The Joy Grows: an Easter post at The Lent Project

Today, I'm over at Biola University's Lent Project, writing about Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene in a garden:

Even when we did find our way into gardens, and were refreshed by the common graces of sunlight and rain, we dragged with us our cloud of pollution, dimming the light and poisoning the ground. 

There was light, but it did not purify. Fruit, but it did not assuage our bottomless hunger. Water, but it could not quench our endless thirst. 

Then the Son of God became Man. 

He was light, and no pollution could abide in His brightness. 

He became the food that could truly feed us, and He Himself was the living water—the water that could flow over the dead lands and call life out of them once more. 

He took our sin upon Himself, and burned it all away.

Please head on over to The Lent Project to read the rest.


And if you're interested in reading more about how to celebrate Easter (and the rest of the church year) in your home, consider picking up Let Us Keep the Feast!



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell






This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links!

~ LINKS TO SOME INTERESTING READING and WATCHING, FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR WEEKEND ~

FAITH

-"The Story of Those Little Communion Cups, Whatever Those Are Technically Called"


-"10 Reasons to Love Lent"


-"If Literature's Biggest Romantics Could Text" - the Odysseus one!


-"God's Omniscience as Law and Gospel": worth listening to:

FAmily

-"Solving the Autism Puzzle": This article from MIT Technology Review has research I haven't read elsewhere. You might be interested.

Fiction

-"Think Like a Pirate" - a very useful podcast episode, for you authors out there.


-"The Mad Truth of 'La-La Land'": I haven't seen this yet, but this review makes me want to see it more than ever.


-"How 'Weird Al' Eclipsed Almost Every Star He Ever Parodied": Not fiction, but art, so I'm putting it here.




I hope you have a lovely Sunday, full of worship and rest!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Asking Jesus to Leave

If you're visiting my blog today because you found me via The Lent Project, welcome! Take a look around and make yourself at home. :)


And if you're one of my regular readers, please come and stop by The Lent Project today! I have a devotional up about Jesus' healing of the demon-possessed man ... though I take it a bit of a different direction. Here's how it starts:

This is the story about the people who asked Jesus to leave. 

Yes, it is also the story about the horde of demons infesting one naked and helpless man. It’s also the story about the herd of pigs streaming down the cliff to their deaths. The story about the maniacal strength of the fallen angels as they used their host to break iron shackles, to scream their filthiness to the skies, to dance in the dark around the mountains and the tombs, to terrorize everyone who came near them.

It is that story. 

But it is also the story about the people who asked Jesus to leave.

Please head over to The Lent Project to read the rest, and to enjoy and ponder the art and music that accompanies the devotional. (Biola's CCCA does such an amazing job putting together the readings, art, and music for this every year; it's an honor to get to take part in such a beautiful and collaborative piece of work.)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Warlike Hymns, the Work-Work Balance, and more!

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

Faith

-"Are Our Hymns Too Warlike?" - Such a good explanation of (and defense of!) battle imagery in Christian music.

-"The Work-Work Balance" - Just Anne, being awesome again.

-"I Am Overweight":

This Lent, I decided to move my body more. I believe that God created us as whole people, not as brains-on-sticks, and I want to live into that conviction. That means taking care of my body.

-"What Could Possibly Be Wrong with Christian Masturbation?" - I don't share the author's Catholicism, and hence I don't agree with her entirely, but this is a very thoughtful take on the topic, and I appreciated reading a thoughtful take on something we don't want to usually bother being thoughtful about.

-"Lent and the Preschooler" - It's so fun to see someone using the suggestions from "Let Us Keep the Feast" (and from other awesome resources) in real life!

Family

-"Three Views of Marriage" - good stuff.

-"On the Good of Sleeping with a New Woman Every Night" :

So there is always a new woman beside us, and one at least partially of our own making, as we are at least partially made by her. But it is naive to think that we know her, or she us, just because we live together. To find her again, you must do what you did when you found her at first: you must pay court to her. Not always and not every day, for that would be a bore of a different order and would lose the element of surprise. But from time to time, you must rediscover this woman who is both the same and different from the one you married.

Fiction

-"Transitional Forms": I enjoyed this free piece of fiction from Lightspeed: it offers you a bit of the Old West with your sci-fi.

-Finally, there's a new movie about Biblical events that's just come out, "Risen", and I appreciated both of these (very different) takes on it:

     -"'Risen' Reflects the Subversive Power of the Resurrection"

                      and

    -"Risen: Movies, Faith, and the Bible".





Hope the rest of your weekend is restful and good!
-Jessica Snell


This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links, I'll receive a small percentage of the purchase price - for my own shopping! :) (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links: Lent, Empathy, and more!

Some good reading for your Sunday afternoon....

"Vegetable Stock and Easing into Lent":

We haven't stopped running since before Christmas and it is already a scorching 90 degrees in the Rio Grande Valley. The fact that we are a week into Lent seems impossible, I'm not getting any cues from my life my world that say, "it is time to slow down," and making space for quiet meditation is the last thing I have time for. 

But I suppose this is part of why we have Liturgical seasons. I may never stop hurrying and the seasons in south Texas may always feel out of sync with the rest of the country. Maybe a few times a year I need to be told to how feel because otherwise I would continue to race tripping over my own numb legs.

"They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain":

The pain doesn't go away; but somehow or other, empathy gives the pain meaning, and pain-with-meaning is bearable. I don't actually know how to say what the effect of empathy is, I can only say what it's like. Like magic.

"Undiscovered J.R.R. Tolkien poems found in 1936 school magazine": ooh, look, look, look!  I especially love the Christmas one.


"Sex on the Silver Screen":

Let’s begin here: What we see on the screen is both fact and fiction. When it comes to nakedness and sex in movies, we sometimes lose the fact in the fiction. What we watch is a fictional story, but one that has been acted out in real ways by real people. This has important implications when it comes to a bedroom scene. To film that scene, real people had to remove real clothes, bare real bodies, touch each other in real places, and move together in a real bed.

"And We Created Luncheon, and It Was Good"- whenever Anne writes about cooking, my mouth starts watering. A sample:

Yesterday, because I knew I needed to be about my business in a timely way, I pulled a capacious pot from the soothing cool of my fridge, placed it lovingly on my stove, and turned on the heat. Inside was half a pork roast, cubed and succulent, and half a head of cabbage, chopped and mellowed with chickpeas. Soup, in other words, and golden brown rolls ready to be heated in the oven.  The soup came back up to the boil, the bread softened and warmed, and the aromas wafted aloft to the heavens, gathering us all together for Luncheon.

Hope the rest of your weekend is restful and good!
-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Valentines, Working in the Arctic Circle, and more!

It's the weekend links! On the real weekend! Less than a week after the last installment!

I can't remember the last time this happened.

They're short this week, but nice and meaty.


First off, a writing article from Rachel Aaron: "Flavor vs. Bake". Here's a tidbit:

Just as a good chef is known for the amazing flavors she creates, a good writer is known for their incredible creativity. Food has to taste delicious and books need to be interesting. Both of these come down to flavor, the creative flourish, but in books and cooking, flavor alone is not enough. 

If I had to create a [Great British Bake Off] drinking game, I'd get everyone hammered by having people take a shot every time [the hosts] bemoaned the shame of a bake with wonderful flavor but terrible execution.

Yep. Creativity and execution: you've must have both. You can (and should!) read the rest at her website here.


And this one's a few years old, but it was fascinating: "Interview with a Lab Worker at the Arctic Circle".  Here's a snippet:

This is a remote “community,” but probably not in a manner that you envision. Generally, community implies things like houses, post offices, stores, etc.; we have none of that. We are a remote fly-in camp. We are about 22 miles from the closest town, which is the village of Noatak, Alaska. Neither the mine nor Noatak are accessible by road. None of the villages in this region are accessible by road. The only way in to the mine is by air, and Noatak is accessible by air and river in the summer, and by snow machine during the winter. Our mine facility includes a living area for about 400 persons. The best description may be a large industrial complex with an attached dormitory facility. Meals are prepared by a staff of excellent chefs/cooks, and we have a wide variety of entertainment options. There are several weight rooms, aerobic exercise facilities, sauna, craft areas, satellite TV and game rooms (pool, darts, cards, etc.).

Imagine living and working in a place like that!


And, seasonally, here are some "Theologian Valentines". No snippets, because they're a visual treat and you should just go to the site and enjoy. :)


Finally - and very appropriately for the beginning of Lent - one of the books I'm enjoying right now is Adam Johnson's "The Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed".  This interview with him is a great taste of what's in the book, and a good listen. It's the sort of thing that goes great with an hour of knitting, or doing the dishes, or just a nice glass of wine:




I hope you all have a good first Sunday of Lent!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links: a Day Late

Good reading from around the Web for your . . . Monday.

I hope you still like reading when it's a Monday.

"Flat Book Cover Design: Why Do So Many of This Year's Book Covers Have the Same Design Style?": a look at trends in literary art.


"Small Surprises in Growing Up":

I blinked at the email, in a sort of shocked pause. My boy is too young to have to register for the draft. Except he isn’t. Not anymore. 

"20 Years Ago This Week: A Look Back at 1995":  a photo essay.


"Fasting for Beginners":

When Jesus returns, fasting will be done. It’s a temporary measure, for this life and age, to enrich our joy in Jesus and prepare our hearts for the next — for seeing him face to face. When he returns, he will not call a fast, but throw a feast; then all holy abstinence will have served its glorious purpose and be seen by all for the stunning gift it was. 

Until then, we will fast.

"Lists of Things that Women Cannot Do: The Problem with John Piper (and Me)":

Whatever happened before, and in, and after the garden of Eden affected relationships between men, women, and God – and we have hard theological work to do to figure out where in that journey we are.

"Not All Conservatives": this is an answer to the article above - I love the conversation they're having on this blog! Well-worth subscribing to.

Complementarianism might be better understood as one expression of gender conservativism. As a response to evangelical feminism, complementarianism developed and flourishes in a specific cultural context, namely a western, white, middle-upper class context; because of this, it will reflect western, white, middle-upper class assumptions about work, economics, and home. The fact that Pastor Piper is even concerned with answering the question “what jobs can a woman do” reflects this.

"How to Weave on a Cardboard Loom": why does this fascinate me? I really don't need another hobby . . .


"Mysteries of Consciousness":

Whatever the case, though, such experiences should chiefly remind us how many and how deep the mysteries of consciousness really are. And the profoundest mystery of consciousness is consciousness itself, because we really have little or no clear idea what it is, or how it could either arise from or ally itself to the material mechanisms of the brain.

"How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive": I love cursive. And now I want a fountain pen.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Biola University CCCA Lent Project: Simon of Cyrene

I'm honored today to contribute to Biola's "Lent Project":

And then, we are told in the gospel of Luke, Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry the cross for Jesus. This is different than the depiction in the video, where Simon steps forward—where Simon volunteers to walk beside Jesus. 

Scripture tells us something different: this burden was forced upon Simon. 

Sometimes—often—perhaps even almost always—we do not choose to walk in the way of pain. The Lord Jesus may embrace pain because of love, but we are not as brave as our Savior. 

And despite this, He lets us join Him.

You can read the rest of it here, at Biola's site. 

Peace of Christ to you, 

Jessica Snell

Lent: a season of less

photo credit: Betsy Barber

In giving ourselves to a season of less, we learn that our personal comforts have little to do with the love of Christ. We, like most of God's creatures, are seasonal and should know that some seasons are harsher than others. There are different lessons to be learned, different habits to be employed in winter than in summer. This is as true in our spiritual lives as it is in our gardens or the forest.

                                  -Cate MacDonald, "Lent", Let Us Keep the Feast.




This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links: new blogs, saying "yes" to Lent, and more!

To start, this week I found two wonderful new blogs. The first, Liturgy of Life, is written by a fellow Anglican and lover of the church year. Check it out here.

The second, Pass the Salt Shaker, is a discussion of singleness and marriage in the church, written by a group of great folks, including at least one of the contributors to Mere Fidelity (one of my favorite podcasts). Check out the new blog here.


Now, on to our regular weekend collection of articles:

"Holy Week Meyers-Briggs": This is just hilarious and awesome.

"Giving Up 'Yes' for Lent":

I don’t want to second-guess my last few years nor frame these amazing opportunities in pessimistic terms. But I do want to consider whether it is always courageous to say "yes." 

"Where Demons Fear to Tread: Angels and the Atonement":

As it turns out, the theologians and artists of the church over the centuries have reflected on this question with surprising results, coming up with several ways that the work of Christ had a significant bearing on the unfallen angels.

"Learning From Bodies":

Ability is not what makes death significant. At birth this baby had capacities below that of a healthy fetus at ten weeks. Holding his body, living and then dead, proves to me that it doesn’t matter how early the human heart beats, how early it is possible to feel pain, or when the senses develop. No ability or strength confers human status—not being viable or sentient or undamaged or wanted. Being of human descent is enough; you cannot earn or forfeit your humanity. If this baby’s death does not matter, no death matters.

"Joseph: the faithful carpenter":

Mary is rightly credited as setting the ultimate example of how Christians should respond to God's calling. But likewise, I think that Joseph is exemplar in demonstrating how God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) loves us, his sinful people. As a husband, father, and erstwhile woodworker, I can find no greater earthly example to follow.

And finally, to listen to, The City's podcast this week on "Non-Christian Books" was full of good stuff.


Have a great weekend!

Weekly Links: On Going to Mars, Sex, Lent, and more!

Some good reading (and watching) for your weekend:

"On the Dangers of Attempting Mars":

So fretting that people who choose to go on an expedition they know is dangerous are going to die...is silly, and also presumptuous.  Humans have been dying for tens of thousands of years.  The ones who stayed home died.  The ones who migrated died.  The ones who went out and did dangerous things, new things, died in droves. The ones who fought in wars and the civilians in whose lands war raged died . . .

Top 10 Things I’d Say About Sex If I Had No Filter: This has a lot of interesting food for thought, but I love this part: 

I think we’re so scared of people having premarital sex that we oversell the honeymoon. Let’s talk about sex as a decades long fun research project, not a “one night entry into bliss”. Seriously. 

Ha! "Decades long fun research project" - I love it!


"'Have a (nearly) Cheerless Lent!' He said thoughtfully":

Now I could be Mr. Philosophy and point out that “happy” can mean “human flourishing” as the Declaration uses it in “pursuit of happiness” but it would not help matters. Fasting from the world, the flesh, and the devil is necessary for human flourishing but it is not human flourishing. 

And finally, why Jackie Chan is truly the best at what he does (I particularly like the insight about showing the beginning of a hit twice; it reminds me of "tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell it to 'em, and tell 'em that you told 'em):

Weekly Links!

"What ISIS Really Wants": this article from the Atlantic is making the rounds on social media, and for once, that makes sense. This is incredibly information-dense and so helpful to understanding what's going on behind the headlines.

"Lenten Calendar & Plans": Some great resources for Lent from Shirley, including recipes & crafts.

"Keep the Feast, Keep the Fast":

Jesus is the Last Adam because He keeps the fast. He enters a world that is no longer a garden, but a howling waste, and in that wilderness Satan tempts Him to break the fast, to be an Adam: “You’re hungry; eat thisnow. You deserve the accolades of the crowds; you can have it now if you jump off the temple. You want all authority in heaven and on earth, but your Father won’t give that to you unless you suffer an excruciating, shameful death; you can have it all now . . . 

Jesus refused, and refused, and then refused again, and in so doing broke the power of Adamic sin. Jesus kept the fast; He waited, labored, suffered, died, and then opened His hand to receive all life, all glory and honor, all authority and dominion, that His Father had to give Him . . .

Ash Wednesday

We were at church early this morning, before the sun was up, to get ashes put on our foreheads and to be reminded we were going to die.  All of us, yes, even these beautiful children, with their bright eyes and their round cheeks.

But we were also at church, early this morning, as the sun was coming up, to drink and to be fed the very blood and body of our Lord, and to be reminded that we were going to live. All of us, yes, even those whose bones were aching and whose skin was wrinkled.

The Lord made us of dust, and to dust we shall return.

The Lord became one of us, and like Him we will be, rising again, by His grace.

I wish you a good and holy Lent.  May it be a season of traveling back to your first love, growing ever lighter with every step, as we drop our burdens by the wayside, along with our pleasures. As we ask forgiveness for our sins and mercies for our shortcomings.

As we learn to repent.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

P.S. If you want some more resources for the Lenten season, I have links to Lenten content around the web here, on my church year resources page.  You can view all Lenten content from this blog here (which includes both links and original content).  Finally,  Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home, has an entire chapter on Lent, and includes everything I wish I'd known when I first started observing the season.

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links

Just a few this week:

"The 'Plus One' Approach to Church":

Are you just starting out at a new church and don’t know how to get plugged in? Have you been at your church for years and still haven’t found your place? Are you feeling disconnected, unhappy, or bored with your local congregation? Let me suggest you enter the “Plus One” program of church involvement.

"Considering Lent": I'm honored to see "Let Us Keep the Feast" on this list, and there are some other great resources on this list - check it out!

"Shifts and Changes: part four, the growing of children":

I said yesterday that Motherhood is discovering every day the capacity to do more work, like a long protracted endless boot camp. But that's only one half of motherhood. The other half of motherhood, assuming that you can divide motherhood into two halves and why wouldn't you, is that as soon as you've figured something out and gotten good at it, the child undergoes some kind of radical change and you are faced with new unknown territory. The rule is, as soon as you've gotten into a comfortable routine, that's when there will be a revolutionary change.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Links: Easter, Feminism, and more!

"The City Podcast: How to Go from Fasting to Feasting": I really enjoyed this particular podcast about the start of Easter - and about the real meaning of Easter.

"Next Year in Jerusalem":

But for us kids, there was no incongruity: Growing up Hebrew Catholics just meant having much more FUN on Easter than anyone else. My Christian friends wore straw hats, ate jelly beans, and maybe dyed eggs if their mothers could abide the mess. We, on the other hand, whooped it up for an entire weekend as we prepared for and celebrated the Passover seder, the ceremonial feast which Jesus ate with his disciples at the Last Supper. At our seder, which we held on Holy Saturday, there was chanting and clapping, giggling over the mysterious and grisly ceremonial roasted egg and horseradish root, glass after glass of terrible, irresistible sweet wine, special silver and china that only saw the light of day once a year, pillows for the chairs so we could “recline,” and the almost unbearable sweetness as the youngest child asked, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

"Yes, we still need feminism":

This is why we need feminism. Because someone needs to fight back, to tell these people, men and women: STOP. This is not what women are for. This is now how it’s supposed to go. This is not how life gets carried on. This is no life, for women or for men.

"What You Can Learn from Calvin and Hobbes about the Message and the Medium":

Bill Watterson undertook a number of worthy crusades during the decade in which he made comic strip history –what fan of the Sunday Comics section can forget his epic battle to get the funnies printed at a decent size?– and he railed against “the cheapening of the comics” on a number of fronts. But it was his decision not to extract his characters from their natural setting and transfer them to “bedsheets and boxer shorts” that provides us all with an unforgettable living parable of artistic integrity.

Finally, I love this video about bullet journaling. It's such a cool concept - I'm going to start trying it this week!

Weekend Links: Lent, Psalms, and more!

A few articles for your weekend reading pleasure:

"The Work of the People":

Habits and disciplines are formed through repetition. Thus, the ritualistic and repetitive nature of Christian liturgy allows us to engage God in a similar manner from Sunday to Sunday and day to day. This repetition transforms us because it is habit forming. In short, our relationship with God becomes habitual and through this habit God does his work in us as we habitually come to him. 

"Lent for a forgetful person":

But I have been happy and perhaps a little startled to find some things that work for me. Things that, even almost three weeks into lent, have helped to keep it forefront in my mind, even in the middle of every day life.

"David and Saul": Usually I excerpt a quotation from the articles I link to, but I'd be tempted to excerpt the entire last half of this one, both because it's short and because it's excellent. So just go read it - read it because of what Anne has to say about the Psalms.

"504 Meeting at the Junior High": Yes, this:

The trickiest part about having a child who is fine ninety five percent of the time, is that I begin to forget why we have all the structures in place. I begin to second guess. I am tempted to do away with the parts of the structure that are time or money consuming to maintain, things like therapy. Everything feels good, but then I have a 504 meeting where I have to list out the official diagnoses. Then I remember that these people in the room and the psychiatrist who signed the diagnosis paper, would have no hesitation in bumping me if they felt that Gleek did not need the resources they are providing. The fact that they recognized Gleek’s need helps me to know I’m not just making this up. I would like it to all be my imagination, because then I could just stop imagining it, problem solved. Instead I get to walk alongside my girl while she treks her way through a long and difficult growing process.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Facepalm Jesus, purity, talking about race, and more!

Here's some reading for your weekend!

"Coffee with Facepalm Jesus Calling":

An earlier generation asked What Would Jesus Do? But these days, people are increasingly comfortable with skipping the hypothetical, shifting out of the subjunctive, and just telling us What Jesus Would Say, in their opinions. If he were really here, that is: if he were talking, if he were blogging, or meme-ing, or cartooning, or writing devotionals.

"Let the Battle for Purity Begin":

As a young priest in the 1970s, I served for a decade in campus ministry settings. In those years, the first fruits of the sexual revolution were already apparent. Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital” in the midst of such wreckage would describe it well.

"On Being White (And Talking About It) – Part 1":

I have seen my students do one of two things when confronted with a glaring disparity in the real world to their beliefs about human equality – they either (1) become very uncomfortable and frustrated that their parents didn’t teach them the truth, or (2) become very self-righteous, sure that equality is real, and that anyone experiencing inequality must be morally at fault for their own situation.

And Part II can be found here.

"Murder in Los Angeles":

The Homicide Report addresses two questions every newspaper covering a major metropolis should answer: who was killed last night, and why? But most newspapers don’t do this because the logic of most newsrooms is that not all murders are sexy, grisly, or surprising enough to be written about. The Homicide Report operates on the inverse principal: Every murder gets a story because murder is inherently worthy of our attention

"Today Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath, Died (1711)": I'm linking to this one because it contains the full text of Bishop Ken's sublime "Evening Hymn". I've long loved the version in our hymnal, and I was delighted to learn that not only does it have more verses, but that there's a matching "Morning Hymn" to go with it!

"What I’m learning about choice and gratitude from not skipping songs on my iPod":

Not having a choice about which song I listen to makes me calculate finding pleasure in songs differently. Instead of actively working to perfectly assemble the music so that it will make me happy, I derive happiness from whatever is in front of me. The switch in mindsets in the same switch you make when you go from being a shopper making a purchase to being a recipient receiving a gift. One involves feeling powerful, deciding which among a variety of items will best please you; the other involves receptivity, seeking what is good in whatever you have been given.

Weekend Links!

If you're here from Biola's Lent Project, welcome! This is a blog about faith & family - but particularly about celebrating the church year at home. If you're new to the blog, you might want to check out my page of church year resources from around the web, and also the page of posts by category.

Finally, if you're interested in something more in-depth on celebrating Lent in your home, check out "Let Us Keep the Feast", a book entirely dedicated to bringing the rhythms of the church year into your day-to-day life.


Okay! Now, on to the weekly links! Here's some good reading (and watching) for your weekend:

"I Have All the Time I Need": very encouraging thoughts on being busy (or not).

"Down with Random Acts of Kindness (What’s Best Next)":

It would be too much to say that Perman redeems the genre of productivity lit, but he has accomplished something pretty big here: he has written a productivity book that does most of the theological filtering for me! Instead of needing to supplement my reading with a big dose of the gospel, I find that it’s all already smoothly integrated. Perman has thought through his entire book as a detailed thought project on applying the gospel to the life of work.

"From Father to Son — J.R.R. Tolkien on Sex":

Tolkien dearly loved his children, and he left a literary legacy in the form of letters. Many of these letters were written to his sons, and these letters represent, not only a hallmark of literary quality, but a treasure of Christian teaching on matters of manhood, marriage, and sex. Taken together, these letters constitute a priceless legacy, not only to the Tolkien boys, but to all those with whom the letters have been shared.

And, finally, some nerdy English language goodness:


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Post at Biola's Lent Project

I'm honored to be a part of Biola University's Lent Project, " a 54-day aesthetic meditation on Christ’s life, death and resurrection." You can read my reflection here.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Link Round-up: so many links!

Lots of good reading for your Sunday afternoon. Enjoy! :)

"It’s Not Just Sabbatarians Who Need Sabbath":

Sabbath teaches us to depend upon God. By taking one day away from our normal responsibilities, we declare our dependence upon God. We do not need to work seven days a week in order to have daily bread; we can work six days and spend the seventh in worship, rest, and Christian fellowship, and through it all trust that he will provide for our needs. 

"Words of Radiance and the Art of Creating Epic Fantasy":

A big book doesn’t indicate quality—but if you find a big book that you love, then there is that much more of it to enjoy. Beyond that, I felt—and feel—there is an experience I can deliver in a work of this length that I could never deliver in something shorter, even if that’s just the same book divided up.

"The Ratatouille Trap":

And yet I think there is a serious danger here, a Ratatouille trap. It is so much easier for nice people, and I am ignoring the bigots, to encourage hapless dreamers that we forget to check for what this post assumes: aptitude, drive, and gumption. I once met a student who hated reading, memorizing, or long hours who had as his ambition going to Harvard Law School. When I pointed out what the student would have to do to get to Harvard Law School, he accused me of “stealing his dream.” I was happy to map out an actual plan to get him there, but he wanted to dream about getting there instead. He wanted the lifestyle of a retired, super-successful lawyer, but was not willing to do the work or run the risk of doing family law in a local strip mall.

"Rediscovering Jesus’ Hymnbook":

Godly anger, heart-wrenching sorrow, dark depression, effulgent joy, honest questioning, and exuberant praise are just a sampling of the emotional range covered by the psalms. Most churches sense the burden of teaching their people how to think. Very few consider their responsibility to teach their people how to feel. The psalms serve as the tutors of our affections.

"Marked by Ashes":

At my first Ash Wednesday service several years ago, I knelt in a quiet, contemplative sanctuary and was surprised by feeling almost irrepressible rage. As the priest marked each attendant with a cross of ashes on our foreheads, I felt as if he was marking us for death. I was angry at death. I was angry at the priest as if it was somehow his doing. 

"Ashes to Ashes: Death and Dogs and Children and Jesus":

So there I was, kneeling and thinking, ‘I can’t believe we’re all here sitting in our own places and it’s all so calm’, and I hear Elphine begin to say ‘shshsh’ over and over and over again, and then the faint mosquito tones of Marigold hissing “wait wait wait wait.” By that point we were all covered in ash. Elphine had herded them forward, pushing and pulling and generally bossing. Then psalm 51. Then the hissing and whispering. Mid way through the litany the hissing became full throated talking and gasping. Then, mercifully, the peace. Elphine brought them up and handed them to me. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Marigold asked me why we had to have ashes all over us and I told her that she was going to die. Sorry.”

Last but not least, who knew this song could sound this good?