Weekly Links!

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

-"Not Writing for Writers": I enjoyed this post about how pursuing non-literary art forms help writers write better. Here's a snippet:

What amazes me the most is that I haven’t lost anything. I don’t have less time to enjoy the audiobooks and films and tv shows and social media I love. But I have incentive to be more purposeful about what I consume, because it has to be better than spending time with my thoughts. I’ve lost patience for the empty noise, I only want the good stuff.

-"On Signaling Versus Displaying Virtue in a Trumpian Age"


-"How the Order of the Beatitudes Could Change Your Life": I can't remember ever seeing this point made elsewhere, and it's a really helpful insight.


-"I Work from Home":  I'm enough of an introvert that I can't identify with much of this, but as someone who does work from home, I still find it hilarious.


-"Dear Supporter, There's So Much More I Wish I Could Tell You": a missionary friend of mine linked to this post, and (for what it's worth) as a missionary kid, I commend it to you.

Pray for the missionaries you know, folks. And then pray for them some more.


-"Ten Meter Tower": I could not look away from this. Weirdly fascinating.


-"C.S. Lewis Talks to a Dog About Lust": So helpful.


-"Why Our Son Doesn't Have a Smartphone"


-"I Was a Black, Female Thru-Hiker on the Appalachian Trail"



-"An Iceberg Flipped Over, and Its Underside is Breathtaking": really gorgeous pictures.


-"Which Paid Marketing Works (and Doesn't Work) for Books": I know this is totally inside baseball, but I like Rachel Aaron's blog (and recommend her book), and found this long meaty post really interesting.



---Finally, on a note of shameless self-promotion, it's almost Lent, and if you don't already have a copy of "Let Us Keep the Feast: Living the Church Year at Home," now is a great time to buy one! Cate MacDonald and Lindsay Marshall do a great job of showing you simple, meaningful ways to bring the church's celebration of Lent and Easter into your own home.

You won't regret getting yourself a copy before Ash Wednesday rolls around (March 1, this year.)---


I hope you have a lovely Sunday, full of worship and 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.)

Upkeep is part of wisdom

So, being a person who loves "a little sleep, a little slumber, a folding of the hands to rest", the end of Proverbs 24 always makes me wince a bit.

But the last time I listened through it, I was struck by the image of the stone wall that was broken down.

For a stone wall to be there, surrounding the sluggard's vineyard, it had to have been built at some point, right? Sure.

And that's a lot of work! I haven't ever built a stone wall, that I can recall, but I've helped build lots of other things, installed things: a shelter, a roof, a plot of lawn that needs to be turned into garden ...

That kind of thing is lot of work. Building and installing things is a lot of work.


But here's the thing I'm realizing: it's the sort of work a lazy man can do.

It's the sort of work that I can do.


You can build something on an impulse. You can be in love with the idea of the thing, and push yourself flat-out to get it done. That takes a kind of energy, sure, and that energy looks like the opposite of laziness.

But it's not.

It might just be impulsiveness. It might just be hubris. It might just be a desperate escape from boredom.


Wisdom, though ... wisdom and diligence ... that's something else again.

After you build the wall, diligence is taking care of it. Diligence is going over it regularly and doing the necessary repair. Diligence is pulling out the weeds that grow in the cracks.


There's a regularity of care implied here, and it's opposed to the impulsive method I often use in order to get things done.  There are so many times when I don't bother to get my work done until it becomes urgent.

But that kind of scrambling seems, I think, very different than the picture of wisdom that Proverbs paints.

Wisdom is calmer than that. Wisdom is more orderly than that.


I want to learn the grace of upkeep. Because I am more and more convinced that upkeep is part of wisdom, and that the best things don't happen without that kind of diligent, constant care.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekly Links: Warlike Hymns, the Work-Work Balance, and more!

SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON...

Faith

-"Are Our Hymns Too Warlike?" - Such a good explanation of (and defense of!) battle imagery in Christian music.

-"The Work-Work Balance" - Just Anne, being awesome again.

-"I Am Overweight":

This Lent, I decided to move my body more. I believe that God created us as whole people, not as brains-on-sticks, and I want to live into that conviction. That means taking care of my body.

-"What Could Possibly Be Wrong with Christian Masturbation?" - I don't share the author's Catholicism, and hence I don't agree with her entirely, but this is a very thoughtful take on the topic, and I appreciated reading a thoughtful take on something we don't want to usually bother being thoughtful about.

-"Lent and the Preschooler" - It's so fun to see someone using the suggestions from "Let Us Keep the Feast" (and from other awesome resources) in real life!

Family

-"Three Views of Marriage" - good stuff.

-"On the Good of Sleeping with a New Woman Every Night" :

So there is always a new woman beside us, and one at least partially of our own making, as we are at least partially made by her. But it is naive to think that we know her, or she us, just because we live together. To find her again, you must do what you did when you found her at first: you must pay court to her. Not always and not every day, for that would be a bore of a different order and would lose the element of surprise. But from time to time, you must rediscover this woman who is both the same and different from the one you married.

Fiction

-"Transitional Forms": I enjoyed this free piece of fiction from Lightspeed: it offers you a bit of the Old West with your sci-fi.

-Finally, there's a new movie about Biblical events that's just come out, "Risen", and I appreciated both of these (very different) takes on it:

     -"'Risen' Reflects the Subversive Power of the Resurrection"

                      and

    -"Risen: Movies, Faith, and the Bible".





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


This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links, I'll receive a small percentage of the purchase price - for my own shopping! :) (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links: Broken Christians, Building the City, and more!

"Broken Christians":

Sure, everyone outside the church is just as ugly, just as sinning, just as broken, but the church, the bride of Jesus, is supposed to be perfect and beautiful. Or so says the world. But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus loves the church, loves his bride, whatever the world says about her. And he is not surprised and disgusted by her brokenness. In fact, if he was, we would think he was a bad husband, which he’s not. So there you are. In everything, the reflection is always back to Christ, who is beautiful, and perfect, who loves his bride, even though she is broken down and left bereft by the wayside. He picks her up and takes care of her.

"What Is ECUSA Spending on Lawsuits?": Speaking of broken . . .

"Being a Go-Getter Is No Fun":

 Why should you do more work for the same reward, while your less capable coworker coasts along with lower expectations and work?

"The Shield Failed, the City Endures":

 It is easy to list the errors of the Christian Empire and, thank God, the Empire is not returning. We have learned much since  that time in 1453, but we have learned the lessons in part because the City saved the texts, the education, and the vocabulary that allow us to reject some of what that City did. We stand on the intellectual foundations of Constantinople behind the long intellectual walls she defended, constructed, and preserved. That City of words has never fallen and can never fall as long as one modern Christian endures.

"What Shakespeare Plays Originally Sounded Like":  Very Northern!


"Well-Planned, Hard, Sweat-Inducing Prayer and Work":

Prayer is the first and most important thing you are called to do. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed,” John Bunyan writes.“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan.”

Finally, a video. I already thought Sia's "Chandelier" was a sad and haunting song, but this cover of it is just amazing:

"Finding Livelihood", by Nancy Nordenson

So, this isn't a proper book review, at all, because I'm much too close to this one.

This is a book I had the privilege of working on as an editor, and I love it:



I even had the privilege of getting to help write the back cover blurb, and so I'm going to stick that here, in lieu of a proper book review:

A Book About Work
for Grown-Ups

When we were young, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Those answers were our childhood dreams. The reality of adulthood is that what we are and do now is what we became.  

Finding Livelihood is a book about work for grown-ups. It’s about not just the work we thought we wanted but about the work we found and the work that found us. It’s also about the work we have lost.

At once a shrewd challenge of Buechner’s assertion that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” and also a lyrical journey to the place where labor and love meet, Finding Livelihood explores the tensions between the planned life and the given, between desire and need, between aspirations and limits.

Through story, collage, and juxtaposition, Finding Livelihood invites you to consider work in its many facets. Who gets to decide if our work is “good”? How do we deal with forces and routines that leave us longing for escape? How do questions about money and meaning change when you are holding a pink slip in your hand? How are we transformed when our current work becomes part of a spiritual journey that encompasses all of life? 

Drawing from thinkers as diverse as St. Aquinas, Josef Pieper, and Simone Weil, Nordenson affirms the doctrine of imago Dei and brings it into the real world of work: a world full of brokenness and hope, of dead-end jobs and live-saving interventions, of daily bread and transcendent meaning. In the midst of it all, we find our livelihood. 

I feel too involved in this one to say much more about it, but I couldn't let the release date pass without saying something about it.   :)  So, maybe poke around the book website a bit - or the other book website - and see if it's something that might speak to you.


And, finally, I wanted to end this by saying, Happy release day, dear Nancy!  It's been nothing but a pleasure to work with you.

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.)

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: Getting things done, being blesed, and more!

Some good reading from around the Web for your weekend:

"Face It: Your Decks Will Never Be Cleared":

The reality is: Things never clear up. They don’t even reliably settle down. Your in box is always full. The decks are always crowded. There is always more going on than you want or expect. Nonetheless, you can find ways to put your writing first, and make sure that it gets done. Otherwise, everything but your writing will get done.

"Why I don’t say 'I’m so blessed.'":

. . . God loves you. But I don’t know how, just like I don’t know how or why or how much He loves me. He makes rain fall on the wicked and the just, and woe to the just who think that they deserve the rain.

"Episode 9: Slay Your Dragons Before Breakfast So They Don’t Eat Your Lunch [Podcast]":  I really enjoyed this particular episode of "This is Your Life", on productivity.

"Jennifer Orkin Lewis": I loved this interview with an artist on her habit of sketching with paints for 30 minutes every day. (Hat tip to Melissa Wiley.)

"5 Easy Indoor DIY Succulent Ideas": Maybe it's just because I live in a hot place where succulents grow REALLY well, but I loved this post.

"Four Unexpected Benefits of a Small Church":

When I was in college and attended the big college-town churches, it was very easy to take in a sermon, get the free college kid care package, and book it back to the dorm with no strings attached. This is much harder to do in a small environment. When Isaiah has his vision of the Lord, there are lots of angels around, but Isaiah is the only human witness. When the Lord says, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" there aren't really any other options. I suppose Isaiah could have refused, but doing so would have highlighted his own unwillingness as the excuse—there was no one else to hide behind. Similarly, in a small-church environment, when something needs to be done, it's much harder to trust that someone else must be taking care of it. Often my response to a need must be, "Here I am. Send me." This isn't always my preference, but it is almost always for my good.

Anxiety, "The Problem of Pain", and work

So, I had a day last week that was really hard. It was hard in a parenting sense. It was hard in an anxiety sense. It was just hard.

And I decided (God's grace!) to meet the anxiety with faith and with - here's the surprise - with work.

I'm learning, more and more, that the thing to do with anxiety is to meet it square. Not deny it, not run from it, not pretend it's not there. But just to say, "Oh, there you are. I see you. I accept you're there. And now I get to choose what to do."

And so often, the right thing to do in answer to anxiety is to go to work.*

Activity, even if it has nothing to do with the worry at hand, is amazing for dismissing anxiety.**

The value of work 

Stopping, praying, journaling, and then getting actively to work . . . it’s everything. It’s the difference between despair and joy.

And that’s not running away from the fear. It’s not hiding it or denying it. It’s saying, “Here it is. I see it. And” – not but. And – “I am going to do this.”

On that hard day though, all the same, I was so glad when my husband came home.  He sanes me. And if "sanes" is not a verb, it should be.  

Also, another thing that really helped me was some quotations I'd copied down from my reading. Rereading the words of wiser Christians is terribly grounding.

Lewis on pain

Speaking of quotations from wiser Christians, I also want to copy down, oh, all of the chapter entitled “Heaven” from Lewis’ “The Problem of Pain”. But I’m not sure that’s very practical.

First Lewis talks about the jeer “pie in the sky” and observes either there is pie in the sky or there isn’t . . . and that it’s safe to talk about heaven to the pure in heart, because there’s nothing in heaven any mercenary soul would want. Those who love God are the ones who want to see Him.

And then he talks about his idea of “joy”, and oh, it’s glorious. The thing I’ve been looking for all my life . . . and I realized that that, really just that, is the reason why, in the end, I write fiction. Because it is the time I come the closest to grasping – and to expressing – that thing it is that I see

always on the edge of breaking through” – that thing that “beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for . . . you have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’

Yes. That. It's what I mean when I talk about "domestic glory". It is the “home” theme that shows up in all my stories. It’s what I mean when I talk about the scent of the sea and roses against the white-and-blue sky. But . . . but it’s not quite any of them. It’s what draws me to romance, and yet also to science fiction and fantasy. It’s that boundless horizon married to the sweet comfort of a snug house. It’s . . . yes. It’s that thing.

And then Lewis points out that God put this difference in all of us – that He made us individuals on purpose, and that this secret, unique hunger in each of us is no mistake:

Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

And then he points out:

For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you – you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another’s. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction.

And oh, that makes me want to let God have His good way with me! Be gone, oh sins.

And then Lewis goes on to his next point, and it really, really resonated with me after the way work seemed to be what saved me from despair, just a few days ago:

And if you will not go out of yourself to follow it, if you sit down to brood on the desire and attempt to cherish it, the desire itself will evade you. ‘The door into life generally opens behind us’ and ‘the only wisdom’ for one ‘haunted with the scent of unseen roses, is work.’ This secret fire goes out when you use the bellows: bank it down with what seems unlikely fuel of dogma and ethics, and then it will blaze.

I am reinspired by the idea to “do my work with gladness while it is day, that when night cometh, I may rejoice to give thee thanks”.

And it gives me an entirely different way to look at that hard day's difficulties. When my child's  meltdown, and the scary money costs of dental work tempt me to despair – and even less (or more) than that, to whine and pout and complain – instead, these words of Lewis show me that my troubles are actually not just difficulties or attacks.

They are part of the work God has given me to do.

How do I say this properly? Because I see it really clearly, and I want to get it down in words so that I don’t forget it in other times.

These trials, these worries, these events, these hardships . . . they’re just part of the work. They’re not threats. Because they are allowed by God, and he has allowed them to come in my way, which means that He means to help me deal with them. It’s not me cowering in a corner being hit. It’s me walking in the way my Lord has directed me to walk, ready to take care of what’s in front of me because those are the tasks he’s asked me to take care of.

Do you see? There’s such a difference there.

And, with that, I go to work.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

*Other times the right thing to do is to build a blanket fort and borrow in for the day. Just saying.
**Clinically significant anxiety is not necessarily why I'm talking about. For that, psychotherapy and medication may also be necessary and commendable and even life-giving. Really, truly.




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Weekend Links: Prayer, Prophets, and more!

Some good reading (and watching) for your weekend:

"Praying For You":

. . . 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.

"SDfAoWOP: a Prophet":

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.

"Mere Fidelity: Made for More, with Hannah Anderson": I really enjoyed this interview with Hannah Anderson about women, work, and being made in the image of God.


And finally, this clever (and painful) video:

Weekend Links!

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

"Aspergian Christianity":

. . . I soon came to see it as a gift that those with Aspergers or others on the autistic spectrum have to offer to the church and the world: the gift of truth-telling. Instead of being offended by the forthrightness or clarity of speech from those who have Aspergers, we can welcome it as a reminder of the way we use our words, and the power that they have. When choose beating around the bush, or gently trying to imply what feels like a blatant truth, we can learn from those who speak the truth plainly. We must always choose gentleness when communicating that truth, but we ought to pursue speaking the truth.

"Things I Love about the Things I Love" (this one has great pictures and GIFs):

The way it always feels miraculous when you look down at the finished product and think "this used to just be string." 

"Why You Do What You Do" - I'm still in the middle of listening to this podcast interview with Carolyn McCulley, so I can't endorse it whole-heartedly (yet, anyway), but I'm really appreciating her distinction between the idea of "women in the workplace" and "women being productive". Lots of good thoughts here.

"I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What It Did to Me": frightening stuff.

"It’s Just Better with Community":

God never meant for us to live our lives by ourselves. God lives in perfect community with Himself, and we as His image bearers are also to live in community with one another. When Christ ascended to the Father, He commissioned a community—the Church—to embody His message to the world. We need to live life with others. 

And finally, after hearing the sad news of Robin Williams' death, I found these two articles particularly helpful:
-"What Does the Church Say About Suicide?": I'm not Catholic, so I don't agree with every nuance here, but it's a really good place to start thinking about these issues.
-"the depressed Christian: why the dark night is no measure of your soul":

I wanted their souls to be better, stronger, more determined. I had no idea at all what their brains were going through. But now I know. And I am humbled beyond words.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Ways I make myself write (when I don't feel like writing)

Writers love writing. That's why we become writers. But even people who love writing sometimes find it hard to sit down and write. Why is that?

Sometimes the question is carving out the actual time to write. In that case, time management is the answer. (Here's one resource on the subject I really like.) 

But sometimes you have the time, and just don’t want to do it. Here’s how I make myself start typing anyway.

1) I look to the future. I’ll get up at six, say, and sit myself down in front of the computer. There’s my Word document, but there’s the Internet, looking all tempting. So I’ll look at the clock and I’ll say, “Jess, in an hour, everyone else is going to be awake. So, then, at seven, when the kids start drifting down, what do you want to have done? At seven’o’clock, are you going to wish you had an hour of writing to look back on?” The answer is always yes. I always wish I could look back and see time well-spent. Thinking about

what I want to look back on, rather than what I want to do right now, always helps me see the big picture.

2) I look at it as work. Writing is weird in that, until you get established, you’re not getting paid. You put in the time, but there’s no paycheck. Of course, if you get published, you get your money. Retroactively, it all becomes paid time. But until then, it can feel a lot more like a hobby than a job. So, feeling like it’s a hobby, you feel like it ought to be fun. But often, it’s not.

            You know what it actually feels like? Work. And you know what? Good. It is work. So I give myself permission to think of it as work. Then, weirdly, I’m okay if it feels like work. It takes the pressure off. I don’t have to like it; I just have to do it. It’s work. And I know how to work. So all of the sudden I’m not in a foreign country. I work all day, why should this be any different?

            Reframing it as work makes me really productive.

And then, weirdly, once I've given myself permission to not have fun . . . I start having fun again. Weird, right?    (No, I know, it's not weird at all. Isn't that the way this kind of thing always works?)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

New Year's Resolution #5: work!

New Year’s Resolution #5: Write!

This is the place to consider our goals for our jobs. It might be a work-outside-the-home gig, or work-at-home, or homeschooling, or SAHM’ing – whatever it is, this is the place. For me, it’s writing and editing.

My specific plans:

1) Treat my work like what it is: real work. Specifically, during school year, clock in and clock out while kids are at school. And when summer comes, figure out a writing schedule that works for that time.

2) Query, then do the work. I’m not sure exactly which projects I’ll work on this year, because the nature of the job is to query first, and then find out whether or not you have work. So I have a list of projects and places to query, and I’m planning on just working my way through those, and doing the work as I get assignments. I can’t control which jobs I get, but I can control how I go after them, and how professionally I do the work that I get. (You can look at this as, "I promise to get X many rejections." Which is, ironically, one of the best ways to get acceptances!)

3) Pray about the work. Most importantly, pray about various opportunities, and try to listen to what the Lord is giving me to do.

4) Keep track of what I earn. For taxes, first of all! But this will be my first full year with all the kids in school, so I do want to pay attention to the financial side of my work. I’m not sure what to expect or what to aim for, because this is the first time I’ve had enough time to treat writing and editing as a substantial part-time job. So this year I want to keep track, and pay attention to how things go, so that I’ll have the information I need to make sensible goals in the future.

5) Keep track of how much time I spend working. Much like the above point, I just want to pay attention and collect data, so that when next year comes around, I’ll have an idea of how to set sensible goals for how I spend my time in this work.

6) Keep working on making a good blog. I’d like this to be a good place on the web – a place I would enjoy finding if it were someone else’s. My favorite blogs are two things: interesting and encouraging. That’s what I’d like this space to be.

What about you?

Talk about your work-related goals in the comments, or link to your post about your goals. I’ll add any links to the body of this post, so they’re easier for others to see and visit.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Book Notes: "Are Women Human?" by Dorothy L. Sayers

Are Women Human? by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The short answer is “yes”. The longer answer concerns what that “yes” implies. Sayers says that if women are human first, and female second, then they have vocations, or “proper work” just as men (human first, male second) do.
This essay was out of print for awhile, but now is back. I highly recommend it.

View all my reviews


Okay, the above is my short review. Here's a slightly longer response:

It's hard to take any notes on this book because it is so short and so profound. My instinct is just to copy it all down and let you read it, because every word in the book is worth reading and rereading, and even if you read and reread it, it would scarcely take you over an hour.

Along with her "Gaudy Night", "Are Women Human?" is one of those books I reread periodically in order to get my head set on straight.

Sayers' main assertion in the two essays that make up this book is that the first thing that is important about women is that they are human. That they are female may be the second most important thing about them - after all, the first thing you notice about someone after you notice that he is a person is whether or not he is a he or she is a she - but the first most important thing about a person is that he is a person. In our case, a human being. We are creatures made in the image of God, and that is the first thing there is to know about us. It's the most important thing to keep in mind as we go on to look at the differences between the sexes.

The other main subject that these essays explore is work. Sayers wants to make it clear that if a person is clearly made for a specific sort of work, she ought to be allowed to do it. She doesn't insist that every woman is a genius, and admits that very few may be specially gifted for special work. But, she says, if they are good at something and the thing they are good at is worth doing, then they ought to be allowed to do it and to do it well. She's very big on people being allowed to do their "proper work" - that is, the work that belongs to them. In short, she is arguing for excellence. She is arguing for virtue - for skill to be allowed to be diligently and wisely applied to the tasks at hand.

And I would say, honestly, that this is very much along the lines of what we find in Proverbs 31, in the paean of praise to the ideal wife. That woman works. And it is intelligent, creative, organizational work. And it is hers and she does it well.

The book ends with Sayers explicating the parts of the gospel where Jesus interacts with women, pointing out that he took them seriously.

I don't insist that Sayers got it all right, or that this is anything like a comprehensive take on the issue, but it's well-worth an hour of your attention - or if you're like me, an hour of your attention about once a year.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: Fasting, Prayer, and Steven Curtis Chapman

St. John Chrysostom on Fasting - "Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all members of our bodies . . ."

Work and Prayer and Rest - "Don’t be mistaken. There is a difference between idleness and rest. There’s a difference between blind striving and hard work. How do we know where one stops and the other begins? We know who we are in Christ. We believe in grace and in God’s deep love for us. We work out of a healthy knowledge of our own value because we know it is not a result of our accomplishments. We work knowing that our hope is in the one who offers rest at the end of the day, at the end of the week."

What I Learned From SCC - "But if we preach our deep brokenness and Christ’s deeper healing, if we preach our inability to take a single breath but for God’s grace, then our weakness exalts him and we’re functioning as we were meant to since the foundation of the world. Steven isn’t super-human. He’s just human. But what a glorious thing to be! An attempt on our part to be super-human will result only in our in-humanness–like a teacup trying to be a fork: useless. But if the teacup will just be a teacup, it will be filled."


Enjoy the good reading!
Jessica Snell

Links! work, stories, weight loss, epic fantasy, & more!

Anne Kennedy waxes wonderful about work - in all its repetitive monotony - and about the "very very few things . . . . that we do one time only for complete lasting satisfaction and joy."

Lars Walker writes about the Apologetic of Story (that's part one, and part two is here) and why - except for the witness of the actual lives of the saints - it is story that most compellingly convinces us of the truth of the gospel.

Betsy Barber writes about the Tale of Two Daughters in the gospel of Mark. I liked these two parts especially:

. . . she reaches out, and touches Jesus’ clothes and immediately the flow of blood stops and she feels in her body that she is healed of the disease. . . . Touching Jesus should have made him unclean, instead the touch made the woman clean! . . .

and then in regard to Jairus' daughter:

We are told in Numbers 5 that touching dead bodies defiles a living person. But again, the holy power differential flows the other way with the Lord Jesus.

(Hi, Mom!)

(The author is my mom.)

(Okay, I'm done with parenthetical statements; onto the rest of the links.)

This article explains why Ravelry is so awesome. It's the perfect cross-referencing. It really, really is.

Over at Learning As We Go, read about a huge study from the New England Journal of Medicine and what does and does not (statistically) lead to weight maintenance.

Annnnnnd, this is why I'm in favor of continuing to protect the second amendment. A story of a family fighting back against a home invader.

A guest blog by the awesome Elizabeth Moon on the subject of epic fantasy. I found this part particularly interesting:

Transformation, in epic, is as much bigger than the “growth” the usual story protagonist manages as the epic challenge is greater than the problems of ordinary characters. Transformation goes deeper, affects more of the character. At the end, the once lumpy and awkward caterpillar in the confining chrysalis breaks out, and has that triumph…but is so changed that it’s rare for an epic hero to go home and live a quiet life–sit by the fire, grow a few vegetables, settle down with the family, bore the grandchildren with familiar stories.

Frodo couldn’t. (Sam could, and that’s particularly interesting since without Sam, Frodo wouldn’t have been successful. Tolkien was showing something very, very interesting about character in that.)

Become An Email Jedi In 7 Steps. Love it! (Using it, too.)

This dance routine made me tear up; it's just beautiful. The story line is that they're two statues who can dance at night, but that have to become still once the sun rises, and it's a bit of a love story, and it's just amazing:

“These are your presents,” he said, “and they are tools not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well.”

Reading Hopkins’ “Morning, Midday, and Evening Sacrifice”, it strikes me that I’m in the middle verse now. Here it is:

Both thought and thew now bolder

And told my Nature: Tower;

Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder

That beat and breathe in power –

This pride of prime’s enjoyment

Take as for tool, not toy meant

And hold at Christ’s employment.

Now there are your marching orders for middle age!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Summer Thoughts

It must be summer: I've started decluttering the house.

I've decided that every item in the house must give me a justification for its continued existence. I'm going to ask every thing in the house: 1) do we want you? and, 2) if we want you, where would we expect to find you?

At least, that's the plan.

I'm also still chewing on King's concept that novel-writing ought to be a three month affair. I have about 10,000 words (maybe less?) to go on the current one. If I reeeeaaalllly pushed myself, I could finish that with the month of June. And I've got another one mostly plotted. Which makes me curious if I could do a three month push (July-August-September) and finish an entire novel in three months. 1000 words/day would give me 65,000 words by the end, if I just worked weekdays, and that would actually be the right length for this particular novel, which is a fun little contemporary romance.

Hmmm . . . I can foresee the failure of this plan already, but that's not making me feel less like trying it.

Plus, I'd have to rewrite the current novel at some point. I wonder if I can do both at the same time?

Again, I can see the crash and burn coming. But I still want to give it a go.

On top of that, I have a list I've been keeping over the past month of house projects. Stuff that just didn't fit in the school year, but that would be nice to have done. A lot of it overlaps with the decluttering. Here's what I've got so far:

-sew Bess' birthday dress (um, this is a two-year old project. If I don't finish soon, it won't actually fit)

-sew Adam's long coat

-sew my long coat

-make my measurement template

-have various friends over for supper

-get our Story of the World mp3s onto CD, so the kids can listen to them up in their room.

-get my bike (+bike trailer!) in working order

-get bikes for the two big kids

-help the big kids learn to ride their bikes

-go through our closet

-go through the linen closet

-go through the downstairs closet

-go through the downstairs bookshelves (I've done the upstairs already - yay!)

-go through our coffee table/nightstand (this is where I keep stationary supplies)

-Magic Eraser the upstairs walls

-Magic Eraser the downstairs walls

-Magic Eraser the stair rail

-organize my recipes

-join Facebook (I know, I know . . . it's evil, but what are you going to do?)

I'm not planning on rushing any of this. I'm picturing a leisurely summer (as leisurely as it ever gets with the Ducklings). I'm planning on working away steadily, and seeing where I'm at come September. I hope to be pleasantly, um, pleased. Further along than I was before. With a happier, easier-to-care-for house that I had before. (Less stuff means less to pick up.)

And I'm a J. I like having a plan. And the plan is not necessarily to get everything done, but to know what comes next. That's a plan I can live with.

Does summer get anyone else's gears turning? It's Ordinary Time, folks. It's the glorious green season of the Holy Spirit. Time for work and play and joy.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

why is writing work?

It's been said that the reason you pay someone to do a job is that the job is something you either can't do, or you don't want to do. This isn't a bad thing: if it was, people wouldn't have jobs. In sometimes roundabout ways, my husband and I pay people to farm, to fix my home, to build computers, to police our streets, to staff our libraries . . . and so much more. So, profitability consists in getting paid for doing something someone else wants done.

Anyway, the last time I heard this pointed out, I started wondering, What is it that we are paying authors to do? What is the thing that we want done?

When it comes to non-fiction authors, I think the question is pretty easily answered: we're paying for information. We're also paying to follow their thinking, i.e., we're paying them to hold our hands as they walk through the long answer to the question How does an expert in this field think about this subject? whether that subject be philosophy, theology, education, health, or something else entirely. We want to pick their brains. We want to be educated.

Then, you come to fiction. You come to novelists. To be perfectly honest, the way I first framed this question was: what is it people will be paying me for if I get published? What am I doing that they want done?

And part of the answer, I think, is that when people pay authors, they are paying for more. Most people, after all, daydream. Or tell themselves stories. Or ask, what if? when they hear about an odd situation, setting, or character. So when we buy novels, we are paying someone to do more of something we can already do ourselves. Much like a master craftsman might pay a partner a share of the profits - not to do something different than he's doing himself, just to do more of it.

I think also, at least for me, I'm paying for a different worldview. I'm paying to be let inside the author's head. Sayers sees the world in a way I can't see it unless I read her words. Czerneda introduces me to settings I never would have dreamed up on my own. Bujold shows me ways to think about relationships that enlighten me. All three of those women have a better imagination than mine, and I'm paying for a glimpse into it.

All of this is pretty obvious. We want more of what we already like and we want better and different than we already have. More stories! Better stories!

But, as I've hit the 60,00 word point in my current work-in-progress (which means I am much nearer to the end than the beginning, but not yet done), I'm realizing that we pay authors for something else. Even if this particular novel never sees publication - and it might not be good enough; I won't know till it's done and sent out - and even though it's not my first, it's taught me something about work. It is work to write a novel all the way to the end.

It's showed me that when I buy I book, one of the things I am paying the author for is perseverance. Daydreams are easy (the ease is what makes them attractive) - and short. And even the long ones, the ones I dream time and time again, always making them more elaborate, do not have the disciplined structure that is needed in a novel. My daydreams are delightful to me, but they wouldn't be to anyone else, because no one else would know where I started from or how I'm sure it will end well or why it matters. I could answer all of those questions, of course, but that would be taking the daydream from the leisure category and moving it into the work category. To take that daydream and nail it to the wall, to examine it and see if it has the nucleus that's needed to grow a full-fledged body, to make it start at the beginning and force it to walk all the long road to the end, never letting tension or heart flag . . . that's work. That's writing.

That's what I'm willing to pay someone else to do.

That's what I want to get paid for myself.

So, what are you paying an author for when you buy his or her work? I'm genuinely curious. These are my answers, but I'm sure they're neither sufficient nor unassailable. Let me know what it looks like from your perspective - yes, more imagination-borrowing, and without pay. Oh dear! :)

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

on inspiration, maturity and work

A friend sent me this post, about a mom who let her kid just quit doing math for a few months, to look at and asked me what I think. I don't know what she thinks yet, so I don't know whether we agree or not, but it was certainly thought-provoking. Here's my immediate response, though I imagine yours will be different because what you think will probably depend on your experience of trying things that are too hard for you to do, and also on your kids' experiences when they try to do things that are beyond them.  Anyway, here's my not-very-reflective reflection on the post:

That it sounds like summer vacation. :)

My other thoughts are:
-yes, you take un-intentioned breaks sometimes (hmm, let me talk about my last year . . .)
-yes, sometimes there's growth that has to happen before mastery can be achieved, but . . .
-as Picasso said, "There is such a thing as inspiration, but it must find you working." I think that's so, so true. And I think not making the kid work is a disservice to the kid. Now, adjusting the work to fit the child's level . . . i.e., maybe switching to a different program, or playing math games instead of worksheets, or some such, till the necessary maturation occurs and the child gets it? Yeah, absolutely. But I think just letting the child stop working is a bad idea. (Unless, of course, it is summer vacation.)

Mostly because I think letting myself stop working is a bad idea. And I'd hate to be less fair to my child than I am to myself.

So, yeah, I think the back-burner idea is true. At least, I find it true in myself. But I also find it true that I: 1) get the concept faster if I'm still working in the area and 2) learn other good things in the meantime if I keep working in the area. Back-burner break-throughs seem to happen best when you ignore the exact problem area itself "(I can't seeeeeeee you" <-- is the dialogue in my head at those times) but still stick really close to the area around it. Otherwise you can waste days and days and days because you're not aware and alert and present when the readiness kicks in.

Also, we can be very, very wrong about whether or not we're able to do things. I'm always amazed at how much more I can do when I make myself work versus when I think about working. Again, I think the same is true of kids. (Minus the fact that they have a much lower tolerance of frustration. That's where we need to be careful, I think. Hitting frustration is something you don't want to do very often or very long with children. I'm finding. Hence the switching it up, but keeping close to the subject.)

There. I've blathered. What do you think?

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

A Denver Day in Los Angeles

Today on the way to church it was so that I could see all of the mountains surrounding the city. I love days like this! We have so many mountains around the L. A. Basin, and they're so beautiful, especially when they're capped by snow like they were today. Days when the air is clear enough to see them it feels like we live in Colorado, with the Rockies springing up just outside the city limits.
And here, for your Sunday enjoyment, is a wonderful Kipling poem I first read here. I especially like the last line.
WHEN Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it –lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!

And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from –Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

–Rudyard Kipling, L’Envoi from The Seven Seas, 1897.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell