Driving in the car tonight, I rolled up the volume when I heard her familiar voice. I soon realized it was one of those prerecorded advertisements, an old-school spot where the radio personality reads the advertisement herself, sometimes live, sometimes recorded, never a deviation from the script to let listeners know she endorses it wholeheartedly. The announcer, "Delilah," is syndicated nationally, and at first, everyone listens to her for the sob stories of the callers. The heartbroken and deeply scorned cry about unrequited love, or phone in to publicly thank their mother for forgiving them for setting fire to the backyard. Delilah, aside from singing "Happy Anniversary" as if it were reveille, then chooses "the song" that’s supposedly the perfect end-all, be-all message that describes just right how much you miss that married man with whom you just ended things.

The thing is, and many of the people who read this blog know it, sometimes you’re just there to watch. It’s an entertaining train wreck. Other times, though, something hits you a certain way, and now you can’t help but come back, but for different reasons. And just when you’re ready to leave, you get a taste of it again. And you’re reminded why you started listening, watching, getting involved.

Now I listen, not for the sob stories or the prayers and mentions of God–or the way it’s crammed in under the wire with music that sneaks up on you, and suddenly you’re singing along then stop yourself, WTF? This is Jesus music!–because I’m hoping to be moved. Really moved. To live my life just a bit differently when I pull into the garage and turn off the all the sounds. It’s perhaps what a lot of us look for in our lives: to be inspired. Touched enough that our lives are split into before and after moments in the smallest sideline moments of our lives.

Tonight was not that. Delilah declared that if she had only moments to collect her most treasured items (from a fire she might have said), she’d absolutely grab… her electric toothbrush.