Each week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1) Jigsaw Puzzles
There are three kinds of people in this world: those who hate jigsaw puzzles, those who attack jigsaw puzzles with all the fervor NASA applied to putting men on the moon, and those who slip into the delight of a puzzle as if it is a mental hot tub. If you are in the first category, I get it and offer no judgement, but here, I have a Nintendo switch for you. If you are in the second category, go buy yourself some K’nex or something and stay away from puzzles; you take the fun out of it for everyone else. Those of us in the third category are the few, the happy few, the band of puzzlers. We lose ourselves for minutes or hours at a time reproducing a Van Gogh or a photograph of Neuschwanstein Castle or something. Our brains go from pin-balling and zigzagging to zen-like calm (until we can’t find that edge piece). We can sip a beverage, listen to an audiobook or some music, and wind way down. We can puzzle socially or silently with equal enjoyment (so long as category 2 stays far away). In these slow(ish) days leading to the new year, consider spreading a jigsaw puzzle across a table in your home and discovering it’s sweet merits.
2) Sounding the Seasons: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year by Malcolm Guite
I dislike most devotionals. I especially struggle to connect with most seasonal devotionals. I find them generally redundant or shallow or trite or obvious or all of the above. This likely reflects as much on my attitude and posture as anything, and I know many people who benefit from seasonal devotional books. Be that as it may, I generally find myself in a place of yearning for something to read that brings the meaning of a Christian holiday to light. Enter the brilliant poet, Malcolm Guite. His collection of poems–and not just poems, but sonnets–walking readers through the church calendar is sublime. I was so moved by the ones he wrote for Christmas, moved in heart and mind. I am struggling to restrain myself from reading ahead because his poems are so wonderful, but I will refrain until the time is right because I want to receive them in the time and season they are for, and when I am yearning for just such a literary gift.
3) “Summertime” by The Ray Brown Trio
Christmas is behind us. Winter looms long. So what could better than one of the greatest jazz trios ever inviting us to dwell on thoughts of summertime?
