All these things that I have done.

Today I read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune about the front man of my favorite band. Yes, that would be Brandon Flowers of The Killers. The boys are performing in SLC tomorrow, and I can’t help but wish I were going and remembering when I did go when they played SLC two years ago.

They put on quite a show, because they’re actually good, and they perform in a way that shows that they love the fans (I felt it deep in my heart), and also because every once in a while Brandon’s voice does that little shaky thing and it makes me swoon.

Anyway, the article.

I thought it was well done and it focused largely on Brandon Flowers’ membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s one of those Mormons, which makes me love him all the more, natch. Well done, Brandon Flowers. It’s nice to see, albeit in a highly LDS market, someone as public as he is speak so candidly about his religion influencing who he is and how he lives. But the best part for me was at the end, when asked how his faith affects his music, Brandon answers,

“it influences the songs I don’t write.”

Well said. In the journalism program, they always taught us that when it comes to editing, what you remove from a story is just as important as what remains when you’re done. Novelists describe the editing process as “removing the parts of myself that I don’t like.”

Life is like that too, except unlike a novel that can be written at once and edited later, a life’s writing and editing are all done in real time, simultaneously. Many mistakes aren’t completely corrected without leaving some scarring, and most words can’t be taken back.

This is why a well-edited life speaks so much about a person’s standards and how closely they hold those standards. Just as important as what we do, is what we don’t do, and in the end, the events not experienced, the words not said and the songs not written create holes that who we really are and what we really believe can spill over into and fill.

Have a nice weekend…and if you make it to The Killers’ show, promise you’ll think of me when you’re singing along at the top of your lungs, “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier…”