Operation Read Those Books! Day 3 of 31

Yes, I'm skipping Sundays. :)

Today I read from "Good Poems", which is such a mixed bag of an anthology, let me tell you.  No awesome excerpts because, frankly, I have a headache and need to stop looking at my computer screen and get myself off to bed. I'll try to post a bit of one of the poems tomorrow, though.

But I kept on with my project! getting those bookshelves clear!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Operation Read Those Books: Day 1 of 31

My Advent project this year is to shrink my currently-reading list. I plan to read a chapter a day from one of the books on my currently-reading shelf or, in the case of the poetry, five pages a day. Will this see them all read by the end of December? Probably not, but it'll make a decent dent in the pile.
(A fuller description of this blog challenge can be read here.)

What did I read? Chapter Six of "Raising Great Kids: Parenting with Grace and Truth" by Cloud and Townsend.
What was it about? As the title of the chapter states, it's about helping your kids as they're "Living in an Imperfect World".
Gives us a good quotation! Okay, here you go:

A better way than seeing ourselves as good is seeing ourselves as loved. A child who is loved as herself, both good and bad, does not need to see herself as positive or negative. She sees herself as loved, and the whole issue goes away. A loved self is stronger than a positive self; the child doesn't need to worry about losing her "good self." She doesn't need to hide or deny what she does. No matter how she performs, she will be loved.

So true, it made me want to cry.  Good book; I'm glad I'm reading it!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Knitted Finished Object - Big, Comfy Hat

See, it's not that this hat is so pretty - it's just serviceable stockinette stitch - but it's big enough for me!

I have a big head (stop snickering!) and waist-length hair (yes, I do! finally!) that I like wearing pinned up. In that picture up there? I have all my hair braided around my ginormous head in a coronet braid, and that hat STILL FITS!

Which is why I'm smiling so happily in the picture. :D

(Yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Tonal, in the Canopy colorway.)

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Interview with Regina Scott

Today I'm over at Regency Reflections, interviewing Regina Scott. Here's a snippet:

Was there any fun fact about the Regency period that you stumbled across in your research for this book that really fired up your imagination? Any little tidbit that prompted a plot point or a cool character moment?

I stumbled across an article written just after the Regency that laid out the specific rules for duels, contrasting them to those of the French. Because my hero, Vaughn Everard, has a reputation as a duelist, knowing some of the rules he could choose to keep or break really helped me write the main dueling scene in the book and keep it in his character. I learned to fence when I was in college, so I really wanted to get that scene right!

Go here to read the rest!

Happy Christ the King Sunday!

It's the last Sunday of the church year, when we celebrate Christ as King. It's my favorite Sunday of the entire year. In the words of the Te Deum:

Thou art the king of glory, oh Christ!

Thou art the everlasting son of the Father!

When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,

thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin.

When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,

thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

We believe that thou shalt come to be our judge.

     We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,

     whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.

     Make them to be numbered with thy saints,

     in glory everlasting.

And, to accompany that, here's some properly apocalyptic music, both heartening and sobering - because he will come, and he will surely come soon:

Knitted FO: Color Affection wrap

Links - Advent, God, Amos, Tolkien, and more!

"Advent's Coming: Keep It Simple!":

One of the great things about any kind of Advent preparation is that, by definition, you have to keep it simple and spare. A lush, lavish, complicated Advent makes about as much sense as a simple, understated fireworks display on the Fourth of July.

"J.R.R. Tolkien and the Great War":

Tolkien's experiences in the Great War had a profound effect on his writing and stories. He left the war with most of his friends dead, and a personal view of the horrors that war wrought on the soldiers who fought it. Years later, Tolkien felt that the Great War "had come down like winter on his creative powers in their first bloom.” These views would translate into his writing, with his experiences on the front lines informing the epic conflicts between good and evil in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His characters form close parties and alliances as they go off to face terrible adventures together, much like he did with his friends when evil arose in the world.

"God's Conduct" (on Romans 12):

But he is not really changing the subject. In fact, all of the commands he gives flow from the teaching he has just done. Any number of good commentaries can help you trace the connection, and any expositor who asks what 12:1′s “therefore” is there for is likely to come up with good answers.

"The Prophet Amos":

We do not know who wrote down the prophecies preached by Amos, though it may have been the prophet himself. The fact of it, however, is of enormous significance, because it implied that the prophet’s message was perceived to bear dimensions of meaning transcendent to the original circumstances in which he preached it.

"Pilgrim's Regress vs. Firefly":

 In other words, we all need to believe, but there is no ultimate basis for belief. Belief is a lie we tell ourselves to keep going in a world that is without objective meaning or purpose. There is thirst, and ways of pretending to drink, but no water.

Now this is simply a philosophical bias. Why believe that to be the case?