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) Bible Reading Plan Generator
I’ve written it before and I suspect I will write it again: there is nothing magical or holy or especially inspired about reading through the Bible in a year. It is nowhere commanded in scripture, by the church fathers, or by the reformers. It is simply a useful planning strategy to help a person engage the whole of God’ word. And that is a deeply good and holy thing. The most important thing, though, is not the timeframe or the schedule but rather the deep and steady engagement with God’s word. And for that reason I love this tool I ran across recently. It is a website where you can build your own Bible reading plan. There are so many ways to put it together according to what works for you. I personally hate dated plans because if I get “behind” (which is utter, self-flagellating nonsense) then Bible reading feels like homework with a very ominous professor waiting for me to finish. So I genberally use number lists so that I have a guide as to where to go next with no artifical due date. You can build a plan with certain days off each week, or to read through either the Old or New Testaments. There are calendars, lists, or pie charts to track progress. In all, this is a brilliant tool and I cannot recommend it more highly in helping us be consistently in the Bible in 2026.
2) Elmer T. Lee
There are bourbon drinkers who are what I call “proof hounds,” always hunting that barrel-proof-mule-kick-in-the-esophagus stuff. They are the base jumpers of bourbon drinkers, the free climbers of the whiskey world, always seeking the next higher bigger thrill. Then there are those who are to bourbon what hipsters–back when those existed–were to music, always asking, “Have you tried ___? It’s this new distillery out of Obscurville, Notkentucky.” (Then they explain how the master distiller used to intern at Willett but had his own great ideas and the water in this nowhereville has unique properties because of the limestone or somesuch.) I am neither of these. I know what I like. I am open to trying new things, and if it tastes like what I like then I will like it. And what I like most is Elmer T. Lee. I don’t know if it is the best bourbon, whatever that means. But I know it is my best bourbon. In fact, this was the bourbon that opened my eyes and my taste buds to the entire world of bourbon. A friend had received a bottle as a gift and graciously shared some, and my whole world expanded from mixed drinks and craft beer (I was in my late 20s after all) to a whole new world of spirits. Little did I realize how hard it is to find, so when I get a bottle (which is about every 3-4 years) I make it last and sip it on special occasions–like New Years. So here’s to all of you who know what you like and sip it with relish on whatever occasions seems right.
3) “Hymn to Freedom” by the Oscar Peterson Trio
Oscar Peterson is my favorite Jazz musician. I have celebrated him in this spot before and I am sure I will do it again. Written in the 60s in hope and yearning for America, it rings with the sounds of an old spiritual, a protest song, a touch of R&B, and all of Peterson’s improvisational touch. When Harriette Hamilton wrote accompanying lyrics a year later, it became an unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights movement. it is a soulful, Sorrowful, hopeful, way to kick off a new year.
