Let’s worship rebellion and love and violence - and crappy movies while we’re at it. Or something.

Forget imagining stories; I’d live them, live them like Kerouac did, and write about them later. A road trip journal, full of my thoughts and the people I met and the places I broke down, yes, and it would be my best story ever, because it really happened.

Dear Peter Jackson: I’ve enjoyed the look into your imagination and how you envisioned everything from Mordor to the Shire. Congrats on yet another success with the Tolkien story.

Are the sexual metaphors explored by Pedro the Lion’s Control, Bill Mallonee’s Love Cocoon, and - dare we say - the Bible too much for contemporary Christianity?

Buddy Miller is country music. And I don’t mean the flashy cowboy hat or midriff-baring school of country music. This is how it should sound.

We have an amazing legacy in the Reformation. But if you call yourself Reformed, be careful not to take the name too seriously – we are not reformed, but reforming. Semper reformanda.

When Brian Wilson turned 60 this year, Silent Planet Records had the perfect gift: Making God Smile, a tribute CD from a number of Christian artists – including Phil Keaggy, Jason Harrod, Brooks Williams, Randy Stonehill, Sixpence None the Richer, and Kevin Max.

So far, it had gone like any other O’Byrne family gathering. His older brother, happily married, had asked, as his brother always did, if he had met the one yet. His sister managed to spend nearly the entire time on the couch necking with the guy she had brought. His mother simply pretended everything was perfect and pleasant. Ignore the family problems, and they go away.

Some may find her high-octane cheerfulness annoying, but in my mind that’s the best thing about her. If only we all had her joy of living!

The craving for blood is a strange thing – I’ve often wondered if it’s similar to learning to eat solid food as a toddler. You realize you’re hungry for something new, and what you used to consume no longer satisfies you.