Weekly Links!

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

FAITH

-"The Battle is the Lord's" - a snippet:

God is God. He has the power and the plan and all will be well and jolly and good and beautiful in the end no matter what I do, but I can be a part of the jollification. God does not need me, but I can be there.

-"Family Worship as Spiritual Formation": This is one post from a really excellent new series over at Mere Orthodoxy.

-"On Family Worship and Failure": This is another.

-"Father and Son at the Cross"

-"Giving People a Chance to Grow"

-"On Acts 29 and Spiritual Gifts"

Family

-"On the Outside": I know this was written to make me tear up. But...it worked.

Fiction

-"The Speculative World of William Shakespeare"

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

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Being kind to your own family members

We're so good in public. So polite, so understanding, so kind.

But what about at home?

One of the best things my parents modeled for me was being kind to your own family members. These are the people who matter most to you in the whole world. Why would you not be the most courteous to them?


I was reminded of this idea as I read Titus.

Grace and peace to you, wrote St. Paul.

Grace and peace.

This is what we owe to those we live with. The ones we know best, the ones who see us at our worst.

Grace and peace.

Only through the Lord Jesus Christ, who supplies our lack.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: Domestic Monasteries, Dark Personalities, and More!

"The Secret of a Domestic Monastery":

It doesn’t have to do with getting the kids to walk around in silence (though, boy, that’d be nice if I could pull it off), nor is it about observing the exact same prayer times as consecrated religious. Boiled down to its core, the hallmark of the monastic schedule is that the way you use your time reflects your true priorities. Your daily life is one of constantly pushing back against the world’s expectations, making real, sometimes difficult sacrifices so that your time is not swept away by the current of the world’s priorities.

"Psychology Uncovers Sex Appeal of Dark Personalities": this is a fascinating study (hat tip to my friend, Roland, for the link!):

 . . . In other words, people with dark personality traits are not seen as more physically attractive than others when you take away their freedom to wear their own clothes and makeup. People with dark personalities seem to be better at making themselves physically appealing.

"Saying Stuff (about the Lord's Supper)":

And the stuff God says is totally different from the stuff we say. He says LITERAL STUFF. He speaks, and worlds come into being. He says, “let there be,” and it is. Stuff is, because God says for it to be. Of course I’m referring to Genesis 1, but it’s all through the Bible. For instance, look at Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” He says “let there be stars,” and all the stars come out. They obey before they exist. They exist by obeying the word of the Lord.

"Learning to Trust the Instruments":

In the aftermath, investigators found that almost everything that had gone wrong had been the fault of the pilots. When the plane encountered significant turbulence the pilots should have responded according to their flight training and according to the plane’s manual. Instead, they relied on instinct. And then, when the plane began to experience further complications, the pilots ignored the instruments that should have directed them to the source of the problem and the straightforward solution. They swung the plane violently from side to side attempting to right it because they ignored the aircraft’s instrument that told them where the horizon was and how to keep the plane level. They ignored the instruments that told them that their engine problem was not as serious as they thought. Blinded by the stress of the situation, they ignored the manual and did things their own way. It very nearly cost them their lives and the lives of hundreds of passengers.

And, finally, an advertisement that absolutely succeeded in making me want to give my money to the people who are asking for it - but they're not gonna take my money till . . . May? C'mon!! Why isn't this a Christmas release? Boo.
But, without further ado, Kirk, Cumberbatch, and . . . Khan?  Sorry, I mean: Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Chicago!

So, I forgot to blog about it at the time (because I came back and dived right into end-of-school madness), but . . . I got to go to Chicago!

And why I got to go is even cooler: my family threw a surprise birthday party for my grandmother! (Who reads this blog faithfully - Hi, Grandma!)

She turned 90 this year, so my aunt and my mom decided to make a Very Big Deal of it, and my awesome husband took charge of the kids for a few days, and so I got to be a part of it.

My mom and dad flew out first, and then, a day later, my brother and I joined them, and we all stayed at my aunt and uncle's house (they were such good hosts!) and then, the next day, we drove out and surprised my wonderful, amazing grandma:

Here we all are, posing after the surprise was sprung (I don't think Grandma was quite over her shock yet . . .):

Later that day, we went to her church, where so many people (100 maybe?) also showed up to honor her. My Grandma's such a woman of faith and prayer, and it was so cool to be there and listen to people talk about what she meant to them. It was so good to see her again, and to see her being celebrated.

Annnnnd, I got to hang out with my cousins! I've never lived in the same area as my extended family, and so it was so much fun to get to spend a few days getting reacquainted with my cousins and rediscovering how much I like them.

While we were there, my cousin Natalie indulged my brother and I in our desire to play tourists and took us on a tour of downtown Chicago. It's such a pretty city - the architecture's amazing. Here are Nat and I on the L:

Here are my brother and I on one of the bridges over the river:

And here are the three of us enjoying real Chicago pizza (oh-my-goodness-it-is-SO-YUMMY):

Other highlights included hiking with my dad through much greener woods than we have here in SoCal, watching my mom and her sister interact, getting to go to my uncle and aunt's church (my uncle's a great preacher!), discussing books with Nat, listening to my cousin Nic plan her wedding (and meeting her fiancé), talking with my youngest cousin (who's only a few months older than my daughter!), enjoying lots of good meals with everyone there, and hanging out with my brother (airports are much more fun when you've got good company).

And I'm sure even now I'm missing parts. It was such a good trip. I kept wishing that Adam and the kids could have come with me, but I'm so grateful for their generosity in letting me go. 

Book Notes: The Actor and the Housewife, by Shannon Hale

This book still makes me laugh harder than any other book except "A Civil Campaign". And it makes me weep every time too - this time I got to the sad part while I was sitting at the table with the kids, and I kept quiet about it, but had to keep wiping away tears so that they wouldn't notice Mom was crying.

When we reread books there's always a reason. Sometimes it's because of the characters or the plot, sometimes it's the dialogue or it's because the setting is exactly the place we wish we could be at the moment.

With this book, I reread it because I remember how funny it is. But then, once I'm a few pages in, I remember that the reason I really love it is because of how Hale writes about marriage and family. I've never read a household that sounded so real. And it's a good household too - so often fiction is about dysfunction, and the fact that Hale can write about normality and make it more interesting than dysfunction just shows her chops. That's hard. And I love her for it.

Then, towards the end, I remember that the whole book is a theodicy and I love her for that too. Being a Mormon, she answers the theodicy differently than I would, but I think any orthodox believer of any faith can appreciate a piece of fiction that grows so organically out of the author's theology.

This is a good book. Go read it.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

out and about

Sorry that posts have been light; we've been out and about, and exciting things have been happening.

One exciting thing: we went on vacation! Adam and I realized that aside from a weekend spent camping, we hadn't gotten away for a summer vacation this year. And since his job is pretty generous with paid vacation time, it seemed a shame not to use some of it. So we decided to have a fall vacation, and discovered, to our delight, that lodging rates in the little mountain town we wanted to visit are much cheaper in the fall than they are either in the summer (mountain biking season) or in the winter (skiing season). So we went up to the mountains, to the same place we'd honeymooned, and went hiking and canoeing, and introduced the kiddoes to the joys of throwing rocks into a lake. One other really cool thing was that on the last day of four vacation, my folks came up and babysat the kids for a few hours so that Adam and I could go off on our own. All in all, it was a splendid time. It was kind of funny being back at our honeymoon locale for the first time since our honeymoon, and having three (one in utero) kids with us.

The second very exciting thing is that I sold another article, this time to a magazine that I've read and loved for years. I'll give you more information when it's closer to actually being published; right now I'm in the revision process. Which is pretty amazing too, because the editor I'm working with is so good at his job. I'm learning a lot about the craft of writing just reading his suggestions and requests for revisions.

And I'm starting to feel huge. Last I checked, I hadn't gained a ton of weight (only about 10 lbs., and I'm close to halfway through), but I look very, very pregnant now. It's fun. Especially when my daughter looks at my belly and says, "baby!" and gives my belly a kiss. And then when my son (who at 1 1/2 has no idea what's going on) imitates her and says, "baby!" and makes a kissing noise too.

But, anyway, vacation's over, and life's getting back to normal, but it feels like a better normal for having that time away with my family. Being with Adam all day, instead of just early mornings and the evenings, was such a blessing. Being with him twenty-four hours a day gave me so many opportunities to notice how well our marriage works and how glad I am to be married to this particular man. There were so many times this last week when I thought, "with anyone else, this wouldn't be fun. With anyone else, this would be so much harder. With anyone else, I would be so frustrated. But with you, this is wonderful." It was a blessing to have the time and space to see how blessed I am in my marriage, if that makes sense. I am so grateful for this man, and theses children. Praise the Lord, who created them, and gave us all to each other!

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

p.s. the work on learning the saint's song continues apace! Brie has begun to ask for "the song we're learning for all Saint's Day" at bedtime; and all the fun of getting ready for Nov. 1 is reminding me of how much I'm looking forward to Advent.