Scott Stilson

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Kevin Max is apostate. Tait is a sexual predator. Toby, don’t fail now.

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“For others.” As I was concerned last night about whether my inclination to stay home on a Saturday night instead of socializing—not that I had an invitation—and in a more general sense about whether my current stance of what seems to me to social passivity, at least relatively speaking, as well as my choosing to read books or listen to recorded music by myself is OK, I went to bed pondering how to rephrase “Let everything you do be done in love” to be more incisively helpful in making daily decisions about what to do.

“For others” is the thought I woke up to this morning, as in, “Let everything you do be for others.” I have since expanded that slightly for clarity to “for the sake of others.” Let everything you do be done for the sake of others.

Staying home last night in particular fits this criterion just fine: I’ve been underslept since hearing about Frank’s cancer last Tuesday, and I’m well aware that sensitivity to suboptimal sleep volume is my behavioral Achilles’ heel. Going to bed early last night has set me up to contribute more heartily and happily to the wellbeing of others today and during the upcoming workweek . (This kind of thing is what prompts me to regard self-care is a necessary evil.)

But can I honestly say it’s for the sake of others that I, who have some capability as a community organizer, adopt of stance of not initiating social plans beyond ambulatory or telephonic tête-à-têtes? And can I honestly say it’s for the sake of others that I read books by myself or listen to recorded music by myself?

An observer will naturally reply to these questions, “Scott, I think you’re taking 1 Corinthians 16:14 too literally. Relax a little, will you?” To which I will naturally rejoin, “Dear observer, thank you for your concern. But no. That’s not how my brain works. Plus, the last thing the world needs or that God wants is for Christians to start compromising on the Royal Law in the name of self-care and inner peace.” (Okay, maybe the last thing is for us to start compromising on the Royal Law in the name of political success. Oops. Too late.)

To answer my first question about whether it’s OK for me to avoid throwing myself into organizing social gatherings and local political mini-movements, I must remember that I have decided to adopt this relatively passive social stance on purpose for the short season that remains when my children are guaranteed to live under my roof. I made the decision for their sakes. So yes, it’s perfectly OK because it’s done for the sake of others. And when my kids do move out, I already have an overlong list of civic, environmental, ecclesial, communally musical, charitable, preferential-option-for-the poor interpersonal, and public philosophical ideas for what to undertake then. My current avoidance is purely seasonal (and it’s not absolute anyhow).

Now, my second question about whether it’s OK for me to read books or listen to recorded music alone—well, this one is harder for me to answer in the affirmative. I might posit that reading books equips me to be a sympathetic human, which it does, or that listening to a symphony trains my capacity for the type of long attention that makes for being a good listener to other humans, which it does. But that kind of thinking is too close to the eat-your-broccoli approach to reading that Jacobs rightly disparages, at least if it’s underpins all my reading and listening.

What about reading or listening just for the joy of it? Can I faithfully substitute “Do everything for the joy” for “Do everything for the sake of others (i.e., in love)”? Again, observers will say to me, “Scruples, man. Of course you can! You are definitely way too serious.”

To which I reply: Look, I can’t substitute “do everything for the joy” for ‘do everything for the sake of others’ except if by joy we mean “the joy of knowing others are flourishing in part because of my efforts.” But you’re probably right: I probably am overserious. If no social plans have presented themselves to me for a given evening, if I don’t feel up for trying to make social plans myself, if calling my sisters doesn’t feel like the thing right now, it is OK for me to opt for a receptive activity I enjoy. I might still take this little round of introspection to tilt a little further toward a bias for social engagement, but opting to read or listen nevertheless falls squarely in the “self-care is a necessary evil” bucket, and is therefore OK. Except maybe it’s an “enjoyment is a necessary evil” bucket. And maybe it’s not even that. Paul writes “do everything in love,” which is not precisely synonymous with “do everything for the sake of others.” Enjoyment and thanksgiving can be a form of love for the Creator of the good things I’m enjoying. So if the impulse of my heart is to read a book or listen to recorded music, I will read a book or listen to recorded music, provided that I can do so in thanksgiving and that I’m not ignoring some more pressing matter of love. After all:

(But also: “Have you found honey? Eat only what you need so that you do not have it in excess and vomit it” (Proverbs 25:13). Or as Harrison put it: “All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.”)

One final, little question: How do I choose between competing “sakes of others”? I will simply choose whichever sake I sense to be more pressing.

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 (1807) by Klaus Tennstedt conducting the NDR Sinfonieorchester live on Profil on an album whose centerpiece is Symphony No. 3 in E flat major “Eroica” (1979/2017). Beethoven would’ve made an all-time great film composer.

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There’s nothing I can write about Beethoven’s great works that’ll be any great addition to the conversation. I think I’ll just stop trying, sit, and continue listening slack-jawed.

But I will (of course) keep a list: Here’s everything I’ve enjoyed so far.

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1806) by Stephen Hough on piano and Hannu Lintu conducting the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra on Hyperion (2020). No middle-movement mediocrity here. Good, clean, sparkling Beethoven all the way through. Delightfully wide tonal and dynamic range. Hough deserves his reputation as one of the greatest living pianists. The concerto deserves its reputation as one of the all-time great piano concertos. That Beethoven debuted it in a single 1808 concert alongside the debuts of Choral Fantasy and the Fifth and Sixth symphonies is incredible.

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Carolina wren outside my office window definitely just got “The Dreidel Song” stuck in my head.

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56 “Triple Concerto” (1804) by David Zinman conducting the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich on Arte Nova (2005). Just as bands with three regular lead vocalists have a leg up on bands with just one, concertos with three lead instruments have a leg up on concertos with just one. Simple, energetic, classical-mode Beethoven.

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I have a soft spot for bands featuring three or more regular lead vocalists:

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein” (1804) on fortepiano by Ronald Brautigam on BIS (2008). Beethoven continues his habit of undernourishing his middle movements. But no matter: This is one of the man’s monumentally heroic sonatas, and it’s played here with dizzying snelheid on an instrument that, for its wider variations in timbre, I think I might prefer to modern piano.

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Just re-listened to: Resurrection Letters, Volume I (2018) by Andrew Peterson. A stirring, orthodox anchor in my “progressive” Christian seas. CCM through and through, but with much stronger- and clearer-than-average theological ties to The Story and The Book.

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Just listened to: Light for the Lost Boy (2012) by Andrew Peterson. Probably a keeper, but I’m not completely sure about that because I know I give a positive bump to Christian albums whose theology and ethics I find agreeable. Two things regarding this album are obvious, however: First, he found a new producer. It’s striking how different this album sounds from all the albums he put out before it. Every review of this album you’ll read rightly talks positively of its use of “atmosphere” and “space.” It makes me wonder: Is receptivity to child-of-Lanois audio production a fruit of the Spirit?

For my part, as much I share this affinity, I nevertheless usually regard such atmospherics as a pleasing way to mask poor songsmanship, a deed of the flesh that sometimes seems endemic to Christian music. In Peterson’s case, though, not to worry: The lyrics here are among his strongest, and that’s saying something. He continues examine and deploy his favorite motifs (youth, memory, geography, the sun, the weather, and fire) to express his Reformed Christian thoughts, this time throwing in multiple allusions to The Yearling and at least one to Peter Pan. And this time around, Peterson’s lyrical force is helped by it sounding like sometime between making the prior album and this one, he had a long, doubt-laden drive of his own like the one on which he accompanied me.

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Just re-listened to: Resurrection Letters, Volume II (2008) by Andrew Peterson as part of a slow-motion Peterson marathon meant to confirm or repudiate my September claim that he’s the most skilled evangelical songwriter of the century. This album, unlike the three that come between it and his 2000 debut, is evidence in favor of that claim. Polished folk pop expressing orthodox Christian thoughts. The Mullins mimicking continues, and that’s not a bad thing.


What’s more, this album will forever be linked in my life to one particularly long drive home from Florida back in October 2015. I drove a thousand miles through hot tears of doubt about God’s existence. Along those long highways, I had seven companions consoling and counseling me: over the phone, five good friends and one mom, and over the truck stereo, Peterson, who sang “I believe You are the Christ, the son of the living God” with enough conviction that I eventually joined in.

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A potential revolution for memorizing lyrics: Write them down. Why haven’t I been doing this all along!?

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Watching this classic macOS screensaver featuring the cover art of the CDs I own is the closest I come to swimming through piles of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.

macOS screensaver featuring album cover art

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Just listened to: A Sea Symphony, premiered by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1910 and recorded in 2014 by Hallé—their orchestra and their two choirs—plus two other choirs—because how else do you evoke the vastness of the ocean and remind everyone this is how the 20th-century renaissance of English classical music began—than with four choirs? Subtle this is not. A bombastically English response to when the Frenchy-Japonesque La mer is not enough.

Not that this piece lacks quiet moments: You may have come for the giant “Behold, the sea itself!” that opens the first movement, but you’ll stay for the evocations of solitude on the beach in the second movement.

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I’m pleased that this year’s listening added the following albums to my previous list of Christmas albums playable front to back both in the background or attentively:

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Just re-listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective (2009). I hesitate to recommend this wacked-out indietronica because like all the other Animaniac albums I’ve listened to, it’s easily heard as mere maelstrom of sophisticated-yet-juvenile, repetitive, acid-plus-coke freneticism. But on this one there’s just enough charm for me in the (still sophisticated-yet-juvenile, still repetitive) melodies, harmonies, syncopations, vocal timbres, and lyrics (often about family, which helps the charm) to overcome the hesitation.

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Currently, there are only five Christmas albums I can listen to all the way through with pleasure:

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Just re-listened to A King and His Kindness (2021) by Caroline Cobb. My favorite nuthin’-but-Jesus album since Rich Mullins’ 1997 demo tapes. Definitely square and very devout, hence the kind of album my enjoyment of which will lose me cool points with just about everyone I can think of. But these are the kinds of songs that make you not give a damn about cool points.

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Just re-listened to Electric Warrior by T. Rex (1971). I know it’s only rock ’n roll. But I like it.

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Just re-listened to A Home and a Hunger (2017) by Caroline Cobb. Very devout singer-songwriter Bible stuff that sounds like a fledging, lady Andrew Peterson. Gabe Scott’s tasteful CCM production, including bouzouki, banjo, lapsteel, dulcimer, and dobro, helps make that comparison. More Bibley than Peterson. Highlights: “There Is a Mountain,” “All Is Vanity (Ecclesiastes),” “Emmanuel (Every Promise Yes in Him),” and “Only the Sick Need a Physician.” Two of the other numbers cry out for a full-on gospel music treatment. I’m glad talented lyricists are still writing very Christian (instead of merely theistic) songs for the church and getting good production value.

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Here are the correct answers for “What are the best performances of Ravel’s Boléro on disc?”

In case Spotify goes out of business by the time you’re reading this, here’s a text-only list of the same, sequenced least best (but still quite good) to best:

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I realized the other week that I didn’t own a copy of a recording of Rhapsody in Blue. That felt un-American, so I went shopping. I listened to the following eleven renditions in search of one to buy:

All listened, the Harmonie Ensemble rendition is my runaway favorite. It’s a jazz arrangement played by a true jazz band. To me, the piece (even, to my surprise, the Big Tune) feels more at at home in those voices. Among those voices is jazz reed legend Al Gallodoro, a nonagenarian who here plays the opening clarinet slide for something like the literal ten thousandth time in his life.

But I know I’m sometimes going to want to hear the mid-20th-century version with the full orchestra, too. So for that, I’m opting for the Fiedler. He flies through the thing with verve and bravado. (It’s in the names: Boston Pops and Earl Wild.) A real crowd pleaser.

Now onto finding a Ravel’s Boléro to buy.

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Just re-listened to Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins. Classic and therefore at this point entirely unsurprising tenor sax-led hard bop that maintains its faculty to please. It might have been better titled Saxophone Colossus with Drum Titan.

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Crosby, Stills, and gnashing of teeth
Wanna keep the young away
It’s not that I don’t wanna fight no more,
It’s just that I had a bad day. ✏️ 🎤 🎵