Using my super classy and techie method of writing numbers of scraps of paper and having one of the kids draw without looking, I've chosen a winner of our EMPOWERED BIRTH WEEK Carnival!
And the winner is......Mama K at Knifty News and Rants! Congratulations!!! Coincidentally, Mama K just gave birth to their third child a couple days ago! A lovely natural homebirth! So proud of you, Mama K!
THANK YOU ALL FOR SHARING YOUR STORIES! I love hearing birth stories. Always little miracles.
"So, after that, Beaker and I started talking about the whole mystery of the incarnation....what it all comes down to is, what would it be like to be God almighty and to inspire those prophets to write all those great books and Moses to write those books and then to have to become a little boy and endure Hebrew school and listen to some rabbi rattle on about something that you wrote before he was ever born? What would it be like to be Christ? I mean, did He ever play ball? Did they ever knock a window out of somebody's house and did He ever have to explain to His dad that He had to borrow $12.00? So, we just started talking about what a weird thing it would be to be God and then to become flesh and then we also went on and just talked about what a weird thing to be nothing and then to become flesh. That at one time we were nothing and then we got here. And wasn't it great and aren't you glad that you were born?" (Rich Mullins)
So, what did she win? Well, I promised it would be something I thought was very cool. I am sending Mama K her the book I am currently reading: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. This season of having a new baby (and two other wee ones underfoot) is a time to practice extreme gratefulness Voskamp style. I know you will be inspired. I am! (If you already own this book, tell me quick and I'll substitute something else.)
Wasting our lives and glorifying God
Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say - God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is. ~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, August 10
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A Book Review: With by Skye Jethani
Skye Jethani is the editor of Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today. In this book, With, he examines religious life through five different prepositions: Life Under God, Life Over God, Life From God, Life For God and Life With God. For at least half the book he makes the case for why the first four prepositions fall short of God's intention for His people. The second half he sets out to describe what life WITH God looks like.
Now, I cut my teeth on Christian non-fiction. Been reading this genre since I was a preteen! I've read more than my fair share of teachy-preachy-self-help-spirituality-type books. However, in recent years the majority of my Christian reading has been theologically academic. While my husband was in Fuller Seminary I voluntarily read most of the books he was assigned and (not quite so) voluntarily proofread and edited all his papers. When I read all the endorsements and praise for this book on the back cover and first few pages I noted that most of the reviews were by those in theologically academic fields--universities, seminaries and such. So, I was bracing myself for a theological read. However, I soon felt like I was reading someone's sermon notes. The tone of the first half of the book can seem not just preachy, but a bit high-handed even. (Which I don't necessarily mind, but wasn't expecting from this author.) I disliked the way he easily pigeon-holed various prominent Christian and religious leaders into the four prepositions--using excerpts from interviews or perceptions of people and basically saying, "This person is wrong in the way they relate to God because they are using the under posture." I, however, feel that most people represent a mix of several or even all five prepositions and no one movement or denominations has a corner on THE WAY to relate to and with God. I, also, felt there was a lot of name dropping throughout. He rarely clarified for those not theological educated who he was quoting by saying "Historian so-and-so" or "Christian mystic so-and-so." Instead he just says, "N.T. Wright says...." And for someone unfamiliar, I would think that would be annoying. "Oh yeah, well, who is that anyway?!"
So, half-way through the book I was ready to give it a negative review. However, the second half of the book, when the author turns his attention AWAY from telling the readers why other ways are wrong and starts to instead share inspirational stories and Scriptures on what communion with God looks like, I found myself profoundly touched. There were sections I wanted to read aloud to my husband and children. And parts I'd like to go back and re-read. If the whole book took the gracious tone of the second half I would not hesitate for a moment to put it on the family's must read list!
There are discussion questions at the end that would make this a great book for use with your small group at church or on campus.
Perhaps my favorite part of the book is not actually a main part of the book at all, but the Appendix A. The author gives some very valuable tools to aid those seeking greater communion with God. He pulls on church tradition and contemplative practices to offer some recommendations for encountering God in an active prayer life. I'm looking forward to using some of these recommendations in my own prayer life and with my children.
From a technical aspect, a few typos and grammatical errors were disappointing to see in a book such as this. And I felt the little drawings and doodles the author makes to illustrate his points were sometimes a little confusing and distracting. That could just be that I'm not "that type" of learner. So, we'll let that slide.
If you are looking for a academically theological read or if you are looking for an inspirational read to fuel the flames of your communion with God, you may be equally delighted or disappointed with this book.
(I received the book With free from Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program for my review. I was not paid to write this review.)
Now, I cut my teeth on Christian non-fiction. Been reading this genre since I was a preteen! I've read more than my fair share of teachy-preachy-self-help-spirituality-type books. However, in recent years the majority of my Christian reading has been theologically academic. While my husband was in Fuller Seminary I voluntarily read most of the books he was assigned and (not quite so) voluntarily proofread and edited all his papers. When I read all the endorsements and praise for this book on the back cover and first few pages I noted that most of the reviews were by those in theologically academic fields--universities, seminaries and such. So, I was bracing myself for a theological read. However, I soon felt like I was reading someone's sermon notes. The tone of the first half of the book can seem not just preachy, but a bit high-handed even. (Which I don't necessarily mind, but wasn't expecting from this author.) I disliked the way he easily pigeon-holed various prominent Christian and religious leaders into the four prepositions--using excerpts from interviews or perceptions of people and basically saying, "This person is wrong in the way they relate to God because they are using the under posture." I, however, feel that most people represent a mix of several or even all five prepositions and no one movement or denominations has a corner on THE WAY to relate to and with God. I, also, felt there was a lot of name dropping throughout. He rarely clarified for those not theological educated who he was quoting by saying "Historian so-and-so" or "Christian mystic so-and-so." Instead he just says, "N.T. Wright says...." And for someone unfamiliar, I would think that would be annoying. "Oh yeah, well, who is that anyway?!"
So, half-way through the book I was ready to give it a negative review. However, the second half of the book, when the author turns his attention AWAY from telling the readers why other ways are wrong and starts to instead share inspirational stories and Scriptures on what communion with God looks like, I found myself profoundly touched. There were sections I wanted to read aloud to my husband and children. And parts I'd like to go back and re-read. If the whole book took the gracious tone of the second half I would not hesitate for a moment to put it on the family's must read list!
There are discussion questions at the end that would make this a great book for use with your small group at church or on campus.
Perhaps my favorite part of the book is not actually a main part of the book at all, but the Appendix A. The author gives some very valuable tools to aid those seeking greater communion with God. He pulls on church tradition and contemplative practices to offer some recommendations for encountering God in an active prayer life. I'm looking forward to using some of these recommendations in my own prayer life and with my children.
From a technical aspect, a few typos and grammatical errors were disappointing to see in a book such as this. And I felt the little drawings and doodles the author makes to illustrate his points were sometimes a little confusing and distracting. That could just be that I'm not "that type" of learner. So, we'll let that slide.
If you are looking for a academically theological read or if you are looking for an inspirational read to fuel the flames of your communion with God, you may be equally delighted or disappointed with this book.
(I received the book With free from Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program for my review. I was not paid to write this review.)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
C.S. Lewis on Public Education
[When I stumbled across the following passages in my late night reading, I found them very amusing. I actually laughed out loud! Perhaps you will, too. If not, take it up with C.S. Lewis. I didn't write it.]
C.S. Lewis wrote in "Surprised by Joy", which chronicles how he became an atheist, about his school life:
I think that this feigning, this ceaseless pretense of interest in matters to me supremely boring, was what wore me out more than anything else. If the reader will picture himself, unarmed, shut up for thirteen weeks on end, night and day, in a society of fanatical golfers--or, if he is a golfer himself, let him substitute fishermen, theosophists, bimetallists, Baconians, or German undergraduates with a taste for autobiography--who all carry revolvers and will probably shoot him if he ever seems to lose interest in the conversation, he will have an idea of my school life. Even the hardy Chowbok (in Erewhon) quailed at such a destiny. For games (and gallantry) were the only subjects, and I cared for neither. But I must seem to care for both, for a boy goes to a Public School precisely to be made a normal, sensible boy--a good mixer--to be taken out of himself; and eccentricity is severely penalized....
....I write, of course, only to neutral readers. With wholehearted adherents of the system there is no arguing, for, as we have already seen, they have maxims and logic which the lay mind cannot apprehend. I have even heard them defend compulsory games on the ground that all the boys "except a few rotters" like the games; they have to be compulsory because no compulsion is needed....But the essential evil of public-school life, as I see it, did not lie either in the suffering of [unpopular boys] or in the privileged arrogance of the [popular boys]. These were symptoms of something more all-pervasive, something which, in the long run, did most harm to the boys who succeeded best at school and were happiest there. Spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was a life almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on, to arrive, or, having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing preoccupation. It is often, of course, the preoccupation of adult life as well; but I have no yet seen any adult in society in which the surrender to this impulse was so total. And from it, at school, as in the world, all sorts of meanness flow; the sycophancy that courts those higher in the scale, the cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action. --C.S. Lewis in Surprised By Joy, The Shape of My Early Life
One more:
....The greatest service we can do to education today is teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life. --C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy, The Shape of My Early Life
C.S. Lewis wrote in "Surprised by Joy", which chronicles how he became an atheist, about his school life:
I think that this feigning, this ceaseless pretense of interest in matters to me supremely boring, was what wore me out more than anything else. If the reader will picture himself, unarmed, shut up for thirteen weeks on end, night and day, in a society of fanatical golfers--or, if he is a golfer himself, let him substitute fishermen, theosophists, bimetallists, Baconians, or German undergraduates with a taste for autobiography--who all carry revolvers and will probably shoot him if he ever seems to lose interest in the conversation, he will have an idea of my school life. Even the hardy Chowbok (in Erewhon) quailed at such a destiny. For games (and gallantry) were the only subjects, and I cared for neither. But I must seem to care for both, for a boy goes to a Public School precisely to be made a normal, sensible boy--a good mixer--to be taken out of himself; and eccentricity is severely penalized....
....I write, of course, only to neutral readers. With wholehearted adherents of the system there is no arguing, for, as we have already seen, they have maxims and logic which the lay mind cannot apprehend. I have even heard them defend compulsory games on the ground that all the boys "except a few rotters" like the games; they have to be compulsory because no compulsion is needed....But the essential evil of public-school life, as I see it, did not lie either in the suffering of [unpopular boys] or in the privileged arrogance of the [popular boys]. These were symptoms of something more all-pervasive, something which, in the long run, did most harm to the boys who succeeded best at school and were happiest there. Spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was a life almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on, to arrive, or, having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing preoccupation. It is often, of course, the preoccupation of adult life as well; but I have no yet seen any adult in society in which the surrender to this impulse was so total. And from it, at school, as in the world, all sorts of meanness flow; the sycophancy that courts those higher in the scale, the cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action. --C.S. Lewis in Surprised By Joy, The Shape of My Early Life
One more:
....The greatest service we can do to education today is teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life. --C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy, The Shape of My Early Life
Thursday, June 16, 2011
From The Ladies of the M.E. Church
I picked up this antique cookbook at an antique show in Paso Robles a few weeks ago.
It's the 1912-1913 addition of the church ladies cookbook. The Grayville Cook Book. What a little gem. I love old books. Especially ones that originally cost 75 cents and I talked the lady down to $10.
I present the opening passages here for your inspiration, amusement, astonishment or perhaps for your horror. Really I'm OK with any of the above responses.
(Click on the image for the enlarged view.)
It says (I'm not not making this up):
The old Anglo Saxon idea of the lady or the loaf giver still holds good, though conditions have changed; there is no higher avocation than being priestess of the home, looking to the health and happiness of the family. The quotation "Whom God hath joined in matrimony, ill-cooked joints and ill cooked potatoes have very often put asunder," is very apt.
In giving this book to the public, we, the members of this committee have endeavored to assemble tried and tested recipes that would meet all the needs of the most discriminating housewife. We desire to express our gratitude to the friends who have contributed to the success of this work by responding to promptly to our requests for recipes.
Mrs. George Mathews
Mrs. J.B. Jolly
Mrs. S.P. Ronalds
Mrs. Charles Melrose
The next page says:
"See that your kitchen fire be bright,
And your hands be neat and skilled,
For the love of man oft takes its flight
If his stomach be not well filled."
And with that, I leave you to go put supper on.
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