2014 Books I Listened To

My annual list of books listened, mostly kept by me because I’m curious of the trends across time (see books label).

Awards

Sacred Clowns: Can’t Help Myself (listened to yet again)
The Center Cannot Hold: Outperformed Expectations
Rebel in Chief: Underperformed Expectations

1. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris
2. Death Comes to Pemberley - P.D. James
3. Devil's Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea
4. Death of a Scriptwriter - M.C. Beaton
5. A Black Hole is not a Hole - C.C. DeCristofano
6. Sacred Clowns - Tony Hillerman
7. Fueling the Planet - Michael McElroy
8. The Center Cannot Hold - Harry Turtledove
9. David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell
10. Brewmasters' Art - Charles Bamforth
11. Zealot - Reza Aslan
12. The Heretic's Apprentice - Ellis Peters
13. Truman - David McCullough
14. The Glory of Their Times - Lawrence Ritter
15. Rebel in Chief - Fred Barnes
16. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
17. Ballad of the Whiskey Robber - Julian Rubinstein
18. LOTR: Two Towers - JR Tolkien (BBC)
19. Anglo-Saxon World - Michael Drout

2014 Books I Read

My annual list of books read, mostly kept by me because I’m curious of the trends across time (see books label).

Awards

The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes : Fan Favorite
Gorky Park : Outperformed Expectations
The Great Divorce : Classic all should read
Pursuit of God: Most likely affected me

1. Orthodoxy - G K Chesterton
2. Gorky Park - Martin Cruz Smith
3. From Russia with Love - Ian Fleming
4. The Return of the Prodigal Son - Henri Nowen
5. The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes - Conan Doyle
6. The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis
7. Revelations of Divine Love - Julian of Norwich
8. Breach of Trust - Tom Coburn
9. Pursuit of God - A.W. Tozer
10. When Helping Hurts - Corbett/Fikkert
11. White House Burning - Simon Johnston
12. Moonraker - Ian Fleming

Fingertips

Bowed head, eyes closed, in prayer, in confession. 

And there comes a hand on my left shoulder. Barely a hand. Fingers. Fingertips. Just barely registering. 

Eyes open, without turning my head a glance to the left, and see the right hand of my neighbor. Not hers. 

It matters not. Eyes close, confess. Confess. 

But who is it? Whose hand is that? 

It matters not. It is an angel. Return to prayer. 

But is it really an angel? Could it dare be. Do I really feel those fingertips. Is it just an illusion? A ghosting?

It matters not. Return to prayer. Confess. 

Physical or spiritual. real or Real. It matters not. The hand, the fingers, the fingertips of God rest on my shoulder. In this comfort, I am invited to return to prayer, to confession. 

Praise be to God, through whom all blessings flow. 

He is, Regardless

At times, life crashes.
               faith crashes.
We go through tough times and rough patches, and crash.

And we respond. Burn through, back out, seek help, go alone.
We experiences times of destruction: internal or external, self-inflicted or happenstance.
And we respond.

Rationally, if God is not in this, not in this world, not in our world, then seek a path through. Seek diligently, desperately. Find a means to get to the other side of the crash, to a point of future peace.

Rationally, if God is in this, in this world, in our world, He, being of a nature above and beyond our own, is in some form of control, a form we don't likely understand. We are to realize, to acknowledge, that we are not in control. And it is rational to embrace (rather than struggle) against this reality.
He is [in control], regardless [of how we act].
He is, regardless. 

Battling against His grain does not bring about our intended outcomes. If God is in it, He will bring:

• the Talent,
• the Brains,
• the Connections to make it happen, whatever it may be. 

The villain of the young professional years is the lack of margin. The go, go, go... 

crashing through life, getting things done.

from Gary Bottoms, Bottoms Group, speaker at Marietta Work Matters

But in these years, older than our youth yet young enough to be molded, we are still developing who we will be in:

• Leadership
• Career
• Family
• Community

Choosing God or not-god effects our reactions to the crashes, our actions in the moments, and in the days, weeks, months that follow.
How we act affects who we are to become. We are to some very real degree the product of our prior experiences and prior actions. We are being molded by our self, whether through our self-driven efforts or through our release to God, trusting in His efforts.

He is, regardless.
And we are not.

Don't Mess with the Alarm

This past week my alarm failed. Never you mind why it failed. It has nothing to do with its age, with my receipt of the AM/FM radio clock just a few short years ago when I myself was granted the responsibility of getting off to school in sixth grade. I must say that after 20+ years of being dialed into 92.9 Z93 (until the Capitalist turds canceled the station), the tuner may occasionally get nudged just a hair, just a decimal degree, with the result of a blazing silence once the waking hour is struck.

With our children now in the school system, now maturing into responsible members of society, the occasional failure of my alarm is now found to spread its effects outwards, with its first victims of circumstances being our lovely 4th graders.

So I took them by car to school one day last week, missing the school bus but arriving in plenty of time before the first bell. All is well with the world...

Until tonight, as we put Elizabeth to bed.

"Mom, is Daddy's alarm working? Did he fix it? Because riding in the car in NOT fun."

"What's wrong," Maggie asked with naive compassion? 

"Well, when Daddy dropped me off, I barely got there in time. I didn't get to do my morning work (translation, "previous day's homework not yet complete and never revealed to my parents"), AND I don't get the good jobs, like writing the date on the board."

"We'll try better," Maggie tells her with feigned sincerity.

Writing the date on the board: it is a mighty fine job indeed.