Safe Haven

 I'm gonna start this in a weird place, but I don't like Foreigner that much. I've heard "I Want To Know What Love Is" probably 200 times in my life, and that's enough. I'm sorry. And the thing is, I don't inherently mind power ballads [You love power ballads, you mawkish clown.--ed.] or songs with slow verses and bold choruses. It's just this song. Frankly, every time I hear it though, I think, "How many out of wedlock conceptions happened with this song in the background?" There's a beautiful song written by Todd Rundgren that is the title of this post. It was the final track on the Oops! Wrong Planet LP from 1977 from his band Utopia. It got even more popular when it was recorded by England Dan (Dan Seals) and John Ford Coley in 1979. I don't know if Todd Rundgren identified as a Christian when he wrote it--I wasn't there--and I don't know if he does now, but that's a gospel song. In fact, Dan Seals said he "go...

 I had probably heard "I Won't Hold You Back" as a kid, a little kid. Probably my mom or one of my stand-in "parents" had the TOTO IV LP. It was everywhere. I found the LP in my stepdad Bill's stuff in the early to mid-2000s. Well, I don't know if Timothy Schmit of the Eagles is a tenor; I don't know music like a musician does. But he sure sounds like he's in the Steve Perry range on "I Won't Hold You Back" and Perry has been called a tenor. Do you think the Eagles ever did the song in concert because Timothy recorded it with Toto? For funsies? Vince Gill, who's with the Eagles now, could definitely sing the part. Speaking of Vince Gill, he sings so high that I don't know what a "falsetto" even means for him. You're not really exceeding range, if you just live there.  Anyway, it's a bloody great song.

 I can recall taking a canon law class for my Masters degree in Theological Studies (Ave Maria University’s Institute For Pastoral Theology). It was a lot of case studies of people doing less-than-ideal things, and us figuring out which part of canon law would apply. I had a great instructor who made canon law fun, which is an odd sentence to write. Moral theology inevitably is a part of those discussions. The study basically of what to do or not to do in particular situations, and also oftentimes the analysis of how morally culpable a person is or is not, based upon their knowledge and actions, is another aspect of moral theology. Professor Benedict Nguyen is a great teacher, and a great mind in the Catholic Church today. We got to talking in class, and analyzing a difficult situation, he brought this out as a principle: “When in doubt, do not act.” We weren’t talking about a more obvious situation where failing to act is a sin of omission. We weren’t dealing with anything that is...