A Country Boy Can Surmise

These are the albums I listened to most, in no real order. These are the records that are good for just about any situation, in particular the situations in which I most love music: while driving, writing, working, or dancing. Helplessness Blues-Fleet Foxes. The stand-out here is "Bedouin Dress" but every single track is stellar. Queen of the Minor Key-Eilen Jewell. One of the most underrated artists out there. "Santa Fe" is one of the best songs I've ever heard. Circuital-My Morning Jacket. A masterpiece. My favorites: "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)", the title track, and "Black Metal." Layered, profound, and beautiful. If I was forced to pick the album of the year, this would be it. In the Cool of the Day-Daniel Martin Moore. This album is like church in all the best ways. A sort of gospel record without any of the dogma, this is DMM at his smooth-voiced, tight-songwriting, and guitar-picking, piano-playing best. Inclusions-Ben

A couple of years ago, I was asked to give the homily for Evensong at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Paris, Kentucky. I count it among my greatest honors to have been invited by my friend, The Reverend Donavan Cain to give this talk and am glad to share it with you here today. Drawing In the Dirt In one of my favorite novels, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, her lead character, Ames, writes the following: “For me writing has always felt like praying…you feel you are with someone.” I have never identified more with a line in a piece of literature, for writing has always been my strongest connection to God. Art has been my salvation. Truly, writing saved me. I had a profound relationship with God from a very early age. On more than one occasion I was convinced that God was speaking to me. One time I remember very clearly: I was in my back yard, playing on my metal swing-set by myself. I spent lots of time alone, by choice, and

Besides one, I can't decide the order of my favorites of the year, so here they are in no particular order. There are lots of movies I still want to see from 2010 (especially Toy Story 3, The Social Network, Let Me In, A Piece of Work, and others) that I'm sure will go on this list, but for now, these are my picks... True Grit-I can decide that this is my favorite of the year. Based on one of my favorite novels, I thought this version perfectly captured the spirit of the book. I loved every single thing about it, but especially the score, the nuanced and subtle performance by Hallie Steinfeld, the cinematography, the trees, Little Blackie, and "the long ride" sequence that goes down in my list of my favorite movie moments. I was moved in every way by the whole movie. Black Swan-Natalie Portman's performance is incredibly powerful and the look of the film causes me to think of overused adjectives like "beautiful". Since the visuals were so origin