Weekly Links: some good reading from around the web

wouldn't mind heading back here...

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

Faith 

-"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread...": a good poem for Sunday.

-"A Commendation of Leviticus": a helpful guide to a book that often stymies Christians in their Bible reading.

-"15 Proverbs for Social Media Users": much-too-applicable to real life!

-"Some Things You Should Know About Christians Who Struggle With Anxiety": yes, this.

-"On Daughters and Dating: How to Intimidate Suitors": I loved this. I loved the implication that the truly admirable men are the ones who look at strong, godly, content women and say, "Oh, yes please". And that the best way to protect your daughter is to raise her into a woman who is competent and who knows her worth and who knows her family and her God love her, support her, and have her back.  A snippet:

Instead of intimidating all your daughter's potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own. 

Family 

-"McMansion 101: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture": I fell down this rabbit hole thanks to Anne Kennedy, and I don't regret it. This was fascinating.

-"How one family is sending 13 kids to college, living debt free - and still plans to retire early": inspiring stuff!

Fiction

-"Where Her Whimsy Took Me": a love letter to Dorothy Sayers' excellent novel, Gaudy Night.

-"The Writing Tricks We'd Be Naked Without": a good round-up of tips for my fellow writers.

-"The Unofficial Rules of the Starship Enterprise": This hilarious list-style bit of fanfic confirmed my secret theory that life aboard a REAL starship would inevitably involve a M.A.S.H.-style illegal still...


I hope you have a good weekend!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Upkeep is part of wisdom

So, being a person who loves "a little sleep, a little slumber, a folding of the hands to rest", the end of Proverbs 24 always makes me wince a bit.

But the last time I listened through it, I was struck by the image of the stone wall that was broken down.

For a stone wall to be there, surrounding the sluggard's vineyard, it had to have been built at some point, right? Sure.

And that's a lot of work! I haven't ever built a stone wall, that I can recall, but I've helped build lots of other things, installed things: a shelter, a roof, a plot of lawn that needs to be turned into garden ...

That kind of thing is lot of work. Building and installing things is a lot of work.


But here's the thing I'm realizing: it's the sort of work a lazy man can do.

It's the sort of work that I can do.


You can build something on an impulse. You can be in love with the idea of the thing, and push yourself flat-out to get it done. That takes a kind of energy, sure, and that energy looks like the opposite of laziness.

But it's not.

It might just be impulsiveness. It might just be hubris. It might just be a desperate escape from boredom.


Wisdom, though ... wisdom and diligence ... that's something else again.

After you build the wall, diligence is taking care of it. Diligence is going over it regularly and doing the necessary repair. Diligence is pulling out the weeds that grow in the cracks.


There's a regularity of care implied here, and it's opposed to the impulsive method I often use in order to get things done.  There are so many times when I don't bother to get my work done until it becomes urgent.

But that kind of scrambling seems, I think, very different than the picture of wisdom that Proverbs paints.

Wisdom is calmer than that. Wisdom is more orderly than that.


I want to learn the grace of upkeep. Because I am more and more convinced that upkeep is part of wisdom, and that the best things don't happen without that kind of diligent, constant care.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Diligence and Anxiety

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.  

-Proverbs 12:24 

I think Proverbs 12:24 might end up being my verse for the year. I’ve been in Psalm 28 for the last two years, but . . . but now, this is probably it.

I keep trying to explain why, to write about why, and talk about it, and I feel like I keep losing my words. I think it’s because I keep trying to talk about it while I’m slightly anxious. That’s never the best time to do anything (but, me being me, that's sometimes the only time I have).

Speaking of which . . . maybe that’s how I can explain it: diligence saves me when I’m anxious.  Because diligence doesn’t submit to anxious questions. When my emotions and mind are spinning with, “what if? what if? what if?” diligence answers, “Now do this. Okay, good. Now, do this. Okay, good. Now . . .” and is not flustered.

Diligence calms me, if only by forcing me to work. Not franticly, but properly.

Diligence knows what is next and commands me to keep walking.

And the walking itself brings me to a place of peacefulness inside. Because if I am doing (not hurrying! not scrambling! just steadily doing), then I am seeing progress. And eventually, I am seeing completion: that floor is clean, that chapter is edited, that email is sent, that batch of dishes is done.

For a long time, my housekeeping motto has been: Not Perfect, But Better.

Diligence improves that. Diligence makes it: Not Perfect, But Better . . . And Now Better Again. And Now Better Again.

Diligence is refocusing every time my anxiety causes me to careen off into the wild blue. 

Diligence says, “Don’t worry about what might happen; do what you already know is your duty.”

It reminds me of what Corrie Ten Boom said (and I’m quoting from memory here, so forgive any lack of accuracy): “Don’t worry about the parts of the Bible you don’t understand. Worry about the parts you understand but don’t obey.”

Diligence is the obeying. It is the action.

Not in a scurrying rush to be found acceptable or to prove my worth. But in simple gratitude that I have good work to do.

Huh. Diligence is gratitude.

I like that.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a couple of quotations

From Fr. Reardon's commentary on the week's reading in Proverbs 19:

"When swift action is called for in circumstances that do not permit the taking of adequate counsel, such action will be more safely and prudently taken by the man who normally does not act precipitously. That is to say, a person who normally takes adequate counsel before acting on his decisions is the one most likely to react wisely when he does not have opportunity to take counsel. He is the one who will not lose his head under pressure. He will keep his emotions at bay and not act on the basis of them (verse 11), knowing that acting on passion tends to become a habit (verse 19)."

And, in preparation of tomorrow's fast, a few words from Pope Benedict (from his Lenten 2009 sermon):

“Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.”

And again: “From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person.”

I don't know about you, but those last two feel like marching orders for the next forty days. I'm grateful for the direction.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell