emotional, bewildering, and difficult. On
the one hand, I see the physical resemblance in my birth mother and
know she held me in her womb for nine months, and I feel some loyalty
and affinity to her. On the other hand, these people seem like
complete strangers to me, and our differing languages and cultures
isolate us.

I've been fed like a king since I arrived in Korea... Liz Lee + birth
mother = enormous amounts of food at least three times a day. I love
the food, but my body is having a difficult time taking in the sheer
volume and acidity of the meals here. After I get home and upload
some pictures to my computer, you can see just how much I've been
eating. I believe there were about 30 dishes (many were small, mind
you.. but still!) involved in the lunch I ate yesterday.

Please continue to pray for me and also for the salvation of my birth
mother. It has been tremendously difficult for me to be here,
emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I haven't had time to
recover from jet lag (I've been waking up at 3 or 4AM most mornings
and taking a jog around the city.. very fascinating) before being
thrown into a lot of emotionally exhausting experiences. I'm
struggling to figure out how honest and open I should be with my birth
mother. You might think this is silly, and I should be completely
forthright, but it's not quite that simple. It's not a question of
lying to her, but of how deeply I should share my thoughts and
emotions with her. She is ecstatic to see me and can't believe I'm
real. She is always holding my hand or stroking my head or holding my
leg when we are together. She is treasuring every moment we have
together, and is always wavering between smiling, because she never
thought she would see me (she did not see me when I was born) and
crying, because she wishes she could have raised me, and feels as
though it is now too late.

I want to bring happiness to her life and be a son she can be proud
of. But in my heart and mind, it is very, very clear to me that
Hershey is my home, and that my mom and dad and my brothers and sister
and Sarah and my friends are my home. While I would still like to
learn Korean and learn about Korean culture, it is not really 'my
own'. I feel like a complete stranger here, an impostor that looks
Korean but has nothing Korean about him. In America, I used to wish I
was white, because I was so different from my family and friends. I'm
old enough now that I've accepted my race and God's sovereign plans
for my life, but I can easily recognize how much easier it would be if
I were white in this culture! If you are a white American in Korea,
everyone wants to practice their english on you and they want to have
their picture taken with you, etc. But I am often viewed as a bastard
here, with an enormous amount of social stigma attached to myself and
my birth mother. When we went shopping together, she asked that I not
really speak to anyone, because she did not want another Korean to
know I was adopted. Instead, many thought I was a mute!

So it is very clear to me that I belong in America, not here... and
this has always been the case since adolescence. I came to Korea to
please my birth mother and to share the gospel with her. But I cannot
really tell her to her face, "Your city and your culture are
completely strange to me, and I am sick for home and family and Sarah
and friends and cry every night because I am so lonely here." It
would devastate her, and she has already had such a difficult life.
From the first day we met, she was already speaking about how the day
of my departure was coming so quickly, and how much it troubled her
that my time here was so little. I feel a little guilty, because I am
very much looking forward to returning home.

My birth mother did not want to go to church with Liz and I, which was
disappointing to me. But as I begin to understand the culture and the
depth of shame involved in having a child while unwed, I also
understand it is not a simple or easy thing for her to attend a
church. Liz and I went to a bookstore and I bought my birth mother a
Korean Bible yesterday, and I will give it to her tomorrow. I have
told her that I am continuing to pray for her and her parents;
sometimes she seems very non-responsive to these words and brushes
past them, other times she seems very emotional. The language barrier
makes all communication very difficult, so I can never really know
what she is thinking.

Everything that is happening here is so heavy! There is little
laughter, and I miss the lightness of life. I am counting down the
hours until I see my family, Sarah, Buttercup, Hershey, my friends,
etc. Today I am going to an ancient palace with my birth mother and
tomorrow I will visit the hospital where I was born with my birth
grandfather, so he can thank the doctor with me present. Tomorrow
will also be the last time I visit with my birth mother and birth
grandparents. Liz and I may try to hang out tonight and see the city
when it really comes alive (I can't wait to see this, because during
the day, it is so much more crowded than any city I've ever been in...
I can't imagine the night).

Oh, one last thing! The church Liz attends is incredible. It has
something like 10 services a week, and I think about 30,000 different
people attend the various weekly functions. On Sunday, we went to a
4PM service and they had six different sanctuaries open, so they could
seat everyone. The service was in Korean, so I understood almost
nothing (they did sing a few english songs), but it is extremely
Bible-centered and passionate. 6 of the 10 largest churches in the
world are in Seoul, with weekly attendance in the tens of thousands.
On Tuesday night, I may attend Liz's Christian medical fellowship and
play guitar with the guy leading worship. I don't expect to sing in
Korean, though... the language is so foreign and difficult that even
after being here for a week, I have only picked up a few words and I
still can't read the alphabet.

There is so much more I could write, but this e-mail is already so
long! I thank God for His faithfulness, even in such difficult
situations. I believe He connected me to my birth mother after 21
years of silence because He will grant her salvation. Please pray for
patience, as I want so badly for things to happen soon... but it
could be years or decades, and I must simply continue to pray for her
faithfully. I miss all of you and can't wait to be back in America.
Thanks for your prayers. God bless.

gripped by grace,

- daniel




My birth mother and her parents.


My birth mother, myself, and an array of Korean food. Every meal was aesthetically beautiful and incredibly delicious. It's also the first time in my life I could not ever finish all the food in front of me, because you just can't do it!

Weddings, Road Trips and Recollections

Hours become days, days become weeks, weeks become months, and before you know it the summer has almost come to an end. In my case, with a long (unplanned) sabbatical from the ol’ business of writing on my blog (not to mention reading the blogs of others!). I actually intended to begin updating again a week or two ago, but my PowerBook and its plethora of half-finished entries decided to die on me. So here I am, forced to start from scratch again. I’ll start with an entry I began in early July…

Last weekend I attended Partusch’s wedding out in Oxford, Ohio. While I’ve attended numerous weddings in the past few years, Mike is the first Case Western buddy I’ve seen married off. When I reflect upon the ten strangest days of my life, weddings just so happen to hold four positions. This weekend was no exception. For those of you who have been reading my blog/xanga for awhile, you might recall me mentioning my inherent discordance with the instances of life this world might deem most beautiful. Weddings bring silent tears to my eyes for a reason almost wholly disconnected from the persons involved. On a more universal level, I simply wonder if the pure white dress, the sheer perfection of the ceremony celebrates a falsity. I do not mean that marriage is a terrible thing; I simply wonder if the typical wedding ceremony exaggerates the truth of life, the bundled up joys and sorrow of relationship. Perhaps it is because I find the greatest beauty in that which I sense to be the most honest and truthful depiction of life; but I wonder if I would not rather celebrate my wedding (if there ever be one) on a more somber note, beginning not with exaltation but confession, not standing in pride but kneeling in shame, not with a vow to my beloved, but a cry for mercy and grace from my Beloved. Of course, since a wedding is a portrait of Christ and the church, not the other way around, perhaps this attempt at perfection can properly be an attempt to relay the majesty of the Wedding feast in a fallen world. The reception ran rather late on Saturday night and as usual, I decided to drive home straight through the night. So with these thoughts on my mind, the long trip began.

I do this for more than the pragmatic reasons of an empty road. The night’s reign over the sleeping world presents one with an entirely different rendition of the same underlying reality. As my lone headlights hacked their way forward, mile after mile, shadows bent and bowed before me. Here, a giant oak elongated and exaggerated for a hundred yards; there, a maple twisted and torn into a thousand shapes, like a hapless shadow puppet. The most dramatic moment, of course, is the inevitable transition from dark to light. As the sun stolidly fights for its birthright, the moon flees high above the horizon. Every time I blink, the sky surrenders another shade, another hue, as the last vestiges of blackness become dull grays for a moment, luminescent grays a moment later. The once indiscernible and distant hills, pressed out to the corners of my mind, transform from the young, waif-like figure of a girl into the full breasted and shapely form of the young, reckless woman. The Painter’s brush is poised, His palette of colors at his side. A stroke of carmine for the halo of the approaching sun, a spattering of sepia for the plowed fields. A smear of wisteria for the collapsing darkness of the horizon, a speckling of viridian for the leaves, gently bidding the night adieu.

Amidst this visual splendor, I listened to song after song of Celtic music. If my disposition, my experience of life could be embodied in a single tradition of music, it would probably be the Celtic tradition. I took it all in quietly. The tin whistles and pipes, now in harmony, now separated by the smallest of distances. Perhaps one scoops a note where another does not, perhaps one mournfully trills with indecision while another strikes true. The melody is discernible in all; it is simply retold by each instrument as one might recall the same event a dozen different ways. The lines are blurred between harmony and unison, dissonance and resolve. The piano hesitates with the gentle, naïve reticence of a woman’s first kiss, then strikes forth in syncopation, like a brash young man. And the hypnotic voice of the woman singing in Gaelic, an instrument in itself. With every breath, every convolution of pitch, she rocks forward and back, forward and back, the beaten, battered, but beautiful ship riding abreast of the tumultuous tune beneath her.

As the darkness of the early morning fell from my eyes like scales, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. As I could do neither, I simply reflected on the thoughts attempting to emerge from the fraught tendrils of my mind. My car barreled down the highway, trailing behind it twenty-one years of life and experience. The last year of my life has been an interesting one. Like Icharus, I have flown closer to the heavenly heights than I could have ever imagined, but likewise plunged closer to the fires of hell. And for the first time, the experiences seem legitimate. For as a child cannot discern the difference between the most expensive and cheapest of wines, so I could not capably discern between the more and less significant events of my life for many years; I simply crashed my way through them without the least bit of inspection or understanding. Indeed, it is in the recollection of an experience that I seem to impute importance, significance, even legitimacy. Did I understand the Gospel at age six, ten, sixteen, or twenty? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But as I cast my eyes back over my shoulder, I retroactively apply the whole of my experiences to this very day and find the very significance I desire for the past in the present: “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” Perhaps I am foolish to view the past year as the first set of ‘independently legitimate’ experiences. In twenty years, I will probably reflect upon the early years of my manhood and be amazed at the foolish rashness of my supposedly informed decisions and experiences. Those experiences which I thought incredibly important at one time may fade into disregard, while the once ill remembered become most significant. The conclusion is simple, Ecclesiastical, and one of my largest struggles: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

A Call to 'Stab These Monsters in the Face'

As you've probably heard by now, terrorists bombed several Underground trains and a bus earlier today. I wonder if this is a preemptive strike to scare folks away from the 2012 Olympics (which London just won). Actually, as I think about it a bit more, the notice is probably too short and the timing is probably coincidental. I'm on the run, so I don't have time to flesh out many thoughts... but London is in some sense a dangerous choice for the terrorists. After all, the British are the most involved European country in the war on terror; they will not capitulate like Spain. Indeed, it already looks as though Blair is determined to kick things up a notch. I'm praying he does. Along those lines, an excellent article Justin Cave sent me a few weeks ago...

Lord Have Mercy; What About Lord Vader?

"But while we can all be forgiven, we must respect the choice to reject forgiveness -- permanently. Mercy is for seduced sinners; for those not wholly given over to darkness. When we find men who have freely bound themselves to evil with unbreakable chains of their own forging, a decent respect for justice and free will sometimes compels us to stab these monsters in the face."

Amen, Douglas... Amen.

The Books Tag

I've been tagged by Dad! So to answer the books questionaire...

How many books do you own?

I'm guessing I own somewhere around 300-400 books. The bulk deal with Christian theology, 'Christian living' or philosophy. Somewhere under 100 would be 'classics' or anthologies, books or poetry, or novels by Michener and the like.

What's the last book you read?

Does this mean read or completed? Everyone seems to be answering it as 'completed'. Well, a full list of books I've read (and possibly completed) this week includes Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, a collection of Dorothy Sayres' Lord Wimsey mysteries, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, James Michener's Siberia, Thomas Watson's All Things for Good and William Bridge's A Lifting Up for the Downcast.

What are five books that mean the most to you?

I find these questions exceedingly difficult. I'm young enough that books have been most significant because of the stage of life I happened to be in when I read them. Very few books have I read more than twice. I would have to credit J.I. Packer's Knowing God for introducing me to to the realm of theology and practicing a deeper spiritual life. I believe James Michener and John Steinbeck are the only authors whose books have been emotionally moving enough to bring me to tears, so I'll credit their books (especially Michener's Centennial and Poland and Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown) as numbers 2 and 3. I know, I'm cheating. John Piper's Desiring God also expanded my conception of the Christian life significantly, specifically viewing it as a list of do's instead of don'ts. Finally, I'd have to credit the three bedside companions that have consistently infused my 'devotional time' with new life: Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, Valley of Vision (a collection of Puritan prayers) and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Since I don't really have anyone to tag, I will preemptively tag my readers and demand you to fill out the questionaire as a comment to this post.

Later today, I'll be heading to Cincinnati for a wedding. Earlier this week, I bought one of these, so that I can brainstorm/blog/journal while I'm at work or on the move. I'm a bit worried of becoming too dependent on the lil guy, but it seemed to be the best way to redeem my 'down' time at the post office. Actually, that's the primary reason I refuse to own a cell phone; I realize it would be useful, but it would also become an unnecessary dependence (and monetary expenditure). So I will continue to resist. Depending on whether or not I drive through the night on Saturday, I should be back in the Hershey area for church on Sunday or for Kairos in the afternoon. Have a great weekend!