Top posts for 2011, Google's and mine

On the heels of my last post about traffic, here are two lists showing the top 5 posts on Restorative Theology in 2011, out of a total of 89. The first is from Google Analytics, based on pure number of views:

1. Military porn, military infidelity (March 6) - The sad thing about this result is that its placement had more to do with Google searches for "military porn" than the actual content of my post.
2. In the dappled light of my grandfather (February 22) - My Grandpa Max died this year and this post formed the basis of my eulogy, which I delivered at his funeral later that same week. (This post also gets a nod as one of my favorites. It  really did help me grieve my grandfather, with whom I had an ambivalent relationship throughout my childhood and early adulthood.)
3. The Avett Brothers' narrative doctrine of Love (and Hate) (October 2010) - A post from 2010 continues to perform well in 2011, due to the Avett Brothers being awesome and Google searches such as "Are the Avett Brothers Christian?" directing people to my lyrical-theological analysis of one of their songs.
4. Anabaptist party-poopers, sports, shopping, and the military (May 2) - The obligatory "Where were you when they killed Osama bin Laden?" post. Hand-wringing and fist-shaking at the military-consumerist complex that has this country's social imagination in a stranglehold. (Another post I'll indicate as one of my favorites. I'll simply add that the last sentence bears repeating: "the death of a violent man by violent means will not end the insanity of terrorism; far from it. America's story just doesn't cut it. I won't celebrate it. Rather, I will celebrate the broken body of Christ, which is for the healing and reconciliation of the world in ways that any temporal nation-state or market economy could - given a million years - neither imagine nor enact.")
5. An old Brethren take on Love winning (March 15) - My brief contribution from Brethren history to the brouhaha surrounding Rob Bell's then-newly-released book, Love Wins. No, I didn't ever read the book and don't really plan on ever doing so.

Read on for the second list, my own subjective list of favorite posts from the Gregorian year just past, 2011:

1. The Butcher's Apprentice (Jan. 10) - I don't get to do much creative writing these days, so when it happens and a story that I'm actually pleased with comes out, I get pretty excited about it. This is the story of me butchering pigs last winter. It got a ringing endorsement from my brother, whose judgment I trust deeply.
2. Chug a beer for the Solider-Priests of Freedom! (Sept. 5) - "God bless America, change the channel, pass me the 'Late Night® All Nighter Cheeseburger®'-flavored Doritos® and a cold Michelob Ultra. I am, after all, watching my figure and - just like in the ad - will go jogging after the game (no I won't, there's another game on and re-run games ESPN Classic after that!)." 
3. Political correctness and humor on the Open Graph (Oct. 17) - When social media becomes collaborative culture creation and critique. The author of the "Coffee with Jesus" comic even responds in the comments section, before it went completely everywhere on Facebook. 
4. So John Howard Yoder, Gene Sharp, and Bashar al-Assad walk into a bar... (August 30) - Exploring the possibilities of discourse between Anabaptist-Christian pacifism and strategic nonviolence.
5. The spiritual disciplines of being troubled and peaceable (June 16) - Tom Jones and Christian pacifism? Yep!