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Good Things

A couple of months ago, I went to a bar with my friend, Tricia.  I ordered a pale ale, and the instant she went to the bathroom, two awkward young men swooped over to flirt with me.

Before that, she and I were talking about art and about writing. She is out in California, living twenty miles from L.A. and writing screenplays. She wants to write big action and adventure movies like Cowboys and Aliens with heroes like Indiana Jones, big and blazing romps of fun.  "I just wrote a romantic-comedy," she said, and, both of us Christians, we were discussing the value of art that isn't explicitly "Christian" or that doesn't directly talk about God.

Without thinking, I said, "It is good to fill the world with good things."

Last week was strangely sad for me.  A relative of mine died of heart failure, one of my young cats suddenly fell ill and had to be put down, and my mother told me Wednesday morning that one of her patients, a 7-year-old girl, is slowly slipping away. Friday was grey and humid, uncomfortable and oppressive, weather to match this haze of sadness I could not shake.

And it wasn't a verse, a prayer, or a worship song that finally burned off the fog.

It was a catchy pop-rock song.

I got in the car to go to work and pulled out of the garage, punching the radio power button as I backed into the alley.  Through the speakers, I heard "--time but I'm back in town / This time I'm not leaving without you" and I turned it up - I had caught "You and I" by Lady Gaga in the first verse. I cranked it, screamed it, felt scrubbed clean by the electric guitars and the rough vocals.  The song had nothing to do with death, with God, with sadness, with cats or aunts or children, but it was a good song, and that was enough. 

When I got to work ten minutes later, my mind had cleared.

One good song was enough to shake me out of the haze.

It is good to fill the world with good things.

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