What I Love

The exercize introduced by Gideon Strauss and Steven Garber to consider quickly 50 things one loves is a good tool, and I quickly wrote up a list and then thought about it through the day, making additions and subtractions. I think my list is actually at 53 things - but then again who is counting. But -- some things I recognize about myself in this exercize. 1. Part of my multicultural heritage (In the lingo of the missionary kids - a heritage of a third culture neither of your parents home or of the country where you grew up - but your very own third culture) is a fundamental cameleon nature. My wife noticed it when we first started dating. I would talk to the local Tennessee good old boys in an appropriate language, epxression - even accent. I'd talk to the intellectual northerner in appropriate diction. (I can even remember struggling not to mock my friend Nigel from Ireland - the impulse to work at being like him was so strong). While language is one thing - loves, life views, values and beliefs are another. Yet I find my first impulse is to make myself over in the image of those I think might view me, read me, interrogate me. I faught that in my list. I consciously did not include Kuyper or NeoCalvinism. 2. The literary and high culture bug gets me. There are memories I treasure, images I found significant at one moment, and movies I loved - these I included just because I wanted to. I'm not sure that my life's passions are changed by a mountain view - but they are there. Maybe Kieslowski will come off sometime - but not today. 3. Today my loves are influenced by my vocation rather than the other way round. Strauss quotes the Buechner idea that I have always found deelpy appealing and troubling.

The intersection of our deep gladness and the world's deep hungers is - as Frederick Beuchner says - the place where we should listen for our vocation, or calling.

My life has always been characterized by becoming involved in a project, and growing to love it, rather than assessing my loves and on that basis chosing a project. I am in a moment of vocational questioning, searching, even transition - and so the 50 loves exercize is good work - but the items listed here are colored by the current work I do. (Which I very much enjoy and find very engaging by the way...) So without further ado... 50 things I love. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff Antonio Gaudi Arts and Letters Daily Atletico de Madrid Blogs -- (What do I link to here?) Blue, White, Red by Kieslowski Books and Culture Brazilian Tropicalia Cities like Barcelona, Chicago, Seattle, Quito, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janiero Cuban Jazz Diversity of opinion Ed Kellogg's Paintings Elegant user interfaces (Edward Tufte and 37 Signals) Empanadas de Morocho Equality Faith Hope and Love Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in a time of Cholera Jazz Crusaders from the 1970's Jim Ward's church music Joni Mitchell Las Ramblas, Plaza de la Puerta de Sol Lesslie Newbigen Libraries Lookout Mountain Maps Marialice Microbrew Beer (but not Guiness) My Kids - Elena, Antonio and Liliana New City Fellowship Oak Trees in first spring Old neighborhoods with sidewalks that people use Pat Metheny Public Radio (KEXP Seattle, All Songs Considered) Restoring old houses Rhetoric Seafood Seeing Antisana from the Papallacta pass with no clouds Sojourners magazine Soren Kierkegaard's Journals (A blogger he would be) Stanley Hauerwas Stories of the opressed gaining victory over their opressors (Exodus) Talking about ideas Tapas The Brothers Karamazof The climb to Big Frog Mountian The feeling after running or biking hard The Great Smoky Mountain National Park The New Yorker The underdog The World Cup Trains Woody Allen's Movies