Playlist about Terminal Illness

This is not my cheeriest of mixes but I find these songs really meaningful and beautiful. Each of these songs has a strong backstory.

Playlist for Times of Day

As the clock goes 'round for 24 hours.

Playlist for Alcohol

A few times a year I'll have a glass of wine at dinner. That's about it. BUT there are undeniably some amazing songs about alcohol. Here are some of my personal favorites.

Playlist for Aging

I love videos like this that show people of each age. You can find a ton of them on youtube. So I decided to make a music playlist with a song for each year. Can you help me find songs for my missing years? Do you know of a better song to replace one of my current choices?

No post in 2 years!?

It's been over two years since I last posted, hard to believe. Here are some of the things I've been up to:

-working as a hospice chaplain. Patients/families open up their lives to me for a season. And I feel so honored to work with the amazing people on my team. It's work that makes a real difference.

-deep diving into the Enneagram. I often use Sleeping At Last enneagram songs during my patient visits, and I use insights from podcasts/books while offering self-care encouragements to my coworkers (Suzanne Stabile, Ian Chron, Christopher Heuertz, Helen Palmer, Hudson & Riso). The Enneagram is just a map/tool that is not the end-all-be-all, but it's one of the best tools I've found and it's a great 'filing cabinet' to organize my thoughts on how to help different persons.

-learning Python. This has been a recent hobby that I hope to commit more time to this year. There are so many directions to take it!

I See You Abattoir

Every year I challenge myself with a "project." In 2016 it was the Tim Challies Reading Challenge. In 2015 it was an Artists Bible Reading Plan where I found art for every section of the Bible. This year, believe it or not, I'm still plugging away at my "Life Sized Word Search" where I'm on the lookout for real life instances of words starting with aa- and eventually working my way to the end of the alphabet. It's a silly project but that's okay because I find it fun.

The rules are that I can't provoke these instances of the words. They have to be "naturally occurring" (and can't be from reading on the Internet either). I'm trying not to jump too far ahead in my search list so right now, for example, I'm particularly on the lookout for: aba, abaca, abaft, abase, abbreviation, abdicate, abeam, abecedarian, abele, aberdeen, angus, abet.

I have been amazed at what words I keep seeing everywhere. Abattoir!! I thought it would take me forever to stumble across this word but I've seen it in multiple books, on Netflix, I feel like it's everywhere. At the same time I'm about 100% sure that I haven't heard an instance of "abecedarian" yet this year. Who woulda thunk.

For record keeping, here's a list of words I've marked off since last posting:

Reality is Broken book: 6 abstain, adaptive, 79 asynchronous, 169 abrasive, 196 adapted, 226 autotelic,

Kerri Webster poetry book: 3 alluvial, 3 accordioned, 4 amphora, 8 adorns, 25 ajar, 26 anemone, 33 alluvial

Library of Souls book: 343 apiece, 376 ahold, 381 accretion, 382 ablaze, 383 burble, 415 advantageous, 428 adolescence, 430 adventure, 440 adhesive, 

Cheese Monkeys book: 7 acquitted, 29 ablaze, 127 agape, 143 abattoir, 160 abnormal, 160 apse, 172 afflict, 202 acclimated, 217 acres, 232 acrylic, 240 affixed, 262 acetate. 

Life’s Imponderables book: 35 affairs

The Road book: 116 accrue

Become a Pastor book: 176 acacias, 

Abortion - In Louis C.K. 2017 comedy special. 

Abate - motorcycle gathering in Algona

Lion Witch Wardrobe book: 8 ahead, 111 alighting, 

A Simple Plan movie: accomplice

James 1: Adrift

1 Corinthians 15: affidavits in The Message translation

Aberrant in Mindfulness reading.

Movie on netflix called Abattoir

Enneagram Book: (but Song of Solomon quote) adjure, 111 adulating, 119 abstemious, 147 adrenaline, 151 abstemiousness, 

Typo Hunt book: 27 accosted, 

Miss Peregrine’s book (the third):  58 abattoir, 60 aboard, 62 abreast, 67 acute, 73 accursed, 120 abductor, 295 addicts, 296 abandoned, 

Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana (poetry book): 33 balustrade. 74 abrasions. 

NPR Radio: “acerbic wit” about Scalia supreme court.

Klosterman But What if We're Wrong book. 20 adjectives. 24 abnegating. anodyne. abstractions, adversity, aforementioned, alderman, 

Rereadings edited by Anne Fadiman: 95 absentmindedly, 127 acute, 133 adequate and admirer, 136 accorded, 147 afloat, 153 acrobat, 153, aboard, 172 adapting, 197 absence, 204 aesthete, 210 abrupt, 214 advice, 228 adult,

Influx book: accosting

Daring Greatly book: 189 acute, 208 acumen, 215 adhere, 218 admissions, 221 acquisitions, acceptance, 224 addiction, 228 addition, 244 accountability, 

Publish this Book book: 3 akin, aforementioned. 7 adjuster. 9 admittedly. 14 ah. 18 able. 39 advance. 45 accountant. 49 aficionado. 57 affinity. 76 aghast. 79 abstinence. 100 al detente. 107 accuracy, 237 acquitted, 272 affecting, 359 afield, 

Little Girls in Church poetry book: 39 abbey. 

Mark 14. Abba.

Episode of Brooklyn 99. Accusatorily.

Movie ‘Step Dad.’ Affable.

Books for Living: 108 acumen, 122 advocate, 

Looking Back at 2016

Reading Plans

This year (2016) I tackled the reading challenge put out by Christian blogger Tim Challies. It was a fun time. Finding a book to fit each category was like a scavenger hunt. And then there was the added layer of being able to share progress with a community of other readers who were doing the same thing (there was a Twitter hashtag, a Goodreads group, etc.).

So how'd I do? Well, I read 83 of the 109, not too shabby. The challenge had different tiers so that comfortably lands me between a "Committed Reader" and an "Obsessed Reader." I read books outside of the reading plan too so I ended up reading 102 in the year, three short of my goal. I've heard of monks intentionally stopping a few feet from the peak of a mountain... anyway, here's the list of books I read (or meant to read):

The Light Reader

X 1. A book about Christian living, An Infinite Journey

X 2. A biography, No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green

_ 3. A classic novel, Time and Again

X 4. A book someone tells you "changed my life”, The Love Dare

_ 5. A commentary on a book of the Bible, Colossians and Philemon

X 6. A book about theology, Knowing God by P.I. Packer

X 7. A book with the word "gospel" in the title or subtitle, Renegade Gospel

X 8. A book your pastor recommends, The Christian as Minister by Sharon Rubey

X 9. A book more than 100 years old, Selected Essays of Montaigne

X 10. A book for children, Realm of the Reaper (Everworld #4) by Katherine Applegate

X 11. A mystery or detective novel, Stranger Room

X 12. A book published in 2016, The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

X 13. A book about a current issue, Welcome but not Affirming

The Avid Reader

_ 14. A book written by a Puritan, on puritan library.com

X 15. A book recommended by a family member, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

X 16. A book by or about a missionary, The Baboon Chase by Don W. Hills

_ 17. A novel that won the Pulitzer Prize, American Pastoral

X 18. A book written by an Anglican, Anglican Vision

X 19. A book with at least 400 pages, Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

X 20. A book by C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, The Business of Heaven

X 21. A book that has a fruit of the Spirit in the title, A Separate Peace

X 22. A book with a great cover, Grunt by Mary Roach

X 23. A book on the current New York Times list of bestsellers

X 24. A book about church history, Almanac of Christian Trivia by Steve Wilkens

X 25. A graphic novel, Batman: Death by Design by Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor

X 26. A book of poetry, The House on Marshland by Louise Gluck

The Committed Reader

_ 27. A book from a theological viewpoint you disagree with, The End of Faith

_ 28. A book written by an author with initials in their name, Alternate Realities

X 29. A book that won a ECPA Christian Book Award, Bonhoeffer

_ 30. A book about worldview, How the Scots Invented the World

X 31. A play by William Shakespeare, The Tempest by William Shakespeare

X 32. A humorous book, Yes Please by Amy Phoeler

_ 33. A book based on a true story, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark

_ 34. A book written by Jane Austen, Northhangar Abbey

X 35. A book by or about Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty

X 36. A book with 100 pages or less, Stones in his Pocket

X 37. A book with a one-word title, Mindfreak by Criss Angel

X 38. A book about money or finance, The Man who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen

X 39. A novel set in a country that is not your own, The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

X 40. A book about music, Mozart’s Last Year

X 41. A memoir, On Writing by Stephen King

X 42. A book about joy or happiness, The Happiness Project

X 43. A book by a female author, The Master by Claire North

X 44. A book whose title comes from a Bible verse, The Unknown God

X 45. A book you have started but never finished, The Know-It-All

X 46. A self-improvement book, 100 Natural Ways to Energize

_ 47. A book by David McCullough, 1776

X 48. A book you own but have never read, Essential German Grammar

_ 49. A book about abortion

X 50. A book targeted at the other gender, She’s Such a Geek

X 51. A book by a speaker at a conference you have attended, Andy Stanley, How Good is Good Enough?

X 52. A book written by someone of a different ethnicity than you, Shake Loose My Skin

The Obsessed Reader

X 53. A book published by The Banner of Truth. You Must Read

_ 54. A book about the Reformation

X 55. A book written by a first-time author, Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

_ 56. A biography of a world leader

X 57. A book used as a seminary textbook, Nonviolent Communication

X 58. A book about food, Candyfreak by Steve Almond

X 59. A book about productivity, How Did I Get So Busy?

X 60. A book about or relationships or friendship, Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

_ 61. A book about parenting, Bee Moms and King Pin Dads

_ 62. A book about philosophy, Nook, Kierkegaard

X 63. A book about art, Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art

X 64. A book with magic, The Color of Magic

X 65. A book about prayer, Listen Praying in a Noisy World by Rueben Job

X 66. A book about marriage, Love Poems for The Very Married by Lois Wyse

X 67. A book about a hobby, So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson

X 68. A book of comics, Strike Three Charlie Brown

X 69. A book about the Second World War, In the Garden of Beasts

X 70. A book about sports, Can I Keep My Jersey? by Paul Shirley

X 71. A book by or about a pastor’s wife, 

X 72. A book about suffering, Ambiguous Loss

X 73. A book by your favorite author, Kate North Book

X 74. A book you have read before, Of Mice and Men

X 75. A book about homosexuality, Torn by Justin Lee

_ 76. A Christian novel, The Cardinal Sins

X 77. A book about psychology - Snoop: what Your Stuff Says About You

X 78. A book about the natural world, Here if You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup (about chaplain to Maine Warden Service)

_ 79. A book by or about Charles Dickens

_ 80. A novel longer than 400 pages

X 81. A historical book, Dave Barry Slept Here

_ 82. A book about the Bible, 

X 83. A book about a country or city, Tales of Iceland by Stephen Markley

_ 84. A book about astronomy, Brief History of Time

X 85. A book with an ugly cover, The Dog of the Marriage

X 86. A book by or about a martyr, End of the Spear

_ 87. A book by a woman conference speaker

_ 88. A book by or about the church fathers

X 89. A book about language, A Little Book of Language

X 90. A book by or about a Russian, The Russian Way: Aspects of Behavior, Attitudes, and Customs of the Russians by Zita Dabars

X 91. A book about leadership, Intuitive Leadership

X 92. A book about public speaking, Backwards & Forwards

X 93. A book by Francis Schaeffer, Art & the Bible

X 94. A book by a Presbyterian - Coffee with Calvin by Donald K. McKim

X 95. A book about science, The Science of Michael Crichton

_ 96. A book about revival, Renovation of the Church

X 97. A book about writing, bird by bird by Ann Lamott

X 98. A book about evangelism, Growing Your Faith By Giving It Away

X 99. A book about ancient history, Ancient Puzzles by Dominic Olivastro

X 100. A book about preaching, The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper

X 101. A book about the church, The Church Case Scenario

X 102. A book about adoption, From Ashes to Africa

X 103. A photo essay book, God Left Us Alone Here…

X 104. A book written in the twentieth century - Barrel Fever by Sedaris

Extra Credit

X 105. A book from a library, NPR: The First Forty Years

_ 106. A book about business

_ 107. A book by an author less than 30

_ 108. A book published by a UK-based publisher

X 109. A book you borrow, Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Continuing "Life-sized Word Search"

Yes, believe it or not, I'm continuing my silly project of listening/reading for instances of vocabulary words. I started with aa- and am slowly inching further into the dictionary as I cross off finds. Here's some recent hits:

A-line skirts in an episode of Friends (said by Ross). In a Border Control show on Netflix I heard absconded. In a clinic I work at I heard acupuncture (offered for $5) and abscess. The rest are from books: Cardinal Sins had acedia, Influx had abeyance, adhere, and adrift. Klosterman IV had abject, adroitly (he seems to love this word), acquisition, adoring, accentuated, adamantly, and administrative. An article on Street Dependent Culture had aberrant. The Giver had abuzz. Rereading had abetment, adolescent, aesthetic, acuity. Daring Greatly had adoration and addictive.

Plan for 2017

I plan on reading the New Testament. I'm going to use the Youversion app on my phone to go through the Navigator's 5x5x5 reading plan. Every day my phone will have the next reading ready to go. Want to join me? You could also google the 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan and print out the sheet and stick it in your Bible. (It gives you weekends off, which is nice).

The 5x5x5 means you read 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week, and have 5 ways to go deeper: 1. underline or highlight. 2. Put it into your own words. 3. Ask and answer some questions. 4. Capture the big idea. 5. Personalize the meaning.

Otherwise I'm dropping my book goal down to 27 for the year so the plan is finish a book every 2 weeks. Have a safe and happy New Year. I'll be working in the hospital all day and night tomorrow so feel free to lift up a prayer! Thanks!

Encyclopaedia Britannica (Life-Sized Word Search #9)

I just finished The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs, a book about what it's like reading the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. The book is a celebration of learning. It's about the randomness and the interconnectedness of things. And it's about the absurdities of history. Each bite-sized entry (to go along with various topics found in the encyclopedia) is funny, interesting, and quick. Great read.

I too enjoy learning new things. I'm determined to brush up on my Spanish this year (because I'm finding opportunities at work to give it a try). We're now in the final quarter of the year so I'm calculating how much catch-up I would have to do to get back on track with the 2016 Reading Plan I started. Anyway, learning and discovery make life more interesting. You agree?

Here are some of the recent finds I've made for my "Life-Sized Word Search" personal challenge:
     Stranger Room by Fred Ramsey: 100 ad hominem, 134 addition and advice, 150 acceptable.
     Know-it-All by A.J. Jacobs: 4 addiction and adult, 5 adversary, 7 a-ak, 9 addled, abolitionism, abominable, 11 aardwolves, abalone, 13 aaah, 64 adornment, 96 absinthe, 268 acne, 292 aback, 293 adrift, 349 abbot, 359 abstruse, 363 aboriginal.
     The Bible: Abound in Philippians 1
     Bible commentary: While reading a Bible commentary I stumbled across the word abrogation
     In hospital setting: abdominal
     In a video game (world of warcraft): Ace

Life-Sized Word Search #8 (starting on ad-)

Did you know that The Hobbit has been translated into Latin? I know that now because I found a copy at a local bookstore. My wife was with me that day so somehow, incredibly, she convinced me not to purchase it. Her argument was that owning The Hobbit in Latin was not a necessity in our lives right now. Hmm, depends on how you define the word 'necessity,' but I begrudgingly agreed with her at the time.

But then over the next few days the thought kept creeping on me -- wait, of course owning The Hobbit in Latin is a necessity! My daughter is 11 months old, if she doesn't hear the sounds of Latin right now then the language part of her brain will turn off and she'll be stuck monolingual like the rest of us. She deserves better. For the sake of my daughter I had to buy this book, if they still had it...

You're not going to believe this but the bookstore still had the book on the shelf! I know, I know, I too was worried that countless people would be interested in grabbing this book. So I snatched it up and have been reading snippets to my daughter ever since. It's been years since I took Latin so chances are high I'm butchering my pronunciations but still, it's a nice motivator to refresh myself on the language I studied through High School.

One of the things I'm enjoying most about reading to my daughter is the music of the sentences. Latin has its own rhythms and beats. That's why I love listening to languages I don't even know, they have ups and downs, lilts and pushes, sentences twist and flow.

The same has also been true for reading children's books in English: the silliness of kid books helps you remember the fun of language. Who can forget those early Seuss rhymes? Or the poetry of Shel Silverstein? All day I've been walking around with a sentence in my mind from one of my daughter's books, "Roly poly on the rug!"

So with all of this in mind, here's my next piece of the "Life-Sized Word Search" list, where I look for real life instances of every word in the English dictionary. I was on the search for words aa- to ac- but I recently found the word adze in a book I was reading, and since I probably won't stumble on that again anytime soon I'm declaring open season on aa- through ad-.

In the book She's Such a Geek, Edited by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders: 16 accessory, 43 accrue, 149 aborted, 158 acquired, 175 accidental and acceptance, 178 action and A+, 184 a la, 187 actually, 188 accurately, 193 acclaim, 206 acquiescence.

So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson: page 26, above.

Jimmy's Blues by James Baldwin: 7 aching, 22 accomplice.

Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson: 136 absorbers, 149 absently, 218 accommodation, 258 achromatic, 262 able-bodied, 264 accountant, 293 acute, 294 A-okay, 329 accelerating.

And for ad-: 'added' in Aug 22 post of Elevated Bag Lady, 'adolescent' in 5 and 193 of She's Such a Geek, 8 advantage, address admonition adze and advanced in Parasites Like Us, admit in Growing Your Faith by Giving it Away.

Life-Sized Word Search #7

When was the last time language excited you? Perhaps you got a kick learning a new word? Or maybe you heard someone talking in another language and became mesmerized by the music of that mysterious code?

My 11-month-old is discovering the world, and with it, language. I remember the first time I looked at her and shouted "booger booger booger!" and she broke out into a loud giggle. When she hears someone make a new sound, or some new combination of syllables, she often zeroes in and recognizes the novelty. And while she has been saying 'mama' for a while but I'm pretty sure she said 'dada' for the first time the other day. Incredible.

So with all of that in mind, here's a few more finds for my 'Life-Sized Word Search,' which, to remind you, is a challenge to find a real-life instance of every word in the dictionary. You are welcome to join me in the search if you'd like (we're still working our way through aa- to ac-).

Abash - Found in a poem in the book Firefall by Mona Van Duyn

Abed - Page 17 of Nurture by Maxine Kumin

Abstemious (yes, seriously!) - Page 75 of Firefall by Mona Van Duyn

Abstinence - Heard while watching an episode of West Wing (we're binge-watching it these days)

Absurd - Page 443 of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr