End of the year recommendations

Advent and birthday questions, best books, best music, and a few more beautiful things

My birthday was a week ago.

And if not for my husband’s insistence (as well as a beautiful breakfast, gifts that lightened my soul, and a family dinner), I would’ve mostly brushed it off.

It’s not that I dread getting older.

It’s more that 47 feels like a bit of a shrug. How is 47 any different from 45 or 46? Except that I’m in my late forties now, I guess?

Besides the physical tiredness and a few unpleasant side effects, I much prefer being older rather than going back to any age. There’s freedom in a growing wisdom, in a lessening of care about things that don’t matter.

But there’s also a sense of impending death.

I don’t mean that in a negative way. Impending death does not necessarily mean impending doom. But the truth is that even if I lived to a ripe old age, I’m likely at least half-way through my life.

And every year goes by more swiftly.

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Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

This time of year always brings me to mind of preparing for birth. My son Jude’s birth happened in mid-December 14 years ago, the week after a below zero cold snap that brought quite a lot of snow, frozen ground and the worry that we might need to ride a tractor to the hospital (we didn’t).

We had much to do to “prepare him room.” Our home needed to be made ready. My body, already having gone through nine months of preparation, had to get prepared for birth. My husband, Jude’s older sister, our family and friends—we all had preparations to attend to.

Advent is an appropriate time to think about preparations. Author Rachel Mann says that Advent, is a time to prepare for “the cusp of joy and weeping that signals the realm of new birth.”¹

Advent then offers a space to prepare, to make room not just for the birth of the Christ-child but also the birth of a new kingdom. One in which everything will be turned upside down. The wrongs will be made right.

On Sunday, my husband preached on Isaiah 61 (and a few Luke passages).

61 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;^[a]
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;^[b]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;

He reminded us that these passages are a balm to some and an invitation to others. If we are afflicted with suffering, then Isaiah’s words about a new way of being where there will be joy instead of mourning, is good news.

For those of us who are pretty comfortable, wealthy, powerful…then these words are sobering. He noted how Jesus in Luke 4 quotes this passage in Isaiah 61 and leaves out that last line, the one we find pretty uncomfortable: the day of vengeance of our God. You know, the judgement part.

It’s not that Jesus says nothing about judgement…if you think that, go read Matthew 12:36–37 and John 5:21–25.

It’s more that this time, Jesus offers an invitation: It’s not too late to give your money away. It’s not too late to be in community with those who are suffering. It’s not too late to open your eyes to injustice and work toward a kingdom marked by shalom.

As I head into my late forties, the preparation of Advent hits differently. And my questions to ponder are different:

• How do I take Jesus’ invitation seriously?

• How can I be transformed as a follower of Jesus?

• What does it look like to give away the rest of my life?

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Ron Rolheiser writes that, according to the mystic St. John of the Cross, our lives encompass three struggles:

• Getting our lives together

• Giving our lives away

• Giving our deaths away

Until recently in human history, most people died in their most generative years when they were actively giving away their lives (30s and 40s perhaps) and so a theology of giving away your death wasn’t necessary.

I’m not necessarily in the end stage, as it were. I guess, I’m technically in my generative years (if you can be generative and tired all the time).

But these struggles feel connected.

In light of the reality of death, how do I begin to live the rest of my life, however much life that is? How do I structure my life and my heart so that I am not the point anymore?

Are you looking for an answer? Because I don’t have one. I’m only just beginning to see that my personal pursuits are not as important as sitting with God in the mess of life. And preparing room for God’s work through me.

It’s not that my personal tasks aren’t important. On the contrary. I begin to feel narrowed in to those tasks. Asking that my whole life, my writing, mothering, singing, reading, cooking, gardening, listening, teaching, and speaking help me be more tethered to that which is eternal.

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The year in review

My most popular post in the last year was from August, just after we moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania, which tells me that, among other things, posts get more clicks when they have clicky titles like “A new chapter: We are moving!”

In my last post, I mentioned that my favorite go-to Christmas album was Kate Rusby’s Sweet Bells (I love While Mortals Sleep too). Afterward, a few people said they added her music to their Christmas playlists. I was thrilled! Finding common ground in these beautiful things is a joy.

Here is a playlist of some of my other favorite Christmas albums (that you Advent adherents will obviously wait until Christmas Eve to listen to, right?)

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Recommendations

Be warned: when you tell me that you liked one of my recommendations, then I might give you a few more. So, whether you want them or not, here’s a list of my favorites for the year. These weren’t necessarily things that were released in 2024. Just that they meant something to me this year.

Music

• Coldplay was my top artist of the year (according to Apple Music, at least) and their newest album Moon Music got a lot of plays. Now, this is likely because their song We Pray became the anthem of our school morning as I drove my kids to school for a few months. The above photo is from a Coldplay concert we went to in 2022. It was magical.

• The Arcadian Wild, Welcome

• Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour

• Mission House, many many of their songs

• Salt of the Sound, Meditations No. 5

• Sequentia, Hildegard of Bingen: Canticles of Ecstacy (This is the background music of my novel writing)

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Photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash

Books

Fantasy

• Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Novik is one of the best fantasy writers out there. I was delighted to find that several of my new friends in Pennsylvania count this book as one of their favorites too. I just read it for the third time.

• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMasters Bujold. Truly one of the masters of high fantasy. This book (which is part of a great series) is hard to describe but if you love classic high fantasy, it is a must-read. I’m currently reading it for the third time also.

• The Heartstone Series by Elle Katherine White (a fun Pride and Prejudice retelling…if Darcy was a dragon rider).

• Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young. Murder mystery, folklore, an island with secrets and reuniting with lost love.

• The Unmaking of June Farrow also by Adrienne Young. Ghosts of the past, love, murder mystery, a generational curse that involves time travel.

• The Winternight Trilogy beginning with The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. Set in a wintery Russian wilderness that teems with monsters, old magic, religion, and a powerful heroine who protects her family even when they underestimate her.

• The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. A book that can open any door is bound (pardon the pun) to unearth all kinds of shadowy figures longing for its power.

• The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stievater (YA/teen fantasy, hard to explain but has a lot about dreams, a Welsh legend, magic, and crossing through thin places, nothing too explicit but might not be suitable for some teens)

Nonfiction

• We were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family’s Mythmaking and Migration by Jessica Goudeau. I wrote about this book in another post. But also check out Goudeau’s After the Last Border for some context and character-driven stories about what led to the current events in Syria.

• Art and Faith: A theology of making by Makoto Fujimura. I did a substack on this beautiful book about creativity and spirituality.

• The Art of Small Talk by Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. The audiobook is read by the authors who are both comedic actors. Hilarious but not suitable if kids are listening.

And a little light murder

• Countess of Harleigh Mysteries by Dianne Freeman. Light murder in the Victorian era.

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Random beautiful things

• If you’re looking for a place to buy books that supports local bookstores, check out Shawn Smucker and Maile Silva’s Nook on Bookshop. Buying from Bookshop gives their local Lancaster-based bookstore (and other independent bookstores) a percentage of the proceeds.

• My new favorite substack is Jokien with Tolkien, a humorous newsletter “concerning hobbits, faith, and culture from a lifelong Tolkien fan.” My latest favorite is a very tight argument about why the film versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy are Christmas movies. Hint: in Tolkien’s world, dates in Middle Earth that correspond to important Christian holidays are no accident.

• I had the opportunity to meet artist and spiritual director Christine Labrum a few days after I had admired (and really wanted to buy) her art in a coffee shop. So, for my birthday, I splurged and bought a few of her prints. A few hours later, I opened gifts from my kids and they had bought me two other prints of hers! So, now I have a collage. They are images that combine my favorite things: the spiritual and the fantastical. I especially love her Divine Hands series. The tree in the picture below is one of Labrum’s pieces.

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And finally, a few little funnies

• The power of loving a cat

• For women of a certain age

• Mine. My own! My precious!

• More for Tolkien nerds

1. From Rachel Mann’s In the Bleak Midwinter