Never Before and Never Since, I Promise, Will the Whole World Be Warm as This

I didn't ride this morning. Had to leave early to drop my car off at the shop before work. But this was good in that it also gave me good reason to leave work "early" at the end of the day to pick up the car before the dealership closed, which meant I could break out of the current work routine, get home in a timely manner and enjoy dinner with our guests from out-of-town. They're visiting from Chicago, where we used to live. We barbecued steaks, chicken and veggies on the grill out back. Great weather. P&L, our guests, are part of the core set of friends we made while living in Chicago. It is almost hard to really "get" that they are here, since that world we left and this world we're building here seem completely disjointed, as if the two do not exist on the same planet. And yet, here they are.

Add to the welcome presence of P&L another point of connection today, an unexpected but "I'd known this was coming", forty-minute phone call with another friend from the old crew back in Chicago. He's done some great, brave things that disrupt and redefine his life and, slowly but surely cast mine in changed light.

So... the song lyrics providing the title for this entry... From "These Are Days", on the album Our Time in Eden, performed by Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs. Song written by Rob Buck and Natalie Merchant. For a long time, with roots in the early days of my relationship with my wife, winding with flourish through the time I spent studying in Jerusalem, this song has been on my short list of "songs I want played at my funeral" or would want played, if such things were actually done. It's peaceful, simple and beautiful, and, with no agenda, as if it is talking only to itself, connects me -- or, alternately, reminds me that I am connected -- to "something bigger." I read this over the pulpit once, and felt I might have gone too far.