For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
It burns of passion, a beauteous flame.
It ignites with anger, a scorching pain.
It soothes the heart and calms the mind,
It scorches pride and comforts shame.

For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
The love of ages, caught within,
Shines out with burning, passionate sin,
But more the tender, gentle kiss,
The adoration without bitterness.

For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
The burning anger, the melancholy tale,
A towering injustice, the bitter trail.
A crying voice, vowing justice.
Lays low, resentment, strong and frail.

For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
The song it weaves, a flowing stream,
It Washes past with cleansing steam.
It flows away and when it's gone,
The baptized shine with innocent gleam.

For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
The built up pride of venerable king,
Now crushed by Music's soothing ring.
And then the lowly peasant child.
To her does Music contentment bring.

For heights and depths, no words can reach,
Music is the soul's own speech.
The seasons pass, the years roll on.
The centuries die, the past is gone.
Behold, one lonely herald stands.
Music lasts, it time transcends.

I love the change in seasons. More than the others, the transitions of winter to spring, and summer to fall are fatally beautiful. The air changes. I neither mind nor especially like the dying of the leaves and all the browns and reds and oranges as opposed to greens. It's funny, for a life based so completley on sight, it's the other sences that I love about the change. I love the smell of the hickory fires burning in fire places, the sound of the wind crackling as it passes over the fading grass, the chill of the wind at night, and the warmth that you wake up to with the biting cold right outside the blankets. Best of all, I love how the air feels fresh. In winter the air is dead and harsh, in summer it is asleep and heavy. The air wakes up in fall, though. It is alive and thin. Crisp.

I guess it's the fact that winter and summer seem to last for so long that makes them dull. If it were the other way around I'm sure I could rant about the perfection of that one hot day where you can walk around without shirt or shoes and tan within minutes. I could praise that perfect winter day where there is a layer of snow just deep enough to play with and a hot fire indoors, but even that fire with the hot cider and roast pecans that accompany it give more nostalgia for Thanksgiving and late fall than they do for February. The real beauty is in the Autumn.

I got this e-mail that a guy who used to wrestle for my cousin at Princeton wrote. He was outside of the Twin Towers on September 11th. I thought that everyone should have a chance at reading it. -Stephen

"here's how i saw it:
i was getting dressed in my apartment, which is 3 blocks south of the world trade center on the west side highway (which is the main road on the west side of downtown manhattan). i heard what i thought was a car accident outside. since i live on the 4th floor and have 3 windows on the highway side, i'm used to hearing traffic and horns and shit. but then, a few seconds after i heard the crash, i could hear lots of debris hitting the building and i thought that maybe a car bomb had gone off. at that point i finished getting dressed and took the elevator down to the lobby. i exited the building and saw my doorman who looked white as a ghost. i asked him if a car bomb went off or something and he replied that he thought so and that it must have been a meat truck or something b/c there was meat all over the place. i walked out into the street and he was right -- there were chunks of flesh all over the place but i thought it was just regular meat like he said. i then walked north to the corner and there was a human hand on
the ground. someone quickly threw a coat over it so it couldn't be seen. i then crossede the street and was looking around at all the cars around that were wrecked and all. then ari called my cell phone and i told him "that a fucking car bomb just went off at the world trade center." "no, a plane hit the building!" i looked up and saw that the north tower had a big burning hole at the top of it and i couldn't believe it. at this point i was staring skyward walking north towards where i work. a security gaurd was starting to
tell people that we should walk south, so i headed one block west into battery park. at this point there were a mob of people in the streets, but everyone was calm. all of a sudden, i heard the sound of an airplane and looked up to see a fucking commercial jet slam right into the south tower. i was probably only 200 yards from the base of the building and watched the plane come in, hit the building and explode. all of a sudden it was like a movie scene, where everyone just turned and were literally running for their
lives. i ran over to the western edge of manhattan (right on the hudson river). i could hardly believe what i had just seen. planes just falling out of the sky. at this point, i kind of gathered my thoughts and tried to figure out what the fuck i should do. i made a bunch of attempts to call people but only about one in 50 calls went through. i never really took my eyes off the towers and after about 15 minutes i saw about 10 people jump from the top of the building. at least 2 of them were on fire. i decided to walk north for some reason and i got to the marina outside of the world financial center, which is where i work. i was just standing there, with i guess 2 or 3 buildings between myself and the world trade center complex. i was looking at the south tower and all of a sudden it blew up, about 75% of the way up. it looked like a demolition explosion because it blew out in all directions and the top quarter just started to fall downward. everyone was pretty much paralyzed for a second or two as we watched it fall and then i think we all realized that a massive cloud of debris and/or building was heading our way. people were fucking jumping into the river. i ran south down the walkway because that was the closest building i saw that i could get to to shield myself. i still had a few of my training manuals in my hands. i just fucking dropped everything and sprinted to the building, which turned out to be a restauraunt with a large glass wall facing the river. i was pressed against the glass with a few other people when the cloud of debris finally came over the building. i thought at first that i would be fine, but the air quickly got pretty thick full of ash. i took my shirt off and wrapped it around my face and head and started banging on the window with 2 other guys trying to figure out how to get into the restaurant. i could barely breath let alone see. it was pitch black and even with just squinting, my eyes were on fire. on the other side of the glass, a hand pointed to my left, and we all kind of felt our way along the building to the door. inside the restaurant, table cloths were being ripped off tables and glasses of water that had been sitting on the tables were being passed around. i grabbed a pitcher of water and tried to help all
the peolpe that were piling through the door was their eyes. there were all sorts of people around me in all sorts of states. one guy had a bloody leg and had said that he had jumped through a window or something. we tied a tablecloth around his leg and washed away the blood to find that he wasn't badly hurt thank god. after a few minutes, some fireman and police man got into the restaraunt and told us to make our way south along the river where we could get on a ferry to new jersey. i was heading for the door when
the north tower fell. same story all over again --- dark as night. when the dust settled from this one, the police shuffled everyone out and we all walked to the southern tip of manhattan. there, i got onto a police tug boat that looked like an illegal immigration scene. there were so many people piled on the boat that i could hardly believe that it was still floating. more boats were heading over and it looked like they were doing a good job getting everyone out. i climbed aboard one, and found a seat towards the back. as the boat shoved off and pulled away from manhattan, i could hardly believe what i was seeing. it looked like the entire downtown section of manhattan was on fire, b/c there was just a massive stream of smoke and debris coming off of it. when i got to liberty park in new jersey, i ran into a guy that i work with. he told me that he was in the world financial center when the first one hit. all the peolpe he was working with went to the corner office to check out the scene. the saw the 2nd plane come in, and b/c we all work on the 30th floor, he said it seemed to be at eye-level. it hit and they just turned and ran for the elevators. they all got out safe, as it seems everyone who worked in our building did. there is only one building between where we wrok and the world trade center, but we could see from jersey that it was still standing. at this point i got through to my dad on my cell phone and he told me that a friend of the family had a house that was relatively close by. 3 buses and a bunch of stops to ask directions later, i finally got here. i'm here now and am writing this email in their kitchen, watching all the shit on the tv. at this point, i'm just going to spend the night here and then figure out what the next step is tomorrow. i'll talk to all of you guys soon, thank god."

Perspective. That is what people need. Maybe even what they are getting, now. If you fail one test, or even one class, does it really matter? Absolutly not. Look at the assets of life. One thing about the world, pessemism is a trend. People can get so caught up in their duty's and daily hell that they forget how pretty the sky is. They forget that they have a family who loves them and friends who they enjoy. I would personally rather lose HOPE completely than suffer losing a good friend. As the song says, "I get by with a little help from my friends." I will always remember the countless times I would be told at church or at home or at school that it didn't matter if other families had more money than us, that we were richer. I sort of considered it one of the all time classic lies. Maybe my parents had more wisdom than i credited them for. I consider each day I spend among friends a wealth beyond the mines of Solomon.

I love life. I think that THAT is what truly matters. Find something that you can love and love it. It bothers me deeply how there are people who can waste this life in anticipation of what's to come, waiting to get to Heaven. If God had wanted you to do nothing but wait to get to Heaven, then he would have put you there. No, God has some purpose in putting people here on Earth. Some believe that the purpose is to tend for it, others find purpose in caring for each other. In any case, I don't care how people spend their precious time here just so long as they do, in fact, spend it. Nothing could be more dissapointing at the end of a life than having not used it. There are millions of people out there who long for their eternity who don't know what to do on a Sunday afternoon. The gift of life is, in itself, a piece of that Heaven.

A little note from a friend of mine, that he composed. I am impressed and moved by it:

"Life is a fickle thing. For those of you out there who look to faith, I commend you on your courage, for those who turn to others, i commend you on your desire for help, for those who look in themselves, i commend you on having a heart. For those of you who have all three, I am proud of you, because in essence, you've just become Humane. There are those out there today that no longer have these feelings, and for those few people that do, let's show them what it is to be Humane, and to show them that the human capacity for compassion shall overcome anything. God Bless you all."

The world is sick and twisted and ugly. I have no problems, no complaints, no qualm with life that is not completely overshadowed by today. And I have no words, no thoughts, no feelings that could possibly explain my love for humanity more than the connection between any two given people in New York City today.

Everything can be bad and ugly in the world, or everything can be pretty and good in the world. But this trancends. This defines the evil that a few can do, and the good that millions will respond with.
America, America. God shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
bet, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
everyone you meet
All that you slight
everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Like so many things in the world, my relationship with alcohol is one of love-hate.

"Moderation is the only virtue. The other so-called virtues are virtues only in so far as they are joined with moderation. To be overcourageous is to be foolhardy. To be overthrifty is to be parsimonious. To be overloving is to be doting. To be too unselfish is to weary the world with the spectacle of your martyrdom. Moderation is what counts." -Ogburn

A little alcohol is nice, fun, fine. It tastes good and calms. It makes difficult things easier because it numbs, and some times the brain can just get in the way. But then there are those times when you have something important. Something to do or something to say. And when timing is crucial, alcohol is Lucifer himself. You decide that now is the time because once and to be don't coun't anymore. So you say what you were going to say. And it is easy. But without the moderation, it becomes too easy. The moderation is what makes the impossible task into the difficult task. If the same task becomes simple, than it has lost all of it's decor and meaning. So what you say comes out and your tounge is honey forked, but with Bacardi and Beer behind your thoughts, instead of wisdom and wit, the words which should have been a stylus to push and mold your audience turn to a butter knife in inept hands.

You find an expected but wrenching response. And since the brain is on vacation, you take it perfectly in stride. You are unhurt, undimmed, and basically unaltered. This, though, only serves to trivialized your intentions even further. And the rest of the night seems to go without a hitch. But you will eventually wake up. And while you sleep you are cursed to dream. But when you wake up you are in a nightmare. And it is not truly that hard; but you have no good sleep and a hang-over. You have only enough energy to face the day, and it is the extra weight as much as the saddness that brings the tears. And the saddness comes from you. You are melancholoy from the answer you recieved, but you are morose from your own impatience and thoughtlessness. And adding the pressure to both of your lives is the killing blow.

Time heals all wounds, and youth heals all scars. But the experience is still bitter...

People will ask guys what they mean when they say "guy bonding". Girl bonding is easy. That's where a girl will get her support group of every female she knows and eat junk food while drinking a diet soda and watching "Grease" so that she can spill her guts about the guy she just met. Guy bonding is a little more complicated as we don't like diet soda, Grease, or spilling our guts. Well, here it is.

Guy bonding is two, three, maybe even four guys going out on the town. You start at a quiet bar, just getting a pitcher or two of beer and chilling while you drink it. How's life? You going to the game this weekend? Where're ya tailgating? Why'd they run that draw play on 3rd and seventeen against Tennessee? Things of this sort. Next you hit a second bar, a little more populated than the first. Here, again, you have another pitcher, but this time you actually watch the sports, listen to the music, and look at, occasionally flirting with, the women. It is at the third bar, though, that the bonding happens. You enter the third bar tipsy, even drunk if you have a low tolerance. Instead of getting a pitcher here, everyone buys a bottle of his own beer. This is when you start to talk about girls. Not about how many seriously nice looking ones you know, or not about "Yeah, man! She wants me, yo." Stupid shit like that. No, this time you actually tell the guys about the one girl. You say either how much you are in love, because when your bonding, it's ok to actually use that word. Or you talk about how you really wish you could change things back to the way they were because despite all of your best efforts, you can't seem to fix things. Or even the one you want the most of eveyone you know. Regardless of the situation, this is where you bond. Because all of a sudden everyone's story is frighteningly similar, and you all seem to understand each other. (This might actually be one of the hidden properties of beer.)

But the moment ends, and being guys still, you finally hit your fourth and last bar. This one is a crowded, party type. And you go there to seriously hit on anything that says "yes", but since you no longer comprehend the word "no" it becomes a very target rich environment. And you still remember the really deep bonding conversation you had, but you are guys, and damn it, you're going to hit on some girls if it kills you.