Playing the SEVEN THINGS Game: " Tag, I'm 'IT' ":

Brother Causticus issued a challenge a few days ago to play "Seven Things" and, ever being one for a challenge, finally cleared off a little elbow room in my brain to meditate on the following compelling questions. Answers below ... and now (drum roll) ... the tag goes to Elizabeth Kaeton over at Telling Secrets ... you game, girlfriend?

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies
It's a tie between Urban T. Holmes "What Is Anglicanism" and Mel White's "Stranger At the Gate."

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music
Oh, the Brahms Requiem ... absolutely. Sophomore year, Dos Pueblos High School A Cappella Choir ... caught the choral music bug and never looked back. It opened me to a world of Vivaldi and Rutter and Lauritson and the magic of individual voices making music by blending their gifts without losing their own "part." It is an icon for me of unity more glorious than unison -- an icon that has informed my theology as well as my musicology.

3. Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue
I kept coming back to this one trying to give an answer that was smart and savvy and not cliche but [a] I just love movies so there are dozens I can watch over and over and [b] I'm really not all that smart and savvy so [c] my "final answer" is Dustin Hoffman's "Tootsie" ... a film I can watch from beginning to end -- every time -- with absolute delight. ("Casablanca" is on the list ... so is "Lion in Winter," "To Have and Have Not," and "Blazing Saddles." Go figure.)

4. Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief
Meryl Streep. How can you not when she runs the gamut from "Sophie's Choice" to "The Devil Wears Prada."

5. Name a work of art you’d like to live with
Anything by Georgia OKeeffe

6. Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life
The one that comes to me this morning is "Inherit the Wind" -- read it in Junior High, acted it in High School, studied it in University ... and its themes continue to inform my life, journey and values. It also engendered my earliest sense of "vocation" as I was convinced I was destined for law school. (Where I never ended up -- but that's another set of questions! :)

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UPDATE: Elizabeth has already been "tagged" by Lisa over at "My Manner of Life" (see her response here ...) so now I'm trying Katie Sherrod at "Desert's Child" .... Katie?????