We’re only young once — “So scared of growing old/ I’m only good at being young.” -John Mayer Candy bar wrappers and Mountain Dew cans and packs of cigarettes we’d sneak down a Carolina back road. The days of our youth. You’re only seventeen once. The radio played I remember running through the wet grass, falling…

A 90’s pop-rock song taught me about death and moving on — The first time death blew its cold, violent wind through my forest I was 12. I soaked it in visually as my grandmother’s already small body withered into an unrecognizable mess of blankets and tubes hooked to beeping machines in a cold room. …

Free Fallin’ isn’t just a classic song, but a lesson in living — I want to get this out of the way early in this write-up of Each Year’s Best Song, 1989 edition. I’m writing about Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, and I want to make sure we are all playing with the same deck of cards. We’re all in the same boat. It’s…

We’ll never grow closer to God by being fake — Conor O’Malley’s mom is dying. And there’s nothing he can do about it. Recently I saw a question on an online book forum. “What’s the saddest book?” Several answered A Monster Calls. I immediately picked it up that afternoon from the local library. In A Monster Calls, Conor O’Malley, a…

How your content begins matters just as much as how it ends — At the tender age of 15, I had no clue what this line meant: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times…” Those opening lines to Charles Dickens' famous novel Great Expectations are some of the most well-known lines in the world of literature. As a…

But Tracy Chapman hopes it is — A highway underpass is not the most romantic setting for a music video called “Meet Me At Our Spot”. The environment would not be, shall we say, the most inviting for an encounter of two star-crossed lovers. …

“You get paid for this?” — I still remember the astonishment I felt as a child when I learned that my dad, a Southern Baptist pastor, got paid for what he did. The time spent studying for the weekly sermon. The time spent leading prayer meetings. The time spent visiting sick people in their homes and…