When people ask you "How's it going?" or "Hey, what's on your mind these days?", I'd be surprised if you always give an honest answer. In fact, even if you decide to sound honest and authentic, you may be covering over the real facts. And under the "real" facts of your outward -- and more importantly, your inward -- life, you may even be covering something else. It's "Human Nature" (M. Jackson, 1982).

Human inwardness, let alone one's outward conversation and demeanor, can be a charade from top to bottom. I've seen more than one instance of this during my life, both personally and pastorally.

This cast begins with something that happened "Not Too Long Ago" (Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, 2014). It pulled the curtain on a charade through a pretty dramatic chain of events. Guess I'm talking about the real shipwrecks of life, not the charades we pretty much construct to disguise them.

The cast ends with an excerpt from a piece of music by Jan Hammer, which he wrote to accompany a searing honest talk between two detectives at the end of an episode in the first season of Miami Vice. The point of the excerpt is to give some meditative cover for the listener's own confession. Think the ending of Manon of the Spring (1968).

LUV U.