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by Karen Twinem

Create a Playlist of Hope

I’m old enough to have made mixtapes that I created for special times: summer, the beach, Christmas. This Lent has been a challenge for my word of the season: hope. So I created a Spotify playlist of songs of hope to enjoy.

Creating a Spotify playlist is very easy, if you haven’t done it before. (Especially when compared to making a mixtape back in the day.) You might want to create your own playlist for Lent.

The playlist is Songs of Hope by Karen Twinem on Spotify. It contains:

  • “Great Are You Lord” – All Sons and Daughters
  • “I’ll Take You There” – Mavis Staples
  • “Here Comes the Sun” – the Beatles
  • “What a Wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong
  • “Can You Feel It” – The Jacksons
  • “Celebrate” – Three Dog Night
  • “Happy” – Pharrell Williams
  • “In Christ Alone” – MercyMe
  • “It Is Well With My Soul” – Hillsong Chapel
  • “Heaven Come Down” – Michael W. Smith
  • “You Can Make It If You Try” – Sly and the Family Stone
  • “10,000 Reasons” – Matt Redman
  • “One Love” – Bob Marley and the Wailers
  • “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Aretha Franklin
  • “Hello Hooray” – Alice Cooper
  • “I Gotta Feeling” – Black Eyed Peas
  • “Mighty to Save” – Hillsong UNITED
  • “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” – Amy Grant
  • “Morning Has Broken” – Yusuf / Cat Stevens
  • “Ode to Joy”
  • “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” – Selah
  • “Joy to the World” – Three Dog Night
  • “Mr. Blue Sky” – Electric Light Orchestra
  • “On My Way Home” – Enya
  • “Dance to the Music” – Sly and the Family Stone
  • “Everybody Is a Star” – Sly and the Family Stone
  • “Penny Lane” – the Beatles
  • “We Are the Champions” – Queen
  • “Coming Around Again” – Carly Simon
  • “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) – Aretha Franklin & George Michael
  • “Perfect Day” – Lou Reed
  • “With a Little Luck” – Wings
  • “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” – Donovan
  • “Believe in Life” – Shawn Phillips

What did I miss?

by Karen Twinem

No Unkind Words. Even Online.

Twitter can be like pornography for the vicious. For reasons I’ll never understand, some people — even some who say they are Christians — enjoy being cruel to people they do not know online. I once read one man say that he can’t figure out the truth about people’s beliefs because it would spoil his fun online. Really?

This Lent, I’m following the advice of a Hindu that I have long admired, the late Eknath Easwaran:

Please do not indulge in unkind words, in negative comments. Criticism, as you know, can only be useful when it is constructive. Comments can only be useful when they are friendly. So even from the point of view of effectiveness, I would suggest that unkind comments add to the problem. Unloving criticism makes situations worse.

Eknath Easwaran, speech in 1979
by Karen Twinem

How to Stop a Downward Thinking Spiral

As the stock market bungee-jumps and fears of the coronavirus intensify, we may find ourselves in a downward thinking spiral. Our thoughts and fears get away from us. Inner peace, joy and calm are gone.

One of the best and most effective ideas I’ve read to stop this comes from Rachael Kable of “The Mindful Kind” book and podcast: Take a deep breathe and name the colors of the things you see.

This distracts the mind and allows us to get back on track. A brief walk is an effective way to start naming colors. A good ending is to express gratitude for the things we have seen.

by Karen Twinem

Memo to Heart: Cheer Up!

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

My word for Lent is hope. Cheerfulness is both a strategy and an end result for that.

How we react when trouble comes is the greatest witness to those around us. Maintaining a genuinely cheerful heart shows that we truly believe what we profess. Filling our minds with gratitude and praise for everything God has done for us – from dying on the Cross to creating trees – opens our hearts to feel the graces of joy and peace, no matter what else is happening.

One of my favorite quotes is from the late, great comedian Gilda Radner, written as she was dying from cancer:

“There will always be downslides and uncertainty. The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all this ambiguity. No matter what happens, I can control whether I am going to live a day in fear and depression and panic, or whether I am going to attack the day and make it as good a day, as wonderful a day, as I can.”

by Karen Twinem

A Mindful Thanksgiving Starts With “Thank You”

Talk in Christian circles about growing in godliness often focuses on spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, worship and so on. Gratitude is on the list, but not at the top of it.

That’s a mistake, Dr. Michael Zigarelli found in a study of 5,000 Christians reported in his book, “Cultivating Christian Character.” Gratitude is a parent virtue seen in what he calls “high-virtue Christians,” the people who are most consistently Christ-like.

These people have a consistent grateful disposition. Four out of five high-virtue Christians remember throughout the day how God has blessed them. Only two out of five average-virtue Christians say they do this. The most grateful often were African-Americans.

What drives gratitude is perspective. Remaining mindful moment-to-moment of what God has given you. High-virtue Christians are perpetually aware of their bountiful life, even during its most challenging periods. This habit of awareness transports them to the next level of gratitude and character.

Today, let’s start our mindful Thanksgiving by thanking the people we love the most. Think about why you appreciate them and tell them so. It’s a push toward a wonderful gratitude habit.