The Sound of Silence and the World After The Fall There is a strange kind of silence that has nothing to do with the absence of noise. You can hear it in a crowded restaurant where everyone is talking and nobody is listening. You can feel it in a living room where four people are sitting together, each one glowing blue from the holy light of the iPhone. You can sense it in a marriage where the conversation has slowly been reduced to weather, dinner plans, Amazon packages, and

This is the beginning of something new. Each week around this campfire, we are going to take one theme that shows up again and again in music and stories, and we are going to listen for something deeper. Not just whether we like the song, or whether it has a great guitar riff, or whether it reminds us of some moment from high school, college, marriage, heartbreak, or a long drive with the windows down. We are going to ask a bigger question: What is this song revealing about t

So this is the beginning of something new. Every week around this campfire, we’re going to slow down and listen to some of the greatest songs ever written a little differently. Not just to admire the music. But to let it sink deeper into our souls. We’re going to talk about the wind, the fire, the road, the darkness, the light, the numbers, the longing underneath it all, and the ancient truths humanity keeps stumbling into whether it realizes it or not. And no, I’m not talkin

A few days ago, we talked about one of the most heartbreaking parts of Bohemian Rhapsody — Freddie Mercury’s plea to his mother: “Mama… just killed a man…” There was fear in it. Regret. A child-like desperation hiding underneath the confession. It sounded like someone hoping that maybe… somehow… his mother could still hold him together. But then something changes. Later in the song, buried inside the chaos of the operatic section, he cries out again: “Mama mia, mama mia, mama

There’s a moment in Bohemian Rhapsody that always stops me. Not the operatic chaos.Not the guitar solo.Not even the headbanging at the end. It’s the quiet beginning. Mama, just killed a manPut a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he’s deadMama, life had just begunBut now I’ve gone and thrown it all away… Why does he go to his mother first? Out of all the people he could speak to…Out of all the places he could run… He goes to her. We All Go There Eventually Whether w

End of the year There is a very specific kind of suffering reserved for the last month of school. Students feel it. Teachers feel it. Even the clock on the wall seems like it’s lost the will to keep going. Lessons that worked in October now land like a paper airplane with no wings. Attention spans shrink. Motivation disappears. And somehow, every class period feels longer than the one before it. So there I was—standing in front of a Theology class, fully aware that whatever

Everyone knows the song. Everyone sings the song. It doesn’t matter your age. I grew up with it in the 1970s, and now my kids know every single line better than I do. But here’s the thing— People don’t ignore this song. They lean into it. They wait for it. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most performed, most shouted, most celebrated songs in music history. And buried inside it… is a line that should make people uncomfortable. But instead of avoiding it— we look forward to it.

Why do songs so often say the things we never would? This post begins with a long, frozen drive across Iowa and ends somewhere much deeper: the divided human heart, the ache to be known, and why certain songs don’t just entertain us — they expose us. From Eternal Flame to Bohemian Rhapsody, this is about the strange way music tells the truth.

Why “Tear in My Heart” Hit Me Harder Than It Hit My Teenagers There are some songs you discover in a beautiful, meaningful way. And then there are songs that are weaponized against you by your own children before 7:30 in the morning. This is one of those stories. I wrote about this moment in my book, A Theology of Bohemian Rhapsody , because honestly, it was too ridiculous not to include. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized this song deserves a little m

Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy? "I was twelve going on thirteen the first time I really heard the music. I mean, really heard it. It was in those summers of the 70’s and 80’s that some of the greatest music was heard from an old tingy radio. Back then, we didn't have smartphones or the internet. We barely had a TV reception where we spent our summers on the shores of Lake Winnebago. But we had that radio, and looking back now, I realize we had something even bett