Operation Read Those Books: Day 10

(You can read about Operation Read Those Books here.)

Today I dug back into the tale of The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek, by Barry Cunliffe, about a Greek explorer who managed to make it all the way to Britain around the year 325 B.C.

I picked this up as research for a book set in ancient Greece, and put it down once I actually started writing said book.

But it's a well-researched look into an interesting time: a time when you might be able to buy exotic goods in your city market - but also a time when no one in your city might have ever been to the lands those exotic goods came from - they might even not be quite sure where those exotic lands were. Merchant passed item on to merchant across trade routes hundreds of miles long, but no one merchant necessarily made the journey from one end of the trade route to the other.

But Pytheas . . . Pytheas decided to go as far as he could go, and maybe ended up getting as far north as Iceland, making discoveries all along the way.

Today, I read Chapter 3, "Escape from the Mediterranean". Apparently it was actually easier and faster to get to the Atlantic overland than through the straits.

That's it for today!

-Jessica Snell

Operation Read Those Books: Days 6-8 of 21

I missed my reading on Thursday and Friday, but made up for it today by reading to the end of "Raising Great Kids" by Cloud and Townsend - 6 chapters!

So, that's 2 books down, 7 to go!

I liked the whole book, but chapter 9, "Connecting to God: Worship and Spiritual Life", was worth the price of the whole book. Wow. This whole book is clear and practical and brilliant (and being clear and practical are about the surest signs of brilliance I know), and I appreciated it nowhere more than in this chapter. Here are a few of my favorite sections:

As a parent, you may feel a tension . . . You have a deep desire to foster your child's spiritual life, but you wonder where to begin. This chapter resolves this tension by dealing with two aspects - being involved and having a structure in which to operate.

I read that and thought: showing up and having a plan? It's like liturgy! You can't make God show up, right? And you can't make your kids love God, right? (Most terrifying part of parenting ever.) But you can have a structure and you can show up. That . . . that's comforting.

And remembering that God loves them even more than you do. That's the biggest comfort of all. Anyway - more quotations:

Your task is to do the background work for your child's encounter with God. All relationships, including one with God, have a structure to them. Creating that structure is something you can do. In other words, you can create a context that fosters connectedness to God. If you wish to start a garden in your backyard, you need to prepare the soil, add fertilizer, water, and sunlight, and remove weeds and pests. You have maximized the optimal conditions for plant growth in your garden. In the same way, you want to create optimal conditions for your child to meet and love God.

I'm encouraged by the idea of thinking of my children's spiritual life this way.

And I really liked this short observation:

As one parent told me, "We are working on helping our son learn that God is a better parent than we are."

One of the things they emphasized was modeling your own faith in front of your kids. They wrote:

More than in any other character capacity, spiritual development is "caught" more than taught. Spiritual growth involves many conceptual understandings, so your child will internalize more of what you are with God and her than what you teach.

Your own alive, defined, active, and honest faith is critical as your child seeks to understand and attach to a vague, invisible God. Do not spare her the struggle of faith, however, to the extent that she can developmentally understand it. Let her see that a relationship with God, just as a relationship with anyone, takes time, has conflict, and requires work. 

I also liked how, at the end of the chapter, they pointed out that while you as a parent are trying to work yourself out of a job - i.e., end your child's dependency on you - your child's dependency on God is never going to end. Instead, they said:

You are . . . helping your child make a shift from immature dependency to mature dependency on God the Father.

Hear, hear.

Great book. I want to reread it every year or two, because it seems like the kid of book I"ll get something different out of each time, depending on what stage my kids are at when I read it. Very basic, very good. Fives stars!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: Domestic Monasteries, Dark Personalities, and More!

"The Secret of a Domestic Monastery":

It doesn’t have to do with getting the kids to walk around in silence (though, boy, that’d be nice if I could pull it off), nor is it about observing the exact same prayer times as consecrated religious. Boiled down to its core, the hallmark of the monastic schedule is that the way you use your time reflects your true priorities. Your daily life is one of constantly pushing back against the world’s expectations, making real, sometimes difficult sacrifices so that your time is not swept away by the current of the world’s priorities.

"Psychology Uncovers Sex Appeal of Dark Personalities": this is a fascinating study (hat tip to my friend, Roland, for the link!):

 . . . In other words, people with dark personality traits are not seen as more physically attractive than others when you take away their freedom to wear their own clothes and makeup. People with dark personalities seem to be better at making themselves physically appealing.

"Saying Stuff (about the Lord's Supper)":

And the stuff God says is totally different from the stuff we say. He says LITERAL STUFF. He speaks, and worlds come into being. He says, “let there be,” and it is. Stuff is, because God says for it to be. Of course I’m referring to Genesis 1, but it’s all through the Bible. For instance, look at Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” He says “let there be stars,” and all the stars come out. They obey before they exist. They exist by obeying the word of the Lord.

"Learning to Trust the Instruments":

In the aftermath, investigators found that almost everything that had gone wrong had been the fault of the pilots. When the plane encountered significant turbulence the pilots should have responded according to their flight training and according to the plane’s manual. Instead, they relied on instinct. And then, when the plane began to experience further complications, the pilots ignored the instruments that should have directed them to the source of the problem and the straightforward solution. They swung the plane violently from side to side attempting to right it because they ignored the aircraft’s instrument that told them where the horizon was and how to keep the plane level. They ignored the instruments that told them that their engine problem was not as serious as they thought. Blinded by the stress of the situation, they ignored the manual and did things their own way. It very nearly cost them their lives and the lives of hundreds of passengers.

And, finally, an advertisement that absolutely succeeded in making me want to give my money to the people who are asking for it - but they're not gonna take my money till . . . May? C'mon!! Why isn't this a Christmas release? Boo.
But, without further ado, Kirk, Cumberbatch, and . . . Khan?  Sorry, I mean: Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

St. Nicholas' Day is tomorrow!

A reminder for all those with kids. :)

Though, in my case, my kids reminded ME. It's only 1:30 p.m., and they already have their shoes lined up in the hall, waiting for the good bishop to fill them.

And we've had our annual discussion of the really good St. Nick, the priest who loved the Lord Jesus, who gave to the poor, and fought the heretics (my son was charmed by the story of Arius' ignoble demise, as only a six-year-old boy can be).

Fwiw, I've always had good luck finding gold chocolate coins at my local Trader Joe's, if you're looking for shoe-filler. :) But any small gift will do. Make sure they put carrots or cabbage or straw in the shoes for the saint's horses!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

"Good Poems", collected by Garrison Keillor (Operation Read Those Books: Day 5 of 31)

Good Poems by Garrison Keillor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, I started this book by reading the introduction. And as Keillor talked about poems that tell stories, I had trouble remembering why I disliked him. And then I read:

"And then there is T. S. Eliot, the great stuffed owl whose glassy eyes mesmerized the English profs of my day. Eliot was once a cultural icon, the American guy so smooth he passed for British . . . but you look at his work today and it seems rather bloodless . . . Eliot didn't get out of the house much . . ."

and I remembered, Oh yeah, that's why I dislike him. Talk about reverse snobbery! Eliot sucks because he's not earthy enough. Heaven forbid poetry talks about, well, heaven.

Yes, there are some amazing poems in here. Keillor's intro isn't the fault of any of the poets he collected here. But, sigh. What an intro.

And yet - it's not all bad. Keillor has a lot of really good points, too, of course he does! The man is brilliant. And frustrating in his prejudices. And brilliant . . . I could go back and forth forever. But enough of that. The volume as a whole is more worth reading than not, so pick it up if you're in the mood for poetry, and feeling patient enough to sift out the chaff.

View all my reviews

(And this counts as my Operation Read Those Books! entry for the day. And also counts as the first Currently Reading book off my Goodreads shelf for this project - yay!)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Yarnalong: socks and Grace!

I have a lace scarf on one set of needles, and cabled kilt hose on another, but what I've found myself turning to during this busy December is the calming rhythm of a plain ol' set of vanilla socks, knit in a pretty yarn (KnitPicks Stroll Tonal in "Winetasting" - though it looks more like Lambic Framboise to me - yum!):

And I'm also spending December doing a reading project: attempting to actually finish the ten or so non-fiction books I'm "currently reading" (according to Goodreads). Right now, I'm on "Raising Great Kids: Parenting with Grace and Truth" by Cloud and Townsend, and really enjoying it.

This is turning out - so far - to be a good way of getting through all those books I sincerely meant to get through when I started them, but somehow forgot about. Anyone else have a pile of those sitting on their shelves, or is it just me? Good books, interesting books, just books without the narrative drive of fiction, and so books that are easier to put down.

Here's to picking them up again! :)

More yarn and literary goodness over at Small Things.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Operation Read Those Books!: Day 4 of 31

Well, yesterday's headache turned into today's mild flu, but I was feeling better enough by tonight to read another chapter of "Raising Great Kids: Parenting with Grace and Truth".

Today's chapter was titled "Developing Gifts and Talents: Competence", and it was all about teaching your children how to work, and helping them develop and grow the talents God's given them.

Pretty simple and straight-forward, but a good reminder: let your kids succeed. Require effort, encourage exploration, praise success, let them know they're loved regardless of accomplishments, but help them develop real skills and abilities and a good work ethic. I like it!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell