Commonplace #20

Some things that recently caught my interest

Jun 16, 2026

Reader. Writer. Jesus follower.

Former sailor seeking bold coffee, sublime jazz, and deep connection.

Dear friends,

Despite being “retired” I find I continue to be quite busy with life. Between college preps for our daughter, volunteering at Life Church, and routine odds and ends, I find I don’t have much free time. This month we also had some rather large, unexpected expenses, which are of course my favorite kind of expenses. Our hot water heater blew up in the middle of the night and we had to replace it. Here in Tennessee they install the hot water heaters in the attic for some reason and ours was directly over the master bedroom. We opted for a tankless this time so that if there are future problems, all that water isn’t waking us up in the middle of the night as it seeps through the ceiling.

"Life consists of different seasons and phases where the importance of various aspects shifts. People experience the most stress when they attempt to give equal importance to everything continuously." — Jay Shetty

Links of interest:

My latest entry in the Roots and Wings series, Nomadic, is a reflection on Sherman Alexie ’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. For June we will read Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
I have been reading Will Cooper for almost three years now. Every article he publishes is filled with a love for food, ingredients harvested from the natural world, and a passion for life. If you haven’t been reading him, you should start. A recent article, Swarm, explores his relationship with bees.
My friends, Peco and Ruth Gaskovski, shared an essay called The Eating Rebellion: Recapturing the common art of cooking.
Barrie and Jojo continue sharing their love of beautiful things in their weekly Field Notes for Curious Minds.
Alexander M Crow shares A Celebration of Scent. When I lost my sense of smell due to COVID I realized what a vital part of our memory system this sense is. Alex shares 49 of his favorites.
Over the past few years I have fell in love with bird watching. I often sit on my back patio in the morning, cup of coffee in hand, my bible open to the Psalms, and I listen to God’s choir singing their morning song around the feeders in my yard. Bill Davison has been an inspiration to me and a mentor/guide from afar through his writing. His love and respect for the natural world shines through in his photography ad words. Check out his latest piece, Travelers at Rest.

Music:

Jazz on the Beach - my go to jazz radio show each week.

World Cup:

I grew up playing baseball, basketball, and football. My wife grew up loving futbol or soccer as us Americanos call it. These days we don’t watch a lot of sports but when the World Cup comes around we are excited! We have our poster sized tournament bracket printed and ready to go. If you are interested you can watch all the action streaming on Tubi or the Fox Sports networks.

Personal Reading:

I’ve highlighted one fiction and one nonfiction title as my top recommendations from this list.

Recommendations:

Fiction - The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Nonfiction - (I didn’t finish any nonfiction this month although I have several in progress)

The rest of the fiction: