Recent Posts
FINAL NOTICE dated Sep 7, 2008. This is the last entry in the old RSS feed. New RSS feed address can be found at the new "JAJ" homepage or by clicking on the above link.
NOTICE dated Sep 4, 2008. Things are changing here at Just Another Jim. Same address. New look. BUT these changes will require those of you who use an RSS feed to follow my essays to change the feed address.
Essay: The Beauty of Truth (Sep 2, 2008). Reflections after listening to an interview with Prof. John Milbank, author of "Radical Orthodoxy."
I'll be doing some traveling this month and it will be hard to concentrate on writing, so I'm taking off the month of August. Look for another essay in September. If you want something to read in the meantime, check out some of my favorite essays on the Who Is Jim Nelson? page.
Essay: The Arbitrary Five-0 (Jul 29, 2008). I sure hope AARP doesn't discover this. If they do I'll probably have to wait a few more years for that nifty discount I can get on everything!
Essay: Discovering the American Lewis (Jul 22, 2008). Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Literature prize ... and I didn't know a thing about him.
Essay: Finch Farm (Jul 15, 2008). This bird feeding thing might be big ... really big.
Essay: Le Tour de France: Can We put some Lipstick on this Pig? (Jul 8, 2008). The competition is pretty bad this year. But there's hope for the future.
Essay: Life, Liberty, and a Well-Oiled Handgun (Jul 1, 2008). A Libertarian critique of last week's Supreme Court decision overturning Washington D.C.'s gun law.
Essay: Weather (& a word about geography) (Jun 17, 2008). Everything is copacetic in Siouxland.
Essay: Nostalgia for Simplicity (Jun 10, 2008). A hymn, a prayer, a candle, a benediction. Ah, I remember those simple worship services.
Essay: "Exotic" Wood from an "Ordinary" Place (May 27, 2008). I found almost everything I expected to find in the rain forest: sudden rain storms, banana trees, ocelots, and of course … a phone booth!
Essay: The Panama Canal and Television (May 20, 2008). I saw the Panama Canal for the first time a few days ago. Quite frankly, you can see a lot more on television.
Essay: From Eight Belles to Bicycles (May 6, 2008). The second of Native Dancer's offspring broke a leg on the race track and had to be killed. It raises some troubling questions.
Essay: Jesus Christ, the Might of America (Apr 29, 2008). How does God relate to secular governments? Some thoughts based on the Great and Holy Friday service.
Essay: Christ Our Passover (Apr 22, 2008). It's Holy Week for the Orthodox and Passover for the Jews. This leads me to think about religious tolerance.
Essay: Libertarians for Monarchy! (Apr 8, 2008). Too bad Lisa Halaby got married, changed her name to Queen Noor and moved to Jordan. What America needs is a good monarch.
Essay: Finding God in the Punch Line (Apr 1, 2008). Esther is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Hopefully you won't think I'm just pulling your leg when I explain why.
Essay: Jane Goodall and the Panhandler (Mar 25, 2008). Saturday night we had the opportunity to hear Jane Goodall speak at the "Images of Nature" gallery in Omaha.
Essay: A Question of Wills (Mar 19, 2008). The point of Christianity is not God's will, it's the human will.
Blog Post: Another Sign of Shrinking Values (Mar 5, 2008). Things are so bad even the inch is shrinking!
Essay: Those Crazy Gags of the Silly German Secret Police (Mar 4, 2008). Most of us claim we don't believe the end justifies breaking the law. But if that's the case, why are so few people outraged by Germany?
Essay: Four Toddlers Toddling (Feb 26, 2008). We had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Bishop Kallistos Ware. The event brought back a flood of memories.
Essay: Holy Water and Magic Dust (Feb 19, 2008). It's the season of house blessing which seems very odd and rather superstitious to most Protestants. Here's an explanation.
Essay: No Endings for Long Movies (Feb 12, 2008). It's an epic journey through two museums in Dallas, two museums in Minneapolis, and a movie theater in Sioux City. And like the Cohens, Orozco, and the horse guy in Minnesota, there's plenty of kvetching in between.
Poem: A Visit to the Walker Museum of Modern Art (Feb 12, 2008). This poem is posted in conjunction with the essay (listed above) "No Endings for Long Movies."
More essays and poems are available in the essay and poetry archives and on the Orthodox Essay page. Also check out The Alaska Journal, Jim's serialized memoirs of being a pastor in Delta Junction, Alaska.
The home of Jim's hobbies, projects, rants, and raves.
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I know, I haven't been writing much music lately, but here's the most recent.
The Prayer of St. Ephrem.
Posted Feb. 2006
Found in the Sunday and Mundi Music Collection. A lo-fi version for
dial-up as well as a higher quality version available for download can be found there.
When A Poor One.
Posted Oct. 2005
Found in the Sunday and Mundi Music Collection. A lo-fi version for
dial-up as well as a higher quality version available for download can be found there.
First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life. This is Fr John Neuhaus's journal. The journal is ecumenical, but none of the editors back peddle on their particular distinctives; they simply choose to disagree, sometimes quite publicly in the journal. It is also quite academic. Not a journal for the faint of heart. Their RSS feed link is at the very botom of the page.
Roger McGuinn Blog. A curiously misnamed blog since Roger's wife, Camilla, writes the "Roady Reports" and Roger only occasionally adds a "techy report." Roger McGuinn was the lead singer for The Byrds. The blog is a wonderful, wandering history of folk music as well as the McGuinn's journeys across America.
BBC Cycling Newsfeed. A newsfeed rather than a blog, but professional cycling is a non-event on this side of the pond, and this is about the only way follow European road racing when living in North America.
Most of the blogs I read are by Orthodox writers. They can be found on my Orthodox Wrtings page.
Essay & Poetry Archives
First and foremost I'm a writer. The sort of stuff found on this site has been piling up around the house for years. With the advent of the website (created originally for the music), it occurred to me that I could pile my writings up on my web site instead of my desk. There are several years of archives that can be accessed with the Archive Viewers linked on the menu above. It's a handy way to view a year's worth of archives.
Brenda and I volunteered with IOCC to spend a week north of New Orleans in May 2007 helping to build a Habitat for Humanity house. This is a journal of the experience.
I currently have four music collections. Two of these are available as CDs from CafePress.com. Go to the music pages for links to the CDs.
For nearly as long as I was a Presbyterian pastor, I was also exploring Eastern Orthodoxy. Shortly before Christmas of 2005, Brenda and I became Orthodox and joined St. Thomas Antiochian Orthodox Church here in Sioux City. This page is an index of essays about Orthodoxy.
A serialized version of Jim's memoirs from his three years as pastor in Alaska. These were written in the late 80s and early 90s. He finally decided that the JAJ site would be a pretty good home for them.
Click here for a brief biography of Jim.
Click here for a brief history of this web site.
If you want to send me an email, please write. I like feedback.
Daily Giz Wiz. Podcast hosted by Leo LaPorte and featuring "Mad Magazine's maddest writer, Dick DiBartolo," this is a short podcast about gadgets and Dickie D's reminiscences of Mad and his days writing for The Match Game.
TWIT. Long ago in a universe far away there was a tv network called Tech TV. This Week In Tech (TWIT) is many of the old gang back together, along with resident curmudgeon, John Dvorak, for the best tech podcast on the net. The TWIT website links to a host of other tech podcasts.
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