This is a devotional for those who don't fit into the happy-little-Christian box. And it's also for those who think it's okay to have a little humor in their reading reflections. Kennedy doesn't pick all the easy verses either. She pulls devotion to God out of what may have seemed random acts in history. Our days are kind of like that, aren't they? Circumstances often seem arbitrary and we sometimes question if it really matters how we get through them. That is what I especially appreciated about the book---Anne weaves all the tapestry together and helps the reader see the significance of God's holiness, mercy, and love in Christ working in our own lives now.
walk your way through the wilds of the Internet...
SOME INTERESTING LINKS FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, FAMILY, AND FICTION...
Faith
-"My 7 Tips to Better Self-Care": The author behind this wise article used to go to our church (and moved - sniff! we still miss you, Raven!), and she has some good words for all you busy people out there. -"Lectio Divina and the Facebook Newsfeed": a call to read less and think about it more.
Family
- "How Can I Get Rid of Belly Fat?" - okay, it's a clickbait title, but it chronicles an actually interesting little science experiment. (And, like most of my health links--indeed, this and the next, IIRC--I have to thank my friend Becca for sharing this one with me.) -"Why One Neuroscientist Started Blasting His Core": and I thought this one was fascinating because it talks about the links between posture, the adrenal glands, and mental health. Turns out we're complicated, well-connected creatures.
Fiction
-Brandon Sanderson (of Mistborn fame) has been putting up new recordings of his college-level speculative fiction writing class. I got a lot out of these last time they went up online, and have started watching this new batch. He's a such a good writer, but also a really good teacher. You can find them on YouTube, here. -"There is no That": What's behind the work? The work.
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.)
. . . 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.
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.
1. I started Jennifer Fulwiler's (our host's) book, "Something Other Than God" one night, and finished it the next. It is so good. (Review forthcoming.)
3. My daughter has taken to reading my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook as if it were a novel. This has resulted, in the last few day, in made-from-scratch devil's food cake (with fudge frosting) and homemade blueberry muffins, appearing in my kitchen, as if by magic.
So yes, dear child, I will keep buying you cocoa and butter and sugar. You bake away, you brilliant girl, you.
4. (Seriously, it's fun to watch my eldest adopt a hobby so whole-heartedly. I delight in her delight.)
5. So, here's a question for you: what's your favorite part of U.S. History? I admit to being an Anglophile, and overdosing on British history, but it's time for me to learn a bit more about my own country's past. Where should I start? What stories and settings from the United States really capture your imagination? I'd love to know.
6. Today I had the rare experience of my cat actually coming to me, and wanting to be scratched and petted and snuggled.
He's the sort of cranky beast that thanks you for your pains by biting you when he's had enough loving - purring all the while of course. He's a bit of a psychopath, but we keep him around because he's so terribly pretty. And he kills bugs. (I admire that in a cat.)
Anyone else have a cranky pet?
(I have to say: my dog makes up for our cat's crankiness. Our dog only wants us to LOVE HER, PLEASE LOVE HER, SHE ONLY WANTS US TO LOVE HER AND WALK HER AND FEED HER AND SCRITCH HER OH, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!!
But that' s dog for you, right?)
7. Is it terrible that I really, really want to watch this?
And then there’s the beautiful aftermath that follows decluttering. You find yourself happy to own less, so if you consciously keep stuff from entering your door again, you start owning this habit. You genuinely don’t want to shop because then you’d have to do something with the new stuff.
"The Future of Protestantism": This video from Biola University is a great discussion - my husband and I watched the live stream earlier in the week, and really enjoyed it.
And now, here's a treat - a much shorter treat - that's relevant to our interests: two brilliant profs from my alma mater, discussing the liturgical year:
But for us kids, there was no incongruity: Growing up Hebrew Catholics just meant having much more FUN on Easter than anyone else. My Christian friends wore straw hats, ate jelly beans, and maybe dyed eggs if their mothers could abide the mess. We, on the other hand, whooped it up for an entire weekend as we prepared for and celebrated the Passover seder, the ceremonial feast which Jesus ate with his disciples at the Last Supper. At our seder, which we held on Holy Saturday, there was chanting and clapping, giggling over the mysterious and grisly ceremonial roasted egg and horseradish root, glass after glass of terrible, irresistible sweet wine, special silver and china that only saw the light of day once a year, pillows for the chairs so we could “recline,” and the almost unbearable sweetness as the youngest child asked, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
This is why we need feminism. Because someone needs to fight back, to tell these people, men and women: STOP. This is not what women are for. This is now how it’s supposed to go. This is not how life gets carried on. This is no life, for women or for men.
Bill Watterson undertook a number of worthy crusades during the decade in which he made comic strip history –what fan of the Sunday Comics section can forget his epic battle to get the funnies printed at a decent size?– and he railed against “the cheapening of the comics” on a number of fronts. But it was his decision not to extract his characters from their natural setting and transfer them to “bedsheets and boxer shorts” that provides us all with an unforgettable living parable of artistic integrity.
Finally, I love this video about bullet journaling. It's such a cool concept - I'm going to start trying it this week!
If you're here from Biola's Lent Project, welcome! This is a blog about faith & family - but particularly about celebrating the church year at home. If you're new to the blog, you might want to check out my page of church year resources from around the web, and also the page of posts by category.
Finally, if you're interested in something more in-depth on celebrating Lent in your home, check out "Let Us Keep the Feast", a book entirely dedicated to bringing the rhythms of the church year into your day-to-day life.
Okay! Now, on to the weekly links! Here's some good reading (and watching) for your weekend:
It would be too much to say that Perman redeems the genre of productivity lit, but he has accomplished something pretty big here: he has written a productivity book that does most of the theological filtering for me! Instead of needing to supplement my reading with a big dose of the gospel, I find that it’s all already smoothly integrated. Perman has thought through his entire book as a detailed thought project on applying the gospel to the life of work.
Tolkien dearly loved his children, and he left a literary legacy in the form of letters. Many of these letters were written to his sons, and these letters represent, not only a hallmark of literary quality, but a treasure of Christian teaching on matters of manhood, marriage, and sex. Taken together, these letters constitute a priceless legacy, not only to the Tolkien boys, but to all those with whom the letters have been shared.
And, finally, some nerdy English language goodness:
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)
As I wiped a tear from my eye, I realized that this was emotion as a response to beauty, not emotion for emotion’s sake. I can see how an event where there is pressure to have a certain reaction would be dangerous. If there’s a feeling like “IT’S THE CRESCENDO OF THE JESUS SONG, SO ALL GOOD CHRISTIANS WILL CRY NOW,” that’s a problem.
But if you have an auditorium full of people getting teary-eyed or waving their hands as an authentic response to beauty, it’s something different — something good.
If you’ve spent most of your life cruising ahead on natural ability, doing what came easily and quickly, every word you write becomes a test of just how much ability you have, every article a referendum on how good a writer you are. As long as you have not written that article, that speech, that novel, it could still be good. Before you take to the keys, you are Proust and Oscar Wilde and George Orwell all rolled up into one delicious package. By the time you’re finished, you’re more like one of those 1940’s pulp hacks who strung hundred-page paragraphs together with semicolons because it was too much effort to figure out where the sentence should end.
"L.A.'s Wildest Cafeteria Served Utopian Fantasy With a Side of Enchiladas": I loved this article! I've actually been to Clifton's Cafeteria - my husband's grandfather took us there when he was showing us his old stomping grounds in downtown Los Angeles. But I didn't know all its history! Everything from feeding the hungry in Jesus' name to facing down mobsters! Wow!
Finally, I really enjoyed this cover of "Royals" - what a voice!:
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.
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 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!
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.
So, did you see the new Dove "Real Beauty" video that's floating around Facebook, ubiquitous as the flu virus? If you missed it, here it is:
It's a clever idea, but it seemed a bit off to me somehow.
AND HERE'S MY BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: If this commercial made you cry, you might want to stop reading this particular blog entry right here. I don't want to poke at anyone's sore spots and I'm really coming from a different place on this. But if this commercial made you a bit uncomfortable? if it felt a bit off to you? well, I have thoughts, so read on.
So, anyway, I read this feminist critique of the ad, which I didn't wholeheartedly agree with, but that seemed to get somewhat close to what was bothering me about it. Unlike that blogger, I do think there's a place for humility and modesty in feminine beauty but, on the other hand, I don't think she's far off when she says:
There is no room in Doveland for women who know they’re hot . . . There’s no room to tell the artist about your thin jaw even if you see and love it. The only confidence that’s acceptable is halfhearted: “Don’t worry, I don’t think I’m pretty, but I’ve been told I’m wrong, so maybe I am a little.”
What do I agree with here? The idea that it's okay to honestly like your own face and body. Why wouldn't you? God makes good things.
Where I'm Coming From (ETA: this is the boring, personal context part. Skip to "The four loves - or at least two of them" if you want to get right to the meat of this article.)
It's hard for me to talk about feminine beauty without getting personal, and I know my experience isn't every woman's. Still, my first reaction to this ad was very personal, and it was, "Unless you caught me on a pretty bad day, I don't think I'd be describing an ugly woman to that sketch artist."
Here's the really personal and particular: I've been describing myself to myself - and that favorably - since I was a teenager. I've been writing fiction all my life, and like most writers I started out with very Mary-Sue-ish heroines who resembled no one so much as me. (Me-as-a-space-princess, but still me.) Narcissistic and immature? Yes. But it did teach me to see the good that was there. Later, my focus broadened, and I started describing the good in everyone else, too. Now it's habit.
Then, in adulthood, I've lived with a husband who smiles whenever he sees me. That's a grace that makes it hard to hate myself.
And I guess there's a third piece of it: I like my body for what it can do. In my twenties, I managed to break both my arms at once, and got a small taste of what it's like to rely on someone else for every daily need. Competence is probably a fleeting part of my physicality, but I surely do appreciate it at the moment, even if it may be gone in a few more decades. I know part of my self-image is formed on the fact that I've been lucky so far. That's probably young and immature and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes. (Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a LOT of what I talk about in this entry changes; I'm not all that old and wise and virtuous yet. So - if you do read on, please do it with a grain of salt, yeah?)
None of these things are general though. I'm just giving them as context for where I'm coming from on the subject.
A Christian view of beauty? at least in marriage? (okay, maybe this is only sort-of-general . . .)
Here's the not-so-personal part, though: I couldn't help but think of the Song of Songs as I looked at that video and read that critique.
In the Song of Songs, the woman knows she's beautiful. Her lover praises her, but she praises herself, too: "Dark am I, but lovely."
And in poems like Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday", you see the beloved triumphing, trumpeting, insisting on her own glory: "Raise me a daïs . . ."
And even if the woman in the Song of Songs was a queen and deserved a throne, well, isn't this rejoicing of the beloved in her lover's rejoicing at her beauty sort of a universal experience in romance? I think in That Hideous Strength there's a moment where someone reads a passage about something similar. Argh - can't find it at the moment. But, anyway, beauty is a good thing; God made women beautiful. Delighting in beauty isn't inappropriate, especially not in the context of love. It seems like a natural part of the whole deal, in that context.
But is beauty the most important thing about us? No, not even close. And we're not to rely on it and it's important to nurture our virtues and not our vanity. But there's a difference between acknowledging something and paying inordinate attention to it. (Is vanity paying inordinate attention to your own beauty? I think it might be. Hmm, have to ponder that one some more - this blog entry might have a sequel.)
The four loves - or at least two of them
But even aside from romantic love, I think there's a proper place for caring for your body and a proper reason to avoid false humility.
Let's start with the last first: false humility is bad. Why? Because lying's bad. And honestly, that's really all I mean by that; nothing more. Lying does bad things to your soul. Don't be the pretty lady telling the sketch artist you're ugly. (Be more like Cordelia Vorkosigan: "It was a good face, suitable for all practical purposes . . .")
Storge
But what's the love you should have for yourself? Well mostly, firstly, I think it's storge. It's affectionate love, it's fondness. Your body is familiar, your face is familiar. Be easy with your appearance like you're easy with every other homey, normal, everyday good. Like you love that well-seasoned frying pan that lives on the corner of your stovetop, like you smile at your aunt's familiar jokes, like you feel comfort when you curl up under that old knitted blanket you keep folded up on the couch. Your body is not just a good thing God has given you, it is part of you, and He's given you stewardship over yourself. Treat your body well, use it properly, and be grateful for it. Your body is a good thing.
(This is St. Francis' "brother ass" bit: the body as a good, stubborn, sometimes-frustrating beast of burden.)
Appearance and Community
But there is some good in that video, though you have to reach to get to it, and it's this: your face brings joy to the people around you.
Know that. Believe that. To the people you love, your face is one of the most beautiful things in the world. AND THEY AREN'T WRONG TO THINK THAT. Even if you're not objectively gorgeous. No kidding, seriously, I mean it. People are their bodies but they are also MORE than their bodies, and our bodies are the weakest, most mutable part of us. The loved is beautiful both because it is loved AND because it is beautiful, and those two don't cancel each other out, they build on each other and seriously, really, really, yes, seriously, really.
I talked about the fact that I've been describing myself to myself since I was a kid. But I largely grew out of that narcissistic focus of adolescence, and now I describe everybody to myself. It's habit. I'm an author, and an artist, and it's my job to observe and articulate. That's what I'm for.
And as someone who observes, habitually, the appearance of others (among other things), I can tell you this: people are beautiful. And the most beautiful people? Are my friends. Every one of them. And the longer I know them, the older they get, the more they walk with the Lord, the more heaven shines out of their countenances. The objectively lovely - and many of them are objectively lovely - is suffused with the beauty of their personalities. They're stained glass windows that the light of the Holy Spirit shines through.
(I kind of think we might each have a job of appreciating both beauty in general, but also of appreciating beauty in particular, in our own families, our own friends, our own city, our own home.)
There is such a thing as real, objective beauty. And not everyone has it. I'm not arguing about that. I know people who are ugly, too, everyone does. And I'm ugly sometimes. Everyone is. And I'll get uglier. Everyone does. No one can escape the ugliness of sickness, of stress, of sorrow. The immaterial stresses put lines on material faces and mar and weaken physical bodies. It comes earlier to some than to others, but no one gets to be young forever, no one gets to be well and happy forever, and so no one gets to be perfectly beautiful forever. It's against the laws of the universe. Physical beauty is fleeting, Agar's mother was right about that. And so if you rely on it, well, sorry, you're sunk.
So, appreciate it while it's here. Why not? don't you appreciate the flowers that fade and the grass that withers? Sure you do. It's inhuman to ignore them.
But it's foolish to count on them; it's foolish to value them at more than their worth.
And maybe, in the end, that's what's wrong with that commercial. It pretends not to, but it still makes physical beauty all too important, raises it way, way out of its proper place - and of course it does. For all their disclaimers, Dove is still trying to sell you things that make you feel beautiful. So they're very earnest about it, very intense, and they're LYING, LYING, LYING because they still very, very clearly say that physical beauty matters - and that it matters much more than it actually does. There's something false in that commercial, just because it's pretending so hard to be true, to have pure intentions.
They're right that some women see themselves inaccurately. They're wrong to imply every woman does. They're wrong to imply they're the arbiters of what we see and they're wrong to pretend they have no stake in the definition of what beauty is. And there might be a further, weaker implication that every woman is as objectively beautiful as every other woman and, again, LYING HELPS NO ONE SHUT UP DOVE.
But you can't give beauty, you can't create it, and you can't keep it. Beauty may be virtue in you, but it's not your virtue. It's all gift.
But here, here's what you can do with it: you can give it back, you can give it again, you can hold it with open hands. Here's something better than all, all, all my endless blathering on the subject, and here's where I'm ending it:
The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well)
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":
It doesn’t have to do with getting the kids to walk around in silence (though, boy, that’d be nice if I could pull it off), nor is it about observing the exact same prayer times as consecrated religious. Boiled down to its core, the hallmark of the monastic schedule is that the way you use your time reflects your true priorities. Your daily life is one of constantly pushing back against the world’s expectations, making real, sometimes difficult sacrifices so that your time is not swept away by the current of the world’s priorities.
. . . In other words, people with dark personality traits are not seen as more physically attractive than others when you take away their freedom to wear their own clothes and makeup. People with dark personalities seem to be better at making themselves physically appealing.
And the stuff God says is totally different from the stuff we say. He says LITERAL STUFF. He speaks, and worlds come into being. He says, “let there be,” and it is. Stuff is, because God says for it to be. Of course I’m referring to Genesis 1, but it’s all through the Bible. For instance, look at Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” He says “let there be stars,” and all the stars come out. They obey before they exist. They exist by obeying the word of the Lord.
In the aftermath, investigators found that almost everything that had gone wrong had been the fault of the pilots. When the plane encountered significant turbulence the pilots should have responded according to their flight training and according to the plane’s manual. Instead, they relied on instinct. And then, when the plane began to experience further complications, the pilots ignored the instruments that should have directed them to the source of the problem and the straightforward solution. They swung the plane violently from side to side attempting to right it because they ignored the aircraft’s instrument that told them where the horizon was and how to keep the plane level. They ignored the instruments that told them that their engine problem was not as serious as they thought. Blinded by the stress of the situation, they ignored the manual and did things their own way. It very nearly cost them their lives and the lives of hundreds of passengers.
And, finally, an advertisement that absolutely succeeded in making me want to give my money to the people who are asking for it - but they're not gonna take my money till . . . May? C'mon!! Why isn't this a Christmas release? Boo.
But, without further ado, Kirk, Cumberbatch, and . . . Khan? Sorry, I mean: Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
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!)
Here's your terrifying link for the day: "The Dark Side of Dubai". Seriously, folks. It sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi: gleaming, Disneyland-like outer surfaces, and an underside of slavery, abuse, and torture, all wrapped up in an artificially propped-up environment surrounded by an arid, hostile desert that's trying to consume buildings and people alike. All absolutely true and in existence at this very moment. *shiver* (ETA: I should have noted that this article is a couple of years old. Still, there's a ton in there I hadn't read anywhere else, and I still think it's worth the read.)
Tomorrow is All Saints' Day (celebrated here with candy) and Wednesday is All Souls, upon which, apparently, we all ought to eat doughnuts. I can get down with that tradition.
Back to the bad news (well, sort of, if the-wages-of-sin-is-death is news), apparently they're finding that porn use is causing erectile dysfunction in otherwise healthy men. (I don't even want to think of the amount of spam I'm gonna get for linking to this). The article is really interesting though, because apparently it's a physiological problem with the reward cycle in the brain. I just have to say: I don't think that defeating your body's ability to react to dopamine is going to make your life better. Yeah. Probably not.
Now, as a palate-cleanser, here's Mumford and Sons singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing":
