Well, here we are, another Sunday. It seems like lately each week goes by incredibly quickly for me! Sometimes I think, “Wait! It was just Monday! How is it already Sunday evening and time to get back to work?!” But I don’t know how to slow it down, and I don’t know if I need to.
Have a lazy, relaxing Sunday, y’all. Here are some links I’ve loved this week to help you chill:
The thing about a beautifully wrought hymn, that age-old lyric poem, is that there is nothing like it — and it would be wrong to say the best ones don’t go at the heart head-on. Again, no matter where you stand on heaven and hell, there is power in a hymn. And if we’re blessed enough to be able to sit quietly with one, we might see that hymns contain everything: death, laughter, loss. They tell a story about our relationship to the divine. A brute truth: No other form of expression can so richly translate the depth and breadth of authentic religious experience like a well-conceived song of praise.
I do love hymns. In fact, I did my senior honors thesis in college on the role of hymns in the Baptist church. I love how serious they are, the big words they use, the way they tackle theology in a richly musical way. This article hits the nail on the head.
It is hard to overstate how drastic a change is required of basketball players, most of them barely old enough to drink, when they go pro. One day they’re students who live and breathe the sport; the next, they’re multimillionaires who are expected not only to be exceptional athletes but also exceptional role models, media personalities and holders of that elusive thing, that golden ticket: the personal brand.
A really interesting piece about the NBA’s Rookie Transition Program. I hadn’t known this existed! Seems like a version of this for everyone could be really useful when you graduate from college…
“If-then” planning is very effective; by deciding in advance how to behave, we make it easy when the time comes.
Y’all know I love Gretchen Rubin (though sometimes her earnest self-reflection is exhausting). I used to think I was a moderator, but my strug life with sugar lately has been making me think I might be more of an abstainer than I’ve been willing to admit. This article about breaking a good habit just once had some great tips on how to make sure you still enjoy a special experience without ruining your hard work to date.
Our homes and offices can have everything in place and still be cluttered because some of those well organized things are actually things we could do without. We may not even notice the organized clutter because we’ve often lived with those things for quite some time.
A post about the clutter we rarely notice and some tips on how to see it. I’ve noticed that looking down on our main living area from our lofted bedroom tends to make me notice things like that. It’s useful but also frustrated for someone like me who wants things to be perfectly organized!
And finally, Andy and I have been watching a show on Netflix lately called Air Disasters which is about, well, air disasters. We’re currently in season 2. It sound horrifying or morbid, but it’s really fascinating, and it’s been reminding me about how I used to eat this kind of stuff up when I was a kid. Who knows why, but I love E.R. and tornado shows on TV, and two books I read ad nauseum were both about a girl who lost a leg in a car accident. Another favorite that I’d been trying to remember and finally tracked down was this one about the 1989 Loma Prieto earthquake in California. I read this one a lot.
What weird things were you into as a kid?
