Passed!

Well, congratulations are in order to yours truly. I, as of Friday 5:45 EST, am officially a Ph.D. candidate here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, having passed the second and final set of qualifying exams. To that I will say both “woo” and “hoo”. This was a pretty eventful weekend for me. I hung out with all of my colleagues Friday and Saturday night and watched some movies. Castle in the Sky (Anime) on Friday, and Shaun of the Dead on Saturday. Quite pleasant actually. On Sunday, I attended a special church service at a church that I don’t normally go to. It was amazing. The speaker brought with him a violinist who might have been the best performing violinist I have ever seen. I used to find the violin irritating, but for sometime before this I had warmed up to it. This guy, however, was incredible. I was late, and missed a few of his pieces, but his music touched me in a way that music without lyrics never has. This is normally the part where I say something funny, but this was such an experience, that I don’t want to make fun of it. After his next to last piece, which brought me to tears, he said that if there was time he would like to do one more… a hymn he had prepared. He was entirely soft spoken and modest always giving credit to God for his abilities. By the fourth note of his last piece, I recognized the hymn he had arranged. It was “Holy, Holy, Holy” which, for reasons unknown to me, has been one of my favorite hymns since childhood. By the fifth note, my eyes widened in astonishment. My mind raced through childhood and memories until no thoughts could be produced at all. By the sixth note I was bawling like I had lost my mother. It was incredible. I can only hope that something so beautiful can touch everyone else so deeply, if for only one moment in their lives. For me this beautiful experience was tied intimately with my faith. I am glad that religious experience isn’t always linked to emotional experience, but I am glad that they are sometimes.

You may also notice that I have added a "song of the week" bar over to the side, up yonder. let me know what you think about that.