Bottled ※ Brain

I'M GRATEFUL for the few days I'm spending with family and friends this last week of December.  This break, albeit short-lived, is just what I desperately need.

2013 HAS been a great year for reading—praise God! My list consists mainly of fiction. I was blessed to read some uplifting Christian literature, too. I enjoyed reading short story collections—this may well be the Year of the Short Story, with Alice Munro winning the Nobel, and many famous novelists coming up with their own collections. Anyway the books are listed in the order I had read them. Thirty-eight or so books—not bad for a PGH medical intern who should be reviewing his textbooks instead.

I'VE STOPPED listening to popular music after the 90's. During the summers of my childhood my cousins and I used to gather in front of the television to watch the weekly MTV countdown of the most popular songs rocking the world. From 2000 onwards, when I was a little more grown up, I found pop music distasteful, crass, overly sexualized, senseless, pointless, and noisy—and that was when I became disinterested. The generalization is unfair, as most generalizations are, for there were still songs worth listening to.

I LEFT the hospital earlier than usual to catch the 8:30 am service at Higher Rock Christian Church. This Sunday was particularly special because it was our Family Day. Missing it would be a huge loss. The theme was Marvelous Love , taken from 1 John 4:19: "We love because He first loved us."

WENT BACK to my old habits and bought a new book I spotted at my favorite second hand bookstore: Confessions by Augustine, in the new translation by Garry Willis. I could not resist buying it. My favorite college professor, Dr. Carlos Aureus, recommended it in my freshman year as an English major. I started reading it in 2009 , in the translation by John K. Ryan. Since then Confessions has been one of my favorite books of all time. The book is a celebration of a sinner's newfound personal relationship with God. It is a literary masterpiece in itself, adored and quoted even by non-believers.