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"You don't put your life into books. You find it there."

At a certain stage of writing, I have great difficulty reading other fiction. But this is akin to saying “I have great difficulty breathing oxygen.” And when, as now, the intense writing stage stretches out somewhat longer than expected, I begin to get…squirrely. I’m crafting my own story while holding my breath. I crave a nice deep inhalation of fiction.

"Tim Keller's Top 10 Evangelism Tips" (Hat tip: Challies):

A while ago on our elder retreat we listened to a talk Tim Keller gave at Lausanne. As part of that talk he gave 10 tips to help our lay folk in their evangelism. They were so helpful I wanted to put them down somewhere, so here they are . . .

St. Patrick's Breastplate:

The Breastplate is an odd song with an odd tune and it comes from an odd people. Chesterton talks about the Gaels of Ireland as the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad. Growing up among the Irish in America, I'd say that's about right. There's a fierceness, an a mystic tenacity about St. Patrick's Breastplate that's quintessentially Irish. It's a hymn for those who see the supernatural as a plain fact, as plain as potatoes. 

Finally, christianaudio.com's free download this month is "Hearing God" by Dallas Willard. This is a great book (you can read my review of it here) and I encourage you take advantage of this offer (I did!).

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Daybook

outside my window . . . a lovely day. Cool and sunny and the air still smells fresh from the rain earlier in the week.

I am listening to . . . More Mumford and Sons. How can I not love a song that starts "Serve God, love me, and mend"? That quotation from Much Ado is one of my life's mottos . . .

I am wearing . . . a long-sleeved, forest green shirt with a cowl neck. I'm enjoying my long-sleeved shirts while I can, because pretty soon the weather will take its summer turn downhill into the 90s and stay there for months, and all I'll be able to stand wearing will be sundresses and tank tops with shorts.

I am so grateful for . . . Lapsang Souchong tea. Smoky goodness. Also something that needs to be enjoyed before the summer weather begins in earnest.

I'm pondering . . . prayer and obedience.

I am reading . . . The Way of Kings, Hearing God, the Purgatorio, Acedia & Me.

I am creating . . . My eldest daughter's Easter dress. I'm on the yoke, which is the last bit to do, save pressing and lining it.

around the house . . . I have an amaryllis blooming above my kitchen sink. I picked up several flower kits (pot, dirt and bulbs) on sale for $1 after Christmas, and am planting them one at a time, spacing them out so that I always have flowers.

from the kitchen . . . I made black bean pizza last night. It's definitely our favorite new vegetarian recipe discovered this Lent.

real education in our home . . . We're getting ready for my daughter's first science fair. I'm so proud of her, because instead of just a project, she's decided to do a real experiment. She's making three different varieties of paper airplanes and testing them to see which will fly the farthest.

the church year in our home . . . Lenten cooking. Crocheting the kids' special Easter outfits. Having some serious theological conversations with our son, who is getting baptized at Easter vigil. I'm so excited for him.

recent milestones . . . I've got both of the main characters of my novel back to England (most of the novel takes place in France, but the dénouement takes place in England). Getting them back onto their native shores feels like an accomplishment to me!

the week ahead. . . We've got the science fair coming up and I've got a doctor's appointment, but other than that, it's a refreshingly normal week. I hope. :)

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

the man speaks the truth

Adam, my husband: "We could finish listening to Harry Potter while we folded the laundry tonight."

Me: "We finished listening to it last night."

Adam: "Did we really?"

Me: "Yep, he went back to the Dursleys." Pause. "We could finish listening to the Iliad."

Adam: "Eh. I don't have, I mean . . . I've lost what I had of the Iliad."

Me (oh-so-helpfully): "Well, there's this battle in front of Troy-"

Adam (dryly): "Yes. I know. I mean, I've lost the desire to listen to the Iliad."

Me: "What? Spears piercing below the nipple! Blood soaking into the thirsty ground!"

Adam: "Eh."

Me: "Blood! Spears! What kind of a man are you?"

Adam: "Well, I fathered four kids." Pause. "In three tries."

Me: "Heh."

fundamental mistakes

Today I was sorting through my twins' clothes - taking out the too-small, putting in the slightly too-big - and listening to Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, my favorite novel.

Why is it my favorite? Well because of dialogues like this:

"I quite agree with you," said Miss de Vine, "about the difficulty of combining intellectual and emotional interests . . "

"But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, "suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?"

"You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is."

"I made a very big mistake once," said Harriet, "as I expect you know. I don't think it arose out of a lack of interest. It seemed at the time the most important thing in the world."

"And yet you made the mistake. Were you really giving all your mind to it? Your mind? Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?"

"That's rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can't, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit."

"Isn't the writing of a good prose an emotional excitement?"

"Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it's dead right, there's no excitement like it. It's marvelous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day - for a bit, anyhow."

"Well, that's what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don't make any mistakes - and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there's any subject in which you're content with the second-rate, then it isn't really your subject."

Then, later in the conversation, Miss de Vine asks Harriet, "You'd lie cheerfully, I expect, about anything except - what?"

"Oh, anything!" said Harriet, laughing. "Except saying that somebody's beastly book is good when it isn't. I can't do that. It makes me a lot of enemies, but I can't do it."

"No, one can't," said Miss de Vine. "However painful it is, there's always one thing one has to deal with sincerely, if there's any root to one's mind at all."

Later yet, discussing their "one thing", Miss de Vine points out that some people have another person as their job, and how difficult this can be. Harriet says, "I suppose one oughtn't to marry anybody, unless one's prepared to make him a full-time job."

And Miss de Vine replies, "Probably not; though there are a few rare people, I believe, who don't look on themselves as jobs but as fellow creatures."

I have to say, my husband is one of those "few rare people."

Anyway, I've loved this book for a long time, but this time through, it's striking me that it might as well be called the manifesto of the INFJ. Both heart and brain. It makes me curious - I know INFJ's are more likely to be found in profusion online than in real life - any other INFJ's who feel like this book perfectly depicts the cry of their heart?

Equally, I'm interested in knowing if this book produces that response in any other personality types, and, if so, which. Please speak up in the comment box!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

The Iliad

My husband and I (having finished That Hideous Strength) are now listening through The Iliad during our evening chores. I thought I'd write up my impressions on it since it's been (wow) over ten years since I last read it. Note: some of these impressions are of the story, some strictly of this particular audio version. Also, this is just of the first section of the story (we're not that far along yet).

-When I heard Zeus called "the almighty" by the narrator, I thought, "well, sort of." Seriously, it comes across kind of unbelievable after all these years of studying the Bible and following Jesus. Calling Zeus "almighty" in the context of, well, reality, is laughable. Somehow, this hadn't really struck me before.

Which got me thinking: I see now, with this contrast between Zeus and God, why it's a necessity that the Almighty is also the All-Good. Looking at Zeus, you see that his weaknesses are all moral weaknesses . . . it's his pettiness, his lust, his changeableness that lead to his lack of real power. If he did not have these vices, he might be able to really have a will that is, as the poet says, "never thwarted". As it is . . . nah.

But I'm grateful for the insight that contrast gives me into the real God: I see now that you could not have someone who was all-powerful without him also being all-good. The very, very comforting off-shoot of this realization? Given the actual existence of the All-Good, you're never going have a final triumph of evil. Because an evil power would never be able to be have or maintain absolute power . . . its vices would eventually be its downfall. Moral weakness is real weakness.

-For a very long time, I wondered why the narrator was calling Apollo "Shutefar". I finally figured out that it's "Apollo Shoot-Afar". Ah.

-I hadn't actually forgotten this but . . . The Iliad is very gory. Wow. If the violence in the Bible ever surprised you when you finally got around to reading all the Old Testament, be assured that it's actually very restrained compared to other ancient texts.

-Actually, to me, as a Christian who's been reading the Bible for a couple of decades, one of the most interesting things about reading The Iliad is that it gives me a contemporary text to compare the Bible to. (Well, contemporary to some parts.) It's interesting to see what's similar because of culture and time, and what's very different because of theology or philosophy or culture (yes, culture falls on both sides).

-I also am immature enough that the poet's constant use of "the nipple" as a geographic landmark (as a sort of reference so you know exactly where the spear went in before "the darkness closed over his eyes") makes me giggle.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

links: nursing twins, Harry Potter, Advent and more!

Shannon Hale wins at the internet. This may be the best blog post I've ever read.
Next, christianaudio.com is having their biannual sale, and all of their books on mp3 are $7.50. Our family got a bunch of great mp3s the last time they did this, including this awesome recording of The Count of Monte Cristo (47 hours for less than 8 bucks! that's a lot of dish-washing time well spent!) and this of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, both produced by Blackstone (Blackstone's work is consistently excellent). They also have Peter Dennis' recording of Winnie-the-Pooh, and I can't tell you how many times over my kids have listed to that. (Be sure to check out his readings of the Milne's poetry too, which my husband and I both love.)
Okay. I don't usually link to sales, but my family has benefited so much from their last audiobook sale that I just had to pass it on. Now, to other things!
Starting with the terrifying and infuriating: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners.  This is one amazing piece of journalism. Not just a copy of something from the AP wire (not to diss the AP), but some real anecdotal-yes-yet-compelling journalism. Pretty amazing stuff, and not in a good way. Also, a very lucid explanation of the foreclosure mess.
Even though it looks like (looks like!) Advent's going to be celebrated more faithfully in our house this year than it's been the last couple of years, I still was really encouraged by And Sometimes Tea's post "Confessions of a Domestic Church Slacker".
Check out this cool and easy pajama pants tutorial over at Learning As We Go. Great for Christmas gifts for the kids.

If you go read this day-in-the-life post by Susan Wise Bauer from 10 years ago, you are going to want to retroactively buy the excellent woman a drink. And then you're going to feel like falling onto the couch in sympathetic exhaustion - until you realize you are already on the couch due to your own real exhaustion and that, unlike her, your four children under the age of nine are still four children under the age of nine.
I thought this post positing the question: "what if an unschooler's parents found out their child was accepted to Hogwarts?" was hilarious.
That's it for tonight - enjoy!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

too good not to pass on

Christianaudio.com is having a sale. They have a bunch of audiobook mp3 downloads for $7.50 - which is a great price, especially considering that a bunch of them are Blackstone recordings. They have stuff like The Count of Monte Cristo, That Hideous Strength and Pride and Prejudice. 

My husband and I regularly listen to audiobooks in the evenings while we do clean-up and dishes, and they're also great to listen to while you craft. And my kids listen to them during quiet time. I noticed they have the Winnie-the-Pooh books, which my children have listened to over and over.

Anyway - hope that helps someone!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

I might get to a hundred this year!

I just added my latest few reads to my 2010 list, and I realized that I'm coming up on fifty books read so far this year, and it's not even halfway through the year! Maybe I'll get to a hundred this year. That'd be cool.

Here's the list so far, alphabetically by author, save the first entry*:

-The Holy Bible

The Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle

Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter’s Uncommon Year – Brodie, Laura

Winterfair Gifts – Bujold, Lois McMaster

Manalive - Chesterton, G. K.

Boundaries with Kid: When to say YES, When to Say NO, to Help Your Children Gain Control of Their Lives – Cloud, Dr. Henry and Townsend, Dr. John

Beholder’s Eye: Web Shifters #1 – Czerneda, Julie E.

Changing Vision (Webshifters #2) – Czerneda, Julie E.

Living by Fiction – Dillard, Annie

Knight’s Castle – Eager, Edward

How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably, and On Your Own –Farber, Barry

The Kitchen Madonna – Godden, Rumer

Princess Academy – Hale, Shannon

Marrying the Captain – Kelly, Carla

Marrying the Royal Marine – Kelly, Carla

-A Devilish Dilemma – Lansdowne, Judith

Learning How to Pray for Our Children

Fledgling – Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve

Out of the Silent Planet – Lewis, C. S.

The Problem of Pain – Lewis, C. S.

The World’s Last Night and Other Essays – Lewis, C. S.

The British Museum is Falling Down – Lodge, David

For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School – Macaulay, Susan Schaeffer

Open Heart – Open Home – Mains, Karen Burton

Reduced Shakespeare: The Attention-Impaired Reader's Guide to the World's Best Playwright – Martin, Reed and Tichenor, Austin

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School – Medina, John

The Shape of Mercy – Meissner, Susan

The Host – Meyer, Stephanie

Our Village – Mitford, Mary Russell

Nanny by Chance – Neels, Betty

Bachelorette #1 – O’Connell, Jennifer

-El Dorado: Further Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel – Orczy, Baroness

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution – Pantley, Elizabeth

Keeping House: the Litany of Everyday Life – Peterson, Margaret Kim

-One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I’ve Learned About Everyone’s Struggle to Be Singular – Pogrebin, Abigail

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Like Them – Prose, Francine

Rapture Ready! Adventure in the Parallel World of Christian Pop Culture – Radosh, Daniel

Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams – Sellers, Heather

-7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child – Steiner, Naomi, M.D., with Hayes, Susan L.

-The Fellowship of the Ring – Tolkien, J. R. R.

The Return of the King – Tolkien, J. R. R.

The Two Towers – Tolkien, J. R. R.

Stardoc – Viehl, S. L.

“What Shall I Say?” A Guide to Letter Writing for Ladies

Family Worship – Whitney, Donald S.

Carry On, Jeeves – Wodehouse, P. G.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman  – Wollstonecraft, Mary

Definitely some hits and misses, but the good ones this year have been so very good (how could I have let so much time go by without rereading Lewis' The Problem of Pain? It's amazing! Lovely, even). Biggest hits so far were the classics: Lewis, Tolkien, Aristotle, Wodehouse, Orczy, Eager, Chesterton, and Wollstonecraft. But some of the ones that were new to me** were also very good, including Sellers, Pogrebin, Hale, Lee &Miller, Godden, and Faber.  Good year for reading. Such richness! I'm not worthy of it. 

I'm overwhelmed with the fact that I get to read so many good words. 

Does the easy access to literature ever overawe anyone else? It seems like such a blessing to me.

Peace of Christ to you, 

Jessica Snell

*Note: I list books by the year I finish them, not the year I start them (because who knows if you're going to finish each book you start? I certainly don't always finish 'em), so some of these books, including the Bible, were started last year. Also, I count unabridged audiobooks I've listened to on this list.

**Books that were new to me, that is, not necessarily authors.

Pentecost

As I was falling asleep last night, I was thinking about books and the Holy Spirit. I was thinking about how when I read books by Dallas Willard and St. Francis de Sales - two men from different time periods and different Christian traditions - I hear the same voice in them.

And this, I think, is how I know - apart from the intellectual arguments - that people on opposite sides of the schisms, people even from different parts of history, these Christians of whom I am one, are servants of the same Lord. Because you can read the work of an ancient Catholic saint and a modern Protestant and hear the same voice speaking through both men. You can hear the influence of the Holy Spirit in both men's words. You know that they are listening to the same Person and meditating on the same Lord's instructions and following the same Way.

I think this is part of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because He deigns to be present in each Christian, we are able to recognize each other. I'm not saying this like He's a magical talisman that beeps when you pass someone else that has one. What I am saying is that I think this is some of how Jesus' statement in John 10, that His sheep know Him and know His voice, works out in our lives. Because the Holy Spirit really is in us, we can really see Him, and hear Him, in each other. We know Him.

Sometimes, of course, we don't listen to Him, and when we're not listening to Him, I'm guessing it's probably harder for others to hear Him through us. But doesn't knowing that give you something to aim for? That's what I want: I want a heart pure enough that the light of the Holy Spirit can shine through it. I've seen that in other people in my own life - I've heard it in the words of men like de Sales and Willard - and I want to be like that. 

Not that anyone does it perfectly. None of us perfectly, not even these great saints. But you can see it in others, and isn't it heartening when you do? The great saints seem to me to be windows through which God's light can shine. Stained glass windows for sure, with streaks of black and odd-shaped sections colored by experiences good and bad. But God, as He always does, takes the mess we've made and - great artist that He is - turns it into something beautiful that shows His glory. Like a stained glass window. 

And the church, "with schisms rent asunder/with heresies distressed", is still the church. And you can know it is so because you can look at the Orthodox or at the Catholics or at the Protestants and in all of those groups you will find men and women who are filled with the same Holy Spirit. He is, as Paul said, our promise, our seal, that Jesus will indeed return and make it all right again. We know He will return because He did not leave us on our own. God is with us.  And He will come back and make it all right.

Happy Pentecost!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

devotional aids: St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year and Alexander Scourby's recording of the Bible

A great blessing to me this Lent was the St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year (what a mouthful!), put together by Fr. Henry Patrick Reardon (author of such wonderful books as Christ in the Psalms and Christ in His Saints). That, and Alexander Scourby's recording of the Bible.
I thought I'd share a bit about them, in case they could be of use to anyone else.
Last year, I read through the whole Bible. I'm very glad I did it, but I'll be the first to admit that it was a big job. (In fact, I didn't actually finish within the year alloted. I think I finished in early March, maybe late February, of this year.) I did, though, want to keep up with regular Bible reading. So I took another look at something I've often seen advertised in Touchstone, the St. Jame's Guide.
It fit the bill exactly. I hate to gush, but this is what I've been looking for for years. It has daily readings, from Old Testament, New and the Psalms. It has you go through the New Testament once a year and the Old every two years (a much more manageable pace than the whole thing in a year) and through the Psalms, well, a lot (very traditional, that). And, if that weren't enough, the readings are arranged to match the liturgical year (so last week, for instance, I was reading the passion passages from the gospel and Lamentations, among other thigns, and this week it's all Resurrection and triumphant Psalms). And it has suggestions for ways to fit the readings into morning and evening prayer. And it has commentary on the selected scriptures. And additional commentary online (which you can subscribe to in your RSS feedreader).
So, pretty amazing.
But, I admit, even though it is a manageable schedule, I still have had trouble keeping up this Lent. (Diapers, pottytraining, homeschooling, cooking, sleep, writing, SLOTH, etc . . .) Which brings me to my second devotional aid: this audio recording of the Bible.
I actually first ran into this at my local library. They have it on cassette and I brought it home and listened to it, and was amazed to find the narrator was reading a genealogy, and I wasn't bored! His voice is that good, and so is his skill at interpreting the text. You can tell that he has studied it, and thought about what it means, because it comes through in his tone and pacing. My husband and I bought it a few years ago on mp3 (only about $25! amazing for that much material - 72 hours worth) and it's seen a lot of use in our house (and out - my husband listens to it on his commute).
So, when I have had trouble keeping up with the reading schedule in the devotional guide, I've caught up by listening to the selections on mp3, while I do dishes or clean the bathroom or what have you.
I know that's not perfect - listening while doing chores - and probably there will come a time in my life again when I'll actually read by eye and not by ear most of my devotional texts. But right now, these two tools together are a Godsend (and I do mean that). I am very grateful for them, because they mean that, at this busy time in my life (four kids five and under), I am still attending to the word of God, in greater volume than I think I otherwise would.
So, I thought I'd pass on what I found, in case anyone else might be able to use either resource. They're both really good, and I think more folks should know they're out there. So helpful! And, in both cases, such high, high quality work.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell