Weekly Links!

SOME INTERESTING LINKS FOR YOUR Monday Morning--and usually I set these in the categories of faith, family, and fiction, but this week it's just faith (because that's what I found this week!)

First off, I have to link to Anne Kennedy's book "Nailed It: 365 Sarcastic Devotions for Angry or Worn-Out People." It released about a week ago, and has already been showing up places like Christianity Today.

It's so good. If you're looking for a book that will lead you through the Bible with wit, wisdom, and a wry sense of humor, this is the book you want.

(It's also a book I've been involved with for just over two years now, as an editor--and actually getting to finally hold it in my hands is so delightful!)

Okay, on to the articles!

-"Why I Don't Flow with Richard Rohr": I don't think I've ever read a book review quite like this. It's bitingly funny, but I'm pretty sure the bite is there because the reviewer really, really cares about the subject at hand. And he's right in that. Which means you can enjoy the cleverness without any guilt at all.

-"The Axe of Advent":

Advent isn’t supposed to soothe us.

-"'I'm Actually a Better Follower of Jesus Than Most Christians...'": Oh, it's so nice to hear someone take this one on.

-"Children, Safety, and the Sixth Commandment": I don't agree with everything here, but the author's thought process is insightful and worth following.

-"In Which I Rejoice Over That Ohio Law": Yes, this:

...laws against theft don’t stop all theft, and laws against drunk driving don’t stop all drunk driving, and laws against murder don’t stop all murder. But because those things are wrong, and the state has a vested interest in some level of moral standards for the peace and comfort of its citizenry, it goes ahead and doesn’t allow those ways of life even though people do them. 

-"It's Time to Take Your Medicine": An account of an enlightening little exercise.

-"Is Faith Without Works Dead, or Just Sleepy?": One part of a larger conversation on the relationship of sexual ethics to salvation. It's worth following up on the whole thing, if you're interested, and besides being worthy in and of itself, this article contains the links that will let you follow up on the whole conversation.

I hope you have a great week!

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 - 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.

Weekly Links: Planned Parenthood, Obergefell, earthquakes, and more!

So very, very many links for you this week. (Possibly because I took a week or two off!)

Enjoy the good words of people so much smarter than me.



"After Obergefell": I always find it heartening when smart, godly people give good counsel on what to do (as opposed to the disheartening feeling I get after reading an article that's a mere wringing of the hands):

Churches must take responsibility for marriages and families. The argument that we need to protect marriage for children is true in principle, laughable in practice. In sections of America, marriages aren’t steady enough to protect anyone. The best argument for traditional marriage is a thriving traditional marriage.

"The Really Big One" - Terrifying. (And makes me happy to be a bit east and a bit south of the region they're talking about. But still, as some one close to the Pacific and very sincerely in earthquake country? Terrifying.)

"10 Foods that Regrow in Water Alone" - Here's a break from the doom-and-gloom: things still grow! And better and more easily than you might have guessed!

"The End of Sexual Ethics: Love and the Limits of Reason": charity and logic applied to sexual ethics and identity.  God bless you, Matt Anderson.


"Arms Wide Open":

I am the type who rehearses life. I plan. I practice. I think of every possible thing that could go wrong, and I set aside provisions for them. I am careful and fearful and shy. But my daughter? She is brave.

"Planned Parenthood and the Atrocity of Corpse Selling": This is really horrific.

"I, Racist":

You are “you,” I am “one of them.” 

"How We Do Family Devotions":

I read slowly and expressively with just enough drama to cut through their early-morning fog. I pause to tell my daughter to remove her hands from around her sister’s neck, and keep reading. When I have come to the end of our passage I briefly explain something from the passage (and by “briefly” I mean a minute or less). Sometimes I have to cheat by quickly consulting the study Bible notes so I’ll have something worth saying. Then I try to come up with a question or two I can ask the kids—a question of comprehension or of application. And I explain why calling your brother “a stupid idiot” is inappropriate during a reading of 1 Corinthians 13. And that’s our Bible reading.

"Non-Competing Theories of the Atonement":

As I told my veteran pastor of my plans to do graduate studies in the doctrine of the atonement, a wry smile creased his face as he asked: "So...which theory of the atonement do you believe in?" I responded, "All of them!"

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!

Weekend Link Round-up!

"Sherlock’s Best Man Speech is Basically Fanfic, Moffat Says He’s Absolutely Not A Sociopath": Cool excerpts from the creator of "Sherlock".

"For the Love of the Light": how one woman celebrates Candlemas.

"Equivocation and Contraception": a nice bit of clarification in the middle of the pro-life discussions.

"Why Harlequin Is Not Just The Minor Leagues For Single Title":

I'll just come right out and say it. It takes a real author to be able to write for a series line, and certainly a strong writer to be successful at this.

Roast a whole head of cauliflower! - a friend passed this along to me as a Lenten recipe idea - looks great!

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: prayer, American Catholics, "The Casual Vacancy", and more!

"Praying With Children":

Its so important to pray with children, just like it is to do other hard things with them like Cook and Eat Dinner, Carry on a Conversation, Fold a Single Solitary Basket of Laundry, Pick Up the Blocks, Remember What It Was You Came Into This Room For Will You Stop Screaming So I Can Think For A Minute. And so on and so forth. Prayer, as many of us might remember, is a foundational part of the Christian Life and children should be included in it, even if it kills you.

"Where I'm Coming From":

But now the shadows of the past are looming large over Catholics in America again, and the battle to redefine marriage has become the weapon of choice for those who would really prefer it if Catholics went back to their little Catholic ghettos and didn't mix much with the "real" Americans, or expect to be able to hold certain public offices (anything pertaining to marriage, for instance) or jobs (anything where you have to sign a "diversity statement" that is actually a denial of your faith) or own businesses (anything where you have to maintain the fiction that two men or two women are a "marriage") or run adoption agencies or charities where they will be forced to repeat the lie that it is bigoted and hateful to claim that marriage is one man and one woman or that children need a mother and a father...

...and pointing any of this out at all is "uncivil," or so I'm told.

 "J. K. Rowling's 'The Casual Vacancy'":

The catalyst of the story is the death of a good man. He leaves a vacancy. His death is the casual vacancy, which is a phrase used to describe the opening created by the death of a local councilor. The book is about the void left by the death of a man who was his brother’s keeper, and the story shows that the main reason others can’t fill the void he leaves is because they don’t love like he did.

"10 Questions a Pro-Choice Candidate Is Never Asked by the Media":

4. If you do not believe that human life begins at conception, when do you believe it begins? At what stage of development should an unborn child have human rights?

5. Currently, when genetic testing reveals an unborn child has Down Syndrome, most women choose to abort. How do you answer the charge that this phenomenon resembles the “eugenics” movement a century ago – the slow, but deliberate “weeding out” of those our society would deem “unfit” to live?

"A Beautiful Testimony from a Christian About His Wife’s Death":

Was this a good life, NO. But this is what God had prepared for us to go through together. 

"How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day":

When I told people at ConCarolinas that I'd gone from writing 2k to 10k per day, I got a huge response. Everyone wanted to know how I'd done it, and I finally got so sick of telling the same story over and over again that I decided to write it down here.

So, once and for all, here's the story of how I went from writing 500 words an hour to over 1500, and (hopefully) how you can too

"Beer for beginners, part VII: Stouts and other British stuff":

I tried Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout and liked that very much. It seemed almost thick and viscous. "It's not, and you should know better," scolded Mark, "the viscosity of beer can't possibly be much different from water. It's not like it has a significant fraction of polymer suspended in it or something."

"Then what makes it that way?" I asked. "I can see when I pour it that it's not obviously viscous, but it feels that way in the mouth. Like cream." I took another pull and thought. "Could it be the bubbles?" I asked, beginning to ponder the Stokes-Einstein equation, but mostly I just wanted to drink the beer.

Links: Pro-Life Questions, Poetry, Language, and more

"Questions for Our Pro-Abortion Friends, Church Leaders, and Politicians":

Shall we say size matters? Is the unborn child too small to deserve our protection? Are big people more valuable than little people? Are men more human than woman? Do offensive linemen have more rights than jockeys? Is the life in the womb of no account because you can't hold him in our arms, or put him in your hands, or only see her on a screen?

"I'm Not Into Poetry":

When it comes to the Psalms and other prayers, they are best read not for our own pleasure - not for “what we get out of them” - but because they are God-given prayer language that God enjoys. It’s like God gave us his favorite song list and asked us to play it over and over again.

 "A Linguist's Serious Take On 'The A-Word'":

"The Internet is extraordinary. All of a sudden, if you want to pick a political fight, or a fight over chess games, or a fight over language, or a fight over bird-watching, really, you can go out there and see all these discussion groups and people making comments on blogs and freely using this language to one another. It's an opportunity to behave like a jerk if you wake up at 3 in the morning and you feel like it."

"Doctor Feelbad":

Doctor Who’s most enduring obsession is with time and the ways its passage makes us all mad, sad, and lonely—in other words, the anxieties that plague us in midlife. The Doctor teaches us how to grow old.

There's my list of interesting links for the past few days. What have you been intrigued by 'round the Web this week?

-Jessica Snell

Links: Bible Memorization, Roman Catholic Ethics, Intellectual Property Rights, and more!

"The Easiest Way to Memorize the Bible: What I Learned from Dr. John Mitchell" - this one's what it says, and well worth the read.

"Writer, Professional, Good" - John Scalzi's take on when you make it into each of these categories.

RC Bishops Distribute Letter to All Congregations: “We Will Not Comply” - A response to the attempt to force Catholic employers to pay for their employees' birth control methods and abortions. You know, though I agree with the Catholic church's stance on abortion, I don't entirely agree with their stance on birth control. All the same, despite my disagreement, I still think they should not be forced to pay for procedures that they believe are wrong. And I would hope that people that disagree with them on both counts can still see how wrong it is to try to force them to violate their consciences. There needs to be room for conscientious objection. There really, really does. (And yes, that might mean they need to stop accepting gov't money for their charities. But as long as they're willing to forgo gov't aid, they ought to be allowed to not pay for things that they believe are wrong.)

Yarrr. - I offer the following link with a couple of disclaimers. One, it's got a lot of language. Two, I don't actually agree with her solution, i.e., I don't think piracy's a good thing, even if content providers are slow off the mark. But this link does do a good job of highlighting the problem of facing consumers who want to pay the artist for their product but can't because of out-dated business models.

Easy 15-Minute Workout - I tried this last week, and loved it! I wouldn't call it "easy", but it's a very thorough workout, and all body-weight exercises (i.e., no equipment needed, save a chair for the triceps dips). If you're looking for something simple on days when you don't have a lot of time, this is it.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a bad argument for Planned Parenthood

If you're reading this, and you're one of the many women who've had an abortion, please know that I'm not writing to make you feel worse. Facing a pregnancy that will upend your world is terrifying, and there's not a one of us who hasn't done something stupid or wrong because we were scared. Along with that, it seems to me that abortion is a crime that, in many ways, carries its punishment with it, because who's going to miss the absent child more than the child's own mother? If you are in this place and sorrowing, know that there is certain forgiveness and comfort. The Lord Jesus only welcomes sinners, and so that's me and you and everyone. Please come to him and be relieved of the weight you're carrying. Set it down and be made whole. And know that there are wonderful people who will help you through your grief.

It is because of the great sorrow and weight of an abortion, though, that arguments like this trouble me so much. The pie chart seems to imply that because abortion services are only 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood that they carry no weight.

Does a wrong cease to be wrong just because it is performed by a person who mostly does right?

If a doctor spends 97% of his time caring for the poor, and 3% of his time euthanizing the old, are the euthanizations less criminal? If a teacher cares excellently for 97 of his students, but molests 3 of them, are those molestations less horrific? If a mechanic provides good service for 97% of his clients, but cheats 3% of them, is he less of a thief?

There are very good conversations to be had about abortion, about the care of women who become pregnant in hard circumstances, and about providing health care for the poor. But this argument? It is no argument at all.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! reading, voting, writing & more! (like Austenland, Potter & ungrammatical vampires)

I'm sorry for the lack of posts, folks! I've been following through on my summer ambitions and doing lots of writing and cleaning. :D But here are some fun links, from the (not insignificant) time I've also spent reading:
Willa writes about having "landmarks" in the history of literature - those authors and eras you know really well, and muses about whether it's good to make a vast, shallow survey of literature or to really dig in to one particular area. (I think you probably need to do both - and she has a great Lewis quotation about how the latter will naturally lead to the former.)
Hey, this is why I vote for those "gutless, unreliable, ineffectual Republicans" too!
Oooh, Shannon Hale's "Austenland" is being made into a movie!
This interview with Jason Isaacs (who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) is great. An excerpt, when he was asked if he expected his character to take the journey he did:
I mean, most of us would run to the bookshop at midnight when the books came out, partly because we’re fans, and partly to find out if we had a job next year.
And I like this part where he describes how actors work:

Every single actor who plays a part that is on screen even momentarily can talk like this about their own characters, because you’re always there. You may not be speaking or the camera may not be pointing at you, but you create an entire life for yourself so that when the camera does catch you, you’ve got something to bring to the party.
It reminds me of all the work I do on my own characters' backgrounds. I need to know more about them than the reader ever sees, or they're not going to act like actual people when they're on stage (on page?).

And this is a helpful little collection of analysis on the Church and homosexuality. An excerpt, from Albert Mohler:
In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.
And an excerpt from John Piper:

What’s new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.
"Normalization and institutionalization." A-yup. There's also a video at the link that I haven't watched. (Just to let you know. I'm sure you wondered.)


Finally, if you want a fun way to brush up on your grammar, try this site, where the Twilight books are picked apart, comma by comma, with a very sardonic hand. (Can you have a sardonic hand? Oh well.)

Wanted Children

I read an article this morning that made the point (and it was making a point, not asking a question), "Should a baby ever be born who is not really, truly wanted?"

I almost spit out my coffee. Wanted? WANTED?

Should human life then, depend on human caprice?

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?

Isn't someone worthwhile because of who he is, rather than what other people want from him, want him to be, hope for him to be?

In the end, there is only One whose love never fails, whose plans are never mistakes. His wants are truly linked to our existance. His desire engendered us, even more than our parents' desires did. In His Self, our existance and His desire for our existance are truly one. The philosophy, "the parents' desire should determine the child's existance" is a cramped, small twisting of the truth of God's "let it be".

In the end, I suppose, it IS so that only really, truly wanted children should be born. The problem is, for their existance to be justified, it is not we who need to want them.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

election links

I got caught up in election news (online and via radio, as we're TV (but not DVD) free over here). And now that it's over, here are some good people's reactions to the results:

Here's Kelly, with some thoughts on other ways to fight about social issues you care about, besides merely voting on them.

And here's Elena, with some thoughts that trip lightly and easily from why she disagrees to Obama to how to trust in the Lord to rejoicing with her neighbors.

And here's Barbara, whose thoughts include this gem:

Let us pray that under President Obama's leadership we will finally see the end to the bitterness and hardness of hearts - on both sides - that has stood in the way of reconciliation and final healing for the sin of slavery. Conservatives voted for Sen McCain for political reasons, not because of racism. But we can all share in the pride at how far our country has come. May the reality of an African American family in the highest place of honor bring assurance to every person on Earth that in this regard the American spirit, with the grace of God, has triumphed over evil.

I so earnestly hope this is true. I voted for McCain, because the President is not a legislator, and neither candidate can really do everything he promises to do, but the President can appoint Supreme Court Justices, who have a hope of ending the slaughter of the innocents in our country. So I made my vote on the executive branch in hopes of having an effect on the judicial branch.

Now I'm hoping so very much that there are no Justices stepping down in the next four years. Unlikely, but I hope it.

Nonetheless, though I wish Obama hadn't won because of his policies, I am so glad that his win was possible, I am glad that, as Barbara wrote above, there is a chance now for the final healing of the wounds the great evil of slavery inflicted on our country. May the curse of racism that has been passed down the generations here in America finally have its end.

God grant that it is so.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell