2021: Watching, Reading, and Listening
Here’s my annual list of my top movies, articles, books, and music. As always, I hope you discover something new and inspiring.
Last year’s list is here, in case you missed it.
Movies
1. Luca
Luca is a funny and charming movie your whole family can watch together. It has the visual beauty and compelling soundtrack we’ve come to expect from Pixar. It’s a story about the formative bond of childhood friendships and transformative power of self-sacrifice. The story arc is an age-old one, and not actually original at all. Only in times when we’ve lost such things does Luca seem so fresh and lovely.
Runner-up: Dune
Articles
1. “Remembering G. K. Chesterton” by Dale Ahlquist
100 years on, Chesterton still pegs contemporary culture better than most contemporaries do.
2. “Love in the Marketplace” by Mary Harrington
Our meat comes in tidy clean packages divorced from the viscera of the slaughterhouse. Why are we doing the same to our fundamental human relationships?
3. “The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning” by N. S. Lyons
Meet the reclusive scholar at the heart of China’s program for confronting post-modernity’s societal problems.
Runners-up: “Beauty and Its Corruptions” by Roger Scruton | and “It Is Obscene” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Books
1. Letters From the Mountain by Ben Palpant
Letters From the Mountain is a collection of letters—advice from a father to his daughter on being a writer. Though written for writers it would benefit anyone needing wisdom or wanting encouragement in their creative pursuits. This book felt like discovering a master craftsman’s shop on a backroad and taking an afternoon to sit in his freshly-finished, handmade rocking chair. It fits perfectly, and then you begin admiring the detail. I could sit with it — admiring — all day.
Do you remember that wild-eyed prophet of old, John the Baptizer, living off locusts and honey? He, too, was poor. He, too, was misunderstood. Hear his words — simple, carefully chosen, and pregnant — springing up in the desert: “The One coming is greater. I’m lesser! He is the light. I’m only the lantern. He is the expression, the poem, the opinion and expectation of God dwelling among us, and when you see him you see the face of God!” This was John’s anthem, the refrain of his life’s song: hear him, follow him, imitate him. Like John, you’re sent by God and compelled by his spirit to sing the same song.
God is the fame. Your work is a lantern. Lift your lantern high so it casts its light far and wide. Like John, you’re a humble messenger who bears witness to the light of God, “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). John paved the way for the Lord in the backwaters of the known world; you pave the way wherever you are. John baptized with water; you baptize with words. Rise up, daughter! Rise up!
2. Planet Narnia by Michael Ward
This is a fairly academic work, but fascinating because it offers a compelling key to the unity of the Chronicles of Narnia series and to Lewis’s theology. I found myself thinking (and talking) about this book often, even months after finishing it. Anyone who loves Narnia should read Planet Narnia. Everyone who does will see Narnia through new eyes.
I will argue that the Chronicles do not lack coherence, either as a series or when considered as seven individual texts, and that their “controversial” elements are to be understood within the context of that coherent imaginative strategy. And I will contend that they have found such a large readership because they communicate seven ancient archetypes in a manner which is artistically and theologically suggestive.
3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Yes, it’s taken me this long to get to this classic. It shouldn’t have. It’s a delight—somehow familiar yet surprising. It’s an odd thing to say of a classic, but it deserves a wider readership.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw, and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw, and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
4. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Looking for a new adventure? This is it. A fun jaunt and a “classic of nautical fiction.” Seems ripe for a Netflix adaptation.
Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater.
Sternly disapproving eyes considered him from a window opposite, but went disregarded. Mr. Blood’s attention was divided between his task and the stream of humanity in the narrow street below, pouring for the second time that day in the direction of Castle Field, where earlier in the afternoon Ferguson, the Duke’s chaplain, had preached a sermon that contained more treason than divinity.
5. Slaying Your Fear by Adam Lane Smith
Adam Lane Smith writes from his experience as a licensed therapist and attachment specialist for people who feel insecure in their relationships. It’s short. It’s helpful. It has practical steps to help you overcome insecurity and begin developing healthy attachment. It’s the kind of thing that would be beneficial to almost anyone. It was to me.
Imagine if every moment of every day was filled with some level of bubbling anxiety, constantly nagging at the corner of your mind and telling you that somewhere, something important is about to fall apart.
Imagine believing everyone who ever calls you their friend is only one realization away from rejecting you completely.
Imagine your family is your greatest source of pain. They’re supposed to be the most welcoming and accepting of all the people in your life, but you never feel more alone and more resentful than you do with your family.
Imagine believing that everything important to you will fall apart at the moment of triumph and leave you disappointed and ashamed.
Insecure people don’t have to imagine the above scenarios. For people with insecurity, these are real experiences in their everyday life.
Runners-up: Beauty by Roger Scruton | Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson | Every Moment Holy by Douglas Kaine McKelvey |and Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy
See what else I’ve been reading via Goodreads.
Songs
1. “Don’t Throw All The Good Things Away” by NEEDTOBREATHE, Natalie Hemby
NEEDTOBREATHE has been good for fifteen years. The longing and ache here connected with me this year.
2. “Rahab’s Lullaby (God Above, God Below)” by FAITHFUL, Sarah Macintosh, Rachael Lampa, Sandra McCracken
And what a lullaby this is, with words we all need to hear: “He is God above, He is God below, He is God of everything between.”
3. “Heart, Soul, Blood, Bone” by Chris Renzema
Loneliness and longing for connection seem to be a theme. The chorus—“We’re all heart, soul, blood, bone”—reminds of another missing connection: we’re composed of both material and immaterial parts.
4. “Psalm 90 (Satisfy Us with Your Love)” by Shane & Shane
This whole album could have made the list. For me, some songs become prayers for the hours.
5. “The Lark” by Michail Glinka/Mily Balakirev, Esther Shin Chuang
I discovered Michail Glinka’s “The Lark” from my friend Esther Shin Chuang’s newest classical album Liebesträume: Dream of Love. Her performance of this song is more ardent and evocative than any other version you’ll find (seriously, go check out her albums).
6. “1 Corinthians 15:1–3” by Verses, Mark Wilkins, Page CXVI
The songs I love fill my head. I can’t think of anything better to have in mind.
7. “Deliver Me” by John Mark McMillan
In “Deliver Me” John Mark McMillan’s lyricism matches his voice. Both are rich and engaging.
Runners-up: “Make A Way” by The Porter’s Gate | “Free” by Future of Forestry | “How Can You Sing” by Front Country | “New Hope” by Bren axe | “Like Something I Missed” by Five Iron Frenzy | and “Son Nefes” by Alihan Samedov
Listen as a playlist on Spotify, including all of my top 25 songs.
