Weekly Links!

SOME INTERESTING LINKS FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, FAMILY, AND FICTION.

Faith 

-"4 Keys to Kindling Your Love for the Book of Revelation": I always appreciate posts like this that give me some short, clear help to better understanding the Bible.


-"Thin Places": Especially good to read with All Saints' Day coming up on Tuesday.

Family 

-"Free Coloring Books from World-Class Libraries & Museums: The New York Public Library, Bodleian, Smithsonian & More": if you're going to color, why not color the classics?

-"Can your New Year's resolutions take the reality test? Or, my secret to straightening out your life": I was sick this week, and Like Mother, Like Daughter's house-stuff posts are lovely little comfort reads, and so I stumbled back across this one. It's not really so much about New Year's resolutions as it is about doing your normal household duties with contentment rather than shocked astonishment that you actually have to work and...and I liked it. And I needed to be reminded of it. So I thought I'd like to it, even though it is, in internet years, ancient.

Sometimes the old things are the best things.

- Meditatio has been doing a month-long blogging project on being a mom of a special needs kid. I've found it interesting, and thought you might, too.


-"Looking Forward to Advent":  I am already driving my eldest to choir practice for Lessons and Carols, which is my first sign that Advent is drawing nigh. Here's a post from Annie with some good resources, and a request for more if you know of any--go on over to her place and comment!

(And, after that, here's your obligatory book-plug: "Let Us Keep the Feast" is great for helping you get your home--and your heart--ready for the season!)

Fiction 

-"Reading and Writing for the Glory of God" - not fiction, but still writing.  I like reading Challies' thoughts because he seems to have a really good handle on the "why" of his writing.

-"This Man Memorized a 60,000-Word Poem Using Deep Encoding" - a neat story about a fellow who memorized all of Milton's Paradise Lost. If you're looking to memorize more scripture or poetry, this will give you some good advice and some inspiration.

I hope the end of your weekend is restful and good!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Weekly Links - All Saints' Day Edition!

My weekly* round-up of interesting reading from around the web:

-As a Christian who appreciates science (and science fiction!), I enjoyed reading this interview with the Pope's astronomer.  A highlight of it:

Rather than learning something theologically new, what I take from my discoveries is a more general sense of the “personality” of the creator. It might be compared to discovering a trove of old manuscripts where you think one of them might be some unpublished play of Shakespeare. You’d be excited because it might be a wonderful new work, or even just a window into what he was thinking while he was writing. But you also need to be sure it really is Shakespeare that you’re reading, not some other writer.

- Our family loves the show "Mythbusters", and so I enjoyed this article: "The Craziest Myths the Mythbusters Have Tackled, According to the Mythbusters".


- Now onto religion and society: "This Is Your Wake-up Call" is a sober reflection on abortion and one of the hardest stories in the book of Judges.


- Simcha Fisher on "Rogue Laughter in a Flippant Society" - I especially liked this paragraph:

. . . think of the difference between an eleven-year-old boy laughing about sex, and a forty-year-old married man laughing about sex. The grown man has probably earned his laughter; the boy can't have done so, and is laughing partly because he wants to look more experienced than he really is. True laughter, and the best jokes, come when we have some experience with the subject matter -- when we've faced something big and have survived.

- Anne Kennedy on "Celebrating the Reformation". Good, timely stuff:

The church cannot go beyond the gospel. The Christian doesn’t graduate from a saving knowledge of Jesus into something better later on. So also, the Christian cannot ascend to something higher, cannot move on to some better, fancier doctrine. From the moment of Jesus’ first infant cry, to his sorrowful and painful death, to his rising again, to his crushing of his enemies under his feet those who love him can never cry out someone else’s name for help, they can never give glory to themselves or to another, they can never be sustained by some other grace, they can never lean on and be ruled over by some other authority than Jesus’ own Word, they can never be tethered by some other faith.

-Reformation Day yesterday, All Saints Day today - and yet it's still Ordinary Time!  So, here's Anna Gissing on "Living in Ordinary Time":

. . . many Protestant Christians have been re-learning the rituals and habits of living into these churchy seasons as a way to inhabit the gospel and to structure our lives in a way that helps us remember that God is the author of time.

-Speaking of Reformation Day, I enjoyed this dense bio on "Katherine Parr: Reformation Queen of England and Ireland".


-AND, speaking of All Saints' Day, here's a lovely sonnet by Malcolm Guite for All Hallow's Eve.


- Tim Challies is Canadian, but I think his wise words are a comfort in any political climate: "I Went Away for Just 6 Days":

The temptation is not only to put my hope in politicians but to put my despair in them as well. I will be tempted not only to find too much joy in the election of the person I voted for, but also to sink too far into despair in the election of the person I did not. Either way, whether I soar too high or sink too low, I am declaring that I have put my trust in a man more than in God. I have forgotten that, ultimately, it is God who rules over and through earthly rulers.

-Finally, my friends and family and I found this article on "The Things that Drain Each Personality Type Most" scarily accurate.



Happy All Saints' Day, folks!
-Jessica Snell



*Or, if we're honest, biweekly.

7 Quick Takes: Children's Books for All Saints Day

Joining in with Jen, over at Conversion Diary!

Tomorrow is All Saints Day!  I love sharing stories of the faithful Christians of the past with my kids. Here are some good books we've enjoyed over the years:

1) Caedmon's Song, by Ruth Ashby: a lovely picture book rendition of one of the earliest poems written in English.

2) Women of the Bible, by Margaret McAllister: This lovely book was a present from my mom, and my girls love it!

3) A Song for Joseph, by Mervin A. Marquardt: I grew up on this lovely, sing-song story of the foster-father of our Lord. I still love it.  It's only available used, but it's worth seeking out.

4) John the Baptist, by Ronald Klug: the wonderful thing about this book is it doesn't end right at John's death, but the final page shows his followers going to Jesus. Which is what all the saints do: point us towards the Lord.

5) Hero Tales, by Dave & Neta Jackson: This book is for older children, and introduces them to some more modern Christian heroes, like William Tyndale and Dwight L. Moody.

6) I Sing a Song of the Saints of God, by Lesbia Scott, illustrated by Judith Gwyn Brown: the text of the perfect children's hymn for All Saints Day is beautifully illustrated. Don't just read this one to your kids; sing it.

7) Saint George and the Dragon, by Margaret Hodges: yes, this is a legend. And yes, it's important that your children understand the difference between legends and history. But it's a beautiful, Christian legend, and the illustrations in this book are just gorgeous!


Which books are your favorites? I always love adding to our home library. :)


And while you're here, be sure to enter the giveaway for "Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home"! This book will help you bring the rhythms of the liturgical season into your every day life.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: All Saints, All Souls, Reformation Day, and more!

Here's your terrifying link for the day: "The Dark Side of Dubai". Seriously, folks. It sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi: gleaming, Disneyland-like outer surfaces, and an underside of slavery, abuse, and torture, all wrapped up in an artificially propped-up environment surrounded by an arid, hostile desert that's trying to consume buildings and people alike. All absolutely true and in existence at this very moment. *shiver* (ETA: I should have noted that this article is a couple of years old. Still, there's a ton in there I hadn't read anywhere else, and I still think it's worth the read.)

In older, better news: Happy Reformation Day, my friends!

Tomorrow is All Saints' Day (celebrated here with candy) and Wednesday is All Souls, upon which, apparently, we all ought to eat doughnuts. I can get down with that tradition.

And here's an easy idea for celebrating All Saints with your kids, if you're feeling crafty.

Back to the bad news (well, sort of, if the-wages-of-sin-is-death is news), apparently they're finding that porn use is causing erectile dysfunction in otherwise healthy men. (I don't even want to think of the amount of spam I'm gonna get for linking to this). The article is really interesting though, because apparently it's a physiological problem with the reward cycle in the brain. I just have to say: I don't think that defeating your body's ability to react to dopamine is going to make your life better. Yeah. Probably not.

Now, as a palate-cleanser, here's Mumford and Sons singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing":

links!

If you're going to read one thing here, read Amy's post on Desert Spirituality over at On A Joyful Journey. It's a further meditation on the journey God lead her on after she lost her oldest daughter, and exactly where He took her is a wonder.

A church in my old diocese has been forced out of their property:

In the days leading up to the turnover, there were few visible signs of change at the church. One, however, was unmistakable, contained in a message from the Book of Hebrews on the marquee out front. "You joyfully accepted confiscation of your property," it read.

On Sunday, Holman plans to preach about its meaning, quoting from the remainder of the passage as he tells parishioners that their fight for their principles will bring "better and lasting possessions" -- a reference, he said, to Jesus.

Then, given the day, here is a post appropriate for All Hallow's Eve, Not Afraid of the Dead.

And, for tomorrow, Susanne Dietz writes For All the Saints.


I'm thinking of making this coiled cloth basket - so pretty!

And the obligatory YouTube videos:
Love this - the best moment is when he first takes the audience to a new note, and they all laugh in delight as they realize what they just did:

And this video makes me think that sometimes it just really is worth it to work really really hard to train your body to do something that delights you. (Which is why I'm considering taking up the unicycle.)

Getting Ready for All Saints' Day

Today my oldest daughter and I went through our books and got out the ones about the saints (a few of them are pictured above). We've started reading bits of them, and will keep doing it throughout the week.

We've been playing some saints' lives during dress-up time. We're beginning to sing the children's saint hymn around our house again.

What are you doing to get ready for All Saints this Saturday?

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Happy All Saints' Day!

The Lord is glorious in his saints!

So, whose stories are you going to tell to your children today?

On our walk back from the grocery store, I talked to Bess about saints, and how saints are people who loved the Lord very much and who were, with his help, holy in what they did. And we talked about St. Brigid, and St. Mary, and St. Peter and St. John, and St. Augustine and St. Monica. About how Brigid fed the poor and visited those in prison, and how Peter walked on the water with Jesus and John was Jesus' friend and Augustine wrote about God to help other people understand God better and how Monica prayed a lot. And we talked about how all of these things were things that made God happy and how Bess could be a saint too by loving the Lord Jesus and doing the good things he wanted her to do.

And do you know what my daughter said when we reached our front door? She volunteered that a Jesus-pleasing thing she could do was "share my candy with my brother when I have a bowl of candy and he doesn't."

Yay! She gets it!

Our other plans for All Saints' include reading some picture books of the saints' lives, singing our new hymn a lot AND . . . seeing our new baby! Yep, we have an ultrasound today, and I can't wait to see this squirt who has, FINALLY started regularly wiggling around so that I can feel him or her.

And it seems like All Saints' Day is a good day to see our new little one, because we hope that he or she will be a saint one day too. May all our children love our Lord and Savior.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

out and about

Sorry that posts have been light; we've been out and about, and exciting things have been happening.

One exciting thing: we went on vacation! Adam and I realized that aside from a weekend spent camping, we hadn't gotten away for a summer vacation this year. And since his job is pretty generous with paid vacation time, it seemed a shame not to use some of it. So we decided to have a fall vacation, and discovered, to our delight, that lodging rates in the little mountain town we wanted to visit are much cheaper in the fall than they are either in the summer (mountain biking season) or in the winter (skiing season). So we went up to the mountains, to the same place we'd honeymooned, and went hiking and canoeing, and introduced the kiddoes to the joys of throwing rocks into a lake. One other really cool thing was that on the last day of four vacation, my folks came up and babysat the kids for a few hours so that Adam and I could go off on our own. All in all, it was a splendid time. It was kind of funny being back at our honeymoon locale for the first time since our honeymoon, and having three (one in utero) kids with us.

The second very exciting thing is that I sold another article, this time to a magazine that I've read and loved for years. I'll give you more information when it's closer to actually being published; right now I'm in the revision process. Which is pretty amazing too, because the editor I'm working with is so good at his job. I'm learning a lot about the craft of writing just reading his suggestions and requests for revisions.

And I'm starting to feel huge. Last I checked, I hadn't gained a ton of weight (only about 10 lbs., and I'm close to halfway through), but I look very, very pregnant now. It's fun. Especially when my daughter looks at my belly and says, "baby!" and gives my belly a kiss. And then when my son (who at 1 1/2 has no idea what's going on) imitates her and says, "baby!" and makes a kissing noise too.

But, anyway, vacation's over, and life's getting back to normal, but it feels like a better normal for having that time away with my family. Being with Adam all day, instead of just early mornings and the evenings, was such a blessing. Being with him twenty-four hours a day gave me so many opportunities to notice how well our marriage works and how glad I am to be married to this particular man. There were so many times this last week when I thought, "with anyone else, this wouldn't be fun. With anyone else, this would be so much harder. With anyone else, I would be so frustrated. But with you, this is wonderful." It was a blessing to have the time and space to see how blessed I am in my marriage, if that makes sense. I am so grateful for this man, and theses children. Praise the Lord, who created them, and gave us all to each other!

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

p.s. the work on learning the saint's song continues apace! Brie has begun to ask for "the song we're learning for all Saint's Day" at bedtime; and all the fun of getting ready for Nov. 1 is reminding me of how much I'm looking forward to Advent.

St. Michael and All Angels (plus All Saint's Day)

So . . . I missed Michaelmas. I've been so into this Ordinary Time thing that I've gotten out of the habit of looking for feasts. But I'm beginning to think about All Saint's Day, which is (I think) the next big feast day coming up. (Um, that is, not forgetting the feast days of St. Luke, St. James, St. Simon and St. Jude.)

I don't celebrate the weird American perversion that is Halloween, but I am very interested in finding out what the older, better traditions surrounding All Hallow's Day are, so that I can celebrate them with my children. I like the idea of having a day where we talk all about the people who really, really loved Jesus (this, I think, is the best way to define "saints" to a one year old and a three year old).

My best idea so far is to collect some good picture books about the saints (we already have a few), and to spend the week of All Saint's Day reading them daily. Also, there's a great children's hymn called "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" that I'd love to teach my kids. Bess, at least, is good at picking up song lyrics, and I think if we sang it every day this next month, that she'd learn it. I especially like how the end of each verse says, "and I mean to be one too" (a saint, that is).

And I've heard that in some places in the world, it's traditional to make pretzels on All Saints' Day. I admit that I don't quite understand why.

So, does anyone else have any great ideas about how to celebrate All Saints' with kids?

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell