Mostly This Month: March's Melody

 

Mostly This Month...

As march departs let me share some things that have caught my attention or given me joy this month. Some books, articles, TV shows and songs.

Perhaps for the first time in my life I've really tried to embrace the period of anticipation that is Lent. For forty days before Easter Christians have, for many centuries, done things to help them long for and desire the wonder of Jesus' resurrection at Easter. 

As a church we're preaching on the wilderness each week, fasting on Mondays and feasting on Sundays with meals in different people's homes. This is all giving me joy and grounding me in time, things for which i'm hugely grateful!

The month began for me when I came across this video of a choral performance of Miserere mei, Deus which sings the Latin of Psalm 51 (David's prayer of repentance).

I've watched this close to ten times this month. It's astonishing particularly the high c that's hit around the 1min 40s mark. 

Watch it with Psalm 51 open besides you:

Have mercy on me, O God,

    according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

    blot out my transgressions.

2 

Wash away all my iniquity

    and cleanse me from my sin.

Check it out here:

🍿 WATCH THIS 🍿 

Youtube

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS - when you fill a SUP with helium 

Hover boards have arrived! This is amazing. 

Sermon - by Michael Green at Washington National Cathedral

A 13mins insight into one man's battle with Depression and his struggle to find light and hope in difficult times.

Discover What You Worship - with a few simple questions. 

Fascinating that creates lively dinner time conversations.

😧 ASTONISHING 😧

Whilst waiting for Amy in hospital I found some fascinating coffee table reading. When I was a kid I remember a film starring Arnold Schwarzeneager about a man who gave birth. It was a comedy. Today, our dystopian culture claims such things with a straight face. I had to take a photo of it. 

If you can read it, notice how language is manipulated and made to mean something opposite to its original intention. Whoever controls our words, controls our worlds. 

"I'm proud I gave birth as a man." as a man being the operative phrase. A woman dressed up as a man (through the help of hormones and surgery) plays the role of a father and pretends that she is in fact a man. The emperor has no clothes. 

🎵 AUDIO BOOKS 🎵

This month I listened to two books on communication. Both great.  

Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg 

How to Know A Person by David Brooks

🗞️ READ THIS 🗞️

1. The Pocket Stanley Hauerwas

2. In The Happiest Countries Their Is Little Joy

🤩 QUOTES 🤩 

“Laughter is a way of showing that we have heard how someone is feeling.” 

Charles Duhigg, Super Communicators