Exhilarating nostalgia, bringing to mind James Scott Rockford's gold Trans Am, brother to the Camaro; Springsteen's resplendent yet ultimately not transcendent romps by the boardwalk and through the badlands; school lunch romps through the Golden Arches for Big Mac meals at a buck-seventy-five; riding in the belly of a 428 mid-engine Mustang Mach I with two high school senior friends, thinking we were flying at the speed of sound from Lake Amistead to the River City, when all we were doing was a racket-rousing 130 mph; remembering a fateful drive down Pleasant Ridge Road when the centrifugal force of a loaded pipe rack in our black Ford pickup met with a curve on the dew-slickened blacktop and spun us hurtling, headlong, into a fatal collision with an unforgiving ditch, when out of the blue some transcendent force spun the truck a full 360 degrees into a straight line on the wrong lane of the road, staring at an oncoming car that calmly braked in front of our bumper; and thinking during the pastor's sermon on Psalm 40 this morning, as he described the infinitely powerful centrifugal force of the Gospel of Grace — that I knew exactly what he meant.

Speaking of the cold, and of antidotes, it was Robert Frost who described the poem as "a momentary stay against confusion." A daily dose of poetry is a fine antidote, indeed. And on roller coaster days like these, one could do worse than observe that the universe is itself, a poem.

Good stuff. When I was a young man, waiting for a 6 a.m. ride to work as a sprinkler pipefitter for my uncle, I would stare up at the mockingbirds lighting on the porte cochere trellis at my grandparents' home, where I was then staying, and I would ponder the romantic notion that all the avian species were chirping their hearts out in a sort of Apocalyptic code that had to be settled before the world could wend to its end, and the beginning of a New Kingdom. In those days, while staying upstate at my great uncle's country cabin and helping him paint and build a fence, we heard a knocking and went out front to look at the light pole among pines: a pileated woodpecker was rat-a-tat-tatting, and my uncle pointed and said, "There he is! See him, he's big as a chicken!" Had the bird also had an ivory bill, of course, we would have become famous for having spotted the variety of woodpecker thought to have gone extinct, until recently, in Arkansas, they've been rumored to reside: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/ ... which leads me to my favorite bird line in the heart of Hopkins' "The Windhover": "My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird — the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!" To this day, nothing quite charms me like walking across the Louisiana Capitol Park gardens near my work, in the shadow of Huey P. Long's statue, and seeing the mockingbirds preen on the sidewalks and trill from the treetops.

Spot-on wakeup call, marvelous instruction, and the 20,000-days reference – along with the totality of this post – reminds me of a song ... http://open.spotify.com/track/1X3pXZWKbSpJXuOOGELxYF

Once on "Jeopardy," Alex Trebec prompted three brilliant contestants with the answer, "Author of this, the shortest of the synoptic Gospels in the Bible." One after another, the camera panned across helplessly blank faces. At home, I;m shouting, "Who is Mark! Who is Mark!" Mark ... 16 chapters ... Matthew, 28; Luke 24; and the asynoptic John, 21. Urgency, indeed. I've been reading I/II Corinthians, but I think I'll follow your recommendation soon and turn to Mark. I could do with a more immediate sense of the Gospel these days. And judging from "Jeopardy," couldn't we all?

Thanks, Steve, will definitely check this one out.

A properly applied melancholia moves one to amazing places and actions: melancholia about the world's inequities and hunger drives one to missions and evangelism. Melancholia also stimulates a searching spirit that leads to important inner journeys, trips that lead to consolation, epiphanies and liberating grace. This passage reminds me of the "Christmas at Denny's" tune on Randy Stonehill's incomparable "Return to Paradise." Depressing as all get-out on the surface, the song blends with a diverse assortment of characters and themes in "Paradise": civil rights, homelessness, heartache, suicidal old high school pals and a number of lost souls, some of them children hardened before their time and adults worn to the nub. From such experiences as an isolated dinner with transient souls at Denny's, Stonehill guides listeners on a path of grace that concludes on a transcendent note, one made much more effective because the songwriter has trammeled down difficult paths. Mark Heard produced the record, pushing Stonehill's creative talents to their limits, and the results are simply spectacular. I'd recommend "Christmas at Denny's" as a fine addition to the holiday mingling of melancholia and grace. It's an affecting reminder that not everyone's holidays are happy, but hope lingers -- waiting to be born.

Here is a day well-spent, and the writing confirms it: eloquence on the Eno, an economy of grace.

Here is a day well-spent, and the writing confirms it: eloquence on the Eno, an economy of grace.

Lovely idyll on a son's life in his soon-to-be expanding biosphere. I think Brooks Williams could write quite the song about this universal experience. You just have, minus the sonic component. Mark Heard's "House of Broken Dreams," with a more sober tone, does much the same. Also want to send along my thanks and congratulations, Steve, on the "Wide Angle" radio series. Yesterday, I stumbled across an old CD sampler of the show, including phenomenal music and interviews with Brooks, and was wowed anew. Sorry the show didn't last, but I'm glad to find the creator here. Will recommend the format to a friend in the radio business who has kindred interests.