Weekly Links!

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


-I have loved Linda Holmes' thoughts on reality TV since the days she was covering Survivor for the now-defunct site Television Without Pity. Here she is, talking about the ethics of a recent episode of Top Chef for NPR.



-A review of "Nailed It" from Aimee Byrd over at The Housewife Theologian. A snippet:

This is a devotional for those who don't fit into the happy-little-Christian box. And it's also for those who think it's okay to have a little humor in their reading reflections. Kennedy doesn't pick all the easy verses either. She pulls devotion to God out of what may have seemed random acts in history. Our days are kind of like that, aren't they? Circumstances often seem arbitrary and we sometimes question if it really matters how we get through them. That is what I especially appreciated about the book---Anne weaves all the tapestry together and helps the reader see the significance of God's holiness, mercy, and love in Christ working in our own lives now.

-And while I'm on the topic of my favorite devotional, here's a lovely podcast: "Persuasion: How Sarcasm is Good for the Soul." 



-And speaking of good podcasts, I liked this one: "Mere Fidelity: Humble Roots, with Hannah Anderson."



-And here's another good thing by Hannah Anderson, this time an essay: "You Can't Do It All: Rex Tillerson and the Limits of Vocation."



-"Minimalism Gets It Wrong."



-Also, "The Minimalism Trap."



-And, on our current season of the church year, here's "How To Throw an Epiphany Party In Four Easy Steps." 



-"How 'Sherlock of the Library' Cracked the Case of Shakespeare's Identity"



-These short filmed scenes of King Lear are amazing.



-And, finally, sailing the solar system with solar sailing ships.



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

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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.)

How We Have Devotions with our Children

The original model.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a lengthy post about how I have my daily devotions and, at the end of it, I promised to write a follow-up about how Adam and I lead devotions with our children. This is that follow-up--and forgive me for posting it later than I'd hoped.


And, fair warning: most of what I'm going to say here is a natural outgrowth of the content of that first post. I.e., our devotions with our children are really a continuation of our own devotional lives, and that's really what I hope you come away from this post remembering.


There are three main ways we lead our kids in learning about, praying to, worshiping, and serving the Lord, and the first two are stupidly obvious (but worth noting)--and the last one might be, too.

1. Go to church (live like Christians)

If your lives aren't centered around the Lord, your children will know it, regardless of whether or not you read them a Bible verse now and again. One primary way your children will know the reality of your devotion is by seeing how you spend your time. Do you make time in your days, in your weeks, for serving the Lord? Live like a Christian (because you are one). Be a part of your local church. Worship in community regularly. Let God's love permeate your life. When you sin against your kids or your spouse, repent and ask forgiveness. Love your neighbors. Work on all those good and terrifying lists of virtues Paul was always sticking in his epistles.

Be real. And by "real," I don't mean, "let all your vices hang out."  I mean, "really follow Jesus, and yes, that includes doing the real work, and letting your kids see that you don't always get it right, but that you always let Jesus pick you up and help you keep following Him."

(Note: I know church attendance is hard. And I know church people can be hard to get along with. And I know churches can get it wrong, and can hurt you, and... and all of that. Anyone who's been in church any length of time has stories about it. Keep trying. God loves these folks. Hang in there. We really are supposed to do it, and God gives grace for the struggle. You might be walking through a desert right now when it comes to church; keep walking. Keep your heart set on the pilgrim way, for God can make the desert a place of springs.)

2. Pray together regularly

This can be really simple: pray together before meals and at bedtimes. Thank God for your food and ask Him for good sleep. If you have trouble with extemporaneous prayers, use a formal prayer (at various times we've used the Lord's Prayer or the simple "Guide us waking, oh Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace"--the Book of Common Prayer has LOTS of other good ones, too, if you're looking for help).

This is an area, frankly, where I'm hoping to grow our family's own practice. We're very regular at praying, but not very... varying. I want to help the kids learn how to pray more for themselves, for others, how to use prayer to worship and to confess, to petition... but the good thing is, we do have a habit of prayer. And I think once you have a habit, you can build on it and refine it.

So start the habit, and feel free to start simply. Just start.

3. Teach them the Bible (out of your own devotions)

So, while this is probably as stupidly obvious as my first two points, it's the insight that's been absolutely revolutionary for me this year.

I've used, and still love and appreciate, devotional books like The Jesus Storybook Bible, or The Biggest Story, and I'm sure I'll keep using them.

BUT.

But the very best teaching times we've had with our kids are when we teach them out of the passages we ourselves are studying. So, when I'm reading Luke in my personal devotions, at bedtime I'll read to the kids out of Luke, and I'll explain it to them. Or Adam will read to them some of what he's been pondering in the Bible recently, and he'll explain it to them. (Or we'll read whatever's in the lectionary that week.)

Recently, I was reading through Nehemiah, and so I read big chunks of that to the kids for a week or so, and explained to them what it meant. And it was wonderful, because right there in Nehemiah was an explanation of exactly what we were doing! In Nehemiah 8, the scribe Ezra reads the law to the people, and as he reads, a crowd of Levites stands ready to assist him. And how exactly do the Levites assist him?

"[They] helped the people to understand... they read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading (emphasis mine)".

That is what you can do for your kids: read to them from the Bible, and then help them to understand it.

And how do you do that? By making sure you understand it yourself. And for that, you have to be spending time reading it, meditating on it, studying it, and even listening to and reading good theology from people more learned than you are.

This is what I mean when I say that your children's devotions should grow out of your own devotions. Because you know that they're going to have questions. You know they're going to ask what it means, and what about this, and, Mom, does that mean that I should ...????

And that's the really good stuff. That's the stuff that sticks. And you're only going to be up to the task if you're regularly seeking the Lord's face yourself, regularly turning your own heart towards Him, regularly feeding yourself on His word.


Which brings us to ... food!  Food. Here is an analogy for you: think of how you feed older babies--babies that aren't really toddlers yet, but they're not just toothless breastfed babes anymore either. Yes, you may have a few foods for them that are really just prepared for babies (jarred baby food, etc.), but the older they get, the more you can just modify your own supper. You cut up the grapes, you mash up the main dish, you spoonfeed them a properly prepared version of what the rest of the family is eating.

It’s easier that way, AND it’s healthy. (Assuming your normal diet is healthy…and it should be.)

This is what it's like to modify your own devotions for your children's needs. Feed them what the rest of the family (the church) is eating. Just break it down enough that they can easily take it in.

Yes, there's still room for prepared devotional materials. They're so helpful--much like jarred baby food. I would not want to be without the excellent resources careful Christian authors have prepared to help children learn about God. BUT…you don't feed your baby just jarred baby foods. You help your baby eat what the rest of the family is eating. THAT is what your children's devotional life should be like.

(Also, I'm pretty convinced that Scripture memorization fits in here somewhere, too. But, to be honest, that's something I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate regularly into our lives. I'll update as we keep working on it!)

One Last Note

I was talking to my own mother about composing this post, and I asked her if she thought I'd missed anything important. Her response was a thoughtful, "Sometimes each child is going to need individual discipleship."

It was such a good reminder that I couldn't close this post without sharing it. Yes, each child is an individual, and there are times when each of them will need attention, help, resources, prayer, time, thought, guidance, study... all of these good things, and that child will need them from YOU, the parent. So please, don't take this post as an end-all or be-all. I've only been a parent for about 12 years now, and if I have as much to learn in the next 12 years as I have in the last 12... well, I have a really, really long way to go.

So please take this post in the spirit it's offered: as a reflection from someone who's a ways down the road, but not that far down, and who wants to offer what she knows so far, just in case it might help someone else on the path. I know I'm missing things, and I'm sure somewhere in here I've said something wrong.

But we're meant to help each other on this journey. I pray the Lord lets whatever is good here stick in your heart and your mind, and that He graciously lets you forget and discard anything harmful. May you enjoy many, many rich times of prayer and study and discussion with your kids, as you lead them to follow you, as you follow Christ.


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!

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

Faith 

-"3 Awful Features of Roman Sexual Morality": Good context for your reading of the New Testament and the church fathers.

-"Martyrs: An Eloquent Death"

-Cover Reveal of "Nailed It!: 365 Sarcastic Devotionals for Angry or Worn-Out People": I have been working for Kalos Press for almost two years now, and while I've shepherded some very cool books to press during that time, in a month, the very first book that I myself acquired will be coming out, and I'm delighted to say that it's this amazing devotional work by Anne Kennedy. She revealed the cover on her blog this week, which prominently features a hand-painted icon of Jael-I KNOW! it is the very coolest--and you should all go take a look at it. 

To whet your appetite, here's a detail from the cover: Jael's bloody tent-peg:

You can see the whole thing at Anne's blog, or go to Kalos Press' Facebook page for larger images, and all the lovely little details..

Family 

-"A Parent's Life Experiences Can Alter Their Offspring's Genes"

-"How to Build a Happier Brain":

There’s a classic saying: "Neurons that fire together, wire together." What that means is that repeated patterns of mental activity build neural structure. 

Fiction 

-Odyssey Writing Workshop Podcasts: I found a lot of useful info in these podcasts on writing science fiction and fantasy.

-Reading Writers Podcast: Another recent find--and I'll admit that, for this one, I definitely enjoyed the interview episodes the most. 

-"Teaching Stuff: Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic": This is an account of a FANTASTIC editing exercise for your fiction.


I hope you have a restful Sunday, with time for worship and time for rest!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

How I Have My Daily Devotions

I’m a faithful listener to Russell Moore’s Signposts podcast, and I enjoyed the one he did last spring about how he has his daily devotions. 

Discussions like these are a lot like parenting discussions: hearing how someone else did it isn’t necessarily going to dictate exactly how YOU should do it, but it’s always helpful to get ideas from someone else in the trenches.

And in that spirit, I offer this post: here’s how I have my daily devotions.

Part One: Prayer

I’ll admit my bias from the beginning: I think I have an advantage here as an Anglican. The Book of Common Prayer is just such a rich resource when it comes to devotional instruction. It’s actually what first drew me to the Anglican church: when I first read the words of the General Confession, I thought, Here are the words I’ve been trying to say to God for my whole life.

I knew I’d found my home then.

And so, in my daily devotions, I use the structure of the BCP. When I have a lot of time, I’ll read the entire Morning Prayer service. But, happily for those of us who aren’t cloistered religious, there are shorter services in the BCP, too. I usually use the one-page “Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families.” This leads me through an opening few prayers, gives me the space to sing a hymn, gives me a place to ask my own individual requests, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and a collect.

Moving parts: 

-I work my way through the hymnal, singing one a day, and only using the ones whose melodies I can work out with my very poor skills on the recorder. :)  I just work my way from front to back of the hymnal during Ordinary Time, and then I switch to seasonal hymns (Advent, Christmas, Lent) when appropriate.

-I say the collect of the week right after the closing collect. This is a nice link to our Sunday services, since I hear the weekly collect first at Sunday worship.

-Personal petitions: I keep track of who I want to pray for using a simple notebook. I pray for my immediate family and my parents and siblings (and their spouses and children) every day. I also pray for my extended family on Mondays, my husband’s extended family on Tuesdays, our church and church stuff on Wednesdays, ministries and missionaries on Thursdays, and specific requests from friends and family on Fridays.


I used to be overwhelmed by the number of things I meant to remember to talk to God about, and the idea of getting to them all at once was so daunting that I didn’t even start. I still have this forlorn idea that it might be perfect if I COULD remember everyone before the Lord every day of the week, but I’ve learned that it’s better to start somewhere than to let myself get so intimidated by the perfect that I lose the good. And so I divide things up.

This isn’t a strict rule, by the way: when I feel moved to pray for someone on Tuesday’s list, I don’t say, “Oh no, it’s Monday, I can’t do that yet!”  The list just gives a normal structure for normal days.

Part Two: Bible-reading

So here’s where I’m sort of untraditional: I listen to the Bible much, MUCH more than I actually read it. And I need to be honest: I’m not sure this is the IDEAL way to get the scripture into my heart and mind.

BUT, it is the way that has SUCCESSFULLY gotten the scripture into my heart and mind and so, again, it’s better than the Not Doing It At All Because I Cannot Do It Perfectly.

So here’s how I do it. I use two tools: the St. James Daily Devotional and Alexander Scourby’s complete reading of the King James Bible. (Note: I’m not a KJV-only reader. I just really like Scourby’s reading voice. He does a great job of reading the words like they actually MEAN something.)

Every weekend, I take the St. James devotional, and I make myself a playlist in iTunes of the week's readings. (I also read Fr. Reardon's commentary on the readings, because it inevitably gives helpful and illuminating context.) The devotional takes you through the OT once every two years, the NT every year, and the Psalms every month. I put the chapters for the week on a playlist, and I add in the Proverbs for the week. (As Proverbs has 31 chapters, it’s pretty easy to read it through every month, just matching the chapter number to the date.)

This playlist is usually about 2 hours long. I spend some time on the weekend listening to the OT chapters and Psalms, and deleting almost all of them as I go. If a chapter or Psalm really stands out, I’ll leave it on, and eventually I have a half hour playlist of mostly gospels and epistles (and a Proverb a day) that I can commit to listening to each weekday morning.

Then, on each weekday morning, after I’ve prayed, I spend a half hour knitting and listening to the Bible. I do this because I find that having something rhythmic for my hands to do leaves my mind free to concentrate on the words I’m hearing. It can't be anything complicated--no counting!--or else it becomes a distraction rather than a help.

I find that listening instead of reading slows me down enough to really pay attention to what’s going on in the lesson (I’m a fast reader, and skimming is a bad habit when it comes to scripture). Sometimes, I’ll stop the playback and look up something on Bible Gateway, so that I can slow down even more, and really see what the author of the book is getting at.


I can’t tell you how much this has changed my life: I’ve become a different person in the last six years or so that I’ve been doing this. Having the scripture running through my head this way…you can’t spend that much time in God’s word and NOT have it change you, I don’t think.

I have pieces of the Psalms floating though my head every day now. It’s so good.

Never, never, never give up

If there were one thing I could encourage every Christian to do, it would be to spend more time in the Word. And I know that’s probably something you hear everywhere, and maybe it’s something that makes you feel guilty, and all I can say is: keep trying. Don’t give up. Beg God for help. Ask Him to help you find whatever method is going to work for you. Try it a million different ways until you find one that sticks, and don’t forget to pray the whole way through, because you have an Enemy who will fight you every step of the way.

It took me to my thirties to make this a regular habit, and I have been a Christian since I was two. (Really. I remember.)

And admitting that it took so long makes me feel so silly. It shouldn't take a grown-up Christian decades to figure out a regular devotional habit, right? But I offer it in case it encourages someone else to keep going. PLEASE, keep going. And when you fall down, get up, and keep going again. We all stumble in many ways…

But He who is with you is greater. Ask Him for help here, and He will give it to you. He gave you this great deposit of faith already; He WANTS you to listen to Him. He wants His law to form your heart and your mind.



I’m hoping to follow this post up next week with a post about how we have devotions with our kids, because it’s really something that’s grown out of our (my husband’s and my) personal devotional practices.

Meanwhile: read the Bible any way you can. Pray for yourself and those you love. Keep going. Don’t give up. I can’t tell you how often it feels like I’m struggling through the La Brea tar pits in order to get to my prayer time, as if there were gooey stiff black ooze sucking at every movement of my legs. It can really suck sometimes, trying to fight towards that oasis of light and refreshment. And there are even times when I finish and think, “That was completely rote. I don’t feel anything but stupid and frustrated and dry. I don’t feel like I was even talking to myself, let alone to GOD.”

That’s okay. It’s like that sometimes. Keep going. Just like it matters that you kiss your children goodnight, even when you’re tired and sore and grumpy, because you LOVE them, and OF COURSE you’re going to show them so, no matter how you’re feeling; it matters that you spend time with your Lord, talking to Him and listening to His word.  You are not bad or unfaithful or rotten for having it be hard. You are a normal Christian, living in a fallen, whiny world.

It’s okay. Keep going.

Remember that, as a mother loves the least little wonderful efforts her children make towards goodness, so your Heavenly Father loves your stumbling steps towards Him.

He is good. Spending time in His presence is worth it. Keep going. Because He is good.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


The links to the Scourby recording and the BCP are Amazon affiliate links, because why not? Read full disclosure about Amazon affiliate links on the sidebar of this blog.  Other links are just normal links.

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!"

Praying Using the Anglican Rosary

Today I have such a treat for you! One of my favorite bloggers, Shirley from Under an English Sky, is visiting with us today and sharing about one of her favorite ways to spend time with the Lord in prayer.

On a recent trip to York Minister Cathedral, I picked up a small rosary. I had not intended to buy one nor had I had any thought prior to that visit about praying the rosary, but lately I have been finding my prayer life a struggle. I start off fairly well, but within minutes my mind is drifting and thinking of other things. I bring my focus back on praying, but it’s not long until once again my mind is off on its own merry way. If my mind is not dancing to its own tune, then I find that I am praying one minute and the next the sunlight is peeking through the curtains and it is morning! If you have struggled with the same issues then I do not need to tell you how frustrating it is. I feel guilty that after all Jesus has done for me, I cannot come before Him and be still. I cannot focus long enough to lay myself at the foot of the cross and commune with my Saviour.

Back to the Cathedral … I stood in the gift shop on the way out of the Cathedral and held a small rosary in my hand, I fondled the beads, allowed my fingers to pass from one bead to the next and pondered on the peace that comes from being in such a magnificent place of Christian worship. I wondered about the rosary, about each prayer bead and pondered if perhaps physically holding and moving my fingers over such an aid would be of help. We are high church Anglicans, but not quite Anglo-Catholic so the rosary is not part of my everyday life.  On impulse I walked quickly over to the counter before I changed my mind and made my purchase.

Since then, each time I come before the Lord in extended prayer, I pick up my rosary and move my fingers from each bead as I pray for each person, each worry, each praise that I offer up to God. Of course I am not by any means using the rosary as it ‘should’ be used, but that was never the intention. The goal was to be able to remain focused on my Lord and Saviour. And it’s worked! Having that physical object in my hand has helped me to remain focused, to keep my thoughts drifting off.

I have since done a bit of research and found that the rosary is not exclusively a ‘Catholic’ thing. The Anglican Rosary is used quite commonly by – well Anglicans – and Christians from other denominations.

The Anglican Rosary is a combination of the Catholic Rosary and the Jewish Prayer Rope. It is comprised of 33 beads (the traditional number of Jesus’ life). There is one invitatory bead followed by 7 beads each (week beads) with a single bead (called the cruciform) in between each set of week beads. There are no set prayers for the Anglican Rosary, it’s your choice what you pray. Of course the Book of Common Prayer is full of choices and inspiration if you cannot find the words – which happens doesn’t it? There’s a great little article here which might give you more clarity if you are interested and incorporating this tool into your own prayer life. 

I have found my small rosary to be such a useful aid. It’s easy to be surrounded by peace and tranquillity inside a church and feel your soul soar towards your Lord and Saviour, but when you are surrounded by the busyness of everyday life, pressures and routines, it can be a bit more difficult. At least that is true for me. My Book of Common Prayer and my unassuming (you get such pretty ones out there!) rosary has truly helped me to focus my prayer life more, and for that I am truly grateful.

My thanks to Shirley, and please be sure to visit her blog, which is a treasury of gorgeous pictures, yummy recipes, and encouraging words!

Looking for a Bible-reading plan?

January is the time for reflection and resolutions, and for many of us (including me), studying the Bible is a big part of our plans for the new year.

But it can be a daunting task. So I’ve collected a list of resources for reading through the Bible. I hope one of them might turn out to be just what you’re looking for!

Traditional Plans:

-The Lectionary: You can find the Revised Common Lectionary in the back of th Book of Common Prayer.  It is an old and reliable system for reading scripture. It’s not comprehensive, but it will take you through a good deal of the Bible, and in a way that’s sensitive to the liturgical seasons. (I like having a hard copy, but the BCP is also available online here, for free.)

-The St. James Devotional: This subscription service is what I use personally. It takes you through the New Testament every year, the Old Testament every two years, and the Psalms a lot. It includes weekly collects and a simplified form of morning and evening prayer. It also includes commentary on the selections. Written by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, this alone are worth the (small) cost of admission.

Cyber Plans:

-The One Year Bible online - This site lets you customize your start date and gives you a plan for reading through the whole Bible in a year. Very cool!

Something a Little Different:

-Professor Grant Horner's Bible-Reading System: This one is intense. But it looks like it would be a great way to (relatively) quickly increase your knowledge of the text and its contents.

-The Quiet Time Bible Guide - This one takes you through the New Testament and the Psalms. If you're new to reading through the Bible, this might be a gentler way into the practice for your first time through.

-Reading God's Story: a Chronological Daily Bible - reading the Bible chronologically can open up a lot of its meaning. 

For the Kids:

-Highlights from the New Testament: The idea behind this free list is to get you reading the actual text of the Bible to your children, but in slightly smaller, selective, digestible pieces. This is what my husband and I are planning to use this year during our after-dinner devotions.

-Highlights from the Old Testament: Same as the above, except it takes you through the Old Testament.

May God bless you as you dive ever deeper into His word!
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!

New Year's Resolution #1: Love God

My first resolution is the same one as last year and the year before: Love God.

It’s okay to make the same resolution every year, I think. It’s even good. The new year is a time to take stock, to remember where we are and where we’re going, and if you find every year that your first thing is still your first thing . . . well, that’s good. It means you were probably right about your priorities. It means you just might be fitting into that wonderful description of the Christian life: “A long obedience in the same direction.”

Anyway, where it gets fun and very New-Year’s-y is in the details. What are you going to try to do, specifically, that will help you (specifically!) to love God better? What are your disciplines, your practices?

Specific Goals

Here are mine, for this year:

1) Keep using the St. James devotional to read (listen) through the Bible. Currently I’m listening through the assigned passages 3-4 times a week.

2) Keep listening through Proverbs every month. Ideally, this is one chapter a day, but often I listen to them about 4 or 5 at a time, to catch up.

3) Scripture memorization. I have no good plan for this. I need to think about this. (Revisit in Feb? Tie it to fast times in the church calendar?) (ETA: my husband is interested in working on this together. Yay!)

4) Observe the traditional Christian fasts. Not in a heroic way, but just in a basic eat-less-eat-boring way (sort of like the Orthodox do). This would be Wednesdays, Fridays, Lent, and Advent, basically (I think). I don’t want to do this, but I feel like I should. Just because, well, it’s what Christians have always done, and all the saints say it’s helpful in killing the passions, and it’s conducive to prayer.

5) Pray regularly. I want to be more deliberate about this this year. Unless and until I come up with a better plan, I’m just going to plan on saying an (Anglican) rosary morning and evening.

6) Pray for others. I also want to get better at praying for others, especially those in my family and church. Not sure how to do this either, but maybe I can (ha!) pray about it during January, and revisit it in February. (Update: my husband is interested in doing this with me, using the BCP’s Prayers of the People.)

What about you?

Talk about your devotional goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Weekly Scripture Reflections

These are my notes on the week's readings. I'm posting them here just because I realized I wanted to start keeping track of my notes! And I'd to hear your insights from your weekly devotions, too!


Luke 22:
-in this gospel, the argument about who will be greatest comes right after the argument about who will betray Jesus. Were they talking about both at the same time? Did talking about who was going to be the awfullest disciple prompt boasting about who was the best?

That sounds very, very terrible . . . but very, very human at the same time.

-when the disciples could not stay awake with Jesus in Gethsemane . . . it says they slept for sorrow. Somehow I had never noticed that detail before.

-after the angel strengthened Jesus, He prayed more. Was that what he needed strength for? The prayer? If so, then so must we . . .

Psalm 101:
-"I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked-doers from the city of the LORD."  Doesn't that sound like a clarion call to early morning prayer and confession?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Book Notes: "Spiritual Disciplines for Busy People", by Andrew Yee

Can I note first: this e-book is free? Nice.

Though probably what I should have noted first is: this e-book is excellent.

Andrew Yee is a spiritual director. He's also a dad with a couple of kids, and understands what it is to be time-pressed.

What I loved about this book is that it:

1) fulfilled the promise of its title: it really does give solid ideas for spiritual disciplines that don't take much time, and,
2) it never acts like these small steps are forever going to be enough to satisfy one's thirst for God.

But here's the thing: you've got to start somewhere. And here's one thing more: there are so many times when you have to RE-start somewhere. After an illness, during your kids' infancy, after a discouragement, a tragedy, a time of dryness . . . there are so many seasons in our lives where we get spiritually out of shape, and want to start attending to the Lord again, but are as weak in our devotional muscles as a post-op patient is in her physical muscles.

And no one would tell a mom who had just had a c-section to run a mile. And maybe it's good for everyone to be healthy enough to run a mile. But you can't start there. A mom who's just had a c-section does well to walk from her bed to the toilet and back.

And we do well to spend five minutes trying one of the excellent exercises that Andrew Yee recommends in this book. It's super-short, guys. It's super-dense with good stuff. It's free. You should read it. :)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Yarnalong!

Looking at the picture now, those two books look pretty funny together. One is my current just-for-fun read: "The Farther Shore" by Christie Golden. It's the second half of a continuation of Star Trek: Voyager, and much better than the last Star Trek continuation novel I tried.

The other book is my current devotional book: "Thy Will Be Done: Letters to Persons in the World" by St. Francis de Sales, and it contains such light-drenched passages as this. 

The knitting is a light, lace-weight cardigan - the Nevis cardigan this time. I liked my Whisper cardigan so much, I wanted to make a similar cardigan with shorter sleeves and a bit more length in the body. The yarn is Tosh Lace in Spectrum, a lovely Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law.

There are more book-and-yarn-rich posts to be found over at Ginny's place.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

a Celtic Collect for Lent

This has been the collect all week assigned in the St. James Devotional, and I'm finding that now, halfway through Lent, I am almost able to pray it and mean it:

Grant, we beseech Thee, loving Father, that we who are disciplined by the Lenten fast may find our worldly desires weakened, and our desire for heaven rendered more fervent. This we seek of Thy mercy in the name of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee and Thy Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Very grateful for a devotional like this, that constantly prods my reluctant self into saying good words to God, and asking for the things my sinful self wishes I wouldn't, and being encouraged in ways my doubting self would never manage on her own. Collects like this redirect me. I think they're proof - a small bit of proof out of a great, great body of proof - of the truth that the church really is Christ's body. The saints write prayers like this down so that other Christians can be taught and encouraged and it works.

We aren't left alone. Even though we are to love God with every single piece of our selves, he doesn't leave us to love alone - we're never alone. And his great generosity shows in the fact that not only are we never alone because he is with us, we're also never alone because he's also given us this great communion of saints - this huge, geography-and-time-spanning family - who show us by word and example how to love him. And remind us that he really does love us.

So grateful. I'm so tired today, and so tempted to be discouraged, but then I read a collect like this, and pray it, and think about the unknown saint who wrote it, and the fact that God knew that I would read it however many years later - that he planned that, and who knows how many other not-coincidences! how many other people have been heartened by this! and this is just one short, lonely paragraph out of millions and millions and millions of words penned by the saints! - and I'm filled with hope, and I'm reassured, and I'm grateful.

So, Amen. Amen: may our desire for heaven be rendered even more fervent. Amen, and amen.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

daily devotions and the Eucharist

One of the elements of my mild case of synesthesia is that I conceptualize time differently than most people: I actually see it. I'm unable to think of it abstractly. "Time" brings up a sort of complicated picture in my head and onto that I map my days and weeks and years.

The weeks look sort of like swooping sections of wires held up by telephone poles, and telephone-pole sections are the weekends. I've seen time like that as long as I can remember knowing what time was.

When I became Anglican, it was easy to see that the highest  point of the week - high literally, in my conceptualization of time - was Sunday mass. And now when I look at my weeks, it seems that communion on Sundays is really the strong structure holding the rest of the week up - my weeks swoop down from the last Sunday and up towards the next, and the grace received at each service is enough to last me through the week and the grace I expect to receive at the next service is what draws me back up from the trough of those hard middle days.

But I'm beginning to see that what keeps me open to receiving that grace through the week is my devotions - reading the Bible and praying. It’s a sort of connection to starting the week with the Eucharist. I want that peace and strength to be the line that carries me through, and it's really beginning to seem to me that prayer and Scripture reading are the practices that keep me connected to the grace that's so easy to perceive while I'm at church.

Which makes sense, because prayer and devotional reading are a kind of worship - or the obedience that properly flows out of worship.

I know this is all sort of obvious, but it's such a good thing that I wanted to think about it a bit more through writing.

Songs too. The Psalms and hymns and praise choruses - especially the ones with lots of scripture in them - I think these remind us through the week that we are, as some pastor or other put it, "Sunday people". We're the people of the Resurrection. And we can see that most clearly when we're all gathered together worshipping on Sundays, but it is true during the week too. And prayer and Scripture and songs help us to remember.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Book Review: Scripture by Heart: Devotional Practices for Memorizing God's Word by Joshua Choonmin Kang

I found this book while searching on Amazon for stuff by Dallas Willard. I was puzzled when that search brought up something by Joshua Choonmin Kang, who I'd never heard of, but then saw that Dr. Willard had written the forward. I have to say: what a helpful search feature for Amazon to have! It's not a jump to suppose that a buyer would be interested in books that their favorite authors approve of. And in this case, I was very interested indeed, because I've been trying for some time to make scripture memorization a bigger part of my life.
Upon receiving this book, I found that it's half instructional manual and half devotional: some of the chapters teach you how to memorize scripture and some of them inspire you with reasons to memorize. Most of them are a mix of the two, both encouraging and equipping you at the same time. Though I read most of this book on retreat, I think it's perfectly suited for a nightstand: it's the sort of book that will give you the push you need to keep going when you're halfway through the long slog of memorizing a chapter or a book of the Bible. Most of the chapters are only a few pages long, but densely packed with jewels like this:
"Memorized Scripture verses make it just that much easier for the Holy Spirit to communicate with us, to guide and instruct us."
"Please note, when the bible uses the word success, it refers to accomplishing something God has entrusted to us."
"Receiving the Word of God is tantamount to welcoming Jesus into our heart."
Pastor Kang's words have been immensely helpful to me in my quest to memorize scripture because he doesn't just urge you to do it, he tells you why you should, and his reasons are compelling. He says, "Love and learning have always been relative to each other." In other words, when we love someone, we want to know him. So, loving God implies that we will learn about him.
In the end though, it's that first quotation that seems to me to be the heart of the book: "Memorized Scripture verses make it just that much easier for the Holy Spirit to communicate with us". I want my mind to be shaped by God's words, so that when he has something to say to me, it will be easy for me to receive it. In the words of the old Arch Bible story book The Seeds that Grew to Be a Hundred:
Now, some people listen, but others don't.
So the meaning of the story is clear.
Don't be like ground where seeds can't grow.
Open your ears and hear.
This is the message of Pastor Kang's book: hide God's word in your heart and that word will shape your heart. It will shape it so that it is like Jesus'.

I highly recommend this book.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

we do what we can

I’m facing writing the chapter in my book that terrifies me to write, because I’m not equal to it. It’s the heart of the story, and I’m so scared I’m going to get it wrong. It is, in fact, not the place where the gospel is told, but where it is shown, and I'm scared I'm going to get it wrong. 

(I’m not scared that I’m wrong about what’s supposed to happen; it’s that what’s supposed to happen is so exactly right that I’m scared I won’t be able to write it well, because I am not exactly right.)

But then I was reading Fr. Reardon’s commentary on this week's readings today and read this section, where he is discussing Luke's accounts of the women who went to Jesus' grave to anoint his body after his death (emphasis mine):

Now there is a certain kind of “practical” person, an efficiency expert, who does not much appreciate what the Myrrhbearers were up to. Had he encountered them on the road that morning, he might well have asked them, “Just what good do you think you are going to accomplish?” Anointing a dead body, after all, does not make good business sense. It achieves nothing very practical. It is the sort of activity that fails to contribute to the Gross National Product. Except for its very small influence on the myrrh market, spice trading, and nard futures, it barely shows up on the Dow Industrials. It has no measurable results. The corpses thus anointed cannot be interviewed to ascertain if they are satisfied with the product, or which brand they prefer, or whether they would recommend it to their neighbors. Anointing dead bodies resists a quantitative analysis.

Over and against this quantitative point of view stands the completely unproductive, uneconomical, inefficient assessment of the ointment-pouring scene at Bethany: “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8). In that assessment of the thing, we arrive very near the heart of the Gospel. Quite simply: We do what we can. We do not attempt to measure what we do, certainly not by its perceived results. We act solely out of love, letting God alone determine whether we have “loved much” (Luke 7:47). The final quality of our lives will not be assessed by what we have accomplished, but by our love (1 Corinthians 13:24). Only the God who reads the heart can put a value on that love.

Prominent in the midst of the Church, then, are those Myrrhbearers who came that morning loaded down with their spices and without the foggiest idea how they were going to enter a sealed tomb guarded by a massive stone. What an exercise in inefficiency, lack of cost analysis, and failure in planning. As it turned out, they could not even find a body to anoint. All that myrrh, just going to waste.

And I am reassured. “We do what we can. We do not attempt to measure what we do, certainly not by its perceived results. We act solely out of love, letting God alone determine whether we have ‘loved much’.”

Well. Now, at least, I know how to approach my work today. I will do what I can. I will do it out of love. I will pray for God’s mercy on me.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Jesus' prayer for Peter

Tonight I was reading Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon's commentary on the week's readings and got to his words about Luke 22, which tells of the time just before the arrest of Jesus. I really appreciated these two paragraphs and thought I'd pass them on (emphasis mine):

In contemporary English (which makes no distinction between “thou” and “ye”), it is difficult to discern all the subtlety in these verses. The “you” in verse 31 is plural. That is to say, it is not only Peter that Satan desires to sift as wheat; it is all of the Apostles. Indeed, it is all Christians. Satan has “asked,” he has sought permission, to try them, just as he had formerly asked such permission with respect to Job (Job 1:12; 2:6). In the Lord’s Passion the disciples will be tried as Job was tried, and the Lord warns them of this in His words to Peter.

The “you” in verse 32, however, is singular, not plural. That is to say, it is Peter himself for whom the Lord prays. In fact, as the story goes on to show, Peter is the one most in danger, and Jesus foresees this. He also foresees Peter’s repentance, for which He prayed. In connection with this repentance, the Lord commands him to strengthen his brethren. Indeed, the story of Peter’s fall and repentance has been strengthening his brethren down to the present day.

Isn't that the truth? To read all of Fr. Reardon's commentary for the week, go here.

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