When you note personal or spiritual growth in your life, there can be a tendency to disparage your past, to look down on a self that you might now regard as wrong or naive or simply juvenile.

I’ve been listening to tracks stored in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of my iPod lately. Songs I haven’t heard in years are tumbling out, one after another. There’s a lot of 77s, Bob Dylan, Bill Mallonee, Tom Petty, and Daniel Amos. Sometimes the songs still work for me. Love the Byrds! Other times not. Did I really like Al Green that much?