As We Go Into the New Year, 2025, Listen More 

‘Fink – The LowSwing Sessions’ seen here spinning on my Micro Seiki BL-91 turntable.

It’s 10:08 PM, December 30, 2024 – just a day away from New Year’s Eve. I’m listening to a vinyl album that arrived earlier today on headphones that I just finished reviewing, the Dan Clark Audio Stealth, their statement closed back headphones that sell for $3,999. It’s called Fink – The LowSwing Sessions. ( LowSwing/ Brinkman, 2023. UPC: LSRLPI010) The album’s by Fin Greenall, also known as Fink, an international DJ of some renown who became a popular Indie folk singer some years back. It’s spinning on a vintage Micro Seiki BL-91 turntable from the 1990s with an Audio Creative GrooveMaster 3 Tonearm, Korf Audio HS A02 ceramic headshell, and a new Ortofon Quintet MC Black S phono cartridge atop a quartz isolation platform hovering three-quarters of an inch above our black BDI Furniture media console (a repurposed weightlifting rack supports it from behind the console).  

Song number one was a downtempo version of David Bowie’s “Modern Love” – the first of five covers that precede two collaborations of his.  Apparently, it was recorded straight to tape, and according to the liner notes, everything was recorded in one take. It’s a high quality analog recording. Fink’s sonorous, close-miked baritone vocals and guitar are soothing and highly listenable, and the drum kit, bass, and keys come across intimate and lifelike. Some frenetic violin with some psychedelic reverb kicks in one song. It has an earthy quality with some effects thrown in now and again. I like it!

However, I digress. 

Earlier today, I chatted with a dear friend from college over the phone. I’ll call him Chaz. A former competitive athlete, he connected with me at a Gold’s Gym in a Los Angeles suburb in the fall of 1982. Many pounds lighter back then, I was a sweating bodybuilder wearing a Resurrection Band T-shirt that caught his attention the day we met.

“Nice T-shirt!” he said as he approached with a wide grin similar to ones I’ve seen plastered on the faces of well-meaning campus evangelical club members. 

I was in the middle of a workout and jumped up to do a set of wide grip chin-ups. Far away from home, I didn’t have many friends, had been snubbed by a girl I liked, and wasn’t in a sociable mood. When I finished and dropped back down, he was still standing smiling, so I thought I’d make an effort to be nice.

“Yeah, they’re a good band, but they have an even better message!” I quipped. He lit up. It wasn’t long before I joined him at a campus ministry where, to my pleasant surprise, he and everyone there were really nice people and fun to hang around. Besides, I was a Christian, and although I volunteered for Youth For Christ/Youth Guidance in a prison ministry, I was an inconsistent one with a lot of emotional baggage. Attending these meetings gave me hope and encouragement to be a better believer. 

Now Chaz had a hard-charging attitude characterized by his motto, “Take life by the throat – and squeeze!” He was a popular campus ministry leader with an infectious laugh and, as college wound down, he was on the fast track with a Big Eight accounting firm. 

We graduated and saw each other less – especially after I moved back to Illinois, where I pursued a career in teaching. 

Pain is God’s Megaphone

Fast forward to 2024: We’d both suffered personal setbacks. I had rushed into a marriage late in the 90s and was divorced little over a year later, which forced me to face my emotional demons and, like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a steep mountainside, I began traversing a long and painstaking journey in healing and self-discovery. Several years later, Chaz, who’d married and managed to remain so for a number of years, eventually divorced, leaving behind a painful situation, and found comfort in a more traditional church. We began texting intermittently and, perhaps a month ago, I picked up the phone and we talked for the first time in years. 

 I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ famous quote: “Pain is God’s megaphone.” Pain and hardship sometimes has a way of humbling – or hardening – us like nothing else can.Thankfully, I was humbled, and have been slowly making some changes, including giving up drinking this past year, which hasn’t been easy, but was necessary, as it was becoming problematic. I have also begun connecting with men for a weekly morning Bible study before work, which has been a great source of inspiration, accountability, and encouragement. When we talked, I saw that the years had softened the harder edges to Chaz’s personality and made him more gracious than ever. And I’d like to think that he’s noticed the same with me. 

So, as I approach the 2025 New Year, I am listening more and, slowly, talking less. I am listening to more vinyl, surely, but more importantly, I am listening more to others – to my students, to people I meet, to my grandchildren, to others and, ultimately, to God’s Spirit. Less of me and more of Him. 

My wife, Belle, whom I met years ago and married in 2011, has been a wonderful companion in these latter years – and I look forward to many more with her. However, to my delight, I feel that I have regained a brother in Chaz, and together with them and God’s greater extended family, I look forward to becoming an even better listener and, hopefully, a better instrument of God’s grace and kindness. 

The Passing of a Great Example

Coincidentally, the 39th President of the United States and an even greater humanitarian, Mr. James Carter died yesterday at the age of 100. His humility, Christianly comportment, and example of service following his presidency (his work with Habitat for Humanity that builds affordable homes for people is a shining example) has been a wonderful model for many of us to aspire. May we all take something of that into the New Year and help make this a better and more meaningful one for ourselves and others. 

Oh, and by the way, it turns out that Jimmy was a big time music fan (purportedly, he loved the Allman Brothers Band, and they loved him), so don’t stop enjoying the music when you can, either!