Top Music Albums of the Year

Check out the following site for a review of the top music albums of the year. Some good stuff there, with a personal favorite Arcade Fire making the list. If you visit the blog page you can see the entire top 100 in multiple posts.

What was your favorite album of 2007? I would have to say that mine was the afore mentioned Arcade Fire's Neon Bible. An innovative and groundbreaking album, I find myself playing it on the iPod more than anything else.

Mental Unstable

It came upon a midnight bath...

Mmmmm, this seems like a bit overkill on celebrating Christmas. I mean, I like nativity scenes and all, but it seems a little weird to have one floating around you in a bubble bath!



HT: Calacirian

Creative Impulses

Kieran is now 2.25 years old. It seems every day he develops in his thinking and perceptions of the world around him. Lately we have really noticed his imagination and creativity taking off, with role playing, imaginary dialogues, invented games, and so on. Of course, some of the creativity causes Mommy and Daddy a bit of consternation!

Case in-point, yesterday afternoon I was in the bedroom when I heard a scraping sound of Kieran moving something down the hall. I glanced out and noticed he was pulling his diaper trash can down the hallway As it is typical for him to drag buckets, laundry baskets, etc, around the house, I didn't really think anything of it. Until I heard him grunting at the end of the hall as he strained to turn the fully loaded diaper can over on its top!

I quickly asked him, "what are you doing?," he responded, "I need to turn the tree lights on," pointing first at the light switch at the end of the hall and then the Christmas tree (the Christmas lights run off a plug controlled by that light switch). "Ummmm, Kieran, you don't want to turn your diaper can over, it will make a mess," "Oh," he responded, clearly thinking of that eventuality for the first time. Then he grabbed the side of the can and proceeded to labor back down the hallway dragging it back to his room. I couldn't help but smile at his earnestness!

Our church in US News & World Report

US News & World Report did an article this week on the emerging church movement in the United States. The article features Common Table, the small faith community that Maranda, Kieran, and I have been a part of for over two years. This type of publicity is certainly not something our discreet group aspires to, but it is interesting to see a national publication's take on our small community. To their credit the journalist arrived early and stayed late, as well as interviewing one of our team leaders.

While I don't expect the emergent movement to become the norm for U.S. christianity, I am optimistic that the emergent emphasis on freedom, authenticity, relationship, the arts, and service, will impact the greater christian body. However, even if that doesn't happen, places like common table (and many other like-minded communities), serve an important role within the faith community by providing a sanctuary for those who don't comfortable fit in a traditional church setting.

Check out the US News & World Report article HERE.

Oklahoma Ice Storm

As you may have heard, over the past week there has been a massive ice storm across much of the midwest, with Oklahoma hit the hardest. My brother Wes has taken some incredible pictures of the impact in Oklahoma, with some of my favorites below.

The Danger of Being Clean

This may be the most important article you read this week. I say this only in part because it appears to at least partly vindicate my thirty year campaign against excessive hygene! The researcher suggests that the American fascination with hygene is primarily cosmetic and has become a social norm in part due to the advertising industry. According to this author, the only clear hygenic benefits are hand washing, everything else is just personal comfort or to meet social norms.

Indeed, our fascination with hygene may even be making our kids sick! Supporting a claim I have often made in the past (can you see I am anxious for vindication here?), the researcher write, "In order to harden the immune system, the immune system requests some kind of stimuli all the time." Indeed, this correlates to the homeopathic method of medicating patients by giving them a little of the "bad stuff," to trigger their bodies natural immune response and heal naturally.

When asked if our hygene obsession helps keep us from getting sick, the researcher responded, "No. Not at all. I think it's making us sicker in the case of the hygiene hypothesis. It's increasingly believed by a large number of doctors and scientists, who say that the fact that we're not giving one of our immune systems enough dirt and germs to kind of flex its muscles on and get strong is allowing the other immune system, the one that gets allergies and asthma, to [take over]."

Wow, I mean, double wow! We could be healthier, have less respiratory problems, less illness, and less auto-immune disease if we simply washed less! I mean, talk about an easy call to action, all we have to do is stop doing something that takes time, wastes water, and is often uncomfortable (my wife disagrees here). Having a symbiotic relationship with dirt and bacteria is the key to a healthier life! As the researcher states, "it's not good for our health to have robbed ourselves of all these bacteria with which we have had a pretty fruitful coexistence."

From now on, when someone notices that I haven't showered in a couple days, or my body odor is a bit strong, I will just tell them I am having a "fruitful coexistence" with bacteria!