{"id":95456,"date":"2022-06-16T02:06:43","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T08:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=95456"},"modified":"2022-06-16T10:39:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T16:39:05","slug":"once-more-with-feeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/06\/once-more-with-feeling.html","title":{"rendered":"Once more, with feeling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Our little first granddaughter, in a 2014 image kindly created for my son and his wife by their friend Angela<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that you\u2019re either going to have to skip this entry or endure another very personal entry from me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other day, I marked the anniversary of the birth of our first granddaughter.\u00a0 (See \u201cIt\u2019s been eight years now.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0 She was our first grandchild, altogether, and she spent the entirety of her short mortal life in a hospital in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We knew her so very briefly that, to my shame and horror, before her sister arrived I sometimes found myself forgetting that I was a grandfather, and that I had a granddaughter. \u00a0We knew her so little, and for such a painfully short time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least once a year about this time, I listen to a song that Greg Smith (I believe) kindly told me about during that horrible week, and that invariably brings tears to my eyes:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Cardiff, \u201cSmallest Wingless\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just listened to it again, and, yet again, it has had the same effect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every year until I no longer can, I will also post a link to the Deseret News<\/em> column that I wrote, literally while sobbing \u2014 a response that I, for years a deeply unemotional northern European type, found quite a surprise:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Through cloud and sunshine, Lord\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I published that column, I was amused \u2014 in a grimly unamused sort of way \u2014 by a couple of the responses to it.\u00a0 My Deseret News<\/em> columns almost always drew letters to the editor that attacked my religious beliefs, mocked my silly superstition and irrationality, criticized my church, and the like.\u00a0 This one was no exception: Belief in life after death is foolish and stupid, religious people are idiots, Joseph Smith was an obvious fraud, faith is a crutch for weak minds, atheism is honest and heroic, and yada yada yada.\u00a0 Finally, to his credit, one of The Usual Suspects wrote a letter to the editor in which he addressed his fellow critics:\u00a0 \u201cThe man has just lost his granddaughter,\u201d he said, in my paraphrase.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t you take a break from these attacks for at least a week?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh,\u201d responded one of the more aggressive letter-writers.\u00a0 \u201cI had read only the first few lines; I didn\u2019t see the note at the end.\u201d\u00a0 I was struck by that.\u00a0 I thought it a very interesting admission, and I suspect that more than a few such critics very commonly do exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Buching, Halblech, Bavaria, Germany<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I\u2019m afraid that you\u2019re either going to have to skip this entry or endure another very personal entry from me. \u00a0 The other day, I marked the anniversary of the birth of our first granddaughter.\u00a0 (See \u201cIt\u2019s been eight years now.\u201d)\u00a0 She was our first grandchild, altogether, and she spent the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOnce more, with feeling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    ***   I'm afraid that you're either going to have to skip this entry or endure another very personal entry from me.   The other\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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