25 Albums that changed my life!

Think of 25(ish) albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that musically shaped your world.

This is fun!!!

A Thorn for Every Heart - Things Aren't So Beautiful Now
Acceptance - Phantoms
Anberlin - Never Take Friendship Personal
Anberlin - Cities
Armor For Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead
As Cities Burn - Son I Loved You At Your Darkest
August Burns Red - Thrill Seeker
Copeland - In Motion
David Crowder Band - A Collision (or 3+4=7)
Emery - The Weak's End
Emery - The Question
Falling Up - Crashings
Jamisonparker - Sleepwalker
Mae - The Everglow
Mae - Singularity
MuteMath - Reset EP
Norma Jean - Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child
Saosin - Saosin
Showbread - No Sir, Nihlism is not Practical
Terminal - How the Lonely Keep
The Academy Is... - Almost Here
The Used - In Love and Death
Underoath - They're Only Chasing Safety
Underoath - Define the Great Line
Vedera - The Weight of an Empty Room

Into the Wild, Into your Heart

I began reading 'Into the Wild' last night. I made it roughly 30 pages, and I think I'm hooked already. A story of a man who drops everything and enters into the snow-laden wilderness of Alaska. There's something about survival stories that stirs me. I've always liked them, even down to tuning into 'Survivor Man' or 'Man vs Wild' on the Discovery Channel whenever I see either on.

I don't know if it's the idea of isolation that intrigues me, as I'm naturally introverted and enjoy a healthy dose of solitude. I like to think of Christ's desire to remove himself from things and pray alone. The New Testament explains that Jesus often withdrew to isolated locations to be by himself.

There's something about solitude that appeals to me. Not as a means of escape, because I love being with my wife Racheal and around friends, but more as a place of rest. A place of peace. A chance to take a breath. For me, solitude in any form is a time to clear my head. A time to pray, reflect, and be in one-on-one community with the Lord. A time to face the reality of our heart and subconscious...which might not be a pretty site on a given day.

I can't wait to finish Into the Wild and learn more about Chris McCandless and why he did what he did. I don't think his reason for isolating himself was rooted much in spiritual reasoning, but I'm thoroughly intrigued!

New(again)

Once upon a time, I started this blog. It had been awhile since I regularly posted on Xanga, because well, Facebook killed with it's Note feature. Fair enough. I think what happened was, I got the urge to blog one day and started this. You can see it was almost a year and a half ago and I never posted on it. I think a lot of that had to with being in a long distance dating relationship with my wife. At the time of the first/previous/only post of this blog, I had been dating Racheal for about 24 hours. I just never made it back to www.jeffburnett.blogspot.com. Which is good in a way, because I gave nearly 100% of my attention to my relationship, which is now a marrage. But things have settled down a little now. We're married, living happily in Starkville and both working. With the 40 hour work week routines, it's easier to have some downtime. Even aside from all that, I kind of miss blogging. I enjoyed posting regularly, just writing my thoughts, processing life on the screen, hearing others' reactions. It's theraputic, really. I was reading through some of my old Xanga posts and remembering old times. Maybe that's the source of this inclination to post. Either way, I read blogs of my peers a lot and enjoy it, so maybe it's time to return the sentiment.