My new blog

So, this is the new blog. I hope to keep it all contained mostly to books, movies, television, graphic novels, music and other hobbies.

In the past few months, I've been reading Thomas Merton. I started with Seven Storey Mountain. I moved to New Seeds of Contemplation. I then read an excellent biography of his monastic experiences. I now have No Man is an Island. I'm quite taken with Merton's ideas of contemplation and monasticism and his pursuit of interfaith dialog. So much so that I recently arranged to take a one week retreat at Garden of Gethsemane in Kentucky, where Merton lived as a Trappist. Sadly, I had to cancel this due to my class schedule and beginning my new position on Monday. I do intend to make that trip, however, within the year.

I am currently reading The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Gun, with Occasional Music, by Johathan Lethem; Getting Things Done, by David Allen; and The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm.

Getting Things Done is a book on organization with an excellent and simple filing system that I hope to put in place throughout this week before entering the new job. Gun, with Occasional Music is a futuristic literary private eye novel. For private eye junkies, it's necessary to keep one of these going at all times.

The Cost of Discipleship is by Lutheran martyr Bonhoeffer (executed in 1945 by the Nazis) and earnestly explains his conviction that achieving "costly" or genuine grace comes from an absolute, immediate yielding to Christ's call, as opposed to "cheap grace," which is actually bestowed by ourselves and is thus meaningless. The draw to Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm are fairly obvious: it's peaceful to read monastic meditations.