Yesterday I shared some quick reflections on the year in movies and television.  Today I want to share three things: a podcast, a musician, and a life change.

The Podcast

I’m not really a podcast guy.  I’ve got friends and co-workers who listen to them almost daily, often in the wee hours of the night when sleep seems impossible.  But this past May I came across (found? was found by?) a podcast that has turned me into a faithful listener (usually in the morning at the gym).  The Poco a Poco podcast is the platform of (usually) four monk in the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal up in New York.  I’ve been reading about monasticism off-and-on for years not just because it’s fascinating, but also because wisdom can be found there for living the single life before God.  And while I have to filter out some of the overtly Catholic content, it does give me a better understanding for some of their beliefs.  As Franciscans, they speak often of Francis of Assisi (which led me to read Chesterton’s little book about Francis, which is probably more about Chesterton than it is about Francis, but that’s usually what you get with GKC).  I like the general tenor of their spirituality: very Jesus- centric in a deeply relational-yet-structured way.  Money quote from the podcast so far: “I’ve given the first half of my life to Jesus; I don’t want to spend the second half taking it back.”

The Musician

It’s been quite some time since I’ve discovered a musician years after their career has started, particularly one that I don’t have a lot in common with (something about the algorithm).  But that happened this year when Apple dropped the first teaser for the final season of Ted Lasso:

I liked the tune so much that I looked it up, which introduced me to the word of Frank Turner.  Turner is a British punk rocker with a nice thread of folk music who has released nine albums over the last few years.  Over the last few months, I’ve worked my way through most of those albums.  They go from punk to British folk to pop to more hard core and back again to punk.  Granted, there are a lot of songs that I don’t track or agree with (Turner is an avowed atheist who sometimes sings about it), but there’s also something refreshingly human about his approach to music.  And because I came across his music so far into his career, I can spend a lot of time with one album and then step away from it for another album and then return with a good sense of surprise.  I think I’ve shared it before, but there’s the full song that plays behind the Ted Lasso trailer.  It’s a great, full, rambling song about the power of music.  It’s also 13 years old, which is crazy to me.

The Life Change

A lot of things happened this year, both personal and professional: family things, classroom things, church things, travel things, friendship things.  By sharing one, I don’t mean to single it out as more important than any of the others.  This one I can talk about without telling someone else’s story, I feel.

This past March (I believe), I received word that one set of neighbors would be leaving Hawaii for work on the mainland.  On some level, this is not a strange thing: people come to and leave Hawaii all the time.  (For most of us, it’s just a matter of when.).  But this one stung in particular because they had been such a big part of my life over the last near-decade.  There was almost a daily dose of connection there, whether it was a simple greeting, a Walmart run, a TV show to watch, or a game of cards.  I became friends with this set because I was already friends with their son and daughter-in-law.  I am extremely grateful that they are still part of the picture of life, but I do miss my California friends.

Time will tell what results from this change, of course.  The neighborhood has, of course, changed, and that has been okay.  I don’t always adjust to change very well, so it’s taking me some time to adapt.  And because there was a work-tie there, work is at least a little different.  But I’ve learned a lot from the transition, both about myself and about the God who is constant (even if we don’t feel that constancy).

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I have obviously not said anything about books, articles, and websites in this year-end reflection.  I’m hoping to pick up that thread of things as we enter into 2024.  I read some really good books in 2023.  And I’m looking forward to many good books in 2024. (I’m almost ashamed to say that I have three or four waiting for me when I get back to Honolulu in a few days.)  I just need to find a good, efficient, and appropriate way to talk about those things, because they are vital to me in lots of ways.

Having said all of that, Happy New Year!  2023 when in some unexpected directions, for sure.  At the very least, it will being interesting to see what 2024 has in store.