It's not really the king of all blogs, just a sad dinosaur...

When we visited San Francisco last week, Brian suggested having a listen to Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise and Seven Swans.

He said it would take some getting used to.

For me, it was an overstated acquired taste. I was pretty much hooked on my first listen. I googled Sufjan (soof-yan) and figured that I didn’t want my wife to see his picture (I’m married to a wonderful and beautiful woman, but Sufjan’s still a pretty attractive dude).

Illinoise just seems to be so much of a thoughtful and witty compilation of musical ability and lyrical prowess. The emotional breadth of the CD is simply off the map. Three cheers to Mr. Prentiss for the recommendation! And I digress as there are more than enough analyses and reviews on the net for your viewing pleasure.

However, there are a few songs that really seem to wrench @ my heart. The one I can’t stop listening to is “Casimir Pulaski Day.” It’s a song about a friend with “cancer of the bone.” It’s a song about the frustrations that come when you can visibly see a friend dying and the worlds of night and day come crashing together. The most affecting sections of the song are adorned in such a way as to cause you to hear every word spoken, and to feel the pain and loss there.

I’m mentioning it because it’s just such a very vivid word picture of what pain and loss can feel like. Every time I listen to this song, I come closer to the point where I just want to weep because I feel like someone is telling me their secrets of how they hurt too. And I ask myself, do I want someone to understand so that there can be consolation or just so that I know that I’m not the only one who’s being hurt in a world where there seems to be so much that I can’t do anything about?

There’s so much we can try to say, but there’s so much that is so difficult to understand. More and more I’m deducing that it’s better for me to shrug my shoulders and say, “God, I just don’t understand this.”