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.

Guest post at Sandra Robbins' blog

The lovely Sandra Robbins is hosting me over at her blog today. Here's a snippet of our conversation:

What Bible scripture has impacted your life the most?

The Psalms. I know it sounds like a cheat to cite a whole book, but several years ago I started listening through the book of Psalms once a month and it absolutely changed my prayer life and my interior thought life. I’ve heard the Psalms called “the prayer book of the church” and I feel that letting them soak into my mind and heart has really taught me how to pray.

Come on over and read the rest!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

The gift of a good edit

Writing is the best.

But editing is so very close. And recently I got to be on the other side of the editing desk, when I got back edits on a short story of mine.

Receiving edits is always a bit scary - did they hate it? Worse, do they want me to make it into something completely different? Am I still going to be able recognize my baby under all those red lines?

I clicked open the file, skimmed the margin for the brightly-colored comment boxes, devoured the comments breathlessly, and then let out a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Yes. These were those kind of edits—the kind of edits that were going to make my work better, stronger, clearer.

I love good edits. It’s such a huge gift when an editor reads your story, likes it, and understands it.

And understands it even better than you did when you first wrote it.

That’s the feeling anyway: you read the comments and you think, “Wow! You’re right! Of course doing it that way makes more sense. How did I not see that?”

But any embarrassment you might feel at the original failures of your story are swallowed up in the joy of knowing that now, now the story is going to fly. It’s going to glow.

It’s going to be its very best self.

Because that’s what editing is all about: it is about making a story (or an article, or an essay, or a book) its very best self.  Good editors don’t change the soul of the story. They clear all the clutter out of the way so that soul can shine. They might change the “how” of the story, but they don’t change the “what”.

I was excited about this story when I wrote it. I got that writer’s high that’s better than a good glass of red wine. I was soaring all day after I finished it.

But I’m even more solidly happy now. First, because it’s sold.

But secondly, because it’s going to be a better story. It’s going to be more solid. Now I know where to trim the ambiguity, where to plump up the description, where to draw the reader in a little more.

Now, thanks to the gift of editing, my story is going to be its very best self.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

p.s. Yes, once the story is actually published, I'll let you know where you can get a copy and read it! :)

C. S. Lewis, the Thief

This book brought to you by Paradise Lost (among others).

If you want a really boring drinking game, read modern Christian non-fiction and take a drink every time one of the authors quotes C. S. Lewis.

It’s boring for two reasons: first, because they all do it. So there’s really no suspense. But it’s also boring because they’re only going to do it every few chapters, and so you’re going to stay stone-cold sober.

Now, if you want an interesting drinking game, read the old Western canon of classics and take a drink every time you find something that was stolen by C. S. Lewis.

You’ll still be sober (‘cause the classics take a good long while to read) but you’ll come away astonished by what a thief Lewis was.

Make that: what a skilled thief.

My favorite is probably his theft from Milton. You know that memorable passage in The Magician’s Nephew where the lion, Aslan, sings Narnia into creation? The dirt around him starts bubbling like an unwatched pot and out of each bubble springs a new animal: an elephant, a dog, a jackdaw.

It’s such a beautiful passage, and such a beautifully odd passage. Very Lewisian.

And he completely lifted it from Milton’s Paradise Lost.  My jaw dropped when I stumbled across that one.

It’s like that for a lot of Lewis’ brilliant passages.

I remember reading through Aristotle for the first time, and thinking, Oh, this is where Lewis got his stuff about habits, and about what a thing is vs. what it’s made of. When I got to Boethius, I realized, Oh, this is where Lewis learned that it is the person we become that is more permanent and important than the hardships we suffer. When I read Plato…

Well, it’s all in Plato, isn’t it? (Bless me, what do they teach them in these schools? DRINK.)

Once I saw it in Lewis, I started seeing it other places, of course. Authors have been stealing from each other forever and—even better—riffing off each other. (“Oh, you liked Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, did you?” asks Sir Walter Raleigh. “Wait till you read my The Nymph’s Reply!”) Once you twig on to it—and I imagine most readers do somewhere around high school or college—playing “find the stolen source” can liven up just about any reading experience.

But Lewis thefts are still my favorite. Maybe it’s because he’s the best at integrating everything he takes into one, coherent worldview. (And aren’t we all going for that? Hoping to make sense of the world on that level?) Maybe it’s because being already familiar with his work when I approached those daunting, dusty Greek and Roman texts made them feel almost homey, and I’ll never cease to be grateful for the help.

Or maybe it’s just because he’s the author who seems to be having the most fun doing it. I mean, lifting the phrase “for tool, not toy meant” out of a serious, devout poem by a Roman Catholic priest and then placing those same words (slightly twisted!) into the mouth of Father Christmas in a fairy tale for children?

That’s skill. That’s delight.

So, try the Lewis game! But remember, to really play it right, you have to read lots of books. And lots of your lots of books should be old books. Always remember, as the great writer C. S. Lewis said:  “to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds…can only be done by reading old books.”

(And that was a freebie for you: me quoting Lewis to give you more points. DRINK!)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell



p.s. The drinking game suggestion is a joke, folks, don't yell at me...

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.)

Weekend Links - Memorial Day Edition

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

But first, on this Memorial Day, here is a prayer from the BCP, in remembrance of those who have given their lives for our country:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead: We give thee thanks for all thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence; and give us such a lively sense of thy righteous will, that the work which thou hast begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

 

Faith 

-"Gandalf, Job, and the Indignant Love of God":

So what of God’s opening lines? Is he not dealing forcefully with Job? Is he not angry? Even indignant and sarcastic? Yes, but none of this means he’s acting with anything less than merciful lovingkindness.

-"How to Glorify God By Being a Generalist" 

-"A (Very) Brief, Gospel-Centered Defense Against the Problem of Evil"

-"The Phil Vischer Podcast: Religious Liberty with Russell Moore"

-"A Call for Plodding Bloggers"

-"Is Your Pastor Happy to See You?":

To be a Christian is to be a churchman or churchwoman. The New Testament knows of no vibrant discipleship apart from life in the local church, no authentic Christianity divorced from the covenant of life together according to the biblical structure of the local church. And if this is true, it behooves us to be the best churchmen and churchwomen we can be. And good churchfolk love, respect, and submit to their pastors.

Family

-"Keeping the Calendar to One Day" - an inspirational idea from Ann.

-"Don't Dismiss Housework":

This is where, I would argue, the moral imagination comes in. The task of cleaning itself may not require a lot of intellectual prowess—but it does require a great deal of imaginative skill and understanding. The work of maintaining a home is tied up inexplicably in the question of what it means to be human, and the person who cares for the home must adhere to a set of underlying ideas and mores that make his or her work meaningful. After all, why is it that we do not wish to live in squalor? Why do we see cleanliness and order as essential tenets for human flourishing? It must be because these constitute basic understandings of what human life should constitute—ideas that have a moral and spiritual tradition.

-"What I've Learned in Twenty Years of Marriage": I love the difference he articulates between a "merger marriage" and a "start-up marriage".

-"Blue-Collar Contentment"

-"Talking to My Boys After the Transgender Talk at Their Public School" - a helpful article.

Now, onto the links...

Fiction

- "Save the Allegory!"  - allegories: both different and cooler than you might have thought they were.

-"'Gossamer', by Stephen Baxter" - this beautiful short story pictures life (a very different sort of life) way out on the cold plains of Pluto.

-"A Letter to Friends Looking to Break into a Part-Time Writing Career" - not strictly regarding fiction, but good writing advice all the same.

Finally, if you haven't yet, please come and enter the giveaway for a copy of "Not Alone"!  The stories in it of faith during suffering are truly inspiring.

Have a good and meaningful Memorial Day, folks!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Giveaway! Win a copy of "Not Alone"

Today, I'm honored to be over at author Anna Weaver's website, sharing a little bit about "Not Alone". The interview includes a giveaway -- please come on over and enter to win a copy!

Here's a little snippet of the interview Anna conducted with me about the book - in this paragraph, I have a chance to explain the book's crazy-long subtitle! :)

The book I'm featuring today is "Not Alone: A Literary Companion For Those Confronted with Miscarriage and Infertility". 

I know that's a mouthful of a subtitle! But we wanted readers to know what they were picking up. 

"Literary" because it's a book of essays. So very many people have shared this kind of suffering and so we wanted to feature a multitude of perspectives. 

"Companion" because the longing for a child -- either one you've lost or one you've never had -- can be a very lonely kind of suffering. We wanted people to know this book was full of people who had been there too, who want to walk beside you in your grief. 

And "Confronted" because this isn't something you ask for. It's something that comes upon you when you never wanted it and weren't looking for it. 

This is a book that doesn't pretend that these things are easy, but also confirms that God is good. And those two truths: that there is real sorrow and a good God who loves us ... those can be hard to reconcile. The contributors to "Not Alone" were really honest about *both*, and I think it's that honesty that makes the book so valuable.

Please head on over to Anna's place to read the 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.)

Book Notes: "Grimm: The Killing Time", by Tim Waggoner

"The Killing Time", by Tim Waggoner, is a novel based on the TV show "Grimm", which tells the story of Nick Burkhardt, a Portland homicide detective who has inherited the ability to perceive and hunt down fantastical creatures who can masquerade as human.

I'll be honest: if you're not a fan of the show, this probably isn't the book for you.

But I love "Grimm". It's one of those shows that hires fantastic character actors (the supporting cast is the best part of the show) and lets the writers go wild with their imaginations -- while still making sure to tell a satisfying, compact story ever week.

Reading "The Killing Time" felt very much like watching a good episode of "Grimm". It introduced a new, scary creature to cause havoc throughout Portland ("keep Portland weird" indeed!), and also featured all the supportive teamwork that makes it easy to root for our group of heroes.  I liked the complication that our villain was a shapeshifter; when he took on Nick's identity, it made for some great complications for the good guys and their quest to protect the city.

Content warning for violence and gore, and one implied sexual situation (nothing explicit).


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.)