Weekly Links!

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

-"Not Writing for Writers": I enjoyed this post about how pursuing non-literary art forms help writers write better. Here's a snippet:

What amazes me the most is that I haven’t lost anything. I don’t have less time to enjoy the audiobooks and films and tv shows and social media I love. But I have incentive to be more purposeful about what I consume, because it has to be better than spending time with my thoughts. I’ve lost patience for the empty noise, I only want the good stuff.

-"On Signaling Versus Displaying Virtue in a Trumpian Age"


-"How the Order of the Beatitudes Could Change Your Life": I can't remember ever seeing this point made elsewhere, and it's a really helpful insight.


-"I Work from Home":  I'm enough of an introvert that I can't identify with much of this, but as someone who does work from home, I still find it hilarious.


-"Dear Supporter, There's So Much More I Wish I Could Tell You": a missionary friend of mine linked to this post, and (for what it's worth) as a missionary kid, I commend it to you.

Pray for the missionaries you know, folks. And then pray for them some more.


-"Ten Meter Tower": I could not look away from this. Weirdly fascinating.


-"C.S. Lewis Talks to a Dog About Lust": So helpful.


-"Why Our Son Doesn't Have a Smartphone"


-"I Was a Black, Female Thru-Hiker on the Appalachian Trail"



-"An Iceberg Flipped Over, and Its Underside is Breathtaking": really gorgeous pictures.


-"Which Paid Marketing Works (and Doesn't Work) for Books": I know this is totally inside baseball, but I like Rachel Aaron's blog (and recommend her book), and found this long meaty post really interesting.



---Finally, on a note of shameless self-promotion, it's almost Lent, and if you don't already have a copy of "Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home," now is a great time to buy one! Cate MacDonald and Lindsay Marshall do a great job of showing you simple, meaningful ways to bring the church's celebration of Lent and Easter into your own home.

You won't regret getting yourself a copy before Ash Wednesday rolls around (March 1, this year.)---


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

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! Welcome-to-Advent Edition

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

Faith 

-"The Advent Project": Biola is hosting The Advent Project again. Every day during Advent (and also, I think, every day of Christmas), they'll be posting a seasonal devotion with scripture, written meditation, art, and music. Recommended!

-My Advent Pinterest page: As I said on Twitter, this is really a "baby" Pinterest board, in that I have fewer than twenty pins so far. But it's growing, and the stuff that's already there is pretty good! Take a look, and let me know if you know of any pins I should add.


-"How to Deal with Erratic Corpulent Ginger Authoritarian Much-Married Rulers: Options for Christians in Public Life": This is very clever.


-"The Virtue of Tolerance"


-"The Bravery of Glennon Doyle Melton"-a snippet:

No amount of embracing the self will cure the ills of the soul. No Amount. There is nothing you can do to love yourself enough to rescue your soul from death. You can’t. 

-"The Church's Outsourcing of Women's Discipleship"


-"The Great War's damage to the English soul and the church": I've never read this perspective before. It was interesting.

Family 

-"Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It."


-"Advent Reading": a fantastic list of books to read to children this Advent.

Fiction 

-"How Realistic is the Way Amy Adams' Character Hacks the Alien Language in Arrival? We Asked a Linguist."

-"Protect Your Library the Medieval Way, with Horrifying Book Curses": Relevant to the interests of all devoted readers.


Have a lovely Sunday evening!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Some Good Reading for Your Sunday Afternoon

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

Faith 

-"The Courage of InterVarsity"

-"How I Found Freedom from Gender Confusion": an interesting conversion story, connected to a book I've been hearing good things about.

-"When You Say You're Not Voting":

...all those other races, further down the ticket, are very important; especially the congressional races. Here in California, I get to choose between two different Democratic candidates for Senator. Yes, that’s right, no Republican is running, so every voter gets their choice of Democrats. State rep races matter, too. And we’ve got judges, county races, and more. Also here in California, we get to vote for a bunch of strange ballot initiatives and measures, some of which cancel each other out and might both pass anyway.

Family 

-"I Took a Month Off From Being a SAHM. Here's What I Learned."

Fiction

-"Friday Night Lights Democratized TV Drama": I admit that I am mostly linking to this for that absolutely stellar sentence at the end of this paragraph:

There are minor characters and major ones in all this, certainly—it would be narrative anarchy without that—but FNL, much more than most shows that preceded it, took for granted the dignity of each character in its universe. It rejected sitcomic snobbery in favor of a broader embrace of its wide array of characters. It turned empathy into an aesthetic.

-"Mini-Review: Becky Wade's Her One and Only": always refreshing to read about well-crafted inspirational romance!



I hope you have a lovely Sunday evening!

-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: ISIS, Austen, and more

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

Faith

-"No Matter How Many  Priests ISIS Kills, They Can't Win":

When a faithful pastor baptizes, he is telling those clothed in the waters of regeneration, “You are no longer under the power of the devil, his murderers, or his terrorists. You are now under the protection of Christ, and no one can take you away from him.” When a pastor faithfully administers Holy Communion, he says to those who gather at the altar, “Here with his body and blood, Christ covers you in his righteousness, and no knife or bullet can pierce through that armor.”

-"A Good Man Justifies a Wicked Deed: Grudem on Trump":

We must vote for flawed men, but not for men who glory in their flaws.

-"Bats in the Attic":

The thing is, the Devil and all his evil cohorts really don’t want us, or anybody else, to go to church. If there is any reason at all, however small, to persuade you not to go, that reason will be gathered up and hurled at you, along with your own natural inclinations to take it easy and stay home. If you arrive on a Sunday morning, exhausted, totally unable to conceive of hauling yourself out of bed and going to sit in a hard pew with a lot of annoying people, well, you are not alone.

Family

-"Uncannily Youthful At 67, He Embodies Antidote To Bummer 'Biggest Loser' Study": apparently, it's all about building muscle mass.

Fiction

-"Austen Upside Down": Can you be an Austen fan without really understanding her? This article makes me think the answer is "yes".

-"Ten Thoughts About the Business Side of Writing": so very many good thoughts here.

May your week be a gracious rhythm of meaningful work and peaceful rest.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: a Cure for Cancer, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Ugly Bridesmaids' Dresses, and more!

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

 

Faith 

-"What It's Like to Be Gay at Wheaton College":  Great essay, and I especially appreciated this call-to-action:

For Christian communities to encourage gay people to remain celibate, they will have to model with integrity the implications of their teachings. Whether gay or straight, this means valuing celibacy to an equal if not greater degree than valuing marriage. On Facebook, through sermons, and in conversation, they must highly esteem Jesus’ celibacy. They will have to model in word and practice that all humans need love and connection—and not primarily in marriage and dating relationships. If this does not occur, LGBT Christians will not be convinced. No one likes a double standard. 

-"Voting for Donald Trump Is Not the Only Conservative Option"

-A couple of newsworthy articles regarding (sigh) my home state:
   -"Preserve Faith-Based Higher Education"
   -"'It's Going to Be an Issue': Biola, Conscience, and the Culture War"

-A good podcast listen: "The Gospel-Marinated Life: Mike Duran on Christian Horror"

-Another good podcast listen: "Momentum: Interview with Erin Straza"


On those last two: I met Mike Duran at a writing conference and really enjoyed my conversation with him, and Erin Straza provided excellent editing on my Christ and Pop Culture piece. You might assume that means I'm positively biased towards them*, but I prefer to think that my good fortune in meeting a couple of excellent writers and thinkers is your gain, because it means I get to introduce you to their work!

Family 

-Interesting: "10 Top Reasons You Should Have Kids Before Thirty"

-And literally life-giving good news: "A Scientist's Dream Fulfilled: Harnessing the Immune System to Fight Cancer"

-Yep: "A Cultural History of Ugly Bridesmaids' Dresses"

Fiction

-Ha-ha!  "Weird Things Writers Say (And What They Really Mean)"

- "The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales"


Have a great Sunday!
-Jessica Snell



*You'd be right.

Weekly Links: Shakespeare, the Queen, and more!

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, FAMILY (not this week!), AND FICTION ...

Faith 

-"Do Liberals Always Win?":

The “gains” of cultural conservatism, then, are never going to be on the same ledger as those of progressivism, since so many of these gains are going to be about impeding the speed with which bad things happen.

-"Sanctify Christ In Your Hearts (Sermon)":

It’s got all the usual stuff in it: medieval images, cartoon word balloons, Conan the Barbarian quotes, WWII stories, a Star Wars reference, quotes from 17th c. bishop Robert Leighton, tips on how to defeat anti-trinitarians in argument, a venn diagram, and a story about the worst answer I ever gave on a pop quiz. You know, preaching.

-"A Salt Encrusted Selfie":

So the Angels of the Lord pry him out of Sodom, picking him up, practically, and hustling him across the plain, his wife and daughters plodding, and probably weeping, along behind. Other people have noticed, so it’s not novel of me to say, but this is how the Lord saves. It’s not like we want to come away out of sin and live free of its destructive power. No, we set up our tents next to the tents of the wicked, and get to know all the neighbors, and when God decides to intervene, lest we perish forever, we cling on for dear death, sure that God is being a big meany, and whatever it was wasn’t that bad anyway. He picks us up out of the pit and pulls us out. And we are all irritated and stressed.

Fiction

-"Top 5 Clichés Christians Use About Their Writing": I really like Mike's point #2 ... as L'Engle said, "Bad art is bad religion."  Here's the real heart of the post:

The question I have is whether God is also “glorified” in a good, well-crafted story.

-"Which Shakespeare Play Should I See? An Illustrated Flowchart": I love this. It's funny and fantastic.


-"Why We Should Jettison the 'Strong Female Character'":

Yet, despite their likeableness and roundedness as characters, these new princesses betray some concerning anxieties about women’s place and agency within the world. Within the kickass princess trope lurks the implication that, to prove equality of dignity, worth, agency, and significance as a character, all of a woman’s resolve, wisdom, courage, love, kindness, self-sacrifice, and other traits simply aren’t enough—she must be capable of putting men in their place by outmatching them in endeavors and strengths that naturally favor them, or otherwise making them look weak or foolish.

-"Supporting Creativity":

If everyone struggles to make space in their lives to create, then why is being full-time creator always assumed to be the dream? For those who have the skills and enjoy the business aspects of a creative career, then yes it is a dream job. There are those who are invigorated by the challenges of freelance work. But there are also people who have much to give to the world and who are happier when they have a steady paycheck. There is nothing wrong with having a day job you love and a part-time creative career that you also love. There is much to be admired in art that is squeezed into the nooks and crannies of daily responsibility. Not just that, but daily responsibilities are often dismissed as mere chores without recognizing the myriad ways that chores create order out of chaos, beauty where there wasn’t any before. Many daily responsibilities are hugely creative and worth the center space they take in our lives.

-"9 of the Queen's Unexpected Powers and Privileges": Okay, this isn't related to fiction at all. It's just fun and I don't have a good category to put it in.




Have a lovely Sunday evening!
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links - All Saints' Day Edition!

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

-As a Christian who appreciates science (and science fiction!), I enjoyed reading this interview with the Pope's astronomer.  A highlight of it:

Rather than learning something theologically new, what I take from my discoveries is a more general sense of the “personality” of the creator. It might be compared to discovering a trove of old manuscripts where you think one of them might be some unpublished play of Shakespeare. You’d be excited because it might be a wonderful new work, or even just a window into what he was thinking while he was writing. But you also need to be sure it really is Shakespeare that you’re reading, not some other writer.

- Our family loves the show "Mythbusters", and so I enjoyed this article: "The Craziest Myths the Mythbusters Have Tackled, According to the Mythbusters".


- Now onto religion and society: "This Is Your Wake-up Call" is a sober reflection on abortion and one of the hardest stories in the book of Judges.


- Simcha Fisher on "Rogue Laughter in a Flippant Society" - I especially liked this paragraph:

. . . think of the difference between an eleven-year-old boy laughing about sex, and a forty-year-old married man laughing about sex. The grown man has probably earned his laughter; the boy can't have done so, and is laughing partly because he wants to look more experienced than he really is. True laughter, and the best jokes, come when we have some experience with the subject matter -- when we've faced something big and have survived.

- Anne Kennedy on "Celebrating the Reformation". Good, timely stuff:

The church cannot go beyond the gospel. The Christian doesn’t graduate from a saving knowledge of Jesus into something better later on. So also, the Christian cannot ascend to something higher, cannot move on to some better, fancier doctrine. From the moment of Jesus’ first infant cry, to his sorrowful and painful death, to his rising again, to his crushing of his enemies under his feet those who love him can never cry out someone else’s name for help, they can never give glory to themselves or to another, they can never be sustained by some other grace, they can never lean on and be ruled over by some other authority than Jesus’ own Word, they can never be tethered by some other faith.

-Reformation Day yesterday, All Saints Day today - and yet it's still Ordinary Time!  So, here's Anna Gissing on "Living in Ordinary Time":

. . . many Protestant Christians have been re-learning the rituals and habits of living into these churchy seasons as a way to inhabit the gospel and to structure our lives in a way that helps us remember that God is the author of time.

-Speaking of Reformation Day, I enjoyed this dense bio on "Katherine Parr: Reformation Queen of England and Ireland".


-AND, speaking of All Saints' Day, here's a lovely sonnet by Malcolm Guite for All Hallow's Eve.


- Tim Challies is Canadian, but I think his wise words are a comfort in any political climate: "I Went Away for Just 6 Days":

The temptation is not only to put my hope in politicians but to put my despair in them as well. I will be tempted not only to find too much joy in the election of the person I voted for, but also to sink too far into despair in the election of the person I did not. Either way, whether I soar too high or sink too low, I am declaring that I have put my trust in a man more than in God. I have forgotten that, ultimately, it is God who rules over and through earthly rulers.

-Finally, my friends and family and I found this article on "The Things that Drain Each Personality Type Most" scarily accurate.



Happy All Saints' Day, folks!
-Jessica Snell



*Or, if we're honest, biweekly.

Weekly Links

"Guy in your MFA":

 Guy In Your MFA (Guy) was born out of a big stack of pieces I needed to critique for the next day and my frustration with this whole culture of pseudo-pretentious literary works, both in myself and in my colleagues.

"Five Things Every Christian Should be Doing with God’s Word"

. . . Psalm 119 is one of the best examples of Scripture speaking about Scripture.  It is the Word about the Word.
And in it, we find David interacting with the Word of God in five ways that should be paradigmatic for all believers . . .

"The Most Qualified By Far: On Clinton and Qualifications":

Mrs. Clinton is one times more qualified than Mr. Bush . . . at best.

"A Composed Salad Is a Meal Unto Itself":

 . . . it can contain almost anything the cook wants to arrange, roll, roast, poach, bake or grill, from thin shavings of fennel and whole kernels of local corn to dollops of ricotta and shards of country ham. Tossed together, the result would be sloppy and monotonous. A bit of order makes it satisfying and elegant.

Links - Annunciation, Scary Lights, and Praying for the President

I love this painting of the Annunciation. (Hat tip to Simcha Fisher.)

Study: Some Eco-Friendly Lightbulbs May Put Health At Risk:

Money saving, compact fluorescent light bulbs emit high levels of ultra violet radiation, according to a new study. Research at Long Island’s Stony Brook found that the bulbs emit rays so strong that they can actually burn skin and skin cells . . . “It can also cause skin cancer in the deadliest for, and that’s melanoma,” said Dr. Rebecca Tung.

"Praying for the President":

President Obama is right to take the Oath on the Bible, but he is wrong to reject its morality. He is divisive to reject the morality of many Americans and most of the globe in a fit of parochial, partisan exclusion.

If President Obama doesn’t want the prayers of good men like Lou Giglio, then he doesn’t want my prayers. And yet the Bible, the morality of the Bible, commands I pray for him anyway. I must love him, I must honor him, and I must ask God to give him wisdom. And so I will pray tonight as I have every night:

“God save our Republic and my President Barack Obama.”

If you've got any good links to add, please do leave them in the comm box!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

7 Quick Takes

1. Is it bad that the two reasons I like our cat are: 1) because he's pretty, and 2) because he's nuts? The pretty part makes him aesthetically pleasing and the nuts part makes him funny.

I'm pretty sure I'd be upset if those were the two reasons someone liked me.

2. My son asked me this week if "things" is "spelled with an F."  As I tried not to laugh, I realized I'm going to be very sad when he loses that last bit of baby-lisp.

3. Last night, after the marathon of teeth-brushing, bathing, and bedtime prayers, as Adam and I were making the rounds amongst the kids' four beds, kissing and doing the last tucking-in rituals, we caught each other's eyes and I mouthed, "we're almost there!" and he nodded excitedly back, "I know!"

Seriously. Those two hours between when the kids go to bed and when we do? Gold. Pure gold.

4. I think I need to take the presidential elections more seriously, but it's really hard to do when you not only don't live in a swing state, you live in a state that doesn't even know what a swing is. I keep reading all these very serious articles, and I know the election matters, but it's so hard to take them seriously because all of them seem to be trying to convince me of something and you know what? Convincing me of something will make no difference whatsoever in the course of the election. I live in California. My senators could paint themselves pink and walk into the next session of Congress on their hands, and I still wouldn't be able to vote them out of office.

So, I have my opinions, but they don't feel very real.

5. It's almost Advent! And it's less than a month till Christ the King Sunday! Which is my very favorite Sunday in the whole church year. Yay!

6. I like Christ the King Sunday so much because it's our yearly reminder that everything turns out okay in the end. There's such security in knowing the end of the story. I don't know how we get there, I don't know what we're going to have to endure, but I believe the Lord's promise that He will return and judge the earth. And so, trusting in that promise, I have absolute safety in following Him. He is in control, and obeying him is the path to life, and life abundant, and life eternal.

7. In the much shorter term, it's almost the weekend. Which means the six of us in our family get more time together than apart, and that is a very great blessing indeed.


For more Quick Takes, head over to Jen's place at Conversion Diary.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

on being part of "the middle class"

I'm hearing lots about "the middle class" this election cycle, and I can't help thinking: Doesn't just about everyone in the States think they're middle class? Seriously. You could be making a just-above-the-poverty-line salary, living frugally and wisely, and feel middle class. Or you could be making a million or two a year in a high-cost-of-living area, and feel middle class. But the day-to-day options and margins in those two situations aren't anything close to the same thing.

Anyway. I don't buy "middle class" as a terribly useful economic term . . . but the solidarity implied by its frequency of use among people in such diverse situations might mean that its a terribly useful social term.

It says something about Americans that we all want to claim the term "middle class". I'm not sure what it says, but it says something.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links - Beowulf and Tolkien, Electoral Craziness, and more!

"Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien":

If ancient pagans could die for order and light knowing that those things would lose out in the end, how much more should Christians die heroically . . . when they know that Good and Truth will win out in the end.

"If There’s an Electoral College Tie, Things Will Get Even Crazier Than You May Know": - the punchline makes this super-short article worth a read.

"What the Bible Says About Anger": I found this short, organized summary very helpful.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! reading, voting, writing & more! (like Austenland, Potter & ungrammatical vampires)

I'm sorry for the lack of posts, folks! I've been following through on my summer ambitions and doing lots of writing and cleaning. :D But here are some fun links, from the (not insignificant) time I've also spent reading:
Willa writes about having "landmarks" in the history of literature - those authors and eras you know really well, and muses about whether it's good to make a vast, shallow survey of literature or to really dig in to one particular area. (I think you probably need to do both - and she has a great Lewis quotation about how the latter will naturally lead to the former.)
Hey, this is why I vote for those "gutless, unreliable, ineffectual Republicans" too!
Oooh, Shannon Hale's "Austenland" is being made into a movie!
This interview with Jason Isaacs (who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) is great. An excerpt, when he was asked if he expected his character to take the journey he did:
I mean, most of us would run to the bookshop at midnight when the books came out, partly because we’re fans, and partly to find out if we had a job next year.
And I like this part where he describes how actors work:

Every single actor who plays a part that is on screen even momentarily can talk like this about their own characters, because you’re always there. You may not be speaking or the camera may not be pointing at you, but you create an entire life for yourself so that when the camera does catch you, you’ve got something to bring to the party.
It reminds me of all the work I do on my own characters' backgrounds. I need to know more about them than the reader ever sees, or they're not going to act like actual people when they're on stage (on page?).

And this is a helpful little collection of analysis on the Church and homosexuality. An excerpt, from Albert Mohler:
In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.
And an excerpt from John Piper:

What’s new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.
"Normalization and institutionalization." A-yup. There's also a video at the link that I haven't watched. (Just to let you know. I'm sure you wondered.)


Finally, if you want a fun way to brush up on your grammar, try this site, where the Twilight books are picked apart, comma by comma, with a very sardonic hand. (Can you have a sardonic hand? Oh well.)

links - just four! Sugar&swearing, a bracelet, the bright spots in mothering, and the man who won't be king

Jen's post at Conversion Diary for last week's Quick Takes (#3 on her list) explains well why it can be good to give up something good for Lent and not just something bad. It has to do with sugar and swearing, but I won't spoil it further than that.

I want to try to make this bracelet. It's so cute!

A post from John Mark Reynolds about Newt Gingrich's chances of actually becoming president. A sample (extra points for the Jeeves and Wooster refrence*):

In his quest for the next job, Newt has managed to hit on the one powerful job he will never hold, but that he can imagine will be his. UN Secretary General? Too American. Supreme Court? Wrong era for non-judges. Pope? Married a few times too many. Which brings us to the major reason that Newt will never be President: my Republican wife runs out of the room with profanity when he appears on the screen.

It has not been possible to win a presidential election without women’s votes for most of the last century and has never been possible in this one. If there is a candidate with less appeal to women, he is already dictator of Libya. On top of this nobody has ever been President who reminds the reading public of Gussie Finknottle.

I don't think I have the words to explain why this next post is so good, but it is.

And that's it! Since it's so short, I'll add a music video:

And now that's really it. Hope you all had a good first half week of Lent!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

*There are always extra points for a Jeeves and Wooster reference.

election links

I got caught up in election news (online and via radio, as we're TV (but not DVD) free over here). And now that it's over, here are some good people's reactions to the results:

Here's Kelly, with some thoughts on other ways to fight about social issues you care about, besides merely voting on them.

And here's Elena, with some thoughts that trip lightly and easily from why she disagrees to Obama to how to trust in the Lord to rejoicing with her neighbors.

And here's Barbara, whose thoughts include this gem:

Let us pray that under President Obama's leadership we will finally see the end to the bitterness and hardness of hearts - on both sides - that has stood in the way of reconciliation and final healing for the sin of slavery. Conservatives voted for Sen McCain for political reasons, not because of racism. But we can all share in the pride at how far our country has come. May the reality of an African American family in the highest place of honor bring assurance to every person on Earth that in this regard the American spirit, with the grace of God, has triumphed over evil.

I so earnestly hope this is true. I voted for McCain, because the President is not a legislator, and neither candidate can really do everything he promises to do, but the President can appoint Supreme Court Justices, who have a hope of ending the slaughter of the innocents in our country. So I made my vote on the executive branch in hopes of having an effect on the judicial branch.

Now I'm hoping so very much that there are no Justices stepping down in the next four years. Unlikely, but I hope it.

Nonetheless, though I wish Obama hadn't won because of his policies, I am so glad that his win was possible, I am glad that, as Barbara wrote above, there is a chance now for the final healing of the wounds the great evil of slavery inflicted on our country. May the curse of racism that has been passed down the generations here in America finally have its end.

God grant that it is so.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell