My Top 40 of 2007

I'm a music geek who can't afford to buy all the latest tunes, but I have downloaded a few this year. Here's a list of some of my favorites. Many of the links are to YouTube, so you can check them out yourself. This year, I discovered several blogs and podcasts that introduced me to artists old and new. Check them out for yourself:

The Bored-Again Christian - an indie music podcast delivered with generous doses of sarcastic wit
The Blah Blah - an mp3 blog that's heavy on indepedent artists
Obvious Pop - Dr. Tony Shore offers up power pop and prog rock in blog and podcast

So here's my Top 40 favorite songs of 2007:
1. Running Away – The Polyphonic Spree – Fragile Army
2. American Dream – Switchfoot – Oh! Gravity.
3. Keep The Car Running – Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
4. Entertaining Thoughts – Over the Rhine – The Trumpet Child
5. Going Through Changes – Army of Me - Citizen

6. Someone to Love – Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
7. It All Depends – The Swirling Eddies – The Midget, The Speck & The Molecule
8. Amazing Grace – The A-Sides – Silver Storms
9. Shoreline – Deas Vail – All the Houses Look the Same
10. Vast – Lost Ocean
11. Hypocrisy #785 – Jeremy Casella – Recovery
12. Never-Changing – John Davis – Arigato!
13. It Might Be Hope – Sara Groves – Tell Me What You Know
14. The Unwinding Cable Car – Anberlin – Cities
15. Stay Humble – Tyler James – Cities
16. Trouble – Over the Rhine – The Trumpet Child
17. Thorns – Demon Hunter – Storm the Gates of Hell
18. All I Want – Future of Forestry – Twilight (song starts at 4:00)
19. Love It When You Call – The Feeling – Twelve Stops and Home
20. The End of You and Me – Greg Adkins – Chase the Western Sky

21. Awakening – Switchfoot – Oh! Gravity.
22. Ever Present Past – Paul McCartney – Memory Almost Full
23. Wet and Rusting – Menomena – Friend and Foe

24. My Rights Versus Yours – The New Pornographers – Challengers
25. Giants in the Land – The Swirling Eddies – The Midget, The Speck & The Molecule
26. Becoming – Tree63 – Sunday!
27. Rise – Army of Me – Citizen
28. Rewind – Deas Vail – All the Houses Look the Same

29. We’re the Trees – The A-sides - Silver Storms
30. Burnout Bright – Switchfoot – Oh! Gravity.
31. Old Radio – Greg Adkins – Chase the Western Sky
32. The Space Between Living and Dying – Jeremy Casella – Recovery
33. So Much Love – The Rocket Summer – Do You Feel
34. Glory of It All – David Crowder Band – Remedy
35. Fading Away – Demon Hunter – Storm the Gates of Hell

36. Little – Greg Adkins – Thirty-Three
37. I Need Someone – John Davis - Arigato!
38. Anything You Say – Deas Vail - All the Houses Look the Same
39. You Are – Lost Ocean
40. The Sophomores – Blick Van Glory - The Search For Quest



And here are some from 2006 that I discovered kinda late...

Real Gone – Sheryl Crow – Cars Soundtrack

I Am The World – The Elms – The Chess Hotel
Supersonic Earthquake and Love Addict - Family Force 5 – Business Up Front, Party In The Rear

Ocean Size Love – Leigh Nash - Blue
Saving Grace – Tom Petty – Highway Companion
Weight of the World – Pigeon John – Pigeon John & the Summertime Pool Party
Life is a Highway – Rascal Flatts – Cars Soundtrack
Umbrellas – Sleeping At Last – Keep No Score

And here are two albums I have heard positive buzz about, but haven't had a chance to fully checkout yet:

Mike Farris – Salvation in Lights - Christianity Today named this one the best of the year, and I like what I've heard on his myspace page and on you tube. check out the video



Collective Soul - Afterwords - Yes, that Collective Soul..... Obvious Pop named it one of the year's best. Follow the link to see an early performance of the song Bearing Witness.

Homeschooling

My friend aka pastor guy posted a great piece on why he and his wife homeschool their boys, which reminded me that I have never posted on the subject, even though Janell is in her second year and now has two pupils.

In his post, he gives his reasons for homeschooling. I'm going to list them here with some of his comments and my own. I'm prioritizing them a little differently to match our reasons. Home schooling was actually a hard sell for me (based on homeschoolers I encountered as a kid). I was leaning toward public school, but as we looked into it found these reasons to be compelling (my wife can also be very persuasive). We are also blessed to have a network of homeschooling families in our church who provide encouragement and collaboration in this endeavor. My father has also been involved with homeschooling over the past couple of years as a homeschool cooperative administrator.

1. Educational Quality: the chances of our [daughters] getting a high quality education are better at home (where the teacher:student ratio is [1:2]) than in a public school (where the teacher:student ratio is 1:20+). Our ability to choose curriculum to fit particular learning styles & needs is substantially higher than a public or private school. We can also use travel in ways that public schools can not to further supplement our [girls'] education. We were also concerned with the quality of education offered in the local school system - based on the testimonials from parents who did use it. Most folks we know are moving across the county lines for better schools.

2. Flexibility: I don't think a lot of folks realize that good quality homeschooling doesn't take 8 hours a day - if [our kids are] concentrating & working hard, [they] can do most of [their] work in 90-120 minutes. (Just think about how much time in school is spent moving people from one place to another, taking attendance, listening to announcements, etc.) That extra 5-6 hours per day allows [them] lots of time to read, to play outside... and that doesn't even figure in our family's flexibility to travel.... That last point is especially true in this particular season of our life. We can take school with us on the road.

3. School Bureaucracy: Where we currently live, school zoning is completely whacked. There are three elementary schools within a 3 mile radius of our home, but we are zoned for a fourth that is 5 miles away. While that school is "brand new", it isn't in our community. I'm not going to bus my kids unnecessarily. And this has nothing to do with "diversity". My kids would be a "minority" in our community schools - something we don't have a problem with. School overcrowding is also a big issue.

4. Jump Start For our Youngest: By homeschooling, we are able to start our youngest in Kindergarten a full year earlier than in public schools (she turns 5 in November). We made that decision because she was demonstrating a desire to learn and because she had already been exposed to school last year while observing and absorbing her sister's lessons.

5. Spiritual Training: We incorporate bible lessons and activities such as AWANA into their curriculum.

6. Being Kids: The pressure from popular culture is for kids to grow up so quickly now - to become little adults in the manner & content of what they consume. [We] really want our [girls] to be kids as long as humanly possible - they will have plenty of time to be adults later. This is especially true for our girls. We try to encourage imaginative (dress up, tea times, birthday parties for stuffed animals) as well as creative play activities.

7. Values: This is not just about kids - people pick up values from their environment, not from what they're taught. (Does any school teach that cheating is OK? No. Does that stop kids from cheating? No. The culture is stronger than the information... and even the chance of punishment.) By homeschooling, we're spending our [girls'] formative years with them in an environment where they are swimming in our value choices. According to research from The Barna Group, most individuals don't radically change their values & beliefs after age 13 - which means that the elementary school years are key!

8. Enjoying Family: Here's something weird & wonderful about homeschooling. Relatively healthy homeschooling families (there are unhealthy ones) seem to enjoy being together more than other families, up into & including their teenage years. I hope this will be true of ours.

My friend goes on to discuss the issues of socialization and sheltering - I encourage you to read it. He also lists the curriculum they use. We are currently using Sing, Spell, Read and Write along with Math U See.

Christianity is Practical

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." - Mt. 5:13-16

So much of the time, evangelicals present a Christianity that is concerned with spiritual needs and realities at the expense of physical, emotional and practical needs. Growing up I heard this salt and light passage of the Sermon on the Mount interpreted as a command to meet spiritual needs, share the gospel, evangelize, etc... It's not that I think this is wrong, just backwards. Salt and light are very practical. Salt preserves, cleanses, and enhances. Light illuminates, heats, and heals. I have come to believe that Christ followers should be as useful to the world as salt and light. We should be feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the sick, teaching the illiterate, advocating for the voiceless, caring for the environment, creating art, etc.... Christ then states that men will see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.

God intends us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not rather reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else. The real question to ask is: Where is the salt?
John Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

Football Time in Tennessee

Its time once again to don the Orange and White and cheer on my beloved Tennessee Volunteers. GO VOLS!!!

I love college football!

It's also time once again to participate in the Silly Underdog Picks contest sponsored by Nashville's 104.5 The Zone. Just like last year, I'll be posting my picks in the comments section of this post. I encourage you to sign up and play along or at least join in the conversation. Feel free to post your own picks or just mock mine. Hopefully, I'll be able to match or better last year's performance.

Harry Potter is Dead - Long Live Harry Potter!

Janell and I both finished reading the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I'm not much of a literary critic, but I will say that the Rowling is a great story teller. Her characters are both fantastical and "real". I found myself really being moved emotionally as they experienced laughs, dangers, triumphs, and loss.

Most surprising of all was the more blatant Christian imagery and references in the final book. Christianity Today has a special section dedicated to the cultural phenomenon and in particular this review (caution: spoilers).

Also check out what aka Pastor guy has to say about the final book and the whole Christianity & HP controversy.

And finally, check out what the guys over at Scriptorium Daily are saying about Harry (caution: spoilers).

Update: My good friend Scott used his superior blogging skills to share his thoughts on Deathly Hallows.

And if you thought the epilogue was too short, check out J.K. Rowling's online chat transcript.

What be playin' on ye ol' iPod?

Here are 15 songs that have been in fairly heavy rotation on my iPod of late:

The Unwinding Cable Car - Anberlin
It All Depends - The Swirling Eddies
Burn and Shine - The Elms
Ocean Size Love - Leigh Nash
Running Away - The Polyphonic Spree
Vast - Lost Ocean
Work - Jars of Clay
Mission's Flame - Matt Redman
Umbrellas - Sleeping at Last
Three is a Magic Number - The Jellydots
Dead Man (Carry Me) - Jars of Clay
He Reigns - Newsboys
Circles - Switchfoot
Motor Mouth - Sugarbomb
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve

Band of Brothers

On June 6, I posted about the anniversary of D-Day and recommended that you watch the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. I decided to take my own advise and watch the series again. So from June 23 - July 11, I watched all ten episodes and the documentary (first time since 2001). The series was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and has the look and feel of their movie Saving Private Ryan (realism, desaturated colors, hand-held camera, grainy film).

Inspired by Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name, the series follows the true story of E Company, 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division from boot camp in Toccoa, Ga to Hitler's personal alpine retreat The Eagle's Nest. We watch as these men bond together into a fighting unit that jumps into Normandy and fights it way across Europe, but we also see devastating toll the war takes on the unit and its men as they stand against the Germans, the weather, and their own human foibles. This is not just another war movie. It is good drama and a great example of history in film done right. You come to admire these guys. They become a band of heroes before your eyes.

One cool aspect of the series is the introductory interviews with the actual Easy Company veterans and the documentary that is included in the DVD set. A quick Google search also yields menofeasycompany.com where you can learn more about these guys (sadly many of them have passed away in the last six years since the series was filmed).

Beach Vacation

sunset
uploaded by jnordmoe

We had a family vacation last week to Seagrove Beach, FL. Besides the usual sun, sand and water, we also enjoyed the fellowship of eight other families from our church. I of course got baked on my first day on the beach. Fair-skinned Norweigians and hot, sunny beaches don't mix well. Check out more photos at flickr.

Ever Present Past

Here's the "official fan video" for Paul McCartney's new song Ever Present Past which I'm diggin'.

Bored Again

On the new music front, I discovered a great podcast and blog called The Bored Again Christian. This is a great way to discover new music and bands that are on the fringes of the Christian sub-culture. Among my newest discoveries are Pigeon John ("Weight of the World"), Arcade Fire ("Keep the Car Running"), and my new favorite The Polyphonic Spree ("Running Away"). Enjoy the video and checkout the podcast.