From the Archives: children, Advent, and bad television shows

Here are some posts from Novembers past, for your reading pleasure:

-"Wanted Children":

Isn't it, cruelly, peer pressure at its earliest, its foulest? Don't we always tell our children not to base their self-worth on what other people think of them? Yet this bases their very reason for being on whether or not someone thought they were worth it. Wanted? Wanted by whom, why, for how long?

-"Nursing Mother Sculpture": I still love this picture of a beautiful work of art celebrating the bond between mother and child.

-"We Do What We Can":

I’m facing writing the chapter in my book that terrifies me to write, because I’m not equal to it. It’s the heart of the story, and I’m so scared I’m going to get it wrong. It is, in fact, not the place where the gospel is told, but where it is shown, and I'm scared I'm going to get it wrong.

- "24 Days Before Christmas":

The key to doing something every day of Advent, I've found, is to be both prepared and flexible. Have a list of things you want to do, and even have an idea of the order in which you want to do them - perhaps even the day on which you want to do each - but be prepared to change that order and those days. If someone gets sick, it's not the day to try to get all the Christmas packages mailed. It might, instead, be the day to sit on the couch together and read all the Christmas books, one by one.

"Keeping Advent: the week before the fast":

And I want the good stuff to crowd out all the bad. Sometimes the best way to flee temptation, to banish evil thoughts and sinful tendencies, isn't to fight them head on. It's just to fill your heart so full of good things that there's no room for the bad.

"Revolution on NBC - how can such a good show be so bad?":

And . . . the thing is, you could have a character like this and use her well. Self-righteous teenagers are pretty common in real life, after all. But instead of letting her be disillusioned and learn from it, or court disaster and learn wisdom, or anything like that, the narrative seems to insist that we admire her for her pluck.

And, argh. I just can't.

 

Happy feast of St. Andrew, folks!