Mini Reviews: The Books I Read in March 2017

--I'm catching up on my book notes, taking them a month at a time. Since I'm behind, I'm only allowing myself a line or two on each book. I hope they still give you an idea of whether or not these would be books you'd enjoy picking up yourself!--



-"What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home," by Laura Vanderkam. This is a compilation of three short e-books. I don't share Vanderkam's optimism about how many things can be accomplished in one short weekend or morning, but I still appreciate her novel and hopeful way of looking at the number of hours we are all given in our days and weeks.



-"Eleanor and Park," by Rainbow Rowell. I listened to this one on audiobook. Beautifully and compellingly written, as Rowell's work always is. But I didn't enjoy it, mostly because the heroine's home life is so (legitimately, realistically) bleak and depressing. I also wouldn't pass it on to a teenager, b/c of the level of (probably also legitimate and realistic) sensuality. But beautifully done, all the same.



-"The Masqueraders," by Georgette Heyer. This was my favorite Heyer for a long, long time. ("Sylvester, Or, The Wicked Uncle" has since supplanted it from the top spot, but just barely.)

This romance, full of adventure and derring-do, disguise and weariness of disguise, a slow-burning friendship turned into passion, and one of the happiest and most harmonious sibling relationships I've ever seen in fiction, remains one of my very favorite stories. Prudence and her "mountain" win me over every time.



-"How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets," by Dana K. White. Lots of housekeeping books say they're for people who aren't naturally good at housekeeping.

This one actually is.




-"The Hobbit," by J. R. R. Tolkien. Just finished listening through this with Adam and the kids. Delightful, as always.



-"Busman's Honeymoon," by Dorothy L. Sayers. It was my first time making it through this--which is shocking, given my love for "Gaudy Night"!  But l always stalled after the delightful exchange of letters at the beginning of the book. Still, I'm glad I've read it now, and next time I can revisit it with pleasure, knowing that while it might be a bit uneven, it has all the charm and interest and deep feeling I've come to expect from Sayers' accounts of Lord Peter and Harriet.

(Also





--SPOILER ALERT--




the ghosts! Why did I never know about the ghosts???)




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: Wodehouse, Tolkien, and more!

Guarding the good reading...

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

(I should note: I've skipped posting this for a few weeks, but I was still collecting links, so this week's version is super-long. Sorry!)

(Note the second: if you want some good fictional reading, please take a look at my short story "An Anonymous Source" in Havok's Heroes vs. Villains edition. Hope you enjoy it!)

 

Faith 

-"Association Between Religious Service Attendance and Lower Suicide Rates Among US Women".

-"The Evangelical Gender Crack-Up" - There's so much good stuff here.

-"Individuality: a fresh concept":

You see what’s going on here? The prophet’s audience, the Jews of the Babylonian exile, find it hard to understand how anyone – let alone God – would not want to punish a son for his father’s wrongdoing. And vice versa. Acting in any other way seems to them not only stupid, but positively unjust. What we see happening here is a major cultural shift. A brand new idea in human history, imported from outside our world.

-"The Distressing Disguise of the Slut".

-"'We Know that We Are Going To Be Killed': An Interview with an Iraqi Priest".

-"Donald Trump, Man of Faith" - particularly this bit:

...the gloomy aspect of traditional Christian practice is also the wellspring of Christian compassion. At the moment a Christian asks for forgiveness, he must acknowledge his own weakness and look mercifully on the weakness of others. In the Our Father, the Christian asks that he be forgiven, just as he in turn forgives. From the holy terror that Peale called “fear thoughts” comes the light of Christian love.

Family 

-An older article that might be good to revisit this week: "How silence can breed prejudice: A child development professor explains how and why to talk to kids about race".

-"I'm Good With Whatever: The High Price of People Pleasing".

-"Because Life Doesn't Give Do-Overs".

Fiction

- "On Writing Negative Reviews" - I have to agree: negative reviews can be incredibly useful to the reader. And, I'd argue, to the author as well. I know I've read negative book reviews and thought, "The reviewer might not like that, but I'd love it," and gone ahead and picked up the book.

-"All In": On giving it everything, every time you write.

-"Interviews: P.G. Wodehouse" - just delightful.

-"Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year": I'm going to try. I truly am. Only 83 to go...

-"The Magic of the Lord of the Rings Books":

My favorite book began with a disappointment: The hero disappeared at the end of its first chapter...

-"Belle's Fairy Tale Education: Learning Virtue in Disney's Beauty and the Beast": a lovely meditation on the value of fairy tales, as seen in my favorite Disney movie ever.

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.)

Weekend Links - Memorial Day Edition

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, AND FAMILY, AND FICTION) ...

But first, on this Memorial Day, here is a prayer from the BCP, in remembrance of those who have given their lives for our country:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead: We give thee thanks for all thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence; and give us such a lively sense of thy righteous will, that the work which thou hast begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

 

Faith 

-"Gandalf, Job, and the Indignant Love of God":

So what of God’s opening lines? Is he not dealing forcefully with Job? Is he not angry? Even indignant and sarcastic? Yes, but none of this means he’s acting with anything less than merciful lovingkindness.

-"How to Glorify God By Being a Generalist" 

-"A (Very) Brief, Gospel-Centered Defense Against the Problem of Evil"

-"The Phil Vischer Podcast: Religious Liberty with Russell Moore"

-"A Call for Plodding Bloggers"

-"Is Your Pastor Happy to See You?":

To be a Christian is to be a churchman or churchwoman. The New Testament knows of no vibrant discipleship apart from life in the local church, no authentic Christianity divorced from the covenant of life together according to the biblical structure of the local church. And if this is true, it behooves us to be the best churchmen and churchwomen we can be. And good churchfolk love, respect, and submit to their pastors.

Family

-"Keeping the Calendar to One Day" - an inspirational idea from Ann.

-"Don't Dismiss Housework":

This is where, I would argue, the moral imagination comes in. The task of cleaning itself may not require a lot of intellectual prowess—but it does require a great deal of imaginative skill and understanding. The work of maintaining a home is tied up inexplicably in the question of what it means to be human, and the person who cares for the home must adhere to a set of underlying ideas and mores that make his or her work meaningful. After all, why is it that we do not wish to live in squalor? Why do we see cleanliness and order as essential tenets for human flourishing? It must be because these constitute basic understandings of what human life should constitute—ideas that have a moral and spiritual tradition.

-"What I've Learned in Twenty Years of Marriage": I love the difference he articulates between a "merger marriage" and a "start-up marriage".

-"Blue-Collar Contentment"

-"Talking to My Boys After the Transgender Talk at Their Public School" - a helpful article.

Now, onto the links...

Fiction

- "Save the Allegory!"  - allegories: both different and cooler than you might have thought they were.

-"'Gossamer', by Stephen Baxter" - this beautiful short story pictures life (a very different sort of life) way out on the cold plains of Pluto.

-"A Letter to Friends Looking to Break into a Part-Time Writing Career" - not strictly regarding fiction, but good writing advice all the same.

Finally, if you haven't yet, please come and enter the giveaway for a copy of "Not Alone"!  The stories in it of faith during suffering are truly inspiring.

Have a good and meaningful Memorial Day, folks!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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: the "My Writer Friends are Awesome" edition

My first link this week is really exciting! (to me, anyway, but to you, too, if you like good fiction!)
My friend, Ann Dominguez, has just released her first novel!

You might know Ann from the Ordinary Time chapter of "Let Us Keep the Feast". And if you do, you know she writes clear, beautiful prose that makes you happy to be alive in the world.

Well, the same is true of her fiction. I had the honor of reading one of the first drafts of this novel, and it kept my attention throughout the whole story. I love how she marries the tense, commercial form of a thriller with acute observation of the rhythm and flow of ordinary, everyday work and relationships.

Also? She's a practicing physician herself, so you can count on the medical details of the thriller being accurate. :)

Anyway, here is a link for "The Match", a medical thriller by Ann Dominguez.  Enjoy!



Okay, now on to shorter reads . . .

-And now that I've mentioned Ordinary Time and the church year, here's an interesting little post on Advent: "The War on Advent". An excerpt:

For many centuries, Advent was a season of spiritual preparation before the Feast of Christmas. It began four Sundays before Christmas. Contrary to the practice of so-called Advent in many churches, it wasn’t focused on the story of the birth of Christ and the singing of carols. That’s for the Christmas season. Instead, Advent is a time of reflection, penitence, and preparation, not of celebration.

-A piece on freelance writers and ethics: "Wil Wheaton and Why I Won't Write for the Huffington Post Anymore".


-"How to Stage Your Home for Living" - this article has such a very, very good point:

So then, in the weeks prior to our house hitting the market, we spent numerous hours "stageing our home for the sale . . . I can't help but be struck by the irony of the situation. We spend countless hours getting our home into its best possible condition, only to leave it? Most of the time while staging our home for sale, I wondered why we had never put in the effort to stage our home for living. You know, so we could have actually enjoyed it more while we called it home.

"50 Things a Man Should Be Able to Do" - I thought this was much better than most lists of its sort.


Oh, this is wonderful! It's a reprint of an old interview with J. R. R. Tolkien, and reams could be written in response to every paragraph. Lovely.  "JRR Tolkien: I never expected a money success".  The bit I keep particularly chewing over and over again in my mind is this:

Some people have criticised the Ring as lacking religion. Tolkien denies this: “Of course God is in The Lord of the Rings. The period was pre-Christian, but it was a monotheistic world.” 

Monotheistic? Then who was the One God of Middle-earth? 

Tolkien was taken aback: “The one, of course! The book is about the world that God created – the actual world of this planet.”

"Evangelicals Need to Read Richard Hooker": this article hooked me as soon as I read the phrase: Think of him as Anglicanism's John Calvin. Of course I had to read it all! And so should you. :)



Finally, this isn't a proper link, really, but this last week's collect (from the Book of Common Prayer) was amazing. I was so glad to have it as part of my daily prayers and thought you all might appreciate it, too. Here it is:

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might
destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God
and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may
purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again
with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his
eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Amen.

Have a great weekend, folks!

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.)

Weekend Links: poetry, P. D. James, Lord of the Rings, and more!

Some good reading from around the Web for your weekend:

"Across the Grey Atlantic": a gorgeous piece of poetry from James Harrington:

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across Saint Brendan’s sea,

Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth

And all the serfs are free . . .

Click through the link to read the rest.

"The Last Man and the First Man":

Scanning half a dozen major journals for obituaries devoted to the most important mystery writer of our time, P. D. James (1920–2014), I was astonished to find that not one of them mentioned her serious Anglo-Catholicism, much less its shaping presence in her fiction . . .

"Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?"

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

"Things I Love about the Things I Love. Part One: Knitting, Top Five":  this GIF-full post gets it exactly right.

"Ezekiel, 'Uncommon and Eccentric?'": I found this very helpful in understanding a bit more about this hard-to-understand OT prophet.

"SDfAoWOP: the Girl":

There is a God, she says, who can heal and save. How can this be? You wonder. How can a little girl, a child, know this God? How can she set aside the bitterness of abuse and loss? But her clear firm gaze, the strength of her words win you over and you go and tell your husband and he listens.

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.)

Weekend Links: Bible reading, kids' books, the Hobbit, and more!

(Updated this to fix a broken link!)

I'll continue with the New Year's Resolutions series on Monday, but meanwhile, here's some good stuff for your weekend:

"How to Change Your Mind":

Christians often talk about having a Biblical worldview yet most have only a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible. They attempt to build a framework without first gathering the lumber and cement needed to create a solid foundation. The benefits of following this process should therefore be obvious. By fully immersing yourself into the text you'll come to truly know the text. You'll deepen your understanding of each book and knowledge of the Bible as a whole.

The 2013 Cybils Finalists: I had fun using this list to request some new-to-us books from our library.

A Thief in the Night: The Christian Ethic at the Heart of The Hobbit: (Jess' note: I loved this!):

If Christopher is correct and this is a case of the filmmakers brazenly cashing in, allowing commercial considerations to override esthetic judgments, the irony could not be more complete, because The Hobbit is above all about greed—and the overcoming of greed. Christians who may wonder whether The Hobbit has a moral message worth engaging with should look to this aspect of the tale, for Tolkien’s diagnosis of the sinfulness of greed and his description of its cure are both central to the story and presented with brilliant imaginative skill.

"Sooner or later: yet at last": I just rediscovered this amazing poem by Christina Rossetti. This part is especially amazing:

I plead Thyself with Thee, I plead

Thee in our utter need:

Jesus, most merciful of men,  

Show mercy on us then;

Lord God of mercy and of men

Show mercy on us then.

But the whole thing is so good - go read!

"The Saturday Evening Blog Post": This is a great place to find the best posts of a whole range of different bloggers - fun weekend reading! (ETA: fixed this link!)

"Theology of First John": And if you're looking for something good to listen to this weekend, look no further. A short description:

The title of the one-hour lecture is “The Theology of First John,” and while that accurately captures the main task, the lecture also spends a fair bit of time motivating and orienting readers so they can engage the text well. There are tips on how to benefit from, rather than suffer from, the repetitive and non-linear character of John’s writing, for example. I also compare and contrast John’s literary persona with those of the apostles Peter and Paul.

It's wise and good (and funny!).

"On Keeping a Logbook" - nifty idea for the new year!

Weekend Links: Advent, Hobbits, Writers, and more!

"Experiments in Advent":

I admit that I may have ignored Advent for years because I didn’t like the idea of waiting for Christmas. As soon as the sun set on Thanksgiving I wanted immediate immersion in all things Christmas. Instant gratification. Get me the tree and the music and the happy feelings! This year, I decided to try waiting for Christmas. And waiting isn’t just sitting around and twiddling my thumbs. It’s preparing. It’s longing and yearning. It’s daring to hope that in the midst of darkness, Christmas is coming . . .

"Guatamala 1" and "Guatamala 2":

It was like this all day. Case after case, often found in a house full of barefoot children and poultry, of children with bad complications of relatively simple conditions. Congenital herpes infection. Ocular herpes. Blindness from a congenital cataract. So many things I had only read about– or, in the case of the fistulas, that I had to reason out based on my knowledge of anatomy, since I had neither encountered it before nor read it.

"Elevenses And Then Some: How To Prepare A Feast Fit For A Hobbit":

Each year, I swear I will never do this again.

And yet, for the third year in a row, I am preparing to host a day-long Lord of the Rings movie marathon – and cooking up a seven-course hobbit-themed feast, plus dessert, to serve my guests. Maybe it's because, like Tolkien, I too would like the world to be a merrier place.

"14 Ways to Tick Off a Writer":

7) Read ten pages of the author’s book. Realize that it’s absolutely not for you: you thought it was a zombie story, and it’s actually historical fiction about Alexander Graham Bell. Go on Goodreads anyway, and give it one star for not being a zombie story.

"Seeking Abortion's Middle Ground" (note, this one's old, but still very good):

A few years ago, quite by accident, I discovered an important piece of common ground. Something I wrote in a conservative think-tank journal was picked up and quoted widely. I had written: "There is a tremendous sadness and loneliness in the cry ‘A woman’s right to choose.’ No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg."

"'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug' Review: 'Pirates of the Caribbean' with Orcs":

Tolkien was a man who was deeply personally scarred by the world wars, and while his novels are not anything so pedantic as allegory, that world view of the miracle of democracies and their common men tearing down the great edifices of tyranny is embedded in every word of his stories.

The single most symbolic event in the failure of Jackson’s films to understand what the point of the story is, is the excising of The Scouring of the Shire. Citing budgets (on these billion dollar films) and time constraints (with extended editions several weeks long) is smokescreen for the reality that Jackson simply doesn’t know what the hell the point of that final chapter is. It drives home the decisions to invent hours of battle scenes at the expense of what was actually on the page. 

Links! Samwise, Dangerous Chemicals, New Books, and more!

"The Choices of Master Samwise, and Calling, and Going Against the Grain":

In another way, we are not operating against the grain of our nature when we are called, even when our call seems outside of what comes naturally to us. We are called to our true nature. Sam's service to his master leads him to the veriest outreaches of the world, very far from the natural element of his garden. But it doesn't make him less of a gardener, cook, and personal servant. He remains Samwise Gamgee throughout all the battles and choices. He is often uncomfortable, but hardly ever outside of his comfort zone, defined as operating based on who he is and what his role is. 

"Things I Won't Work With": - a chemist explains what substances are so terribly dangerous he doesn't even want them in his lab. Dryly hilarious.

"Wesley on the Christian Life: the Heart Renewed in Love": a new book from Fred Sanders - yay! You can read my review of his book on the Trinity here; I'm excited to read his book on Wesley.

"Book Review: Beating the Lunch Box Blues by J.M. Hirsch": Ann's review makes me really want to read this book, too.

"When God Says to Get Drunk":

Go ahead and lose control. Go ahead and get intoxicated, but get drunk in the love and passionate pursuit of your wife. What wine does to your body, let your wife do to your affections and desires. 

Links - Beowulf and Tolkien, Electoral Craziness, and more!

"Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien":

If ancient pagans could die for order and light knowing that those things would lose out in the end, how much more should Christians die heroically . . . when they know that Good and Truth will win out in the end.

"If There’s an Electoral College Tie, Things Will Get Even Crazier Than You May Know": - the punchline makes this super-short article worth a read.

"What the Bible Says About Anger": I found this short, organized summary very helpful.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! Hobbit holes, Lars Walker, the sexual revolution, and more!

Do you want your very own hobbit hole? Check this one out!

I think I might have my husband hooked on Lars Walker's books. Here's his review of The Year of the Warrior. Given his reaction, may I suggest that if you're looking for a Father's Day gift, this might be a good one?

Anthony Esolen's essay, "Sexual Revolution: Defend It, If You Can", can be found here and is well worth reading. An excerpt:

Sex—both the distinction between man and woman, and the act that unites man and woman in the embrace that is essentially oriented towards the future—is a foundational consideration for every people. When we ask, “Will a man be allowed to have more than one wife?” or “Will husbands and wives be allowed to divorce at will?” or “Will unmarried people be encouraged to behave as if they were married?”, we are asking, whether we understand it fully or not, “What kind of culture, if any, do we want to share?”

Last week I mentioned that we'd enjoyed a great new vegetarian recipe this Lent, but then I didn't give you a link to the recipe. I'm sorry! Here it is, the super-yummy black-bean pizza. (I leave off the avocados, but that's just because I - heretic Californian that I am! - don't like them that much.)

"Dear Auntie Leila: I don't know what to do for Easter." Good stuff.

Also good: "Men of Easter: John".

links! sales, giveaways and hobbits

Better World Books is having a sale on used children's books - they're all $2 if you buy a minimum of five, and the shipping is free. There's some great stuff there. Hat tip to Emily!  (One caution: some of the books are "marketplace" books, sold by third parties, and those aren't included in the sale.)
My friend, Susanne Dietze, is hosting a giveaway of "Highland Blessings", a Scottish romance, over at her blog. Deadline's tomorrow, so hurry on over!
This is a link to the most adorable, awe-inspiring miniature project I've ever seen: a painstakingly detailed version of Bag End. Oh, it's just gorgeous.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

The blog post I'm really not writing

“One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.”

-J. R. R. Tolkien

This blog is about where we ended up at, and how I feel about it. This post is about where our old church ended up.

But not how I feel about it. I’m not sure how to write that post. I’m not sure I should. I tried, and it ended up really long and meandering – all about hurt and anger and conscience.

I really don’t think it’s post-able. I sure don’t want to read it again! It's the sort of thing you write and then throw away, not write and post. So, I’m leaving you with a quotation instead, because it's really what's resonating in my head now that I'm done writing about all this. And because they're better words than mine were.  Here you go: a passage from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers:

'Tell me, lord,' he said, 'what brings you here?...What doom do you bring out of the North?'

'The doom of choice,' said Aragorn. 'You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him, with Sauron or against him. None may live now as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their own ...”

And that’s it. Now I’m done. Finally.*

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

*Well, you know, as much as you can be done when you’ve only had six months to mourn a ten-year’s loss. I know this will all be with me for a long time. But I’m done with the rough work of figuring out how I’m going to think about it. And that’s better place to be than I was before. I don't think I was really able to think through it till we'd found a safe place to land.