A Few of My Favorite Things
(...hold the brown paper packages)
I’m trying something a little different this week. Circumstances haven’t left much margin for writing this week, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging. So I’m trying something new:
Sharing a few of my favorite things.
This format is an experiment for me. If you like it (or if you don’t!) please leave a comment letting me know!
I haven’t written about this at length yet, and I probably should soon, but my goal with my writing is to help others in their discipleship. I want followers of Jesus to be confident in their faith. I want to help people build their lives on the solid rock of Jesus’s Teaching. I want people to be captivated by the amazing beauty and goodness of God.
(If you’re down for that, I’d be honored if you subscribed for email updates, and thank you so much to everyone who already has!)
To that end, I’m going to share a few resources that have been helpful to me. I hope that they’re useful to you.
A Great Podcast
I’ve been an avid consumer of podcasts for years now. A newer entry into the podcasting world that I’m very grateful for is the Dallas Willard podcast. Dallas has gone on to be with Jesus, so this is a new podcast with old content, but I’m so grateful for his gentle and thoughtful way of talking about following Jesus.
They recently finished airing an excellent series of eight talks about hearing God’s voice. I found it helpful and encouraging. Here is the first episode of that series:
The talks in this series are based on Willard’s book Hearing God (Affiliate Link), one of my all-time favorites. (It was originally published as In Search of Guidance. He often refers to that title during the recordings.)
Speaking of great books…
An Excellent Book
I have been a massive fan of both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien for my entire adult life. (If you didn’t see my article about The Lord of the Rings Films, please check it out!) I’ve read several biographies about each man, and books about their writing group, “The Inklings.”
This year for Christmas the item at the top of my wishlist was The Mythmakers (affiliate link) by John Hendrix. And (thanks Mom and Dad!) I got it!
The Mythmakers is a graphic novel biography about Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship. It focuses on how their relationship developed and how it influenced each man (as well as the development of English literature). The artwork is beautiful, and Hendrix’s angle on telling their story is really unique.
I tried to go slow and savor this book… but I still finished it in about a week. It’s definitely worth reading if you’re a fan of these men’s work.
A Timely Article
Finally, I want to recommend an article Andy Crouch wrote for the After Babbel substack.
Andy is one of the most thoughtful and insightful cultural commentators I know of. Lately (and by that, I mean for nearly a decade now) he’s been focusing his considerable skill on the topic of technology.
This article was published early in the year, but I only recently read it, mostly because I wanted to give myself some time to chew it over. It was worth the wait. Most of the ideas in this article come from his book The Life We’re Looking For (affiliate link), which is a great place to go next if the article inspires you.
Andy makes a case that much of our technology obsession mirrors humanity’s timeless obsession with magic. With the desire to get something for nothing. The desire to have what we want, when we want it, quickly and easily.
He also makes the case that this desire disconnects us from the things that make life meaningful.
Hopefully this article inspires you to reconsider your interactions with technology (except for my articles of course!).
There you have it! Three things (plus, I guess, some associated books) that I would highly recommend you consider giving some of your time and attention to. I hope this list has been helpful, please let me know in the comments whether it did (or not, I want to hear that too!).