After eight years of teaching at the graduate level, I grew increasingly intolerant of writing designed to make the writer look smart, clever, or edgy. I know this work when I see it; I've written a fair amount of it myself. But writing that's motivated by the desire to give the reader a pleasurable experience really is best.
Conversion Diary's post Trust School is excellent, and, for me at least, came right when I needed to hear the message it offers.
And on the funny/awesome side, I love, love, love my friend Katie's post about her New Trick. :D
Bethany writes about what keeps us from being happy, and about her need (and many of ours, I think) for time alone. This line especially makes me think: "Just because we need something doesn't mean that we demand it from others." Go read the whole thing here.
Jen left me a comment today on my post about how hard it is to find sympathy cards that are neither sticky-sweet nor theologically bad, pointing me towards these beautiful, serene, appropriate cards from Conciliar Press. I don't think I've ever seen anything better.
I always have trouble summarizing Anne Kennedy's posts, but read this one and you'll understand why I read her blog. Let's just say that she has read, marked, and inwardly digested everything that P. G. Wodehouse had to teach her.
Rachelle Gardner has a thorough, helpful post on what fiction editors are looking for when it comes to a novel's characters.
Smithical does a great job of collecting quotations pertinent to the big creation/evolution/homeschool conference kerfluffle.
"A Neutral Education?" by Susan Wise Bauer helped me find a missing piece in my continual ponderings about homeschooling and the nature of education. She writes:
The church of Christ, not textbook writers, should be responsible for providing the central Christian story that must inform all true education. When I wrote in Chapter Twenty of The Well-Trained Mind, “When you’re instructing your own child, you have two tasks with regard to religion: to teach your own convictions with honesty and diligence, and to study the ways in which other faiths have changed the human landscape. Only you and your religious community can do the first,” I was not attempting to maintain neutrality. Rather, I was asserting that a Christian education can only be provided by a Christian community — parents, in obedience to and in faithful relationship with their local church.
Now I am trying to figure out how that fits in with what has bothered me so frequently about Christian homeschooling organizations, i.e. that they frequently put character above academics when they are ostensibly academic organizations. I thought it bothered me because they were trying to make ordinary Christian parenting the end-all and be-all of education. But maybe part of it is that they are trying to take the place of the church? (Still just thinking out loud here, folks - not coming to any conclusions yet. Feel free to join in conversation in the comment section!)
Finally, what's a link post without some music? Probably most of you have heard this, but whether you have or not, it's still a nice evening treat. Enjoy!
This is something I realized first as a reader - when I was reading Lewis and could feel myself trying to think in imitation of his written thoughts; a lovely experience, given how clear-minded he is.
Writing (when you write to be read) is opening yourself up and inviting folks to tromp around inside, feeling and thinking after you. It’s a weird combination of power and vulnerability. They give you control of their minds, for a time, but you have to be willing to let them have at you, too. You can tell them what to feel, but you have to give them that feeling from the feelings you store inside yourself. You have to be willing to lend them your insides, but you get to do it in this highly-structured way. (Ah, narrative. How necessary and beautiful you are.)
There's a lot of give-and-take to writing and reading. It's a more social proposition than I realized.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
