Mini Reviews: The Books I Read in February 2017

--I'm catching up on my book notes, taking them a month at a time. Since I'm behind, I'm only allowing myself a line or two on each book. I hope they still give you an idea of whether or not these would be books you'd enjoy picking up yourself!--



-"The Zoo Job (Leverage #2)," by Keith R. A. Candido. I didn't enjoy this as much as the first Leverage novel, but it was still a fun read. No need for any explicit content warnings that I recall, but just the kind of normal language and such you might expect on a network drama.



-"Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess," by Rachel Hoffman. This one clearly deserves a language warning! If that doesn't bug you, though, there's some good stuff here, especially for people dealing with mental or physical disabilities, who still want to live in a decent home. The author clearly comes from a different philosophical/political/theological viewpoint that I do, but her practical suggestions are brilliantly helpful, and I love her down-to-earth version of advice-giving.



-"The Corinthian," by Georgette Heyer. This was such a fun reread, because I was a lot younger last time I read this. When I read it through this time, I picked up on so much subtle humor that totally went over my head before. Heyer has so much fun in this one. She never tells you what the hero is thinking, not explicitly, but she doesn't have to, because it's all there in the action and dialogue.

Heyer is just so good.


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.)

Weekly Links!

~ LINKS TO SOME INTERESTING READING, FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR WEEKEND ~


-I have loved Linda Holmes' thoughts on reality TV since the days she was covering Survivor for the now-defunct site Television Without Pity. Here she is, talking about the ethics of a recent episode of Top Chef for NPR.



-A review of "Nailed It" from Aimee Byrd over at The Housewife Theologian. A snippet:

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.

-And while I'm on the topic of my favorite devotional, here's a lovely podcast: "Persuasion: How Sarcasm is Good for the Soul." 



-And speaking of good podcasts, I liked this one: "Mere Fidelity: Humble Roots, with Hannah Anderson."



-And here's another good thing by Hannah Anderson, this time an essay: "You Can't Do It All: Rex Tillerson and the Limits of Vocation."



-"Minimalism Gets It Wrong."



-Also, "The Minimalism Trap."



-And, on our current season of the church year, here's "How To Throw an Epiphany Party In Four Easy Steps." 



-"How 'Sherlock of the Library' Cracked the Case of Shakespeare's Identity"



-These short filmed scenes of King Lear are amazing.



-And, finally, sailing the solar system with solar sailing ships.



I hope you have a lovely Sunday, full of worship and rest!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: some good reading from around the Web

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

Faith 

-"Bible Basics: A Baby Believer Counting Primer": cool-looking Kickstarter from an fellow alum of THI.

-"One, Holy and Broken: Conflict in Christ's Church":

A church I attended suffered the pangs of conflict, and unfortunately, this was nothing new in my experience. As my wife and I moved around the country for graduate studies and then different teaching positions, four of the six churches we attended suffered deeply from conflict during the handful of years we were there (the other two were riddled by conflict before and after our time there). Based on our limited experience, to attend and participate in the life of a congregation, to be a member of a church is to participate in conflict.

Family

-"It's 'digital heroin': how screens turn kids into psychotic junkies": Important stuff. Particularly this bit:  

Once a kid has crossed the line into true tech addiction, treatment can be very difficult. Indeed, I have found it easier to treat heroin and crystal meth addicts than lost-in-the-matrix video gamers or Facebook-dependent social media addicts.

-And, to add to the category of What-I-Am-Going-To-Do-If-I-Ever-Get-Stupid-Rich: "Data Scientist Creates Fully Optimized Road Trip Map to Every National Park".

Maybe we can do a tenth of it every summer for the next decade ...?

Fiction 

-First thing to mention under the "fiction" category is a fun Twitter even I'm participating in this month: #WIPjoy! Founder Bethany A. Jennings calls it a month of "celebrating our works-in-progress and encouraging one another in our writing" and you can read more about it here. 

I'm having so much fun participating in it this month! And it's early in the month, so if you want in, there's still time. Just head on over to Twitter...

-"Mike Birbiglia's 6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere": Good stuff for any of my fellow creatives.

Have a lovely weekend!

-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: some good reading from around the web

wouldn't mind heading back here...

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

Faith 

-"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread...": a good poem for Sunday.

-"A Commendation of Leviticus": a helpful guide to a book that often stymies Christians in their Bible reading.

-"15 Proverbs for Social Media Users": much-too-applicable to real life!

-"Some Things You Should Know About Christians Who Struggle With Anxiety": yes, this.

-"On Daughters and Dating: How to Intimidate Suitors": I loved this. I loved the implication that the truly admirable men are the ones who look at strong, godly, content women and say, "Oh, yes please". And that the best way to protect your daughter is to raise her into a woman who is competent and who knows her worth and who knows her family and her God love her, support her, and have her back.  A snippet:

Instead of intimidating all your daughter's potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own. 

Family 

-"McMansion 101: What Makes a McMansion Bad Architecture": I fell down this rabbit hole thanks to Anne Kennedy, and I don't regret it. This was fascinating.

-"How one family is sending 13 kids to college, living debt free - and still plans to retire early": inspiring stuff!

Fiction

-"Where Her Whimsy Took Me": a love letter to Dorothy Sayers' excellent novel, Gaudy Night.

-"The Writing Tricks We'd Be Naked Without": a good round-up of tips for my fellow writers.

-"The Unofficial Rules of the Starship Enterprise": This hilarious list-style bit of fanfic confirmed my secret theory that life aboard a REAL starship would inevitably involve a M.A.S.H.-style illegal still...


I hope you have a good weekend!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; 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.)

Sanctification & Damnation in Season 7 of Star Trek: DS9

So, we've been introducing our kids to my favorite television series, Star Trek: DS9*, and we've finally reached the last season.

One of the reasons I love this show is that, of all of the Star Trek series, DS9 most seriously engages with the impact religion has on human experience.

Well, ostensibly, I suppose it's on alien experience, but it's no secret that the aliens on Star Trek are stand-ins for various aspects of humanity. Still, while Gene Roddenberry was alive, the Star Trek shows largely avoided tackling the subject of faith. Roddenberry was all about humanism.

And DS9 doesn't abandon Roddenberry's humanism - it's still the main faith (ha!) of the Starfleet characters. But DS9 also gives us the Bajorans, an alien race who place their faith in "the Prophets", the gods of their planet. By taking the Bajoran faith seriously, this show is able to play with a whole new aspect of life. (DS9 is also remarkable in the Star Trek universe for the fact that it stays in one place and doesn't allow its characters the easy out of skipping over to the next star system in their fancy ship, thus avoiding the consequences of their meddling in the local culture.)

DS9 was one of the first shows to use long-arc storytelling on television. You know the long arcs you get now on prestige series like "Breaking Bad"? DS9 did that first. It did still use the "freak of the week" style of episodes you'd get on bubblegum shows like "Smallville" but, more and more as it matured, DS9 pioneered long plot arcs, arcs that pulled in characters, cultures, ideas, relationships, and more into stories that spanned the weeks and months of its broadcast.

This long-arc storytelling reached its zenith in the final season, which tells the story of the final, epic conflict between the Federation (our good guys) and the Dominion (our bad guys).

And one of the most interesting parts, to me, is how it also told the story of those who served the gods well, and those who finally, disastrously, decided to serve themselves.

I love the spiritual themes and the character arcs in this last season of DS9.

One of the best is the arc of Kai Winn, a Bajoran cleric who has been, throughout the series, a thorn in the side of the series' lead, Captain Sisko.

The thing is, that though Kai Winn has been a self-serving, opportunistic, snobby pain throughout the series, she's also been largely sincere. She's a nasty politician, sure, but she's on the side of her people and their Prophets.

But in this last season, she is overwhelmed by jealousy. She has served the Prophets all her life, but what have they ever done for her? They chose a foreigner (Sisko) as their Emissary, and left her to her barren prayers.

And so she is tempted by darkness, by the enemies of the Prophets, and she gives in. The demons, at least, have a use for her.

It's a perfect picture of Milton's idea of damnation: she would rather "reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven".


Her (doomed) character is matched by the character of Major Kira, a devout woman who, despite all her flaws, is willing to offer her service to her gods without reservation. She is always willing to put her body, heart, and mind at the service of something greater than herself.

At a critical moment in the last season, when Winn is most tempted by evil, she comes to Kira, begging for counsel.

Kira, who has every reason to hate Winn (seriously, Winn has done her terrible, irreparable wrong in the past), has the most amazing reaction: when Winn professes her willingness to do the right thing, Kira is happy for Winn. She is delighted at Winn's seeming readiness to repent. Even though she could play the older brother, scowling at the prodigal's return, Kira is clearly blessed by the idea that this horrible woman is finally, finally turning around.

In this attitude of complete kinship, Kira urges Winn to renounce her station, her power, all the public admiration she's accumulated, and simply devote herself to the Prophets' service. Humbly. Willingly.


It's an extraordinary scene. Because Kira is clearly sincere. She is, despite her dislike of Winn, doing her very best to help Winn do the thing that would be best for Winn.

But Winn, who swore moments ago that she would "do anything" in order to please the Prophets, physically draws back at this suggestion that she'd give up her position and power. The conversation is over at that moment, for all that they continue talking a little while longer.

Winn thinks she wants to worship, but she really wants to be worshipped. She wants to be the gods' best servant. The one all the other servants look up to.


It's sobering.

And the lovely thing about it is: it's not the end of the story. No spoilers, but the way Winn's arc eventually plays out is intense and well done.

I'm not suggesting, of course, that the writers of DS9 share my own Christian faith. But I am saying that, in a world made by our Lord, truth shines through everywhere, and especially in good art.  And this is good art, because it shows us ourselves. It draws us in, it delights us, but it also warns us and sobers us.

I wish there were more shows like Star Trek: DS9.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell



This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; 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.)


*With some judicious editing, of course. It's not all fit for consumption by children.

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: on clean houses, that one TV hairstyle, and more!

Jack is judging you.

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

Faith

-"Reading the Danvers Statement II" - about men and women and the Bible. Here's a snippet:

Sure, these scriptures are for every culture. Nobody reading the bible should think that it is ever just for them. It is for the whole world. And so every single culture should read the bible. But that’s the point. I think every person should read the bible–the whole bible. And when that happens, some interesting things might happen.

-"Why I Quit Watching Downton Abbey" - on suffering and stories (maybe I put this link in the wrong section); here's a snippet:

The best way to honor sad stories is to simply present them as such. To not rush to a tidy conclusion, to not veer quickly off into either redemption or revenge. To honor the victim, to look unblinkingly at the trauma, to hold the story in your heart and then to tell others—this is what we are supposed to do.

Family

-"9 Habits of One Mother Trying to Keep a Clean Home" - I admit to reading this more than once. Bethany is pretty inspiring.

Fiction

-"Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station" - another good one from Lightspeed. Remember those choose-your-own-adventure paperbacks back from when we were kids? This short story is that style, but hilariously pessimistic.

-"The Overlooked Hope for Narnia's Susan Pevensie" - I admit to thinking something similar before. Such a good rebuttal to the popular view that Lewis was just being a sexist pig when it came to Susan! (Not that maybe he couldn't have been sometimes - and he'd be the first one to admit he was a sinner with blindspots - but I've always thought the popular criticism of Susan's fate was unfair, and this article's a good take on that.)

-"Why Everyone on TV Has the Same Hair" - I found this fascinating, because I'd noticed this (extremely boring visually) trend. The explanation makes sense! (But still folks: change it up!)


Hope the rest of your weekend is restful and good!
-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Lent, Empathy, and more!

Some good reading for your Sunday afternoon....

"Vegetable Stock and Easing into Lent":

We haven't stopped running since before Christmas and it is already a scorching 90 degrees in the Rio Grande Valley. The fact that we are a week into Lent seems impossible, I'm not getting any cues from my life my world that say, "it is time to slow down," and making space for quiet meditation is the last thing I have time for. 

But I suppose this is part of why we have Liturgical seasons. I may never stop hurrying and the seasons in south Texas may always feel out of sync with the rest of the country. Maybe a few times a year I need to be told to how feel because otherwise I would continue to race tripping over my own numb legs.

"They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain":

The pain doesn't go away; but somehow or other, empathy gives the pain meaning, and pain-with-meaning is bearable. I don't actually know how to say what the effect of empathy is, I can only say what it's like. Like magic.

"Undiscovered J.R.R. Tolkien poems found in 1936 school magazine": ooh, look, look, look!  I especially love the Christmas one.


"Sex on the Silver Screen":

Let’s begin here: What we see on the screen is both fact and fiction. When it comes to nakedness and sex in movies, we sometimes lose the fact in the fiction. What we watch is a fictional story, but one that has been acted out in real ways by real people. This has important implications when it comes to a bedroom scene. To film that scene, real people had to remove real clothes, bare real bodies, touch each other in real places, and move together in a real bed.

"And We Created Luncheon, and It Was Good"- whenever Anne writes about cooking, my mouth starts watering. A sample:

Yesterday, because I knew I needed to be about my business in a timely way, I pulled a capacious pot from the soothing cool of my fridge, placed it lovingly on my stove, and turned on the heat. Inside was half a pork roast, cubed and succulent, and half a head of cabbage, chopped and mellowed with chickpeas. Soup, in other words, and golden brown rolls ready to be heated in the oven.  The soup came back up to the boil, the bread softened and warmed, and the aromas wafted aloft to the heavens, gathering us all together for Luncheon.

Hope the rest of your weekend is restful and good!
-Jessica Snell

Weekly Links - All Saints' Day Edition!

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

-As a Christian who appreciates science (and science fiction!), I enjoyed reading this interview with the Pope's astronomer.  A highlight of it:

Rather than learning something theologically new, what I take from my discoveries is a more general sense of the “personality” of the creator. It might be compared to discovering a trove of old manuscripts where you think one of them might be some unpublished play of Shakespeare. You’d be excited because it might be a wonderful new work, or even just a window into what he was thinking while he was writing. But you also need to be sure it really is Shakespeare that you’re reading, not some other writer.

- Our family loves the show "Mythbusters", and so I enjoyed this article: "The Craziest Myths the Mythbusters Have Tackled, According to the Mythbusters".


- Now onto religion and society: "This Is Your Wake-up Call" is a sober reflection on abortion and one of the hardest stories in the book of Judges.


- Simcha Fisher on "Rogue Laughter in a Flippant Society" - I especially liked this paragraph:

. . . think of the difference between an eleven-year-old boy laughing about sex, and a forty-year-old married man laughing about sex. The grown man has probably earned his laughter; the boy can't have done so, and is laughing partly because he wants to look more experienced than he really is. True laughter, and the best jokes, come when we have some experience with the subject matter -- when we've faced something big and have survived.

- Anne Kennedy on "Celebrating the Reformation". Good, timely stuff:

The church cannot go beyond the gospel. The Christian doesn’t graduate from a saving knowledge of Jesus into something better later on. So also, the Christian cannot ascend to something higher, cannot move on to some better, fancier doctrine. From the moment of Jesus’ first infant cry, to his sorrowful and painful death, to his rising again, to his crushing of his enemies under his feet those who love him can never cry out someone else’s name for help, they can never give glory to themselves or to another, they can never be sustained by some other grace, they can never lean on and be ruled over by some other authority than Jesus’ own Word, they can never be tethered by some other faith.

-Reformation Day yesterday, All Saints Day today - and yet it's still Ordinary Time!  So, here's Anna Gissing on "Living in Ordinary Time":

. . . many Protestant Christians have been re-learning the rituals and habits of living into these churchy seasons as a way to inhabit the gospel and to structure our lives in a way that helps us remember that God is the author of time.

-Speaking of Reformation Day, I enjoyed this dense bio on "Katherine Parr: Reformation Queen of England and Ireland".


-AND, speaking of All Saints' Day, here's a lovely sonnet by Malcolm Guite for All Hallow's Eve.


- Tim Challies is Canadian, but I think his wise words are a comfort in any political climate: "I Went Away for Just 6 Days":

The temptation is not only to put my hope in politicians but to put my despair in them as well. I will be tempted not only to find too much joy in the election of the person I voted for, but also to sink too far into despair in the election of the person I did not. Either way, whether I soar too high or sink too low, I am declaring that I have put my trust in a man more than in God. I have forgotten that, ultimately, it is God who rules over and through earthly rulers.

-Finally, my friends and family and I found this article on "The Things that Drain Each Personality Type Most" scarily accurate.



Happy All Saints' Day, folks!
-Jessica Snell



*Or, if we're honest, biweekly.

"Leverage" - because TV should be fun

Yes, I'm biased. I prefer my angst in literary form rather than televised form.

When it comes to television, I want to have fun.

And "Leverage" is very, very fun indeed.

It's really an old-fashioned sort of a show. It reminds me of nothing so much as the old Errol Flynn "Robin Hood": no, there never was an outlaw that clever, that charitable, that handsome and witty, but isn't it fun to imagine that there was?

"Leverage" is like that: it's the story of a band of four criminals - a grifter, a hitter, a hacker, a thief - and one mastermind, and how they go about stealing from the rich and wicked in order to defend the rights of the poor and helpless.

The best part of this show is the characters: they're well-drawn and well-acted. I buy the friendships and affection between this mis-matched group of people, and I enjoy the frequent humor.


The biggest downfall of this show for me is not that it's far-fetched: I actually like how fantastical it is.

No, the part that makes me wince is the little bits of reality they can't quite erase. Because if you're a grifter, even if you're grifting for good, you're still lying and stealing. There's still moral harm to your soul and, inevitably, measurable harm to the people you're fooling - and to the occasional bystander. Is it fun to watch hulky Elliot beat up the goons who were menacing an innocent housewife? Yes. Totally.  But what about when he beats up the security guards at the corrupt multi-million dollar corporation? Yes, the corporation is horrible. Yes, Elliot's fighting corruption. But the security guards were just blue-collar guys doing their job, and our hero just put them in the hospital.

The times when "Leverage" is at its best is when it's honest about the damage evil does to human beings. When Hardison and Parker have a careful, elliptical conversation about their childhoods and Parker admits how horrified she is that any other child might end up being, well, being like her . . . that's when the show really shines. Those little moments when they don't actually lie about the cost.


In sum: like most television shows, this one isn't perfect and it has its problems. But the sum of it is good, I think, and it's certainly entertaining.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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

Weekly Links: Game of Thrones, the Trinity, and Macbeth!

"Why Is that Woman Naked?: Sources of Objectification in the Game of Thrones":

Martin’s real women problem has much deeper roots. For most of the female characters in Game of Thrones, their value resides, without question, in their sexuality. 

"'Game of Thrones' and Its Caricature of Faith":

As a novel, the problem with Martin’s reductionist criticism of religion is not that it’s silly (although it certainly is). The problem is that his characters, taken as a whole, become a bit unrealistic, lacking a facet that was pretty common for many people in the Middle Ages, namely: religious beliefs that were both genuine and not reducible to violent fundamentalism.

"Why I Am Opposed to Gay Marriage": I said earlier this week (on Facebook) that I thought a better name for this (10,000 word!) article might be "Why I Am For Marriage, Full Stop". This is beautiful, and articles on this topic are rarely beautiful. But this one is. Read on for some really good & lovely thought about how creation was set up from the beginning. Much more a positive construction than a negative tearing-down.  Worth the time it takes to read (or even, to re-read).


"Unperplexed About the Atonement": Humble-brag: I get to go to church with this guy (and better yet, with his lovely wife):

Johnson opens the book with the story of a pastor asking him, “which theory of the atonement do you believe in?” Johnson’s response: “All of them!” Something has gone wrong when the question “which theory” somehow becomes the main, or the only, question about atonement. Johnson is concerned to make that question unaskable, to “resist the search for a controlling category” that would cover all theologizing about the atonement. “There are better ways to engage the doctrine,” he says . . .

And, in keeping with the theme of this blog, here's a GREAT sermon for Trinity Sunday (celebrated last week).

And, if you need yet more Trinity goodness (and seriously, we all do), here's some more:




Finally, "Macbeth" is one of the scariest of Shakespeare's plays, and this trailer makes me hope that this movie actually captured the horror of it (i.e., the guy &; his wife are tempted by devils, they GIVE IN, and terrible things happen, and then Macduff comes 'round and wreaks bloody, righteous vengence):





I love it when every movie still looks like a painting.



Have a great weekend!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links

My weekly round-up of good reading around the web.


"Grace Lee: She Taught Me to See":

Mom taught me, at least a little bit, to begin to look at characters, all characters, on television as people. They did not exist for me, but for themselves . . . even in the story. 

"Passive Aggressive Dissent: It's a Trap":

Seven, tell your story often.  If it is not allowed to trump exegesis, church history, or reason, look sad. Ask why the Evangelical church always shoots her wounded. Don’t consider whether your story might not be enough for millions of people to change their mind.

"How Christianity Invented Children":

Today, it is simply taken for granted that the innocence and vulnerability of children makes them beings of particular value, and entitled to particular care. We also romanticize children — their beauty, their joy, their liveliness. Our culture encourages us to let ourselves fall prey to our gooey feelings whenever we look at baby pictures. What could be more natural? 

In fact, this view of children is a historical oddity. If you disagree, just go back to the view of children that prevailed in Europe's ancient pagan world.

"Kindness and Reasonableness: spread it, because it matters":

I am not anxious today because there is something deeply and particularly wrong with me. I am anxious today because like everyone in the world, life in it sucks my spirit dry now and again. I need to hear the truth over and over, as a corrective to the false promises and threats that are taken in in the air we breathe.

"The Psalms, A Holy WTF?! and Other Thoughts on the Cloister Walk":

The psalms do for us what we often can't do for each other, they let us be honest, and they let us just be. They do not insist that we pull ourselves together, get over it or move on. Their writers aren't uncomfortable or unacquainted with misery. They don't try to minimize it or explain it or tell you it is all for the best.

"Wired Binge-Watching Guide: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"

Thinking of it as the “dark side” of Star Trek is too reductive—not least because it’s a show that flirts with darkness but purposefully doesn’t embrace it—but maybe “the Star Trek that’s not uncomfortable feeling weird” would fit, instead. It’s the Star Trek for people who don’t think they like Star Trek, and the Star Trek for people who do, as well.

"3 Takeaways From My Recent Trip to Biola": Loved reading this positive take about my alma mater.

"First Things Essay Contest": I know there are some students and moms of students that read here, and I encourage you to take a look at this link - it's a great chance for a Christian student writer to get some experience and exposure!

Weekly Links: Rainbow Recipes, Horror vs. Terror, and more!

Some good reading for your weekend:

"27 Rainbow Recipes that Will Bring Joy to Your Life": So pretty.

"Why the Shift from Horror to Terror on 'CSI' Is a Problem":

There is a fine line between accurate storytelling—wherein a crime show might show some violence to tell an honest story about the consequences of wrongdoing—and gratuitous depiction, in which violence is portrayed not for the sake of the story but for the spectacle of it. 

"Fittest Type of All Disciples: Bartholomew/Nathanael":

Because of the way Nathanael is brought to Jesus, commentator Rudolf Stier calls Nathanel "the fittest type of all disciples." God has already been at work on him in multiples ways; he is summoned by the witness of another disciple; and he is introduced directly to Jesus, converted by his word. Nathanael's faith is the occasion of Jesus first "truly, truly I say to you" statement.

"Mincemeat: on Writing":

As a writer and a mother of two children, I thought I didn't have any spare time. And then we added twins to our family, and I wondered what I used to do with all that spare time. 

"The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think":

. . . human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It's how we get our satisfaction. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find -- the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about 'addiction' altogether, and instead call it 'bonding.' A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else. 

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

"Am I Empty?":

Empty.  It needs to be said.  Infertility and miscarriage leave one empty.  There is pain.  There is loss. Someone is missing. That needs to be acknowledged. Years later, there are scars.  I felt it then; I feel them now.  I contemplated the starkness of the word, the label.  My label.  My label?

"Measles Is Horrible":

Before the vaccine, the United States saw approximately 4 million cases of measles each year and 400 to 500 deaths. These are the stats that vaccine-deniers tend to emphasize—a relatively low number of deaths compared with the number of infections. However, those statistics alone leave out a big part of measles infections. Prevaccine, almost 48,000 people were also hospitalized each year because of measles and measles complications. One in 20 of those infected developed pneumonia. More rarely but more seriously, each year 1,000 became chronically disabled due to measles encephalitis. 

Measles is not a benign disease.

Weekend Links - Screen Time, the neuroscience of CrossFit, and more!

Some good reading from around the Web for your weekend:

"Parenting Advice on Screen Time":

There are NO well-designed, well-executed empirical studies on how much is too much screen time in terms of video games. So parents are out of luck gleaning any “hard” advice in that domain from the research literature. There’s plenty of media hype, but none is based on good data. TV is the only exception and indeed less is best . . .

"CrossFit, neuroscience, surviving the zombie apocalypse: Is your workout a fraud?":

The modern gym has been deliberately designed to not require any coordination, accuracy, agility, or balance. The attributes of fitness that bind the body and brain together have become the exclusive province of athletes, dancers, and the few lucky children who still climb trees, pop bicycle wheelies, and hang upside down from monkey bars. The stripping-away of coordination, accuracy agility and balance from physical culture – from our modern notion of fitness – has made us weaker, because power, the ability to apply maximum force, requires neural circuitry that’s impossible to develop on a pulley cable.

"This is what happens in your brain when you’re writing": I found this article really interesting - esp. the differences between the brains of experienced writers vs. inexperienced writers.

"Unhappy Hipsters": hat tip to Anne Kennedy. This link has had me laughing for over a day now!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Drawing, the BCP, the feast of the Ascension, and more!

Some interesting reading for your weekend, from around the Web:

"Why you should stop taking pictures on your phone – and learn to draw":

So if drawing had value even when it was practised by people with no talent, it was for Ruskin because drawing can teach us to see: to notice properly rather than gaze absentmindedly. In the process of recreating with our own hand what lies before our eyes, we naturally move from a position of observing beauty in a loose way to one where we acquire a deep understanding of its parts.

"The Book of Common Prayer Remains a Force: An Interview with Alan Jacobs":

. . . you really can’t have a higher view of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture than Cranmer did. The Book of Common Prayer adds nothing to Scripture and is not the means of salvation. It was meant just to provide a form of words and actions to guide and direct public worship. It should be remembered that very few Christians, at that point in the mid-sixteenth century, practiced extemporaneous worship. Almost everyone used set forms. Cranmer just wanted the Church of England’s to be in understandable English and to be derived as closely as possible from the Bible.

"A Bachelorette Composer Reveals How He Drums Up Drama and Romance on Reality TV": Yes, it's about The Bachelorette, but I found it interesting to read how the composer for the show purposefully manipulates the viewers' emotions through music. It's one of those things you already know goes on, but it's still fun to peek behind the curtain.

"Ascension Gifts" - I just loved this sermon/essay on Christ's Ascension. Perfect for this week's major feast day!

"The Publishing Timeline": How long it actually takes to get a book from written to published and why.


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

Weekend Link Round-up!

A bit of good reading from 'round the Web:

"The Courage to Rest":

When I began to try to live by the new, focused schedule, I found that more than anything it was an exercise in letting go of control. I understood on a visceral level why it’s monks and nuns who are known to have the most peaceful daily routines: because it requires great trust in God to walk away from your endless list of demands when there is still technically time to get a few more things done. It requires tremendous faith to rest.

"What’s Next on Sherlock? Steven Moffat Answers Our Lingering Questions About Season 3 ": For all my fellow fans. :)

"wordy wednesday: peanut sauce":  Yummmmm, I want to make this.

"New York Fugshion Week: Tadashi Shoji": This slideshow has so many things I want to wear. Especially the capes.

"Between Heaven and Earth": this analysis of the death of Absalom is just fascinating. (No, really, it is.)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Link Round-up!

"Sherlock’s Best Man Speech is Basically Fanfic, Moffat Says He’s Absolutely Not A Sociopath": Cool excerpts from the creator of "Sherlock".

"For the Love of the Light": how one woman celebrates Candlemas.

"Equivocation and Contraception": a nice bit of clarification in the middle of the pro-life discussions.

"Why Harlequin Is Not Just The Minor Leagues For Single Title":

I'll just come right out and say it. It takes a real author to be able to write for a series line, and certainly a strong writer to be successful at this.

Roast a whole head of cauliflower! - a friend passed this along to me as a Lenten recipe idea - looks great!

Links! - Tiaras, Screen Rules, Reality TV, and Jane Austen's prayer

A Tiara a Day - fun fashion (tiara fashion!) blog with cool historical details about each piece.

"Screen Rules" - my kids aren't quite old enough to need social media rules, but they're old enough I'm beginning to ponder the subject. This post by Elizabeth Foss seems like a great jumping-off point for making our own house rules for screen time.

"What It's Like To Be on Reality TV":

Their day usually begins around 5 or 6am, when they chug down a yogurt smoothie from the hotel fridge and stumble down to the lobby to get on board a chilly van to head to the set for a day that alternates between excruciating boredom (ie, waiting 4 hours in a holding area in forced silence before filming begins) and intense stress (cooking challenges, then more waiting for hours, regretting mistakes and choices from the challenge). Then an elimination. Which, despite what you might think from the editing, is very depressing and deeply unsettling for EVERYONE. But it’s not over. More waiting, and then 2 hours worth of interviewing about everything that happened that day. And it’s not a “Tell me how you feel” interview. It’s an invasive interview with questions drafted by a psychologist who watches your every move all day on camera, delivered by an expert story producer to raise within you the same emotions you’ve been experiencing all day.

"A Prayer for Sunday (Jane Austen)":

We thank thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended our lives, for every hour of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment. We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.

Links: Mars, screen-time, writing, and more!

I always like (or at least find interesting) all the links I post, but for my money, the best one of this batch is #3 by Shannon Hale. Writing and mothering - she's speaking my language!

"Our Guts May Hate Mars":

Martian colonists could probably live for years on food grown without soil. The question is, could they live on it for decades? Could their children grow up on it? Are there hidden hazards that would not become apparent until much later? To put these questions another way: Can we identify and reproduce the ecosystem services of Earth for a lifetime?

"How to Semi-Unplug":

I'm not going to "kill my TV," as the bumper sticker suggests, and I'm not going to quit screen time cold turkey. I don't even think that would even automatically solve the problem: I recently heard about a fellow who gave up the internet for a year, and he reports that his bad habits were very adaptable. When he stopped wasting time online, he just started wasting it other ways.

But I also know that something has to be done! We can fool ourselves that lots of screen time is no big deal, but we all know that it is.

"Writing and mother: how I (sort of) do both":

One of the most common questions I get: How do you find time to write and be a mother? I've written twice about this, when I had one kid and again when I had two. I reread what I wrote there and find everything is still relevant. But I want to add, because now I have four small children, ages 2 1/2 - 9, and life is very tricky. Even if I wasn't a writer and didn't work outside the home, having two school-aged kids and two toddlers makes for a tricky, tricky day. So how do I manage to do both?

"This summer, exult in monotony":

Perhaps summer is the perfect time to bring life back into a rhythm where we hear the cadence of His voice. Children do thrive in a home where rhythms are strong and consistent. They really love repetition. I think it is the grown-ups who mess it all up.