Weekly Links: Transfiguration, Advent, Memoirs, and more!

- "Can I Drag That Into Church?"  Good stuff to read on a Sunday morning:

Every week at church one of our pastors leads us through a time of corporate confession of sins and an assurance of pardon. This week my pastor Jason noticed the tentative way people were walking into church. “Are we allowed to come in like this on the clean wood floors? Is all the salt, slush, dirt, and powder too much of a mess for church this morning?” 

He pointed out that’s the way all too many of us walk into church every week: “Am I allowed to come in like this? Is this mess okay in here? Can I come sit in the pews with all the slush, grime, and filth from my life? Is this sin too dirty to clean up? Is my mess going to stain the carpet? Do I have to make sure I’m gotten every single speck off before I walk through the door?”

- "A Simple But Life-Changing Realization" - And this one is a good follow-up:

I came to understand that God’s commands are not suggestions. They are not vague notions of propriety. They are not tasks or to-dos. Not to the Christian, that is. To the Christian, God’s commands are promises. They are promises that you really can be this, you really can have this, you really can do this if you take hold of what he offers. God does not merely give the command and then leave you to your own devices. That would be impossible. No, God gives the command and offers the means to obey and fulfill the command.

- "More on Memoir": in my editing job, I see a lot of memoir proposals and queries. And this post hit home, more than I can say.


- Mere Fidelity podcast "Transfiguration": This episode is a great example of what I love about this podcast: intelligent Christians discussing approaching scripture and theology with great curiosity, knowledge, & love.


-And, finally, as this Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, I couldn't let this go without an Advent link. So, take the time to head over to Anne's place to read about why Advent is a "Contrarian Celebration":

 The great looming temptation is to become tired and call it a day, to stop short at the end of the work, and miss the incredible mercy of what all the work is for.

Happy Advent!
Jessica Snell

Links

"Guns, Football, and Fornication":

Perhaps, society should discourage sex outside of marriage and making babies outside of marriage as ideals. We all admit that many will not live up to the ideals, but that would not make them worse. Social pressure does have some impact after all.

"Semiannual Gluttony Retrospective, Pt. I":

Because one thing I've learned through the past four years is that there are eating disorders that keep you fat and eating disorders that keep you thin, but they're still disorders. There are gluttonies that keep you fat and gluttonies that keep you thin, but both are no good way to live.

"Editing the Soul":

In a way, examining your conscience is very much like being a good editor. Editors are trained to spot and ferret out what is objectively unacceptable in a manuscript. But the best editors do more than just mark up the page with red ink, noting all the errors. This is only helpful in the most limited way, and it may very well lead the writer, especially if they're the delicate genius type, to despair. Instead, a good editor will try to figure out what the author was actually trying to say when they went astray; and they help them to make corrections and draw out something better.

"Of Women and the Freedom to be Holy":

. . . but there is, at least, here in her masterpiece work, an appreciation of what Christianity alone provided women in the 18th and 19th centuries: the freedom to be human. Safie is, after all, seeking only to be allowed to pursue virtue, to learn, to deepen her soul, and to marry a man she loves. She knows that it is only a Christian nation that can provide that freedom for her.

This is a part of the Christian story, a part of the Bible itself, that I think we’ve too often forgotten to tell, bowing, in our own way, to the common modern idea that Christianity is, at its core, oppressive to women. Instead of fighting back tooth and nail we most often answer only that Christian wives and mothers are very happy, or that women want the strong manly leaders our churches encourage. And that’s really not the story we need to be telling.

links!

First up, James M. Kushiner's post "Discretionary Saving" is about what it means to be a saint, and it's good reading for Lent. He says,
Since holy means “set apart” for God, it follows that our thoughts and actions that are negotiable, or what we describe in monetary terms as “discretionary spending,” should be given over to divine things. You could say that our discretionary time should be spent “laying up treasures in heaven,” or what we might call “discretionary saving.”
He goes on to talk about what those "divine things" are: not just prayer and Bible study (though certainly those), but also "corporeal works of mercy", like feeding the poor, and he talks about why those acts of mercy are part of becoming a saint.

It's a very good and challenging post.

And then, more on holiness, is Quotidian Moments' post "Duties of My State in Life". After pointing out that introverts might be tempted to escape their duties not by doing a million outside activities but rather by reading and writing and praying too much (ouch!), she says,
Every once in a while, I used to search online to find exactly WHAT were the duties of my state in life. But the answer is simple -- it is my husband and children, my parents, and more generally, the practice of a Christian married life. I think I was probably searching to find the minimum so I could check off "duties done for the day." I suppose I was also looking for a way to feel good about myself -- sort of a grading scale. I did that and that and that, which adds up to holiness! But it's not so easy, when St Augustin says quite clearly the Church's teaching that we don't "earn" God's help nor can we expect to please Him by trying to get by with a passing grade.
The rest of the post can be found here.

Speaking of daily duties, one of the ways I find good books to read to the kids is by haunting the blogs of children's book authors, because they're always one top of the latest buzz in what is, after all, their own business. My favorite for this purpose is Melissa Wiley. She writes posts like this and all of the sudden we have our library list for the week. (I keep her post open in one tab and my library's website open in the other and flip back and forth, requesting, requesting, requesting.) From that specific post, I can definitely vouch for "Chalk", "Shark Vs. Train", and "Flora's Very Windy Day".
And, speaking of books, Semicolon's weekly book review linky is up, and it's a great way to find many, many things to add to your own TBR pile.
And through Semicolon's link, I found this excellent post, "The Truth About Homeschooling, Part I". An excerpt:
Socialization is probably the most hot button word in the homeschooling world. Just mention the word and homeschoolers immediately become defensive. First you’ll hear the argument that socialization and socializing are different. That is true. It’s also true that most people who bring up socialization really mean socializing but we know what they mean and we don’t win any points by splitting hairs over definitions. Then you’ll hear homeschoolers categorically deny that either of these is an issue. Type in “socialization and homeschoolers” on Google and you’ll get a bunch of articles and blogs and reports that all spout statistics showing that neither socialization or socializing or anything of the sort is, has ever been, or ever will be an issue for homeschooled kids.

The truth?

Socialization and socializing are issues for homeschoolers.
Reading something like that makes me give a slight sigh, Ah, and go on to read the rest, relieved to know I'm hearing a truth deeper than the party line, and yet something that's not depressed, but just clear-headed. Instead of saying, "This isn't an issue," this post says, "this is an issue, but if you don't ignore it, it's not an issue that lacks a satisfactory solution." Very helpful, to me at least.