Monday Music - Bela Fleck's Christmas music feast

It's been a very Flecky, banjo-y month, so we close with a really terrific assortment of Christmas songs by banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck. Enjoy!

Music starts about 0:58.

Monday Music - Victor Wooten's Christmas jam from 2009

As with classic Chicago, each musician in Bela Fleck and the Flecktones is amazingly talented. Not one whit less than Bela himself, Victor Wooten is an absolutely amazing bass player.

Sorry this is an audience recording, with all the rude and inconsiderate chatter, but hear Wooten's Christmas jam from 2009:

Christmas tracts

In short: does anyone know any really good ones — readable, pointed, Christ-centered, from the perspective of the doctrines of grace, affirming God's sovereignty in salvation?

Share, and (this is the part people forget) explain why you like the tract. Anecdotes are especially welcome.

Monday music - Charlie Brown Christmas music, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

Only wish the quality were better:

Christmas Eve Pizza 2012

Did I make my famous Christmas Eve Pizza this year? Hah! Did Obama reach for other peoples' money and freedoms?

Of course!

Look!

Behold the "light" version, with cheeses, sausage, ground beef, pepperoni, and salami.

Now side by side, the lighter version, and "the works." Even it is subdivided into the with-olives side, and the unolived side. ("All things to all men" may be said of my pizzas.)

The "light" version is pretty thick.

"The works" is much thicker.

Each was a hit.

Monday Music - Carol of the Bells

...which is Christmas music if you supply these lyrics.

It's from the same folks who brought us this splendid video.

Fun winter-music duet on keyboard

(...because if it's not about Christ, it's not Christmas music)

In case you forgot: why I love my BibleWorks 9

This is a facet I listed as one... well, two... of several beloved features of BibleWorks, over at Pyro a version ago. But I want to re-highlight it for you, especially for all you pastors and teachers.

So I'm doing my morning blog-run, and I pass by Sharper Iron. I see that there's an article on the interpretation of Ecclesiastes.

Now, at present I'm neither preaching nor teaching nor studying Ecclesiastes. But some day, I may well do so. What are the odds that I will remember, on that day, that there was an article on interpretation at Sharper Iron? Zero. But if the miraculous happened, then how long would it take me to find the article? Long.

Not with BibleWorks.

With BibleWorks, all I had to do was copy the URL, click-click over to Ecclesiastes 1:1, write "Sharper Iron did an article on the interpretation of Ecclesiastes," select part of that text, hit Ctrl+K to bring up the link popup, hit Ctrl+V to paste the URL, hit Enter — and that note is saved to that verse forever.

Brothers, how often does that happen with you? Answer: all the time. You think of an illustration of a verse, you have an observation on a verse or passage, you read a blog or hear a sermon or lecture shedding light — and you're struck by that wistful despair. You know, "That's great... I sure hope I remember that... but I know I won't."

BibleWorks solves that. It's fast and it's terrific. Honestly, my notes would be worth a good chunk of change. They're filled with links to journal articles, books, online resources; personal observations; quotations from authorities. And they'll be mine until the Lord returns or I die, appearing whenever I mouse-over the verse, instantly.

I've helped put BW in the hands of two other pastors that I can remember. If you're a church-member and your pastor doesn't have it, start now getting together a fund to buy it for your pastor for Christmas. He'll love it, and you'll profit. I just can't say enough good about it.

But I'll keep trying!

Hither and Thither 4/27/2012

Probably shouldn't take the time, but I owe you. I mean, really, on one level, if it weren't for y'all, I wouldn't be so busy doing what I love right now. I don't forget my friends. So here, enjoy!

• Is there a Bible verse about this?

• Mm, let's see: "When the lamb shall chase the Dobie..." Eh, not exactly.
• Twitter follower "Rather Dashing" tweeted me this vid of a Burger King burger... with 1050 pieces of bacon added. The burger makes it, the erstwhile consumer doesn't.
• Yearning to make bacon cupcakes, but just don't know how? Thanks to reader Martin Pitcher, now you do.
• But this, Kerry Allen, is going too far.
• DAOD (and others) commend this, for obvious reasons:

• Now, combining favorite themes, Julie Garrett Merrilee Stevenson (heavens, sorry!) found us a Lego pizza delivery saga. Frankly, I could only justify the time to watch part one, but you'll see other parts in the sidebar. If Julie recommends it, it should be OK (— and now that is on her, bwahh-hahaha).
• Our friend from across the pond (soon to be on this side of the pond) Anthony Forsyth found us this:

• You won't, however, thank Anthony for inflicting Baby Monkey on us all.
• Reader Kerry Allen gave a logical progression on why the world will end in 2012: "Dick Clark died. You can't have New Year's Eve without him. It will always be 2012. Therefore, the world will end in 2012."
• Well, makes better sense than anything Harold Camping has said.
• Relatedly (sort of), good news for sci-fi fans: Fringe has been renewed for a fifth and final season.
• However, relatedly, my dear wife has a calming thought:

• Toto, I Don't Think... Oh, Wait, We Are In Kansas update: guess what state is thinking of forcing churches to rent facilities to homosexuals, among other violations of religious freedoms? Kinda already gave that one away, I guess. (thx Chris Carney and Robert Sakovich)
• I am really looking forward to The Avengers, mainly because Joss Whedon directed it. He is a savvy, clever, creative genius who loves turning tropes on their heads. He doesn't mind departing from convention; for instance, his TV series Firefly was one of few sci-fi efforts that acknowledged the fact that there's actually no sound in space. So I love this quotation from Whedon, acknowledging reality when it comes to filming The Avengers: "Sometimes I would try to obey the laws of physics and that would be the weakest footage. Finally I just had to accept that everytime a car is hit by anything, it blows up and rolls over. A hamster could do it."
• Ziggy, a bit deeper than usual:

• Have you gotten your thank-you note for paying for President Obama's re-election campaign trips? Yeah, well, it's probably in the mail.
• Never too early to be thinking about Christmas? Fred Butler has a suggestion for the hardcore Trekker in your life. (Hm; have to arrive early for the first-ever Phillips Christmas Eve Pizza, Texas-style!)
• Michael Beck found a useful dupe for our Coming Robot Overlords who doesn't even seem to notice that his "pet" attacks him several times. (Diane "My Hair!" Sawyer is a better sport than I might've anticipated.)
• Kid pulls a deft, understated photobomb on a CNN reporter.

• Susan found a heartfelt plea from a nurse in Taiwan urging the US to turn back from nationalizing healthcare.
• "Offensive"? They keep using that word, but I don't think it means what they think it means. (thx Chris Carney)
• Chris also found this comparison of dog and cat people which, I think, is just odd.
• This from Julie Garrett could have so many titles. Hers is "another reason to homeschool," which is a good one. I'm thinking "Children Are Our Future (And We're Doomed)." Another would be how Government Reeducation Camps are turning out more future Democrat voters.
• Rebecca held a giveaway for The World-Tilting Gospel. Evidently the winner is Terry-Thomas, which is...interesting.
• BTW, Monday is when the winners of the ECPA books of the year awards are announced. You'll recall that TWTG is a finalist.
• Now have a happy weekend, safe in the knowledge that technology has finally made us all safe from the Evil Balloon.

• And these:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Hither and thither 12/30/11

I wish I had a rafter of deep thoughts for this year-end edition of Hither and Thither, but I don't. Okay, I do have a few, but they're self-censored. Dang that trying-to-be-mature thingie.

But I will say: I so appreciate all of you reading, commenting, loaning your time and attention. And your tips! I don't take a bit of it for granted. Thanks!

And now, enjoy.

• Giving new meaning to "Here, kitty kitty":

• Note to self: consider career in politics. Or at least presidential primary campaigning in Iowa.
• Dog-lovers will enjoy this Golden Retriever who loves him some guitar music.
• Wow, I had no idea. I watched the Johnny Weismuller "Tarzan" movies when I was a kid. I would have guessed that the chimp, Cheetah, had died long ago. Nope. Just died at age 80. (Um... or not?)
• Oh, and for my beloved Canadian readers: belated Happy Boxing Day.

• I think this is a first: Nancy Pelosi and I want the same thing, for Nancy Pelosi. If the report is true, that is. Pelosi's tics deny it.
• And now a Gee, I Wonder Who The MSM Want The GOP To Run! Alert: any article featuring the phrase "the growing fervor for Romney... is palpable" is kind of a clue.

• On which subject...
• With the grilling the MSM have been giving all the GOP candidates on a wide variety of red-hot (and not-so-hot) issues... won't it be something when they begin doing the same thing for the first time to the other candidate for the presidency, that Obama feller? Yessiree, that's really going to be something, innit? Yep yep yep, any day now. Beginning to hold breath in 3... 2...
• Late (or very early?) for Christmas, Phil Johnson found an extra-cool, quirky list of geeky gifts.
• Perfect food?

• Susan points us to a bacon-jam recipe that the author rhapsodizes is "core-shakingly good."
• Amongst the many, many literary categories that are Out There (in both senses of the phrase), did you know that there was such a thing as Mormon horror? Yeah, me neither. The imagination staggers. Like, what... an eight-headed coffee-spewing monster? someone who actually knows his Bible answering the doorbell and being willing to talk only about the Gospel?
• Among the things you have to say about this blog: we've never really been caught up in Kim Kardiashian mania.

• Marvin Olasky talks about "movie eisegesis" among Christians, the notion of reading-in a Christian theme. He does it, himself, with "Field of Dreams." Some in my family do it with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and "Nutcracker." Do you?
• When DAOD was even smaller, she was a Girl Scout, and Valerie was the leader. We were troubled back then at the leftward lean of the Girl Scouts. Now Rick Pearcey notes a fifteen-year-old girl who left out of concern over GS' leftward bias, and who started her own web site lifting the cover on that bias.
• Hm; the bad publicity seems to have had some effect.
• With a forward eye, Scooter found our coming robot overlords' violinist, as well as their early attempts to build fortresses. Warning: it's pink.
• And now, out of the blue and apropos of nothing, a cute clip with Phils Driscoll and Keaggy.
• Well, all that was fun. Now, to prepare for the new year:

• And these lovely parting gifs:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Christmas medley flash mob

(Thanks to Tom Westervelt)

Hither and thither 12/23/11

Well, friends — if anyone shows up this Friday before Christmas! — I do have a tidy little package for you. There are also posts planned for Saturday and Sunday. I wish you all a merry, joyous, Christ-centered Christmas!

• This blog isn't one of the Big Boys. And maybe yours is even smaller. But don't forget: it isn't the size, it's the 'tude.

• Right at the top: DO NOT MISS Frank Turk's absolutely lovely, stirring reflection on Christ and the event of His birth, "the moment that the world was made for." In an "evangelical" blogiverse where what should matter does matter, this post would be linked and re-linked a dozen, two, three dozen times or more.
• Staying with thoughtful essays, Denny Burk points to an absolutely brilliant essay by Rod Dreher on a recent sort of wannabe "spiritual bio" written by Supreme Court associate justice Stephen Breyer's daughter Chloe, an Episcopalian "priest." It is dead-on accurate and instructive; one however feels an ongoing sadness that Dreher himself, in targeting Breyer's preaching of a false Gospel, himself advocates for an institution devoted to the preaching of another false Gospel.
• In book-related news, I just had a terrific time chatting with Chris Rosebrough on Pirate Radio about The World-Tilting Gospel — and a bunch of things.
• Both books continue to do well on the year-end lists of folks who've read them, like our Fred Butler.
• Jared Moore also interviewed me on SBC Voices about the state of evangelicalism, and about both books.
• If you're keeping score at home, Mitt Romney has flipped again. This time on Iraq. What next?
• Ooh. Vertigo much?
• Angie found us an amazing set of Lego reproductions of the Lord of the Rings. (Can't vouch for text, only looked at pix.)
• In less happy Lego-related news, however, Robert Sakovich noticed a mother who's ticked off at the new Legos for girls. Why? Read the article. Special bonus for TWTG readers: what do you flash on when you read the Editor's Note?
• Randy Talley tells me he's a better person for seeing this; and now, we can all be better people, too.

• So when you hear Michelle Obama say, in so many words, that she puts herself at the top of her priority-list, are you (A) Very surprised, (B) Somewhat surprised, (C) Not at all surprised, or (D) Amazed that this could be news to anyone?
• And when you hear (in that same clip) that her husband is happy enough when Michelle is "not as mad at" him — same questions.
• And when you hear Michelle's husband say he has no pet peeves about her, and then hear Michelle say that her list of pet peeves is "too long" to relate — same questions.
• Bonus round for historians: has there ever been an angrier First Lady with a bigger chip on her shoulder?
• (If I could do PhotoShop, I'd do one of Hillary and Bill saying "Miss us yet?")
• Uh-oh. I was just emailed this:

• From the author of Death Panels to the Death Star:
• Idle kids? Set them to making Star Wars snow-flakes. They're really pretty wonderful.

• Susan points us to 25 creative ideas to make (some aspect of) life easier. I bet you'll see at least one that will move to you say, "Oh, huh... yeah!"
• Just... oh, dear. Twelve actual sermons that use sci-fi. No, I can't bring myself to watch any. Not yet, anyway.
• WOW. In time for a late Christmas gift, Paula directed me to a veritable Bacon-palooza. I mean, dude: bacon chocolate peanut brittle, bacon toothpicks,  bacon maple bar cake,  baconnaise,  bacon peanut butter cups,  bacon moon pie... dang, I'm hungry.
• Again wow, but in a different way. I doubt my BSIL will soon forget our first serious conversation when he took an interest in my daughter. She was and is, after all, my DAOD, and I was going to make it count. And I think I did, poor lad. That he hung in there afterwards spoke well of him. But I say that to say this: it could have been even just a tad more intense! Now you fathers of D's have some more arrows in your quivers.
• Of course, nothing can completely replace the classic 10 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter.
• A brief, passing burst of sanity. In a court. In a California court. Upholding the right of a Lutheran preschool to fire an employee for "shacking up." Enjoy it.
• Instead of visions of sugar plums, here's what's haunting FedEx exec's dreams these days:

• Here's a little more info, from FedEx.
• Here's my FedEx story. Valerie had just returned from the hospital some years ago. I got her home, got her in bed and settled, and she just needed to rest quietly. Kids were at grandparents. So I wrote a note, saying in large plain print something like "DO NOT RING doorbell! Knock quietly." I taped the note over the doorbell, with the word NOT positioned right over the bell. The note completely covered the doorbell.
• You know what happened next. The doorbell rang! Furious, I stormed over to the door and snatched it open, only to see a FedEx driver give me a cheery wave, hope into his truck, and drive off. In other words, he had to push the note that said DO NOT RING, in order to ring the doorbell!   I called FedEx, got the manager, and he apologized, saying, "Yeah, that driver is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean." Yeah, no kidding. That's... dude, that's just KJV-Only level of stupidity.
• And, in a very slick segue...
• Ooh, this is cool:

• Mmm. Quest for the perfect food may be over. My Food Looks... Scrumptious!

• Well, if it isn't that, it may be Marla Beale's find in a post titled If I die a Bacon-related death, I'll blame you. It does look delicious. Maybe add some olives, onions, guacamole...?
• The Headline of the Week is not a joke: 12 Members Of Breakaway Amish Group Charged In Beard-Cutting Attacks. What's more, the rogue barbers are charged with Federal "hate crimes." Wait, I'm not even done. The ringleader's name is Samuel Mullet. Again, I kid you not.
• Whoa. Durable pen. Too bad we don't know the make. You know, stocking-stuffer.
• Yeah, sorry.
• So Sam Knisely found a seasonal article claiming that an ancient document sheds light on the Magi. This is where the doctrines of inspiration and sufficiency comes into play. Evangelicals have shifted to trying hard to find this and that historical detail to explain the text, effectively forgetting that it is the text that is inspired, not the event. The text gives us what we need to know.
• Jared Compton over at the DBTS blog has a more edifying and helpful essay on the Magi's star.
• Christopher Carney notes that there actually are school textbooks worse than ours. They're in Saudi Arabia, thanks to "the religion of peace."
• Relatedly, Robert Sakovich found an essay and photo essay concerning the persecution of Christians in Pakistan by the Muslim majority.
• I leave you with this thought: our coming robot overlords are now working on agility.

• ...and these:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED