What’s Going On Right Now (4/20/11)

Crazy Colored Easter Eggs by Danielle Rebel
Image by Danielle Rebel

Jennette Fulda wrote a great review of Wendy McClure’s new book The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie {Amazon Affiliate link}:

Know that those places you visit might seem smaller because you’ve become bigger. Sometimes you have to go there, though. Sometimes you need to know where you came from so you can better see where you are and who you love.

The CHOW blog did a great post on the recipes found in a handwritten cookbook from 1889.

Gene Veith posted some of a piece Sally Kohn wrote in the Washington Post. He sums it up:

She concludes that the problem is that liberals are just basically good tolerant people, while conservatives are mean.  Liberals, she argues, need to stop being tolerant of conservatives.

The rest of this week will be posts related to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. The Resurgence blog tells some of the history behind our traditions– Since When Did Bunnies Have Eggs?

Luther on the Cross

Cross on the hill, nr Kemsing, Kent by L2F1
Image by L2F1

It’s Holy Week, a time to prepare our hearts and contemplate the guts, grace and glory of Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

Let us meditate a moment on the passion of Christ….true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten….You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not his only begotten Son. What can the sinner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted? It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God’s Son himself so to suffer. Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.

The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble. If you are so hardened that you do not tremble, then you have reason to tremble. Pray to God that he may soften your heart and make fruitful your mediation upon the suffering of Christ, for we ourselves are incapable of proper reflection unless God instill it.

The greater and the more wonderful is the excellence of his love by contrast with the lowliness of his form, the hate and pain of passion. Herein we come to know both God and ourselves. His beauty is his own, and through it we learn to know him. His uncomeliness and passion are ours, and in them we know ourselves, for what he suffered in the flesh, we must suffer in the spirit. He has in truth borne our stripes. Here, then, in an unspeakably clear mirror you see yourself. You must know that through your sins you are as uncomely and mangled as you see him here.

We ought to suffer a thousand and again a thousand times more than Christ because he is God and we are dust and ashes, yet it is the reverse. He who had a thousand and again a thousand times less need, has taken upon himself a thousand and again a thousand times more than we.

No understanding can fathom nor tongue can express, no writing can record, but only the inward dealing can grasp what is involved in the suffering of Christ.

{Taken from the Desiring God blog}

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

I have been doing an irregular series of posts recommending three essential books from one author. With C. S. Lewis, that’s impossible. To attempt to limit it to three would be a painful disservice.

Several friends of mine have told me they’d like to read more Lewis, and I’m betting others are in the same position– when there are so many options, where do you start? I’ll let you decide for yourself. Here is a list of some of Lewis’ major works with a brief synopsis. Get reading!

The Chronicles of Narnia
A fantasy series for children about another world, some of which is allegorical. Start your kids on this early and often, and there’s a lot here for adults too. They’re books that seem to grow with you.

Mere Christianity
The apologetics classic that’s an adaption of a series of radio addresses Lewis gave in England. It’s an approachable intellectual argument for faith and truth.

The Screwtape Letters
A fictional  correspondence between two demons (an uncle to his inexperienced nephew). While the theology of a personal tempter is a little shaky, there are more convicting passages here than you’ll find in ten books by lesser authors. It’s an exploration of ways we fall away from God through all those little distractions and foibles we’d like to believe aren’t really sins.

The Great Divorce
A fictionalized look at heaven and hell with a lot of application for our lives on earth. It’s Lewis’ allusion to Dante’s Divine Comedy, among other works. (Wikipedia claims there’s a film version coming out this year, but I couldn’t authenticate that anywhere.)

The Pilgrim’s Regress
One of the few of his books I haven’t read (yet!), this is his first novel after becoming a Christian, written in the style of the classic A Pilgrim’s Progress.

Space Trilogy
Fictional series (I’ve written about the first book before) dealing with the dehumanizing of science fiction and literature in general at the time.  (The Abolition of Man, written from a series of lectures, deals with this topic too.)

Till We Have Faces
A retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, it’s an exploration of a character who comes to faith when those around her do not.

The Four Loves
His work on the types of love: friendship, eros, affection, and charity.

The Problem of Pain
An apologetic classic dealing with common arguments he encountered against Christianity.

Miracles
Another apologetic work arguing for the truth.

The Weight of Glory
An absolutely wonderful piece (one of my all-time favorites), generally published with other excellent addresses; a beautiful reminder of what Christ has done for us.

What’s Going On Right Now (4/13/11)

 

Spring Crocus by LadyDragonflyCC
Image by LadyDragonflyCC

“If I was really exploiting my singleness for the glory of God…  I think every minute of my day would be utilized and spent so that there is literally no time in my schedule for a family.  I think that’s biblical. I  don’t think there should be room in my schedule for a family until I have a family.  God doesn’t need me to hold open ‘time slots’ for things that aren’t mine.  He calls me to spend myself for His kingdom.” Fabs writes about 2 things she learned from scheduling her life.

Ever wonder how “word of mouth” works exactly or why opportunities don’t seem to pan out for you? FB writes about her sister’s paint job and how you might be letting money slip through your fingers.

Seth Godin makes the point that “There are some significant misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to have about death, is that if you don’t plan for it, it won’t happen,” in his post on how to fail.

On Front Porch Republic, James Matthew Wilson discusses one of my favorites, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, in History’s Long Road to Tyranny: Tocqueville and the End of Equality.

The NPR Books blog had an absolutely atrocious post this week, dripping with contempt, on Ayn Rand (inspired by the movie coming out this weekend). I’m not going to link to it as it was rather sickening but if you’d like to read it, I’m sure you can find it!
They did have a few good things this week, though – a post on My Antonia reminiscent of  my ‘forgotten books’ concept (incidentally, I re-read My Antonia last year after not having read it since 6th grade and had many of the same impressions), and a funny but true endorsement of libraries. I mean, do you know how awesome libraries are? 🙂

Edit: Thanks to Italian Food Forever I just won a bottle of 15-year aged ($60) Lodovico Campari Balsamic Vinegar!

Weekly Devotional: Corrie ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom

“God has no problems,” Corrie ten Boom said, “only plans.”

When ours are interrupted, His are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) “toward the goal of true maturity” (Rom 12:2 JBP).

Believe God. Turn the interruptions over to Him. He is at the controls.

-Elisabeth Elliot

~ ~ ~

I remind you, in case you are unfamiliar with these remarkable women, that Corrie ten Boom survived a German concentration camp during the second World War (punishment for hiding Jews). She wrote an absolutely remarkable, life-changing book about it (The Hiding Place) which you must read. Elisabeth Elliot, formerly a missionary to a primitive tribe, lost her first husband to native warriors and her second to cancer. She’s written a large number of books which have made a huge impact on my life. (The story of her first husband is told in Through Gates of Splendor, which you also must read!)

{Amazon Affiliate links}

Week of April 4

Nothing too exciting but it was a good week 🙂

Monday night was chicken stir fry with snow peas and pineapple. I thought I had more veggies to toss in but guests sometimes eat more than you think they will!

Sarah Fowler - chicken stir fry with snow peas and pineapple

Thursday night was panko-crusted basil garlic chicken stuffed with goat cheese (similar to this recipe). Friday’s lunch was really yummy leftovers!

Sarah Fowler - Garlic Basil Chicken Stuffed with Goat Cheese

On Saturday after the garden festival, some friends came over for the afternoon and we made strawberry shortcakes. They  may not be pretty but they sure were good!

Sarah Fowler - strawberry shortcake

Lots of extra client and pro bono work this week. It’s good to have good work to do!

Classic Literature on E-Readers

Van Gogh Still Life with Three Books

I love classic literature. I had the privilege to be taught in the classical model in middle school and high school, which meant we read at least one book a month– and that book was usually several hundred years old. I found that these novels transported me to different worlds in a way modern literature or historical fiction never could. I learned new words and turns of phrase, and absorbed historical context and events.

My senior year of high school I was in charge of my own English curriculum. For writing I kept up with current events and wrote at least two papers a month on political issues. I also sent at least one letter to the editor every month (many of which were published, some as op-ed columns). The most fun, though, was that my mom had picked up a book at a homeschool curriculum fair that listed major American colleges’ recommended reading lists. The authors had also compiled a list of the 100 most-often-recommended books, which I decided to read. (Really I only wound up reading 73 that year, if I recall correctly.)

From Robert Louis Stevenson to Ralph Ellison, Louisa May Alcott to Charles Dickens, Jane Austen to Herman Melville and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Shakespeare, these books informed and shaped my worldview both then and now. They gave me a head start on my eventual college English program. They made me an intellectual richer person.

Why am I waxing poetic about classic literature? Because the latest technology (you know, that evil thing that was supposed to make it so we never read a good book again?) makes reading some of the greatest literature of all time easier than ever. I must admit I thought everyone knew this, but I was listening to a podcast by obviously relatively tech-savvy people the other day and this was a new revelation to them: Any books in the public domain (that is, those whose copyright has run out) can be had for free on any of the e-reader platforms!

The Kindle, as I’m sure you know by now, is my favorite e-reader. It can be read across devices– there are desktop, Android, Blackberry, iPhone and iPad apps so you can read Kindle books practically anywhere without an actual Kindle device.

But whether you decide to use Kindle, Nook, Borders, Sony, Google, or another e-reading platform, get reading. You can’t beat having access to the greatest books of all time for free!

“There is no argument by which one can defend a [literary work]. It defends itself by surviving, or it is indefensible.”
-George Orwell