The blog title and byline are loosely borrowed from a song by the incomparable Rich Mullins. The song is “Growing Young”, which is what I wanted to use as the blog title, but a squatter is apparently holding out hope that Whole Foods will someday buy it for six figures.
The pertinent lyrics are
I’ve been broken now, I’ve been saved
I’ve learned to cry and I’ve learned how to pray
And I’m learning, I’m learning even I can be changed.
I changed the “learned to cry” to “learned to laugh” in the byline, not because I haven’t learned to cry, but because I laugh a lot more and you’ll see that quite a bit here. We talk about a lot of things around here: music, movies, life, and, as you might expect from the blog title, our spiritual journey, but there’s almost always a good dose of (alleged) humor.
My musical tastes are mostly rock and roll, the real kind without a prefix. I recommend Ashley Cleveland, Decyfer Down, Switchfoot, U2, and pretty much any rock and roll recorded between ’66 and ’76. For slightly softer moods we have the aforementioned Rich Mullins (there are possibly people who are bigger fans of Rich’s than I am, but you almost certainly haven’t met them), Jars of Clay, Switchfoot (the early years), and David Crowder with or without band. I throw in some Sinatra and Diana Krall just to keep everyone off-balance.
My book tastes are mysteries (Dame Agatha, Elizabeth George), thrillers (early Grisham, Dick Francis), history (Shelby Foote, Barbara Tuchman), and combinations (Eric Larsen, Les Misérables). Really, I’ll read just about anything.
My movie tastes are fairly eclectic: I loved Iron Man, A Separation, anything with Meryl Streep, Inception and, of course, Casablanca. I like smart, witty movies with great characters that make you think, which of course means I haven’t seen very many movies in the last fifteen years.
As you go, remember what Susan said.
Love is found in the things we’ve given up
More than in the things that we have kept.