Weekly Links: a Day Late

Good reading from around the Web for your . . . Monday.

I hope you still like reading when it's a Monday.

"Flat Book Cover Design: Why Do So Many of This Year's Book Covers Have the Same Design Style?": a look at trends in literary art.


"Small Surprises in Growing Up":

I blinked at the email, in a sort of shocked pause. My boy is too young to have to register for the draft. Except he isn’t. Not anymore. 

"20 Years Ago This Week: A Look Back at 1995":  a photo essay.


"Fasting for Beginners":

When Jesus returns, fasting will be done. It’s a temporary measure, for this life and age, to enrich our joy in Jesus and prepare our hearts for the next — for seeing him face to face. When he returns, he will not call a fast, but throw a feast; then all holy abstinence will have served its glorious purpose and be seen by all for the stunning gift it was. 

Until then, we will fast.

"Lists of Things that Women Cannot Do: The Problem with John Piper (and Me)":

Whatever happened before, and in, and after the garden of Eden affected relationships between men, women, and God – and we have hard theological work to do to figure out where in that journey we are.

"Not All Conservatives": this is an answer to the article above - I love the conversation they're having on this blog! Well-worth subscribing to.

Complementarianism might be better understood as one expression of gender conservativism. As a response to evangelical feminism, complementarianism developed and flourishes in a specific cultural context, namely a western, white, middle-upper class context; because of this, it will reflect western, white, middle-upper class assumptions about work, economics, and home. The fact that Pastor Piper is even concerned with answering the question “what jobs can a woman do” reflects this.

"How to Weave on a Cardboard Loom": why does this fascinate me? I really don't need another hobby . . .


"Mysteries of Consciousness":

Whatever the case, though, such experiences should chiefly remind us how many and how deep the mysteries of consciousness really are. And the profoundest mystery of consciousness is consciousness itself, because we really have little or no clear idea what it is, or how it could either arise from or ally itself to the material mechanisms of the brain.

"How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive": I love cursive. And now I want a fountain pen.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Brother Ass

Pieter Lastman, Balaam i oslica, PD, via Wikimedia Commons

I've been thinking a lot about how we carry our emotions in our bodies. We feel fear as a knot in our stomach or a race in our pulses. We feel joy in the sudden rush of adrenalin and a glow on our faces.

But so often we ignore the emotions. (Which we can't do. Not really.)  We don't want to feel them, especially the bad ones.  And sometimes we don't want to feel the good ones either, because we're scared of loving them too much before we inevitably lose them.

So instead, we run from our emotions, or fight them, or try to push them away. And where do we push them? Into our bodies.

I think. This is a theory I'm working on, anyway. I think we let our bodies carry the emotions we won't feel. (Or can't bear to feel.)

Like Balaam's Ass carrying the prophet, our bodies carry our feelings.

And sometimes the burden gets too heavy, and our bodies suddenly refuse. They stop, and fall down on their knees, and crush us against the wall.


Our bodies can carry our emotions for a while.

But not forever.

Eventually, we have to face what's in our hearts, we have to face the structure of our minds (that grew well or stunted in our youth), we have to face the formation of our souls.

And we have to begin the slow, hard work of learning what was bent in us, and how, and why, and where-do-we-go-from-here.

And it's to be hoped that we have wise counselors, mentors, psychologists, pastors, friends, spouses, etc., to help us in the process.

But you can't ask your body to bear your burdens forever. Eventually, everything you are will come out into the light.

Whether you want it to or not.

Your body can't bear it forever. It's finite. It just can't.

It will break down.

This is the way of bodies.


But these bodies are not forever.

By the grace of God, by faith in Christ, our hearts will be whole, and they will have whole bodies to bear them.

We hope for a better resurrection.

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.  Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory? 

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

-1 Corinthians 15:50-58 




Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

synesthesia and the perception of time

You probably know that there are some people who see colors when they see specific letters or numbers. Or hear certain sounds. This is a condition known as synesthesia, and I read an article about it a couple of months ago in an old issue of the Smithsonian. (I think this was the article I read, but I'm not sure, because the link is just to an abstract.)

It was a fascinating article, but it became personal when they noted, off-handedly, that some synesthetes perceived time in a concrete fashion. They had a picture for the way years looked, or weeks or days. An idiosyncratic chart of time.

That pulled me up short. I thought, Well, I have that. And I thought it was strange that they should mention it. So I asked my husband if he had a specific picture when he thought about time. And he said no. And after that, I asked around some more.

Turns out most people don't see time when they think about time. But I do. I always have. As far back as I can remember knowing about years and months and days and weeks, I can remember seeing them. From what I've read, that's part of what makes it true synesthesia: you've always seen it that way. Apparently it's really common to spend years not knowing you have synesthesia for the simple reason that it never occurs to you that other people don't see the same thing you see. Now, I never thought people saw the same chart I saw, but I assumed they saw something. It's still very weird to me that that's not true.

What do I see? Well, years hang like an ovoid loop, suspended from December 31 and January 1. Sort of a teardrop shape. Right now we're going down the loop of the year. By about September, we'll start going up. Years string together in a sort-of L-shape scroll, from as far back as history goes, extending out towards the future. Out and up. At a specific angle.  Weeks look like telephone lines, suspended by Sundays and dipping lowest around Wednesdays. I can view it from the side, or I can sit on top of it and swoop up and down the curve of it. Days themselves are a loop, very similar to the loop of the year. And I can zoom in or out along this picture, down to the minute and out to the century. It all strings together.

Apparently this isn't normal.

But, I'm curious, do any of you reading see time when you think of time? I guess it's called number-form synesthesia or spacial-sequence synesthesia. I get now that not most people see things when they think of time, but I always have, and I can't imagine how you would think about it if you couldn't see it. I see numbers along a specifically-shaped line too, come to think of it. They head straight up to 100, and then veer off sharply to the left. Negative numbers are down. I do better thinking of them if I look at them from the left instead of from the right. Like tilting your paper a bit so your handwriting slants the right way; it just makes things easier.

Again, I now get that this isn't normal. Most people don't shift their position in regard to the numbers they're studying in their head so that they can see and understand them better. But I do. Always have. (Okay, now that I think of it, I have to shift to look at them from the left, because then I can read them forwards instead of backwards, because after zero, the numbers start to go from left to right instead of up and down. Well, they go down, but they are next to each other rather than on top of each other like the positive numbers are. Huh. Never realized that's why I did that.)

If you don't see a picture when you think of time, how do you conceptualize it? Do you conceptualize it? Or is it just something that exists, without needing to exist in any tangible form?

Truly, the brain is an odd organ. But if I have to have an odd twist to my brain, I think I'm glad I have this one. It's not a hindrance to me, I don't think - though it may explain some of the trouble I had when I hit the higher maths. I couldn't ever fold my number line in a way that made calculus make sense. But there you are. I'm not sorry for it. Like I said: I can't imagine seeing time and numbers any other way.

But I'm still curious how others see it, if they see it at all.   

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell