Ancient History

Historian Philip Jenkins on events in Iraq:

"We often read of the birth and growth of churches, very rarely of their deaths. In Mosul, however, we may be seeing the end of an astounding example of Christian continuity that lasted nearly two millennia."

Full article...

2013 Year-In-Review

Another year, another year-in-review. This is more for me than it is for you, but you're welcome to look over my shoulder while I take a look back at the things that stood out to me about 2013.

Events

• Personal. 2013, in retrospect, was marked by transition in my personal life. I got a different job (or rather, was assigned to a new contract within the same company), a different vehicle, a different apartment, and even (for the first time) a different official address. I switched from teaching very young children at church back to teaching junior high kids (that may be the most jarring transition of all). You would think, after all that change, and more, that I'd feel completely different, but I don't. Mr. Karr was right: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

• At-large. As for the wider world, you'll see plenty of recaps on other sites. The main story that held my attention throughout the year was the whole NSA domestic spying scandal, precipitated by the actions of Edward Snowden. What was revealed confirmed what many of us in the tech. industry had been saying for a long time, but went beyond that to show that the situation was much, much worse than anybody had thought. The documented facts of the matter quickly caught up to even the wildest speculation and also managed to best some insane conspiracy theories. A lot is still coming out, and much remains to be sorted out politically. People are going to have to come to a decision about what kind of society we want to be ... and soon. As far as technology is concerned, the path forward toward a restoration of privacy is pretty clear: minimum trust, maximum encryption. What that will look like in practice remains to be seen. Technologies like PGP, TrueCrypt, Perfect Forward Secrecy, Tor, and various TNO encrypted communications solutions will make it much harder to continue the slide toward a surveillance state. If you don't know how to secure your own communications, now might be a good time to take your IT guy out to lunch.

Literature

Unfortunately, I had less time for reading in 2013, but I did manage to get through a few items:

• Antiquities of the Jews. In preparation for teaching several Wednesday nights at church on the inter-testamental period, I read (most of) Flavius Josephus's history covering that period. It was filled with interesting bits and pieces that bridge the gap between the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New. Every other page is a "Oh, so that's why that's like that..." moment. I also read I Maccabees as part of this study, and found it very helpful. I regard it as a true account, though still deuterocanonical (if only just).

• The Elect Lady. I've read a fair amount of George MacDonald's work before, but this was my first time reading some of his non-fantasy writing. This book turned out to be unbelievably quotable.

• All Things Considered. G.K. Chesterton's writing is about a century old now, but it still sounds like it was written for this morning's paper. This work (which, to be honest, I'm still not quite finished reading) is a collection of columns he wrote on various subjects — all still relevant in one way or another. It also proved to be ten pounds of quotes in a five pound bag.

• Zechariah. I've read the book of Zechariah before, and it may well be my favorite book of the Bible, but this year, I had to teach it, verse by verse, and word by word. I had to research the historical, cultural, and geopolitical context, as well as do quite a lot of translation from Greek and Hebrew. As a result, I found unbelievable depth in the text and got a better picture of the unity of voice between the Old and New Testaments. It's one of those bits of the Bible that is often just ignored, or quoted in soundbite, but that really is (in my opinion) a shame.

• There were other bits and pieces to chew on during the year. I listened to a lot of podcast readings of short stories. Among them was my first introduction to the work of H.P. Lovecraft, with which I was duly impressed. I'll also be following up with Italo Calvino after hearing one of his stories read. I read (and enjoyed) a short piece by David Foster Wallace, who I've often heard praised, and I started reading through a collection of rabbinical quotes called Pirkei Avot (or, as my copy titles it: "Sayings of the Jewish Fathers").

Music

2013 was quite a year for music, or at least the sort of music I like. I saw a couple of live performances (She & Him, Toad the Wet Sprocket), and purchased more albums than I have in quite some time. It was also something of "The Year of the Compilation Album", as we'll see below. As far as albums go, here are some notables to note:

• Blitzen Trapper - VII. Still (for my money) the best new band of this decade (new to me, that is). Eric Earley and the boys continue to draw on sources so broad that even Chuck Norris couldn't do the splits between them: seventies rock and funk, country, bluegrass, blues, even West Coast rap from the 90's. All this while managing fairly thought-provoking lyrics that incorporate numerous references to Earley's Christian understanding, set in a world full of old prospectors, Indians, and Israelites. For starters, check out "Shine On", "Thirsty Man", and "Valley of Death", but for pure feel-good, it's hard to beat "Don't Be a Stranger":

• Toad the Wet Sprocket - New Constellation. I think TTWS was one of the best bands of the 90's, and I'm glad to see them back. So glad, in fact, that I was a participant in their Kickstarter campaign to fund this album, and went to see them live when they came through. Have a listen to "California Wasted" (acoustic, non-album version), "Golden Age" (also not the album version), and "Life Is Beautiful", but the best version of the title track isn't on the album, but was recorded at a seemingly impromptu acoustic session:

• Inside Llewyn Davis (Soundtrack). Chris Thile. Justin Timberlake. Marcus Mumford. Folk Music. T-Bone Burnett. Buy it. Buy it quickly, before they take it back.

• Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War (Compilation). Another project with connections to T-Bone Burnett. Pretty much everybody you'd want on board, from Loretta Lynn, to Chris Thile, to Steve Earle, Jorma Kaukonen, OCMS, Carolina Chocolate Drops, etc., etc. I can't imagine how they got everyone to agree to this, but they did. So many good songs (listen to the whole thing here), but this is probably my favorite:

  
  

• The Storm Is Passing Over (Compilation). Another surprisingly-good compilation, put together as a benefit for Hurricane Sandy. The whole album is available on a free / donation basis here. Pretty much any sad song about flooding you've ever heard is on here, including this:

• Chris Thile - Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1. Classical for people who don't really like classical. If you need a record to play on repeat while working, you won't find a better one.

• Honorable Mention: Shovels & Rope; J.D. McPherson

Other Media

This is the category for anything that isn't a book or music.

Movies

• Blockbusters. As I've said before, I don't like comic books or comic-book-related things, but I usually end up going to see major comic book movies with friends who do like them, and 9 times out of ten, I end up enjoying them. This year, for whatever reason, I ended up seeing almost exclusively these kinds of movies. Among others, I saw Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, and the second Thor movie ("Thor: The Dark World"). This last one confused me to no end, as I very much disliked a number of things about the movie, but thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Go figure.

• I saw a few other movies along the way that were memorable. I had heard good things about Moonrise Kingdom, and they were all true. It's a classic Romeo & Juliet meets Noah story (I know, right?). I was also amused by a movie that I had somehow missed when it came out: Kung Fu Hustle. It pushes the boundaries of the genre so hard that there aren't really any boundaries left at all, and it has a good time doing it.

TV

• I stayed fairly up-to-date on The Walking Dead throughout the year. Different people like that show in different ways. I enjoy it, not because of the darkness it portrays, but because of how it shows some of the characters, even in such darkness, trying to love and help each other, and salvage little bits of light. If you view it in the right way, it's a very hopeful show.

• I also started watching Breaking Bad late in the year (don't tell me how it ends). It, by comparison, is not a very hopeful show at all. It (very expertly) shows how very little might be keeping the average person from becoming a real monster. Most interestingly (and accurately), out of all the wrong decisions they make, the show focuses on a lack of truthfulness as the main thing dragging the characters down that road. Lots of insight in the writing here.

Podcasts

• Most of my media consumption in 2013 came in the form of podcasts, which (stemming from my love of radio) is my favorite medium. The fact that you can listen to a podcast while you do something else doesn't hurt. I listen to all the big boys (This American Life, Radiolab, etc.), but I've expanded far beyond that. Notable on my list are: Mysterious Universe, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Security Now!, The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, and The SFF Audio Podcast, among many, many others, and I'm still picking up new ones to listen to.

What-have-you

• In the web comic world, I kept up with Randall Munroe's excellect xkcd, and it's non-fiction-y spin-off what if?.

• On Youtube, I followed several channels devoted to "science experiments" (or, in most cases, "seeing what would happen if..." would be more accurate): Taofledermaus, CrazyRussianHacker, and North Alabama's own SmarterEveryDay.

Themata

There isn't much to discuss as far as large themes that emerged for me this year. The best I could do would be to point to an overarching feeling of "unsettledness". As I've already mentioned, it seems like everything this year was in transition. Transition even popped up in my reading and study throughout the year, focused, as much of it was, on the inter-testamental period of Biblical history. The year wasn't especially remarkable, but it felt like it was stuck in a very unsteady state. One thing for sure about unsteady states: they collapse into something. It remains to be seen how things will settle out in the new year.

Peter Mulvey - "Shirt"

As ever:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His divine countenance upon you and give you peace."

Easter, by the numbers

Jay Ryan from Classical Astronomy gives a good overview of why we celebrate Easter when we do.   You'll learn such intricacies as:

[...] every 19 years, the Moon's phases will recur on the same dates of the solar year.  This 19 year "luni-solar" cycle was the basis for the calendar used in Babylon. In the west, its discovery is attributed to the Greek philosopher Meton, who may have learned it from the Babylonians. The 19 year cycle was generally well known and understood in antiquity, and was apparently used by the Persian rulers of Babylon after the restoration of Israel.

Full article...

2012 Year-In-Review

It's year-in-review time for 2012.   Pour yourself a bowl of black-eyed peas (I recently mentioned this Southern New Years Day tradition to a kid in Northern Virginia and she was very confused for quite some time until I told her I didn't mean the pop group) and read on through the things that stand out to me from the year of the erstwhile Mayan apocalypse.

Events

Here are some of the events (world and otherwise) that caught my attention in 2012:

• Political.   Unfortunately, there is no avoiding that some of the major events of 2012 revolved around U.S. politics.   While your characterization of events will no doubt be different than mine, this is my blog, so I guess I'll say what I need to say (with apologies to John Mayer — that's two years in a row I've had a John Mayer reference in the year-in-review ... maybe I should be apologizing to you).     The year started up with the big SOPA protests and blackout (this blog participated).   It remains to be seen if that sort of regulation is truly dead (I doubt it).   Next up was the whole Affordable Care Act (a.k.a Obamacare) debacle in the Supreme Court.    Whether you liked the decision or didn't like it, it seems clear that it was a major modification of how the citizens stand in relation to their government — for the first time people could be penalized (or taxed, I guess) for not buying something.    Then there was the run-up to the election where I was faced with a choice between (IMHO) bad and worse.   In my view, the country chose "worse".    The year ended up with calls for doing violence to the 2nd Amendment, so all in all, this didn't seem like a great year for the Constitution.    The trend looks like it will continue into 2013 as Congress debates over whether we should continue pretending like we have enough money or not.   I remain hopeful (I hope?) that some sort of coalition might be put together (encompassing freedom-loving individuals on the left and right) to stop the slide toward thinly-veiled lawlessness.  We'll see.
  
  

• Personal.   My own personal life was fairly interesting (to me) this year.   I visited Israel for the first time. Later in the year, I spent time in the hospital (also a first).   My college football team (Alabama) won the national title (and will play for it again in a week or so).    It seemed like astronomy was (unintentionally) a major player in my life this year.   I was well on the way to missing the second (and last) transit of Venus in my lifetime due to cloud cover, when the clouds parted just long enough for me to see and photograph second contact.    I saw several conjuctions of planets and the moon during the year, and was able to see some of the Geminid meteor shower a few weeks ago.    I even caught a few very nice passes of the International Space Station during December.   Those are really easy to see (no equipment needed) if you know where to look.
  

Literature

I read a lot of different sorts of books in 2012 — from slogging through (most of) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on my phone (during various "wait" times during the year), to a collection of Richard Matheson's sci-fi / horror short stories.   Here were the major ones that stuck with me:

• The Master and Margarita.  I started out the year (actually just finished 2011) on Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, in which the Devil shows up to cause trouble in Soviet-era Moscow.   This had been on my to-read list for about a decade, so I guess I can check it off.    The story itself was funny and somewhat unsettling (for reasons I can't quite nail down) — the sub-story about Jesus and Pilate especially so.
  
  
• Henderson the Rain King.   I've wanted to read this one for quite some time, as well, due to its significance in the music of the band Counting Crows.    It didn't give me a great deal more insight into their lyrics, but it was well worth the read on its own terms.   It dealt, among other things, with the question of what life is for:   should we just do the same things over and over that others have done over and over before us, or ... what?   Extra points for a scene where the hero tries to dynamite a pool full of frogs.   This was my first experience with Saul Bellow, and I'll probably read more of his work in the future.
  
  
• The White Horse King.   Ben Merkle's biography of King Alfred the Great. I didn't really know much about this period of history (England in the 900s or so), but it is now one of my favorites. England is just then starting to unite as one country, and the Vikings are causing trouble left and right. Alfred was born into a society that was on its way out of existence, and somehow managed to leave his successors a kingdom that would grow to become one of the great world empires. Can't recommend this one highly enough.
  
  
• The Gods Themselves. I had never read much of Isaac Asimov, but I enjoyed this one very much.   Three stories set around the same events. Each is well-written, but serves more to get across various big ideas about possible futures and about human nature, among other things. The middle section (set in another universe which is in contact with our own) stands out. It spends most of its time examining the domestic life of the aliens there and uses that set-up to get at a lot of insightful observations about humans in general and relations between the sexes in particular.
  
  
• Short stories.   Short stories came back onto my radar in 2012.   I read a number online, such as E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops...", and "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow.    I read "Four Stories", a collection from Etgar Keret, as well as making some progress (during a week of jury duty) in big short stories anthology I bought in a thrift shop for a dollar or so.   I even managed to cross over into other media, enjoying some readings and illustrations of Edward Gorey stories on Youtube ("The Beastly Baby" is some sort of achievement, though I'm not sure which sort).
  

Music

2012 continued a positive trend (at least from my perspective) in the rebuilding of decent music.  (Though, I think on the whole, 2012 will be remembered as the year that Dubstep became mainstream.     Once car commercials pick up your genre, there's no going back.)  Here are five (plus) albums that I enjoyed this year (in no particular order):

• The Lumineers - The Lumineers.   I didn't really start to appreciate this album until late in the year (ht: Adam Brown), but pretty much every song is decent.   You've heard "Ho Hey", which is great and was on autoplay in my head for several months, but I think "Dead Sea" is my favorite at the moment:
  
  
  
  
• The Followers - Wounded Healer.   Another late-in-the-year find.   Eric Earley (of Blitzen Trapper) teamed up with the pastor of the church he goes to to make ...  a worship album?    Sort of, but not like any worship album you've ever heard.    It has a whole 70s vibe to it, sort of like what if the Jesus Movement had kept going at full strength just a little bit longer.   I'm also counting this as this year's Blitzen Trapper album, as their Portland sound is very much on display.  The songs range from the quiet, hymn-like guitar song ("God's Eternal Now") to a full-on stars-for-eyes technicolor-animated-schoolbus 70s love-fest ("You Did Everything"), the title track is fairly representative:
  
  
  
  
• Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine.   My most-anticipated album of 2012, and it did not disappoint.   To paraphrase Pedro:  "Pick up this album, and all your wildest dreams will come true."   This is a collection of covers (though most are obscure) and Counting Crows owns every track.   I haven't listened to it recently, but that is only because I basically wore it out.    Hands-down album of the year.    "Return of the Grievous Angel" (link isn't to the album version) stands out, as does "Hospital", ... wait, I'd better stop this list before I put every song on it.    I'll leave you with my favorite ("Mercy"):
  
  
  
  
  
• Punch Brothers - Who's Feeling Young Now? and Ahoy!.   Two new Punch Brothers albums  (well, one's an EP) came out in 2012, and when they're on, they are on.    Progressive bluegrass at its finest.    When a band with bluegrass instrumentation covers Radiohead at every opportunity, you know it's going to be interesting at the very least.   Try "New York City", "Hundred Dollars", "Another New World".   Probably my favorite as of this writing is "Who's Feeling Young Now?":
  
  
  
  Bonus:   Chris Thile (formerly of Nickel Creek, now front-man for the Punch Brothers) has been very busy recently.    He teamed up with (among others) Yo-Yo Ma in the Goat Rodeo Sessions, and released a fairly straight-ahead bluegrass/country album (but with a lean, mean sound) with Michael Daves called Sleep With One Eye Open.  Have a listen to the title track.   (Full disclosure: both of these projects were technically released in late 2011, but I didn't hear about them until well into 2012, so sue me.)
  
  
• Spirit Family Reunion - No Separation.   So, for the longest time I couldn't find an actual album from Spirit Family Reunion, but they do now have some available for purchase.   They are in love with the Woody Guthrie folk/country sound and are possibly the most energetic band I've ever seen.    The band is from Brooklyn, but they sound like they are playing on the Plains in the 1930s (but at an energy level that would likely hold up in court as probable cause to search their touring van for cocaine).   Check out "Alright Prayer", "I Am Following the Sound", "Leave Your Troubles at the Gate", and ... well, this one's too good not to show the whole video (the drummer is worth the price of admission alone) — "100 Greenback Dollar Bills":
  
  
  
  
  
• Also notable from 2012:  Bob Dylan - Tempest; Lionel Richie - Tuskegee; Propaganda - Excellent

Other Media

Well, I watched some films that came out this year, but some of the most influential ones I saw this year were made sometime before.   Also, anything that isn't a book or a song goes in this section.

• Of Gods and Men.    Finally got around to watching this movie in 2012, on a digital copy that almost managed to sync the subtitles with the dialog.   Still great though.   The (true) story of some French monks in Algeria who decided to stay in a little Muslim community (and for the most part die) when the going got rough with Jihadists in that country in the 1990s.  
  
  
• Picnic at Hanging Rock.    Even though I almost always enjoy older movies, I (for some reason) can never convince myself to start watching them.   This one has been sitting on my hard drive for years now, but I finally got around to watching it around Halloween.    It has an aesthetic that I can't compare to anything else.    Without a great deal actually happening, it manages to thoroughly unsettle you just by lingering on certain shots and playing strange music/ambient sounds.  Beautiful and horrifying.
  
  
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.    I'm a big Tolkien fan, so of course I saw this one.   Many good moments (the council in Rivendell, "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold..." sung in Biblo's house, Radagast the Brown etc.).   Overall, it seemed like this one was more the director than the source material, though.   Hopefully the next couple will get back to solid ground.
  
  
• Also notable:
  
• The Dark Night Rises continued, somewhat improbably, an honest-to-goodness discussion of (Christian, even?) knighthood in the modern day.   The series seems bent on getting  Batman's snarling mug up there alongside the Nine Worthies.   Is it possible for a comic book superhero to stand in Kierkegaardian absolute relation to the absolute?   Maybe.   I still don't like comic books, though.
  
  
• Speaking of knighthood, Cartoon Network's Adventure Time continued its strong run, albeit perhaps slowing down a bit toward the end of this year.    Still, though, what other character from a cartoon lugs around a copy of the Enchiridion?
  
  
• On a less serious note, you can watch Batman villain Bane's commentary on Gangnam Style.   Why would a man dance through garbage, indeed?
  
  
• The Grey was about a plane crash / ongoing wolf attack, or all of a sudden, was it about ... God?   A surprising movie.  
  
  
• I started watching the BBC series Rev. (and am waiting on the second "series" or season, which is scheduled for shortly before the end of time).    It is a light-hearted look at the various troubles of an Anglican vicar in the inner city of London.   Sometimes, it isn't so light-hearted, though, and the vicar often finds himself praying for help in this or that situation.
  
  
• I ran across a great Youtube channel called Insane Edition.  It takes clips from popular movies or shows and loops them infinitely, although very subtly so that it is sometimes several minutes before you realize what is happening to you.    The best was their take on a scene from Deliverance, which has since been removed due to a (ridiculous) copyright claim.

Themata

Here are a few of the large-scale themes I kept coming back to in 2012.   When certain ideas keep coming up in reading, media, and other experiences, it's hard not to see them as things that were put here for me to find — in other words, intended.  There may be other ones that I just haven't realized yet.   We'll see.

• 
  Death.   I thought a lot about death in 2012 — not a morbid dwelling on the end of my own life or someone else's, but the concept itself.    Most importantly, what does it mean to give your life for someone or something (even if you don't literally die in the process).   What does it mean to die in the sense that Scripture talks about it:  dying with respect to yourself, but living with respect to Christ and his life?   If we take the Christian worldview seriously, that means that one of the most fundamental facts of existence is resurrection.   But for resurrection in any sense to take place, death of some kind is a prerequisite.   People don't like to talk about death (even metaphorically).  Maybe we are afraid of death (of all kinds) because it means that the things we love are taken from us.    What if instead of death as a being-taken-from, we saw death as a laying-down.   "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."   What about that?
  
  
• 
  The King.  What does it mean to rule, to be in charge?   What is a leader?   You hear a great deal about leadership and becoming a great leader, etc., but is that even something we should be trying to do?   I'm leaning toward the idea that "leadership" as a concept is almost entirely without merit.   The best "leaders" throughout history have not really been the ones that got out in front and started giving orders.   That sort of leadership devolves quickly into worship of the self and arguments over whether everyone else is sufficiently respectful of my authority.   The best understanding of leadership (and the example left for us to follow) is the kind of person who is willing to take the hit, to bear the burden on behalf of others.   Picture everything you've been told about what makes a great leader.   Imagine that person, then let that image collide with:  "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."    Leadership is a form of death.
  
  
• 
  The Unseen World.   Many times in 2012, I had the experience of being very interested in (or caring deeply about) various things that almost no one else around me could see the importance of.     Even something as simple as various astronomical occurrences, even though they happened out in the open for everyone to see, passed largely unnoticed.    Not everyone is into sky-watching, so no big deal, but what about when deeper, more fundamental things are at stake — things like honor, freedom, God, love, mercy...?    So much of life floats right by people, and they seem not to notice it at all — the eternal at work in the everyday.    I'm by no means immune to that, but how am I to relate to the things I do see?    If society around me continues to insist that the world is as flat as a pancake, should I still trouble myself with the roundness of it all, or play along?  

  

Punch Brothers - "Another New World"

As always:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His divine countenance upon you and give you peace."

HD Transit of Venus Video

NASA's spaced-based observations of the recent transit of Venus are (I think) worth 3 minutes or so of your time, just on aesthetic grounds alone:

Post-Christian Justice

Al Mohler on how "post-Christian" culture is confused about criminal justice (in light of the Breivik trial in Norway):

And yet, in another statement from his commentary on this text, Westermann points straight to the reason that a post-Christian culture loses its moral confidence in the punishment of murderers. He states: "A community is only justified in executing the death penalty insofar as it respects the unique right of God over life and death and insofar as it respects the inviolability of human life that follows therefrom." 

Once those convictions and moral intuitions are lost, the death penalty no longer makes sense. Eventually, even the idea of punishment itself loses all cultural credibility.

Full article...

ht: Vitamin Z

Happy Easter

" [...] we rejoice in the fact that it was in the beginning that our Lord cried out it is finished."

— Douglas Wilson

2011 Year-In-Review

It's time to look back at the year now passed.    Whether now or at tax time, I always enjoy the opportunity to review what I've done, and all that has happened in the previous year.   It provides the perfect moment to ask oneself,  in the words of John Mayer (not strange, present-day John Mayer, but earlier, up-and-coming-acoustic-prodigy John Mayer), "Am I livin' it right?"   Before we get to questions like that, however, it'll be helpful to review the raw material.    Here are some of the things that stand out (to me) about the foregoing year:


Events

2011 was, more than anything else, a banner year for disasters.   From the Japanese earthquake / tsunami, to the Thailand floods, to Hurricane Irene (a friend of mine and I rode out the worst of it in a very leaky Chili's dining room), to any number of other occurrences, it was a rough year to be minding your own business.   Here are a few of the stories that will stick with me from the past 12 months:

• '74 No More
  
  
  
  Growing up, I'd always heard stories about April 3, 1974.   Every time a tornado came through, people would say it was bad, but nothing like '74.   Well, now that spot in the collective memory of North Alabama will be replaced with the events of April 27, 2011.
  
  I sometimes forget that I wasn't physically present that day.   I watched the storms develop from far away in Northern Virginia.   I knew from the weather radar that things were taking a turn for the worse.   By midday at work, I called my manager to explain to her that I was signing out to concentrate on feeding information back to friends and family in AL.
  
  Every kind of natural disaster is different, I guess.   With tornadoes, it always feels a bit like a high-stakes game of Battleship.   The storm calls a number, and you wait to see if it is a hit or a miss.   The only difference is:  if it's a hit, somebody you know dies, is hurt, or loses everything they own.   On April 27, though, the storm got 92 turns in a row.  That's how many tornado warnings the NWS office in Huntsville issued.   For the people I knew, all 92 came up "miss", and I thank God for that.   For many others, though, one or more of the numbers called were theirs.    I saw some of that the following weekend when I traveled down to try to help.    The national focus has long since moved on, but for anyone connected with North Alabama, "2011" will long be remembered as shorthand for  "that day".
  
  If you're interested in learning more about the events of April 27, I'd recommend this article as a starting point.
   
• Just Football
  
  
  
  Yeah, the whole Penn State thing.   The story itself was tragic enough in so many dimensions:  the crimes and the victims, the sad end to Joe Paterno's career.    It felt like a big piece of whatever decency America had left sort of crumbled loose and fell away.    Then to watch what happened next as the self-justifiers and Monday-morning quarterbacks in the media (and, to be honest, in the office, or wherever you looked)  took their turn dancing around while State College, PA, burned.  
  
  The whole thing was like watching a giant wreck in slow motion, standing close enough to see the facial expressions of those involved.  N.D. Wilson, commenting on the situation, observed that, "Little decisions [...] that don't really seem to matter can turn into massive problems.".    There are a lot of lessons to learn from what happened, but looking back, it's hard to get past just feeling sad.
   
• DC Shake-up
  
  There are two moments I'll remember from the great DC earthquake of '11.   The first came a few seconds into the quake itself.   I work near a major airport, and not far from a heavily trafficked highway.   Vibrations from big trucks and low-flying jetliners shake the building at a low level regularly.   For the first few seconds, we thought it was more of the same.   Then, the shaking crossed some sort of invisible mental line, and everyone instantly knew that something was wrong.    That "wait, what?" moment will stick with me.  You can see that moment unfold for some tourists in the Washington Monument in the embedded video below.   The second moment came a few days later, when we discovered that the earthquake had actually done quite a bit of damage to the ceiling tiles at our church.   We had to spend most of Saturday afternoon that week at the church's first-ever earthquake clean-up work day.
  
  
  
   
• This blog got its start in 2011 (though some posts are antedated to previous years, due to a large backlog of what-not that I'd been saving).   Instead of waiting around infinity more years to launch a well-formed and fully-polished blog site, I made the decision to go ahead and jump, doing my best to pack the parachute on the way down.  
  
  
• And, lest we forget, Randy "Macho Man" Savage snapped into the afterlife this year at the age of 58.
  

Music

2011 seemed like it might be the very beginning of a comeback for music, or at least for the sort of music I want to hear.    Maybe my tastes are just changing with the time.     I won't rank them against each other, but here are five albums from the past year that I thought were excellent, along with a taste of each:

• Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing
  
  
   
• Owl City - All Things Bright and Beautiful
  
  
   
• The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
  
  
   
• Burlap to Cashmere -  Burlap to Cashmere
  
  
   
• Redbird - Live At Café Carpe
  
  
   

Literature

So, for better or for worse, I don't often read things that have come out recently.   Consequently, it wouldn't make much sense to talk about books that were published in 2011.   Instead, I'll note some of the books that influenced me over the course of the past year, their publication date notwithstanding.

• Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe).   So I'd heard this or that about the book, and had a vague sense that it dealt with important issues but was somehow embarrassing in its treatment of them.   What a surprise when I actually read it.    It ended up being one of the best (and most thoroughly Christian) novels I've ever read.    Uncle Tom is such a virtuous and strong character that the next person I hear using his name as an insult in my presence is liable to get punched in the mouth.    I can't for the life of me understand why this isn't required reading in every Christian school in America.
  
  
• I finally started in on Wodehouse, who comes to me much recommended.    I read Carry On, Jeeves, which familiarized me with the general idea of the Jeeves stories.   Some of the turns of phrase are as amusing as I had been promised.    One character refers to another as "as vague and wooley-headed a blighter as ever bit a sandwich".   In addition, the hero prefers a good game of skee-ball to more serious pursuits.   I only just recently discovered that there is an early-90s British TV series based on the Jeeves stories, starring Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. House) as Bertie Wooster, with Stephen Fry as Jeeves.  

Themes

When considering something as long as a year, you are sufficiently "zoomed-out" to start to notice big trends in what the events of your life are meant to teach you.   I don't believe that any event or circumstance comes about by chance; rather, they are ordered to some purpose — or, better, to many different purposes at once.   One of these purposes is our instruction.     When major or minor happenings begin to line up in one direction or another, it's possible to begin to see intention and meaning in them.   What did I notice (in my life) this year?

• Insufficiency.    I could have told you this in 2010, but I didn't really understand it the way I do now.     Do you believe that you can make yourself be the person you want to be, and do the things you want to do?   Do you believe that if you just try harder, get a system, increase your net stick-to-it-iveness, that you can have what you want?   Do you believe that if you believe it, you can achieve it?   Then you're believing a lie.   It just isn't possible to will yourself to perfection, or even adequacy.   We are every one of us broken, and unable to do it (whatever "it" is) on our own.    The longer you defy gravity, the bigger house of cards you are building.  "Get busy living, or get busy dying," but with all due respect to The Shawshank Redemption, you'd be better served to get busy dying, and then get busy rising from the dead...  
  
  
• Grace.   ... because God prefers to work with dead people.   Two little girls went to the store to buy a snack.  Each had ninety-nine cents, but the items they wanted cost a dollar.    Seeing that they were short, they asked a nice man in line if he would help them.   "Of course," he replied.   The first little girl approached the cashier, put her ninety-nine cents on the counter and turned to the man.   "I just need one cent," she said.    He supplied the penny, she thanked him, and took her snack.   The second little girl looked at her money, looked at the man, and put her money away.   "I can't afford the snack," she said.    The man took out a crisp dollar bill and paid the cost outright.    I tell you that the second little girl went down to her house justified.
  
  If I were in the cheesy sermon sloganeering business, I'd say:  "Grace doesn't make up the difference, grace makes all the difference!"   The bumper-sticker people beat me to it, though, with: "If God is your co-pilot, switch seats!".   I forget this lesson about twice a day, but I was reminded throughout the year of my own inability, and of my own need for someone who is able. 

Well, much more could be said about 2011, and much of it will be said — elsewhere.   As the Christmastide rolls on and into 2012, I wish you all the best for the coming year.    Now,

"May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His divine countenance upon you and give you peace."

The 12+ Songs of Christmas

So this is Christmas, or at least it will be.    To help you celebrate, here are 12 songs (give or take half-a-dozen) that should, if applied correctly, assist in putting you in the Christmas spirit.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Royal David's City. I know it has become somewhat cliche to like Sufjan Stevens. That's neither here nor there to me: I wish to decide on the merits of the case, and you simply won't find a better late-model Christmas album (or albums) than his Songs for Christmas EP collection. I dare you to listen to this song twice and stop there:
   
   
   
   No one can eat just one, so here are three more samples from that collection to choose from:
   
   Sufjan Stevens - Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming.
   
   
   
   Sufjan Stevens - Holy, Holy, Holy.
   
   
   
   Sufjan Stevens - Joy To The World.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Elizabeth Poston - Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. As near as I can remember, this is an American (late colonial) poem that got set to music late last century, and somehow became associated with Christmas, especially in the U.K. Most recordings of it that I've found are exceedingly boring, but when done right (as below) it is something to see. When they break into parts at the start of the second verse, well, the Grinch's heart starts its upsizing.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Age of Faith - That Winter's Night. I like this song. This recording is not quite as good as the album version, but it was available. The song sort of looks at the Nativity through a picture window, stopping on the question of what the singer might have done or felt, had he been there that winter's night...
   
   
   
   
   
4. Ralph Stanley - Children, Go Where I Send Thee. Even at this late date, I'm not sure I can pick out all of the numbered groups and identify where exactly they appear in the Bible. It doesn't really matter, though, as Dr. Stanley always brings it back to One.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Vince Guaraldi Trio - Christmas Time Is Here. You mean the Charlie Brown song? Yes. The Charlie Brown song. Jazz and Christmas are sort of like canned tuna and marshmallow cream: you wouldn't think they'd go together, but somehow, it works out.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Andrew Peterson - Matthew's Begats. As two astute social commentators claimed recently, the Indians always used every part of the firework. Likewise, Mr. Peterson sees no reason why the scraps and unused corners of the Christmas story should go to waste.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Heather Dale - The Huron Carol. "Jesous Ahatonhia" (Jesus is born) is, if I understand rightly, a kind of cultural translation of the Christmas story into the Huron Indian language done sometime in the 1600s. That makes it, I'd imagine, the earliest North American Christmas song.
   
   
   
   
   
8. The Innocence Mission - In The Bleak Midwinter. Searched around for decent version of this carol. I finally settled on this one. It's so quiet, empty, and cold, but by the end, the icicles are starting to drip a bit.
   
   
   
   
   
9. Jars of Clay - Christmas for Cowboys. Why have I never heard this before? Jars of Clay covers John Denver. A lonesome song that doesn't take a day off for Christmas.
   
   
   
   
   
10. The California Raisins - Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. No, America, it won't do to deny it any longer. This happened, and we know it happened. And the sooner we admit that it happened, the sooner the healing can begin. Seriously, though, why is this not available, remastered on DVD?
    
    
    
    Still not willing to come to terms with it? Exhibit B, if it please the court:
    
    Claymation Christmas - Here We Come A-Waffling.
    
    
    
    
    
11. Muppets - It Feels Like Christmas. I'm still confused on this point: of all of the adaptations of A Christmas Carol that have been produced over the years, why does the one billing itself as a children's comedy seem to be the most moving? Come in, and know this clip better, man!
    
    
    
    
    
12. David Francey - Good Christian Men, Rejoice. Like stepping out into a cold winter morning. This rendition gets your blood moving, and makes you want to get up and take up the song. Now ye hear of endless bliss: Jesus Christ was born for this!
    
    
    
    Download original mp3...
    
    
    

And, as an added bonus, I present (after long searching), a reading of the "Cajun Night Before Christmas", true to the version I heard as a child on a cassette tape of some big Christmas production at my cousin's church in Louisiana. Laissez le bon Noël rouler! (or something to that effect)

• Trosclair - Cajun Night Before Christmas.
  
  
  
  
  

Conan O'Brien at Dartmouth

Profanity, vulgarity, and tomfoolery, but towards the end:  something to think about.

Decline and Fall

The Guardian:

So, it may be that the US is about to emerge stronger than ever from the long nightmare of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The strong financial position of American companies could unleash a wave of new investment over the next couple of years.

Let me put an alternative hypothesis. America in 2011 is Rome in 200AD or Britain on the eve of the first world war: an empire at the zenith of its power but with cracks beginning to show.

Read more...

Tornado Stories

Challen Stephens of The Huntsville Times follows the path of the Hackleburg tornado:

But Braden [...] wouldn't come outside. Kienlen said that Braden told them that this is Alabama, that he wasn't afraid of tornado warnings. "You could feel your ears popping," Kienlen recalled. The wheels from underneath Braden's trailer landed on the shelter door. They worked to let one person squeeze out to clear the exit.

Outside, just a few feet away, Braden lay dead atop the rubble.

Full article...

God & Osama bin Laden

John Piper:

In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, quite a few tweets and blogs have cited the biblical truth that "God does not delight in the death of the wicked." That is true. 

It is also true that God does delight in the death of the wicked. There are things about every death that God approves in themselves and things about every death that God disapproves in themselves.

The rest...

"Rally to Restore Vanity"

Mark Ames:

Sure there are a lot of problems out there, a lot of pressing needs — but the main thing is, the Liberals don’t look nearly as stupid as the other guys do. And if you don’t know how important that is to this generation, then you won’t understand what’s so wrong and so deeply depressing about the Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity.

Link...