Weekly Links!

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

Faith 

-"4 Keys to Kindling Your Love for the Book of Revelation": I always appreciate posts like this that give me some short, clear help to better understanding the Bible.


-"Thin Places": Especially good to read with All Saints' Day coming up on Tuesday.

Family 

-"Free Coloring Books from World-Class Libraries & Museums: The New York Public Library, Bodleian, Smithsonian & More": if you're going to color, why not color the classics?

-"Can your New Year's resolutions take the reality test? Or, my secret to straightening out your life": I was sick this week, and Like Mother, Like Daughter's house-stuff posts are lovely little comfort reads, and so I stumbled back across this one. It's not really so much about New Year's resolutions as it is about doing your normal household duties with contentment rather than shocked astonishment that you actually have to work and...and I liked it. And I needed to be reminded of it. So I thought I'd like to it, even though it is, in internet years, ancient.

Sometimes the old things are the best things.

- Meditatio has been doing a month-long blogging project on being a mom of a special needs kid. I've found it interesting, and thought you might, too.


-"Looking Forward to Advent":  I am already driving my eldest to choir practice for Lessons and Carols, which is my first sign that Advent is drawing nigh. Here's a post from Annie with some good resources, and a request for more if you know of any--go on over to her place and comment!

(And, after that, here's your obligatory book-plug: "Let Us Keep the Feast" is great for helping you get your home--and your heart--ready for the season!)

Fiction 

-"Reading and Writing for the Glory of God" - not fiction, but still writing.  I like reading Challies' thoughts because he seems to have a really good handle on the "why" of his writing.

-"This Man Memorized a 60,000-Word Poem Using Deep Encoding" - a neat story about a fellow who memorized all of Milton's Paradise Lost. If you're looking to memorize more scripture or poetry, this will give you some good advice and some inspiration.

I hope the end of your weekend is restful and good!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Weekly Links - Supergirl, Slushpiles, and more!

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, set out in my usual categories of faith, family, and fiction ...

Faith

-"The Gospel of Jesus on Sexual Binaries": I'm not sure which snippet of this to quote (because I really want to quote the wonderful last line, which seems like bad form). 

- "How to Trick Yourself Into Daily Prayer":

There is more humility in saying, "Lord, I offer this day up to you, and that's all I got, because I suck," than "I need to make a sincere and thorough morning offering, which I will do as soon as I'm in the proper frame of mind, which I will work on achieving as soon as I dispense with these emails, and -- oh, gosh, I never printed out that thing that I need to scan and return, and -- oh, nuts, we're out of paper. I'll write it on the list. Now, where's a pen? Why are there never pens in this house? My life is so chaotic! Ugh, the heck with this, I'm going on Facebook."

Family 

- "Seven Tips for Keeping the House a Little Bit Cleaner" - I'm a bit late on this one, considering spring cleaning is supposed to happen before Easter, but it's still a great read.

- This Russell Moore article ("Why Porn Kills Sex") is a reaction & reflection to this TIME magazine article (behind a paywall, I'm afraid), and they're both worth reading.

- "Understanding the Spectrum" - a fantastic comic about autism.

Fiction

- "In Praise of Daredevil's Karen Page":

While Matt preaches endlessly about giving everyone a second chance, and God being the only one who can decide who lives and who dies, Karen is the one who actually responds to killers with empathy. Matt doesn’t sit by Grotto’s side—Karen does.

- "On Reviewing Bad Books When You're Part of the Literary Community" - oh my goodness, this spoke to my SOUL.

- "Why Supergirl Is a Better Superman Story than Superman v Batman": Works for me.

- And here is an interview with S. B. Divya, who was a slushpile reader for a sci-fi magazine, and recently moved up to assistant editor. I found it fascinating.

- "Writerly Bits: What I've Learned in 5 Years": This is one of those lovely, detail-heavy pieces that are always fun to stumble upon.



Happy Sunday!
-Jessica Snell







http://theoraah.tumblr.com/post/142300214156/understanding-the-spectrum

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-fisher/how-to-trick-yourself-into-daily-prayer

Weekly Links: writing, songwriting, science writing, and more!

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

- "Hand in Hand, Heart Linked to Heart": These words of Charles Spurgeon's wife, Susannah, are just beautiful.


- Ingrid writes beautifully about living in a gift and not even realizing it.


- Nina Badzin's post, "What's Next for Me as a Writer?", is one I resonate with so much. The constant worrying at your project ideas, the constant reevaluation of how you're spending your writing time . . . this is what it's like inside my head. I think most creatives will identify with this post.


- Andrew Wilson's post "A Songwriting Rant" is refreshing because his criticism comes from a place of love. This isn't a hymns-only guy bashing anything written after 1750.  (But, I don't agree with him on the phrase "ineffably sublime" - keep the good stuff, even if it's got a high difficulty level!)


- Holly Ordway, author of the excellent book "Not God's Type", gives exhortations worth heeding in her article "Practical Advice for Christian Writers".


- "20 Things I Have Learned Since My Son Was Diagnosed with Autism" is much better than the typical article on this kind of subject.


- I haven't seen the movie version of The Martian (yet), but I very much enjoyed the book, and so I also enjoyed this post on the "Science of The Martian: the Good, the Bad, and the Fascinating".


- Finally, a bit of humor for your Sunday, beware of the "Early Warning Signs of Adult Onset Calvinism"!  



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links, a little late!

"Progress":

One of the earliest lessons of having a special-needs child was learning to recognize his progress not by comparing him to typically-developing children of the same age, but by comparing him to his own earlier self.

"Where to Start Your Story":

One of the first things I think about when I sit down to actually plot a book is where I'm going to start. As a general rule, the best place to start your story is always wherever things get interesting. BUT (and here's where it gets cool), "where things get interesting" can vary enormously depending on your audience/genre.

"Dirty Clothes, Complaints and Contentment":

Benedict has a way of pulling the rug out from under me. I’ll feel like I’m doing alright with life (I mean I’m not setting the bar all that high, but no one is getting hurt, we are all fed and bathed and dressed at least) and then I sit down and read something like this. Now true, this is a rule of life written 1,500 years ago for monks, totally different from my life. But it gets me thinking.

"The Audacity of Cinderella":

The unflinching purity of this film is so rare that it made me uncomfortable at first, and then it made me ache, because I’m so starved for sincerity.

"The day I bought steak with my food stamps":

And they hated us anyway. Oh, man. They told us everything I had been saying to myself: freeloaders. Not willing to work. What’s wrong with America today. Culture of dependency. And all the while, we went around the house with winter jackets and three pairs of socks on, because we couldn’t afford to turn the heat above 60 degrees when it was below zero out. My kids never got a new toy, never got new clothes. They learned never to ask for a popsicle or a box of crayons. We cobbled together a bizarre school curriculum out of whatever books were 25 cents at the thrift store. My husband’s glasses were taped together at the nose, we had no auto or health insurance, and I chose my driving routes according to how many hills I could coast down, to save gas. We prioritized bills according to how threatening they were.

"The Winter of His Disbelief":

Nor­mally we would start the tour here, ski­ing the three miles of road to the sum­mer trail­head and our first mea­sure­ment course, but this year we drove the three miles instead of ski­ing them, and parked the car at road’s end. We saun­tered to the snow course at North Lake, ele­va­tion 9,300′. In a nor­mal year, we’d expect to mea­sure the equiv­a­lent of 10 inches of SWE at North Lake, but not only was the course free of snow, the meadow grasses were begin­ning to sprout, and the dis­mal real­ity of the bleak snow­pack started set­ting in . . .

"What's Going on with Family Christian Stores?":

Yes. The guy who owns the company, and who wants to buy the company from himself, also wants to be a creditor, so he gets paid before others. What a guy.

Weekend links: Productivity, special needs, and funny Austrailians!

"How to Get Things Done": I really liked the way Tim Challies laid out a straight-forward theological argument for Christian productivity. First in a series.

"About that mom who’s not bragging about her kid":

So the next time you are having lunch with friends and the talk turns, as it often does, to what your kids are doing and the kvelling begins — one of the moms is happy that her daughter aced the SATs, the other’s son just got into law school, a third mom glows about her daughter’s engagement — and you see that one of your friends around the table is sitting silently, fiddling with her drink, just waiting for that part of the conversation to pass? Consider that quiet mom. She loves her son or daughter just as much as you do. Smile at her, and ask how her child is doing. She may need to do a different kind of kvelling.

I loved this video:




Have a great weekend!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Prayer, the Princess Bride, and more!

A little good reading for your weekend:

"Prayer, A Doctor’s Duty":

This week I ran around the lake as a cure for the stagnation I feel at work. I may see thirty patients a day, I thought, but how much ministry do I really accomplish? I pounded through my frustration each time I struggled up the hill and down around the lake . . . 

"After Paris: Meta, Irony, Narrative, Frames, and The Princess Bride":

To make a pastiche work, you have to be able to see what makes the original thing great as well as what makes it absurd, you have to be able to understand why people want it in the first place. You have to be able to see all around it. This is why Galaxy Quest works and everything else that tries to do that fails in a mean spirited way. The Princess Bride is the same, Goldman clearly loves the fairytale even when making fun of it and that makes it all work. The characters are real characters we can care about, even when they’re also larger than life or caricatures.

"Moving past the urge to truth-bomb":

Most people have gone through something painful or difficult, either in the past or in the present, and they don’t feel the need to carry a sign announcing it to everyone. Most people are not out to offend. Most people, when they make a nice comment, are just trying to be decent human beings, so why not return the favor and just be human beings together?

Finally, my sister (whose judgment I trust) let me know about some friends of hers, David and Tracy, who are trying to raise the last little bit of money they need in order to adopt Collier, a boy with Down's Syndrome who is about to age out of his Eastern European orphanage. When this happens, he'll be institutionalized and no longer eligible for adoption. David and Tracy are, according to my sister, a wonderful, Christian family, who saw Collier's picture and just knew that he was supposed to be a part of their family.

If you can help, you can donate here.


Have a great weekend!
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Lent, Psalms, and more!

A few articles for your weekend reading pleasure:

"The Work of the People":

Habits and disciplines are formed through repetition. Thus, the ritualistic and repetitive nature of Christian liturgy allows us to engage God in a similar manner from Sunday to Sunday and day to day. This repetition transforms us because it is habit forming. In short, our relationship with God becomes habitual and through this habit God does his work in us as we habitually come to him. 

"Lent for a forgetful person":

But I have been happy and perhaps a little startled to find some things that work for me. Things that, even almost three weeks into lent, have helped to keep it forefront in my mind, even in the middle of every day life.

"David and Saul": Usually I excerpt a quotation from the articles I link to, but I'd be tempted to excerpt the entire last half of this one, both because it's short and because it's excellent. So just go read it - read it because of what Anne has to say about the Psalms.

"504 Meeting at the Junior High": Yes, this:

The trickiest part about having a child who is fine ninety five percent of the time, is that I begin to forget why we have all the structures in place. I begin to second guess. I am tempted to do away with the parts of the structure that are time or money consuming to maintain, things like therapy. Everything feels good, but then I have a 504 meeting where I have to list out the official diagnoses. Then I remember that these people in the room and the psychiatrist who signed the diagnosis paper, would have no hesitation in bumping me if they felt that Gleek did not need the resources they are providing. The fact that they recognized Gleek’s need helps me to know I’m not just making this up. I would like it to all be my imagination, because then I could just stop imagining it, problem solved. Instead I get to walk alongside my girl while she treks her way through a long and difficult growing process.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

links (yes, again): pretty bags, pretty dishcloths, pretty awesome object lessons . . . and more!

I'm linking to this just because I think it's pretty.
StandFirm has had some great stuff recently, including Part II of Matt and Anne Kennedy's Leaving Home series and this post on the crazy stuff going down in South Carolina.
Amy has created a FAQ for homeschooling children with Down Syndrome and other special needs. It looks like a great place to start if you're thinking of doing that yourself, and it looks like a great one to pass on if you have a friend who's thinking of homeschooling a special needs child.
My friend Katie has created a super-cute Valentine's-y knit washcloth, and she has the pattern for sale in her Etsy shop.
I like this post from Fumbling Towards Grace. It includes paragraphs like this:
Stewardship, he went on, requires a sharp mind. There are constant forces trying to divert our attention from God and from building his kingdom. Faulty ideas about the human person, about our purpose in life, and also things like t.v. advertisements, promising peace, fulfillment and a trim waistline for 19.99. Having a “sharp mind” as he called it, is a requirement, so that we might be good stewards of the gifts and talents that God has given us.
as well as a great object lesson that includes beer. (How could that be bad?)
Here is a link to an index of a bunch of youtube videos on various math and science concepts.
This one I offer with a caveat: I have no idea if it works or not. But I read about it in Good Housekeeping (I think): it's a website where you can buy other people's unwanted gift cards at a discount (or sell your own). So if there's a store you're planning on shopping at anyway, it might be worth it to buy a gift card here at a discount to cover the trip.
I also can't vouch for this site, but I am planning on researching it more the next time we have a vacation: it's a site where you can find vacations houses for rent by owner. When you've got a family of six, it can be cheaper to rent a condo than to stay at a hotel when you travel. Also, it can be a nice option if you're traveling with a group. So, anyways, fyi, this exists. :)
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell