I started a tradition back in 2010 of keeping an annual running list of the most delicious bites of food I had throughout the year. It's a nerdy foodie habit, I know, but one that helps me remember (rather than consume and quickly forget) the delicious gift of food and the art with which it can be created. As the late Robert Farrar Capon said (in The Supper of the Lamb), "We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.”

In honor of the late Haskell Wexler (1922-2015), I thought I would post this essay I wrote in UCLA film school on Wexler’s iconic film “Medium Cool. Famous for its blending of fiction and reality against the backdrop of the 1968 Chicago riots, "Cool" was at once a forerunner of the “unscripted” reality TV genre and also a prophetic jeremiad in the vein of media critics Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan.

When I put together my annual top 10 movies of the year list, I consider a few things: the quality of a film upon first viewing, the extent to which it lingers (or doesn't), the beauty and truth it unveils and relevance it has in today's world. My top 10 list this year contains four films set in the past, four films set (more or less) in the present, and two set in the future, but they all have something to say about our world today.

I try to read new books at least as much (and hopefully more) as I watch new films and television or listen to new music, and this year there were quite a few books that I loved or greatly admired. Below are my favorite books released in 2015 and then my favorite books that I read (not necessarily released this year) in 2015.

It seems that every year there is more and more good music; perhaps even too much good music. I don’t know the reason for it, but I’m not complaining. Well, one complaint: Narrowing down favorites is harder than ever! The following is my somewhat arbitrary (likely to change) ranking of my favorite 25 albums and favorite 25 songs of 2015.

I’m sitting here looking at the Christmas tree in our room, a 7-foot Noble Fir, still aromatic and alive, glistening with lights and glittery ornaments. Part forest and part carnival, a natural and cultural creation, it stands as a shy but stately symbol of so much more than just holiday cheer. Its triangular, evergreen shape and prickly, shedding branches tell a much bigger story.

Messiah Jesus,

We wait, we long, we shake with anticipation for your return.

Come bring a permanent peace and an ultimate justice.

Meet us in our misanthropy, our lonely exile, our war-torn world.

Give us hope. Wash us clean.

A year from now we will (very possibly) have a new president-elect in the U.S. As a registered voter in California, I will have zero influence in deciding the election. But that doesn't keep me from having opinions about what kind of candidate I'd like to see succeed in becoming America's 45th president. The following is a list of attributes that would define my "dream president."

In the midst of the often abstract debates and discourse surrounding refugees, we can lose sight of the real lives involved and also despair about what can be done to help. It's important that we keep ourselves informed about what is actually going on, and it's important that we support and celebrate the good, compassionate, humane work being done to ease the suffering.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a refugee. I’ve never had to flee my homeland out of fear for my life because bombs or beheadings were a very real threat. I’ve never had to resettle in a foreign land and struggle to assimilate to an alien or hostile culture. I also don’t know what it’s like to lose a loved one to an act of terrorism, blown up in a plane or riddled with bullets in a concert venue.

We need more journalistic reporting like "Spotlight," Tom McCarthy’s excellent film about the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking 2002 coverage of systemic clergy sex abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church. We need it because humans are very prone to doing bad things and really, really good at covering up those bad things. Someone needs to shine the spotlight on darkness, even if it means implicating ourselves too.

There is a lot about Kansas City that makes it a special place, an American gem of a metropolis in the midst of “flyover country.” Here are 99 of the best things about this wonderful city.

As modern western culture continues in its post-Christian march away from religion, what is filling the gap of God? Does disbelief in God translate to disbelief in everything supernatural or transcendent? Recent evidence seems to indicate a resounding “NO.” As much as we talk of a strictly materialistic and rationalistic landscape in our Scientistic society, there seems to be a lingering [...]

At this week’s “Future of the Church” discussion at Biola University (well worth watching online in its entirety here), the brilliant Fred Sanders ended his prepared remarks by suggesting that it may be up to the “children of evangelicalism” to make progress in the dialogue of unity/ecumenism. Such a project is perennially attempted but always met with the same pesky roadblocks (the “essentials versus non-essentials” conversation being unavoidably amorphous, given the decentralized DNA of Protestantism).

A friend of mine recently told me that his wife was often depressed by "looking at Instagram and seeing how happy every couple seemed." The endless array of beautifully posed people, gleefully posting about their #blessed, #best and #NBD adventures on beaches and balconies, discouraged her. Compared with the carefree, happy-as-can-be photos [...]

How is it that our society can collectively agree that an unborn life lost to a miscarriage is something to lament but the loss of millions of unborn lives each year from abortion is not? Karen Swallow Prior pondered this question recently, calling out the contradictory yet widely held idea that unborn children are babies whose lives matter [...]

The new documentary about Amy Winehouse, Amy, is devastating. Whether or not you were a fan of Winehouse's music, it's hard not to be moved by this film, directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna). It chronicles the singer's rise to superstardom as well as her roller coaster struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders and other destructive behavior which ultimately led to her tragic death-by-alcohol-poisoning in 2011.

I saw Pixar's Inside Out a few weeks ago at the Pinecrest Amphitheater, an outdoor movie theater on the shore of Pinecrest Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Under the stars, surrounded by family and with the smells of pine and campfires in the air, the setting was beautiful and memorable. Fitting for a movie about the mystery, joy and sadness of memory.

I graduated from Wheaton College 10 years ago this month. This Friday, I’ll be attending commencement ceremonies at Biola University, where I’ve had the pleasure of working for nearly seven years. I’ll be cheering on a dozen or so students who I’ve mentored, taught, employed or befriended; students who will be walking across the stage to receive their diplomas, much as I did when I was their age, a decade ago.

The headlines today--or any day--reinforce the tragedy of life on this planet. Hundreds Feared Dead After Boat Filled With Migrants Capsizes. Video Purports to Show ISIS Killing Ethiopian Christians. There are ample reminders of the world’s calamity, horror and heartache in our daily social media feeds.