Podcasts Anyone?

I'm really curious as to how many of you listen to podcasts. I've become quite hooked on them, and listen to at least one every day. In fact, I barely watch TV anymore - I'd much rather listen to a podcast, especially when I am walking, riding my bike or traveling out of town.

Here's a list of the ones I listen to - I subscribe to all of them through iTunes. Please share on this blog as to what podcasts you listen to by posting a comment below. Thanks!

• A Prairie Home Companion's News from Lake Wobegone - he just makes me laugh.
  
• Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac - I mentioned this yesterday. I don't get something out of it every day. But I find myself learning a lot from it over time. I've also learned about or been reminded of some great authors here.
  
• KCRW's Left, Right & Center - this is a stimulating roundtable on politics. The various members' comments annoy me at times, but I take that as a good sign. The whole thing gives a decent flyover of the issues of the week .
  
• KCRW's Today's Top Tune - good exposure to different kinds of music.
  
• New Yorker: Out Loud - I am an addicted subscriber to the magazine. It's fun to hear interviews of the writers.
  
• NPR: All Songs Considered - I've mentioned this before in this space. This is intelligent commentary on all sorts of music. My favorite is when they invite an artist to guest DJ and play some of their greatest influences. Totally cool.
  
• NPR: Sports with Frank Deford - this guy is an old crank, but very articulate. He gives a great spin on sports and culture. And he's a classic fan.
  
• Paste Culture Club - only once a month, but it's a good supplement to All Songs Considered. It expands on that month's issue of Paste Magazine, which is an outstanding music & culture magazine that I really enjoy.
  
• This American Life - perhaps my favorite. It's an entire hour, but it is luxurious in its telling of stories. It's nearly impossible to describe, but it's always fascinating. It's so real and honest that sometimes I feel like I'm eavesdropping on someone's life. Funny, weird, intense, different.

Yes, this is sort of a long list, and it takes me a week (and exercising every day) to chip away at it. But it keeps the pot stirred mentally. I dig it all.

You Just Never Know...

I receive Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac everyday through email and podcast. I get to hear a little poetry everyday, and fun trivia about writers, politicians, celebrities, and historic figures in general. I think Garrison Keillor is a genius at whatever he does.

Today's entry had this paragraph, and I found it delightful.

It's the birthday of Albert Einstein, born in Ulm, Germany (1879). He was taught at home for a while, and when he finally went to school, his teachers thought he was developmentally disabled. In high school, one of his teachers tried to expel him because all he did in class was sit in the back of the room smiling. He finally dropped out at the age of 16.

I can relate a bit to this - I was shy, awkward, glasses sliding down my nose, terrible at kickball, desperate to fit in but completely unable to for all of elementary school and jr high. I have to admit, I wish I had been sitting in the back of the classroom smiling. What a great image.

For me it was more like I sat frozen in my seat, completely self-conscious and afraid to say a word. (I know, I know, difficult to imagine now!)

I sure am glad Jesus grabbed me by the back of the collar at 15 and got my attention. He set me free in so many ways. I wasn't even looking for him - heck, I didn't even know he was there. Glad he was looking out for me. I'll never understand how all that works, but I'm relieved from where I stand. Phew.

Friday Fluff

Today's entry will be "lite" - March Madness starts this weekend and it's stinkin' beautiful outside -- so I will not be sitting in front of my computer logging a long blog entry!

I subscribe to a daily email from UrbanDictionary.com, and there were not one but TWO good entries from this week:

Social Notworking:

The practice of spending time unproductively on social-networking websites, especially when one should be working.

Joe - Hey, Mark is constantly updating his Facebook status, does he not have any work to do?

John - His company obviously doesnt realise how much Social Notworking he is doing!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Social%20Notworking&defid=3617456

BlackBuried:

Being inundated and exhausted trying to be on top of all your email 24/7 with your handheld mobile device

Now that I have a BlackBerry, I feel obliged to attend to all my email day and night, it makes me feel BlackBuried

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=BlackBuried&defid=3790306

Have a great weekend. Get some rest. Go slow. Sit in the sunshine. Let yourself get bored by keeping it simple. Blessings on you.

Thursday Recipe, March 12, 2009

I'm trying to keep up the rhythm of a recipe each week... this one is fast, simple, and flexible. Sort of like me :)

This is a "oh my gosh, it's 4pm, I don't know what I'm making for dinner and I don't want to spend money eating out" dinner

EASY MINESTRONE SOUP

1 small onion, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
1 cup baby carrots, sliced into rounds or strips (I hate carrots, so I don't usually put these in)
1 medium zucchini, cut into chunks
1/2 cup fresh spinach, cut into strips (or whole leaf frozen) (I've used cabbage or kale as well)
1/2 cup yellow bell pepper, cut into chunks (optional)
1 small can beans: pink, kidney, or white (or garbanzo beans)
1 15-oz can stewed tomatoes (I buy these in 12-packs @ Costco to always have on hand)
1 can vegetable broth
1/3 cup barley (or tiny elbow macaroni, or quinoa)
1 tbsp olive oil
Cooking spray
Spices to taste (oregano, bay, basil, salt, a bit o' hot sauce, caraway seeds…)

On high heat, saute the onions and carrots in cooking spray a few minutes, stirring often. When onions begin to turn transparent, add the zucchini (and peppers) and quit stirring. Allow the zucchini to brown slightly.

Add the broth, the stewed tomatoes (undrained) and the beans (undrained). Add barley. Bring to a boil and simmer until grain is cooked. Add spinach when soup is nearly done, so it does not overcook.

This soup lasts well but thickens over time. To keep the proportions working, add more broth or stewed tomatoes. Serve with toast on the side, or if there is enough broth, tear up bread and put it in the soup.

Listening

I get a quote from Henri Nouwen every day (OK, maybe not Henri Nouwen himself, but y'know... go to www.henrinouwen.org and select "Free E-Lists" to subscribe.) Today's reading is striking. During my sabbatical I really tried to cultivate the habit and spiritual discipline of listening.

Which is surprisingly difficult to do. Not just because we live in a busy, noisy world. My head and heart are very noisy as well. I'm always thinking, worrying, wandering, planning. I'm rarely still.

Yet I have always taught students and adults with whom I am working in youth ministry to learn how to truly listen to those we are loving and serving. Too often, we don't listen as much as just stop talking. While the other person is talking, we are either formulating a rebuttal to what they are saying, trying to figure out a way to get the conversation back on ourselves... or we are daydreaming. Nice.

Listen to what Nouwen says about this - what strikes you in this? Leave a comment.

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

Lovely. Thank you Jesus.

Then I picked up where I left off in my current reading of the Book of Job. Look at what showed up today in Job 40:3-5 (The Message). Yikes.

"I'm speechless, in awe—words fail me.
I should never have opened my mouth!
I've talked too much, way too much.
I'm ready to shut up and listen."

Got it.

Free Music for You... and a P.S.

Just got this link from Twitter (aren't I just so-o-o-o high tech) and it's a good one.

Go to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101438331 and get 10 free songs downloaded into your iTunes - a sweet sampler from the upcoming SXSW (South by Southwest) music fest in Austin, TX.

Groups I'm most excited about in this sampler... Avett Brothers, Blitzen Trapper and The Decemberists. But I also LOVE free music, so it's happy day all the way around. Try to follow SXSW - I hear about a lot of good music from podcasts I get from this festival.

Funny PS for the day: normally on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I teach at Providence Hall in the morning. But I got bumped today because they had a special speaker. When they asked me to adjust my schedule this week for this special speaker, I envisioned some great missionary or Christian athlete. The usual, right?

"So who is the special speaker?" I ask absent-mindedly as I'm checking my calendar...

"Dennis Miller."

I pause. I cannot have heard that right. Former-host-of-SNL-Weekend-Update Dennis Miller?? I ask again, and funny, I get the same answer. Yes indeed, turns out I got bumped by THE Dennis Miller. Could be my one brush with greatness. I say this Goleta youth pastor just squished six degrees of separation down to about... 2.5?

New Music Monday, March 9, 2009

True confessions: this music isn't really "new," exactly. It's not that new in terms of its release, and it's not new to me. But maybe ... it's new to you?

I love sharing the music I'm listening to. That's about it.

1. TEN SHEKEL SHIRT http://www.tenshekelshirt.com/
This group might be familiar to you. You may have sung songs by them in church - Meet with Me, Healer, and Unashamed Love are rather well known.

I loved their album Much in 2001, and played it to death. In fact, I don't have it anymore - I kept loaning it to people for them to hear it. If you have it, could you get it back to me?!

They came out with Risk a couple of years later, then they disappeared. I wondered where they went (just like Jennifer Knapp, hello?!), and late last summer they finally reappeared. I think it was worth the wait. The album is titled Jubilee. Turns out they were busy pursuing social justice issues for a few years, which is totally impressive.

Their music is not like much of Christian music - predictable and over-produced. Their lyrics are solid. The title song is my favorite right now - these lines are from the chorus:

I breathe in peace
And exhale songs
Of newfound love
For the place I belong...

I mean, seriously... so good.

2. JOHANN JOHANNSSON http://www.johannjohannsson.com/
I heard this guy on KCRW's Today's Top Tune podcast http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/tu and was immediately hooked. I hit replay SIX times. Seriously. The song was Fordlandia - which is 13 minutes long on the album, but the sample I heard was only six minutes.

The music is instrumental, ambient, electronica, but sort of classic at the same time. He uses looping and synthesizers and string quartets. It's soundtrack-for-your-life type of music. I never get tired of it. I like this album the way I liked Moby's Play. It's that good. Give it a listen.

I have others, but I'll hold out till another time.... the Lakers are on!