Weekend Links - wine, vaccines, and more!

Interesting reading from around the Web:

"We made a sommelier taste all the Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck":

Here's the thing, though: some of it's actually pretty damn good, and could easily be sold as Nine-to-Eleven-Buck Chuck without anyone being the wiser.

So we brought in two devoted tasters to blindly drink eight different types of Charles Shaw Blend, hit us with detailed notes, and determine 1) which bottles are totally palatable and even enjoyable, and 2) which should be avoided as if they were made by Chuck Woolery, who, it turns out, makes terrible wine.

"Growing Up Unvaccinated":

Pain, discomfort, the inability to breathe or to eat or to swallow, fever and nightmares, itching all over your body so much that you can’t stand lying on bed sheets, losing so much weight you can’t walk properly, diarrhea that leaves you lying prostrate on the bathroom floor, the unpaid time off work for parents (and if you’re self employed that means NO INCOME), the quarantine, missing school, missing parties, the worry, the sleepless nights, the sweat, the tears and the blood, the midnight visits to A and E, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room on your own because no one will sit near you because they’re rightfully scared of those spots all over your kid’s face.

Those of you who have avoided childhood illnesses without vaccines are lucky. You couldn’t do it without us pro-vaxxers. Once the vaccination rates begin dropping, the less herd immunity will be able to protect your children. The more people you convert to your anti-vax stance, the quicker that luck will run out.

"Celebrating Epiphany": I love Ann's ideas for month-long celebration! Very creative and family-friendly.

"The God of the Coming Year":

And Osteen’s books be damned, you may have the worst year of days you have ever seen.

"Resolve to Resolve":

In the place where hope meets grace, there is God. God is where resolutions become effective. God is where change happens. Grace is the answer to the naysayers, those voices both within and without who say that you cannot start afresh. Grace is the breath of fresh air in April when the resolutions of the new year and even the Lenten promises look like one big heap of failed attempts at perfection. Grace reminds us that His power is made perfect in our weakness and the true growth in holiness is in the soul’s earnest effort. Grace is sufficient. Sufficient? It’s abundant.

"Rainbow Rowell and the World with No Rules":

. . . YA novels should be written for teen readers, not adults who just want the teenagers in the books to hurry up and grow up. I’m not advocating for the teens in this book to grow up already and have their worldview and ethics all figured out. I just want them to have something, preferably Christianity, but something, to push against, to wrestle with, and possibly to grow into. 

"The Invisible Anglicanism of CS Lewis":

It is striking that as much as Lewis spoke about mere Christianity, when asked to speak about his own spiritual life he constantly returned to his roots in Anglicanism. Lewis might have written about a broad Christian orthodoxy, but the spiritual experience that enabled him to do so was much narrower. 

New Year's Resolution #6: Take Care of the House (and get out of the house!)

This one's totally boring, but it's foundational to a pleasant day-to-day life.

New Year’s Resolution #6: Take Care of the House:

1) Keep doing the budget, as we have been. Meet savings goals. We’ve been using the budget printables from Dave Ramsey’s website.

2) Keep up on to-do list. I have a housework to-do list that works well for me (I should blog about it sometime!), so I just want to keep up on it.

3) Continue my very slow (but successful!) decluttering project. This is another thing I want to blog about. But basically, I’m slowly decluttering our house, one room at a time, and it’s really making it easier to keep things picked up and neat. I want to keep going on this one.

4) Keep menu planning. It works!

What about you?

Talk about your domestic goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Bonus Resolution #7: Miscellaneous:

I resolve to be miscellaneous!

No, not really. This is just my catch-all for the extra stuff. 

And really, I only have one this year. I suppose this could fit under “loving my husband” or “loving my kids” or “loving myself”, because really, it’s a family goal.

So here it is:

1) I think that, once a month, I want to make sure our family goes OUT somewhere. Somewhere other than our regular haunts. There are so many cool places around Southern California that I want to take my kids to, but it’s not going to happen unless I plan it. I want to make a list with Adam, and just see if we can check off 10-12 of the this year. Here are a few, off the top of my head:

- The La Brea tar pits

-the Getty

-the Santa Barbara mission

-strawberry picking in San Juan Capistrano

-Balboa Park

-Julian

-Apple Valley (apple-picking! Hot springs!)

-Amboy Crater (Mojave)

-the tide pools down in southern OC

-the waterfall hike in Malibu (I totally don't know the name of this; I've just heard about it from friends)

-Joshua Tree

-Mitchell Caverns (Mojave)

-Morro Bay (and San Luis Rey! And Montana de Oro!)

-and oh-so-many nifty trails in the mountains around Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc.

We do a good job making sure the kids get out of the city – Camping Is Our Hobby – but there are all these extra little day trips that I want to try. 

Frankly, I have no idea how this resolution will go, but I want to at least give it a good effort. It just sounds fun.

New Year's Resolution #5: work!

New Year’s Resolution #5: Write!

This is the place to consider our goals for our jobs. It might be a work-outside-the-home gig, or work-at-home, or homeschooling, or SAHM’ing – whatever it is, this is the place. For me, it’s writing and editing.

My specific plans:

1) Treat my work like what it is: real work. Specifically, during school year, clock in and clock out while kids are at school. And when summer comes, figure out a writing schedule that works for that time.

2) Query, then do the work. I’m not sure exactly which projects I’ll work on this year, because the nature of the job is to query first, and then find out whether or not you have work. So I have a list of projects and places to query, and I’m planning on just working my way through those, and doing the work as I get assignments. I can’t control which jobs I get, but I can control how I go after them, and how professionally I do the work that I get. (You can look at this as, "I promise to get X many rejections." Which is, ironically, one of the best ways to get acceptances!)

3) Pray about the work. Most importantly, pray about various opportunities, and try to listen to what the Lord is giving me to do.

4) Keep track of what I earn. For taxes, first of all! But this will be my first full year with all the kids in school, so I do want to pay attention to the financial side of my work. I’m not sure what to expect or what to aim for, because this is the first time I’ve had enough time to treat writing and editing as a substantial part-time job. So this year I want to keep track, and pay attention to how things go, so that I’ll have the information I need to make sensible goals in the future.

5) Keep track of how much time I spend working. Much like the above point, I just want to pay attention and collect data, so that when next year comes around, I’ll have an idea of how to set sensible goals for how I spend my time in this work.

6) Keep working on making a good blog. I’d like this to be a good place on the web – a place I would enjoy finding if it were someone else’s. My favorite blogs are two things: interesting and encouraging. That’s what I’d like this space to be.

What about you?

Talk about your work-related goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

New Year’s Resolution #4: Love me

This is a new one for this year. But it’s along the lines of “love others as you love yourself.” Part of loving the ones God has given me to love is to make sure I’m well enough that I can love them and care for them.

Some of the specific ways I plan to do that:

1) Exercise 5X/week, when not sick. I’ve been putting on my workout clothes first thing in the morning, and that’s been working really well.

2) Do a modified No S, when it’s not feast time or fast time. (My modification is that I allow for fruit/veg and/or protein (e.g., milk, nuts) as snacks. I just do better when I snack!)  

3) Keep reading real books. The Web is wonderful and distracting, but I feel better when I read real books. I always keep track of my books read, but recently I've been keeping keep track of my reading time, and it’s helped me get back on track with my to-be-read list. I want to keep this up in the new year.

4) Be aware that lot of the things in the other categories help here, too. Like listening to the Bible, praying, writing, spending time with Adam, getting out of the house as a family, etc. All of those things keep me healthy and functioning.

What about you?

Talk about your self-care goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

p.s.  I really liked Jen's comment on my last blog:

I've heard of doing "high-lows" (what you're doing when you ask your kids for one bad thing and one good thing), doing the 3 J's (your junk, your joy, and your Jesus moment), and a modified examen (something you're thankful for, something you wish you hadn't done, and somewhere you saw God's work during the day.) 

I really want to try the 3 J idea!  and maybe the modified examen, too. Thanks, Jen!


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

New Year's Resolution #3: Love my kids

-Love the kids: Specific ways I’m going to do that include:

1) Share the gospel with them, pray with them. Our Jesse Tree devotions went well this year, so I want to keep it up by having. Bible study time after dinner, at the table. We're planning on using this list to start.

   

Honestly, it's my husband who heads this up, but I can help by making sure dinner is early enough that we have time for this afterwards. I love listening to him and the kids discuss the stories while I do dishes (and occasionally chime in).

2) Pray for them.  I want to spend some time writing down where each kid is at, how I can pray for him and her, what she or he needs . . . partly for memories, partly to just make sure I pay attention and am deliberate in my mothering. My mom did this for us, twice a year. I think if I do it for one kid each month, that’d be good. So I’d do it for each three times this year. I like this idea.

3) Read to them. I’ve been doing better on this this year, and I want to keep going!

4) Listen to them. Each day, I want to spend deliberate face-to-face questioning/listening time with each kid, even if it’s just 5 minutes. I spend so much time with them, but there's a difference between the all-of-us-in-a-group time (which is pretty much all day) and one-on-one time.

I often do this with the after-school “tell me one good thing and one bad thing about your day” and it works really well. Sometimes there’s nothing big, but it makes SPACE for something big, if they need my attention, advice, or help. It holds the ground open between us. I want to keep doing this – it’s been good, and I think it’ll be more and more important the older they get.

This is one of those things that sounds so simple, but it's easy to forget if I'm not deliberate about it. And it is so worth being deliberate about this one.

What about you?
Talk about your parenting goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit. (And if you’re not a parent, please share your goals for loving those in your household or church or family or wherever your closest community is found.)

Mary emailed me with her (awesome) advice, saying:

How can we show love to our friends and our church? Just SHUT UP and listen to them instead of doing all the talking! (They all seem to love that).

Wise woman. :)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

New Year’s Resolution #2: Love my husband:

New Year’s Resolution #2: Love my husband:

This resolution is less complex than the “Love God” one I posted yesterday. Maybe just because it’s harder to forget someone who’s physically present with you?

Nonetheless, in the same way I have to remind myself to attend to the Lord, I find I have to remind myself to attend to my husband. Here are some ways I’m hoping to do that this year:

1) Go to bed on time. Adam’s mornings start earlier than mine, but he appreciates it when I go to sleep with him and wake up with him (or at least wake up before he goes to work). This is a little tricky, because I actually physically need more sleep than he does, but it’s worth working on (and since I'm a SAHM, naps are a thing I can do, when I need to catch up).

2) Spend our 15 min. a day together. This is something we’ve started deliberately doing this last year, and it’s really good. We spend all kinds of time together, of course: working at church, working at home, taking care of the kids together . . . but this is different. This is 15 minutes a day when we just sit together and talk. We catch up. Sometimes it ends up just being a nice little break; sometimes it turns out we have issues we really have to work through.

Either way, having a dedicated time to just us has turned out to be a really good thing. It keeps that space open, so that it’s there when we need it. It's time that reminds me that this is my friend, my love, my heart. It sounds silly, but it totally works. 

3) Encourage him in all good things. What’s good for Adam is good for me. I just want to keep remembering that, so that I cheerlead him in things that he loves and that are healthy for him, instead of curling into my little introvert ball and assuming that anyone who wants to spend that much time with other people must be a total weirdo. :)

4) Joyful, frequent sex. Of course!

What about you?

Talk about your marriage goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit. (And if you’re not married, please share your goals for loving those in your household or church or family or wherever your closest community is found.)

-Tienne of Take the Poor With You posted about her resolutions here. Thank you for sharing, Tienne!

New Year's Resolution #1: Love God

My first resolution is the same one as last year and the year before: Love God.

It’s okay to make the same resolution every year, I think. It’s even good. The new year is a time to take stock, to remember where we are and where we’re going, and if you find every year that your first thing is still your first thing . . . well, that’s good. It means you were probably right about your priorities. It means you just might be fitting into that wonderful description of the Christian life: “A long obedience in the same direction.”

Anyway, where it gets fun and very New-Year’s-y is in the details. What are you going to try to do, specifically, that will help you (specifically!) to love God better? What are your disciplines, your practices?

Specific Goals

Here are mine, for this year:

1) Keep using the St. James devotional to read (listen) through the Bible. Currently I’m listening through the assigned passages 3-4 times a week.

2) Keep listening through Proverbs every month. Ideally, this is one chapter a day, but often I listen to them about 4 or 5 at a time, to catch up.

3) Scripture memorization. I have no good plan for this. I need to think about this. (Revisit in Feb? Tie it to fast times in the church calendar?) (ETA: my husband is interested in working on this together. Yay!)

4) Observe the traditional Christian fasts. Not in a heroic way, but just in a basic eat-less-eat-boring way (sort of like the Orthodox do). This would be Wednesdays, Fridays, Lent, and Advent, basically (I think). I don’t want to do this, but I feel like I should. Just because, well, it’s what Christians have always done, and all the saints say it’s helpful in killing the passions, and it’s conducive to prayer.

5) Pray regularly. I want to be more deliberate about this this year. Unless and until I come up with a better plan, I’m just going to plan on saying an (Anglican) rosary morning and evening.

6) Pray for others. I also want to get better at praying for others, especially those in my family and church. Not sure how to do this either, but maybe I can (ha!) pray about it during January, and revisit it in February. (Update: my husband is interested in doing this with me, using the BCP’s Prayers of the People.)

What about you?

Talk about your devotional goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Links - the year, the time, and the wine

"The Year of Not Putting Up With Things":

Maybe we should blame it on the practice of frugality that seems to have come with my German heritage, but I've put up with a lot of minor inconveniences over the course of my life...little things being not quite right, particularly in my home or in my wardrobe. A belt doesn't fit quite right. A dress rides up funny on one side. A shirt feels a tiny bit too short. The trusty black pumps I've owned and worn for years have started to separate from their strap on one shoe. The toilet in the guest bathroom splashes the lid when you flush. The rug in our living room is too small for the space. Our air conditioning has never worked.

"The Best Wine in the History of the World":

He was about to perform his first public miracle. Let me frame that a different way. He was about to formally and publicly introduce himself to his bride—the church—for the first time. I wonder if Mary’s request sounded to him something like, “Go on, son. Ask that girl to dance.”

"Routine Life":

Some mornings I wake up feeling ready to do it all again. Ready to get out of bed (after drinking coffee, of course), face the day, clean, prep meals, homeschool, do laundry, break up fights, nurse the baby. But some days, I just feel do not feel it. I do not feel like getting up and doing it all. Those days generally do not go well. But sometimes, something happens to arrest me mid-day and change everything.

 Usually, that thing is . . . work.

"how do I Run a Micro business and homeschool?": this whole thing was interesting, but I love, love, love Christine's observation about her home:

 I don’t decorate the house – it’s the lab for making projects in, it isn’t itself a project. 

Hey, I've got one of those project-lab houses, too! :D

"I love this bar (and a recipe)":

Houston, we have a problem. Even though I know that I can make something akin to a Larabar in my food processor and have a great granola bar recipe that most of our family will eat, even though I no longer buy boxes of granola bars or nutri grain bars for the children I cannot resist the lure of the bar.

There is something about the presentation, the bright colors, the many flavors, that seems to beckon. Eat me! They cry. I am interesting and fun and come in my own individual wrapper. I have as much protein as a chicken breast but taste like fake cookie dough coated in fake chocolate. Eat me and you can skip taking your multivitamin! I can make you happy!

"Op-Ed: An Ode to Ordinary Time": I'm not quoting from this one, because the fun is in the scroll-down reveal.

"Guinevere and Julia: The Platypus Reads Part CCX":

. . . it's a necessary part of all romance and adventure that we not be allowed to weasel out every time our beliefs land us in hard places. 

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Halfway Through 2012

I'm stealing this from momco3, so go over to her blog and check out her mid-year reflection on her New Year's Resolutions.

How am I doing on my New Year's Resolutions?
It's over halfway through the year, and time for a check-up. So, how am I doing?

Well, better than I thought I might be. Last year, I had about 20 resolutions. This year, I only have five. (Some year, I might decide to be sane and only have one.)

Here's what I wrote in my journal before I made my resolutions:

I’m wondering if my word for this next year, for this upcoming year, ought to be “faithful”. Last year it was “attend”, and I still don’t feel like I’ve come to the end of that.

But “faithful” came to me tonight, and here’s the fleshing out of that: I know what to do, and I just need to be faithful to do it. I know what my priorities are: I’m for loving God first, then for loving Adam, then for loving our children, then for writing, and then for taking care of my house (which really is a sub-section under loving Adam and the kids), and then . . . then I get a bit more confused. Extended family, friends, and church probably come in there next. But the first four are very clear: God, Adam, kids, writing. That’s me, those are my duty.

And I do all of those, but not faithfully. Not like breathing. And not in the right order, always. Or even often. So, “faithful”. I want to be faithful. I want to do the things I know I’m supposed to do, and do the most important ones first, and then let the rest fall into place.

The resolutions
-Love God. Specific ways I’m going to try and show this love:

            -use the St. James devotional to read the Bible

            -use the St. James devotional or the BCP to pray, including Prayers of the People.

            -pray the Jesus prayer throughout the day.

            -pray and read Bible stories with the kids.

How am I doing on this one? Well, I've kept up on the first one, and on praying with the kids, but the rest have been spotty. Not non-existent, just inconsistent. So, I want to be more mindful of them for the rest of the year, esp. with reading Bible stories with the kids.

-Love Adam.

I think this one is going pretty well. :)

-Love the kids:

This one's interesting, because it's the one that takes up most of my time in day-to-day life. I've been noticing how much time I spend taking care of the kids' physical needs (bigger bodies mean MORE food prep and MORE laundry and BIGGER messes), and thinking that - especially while they're home in the summer - I need to include them in more of that work. This might, eventually, have the benefit of taking some of the weight of the household chores off my shoulders, but honestly the reason I want to do it is so that I can spend more time with them, not just taking care of them.

All in all, I think I'm doing well on this one, though as the kids continue to grow and change, I continue to see more and better ways to love them (the above just being one specific example).

-Write.

This is going well. I had a list of nine specific things I wanted to do in my writing life this year, and I've already accomplished five of them. That's really encouraging! If I keep working well, I think I might actually hit everything under this category this year.

How about you? How's it going past the mid-point?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

New Year's Resolutions

In 2010, I had twenty New Year's resolutions. Yes. Twenty. Really.

In 2011, I had ten. And I felt very pleased with myself for my restraint and brevity.

This year, I just have four.

Last year, my word for the year was "attend". I thought all year of Psalm 123, especially verse 2, which says:

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

I wanted to attend, to pay attention.  Because I learned years ago, in mountain biking, that you go towards what you look at.

At the beginning of 2012, I don't feel like I'm even close to finished with last year's lesson, but I have a new word: faithfulness.

I feel like I don't need a great new vision for my life or startling new insights into what I'm supposed to be doing. I know what I'm supposed to be doing.  This year, I just want to do it. I want to be faithful.

My verses for this year come from the first chapter of 2 Peter:

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 

And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 

And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The italicized bits are the progression I want to work on this year, and the bracketing verses explain why the middle part is both good and possible.

I'm fascinated by that progression. By faith, we believe in those "great and precious promises" and what should we add to that faith? Virtue. And what does virtue lead to? Knowledge. George McDonald said that obedience was the key to understanding and I think he's right. There are so many things we don't understand until we're actually practicing them.

And to knowledge is added temperance or, in some translations, "self-control". And then patience, and then godliness and then (here's where it just makes me want to weep) brotherly kindness and to that, charity. (And the greatest of these is love.)

I remember when these verses just read like a list to me, but now they seem like a gift. They're specific, they're instructions, they're a how-to. I mean, that's not all they are: they're a description of sanctification.

But I think it's not just descriptive, I think it is - at least the first part - prescriptive. Do this.

But it is still descriptive: this is the road that the saints of God walk and this is what they gain.

And the promise at the end:  "For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now there's a promise for you. Wow. Makes me want to cry all over again. For joy at the mercy of God.

The Resolutions
So, four resolutions.  Here they are:
1) Love and obey God.
2) Love Adam.
3) Love my kids.
4) Write.

Everything else either falls under those or comes after those. E.g., housekeeping is an expression of love to my family. (And to myself, a bit, and taking care of myself would fall under all three of the first categories actually, but mostly the first, because the first resource God has given my to steward is myself.)

But these for things. I think they are the most important ones in my life right now. And really, the last three come out of the first one. And the first one feels a bit strange for a resolution, but it's really what I want most. And it should go without saying that all of these are resolutions I make in the spirit of those baptismal promises in the prayer book, i.e., "I will, with God's help." Not with my own strength, not ever.


I'll be honest and say I have a few more practical resolutions, but they're just out-growths of these four simple ones. I have a word-count that I'm aiming for each day, I have a household chore list I'm checking off.  But they're tools now, not goals.

Maybe that's the gift of last year's word "attend". Now I am attending, and now I know that what's important is first to fix my eyes on the Lord, and that the actions follow the attention. With God's help.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Reading through the Classics in 2012

Why is it that I keep thinking next year is 2013?

Anyway, December has me thinking about the new year, and one of the things I'd like to do is to reread some of the Christian classics that I last read in college.

In a few weeks I'll post my annual "Books Read this Year" post, and this year the number is hovering somewhere around sixty, which is considerably less than last year's close to one hundred.

But I was pickier this year. Last year I finished a bunch of books just to be able to list them; this year I put a lot of books down after ten, twenty, even a hundred pages. My number completed is smaller, but I think it was a better year's reading.

And I'd like next year's to be better yet. My enthusiastic self wants to say, "I'm going to reread every book I read in my college classics program!" But . . . my more mature self says, "Eh . . . Let's go for ten."

So, there's my goal: I want to reread ten classic works of literature. Probably most of them will be Christian; I'm feeling particularly drawn to Augustine and Calvin, and to a few of the great English poets.

There is this problem with the poets: how much do you have to read to have "read" them? I might try to read the complete collected works of a few of my favorites. We'll see. Among those clanging to be read are Donne, Herbert, and Hopkins. Well, those three always. And then also Rossetti.

I tried and failed at Dante this year, and I'm still trying to figure out why. So that'd be worth another go too. Maybe.

Oh! And DeTocqueville! Great reading for an election year.

Yes. "Year of the Classics". I like it.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Resolutions

Happy ninth day of Christmas, folks!

I love New Year’s resolutions. They work for me. Even when I don’t completely follow them, they always make a positive impact, either by getting me further towards a goal, or by showing me what methods of reaching that goal don’t work for me.

 Like last year, I’m giving myself till Epiphany to figure out exactly what my New Year’s resolutions will be. Trying to solidify my intentions for the year during the week after Christmas never works – it’s always too full of celebrating the season! And I want to take the time to properly think and pray through my ideas for resolutions before I decide on them.

 (btw, this is a long, rambling post - I'm posting it because I've enjoyed so much the past few days looking at other folks' resolution posts, and thought others might enjoy looking at mine. But if this isn't your sort of thing, feel free to skip it.)

Last Year

I was looking at last year’s resolutions to see how I did. I did lose the weight from the twins' pregnancy, and I’ve almost finished reading all the way through the Bible (I’m about 10 days behind on the scheduled readings, so I should finish it this week). I wanted to do more regular devotions with the kids, and that happened because we started homeschooling, and Bible reading and Bible verse memorization is part of the curriculum (funny how that one worked out – not how I expected, but it’s good!). 

 At the beginning of last year, I also wanted to make some housekeeping resolutions, but couldn’t figure out a good way to do it, and so didn’t make any. But that worked itself out too, because we started doing our Saturday morning chores, and though the house isn’t perfect, it’s much more reliably clean that it was before.

 I did not end up praying the hours. I’m thinking about trying again, but am not certain that’s how I want to do devotions.

 Doing Devotions vs. Being Devoted

“Do devotions” by the way, is a phrase that’s been rolling around in my mind for about a month. That’s how it was phrased in the churches of my childhood (“make sure you do your daily devotions”), and I’ve been thinking about rephrasing it as “be devoted”. That's what's really meant, I think. Why, after all, would a Christian regularly pray and read the Bible? Because he is devoted to his Lord, and the prayer and listening (reading the Bible is, after all, the practice of listening to the Lord) come out of that devotion. What I think of as “doing my devotions” is really the fruit of being devoted.

The fruit and the food, actually, because praying and listening also increase devotion, I think, if done sincerely. Because after we pray and listen, we then obey, and that makes us more wholly devoted, makes more of our selves available to be  devoted.

The thing is, though praying the hours is still attractive (both the idea of praying the Anglican rosary, and the idea of doing morning and evening prayer), I’m not sure it’s what I’m supposed to resolve this year.

Devotionally, I think what’s going to be more important for me is to memorize Scripture and to journal about what I’m memorizing. However, I would like to more often have times in my life where I do read Morning Prayer, do sing the hymns, do pray the Anglican rosary. I want, when I am remembering my devotedness (how’s that for rephrasing?), to remember also those good, old, tried-and-true methods for expressing it. Too often, I think, “I love Jesus,” without thinking of sitting and taking the time to praise Him or to meditate on His mercies. And those devotional practices of prayer and singing would be profitable to me, I think, and honoring to Him.

(Also reverberating through my head as I think of these things is a line from a song I learned in childhood: “read your Bible/pray everyday/and you’ll grow, grow, grow”. True that!)

 Writing

Then, there is writing . . . last year this time, Lucy and Anna (our twins) were still waking at night to nurse (a lot!) and I planned on waking early to write once they were sleeping through the night. I’ve done this with limited success for the past six months: I’ve managed to get an average of about 3-4 solid hours a week in on the book, and right now it’s standing at about 35,000 words (out of a likely 75,000). Given the year we’ve had, I’m pretty pleased with this.  But in the new year, I’d like to regularly be doing an hour every weekday morning.

And the truth is, I want it to be more like ten. I want writing to be what I think of doing in the evenings, what I think of doing when the twins are napping. I want it to become something I turn to easily and often, my default behavior. And there would be the dedicated hours of writing in the morning, those would be strictly for the novel, but at other times I want to be journaling, I want to be taking down those small ideas here or there of a funny conversation or a poignant moment, making a file of them for reference for later stories, I want to be thinking in type about what I’ve been reading, I just want to be always writing, writing, writing, so that I get good at it, so that I gain a facility at it, greater than the one I already have.

 But, the resolution? An hour a day on weekdays, working on the novel. Yes? No? This one I need to think about a bit more, because I don’t feel happy about it yet.

 Spanish

Then, there is improving my Spanish. Learning Spanish, I’m not sure is a New Year’s resolution. I’ve been thinking of it more as something I want to be a lot better at by the time I’m thirty (about eleven months from now!). I’m listening to more Spanish music and learning the lyrics, and working on practicing it more with the children. I’ve gotten a couple of Spanish novels out of the library, to read with dictionary in hand, and I’m still researching to find a curriculum for myself that will let me systematically solidify what I know and learn what I don’t. I would like to be fluent in a few years - it’s scary to admit that, because it’s such a huge goal, but at least I’m not starting from scratch (I passed the AP test in high school, and I’m finding I retained more than I had the right to hope I did!).  And I really, really want my children to be bilingual. My sister (who is bilingual, and teaches Spanish for a living) has been a huge help in getting us started, and I want to go further this year, building on the foundation we already have.

 Housekeeping

Then, there is housekeeping . . . here, I would like to be more efficient? I would like to clear and declutter . . . soon, we’ll be able to get rid of all the baby stuff. Soon, we’ll be able to have more things lower, because hopefully this year the twins will learn what not to touch or they will be old enough to play with the things they couldn’t before. So, this year might be a year of changing things around in this house so that it’s a house for kids and not a house for babies. Not sure if this is resolution-material, or just something to be aware of and work on . . . .

 Parenting

And the kids . . . I half-listened to a conversation my mom was having with her best friend, talking about how she used to, every six months, think and pray over each of us kids, and think about what we needed and how we needed to grow . . . or something like that. I didn’t actually hear all of the conversation, but it made me curious, and I’d like to ask her about this and see if it’s something I want to do with the kids. Intentional parenting. Not that we aren’t already being intentional in our parenting – we are – but this sounded like it might be a good tool to be moreso. So, I’d like to ask her about this next time I see her.

I also want to think about making a resolution to become less passionate when caring for my children. "Passionless" in the way the Christian fathers meant it: in being controlled by the Holy Spirit and not by my own wants and desires. It's amazing how little toddler tempers can trigger my own temper! Anne Kennedy wrote recently about doing things slooooowly with her kids, and that's close to what I'm thinking about . . . parenting with less haste and pride and anger, and with more love and reason and kindness. This is something I want to deliberately work on.

Homeschooling 

And homeschooling . . . not sure this is resolution-material either, but I do want to think about what I’m doing for this second semester – how to make it better, how to get to things we haven’t managed to get to yet, at least not in the depth I’d like to get to them (esp. science and music and the church year), how to do some things better (especially Spanish).

 Fitness

I'm pretty happy with my current routine (though I've dropped it for the past week while celebrating Christmas - adding a little vacation to my holiday!). I might want to make some specific resolutions just to add some spice to things. But doing the 30 Day Shred regularly, and adding in other fun DVD workouts when I get the chance, + more or less following the No S Diet seems to be pretty sustainable. I'm also doing fun stuff like the 100 push-up and 20 pull-up challenges. But I might want to specifically resolve to a certain number of workouts just to hold myself accountable . . . gonna think more about this one too!

Btw, something cool? I’m starting to dream in Spanish sometimes.

So . . . I'll update when I figure out what I'm doing on all these things. But I have to admit: a great deal of the fun is in the pondering.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

p.s. For more on why I think resolutions are cool, see last year's post called A Sinner's New Year.

New Year's Resolution: Devotional

I said in my last post that I was resolved to pray the hours this year, but in a modified manner.

The modification? I’m praying an Anglican rosary three times a day (sometime between 7-9 a.m., 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.). I know, it’s REALLY not the full prayers and readings. But . . . it’s more than I was doing before.

I really liked Jen’s idea of having “hard stops” in her days. And, well, I thought about how I could modify that idea for my life. I have twins who don’t sleep very much during the day and who like to eat books, so I knew my hard stops would have to be small and, er, non-edible. (I do read books, btw, I just read them at the table or at night.) Also, I wanted to avoid the problem of the beginning exerciser – you know the old story where someone inactive resolves to become fit and goes out and runs five miles and is in so much pain the next day that she never exercises again? In times past I’ve regularly read Morning Prayer, so I know how good regular devotional hours are, but I haven’t been able to really do that since the twins came home.

I admit, getting into the habit of three-times-a-day prayer has been hard. Most days it’s been two times a day. I’m still trying to learn where the best places in those two hour segments are. I’m not sure when, for example, during the 5-7 slot, I ought to fit a hard stop. That’s the time when kids are waking up from naps and need attention and nursing, when dinner needs to be finished off, when my husband comes home and we eat. Occasionally, I’ve worked one-handed in the kitchen, with my beads in the other hand.

But it’s more prayer than regularly was in my days before. Or at least, more structured. Even if I’m cooking or nursing while I’m praying, I’m praying. In some ways, it’s a reminder that all the work I do is aimed toward pleasing my Lord, because actually saying prayers while I work brings into stark relief WHOM my duties are a duty TO. (Excuse my grammar.)

The easier resolution is the one I mentioned in a previous post: reading through the Bible again this year. That’s easily done while nursing the babies down for naps or bedtime, though it’s made much easier with this well-organized website. It’s a treat, really, to swallow whole chapters of scripture at a time and not worry about whether I’m reading the part I ought to be reading. (Anyone else ever do this? Sit down to read an epistle and wonder if your time wouldn’t really be better spent in one of the gospels? “What? can’t you ever read anything except Ephesians?” “Sure, but I LOVE Ephesians, stop guilting me . . .”)

So that’s it! It’ll be interesting to see how the Lord uses these disciplines in my life this year. Neither is terribly onerous, but that’s good, because it means it’s likely I can keep them up. I know probably everyone reading is way ahead of me on this, but if you are having trouble doing a regular devotional exercise, I encourage you to pick something really small – like saying the Jesus prayer on the way to work, or reading slowly through the gospel of John (or Ephesians!) over the course of a month, or saying the Lord’s prayer every night with your kids, or singing one hymn from the hymnal every day – and just doing it regularly. It doesn’t have to be the right thing (though you should listen to see if there is something particular He wants you to do), it just has to be something you actually do. The Lord responds to our every turning toward Him, and takes our smallest efforts as a gift of love, the same way you take the affection of your children, imperfect and silly as it is.

I always think of this sort of thing as holding a landing strip open in the jungle. You can’t bring in the cavalry, but you can keep a small section of the fields clear for the planes to land. It’s not your job to bring in the troops that save the war, just to be faithful in making room for them.

I hope that metaphor makes sense. You can’t sanctify yourself; your job is just to faithfully be open to the movements of the Holy Spirit. Pick a way, any way, to regularly do that, and He will take you up on it, as long as you are doing it out of love and obedience.

Okay, off my soapbox. I promise the sermon was as much for me as for anyone reading.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a sinner's new year

I have a confession: I like New Year’s Resolutions. They work for me. My best one was when I resolved to either get twenty rejections or at least one acceptance letter (to article queries). I figured I couldn’t control whether or not someone wanted to publish me, but I could control how many decided NOT to, just by making sure I submitted to that many. I ended up with about five or six rejections and three acceptances, which was a dream come true.

That experience taught me that New Year’s resolutions can be practical tools, rather than misty aspirations. The key seems to be to think about it a lot first: to think, what is it I want to change? Ideally, how would I bring that change about? And then – and this is the step I think a lot of people miss – realistically, what’s a step I can take toward that change? Because you can’t, say, guarantee that you’ll lose twenty pounds. There are so many variables there. What you can do is take control of one or two of those variables, and work on them till it makes a difference.

The other piece of this method is realizing that your will is only the smaller piece of the puzzle. While it is ours to direct our wills, the primary thing we’re supposed to be doing with them is submitting them to God’s will. I think that He made me with intelligence, and means me to attack the problems in my life with my wits, but He also means me to submit all my conclusions to Him.

Practically this means:
1) praying about my resolutions.
2) realizing that trying to control my selected variable might not work.

Regarding the latter: I don’t make unbreakable resolutions, because I don’t know what God has for me this next year. I make “as-far-as-it-depends-on-me-and-oh-yeah-I’m-a-fallable-sinner” resolutions. Any number of things might happen that would keep me from keeping my resolutions, and if those unforeseen events are events over which I have no control, I don’t want to beat myself up. E.g., if I resolve to go running every day, and I break my leg while walking to the car, I’m not going to castigate myself for breaking my resolution when I’m not out jogging the next day.

So, my resolutions go like this: I want X, so I resolve to do Y in pursuit of that this year, by the grace of God, given that my life in December reasonably resembles my life in January.

And regarding the former, praying about my resolutions, well, that’s why I’m still finalizing them, even though it’s now the second week of January. I want time to really think and pray about my goals for this year, and so I’ve only made a couple of resolutions: to read through the Bible and to pray the hours (in a modified manner I’ll discuss in the next post).

I’m still pondering some ideas about fitness, writing, parenting and housekeeping, but I don’t feel any clarity on those resolutions, and I won’t make them till I’m sure.

But I do like resolutions. Anyone else, or am I the only weirdo?

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell