2018: What I Liked
There are a lot of ways to review the year. I’ve enjoyed looking back on it through the movies, books, and songs I most liked and thought about. So here’s my annual list. As always, I hope it guides you to something you also come to love.
If you missed it, you can also take a look at last year’s list.
Movies
1. Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry
The first four minutes alone of Look & See would win it the top spot. I’ve never seen a more profound and stirring scene in a non-fiction film. Look & See is a documentary about author and farmer Wendell Berry, or rather it’s about seeing the world the way Berry sees it—which is to say, with rare depth and prophetic insight. He sees what we’ve all ignored so long we’re no longer able to see.
2. Black Panther
Black Panther is what all super hero movies should be—exciting, compelling, well done, with a good storyline, likable heroes, and compelling villains. It’s fascinating to see the idea kingship portrayed in the popular culture, and to see it embraced by fans.
3. Peter Rabbit
From the trailer it seemed like just another cheap rip-off of a beloved children’s book with some two-bit humor thrown in, but Peter Rabbit was actually a great surprise. The humor was sophisticated and had me laughing out loud throughout. Added bonus: it is clean and cute.
Runner-up: Christopher Robin
Books
1. Love Big, Be Well by Winn Collier
Love Big, Be Well tells the story of a small-town church through letters between the search committee and the new pastor. Through the people of fictitious, down home Grandby Presbyterian Church Winn Collier gives voice to the lived experiences of many real small town (and large town) Christians (and pastors) who long to live their ordinary lives imbued with the extraordinary immanence of the living God. If want to get a feel for how I personally view pastoral ministry, this would be a good place to start. Eugene Peterson called the book “A tour de force.” I needn’t say more.
Dear Potential Pastor,
Thank you for your interest in Granby Presbyterian Church. We’re a pretty vanilla congregation, though we do have enough ornery characters to keep a pastor hopping. If you’ve got a sense of humor, you’re not likely to get bored. We pay as much as we can, though it’s never enough. Your job is hard, and we know it. I think you’d find us grateful for your prayers and your sermons — and even more grateful for eating apple fritters with us at the Donut Palace…
Here are our questions. We’d like to know if you’re going to use us. Will our church be your opportunity to right all the Church’s wrongs, the ones you’ve been jotting down over your vast ten years of experience? (Sorry, I’m one of the ornery ones.) Is our church going to be your opportunity to finally enact that one flaming vision you’ve had in your crosshairs ever since seminary, that one strategic model that will finally get this Church-thing straight? Or might we hope that our church could be a place where you’d settle in with us and love alongside us, cry with us and curse the darkness with us, and remind us how much God’s crazy about us?
In other words, the question we want answered is very simple: Do you actually want to be our pastor?
2. Bad Religion by Ross Douthat
In a way Bad Religion is the non-fiction cousin of Love Big, Be Well. It provides a comprehensive diagnosis of the illness that besets American Christianity. In short: Americans don’t suffer from too much Christianity; we suffer from too much pseudo Christianity. It’s the kind of book that brings much-needed clarity and definition, and I often found myself saying out loud, “Yes! Exactly!”
Such a “culture of care,” as Dworkin calls it, is a logical end point for a society in which the religious instinct is oriented more and more toward every individual’s own Highest Thoughts and innermost spirits. Therapeutic theology raises expectations, and it raises self-regard. It isn’t surprising that people taught to be constantly enamored of their own godlike qualities would have difficulty forging relationships with ordinary human beings. (Two Supreme Selves do not necessarily a happy marriage make). Learning to love ourselves and love the universe isn’t necessarily the best way to learn to love our neighbor as ourselves, it turns out.
3. Merlin by Stephen Lawhead
Stephen Lawhead’s re-envisioning of the Arthurian legend reminds me just how impoverished our Disney-fied versions of lore are. In the Pendragon Cycle Lawhead creates a full-bodied world to embed these old stories into. It feels like they actually did happen in this way and actually could form a mythos for our western society. Lawhead has re-enlivened the legend, and done so in a way that is enchanting and engaging. It’s hard to rewrite a story that everyone knows. But Lawhead has done it and created a great fiction series.
They were going to kill Arthur. Can you imagine? They would have killed him, too, but I put a stop to it. The arrogance! The stupidity!
Not that Uther was ever one for the scholar’s cope. I expected more from Ygerna, though; she at least had the canny sense of her people. But, she was afraid. Yes, frightened of the whispered voices, frightened of her suddenly exalted position, frightened of Uther and desperate to please him. She was so young
So Arthur had to be saved, and at no little expense to myself.
4. The Fall of Gondolin by J. R. R. Tolkien
This is definitely the nerdiest book of the list. J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien (custodian of his father’s literary works) has compiled a textual critical collection of the various iterations of his father’s tale. The Fall of Gondolin is one of Middle Earth’s most pivotal stories, and how it developed over time reveals much about Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth. And above all that, it is a beautiful haunting tale about Gondolin’s devastating end which leads ultimately to the birth of renewed hope. What could be more fitting?
In my preface to Beren and Luthien I remarked that ‘in my ninety-third year this is (presumptively) the last book in the long series of editions of my father’s writings’. I used the word ‘presumptively’ because at that time I thought hazily of treating in the same way as Beren and Luthien the third of my father’s ‘Great Tales’, The Fall of Gondolin. But I thought this very improbable, and I ‘presumed’ therefore that Beren and Luthien would be my last. The presumption proved wrong, however, and I must now say that ‘in my ninety-fourth year The Fall of Gondolin is (indubitably) the last’.
5. War Letters by Andrew Carroll
We generally learn of and think about war from a geo-political standpoint, but Andrew Carroll’s skillful collection of real war letters shows the intimate and personal aspects of war. The excerpt below comes from a letter from Aaron Stevens (an abolitionist who was tried and hanged for his involvement in the Harper’s Ferry raid) to his brother. It was his last letter.
I sit down for the last time, without doubt, to communicate a few thoughts to three. I am in excellent health and very happy. Sister Lydia is with me, and she is brave as ever. I was very glad to see her, it is now over nine years since I last saw her. It does not seem so long. How fast the time flies. I should like to see you my Dear Brother very much, but shall have to wait until we meet in the Spirit-world. What joy it will give me to meet you and all other kind of friends there…
Give my love to your wife, and little one and say Farewell. Farewell my Dear Brother we meet again beyond the tomb, god bless you and yours
A. D. Stevens
Runners-up: This Is Where You Belong by Melody Warnick, How to Be a Perfect Christian by The Babylon Bee, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and Paradise Lost by John Milton
Songs
1. “Light at the End of the Tunnel” by Kerry Muzzey
The depth of emotion in this songs draws me in every time. It’s grief and hopefulness match so well. I feel my own life in the song.
2. “Gravity” by Dirk Maassen
For some reason a lot of the songs I enjoyed this year were instrumental songs (as reflected in my top two picks). This original piano composition by Dirk Maassen grabbed me from the first few seconds and has kept my attention for six months now.
3. “On the Banks” by Chris Renzema
Chris Renzema was hands down the best new artist I was introduced to this year. Quite a few of his songs could have made the list. The soulful energy of “On the Banks” had me singing along to it over and over, and gave it an edge over the others.
4. “Broken Love” by Built By Titan
One of the more unique songs I’ve heard lately, it’s so full of color and movement. The music video is worth a watch. “This world is… it’s a broken love” quite succinctly shows why joyful exuberance in this world of woe isn’t madness, but rather profound sanity. The message as well as the beat gives you a reason — whatever else you’re facing — to dance.
5. “Christ Is Risen” by Phil Wickham
A beautiful song about the greatest truth. I’ve been increasingly aware how much we Christians talk (and sing) circles around the Good News without actually getting much to the center of things — the grave has been reversed. “Hallelujah, Christ is risen from the grave!”
6. “Your Labor Is Not In Vain” by The Porter’s Gate
I love the poetry of this song: “Your labor is not in vain though the ground underneath you is cursed and stained. Your planting and reaping are never the same. Your labor is not in vain.” Of these great truths I need to be reminded often.
7. “Rise and Fight” by Epic Score
One more instrumental song to round out the list. Sure, it’s a bit stagy, but, hey, who doesn’t need a little epic infusion now and then.
Runners-up: “Finding Home (Instrumental)” by Zack Hemsey, “Cali” by Matthew And The Atlas, and “Late Summer Air” by Kirkmount.
