Weekly Links!

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

FAITH

-"The Story of Those Little Communion Cups, Whatever Those Are Technically Called"


-"10 Reasons to Love Lent"


-"If Literature's Biggest Romantics Could Text" - the Odysseus one!


-"God's Omniscience as Law and Gospel": worth listening to:

FAmily

-"Solving the Autism Puzzle": This article from MIT Technology Review has research I haven't read elsewhere. You might be interested.

Fiction

-"Think Like a Pirate" - a very useful podcast episode, for you authors out there.


-"The Mad Truth of 'La-La Land'": I haven't seen this yet, but this review makes me want to see it more than ever.


-"How 'Weird Al' Eclipsed Almost Every Star He Ever Parodied": Not fiction, but art, so I'm putting it here.




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

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

time for a terrible pun

I hear this *every time* that Taylor Swift song comes on.

Today I finally got around to drawing it.

-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Warlike Hymns, the Work-Work Balance, and more!

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

Faith

-"Are Our Hymns Too Warlike?" - Such a good explanation of (and defense of!) battle imagery in Christian music.

-"The Work-Work Balance" - Just Anne, being awesome again.

-"I Am Overweight":

This Lent, I decided to move my body more. I believe that God created us as whole people, not as brains-on-sticks, and I want to live into that conviction. That means taking care of my body.

-"What Could Possibly Be Wrong with Christian Masturbation?" - I don't share the author's Catholicism, and hence I don't agree with her entirely, but this is a very thoughtful take on the topic, and I appreciated reading a thoughtful take on something we don't want to usually bother being thoughtful about.

-"Lent and the Preschooler" - It's so fun to see someone using the suggestions from "Let Us Keep the Feast" (and from other awesome resources) in real life!

Family

-"Three Views of Marriage" - good stuff.

-"On the Good of Sleeping with a New Woman Every Night" :

So there is always a new woman beside us, and one at least partially of our own making, as we are at least partially made by her. But it is naive to think that we know her, or she us, just because we live together. To find her again, you must do what you did when you found her at first: you must pay court to her. Not always and not every day, for that would be a bore of a different order and would lose the element of surprise. But from time to time, you must rediscover this woman who is both the same and different from the one you married.

Fiction

-"Transitional Forms": I enjoyed this free piece of fiction from Lightspeed: it offers you a bit of the Old West with your sci-fi.

-Finally, there's a new movie about Biblical events that's just come out, "Risen", and I appreciated both of these (very different) takes on it:

     -"'Risen' Reflects the Subversive Power of the Resurrection"

                      and

    -"Risen: Movies, Faith, and the Bible".





Hope the rest of your weekend is restful and good!
-Jessica Snell


This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links, I'll receive a small percentage of the purchase price - for my own shopping! :) (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Our Library Haul this Week

We're blessed to live in a place with a great library system - our county has about 90 libraries, and they allow us to request books, DVDs, CDs, etc. from any library in the system, for free. It's a perk I take full advantage of, and I can't count the number of authors I've discovered (and whose work I've later gone on to purchase) through our local libraries.

And, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, books are something I never get tired of talking about. So I thought it'd be fun to write a post starring our weekly library haul! :)    Here we go . . .


For me:
-"The Winner's Crime", by Marie Rutkowski.  You can read my review of "The Winner's Curse" here. This is the sequel.

-"1000 Forms of Fear", by Sia.  I like "Chandelier", so I wanted to see if I liked anything else on the album.

-"White House Down" - I ignored this when it first came out, but I recently read something (on Tumblr, maybe?) that made me think it was the kind of fun, over-the-top action movie that my husband and I would actually enjoy watching together. So we're going to give it a go.



For the kids:
-"How to Read a Story", by Kate Messner.   This - and some of the books following - I found via Melissa Wiley's blog. Great spot for discovering new kids' books.  This one I read to the twins, and they read to other family members soon after. A success!

-"Cakes in Space", by Philip Reeve.  I requested this along with another book by Reeve, "Oliver and the Seawigs".  Gamgee - who will often profess disinterest in novels - has been gobbling up the latter. I love books that tempt my reluctant fiction reader.

-"Butt-Naked Baby Blues", by Jerry Scott & Rick Kirkman - Bess and Gamgee are both big fans of Baby Blues. This request was due to my two eldest begging me for more of their favorite comic strip.

-"Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt", by Kate Messner. This was a hit for Gamgee - who liked the bugs & worms - and for Lucy & Anna, who loved the story and the pictures.

-"I Will Take a Nap!", "Waiting is Not Easy!",  and "I Am Invited to a Party!", by Mo Willems.  Piggie & Elephant goodness.  All the kids (and the adults) in the house like these.

-"Water Is Water", by Miranda Paul.  Anna & Lucy agreed that the best part of this book about the water cycle was the pictures.

-"An A from Miss Keller", by Patricia Polacco. I used to work at our local library and the head librarian - my old boss - still sets aside books for me that she thinks we'd like. Which is so cool. This is one of those.

-"The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza", by James Kochalka.  All four kids loved this, and I can't blame them. It's funny, and clever, and sweet. If you're looking for a gift for a new reader that they'll actually enjoy, this is a good one.

-"Big Green Pocketbook", by Candice F. Ransom. Just a sweet little story. We (the twins and I) liked it very much.

-"Stick Dog", by Tom Watson. Another bit of fiction that caught Gamgee's fancy. See? It's not impossible to find things that a reluctant novel-reader might like. Not impossible. Just difficult. :)

-"Finding Out About Geothermal Energy", by Matt Doeden - I have a budding scientist. Gamgee likes books about physics, engineering, etc., and when I request them for him, he actually reads them. There's no way I'm not going to encourage such a true, good, fitting interest in my son.

-"The Large Hadron Collider", by Bonnie Juettner Fernandes - another science book for Gamgee.



So, have you found anything lovely at the library recently? Please tell me about it in the comments!  As you can see, I'm all about making the acquaintance of new and lovely books!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; 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: writing, songwriting, science writing, and more!

My weekly round-up of interesting reading from around the web:

- "Hand in Hand, Heart Linked to Heart": These words of Charles Spurgeon's wife, Susannah, are just beautiful.


- Ingrid writes beautifully about living in a gift and not even realizing it.


- Nina Badzin's post, "What's Next for Me as a Writer?", is one I resonate with so much. The constant worrying at your project ideas, the constant reevaluation of how you're spending your writing time . . . this is what it's like inside my head. I think most creatives will identify with this post.


- Andrew Wilson's post "A Songwriting Rant" is refreshing because his criticism comes from a place of love. This isn't a hymns-only guy bashing anything written after 1750.  (But, I don't agree with him on the phrase "ineffably sublime" - keep the good stuff, even if it's got a high difficulty level!)


- Holly Ordway, author of the excellent book "Not God's Type", gives exhortations worth heeding in her article "Practical Advice for Christian Writers".


- "20 Things I Have Learned Since My Son Was Diagnosed with Autism" is much better than the typical article on this kind of subject.


- I haven't seen the movie version of The Martian (yet), but I very much enjoyed the book, and so I also enjoyed this post on the "Science of The Martian: the Good, the Bad, and the Fascinating".


- Finally, a bit of humor for your Sunday, beware of the "Early Warning Signs of Adult Onset Calvinism"!  



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Broken Christians, Building the City, and more!

"Broken Christians":

Sure, everyone outside the church is just as ugly, just as sinning, just as broken, but the church, the bride of Jesus, is supposed to be perfect and beautiful. Or so says the world. But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus loves the church, loves his bride, whatever the world says about her. And he is not surprised and disgusted by her brokenness. In fact, if he was, we would think he was a bad husband, which he’s not. So there you are. In everything, the reflection is always back to Christ, who is beautiful, and perfect, who loves his bride, even though she is broken down and left bereft by the wayside. He picks her up and takes care of her.

"What Is ECUSA Spending on Lawsuits?": Speaking of broken . . .

"Being a Go-Getter Is No Fun":

 Why should you do more work for the same reward, while your less capable coworker coasts along with lower expectations and work?

"The Shield Failed, the City Endures":

 It is easy to list the errors of the Christian Empire and, thank God, the Empire is not returning. We have learned much since  that time in 1453, but we have learned the lessons in part because the City saved the texts, the education, and the vocabulary that allow us to reject some of what that City did. We stand on the intellectual foundations of Constantinople behind the long intellectual walls she defended, constructed, and preserved. That City of words has never fallen and can never fall as long as one modern Christian endures.

"What Shakespeare Plays Originally Sounded Like":  Very Northern!


"Well-Planned, Hard, Sweat-Inducing Prayer and Work":

Prayer is the first and most important thing you are called to do. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed,” John Bunyan writes.“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan.”

Finally, a video. I already thought Sia's "Chandelier" was a sad and haunting song, but this cover of it is just amazing:

Weekend Links: Prayer, Prophets, and more!

Some good reading (and watching) for your weekend:

"Praying For You":

. . . not having a specific prompt for others, only a designated time frame, encouraged me to listen to how God would have me pray. I felt the ease of not needing to figure it out. I also sensed subtle shifts in how I prayed for the same person over the course of days, even when I was praying for the same situation. Sometimes I later found out these shifts corresponded with different developments. Life is never static so it makes sense that God’s intervention would be dynamic.

"SDfAoWOP: a Prophet":

It's a good question always to stop and ask. Has God spoken? Is there something I should know before I do this foolish act? Most of us walk a narrow line between the world and the plans and purposes of God, knowing that if we stop and inquire too deeply we will not enjoy the plans and purposes of God. And so we extremely careful not to read all the words the prophets have already spoken, and if we read them, to not read them too closely.

"Mere Fidelity: Made for More, with Hannah Anderson": I really enjoyed this interview with Hannah Anderson about women, work, and being made in the image of God.


And finally, this clever (and painful) video:

Weekend Links: Drawing, the BCP, the feast of the Ascension, and more!

Some interesting reading for your weekend, from around the Web:

"Why you should stop taking pictures on your phone – and learn to draw":

So if drawing had value even when it was practised by people with no talent, it was for Ruskin because drawing can teach us to see: to notice properly rather than gaze absentmindedly. In the process of recreating with our own hand what lies before our eyes, we naturally move from a position of observing beauty in a loose way to one where we acquire a deep understanding of its parts.

"The Book of Common Prayer Remains a Force: An Interview with Alan Jacobs":

. . . you really can’t have a higher view of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture than Cranmer did. The Book of Common Prayer adds nothing to Scripture and is not the means of salvation. It was meant just to provide a form of words and actions to guide and direct public worship. It should be remembered that very few Christians, at that point in the mid-sixteenth century, practiced extemporaneous worship. Almost everyone used set forms. Cranmer just wanted the Church of England’s to be in understandable English and to be derived as closely as possible from the Bible.

"A Bachelorette Composer Reveals How He Drums Up Drama and Romance on Reality TV": Yes, it's about The Bachelorette, but I found it interesting to read how the composer for the show purposefully manipulates the viewers' emotions through music. It's one of those things you already know goes on, but it's still fun to peek behind the curtain.

"Ascension Gifts" - I just loved this sermon/essay on Christ's Ascension. Perfect for this week's major feast day!

"The Publishing Timeline": How long it actually takes to get a book from written to published and why.


Have a great weekend!
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Facepalm Jesus, purity, talking about race, and more!

Here's some reading for your weekend!

"Coffee with Facepalm Jesus Calling":

An earlier generation asked What Would Jesus Do? But these days, people are increasingly comfortable with skipping the hypothetical, shifting out of the subjunctive, and just telling us What Jesus Would Say, in their opinions. If he were really here, that is: if he were talking, if he were blogging, or meme-ing, or cartooning, or writing devotionals.

"Let the Battle for Purity Begin":

As a young priest in the 1970s, I served for a decade in campus ministry settings. In those years, the first fruits of the sexual revolution were already apparent. Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital” in the midst of such wreckage would describe it well.

"On Being White (And Talking About It) – Part 1":

I have seen my students do one of two things when confronted with a glaring disparity in the real world to their beliefs about human equality – they either (1) become very uncomfortable and frustrated that their parents didn’t teach them the truth, or (2) become very self-righteous, sure that equality is real, and that anyone experiencing inequality must be morally at fault for their own situation.

And Part II can be found here.

"Murder in Los Angeles":

The Homicide Report addresses two questions every newspaper covering a major metropolis should answer: who was killed last night, and why? But most newspapers don’t do this because the logic of most newsrooms is that not all murders are sexy, grisly, or surprising enough to be written about. The Homicide Report operates on the inverse principal: Every murder gets a story because murder is inherently worthy of our attention

"Today Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath, Died (1711)": I'm linking to this one because it contains the full text of Bishop Ken's sublime "Evening Hymn". I've long loved the version in our hymnal, and I was delighted to learn that not only does it have more verses, but that there's a matching "Morning Hymn" to go with it!

"What I’m learning about choice and gratitude from not skipping songs on my iPod":

Not having a choice about which song I listen to makes me calculate finding pleasure in songs differently. Instead of actively working to perfectly assemble the music so that it will make me happy, I derive happiness from whatever is in front of me. The switch in mindsets in the same switch you make when you go from being a shopper making a purchase to being a recipient receiving a gift. One involves feeling powerful, deciding which among a variety of items will best please you; the other involves receptivity, seeking what is good in whatever you have been given.

7 Quick Takes - Lent, Lent, Lent! (and rain. And books. You know, the usual.)

1. It's almost Lent! Tonight I'm going to be preparing the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

Yes, that's right: part of my duties as head of the Altar Guild involve playing with fire. :D

2. I've discovered that Purple Moon wine, at Trader Joe's, is not at all bad, and only a couple dollars more than Two Buck Chuck. Just fyi.

3. I've been on a quest for awhile now to find books that enthrall my 7-year-old boy . . . without being as gross as Captain Underpants. (I'm sorry; I just can't.)  Here are what I've found so far: the Dragonbreath books, by Ursula Vernon, and the Squish books by Jennifer L. Holm. My son can read at a higher level than that, but this is the level where he really has fun, where he really flies.

And so I want to know: do you have any book recommendations for him? I really just want to up the volume of his reading for the next few months, so that he gets really hooked, and gets enough practice under his belt that reading anything sounds practicable and fun to him.

Then I'll shove all the great lit at him. :)

So, any recommendations?

4. My daughter's piano practice has had a happy side-effect: it's inspired my husband to take up piano-playing again.

I love listening to the both play. There's just something about live music. And it doesn't have to be professional in order to be an absolute pleasure . . . listening to Adam and to Bess play all these simple hymns and melodies and scales . . . I just love it.

5. There is water falling from the sky here! It's just amazing. It's been so long . . . our thirsty ground out here in CA needs it so much.

6. Did I mention that it's almost Lent? No, I'm not sure exactly how our family is going to keep it this year. But do you know what makes this Lent different? I can go read Cate MacDonald's excellent advice on how to keep Lent! :D  I'm so glad I didn't have to write that chapter, and I'm so glad Cate did. Seriously, I'm so excited that this book actually exists now - it's the book I always wanted to have as I tried to figure out the church year.

7. I've been listening to "Non Nobis, Domine" a lot recently. It's just so incredibly beautiful. Here's the scene from Henry V where I first learned of it:


More 7 Quick Takes can be found here, at Conversion Diary.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains affiliate links. (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekend Links: Mary, Christmas Songs, Synonyms, and more!

"Unspeakable Joy":

Pregnant Mary mirrors for us what the Church will become. She is the model disciple already: waiting for God’s Word with a prepared heart, receiving and believing God’s Word, and in faith obeying and yielding to God. Then she carries Christ inside of her, literally having Him ‘formed in her,’ a picture that the Apostle Paul will use in his letter to the Galatians years later: “My little children for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” (4:19) The Church carries Christ, and like Mary, brings witness of His life in us, demonstrating Him to everyone.

Yet death is looming throughout this story.

"Musings on Christmas Songs":

With the Christmas season upon us, it is impossible to go anywhere without being inundated with Christmas songs. I have also noticed that different places will play a different selection of Christmas songs which got me thinking that most Christmas songs can be placed into one of four basic categories.

"Grammar Lesson of the Day: Bury the Thesaurus":

The thing is, very few words are really synonymous with one another. This makes English especially baffling for non-native speakers. English is phenomenally rich in words, from the Germanic foundations, from the Viking variants, from the French by way of the Norman Conquest; words borrowed or invented from Latin and Greek from the Renaissance to this day; we even borrow ways of making new words. No language has as many words as English does. No language is even close.

"Let Us Keep the Feast: Advent and Christmas":

Although my Catholic roots have given me a fondness for the liturgical calendar, I didn’t get quite enough training to really know how to live it out. Maybe it just wasn’t taught, or maybe I simply wasn’t paying attention. But I’ve longed for ways to help myself and my family focus on Jesus in special ways throughout the year, and particularly in the four weeks before Christmas.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Perelandra, the Pope, and more!

"Evil Isn't Private (and Neither Is Good)":

But if you look hard enough at any immoral act, you will see it rippling outward into the community. Sin is sin not because it breaks the law, but because it damages the body of Christ. All sin does.

"100 Songs for Advent! – An Advent Worship playlist": wow! talk about comprehensive!

"The Praise of Perelandra":

If I told you that a Christian novelist wrote a book about Adam and Eve in space, and that after the plot is resolved he devotes a whole chapter to the characters having a church service where they praise God, many of you would vomit. If I told you the chapter where they sang praises was the best chapter, you might be polite, but in your heart you’d question my literary judgment. But it’s the truth. Imagine that: every word of it is true.

"Pope Francis Conservative":

Pope Francis affirms all the historic teachings of the Faith that are being attacked in the West, but he is a global Christian and knows that Western foibles and decadence are not the story for most of the world’s Christians. He refuses to allow Western media elites to set the agenda for the papacy. He denies dying Western parishes the right to dictate the agenda or discussions of the Church simply because they still give most of the money.

"Writing a Continuity": This link explains how multiple authors work together to write a linked series of novels. Cool behind-the-scenes look at the writing industry!

"On parenting teens":

5. Well before their teen years, subtly guide them toward an interest or two that you share (e.g., birding or carpentry or flying or whatever). This way, no matter what, you’ll have something in common.

Finally, to make you smile:

7 Quick Takes

1. A few weeks after reading Andrew Yee's "Spiritual Disciplines for Busy People", I'm finding what's stuck with me the most is his suggestion to take your internal dialogue, and address it to God.

In other words, instead of just thinking, "Aw, crap, I can't believe I just did that," you pray, "Aw, crap, Father, I can't believe I just did that."

. . . I know that's a pretty unedifying example (and it's mine, not Yee's!), but that's kind of the point. God hears all my thoughts anyway, and addressing them to Him . . . well, I don't want to say it changes my perspective, because that's not quite it. But it's me inviting Him in. And I'm finding He's accepts my invitation.

And that does change everything.

2. When I was a teenager, driving around in an old, beat-up Honda Civic and flipping channels, I imagined how cool it would be to have my own radio station, that only played music that I liked. I imagined that every time a song came on, I could say yea or nay, and it would be forever banned or forever on the playlist.

Mp3 players and iTunes? They're seriously my adolescent dream come true. I can still hardly believe it.

3. I still wish the radio thing had happened though. I like the idea of instantly & permanently zapping some songs off the airwaves.

4. My new favorite culinary discovery is smoked paprika. Have you guys tried this? It's awesome! It adds that smoky, camp-fire-y taste to just about anything. It's great on egg-y dishes like chiliquiles and in soups, like southwestern corn chowder. Yum, yum, yum.

5. Sister to that discovery is my newfound love for cumin. I mean, I've used it for forever, but I've never really appreciated it before. But now I'm finding it adds a real depth to dishes. Love it in stuff like carne asada and chilled salads.

6. I love, love, love this article by Carolyn Thomas on taking the Eucharist with children. Here's an excerpt:

Perhaps it’s the boy kneeling next to you, who takes a big gulp of wine, swallows, and then grabs his throat in pain. Maybe you lean over and whisper, “Are you okay?” and he whispers back, “That drink always hurts the inside of my neck!” And suddenly you remember the first time you ever took the Eucharist with real wine, on your knees, in a stone church on a cold, grey morning, and the wine stung your mouth, burned down your throat, warmed your body–and made you think of blood: hot and red and alive.

7. And I don't love this next link, but I found it pretty interesting: an interview with a female astronaut who really loves her job. From her description, I think her love is entirely justified:

Were you sometimes too busy living in space to really reflect on where you were?

I would say it’s not something I’m very good at even when I’m here on the ground, which is to make some kind of empty philosophical space where I just think and be and live. We work between 12- and 18-hour days up there, and even when you’re done you’re thinking about the next day. But when you look out the window and see the view, it’s so addictive and alluring and irresistible. Often at the end of the day I would go up to the cupola [panoramic window] and play my flute and look out.

Can you even imagine?


Anyway, more quick takes can be found over here, at Conversion Diary. Have a great weekend, folks!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Retconning Christina Perri's "Arms"

So, I have a very abashed love of Christina Perri's song "Arms". I've listened to it more times than I care to admit, but always feel a bit goofy doing so because it is so very, very angsty.

Why do I listen to it so much? Well:
1) The music is very pretty.
2) The line: "You put your arms around me and I'm home." Yep. That.

But then you get to lines like:

"I can't decide if I'll let you save my life or if I'll drown."

Le adolescent SIGH.

 But! wait! Adam and I totally figured out a way to save this song from its own teenaged melancholy.

What if you take it literally? What if - what if the singer is actually a SUPERHERO and her boyfriend is a SUPERHERO too, and so when you get to lines like:

"I hope that you see right through my walls"

it's because he has X-RAY VISION and -

oh, wait. That's totally creepy. But WAIT. What about the next line:

"I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling"?

That's totally Superman-and-Lois-Lane stuff right there. It's perfect.  Other great lines in the song that take on totally different meanings if it's about a pair of superheroes:

- "The world is coming down on me" (because a super-villain is collapsing it with a doomsday device . . .)
- "I never thought you would be the one to hold my heart" (eww . . .)
- "you knocked me off the ground right from the start" (stupid Hulk . . .)
- "I can't make you bleed if I'm alone" (eww, again, but kind of reminiscent of Rogue)

Eh? eh?

Still, if even after all that fan-fic-ish revision you still need a palate-cleanser from all the moping, here's "Cheer Up, Hamlet":

Better now, right? :)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

7 Quick Takes

1.
I really like this new music from Gray Havens, and right now it's free! I especially like the Narnia-inspired "Silver" and the sweet, upbeat "Let's Get Married". "Where They Go" is good, too.

2.
I've been trying the Couch-to-5K program. I'll probably write a longer blog about it sometime, but right now I have to say that it's the most sensible start-running program I've ever encountered. I'm beginning to hope I might be able to become a runner without injuring myself! (Injuring myself is what I normally do when I think, "hey, I should go for a run!" I start out too fast and my body says, "hey, idiot, knock it off!")

3.
Something else I want to write a blog post on sometime is the difference between reading scripture and hearing scripture. I've become fonder and fonder of listening to the Bible. It seems to seep into my heart in a different way when it comes through my ears (sorry, that's a terrible mix of the metaphorical and the literal).

But reading it engages my attention, too. Just differently. I've been trying to figure out what the difference is. Anyone have any thoughts?

4.
You've probably seen the beautiful animated short "Paperman", but what you might not have seen is this sharp analysis by Lars Walker. I had the same problem he did with "Paperman"'s narrative arc, and I like his solution to the difficulty.

5. Lent starts next week! I'm just saying.

6. Actually, my preparations for Lent this year feel really different, because this is the first year I'm preparing for Lent as an Altar Guild director. Yes, I'm figuring out what I'm going to take on personally for Lent, what sort of fast I'm doing . . . but I'm also collecting last year's palm crosses to burn for Ash Wednesday and making sure our priest's Lenten chausible is ironed and that we have people signed up to serve at the various Lenten services . . . it's a really different perspective on the season.

7. I really like being a part of our church's volunteer staff. Talk about work worth doing! All of our lives are part of the life of the church, but getting to participate in the actual church-service-related work makes it all feel so much more literal than it usually does.

I'm not expressing that well, I don't think. I guess that means I need to think about it more; muddled expression usually means muddled thought. But there is something so good and sweet about liturgical work, and I'm sure there's some connection between that work and my day-to-day life as a Christian. Some connection between washing the chalice after communion and washing the dishes after my family has supper.

I just need to ponder it a bit more, I think.


More Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

How God Answers Our Prayers

Numerous ways, of course, but I was reminded this week of one of the ordinary ways: by the Sunday liturgy.

Asking and Answering
There's a problem I've been praying through that was especially burdensome this past week. And in mass on Sunday morning, the hymns, the Scripture readings, and the sermon all had the same theme.

It wasn't anything new: the hymn I've sung countless times, and the passage from Ephesians that's not just familiar, but memorized.

But sometimes you don't just hear with your ears, but the Lord is kind enough to help you hear with your heart, and that's what happened to me on Sunday. It's as if He said, "See? This. I've told you, and I'm telling you. Listen."

The Right Place at the Right Time
And I did listen. Why? Because I was at church and that's what I was there to do anyway.


I don't know if I'm saying this well; what I'm trying to say is: God can speak to us any way He pleases. But I think many times it pleases Him to speak to us in the ordinary ways, in the established modes: in church, in scripture, in "hymns and spiritual songs".

My husband can call me on the phone in the middle of the work day if there's something urgent to communicate. But more often, we talk at the normal, established times: when we wake up, when we have dinner, in that quiet hour after the kids are in bed.

And our prayer life is like that to. If we're doing what we're supposed to be doing - praying regularly, attending church regularly - then we're holding open times and spaces when God can easily speak to us, because our attention is already turned towards Him. Sometimes those times and spaces won't be full of divine revelation, sure. Sometimes family dinners don't hold any profound communication either.

But the space is there for it when its needed. That's the point.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Mid-week Pick-Me-Up

Tuesday is mid-week, right?

Here's a song from Tennant and Tate's new version of Much Ado About Nothing:



Happy Tuesday, folks! may your week be as complicatedly satisfying as Shakespeare, as full of laughs as this song, and as rich as a Scottish accent.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a little late, a hymn for the Annunciation

Or "Lady Day", as they say in England. March 25 . . . 9 months before Christmas.


You can find the lyrics here (the link also plays a short midi).

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Fernando Ortega's Trisagion

This simple prayer, "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us" is one I pray almost every night in my kids' room before I go to bed, before praying for them individually. Fernando Ortega, on his latest album, sets it to a really beautiful piece of music.


Isn't that lovely? I find myself singing it over and over again. It's such a blessing to have prayers set to music. (And if you appreciate it too, I'll make my usual "pay the artist" pitch and say: go buy it!)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: Fasting, Prayer, and Steven Curtis Chapman

St. John Chrysostom on Fasting - "Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all members of our bodies . . ."

Work and Prayer and Rest - "Don’t be mistaken. There is a difference between idleness and rest. There’s a difference between blind striving and hard work. How do we know where one stops and the other begins? We know who we are in Christ. We believe in grace and in God’s deep love for us. We work out of a healthy knowledge of our own value because we know it is not a result of our accomplishments. We work knowing that our hope is in the one who offers rest at the end of the day, at the end of the week."

What I Learned From SCC - "But if we preach our deep brokenness and Christ’s deeper healing, if we preach our inability to take a single breath but for God’s grace, then our weakness exalts him and we’re functioning as we were meant to since the foundation of the world. Steven isn’t super-human. He’s just human. But what a glorious thing to be! An attempt on our part to be super-human will result only in our in-humanness–like a teacup trying to be a fork: useless. But if the teacup will just be a teacup, it will be filled."


Enjoy the good reading!
Jessica Snell