Random List

This is another one of my random conglomeration entries. This time, I present, Lisa's current list of "must see/listen/reads":

• If you haven't read a book entitled Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by a woman named Anne Lamott, you're missing out. Lamott is everything I don't quite know what to make of in a Christian. She is a liberal, feminist, peace activist, rabidly anti-George Bush author, who happens to have some incredibly profound thoughts on a life of faith. Her book includes such profound tidbits as "Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare." (pg. 47-48)
• If you tend to skip the first pages of a book - the ones with copyrights, prefaces, and dedications, and you STILL (after my stunning endorsement in the previous paragraph) haven't read Anne Lamott's book, check out the poem by Lisel Mueller that Lamott uses as the opener for her book. The poem, titled "Monet Refuses the Operation" can be found here.
• If you're looking for something to listen to, I've been recently enjoying the following albums: Jann Arden - Greatest Hurts: The Best of Jann Arden; Ray Charles - Genius Loves Company; The Essential Simon & Garfunkel; Starfield - Tumbling After; Rascal Flatts - Feels Like Today; The Garden State Soundtrack (particularly track 12 - "Let Go" by Frou Frou); and Michael Buble - It's Time.
• If you're looking for something to watch that's both funny and poignant at turns, pick up M*A*S*H* season eight on DVD. I admit that I'm inexplicably addicted to this show, and now own all of the first eight seasons on either video or DVD, but there's something that I find so refreshing in this television show. I laugh until I cry, and then I cry because the messages of the show seem so relevant to this modern world that is so continually besieged by violence and war. If M*A*S*H* isn't quite your speed, I watched Garden State again this week, and found it as profound as I did the first time I saw it.
• For a completely ridiculous novel (this one is like a really sappy chick flick in book form, but with spiritual truths thrown in), pick up Sisterchicks do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn.

Okay, that's it. I've run out of things to recommend. These are the things I've read/listened to/watched in the last two or three weeks. The list will change soon, and I'll no doubt be inspired to post something new. I have a great quote by G. K. Chesterton, but I think I'll probably put that in a separate post, on a separate day. So, happy reading, listening and watching.

Tony Campolo quotes Bono

I recently read bits and pieces of a book by Tony Campolo titled Speaking My Mind. In his preface, there was a paragraph that particularly caught my eye. He writes:

I once had a conversation with Bono, the lead singer for the rock band U2. I wanted to know how he could put together a song entitled, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," since I knew he was a firm believer in Christ. Bono answered, "Being a Christian hasn't given me all the answers; instead it's given me a whole new set of questions." The more I think about his answer, the more I think it applies to me too.

I don't think it applies to me. I know it applies to me. The last couple years have underscored the fact that faith has provided me not with answers, but with even bigger questions.