Book, Recommended: Pew Sisters

Look, I know it's all the rage to be disgusted with women's Bible studies and roll our eyes at whoever the stupid women are who read them and mope over why SOMEBODY thinks women are so dumb and doesn't pay US lots and lots of money to write GOOD women's Bible studies instead. Yes, yes, dears. We're all very smart.

But get real: I know very few (no?) women of any intelligence, education, or field of interest who don't enjoy  hearing about other women's lives and judging them. Quit faking, read some stories about other women, and judge away. You know you'll like it. You can do it with this book by Katie Schuermann.

Careful, though. Pew Sisters will make you mad. You will want to know how, freaking exactly and I'm talking mechanics here, Marianne forgave. You will trip on how things worked out for Diedre. You, you Concordian Sister of Perpetual Parturition*, will wonder if Anna could really be that tired if she wasn't even nursing and how Claire's situation could possibly turn out that way under those circumstances. You will wonder if Emily's story ever really happens or if that's just a weird Lutheran fantasy. Your ongoing Mary/Martha problem still won't be solved by this book, darnit! Why is Julia OK and Faye not (or are they)? What ended up happening to Christine, for crying out loud, and what about poor Laura? Why the easy answer here and the hard one there? What kind of sick freak wrote this? (A Lutheran, of course. Nobody else ever likes us. :D )

Here's the other problem with Pew Sisters: it is not really going to feel sorry for you. It is going to stick your nose in suffering and say, "What are you going to do about it, sinner?"  So what are you going to do about it? We sin. That's why rotten things happen, and that's why the message of the cross is neither baby food nor boring. Hear it again, sinner. You suffer because you sin. Jesus suffered without sin to end your suffering. If that message is beneath you, you're above God.

My recommendation: read this with some sisters. I don't mean your friends from class, because they're not your sisters (sisters are rarely the same age). Read it with your pew sisters, the ones who call the same guy pastor and the same church home. Do what the author says: call that pastor and have him speak from Scripture to the questions this book is going to bring up**. Judge and be judged, and be reminded again of real justice, the supreme beauty of grace, and to whom such things belong.

*Full disclosure is that if you give someone this book, they might suspect you of ulterior motives when they get to Gabriella. On the other hand, you're a real person too.

**It will still be a women's Bible study with a pastor there. Do your girl talking first and schedule him to come in 45 minutes after your start time.

Book, recommended (particularly for those of us who are currently in a season of “little years” that may leave us short on sleep, reading time, coherent thoughts, temper…)

A dear person gave me this deceptively little book, and I am so glad that she did. Though some of its self-contained chapters don’t quite reach two pages, each one has exponential potential for unpacking through prayer, self-examination, and action (at least for those of us who are in need of a perspective check, which describes me approximately every other minute or so).

I skimmed it once, quickly, and it’s still all whooshing around in the churn. I plan to read it again, slowly now, to work at getting some of the cream to come together, solidify.

I needed to read a book about the “little years” again. I know that I’m still a total amateur in this parenting thing; I don’t even have a kid in the double digits yet. But after having been at it for such a seemingly long time (B.C. is but a lazy, hazy memory), a creeping frustration was beginning to darken my days—the feeling that I should surely have somehow moved beyond the “little years” by now, or at least should have become more breezily adept at coping with the daily fatigues of the preschool-toddler-infant set. I’ve got bigger fish in need of frying now; why am I still wiping bottoms and teaching people the alphabet and pretending to be patient while a two-year-old works to put on her own shoes? True: I don’t feel the weight of every decision anywhere near as heavily as I did when I had only two littles. But neither do I feel like an old pro at things like potty training and toddler discipline and babies who cry in the middle of the night. I just feel...old, and tired, and frankly sometimes just tired of it all. In short, I needed a good kick in the pants, which this book cheerfully provided. Thank you, Rachel Jankovic!

Perhaps I’ll have more to say about the book as I reread, but for the moment, I’ll leave you with an image that instantly and helpfully crystallized some of my recent musings. Jankovic uses it to describe what she calls “growth spurts” (those times when you feel like you’ve just gotten a handle on things, and then, seemingly overnight, the kids all show up with entirely new variations on crazy). The image is also quite apt for household adjustment whenever a new baby arrives:

“You know those pain scales at the hospital, where they rate your pain from one to ten? Well, pretend that you are screaming, “Thirteen, thirteen! Fifteen!” What that should tell you is that it is time to restart the whole thing, stop screaming, and just accept that this is now the new ‘one.’ Start over, and accept the new ‘normal.’ I promise that this little mental change will actually change how you feel, and by extension how your children feel. Growing is, after all, what God wants them [and us!] to do.”

So if you’re screaming “fifteen!”, or tired, or overwhelmed (Jankovic offers a helpfully convicting perspective on the “o-word” too), you just might want to spend a few minutes a day with this book, which helpfully smacked me back toward the Book whose perspective should frame my every moment.

My homegirl Phoebs

I finally caved and bought Cheryl Naumann's LCMS deaconess history on Kindle. It has a lot of primary documents, so thumbs up there.

The Lutheran deaconesses back in Germany were nurses. Later, people in the LCMS made an argument that there should be LCMS deaconess nurses because sick Lutherans should have Lutheran nurses. This is interesting. Sick people are vulnerable. I've heard of pastors having trouble with theologically stupid things nurses say to patients, and I myself have had theologically stupid things said to me by dear and loving nurses who wished to comfort my in my trouble. There's no doubt that a well-catechized nurse population would be a nice thing to have available.

But it turned out that the LCMS girls didn't want to be nurses, just deaconesses.

The Lutheran deaconesses back in Germany were also celibate, either virgins or widows. They were free to marry, but then they weren't deaconesses any more. OBVIOUSLY. OK, I hate it when people get snotty about obviouslies so here is why marriage and deaconessing were considered incompatible: when a woman marries, her job is to care for her family. Deaconesses are people who, since they are free of family constraints, may care for those whose only family is the Church. Speculation is of limited value, but I have a hard time imagining that Loehe and other champions of the deaconess concept would have responded favorably to the notion that a woman should leave her children and husband each morning to go and work as a deaconess. She would have failed in her service the minute she walked out the door (and if it is necessary for her to work--wouldn't it make sense for her to pursue employment that pays better? :P)

It is clear that some people, especially Loehe, really wanted there to be deaconesses. But I don't think their motive is clear. Was it because the church needed Lutheran nurses and other caregivers? Or was it because the unmarried woman (especially the unmarried young woman) was as big a practical problem back in old timey times as it is now? Probably some of both.

I found this quotation from Loehe astonishing:

"From the outset the deaconesshood is joined to the preaching office as Eve is to Adam, and a church which does God's work among the Gentiles without deacony [sic] seems to me like a one-legged man."

I respectfully (and nervously given my total lack of qualifications) disagree. I am curious about the word "deaconesshood." I do not know German. I don't know if the word used by Loehe is somehow distinct from that which might normally be translated "diaconate," or how either of these word[s] compare[s] with what comes out later in the sentence as "deacony," or if this is a translator's rendering of the same word, whatever that might be. Either way, the expression as it comes across in English suggests that deaconesses are a female counterpart to pastors. They are not. The parish is the feminine counterpart to the masculine pastor as the Church is to Christ.

Deaconesses are made up. The best way I can think to describe them is as a distillation of the Church which has occasionally been considered beneficial to have. It would help a lot if we called them something other than deaconesses since there is a New Testament OFFICE of deacon and the two can't help getting tangled up with each other when discussed. Deacon is a technical term in Scripture with specific requirements. There is simply no New Testament OFFICE of deaconess. There is only an itsy-bitsy reference to a woman named Phoebe who serves, end of Phoebe story. I could name 15 women off the top of my head from my own little parish about whom the exact same bio could be written. I could be completely wrong here, but I contend that it is hard to make a case for Phoebe's service as an OFFICIAL one. It's the exact same problem we run into today with "ministry."

Also interesting: the same idiotic arguments for everything are old news. Even back in the bad old LCMS days of women on one side, men on the other, people were boohooing about Galatians 3:28 and the horrific prospect of women's talents being wasted. I'd make a crabby comment about women being considered too stupid to figure out that they should use their talents; on the other hand, there is a bit of a problem with talentolatry conflated with hobbyism on the part of women, the novelty of which I also doubt. Golly, maybe everybody has always been pandering and/or self-obsessed! I wouldn't know, naturally . . . .

That's as far as I've gotten. It's a really long book.

To go with your Middlemarch

I read Middlemarch during a really good stretch of reading I had after Baby 2. (I had no friends. None. I almost joined an exercise group at St. Barbara's.) I needed some help with it, though, of precisely the kind this book provides. I'll leave the fun of getting the clergy straight to you (not to mention the drinks and the carriages), but here were the funny parts I remember even now:

One of the quainter, and more confusing, fixtures in your nineteenth century novel is the local clergyman. On the one hand, it was hard to arrange an evening of whist without deferring to the rector; on the other hand, his wife always seemed to show up wearing someone's cast-off frock. Or was that the vicar's wife? And why, pray tell, wasn't the curate invited?

. . .

Members of the "inferior clergy," curates were known for being poor, insecure, and a little uncouth; in your novel, the curate will probably have a large brood of ragged children for whom the gentle heroine is constantly making up baskets of provisions.

An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson

Whist again? They know we have six kids, right?

Book, enthusiastically recommended

. . . for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 

Middlemarch, George Eliot

Friends, I have not been so completely satisfied at the close of a book in quite some time. From start to finish, Middlemarch added mint to what I have constantly to imbibe anyway. Ms. Evans, even with all her follies, really, really got it.

Surely, it's not just me. 

Semo: a publisher's search for sales

For Father DMJ's forgotten Lutheran classics.

The 70s, man. It was a crazy time for all of us. 

St Bernadette says, "Yeah, the Lutherans published it, but how did it get into our parish library?"

66% of Christian symbols are marine, and 50% are dolphins.

Semo: A Dolphin's Search For Christ is archived by the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Office of the President.

Book, recommended with prejudice: Hosanna, Loud Hosanna

I don't know Mrs. Klages outside of a few emails we've exchanged, but the bottom line is she's a sister in Christ and even in Concordia, and I was plain horrified to hear of her recent trip to death's door at the delivery of her third child. What could I do for this dear lady? I don't know her or live by her. Then I remembered that she has a really beautiful book I've been putting off buying because I'm either poor or cheap (it's so hard to tell the difference sometimes). So I'm picking up some copies for niephlings and godchildren, and I urge you to do the same if you've been hesitating as I was. Use coupon code APRPHOTOS12 for 25% off (which won't cut into Kelly's profit--not sure how long this code is good, though). God be with you, Kelly. You're in my prayers.

Book, recommended: the one I just wrote

Well, girls, I've been holding out on you. I've been writing a book and I didn't tell you about it. Now it's done. If you want to read it, buy it or buy it or buy it with promotion code SPACIOUS305 today and tomorrow or borrow it through the Kindle lending library. My reading committee said it was good but I stacked it with yes-men. Here is the promotional website, where you, your comments, your blog readers, and your Facebook friends who are not even remotely CSPP are welcome and will not get freaked out or ticked off. Alright, alright, Facebook too. Blech.

Just So You Know: This is not an advocacy book. It is about breastfeeding, not for or against breastfeeding. As indicated above, it makes absolutely no mention of or allusion to perpetual parturition. It deals only incidentally with Concordianism. This book cannot be used as a "witnessing tool" for any cause whatsoever. I must apologize in advance for titling it Boob Hell. But some of you already totally get it, see?

Actually, it's not about breastfeeding. It is about me, because I am my favorite topic, and I am selling it because I want some ice cream money. Or maybe I could get a bubble tea. I've always wanted one of those.

Jack Gilbert did my author pic. He has skills.

No you can't have a cookie, MOUSE, it's Lent

If you give a mom a Laura Numeroff book, she'll probably throw up. While she's barking at Kid 1 to get a towel, Kid 5 will pollute his britches. She'll holler at Kids 2 and 3 to bring the wipes, wherever they are, NOT the ones from the diaper bag. When Kid 1 comes back with the towel, she'll yell, "Obviously I can't take that right now! Go find me a diaper!" Kid 4 or 1 will show up with the wipes and a diaper and the mom will clean up the disgusting things that happened. The phone will ring before she's washed her hands. It's the church secretary, who needs the week's services emailed to her again. The mom will sit down at her computer to send the secretary the services and see that she has a message from Grandma asking what shoe size Kid 4 is in right now. She'll get up to look at Kid 4's shoes and realize they must be way too big, or maybe way too small. The mom will go to look for a ruler and a clean piece of paper and then remember she never wiped down the phone and BLAST IT she typed on her computer with poo-hands too. She'll go into the kitchen looking for the Lysol. When Kid 4 hears the kitchen door open he'll start whining about lunchtime. The mom will notice she's hungry. She'll close the kitchen door and eat two bananas and a roll from three nights ago before it gets any worse while Kids 4 and 5 howl from the dining room. The howling will remind the mom that she forgot to turn on the monitor when she put the baby down. She'll go up to check on the baby, who is awake but not howling. She'll bring the baby downstairs and sit down to feed her. Kids 4 and 5 will pile onto the couch and demand that she read them books. When the baby finishes, the mom will stand up and the baby will glurk all over the place. And chances are, if the baby glurks all over the place, the mom will probably wipe it up with whatever this piece of junk under my foot is--oh, a Laura Numeroff book.

Book, recommended: Weak and Loved

Once I met a girl on the internet named Emily, and I liked her. She was the kind of mom I wanted to be, which is to say, one with a good and thankful heart. That would have been enough, but it happened that she was also writing a book, so I couldn't not pester her because I think people who write books are just so cool. So I pestered her and that good heart of hers did its work: she let me read her book.

The story Emily tells is the one we're all afraid of: Mom meets girl, Mom loves girl, Mom finds out she might really lose girl, Mom lies awake at night listening for girl's breathing. But this mom's words and insights are smoothed and deepened by a grace you don't find in women's magazines and junk devotionals and pop-Christian bestsellers by pop-Christians. The grace is no accident or rhetorical device. It is real, because Emily is a person who understands grace. She does not seek to inspire with this book that would almost certainly be pigeonholed as "inspirational" by the book pigeonholers, whoever they are. She wants to tell the truth.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a "fighter" or a "survivor." There are only mortals, and an omnipotent God of love and wisdom on whose mercy they can throw themselves. The truth is that bad things happen to sweet little girls because sweet little girls are sinners. The truth is that mothers are forced to live with terrors not of their imagining, but of lethally diseased flesh. The truth is that young children have to learn about sickness and the shadow of death the hard way: at home, on the playground, in their bedrooms.

Emily, unlike any other Christian mom-author I've ever read, finds comfort in precise places: her daughter's baptism, her own baptism, the real promises of God rather than fake general ones people made up, salvation in Christ even if there is no happy ending in this life. There is no blather about God's perfect plan or the blessings of watching one's child suffer a life-threatening illness (?!). There is only the cross that breaks us, sick baby or not, and the cross that saves us, for we are all sick babies. I was really ready to read a book like that. Buy it or win it? False dichotomy.

On the doing of homework

So there's this, which is like, you people still? And this, which is pretty funny. And a bunch of people saying stuff. But please, everybody, do yourselves the huge, huge favor of reading this book, the best book ever written on the topic outside of Heilege Schrift, The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort.

Read it before you write your next post about not ordaining women!

Read it before you write your magnum opus on women in the church!

Read it even if you don't like me or this blog!

Read it even if you're a dude!

It's so important that you read this!

Yes, YOU!!!!

Childbirth Orthodoxy Translation

And it came to pass, as [Rachel's] soul was in departing (for she had special circumstances) that she called his name Benhazak: but his father called him Benjamin. Genesis 35:18

The need to trust their bodies took hold upon them there, and powerful sensations, as of a woman breathing down her baby. Psalm 48:6

Therefore are my loins filled with pressure: surges have taken hold upon me, as the surges of a woman that birtheth Isaiah 21:3

I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I vocalize like a woman experiencing uterine waves Isaiah 42:14

For we know that the whole creation chanteth and worketh hard toward the natural expulsive reflex together until now. Romans 8:22

And she being with child produced harmonics, deeply relaxing in birth, and visualizing to be delivered. Revelation 12:2

Quit scaring women, you medicalizing medicalizer!

Remediation

I’m still thinking about Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. (I’ve long gotten over my malingering inclination to be snarky about it since it’s so popular. Actually I think that the first three pages are enough to knock the snark out of anyone, and I mean that in a very complimentary way.)

If I were living the more birth- and otherwise- controlled life I’d anticipated back when I made my blissfully ignorant hike down that long, long aisle, I’m not sure what this book would have meant to me. The painfully lovely writing would have moved me, to be sure, but in perhaps a less personal way. I’m sure that I would have spent a few weeks, maybe even months, being a more grateful person, remembering to look for the silver linings in the thunderclouds, and all that.

But. Here I am. Instead of stretching out to soar (that was the plan, you know: stay home till the 2-3 kids start school, then work my way back into the real world), I’m hunkering down to home.

If I weren’t here, I would still be seeking to give thanks in every circumstance. I would probably be succeeding in that to a superficially greater degree than I am now. I might look more put together (I might have an actual wardrobe!). I might have fewer dark nights of the soul (I might get to sleep through the night!).

And--I might fail to realize the extent to which in Him I live and move and have my being. I might think it poetic rather than practical that in Him all things hold together.

It’s obvious, but I’m molasses-slow: In the depth of the darkness, I remember to cry out for the Light. When my spiritual fruits wither and sour, I remember to abide in the Vine. Stretched beyond what I am capable of giving, I remember, This is my body, given for you.

I am thick-skulled and hard-hearted. A carefully contoured life would not suffice to save me from myself. God graciously brings me to the very brink where I can feel for myself what is always true: that the Father’s hand alone restrains and sustains me as I teeter childishly over the gaping abyss.

The conscious thanks-giving that I’m attempting to live unwraps a beautiful surprise: the grace in every vexing moment, if only I have eyes to see. God, grant me eyes to see! And He does: the hilariously literal earnestness of three-year-olds; baby-silk hair curling damp in the humidity; the ice-cream sparkle in a kindergartner’s blue eyes; the freckledness of a boyish nose…

The list is endless and deep-joyful, sometimes lighthearted, but never trite. This wild earthly adventure, overflowing with more life than I can begin to control, is God’s crucible-classroom for my dross-ridden soul. Some lessons burn especially bright: I can take God at His Word—even when the life in question is that of the impossibly tiny baby I never got to hold. Yes. I can take Him at His Word!

Every morning, daily manna, He sends this truth, His mercies, anew. (Lord, grant me to receive with gratefulness not grumbling the manna that sustains me!)

Book, recommended

If you haven’t already read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, I think you might want to—if for no other reason than because, as she says in the afterword, “Every breath’s a battle between grudgery and gratitude and we must keep thanks on the lips so we can sip from the holy grail of joy.”

My curiosity about all the Thousand Gifts buzz was fueled when a friend of similar lifestyle and sound literary taste recommended it, overcoming my initial (and totally uninformed) skepticism that this would be the latest chick-sensation in feel-good pop psycholo-theology.

I hereby publicly repent of those suspicions. The first three pages cured me of any fears that One Thousand Gifts would be a “count your blessings and be grateful for what you have, dear,” kind of book. So what kind of book is it? It’s a theology-of-the-cross kind of book, in the skin-life of laundry, of mother-love and loss: “That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son?” (100).

It’s been awhile now since I finished the book, and I’m still gnawing on it. I had to read it slowly, chewing all the while. Voskamp quotes everyone from Augustine to C.S. Lewis to G.K Chesterton to Annie Dilliard to Teresa of Avila… Her writing is lovely, lyrical, even haunting at times as she writes her way through the life that becomes her book (or is it vice versa?).

I’ve only hopped over to her blog a few times as yet (that trip is worth it for her photos alone). I’m not really a joiner, but I will admit that I’ve started my own List—and it’s made a difference in my life. Because there is deep truth in what Voskamp writes: “All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him. For in Him all things were created, are sustained, have their being. Thus Christ is all there is to give thanks for; Christ is all there is to remember. To know how we count on God, we count graces, but ultimately there is really only One” (155).

Yes, I think you might want to read this book.

Girl-mom resource, recommended?

Babygirl recently passed the year mark and is toddling about, helping herself to all kinds of trouble. Having successfully gotten her thus far in life, I’m ready to move on to the next logical stage of girl-mothering: panic. How on earth will I find the girl any decent clothes to wear when she’s ten? (Or five, for that matter?!) And will we be able to amass enough camels for a proper dowry when the time for her arranged marriage rolls around? (Heads up, Gauntlets and Rebekah—speak up now about your preferred form of livestock, otherwise you know it’s gonna be goats ;) ) And in the meantime, there’s the problem expressed in this aphorism, which I shall phrase a bit more politely than the original: “If you’ve got a boy, you only have to worry about one boy. But if you’ve got a girl, you’ve got to worry about all the boys.”

It’s not that I take the matter of my daughter’s heart-soul-body purity more seriously than that of my sons…it’s just that the girl side of it somehow seems more fraught with complicating factors (body image, modesty, emotional drama, etc.). Besides, I know that Dad will be on call to handle many of her brothers’ questions as time goes on, whereas some of “the talks” with her will more naturally fall to me.

I’ve already been a bit taken aback by the good-natured joking—at church, no less—about how Babygirl’s purported future dating life will be foiled by her three older brothers. The first time this happened, I managed something like a weak “Hahaha…just fine with me if they scare off all the boys.” When it’s come up subsequently, though, I’ve done better, with a cheery, “Oh, we won’t have to worry about that, because our kids aren’t going to date. And when the time comes, we’re going to arrange their marriages.” The greatest part is, I’m just crazy enough that they can’t quite figure out how serious I am, even as they laugh along with me. So I’ve managed, for the moment at least, to good-humoredly put much of that silly “boyfriend” talk to rest.

Back to the subject at hand: I know I’m going to need some resources to help me through all this. You, dear readers and bloggers with older girls, will of course comprise part of my arsenal ;). Yesterday, I heard about a picture book and discussion guide that might be handy. We don’t buy into all the princess paraphernalia, but I don’t find this fairy-tale premise objectionable. So, I can’t formally recommend this resource because 1)I haven’t actually gotten my hands on it yet and 2)I’m still quite new at being a girl’s mom, but maybe one of y’all with more than a year’s worth of girl-momming will take a look and come back to let me know if it’s a thumbs-up.

Ex corde

I recently received as a gift a very old copy of H. J. Wotherspoon's Kyrie Eleison, A Manual of Private Prayers, copyright 1904. This is not a Lutheran prayerbook. I think Mr. Wotherspoon was Presbyterian? Yes, I think so. However, I have found his little book to be of great value as an annex to the beautiful, deeply Scriptural prayers found in Starck's prayer book, and in Loehe's. 

For instance, consider this, from Wotherspoon: 

Most merciful God, who hast wonderfully made the tie of parent and child in the likeness of Thine own Divine Fatherhood: I beseech Thee for help in regard to those whom Thou hast given me. Enable me so to be with them that it may be possible for them to obey Thy commandment, and to honour fatherhood in me. Give me a wise spirit of rule, and them a holy spirit of obedience. Make me just as well as kind, patient as well as strong. Teach me to understand them, that I may teach them, and to love them in Christ as well as with natural affection. 

Save me from dealing with them as if they were mine for pleasure. Save me from injustice to their ignorance, from cruelty to their weakness, from impatience with their faults. Save me from slothfulness to teach them, and from selfish unwillingness to correct their errors. Save me from growing worldly for them. I fear the temptation to seek their advantage as I would not have sought my own. Help me to trust Thee in what concerns them, as I have trusted Thee for myself. And may Thy Holy Spirit incline their hearts to good: to obey what is right, and to believe what is true, and to see what is excellent. For without Thee I can do nothing. 

O God, be merciful to me in them, and suffer not that my sins rise up to judge me, or my faults to rebuke me, in these the offspring of my body and my soul. For Thy pity which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

For an ePub or Kindle-ready version of Kyrie Eleison, see here. 

Book, recommended (for those who feel led to read it...)

One of Rebekah’s not-so-recent-anymore posts made me get really serious about getting serious about reviewing a book that I enjoyed awhile back: Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will.

As it turns out, I’m still not serious enough to write anything resembling a review, but that’s no reason for you not to read the book, so you might as well just click your way over to Amazon, flip through the preview pages, and then go ahead and beg, borrow, or buy it. If you feel so moved. ;) Or if you really want a review, you can read Tim Challies’ over there on Amazon. (You know Tim Challies, right? As the resident quasi-Protestantesque-evangelicalish (yet ever catholic) Concordian Sister, I feel that it’s my duty to more or less keep up with some of those dudes ;) )

I’m sure that the indecisiveness of which DeYoung writes plagues none of our dear readers, but this volume is a worthwhile read, fun at times, and its quick readability might make it a handy addition to your pastor’s lending library.

Honestly, the subtitle alone is worth the price of admission, and a review in itself: Or, How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc.

:D

P.S. Incidentally, “Just Do Something” is a great rallying cry to rouse oneself out of a rut in homeschooling, housekeeping, cooking, childrearing…

Father's Day Gift, Recommended

If you’ve hung around CSPP long enough, you know that we are downright partial to the Concordian Husbands/Fathers of Perpetual Parturition, and with good reason.

One of the really great things Dad does around here on a regular basis is handle the older kids’ bedtime process whilst I wrangle the baby down. Lots of sound catechesis occurs during this time; everything from Guy Stuff to reading together from some of their beloved sciencey books.

The centerpiece of their time together, of course, is evening devotions and prayers. Bits of traditional liturgy figure in the formula, but we’re always on the lookout for good supplemental resources. Last year the boys cleverly gave Dad The Victor Journey Through the Bible, which has seen lots of use. It’s also been a handy quick reference for me, a no-prep show-and-tell for when we do Bible stories or history.

(You may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere—I remember paying at least five bucks less than that for it, with free shipping, from Amazon last year.)

Now I just have to help the boys find this year's Father's Day gift...(any ideas out there? :) ).

Vintage picture book comes through in the end

Once upon a time, all the library books that entered our house were either carefully selected or approved by me. Ahem. On the increasingly rare occasions that I enter a library building with all my infamous library pillagers in tow, they fan out and frantically stuff their loot sacks like they’re preparing for a fast getaway after they torch the place: zero to card limit in 60 seconds or less.

Once their bags are bulging, the boys sit and gloat over their haul while I make some more measured selections. I attempt at least a cursory glance at what they’ve grabbed before we check out—one boy in particular has a penchant for overdosing in the section of whatever he’s passionate about at the moment. (Memorably, he once emptied the entire shelf of Johnny Lion books into his bag—triplicates and all.) When we get home, I’ll just refuse to read anything that’s particularly obnoxious, and hide the mind-numbing ones after a reading or two.

Honestly, this element of surprise makes at least the first reading of all the picture books a bit more exciting ;P. And occasionally, something interesting surfaces. Someone recently grabbed the 1966 edition of Babar and his Children (original copyright 1939), and here is how it ends:


Now everyone is asleep. Babar and Celeste will soon go to bed too. They are gradually calming down after all these exciting events.

“Truly it is not easy to bring up a family,” sighs Babar. “But how nice the babies are! I wouldn’t know how to get along without them any more.”

Before there were internets

Perspiration broke out on Hubert's mother's forehead and she began to feel faint so she closed the door and slowly went downstairs.

She took two aspirin tablets and then telephoned her friend, Mrs. Bags. She said, "Hello, Mrs. Bags, this is Hubert's mother and I am so disappointed in Hubert. He has such lovely toys--his grandfather sends them to him every Christmas, you know--but he does not take care of them at all. He just leaves them all over his room for me to pick up every morning."

Mrs. Bags said, "Well, I'm sorry, Mrs. Prentiss, but I can't help you because you see, I think it is too late."

"Why, it's only nine-thirty," said Hubert's mother.

"Oh, I mean late in life," said Mrs. Bags. "You see, we started Ermintrude picking up her toys when she was six months old. 'A place for everything and everything in its place,' we have always told Ermintrude. Now, she is so neat that she becomes hysterical if she sees a crumb on the floor."

"Well, I certainly hope she never sees Hubert's room," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. "She'd probably have a fit." And she hung up the phone.

Then she called Mrs. Moohead. "Good morning, Mrs. Moohead," she said. "Does Gregory pick up his toys?"

"Well, no, he doesn't," said Mrs. Moohead. "But you know Gregory is rather delicate and I feel that just playing with his toys tires him so much that I personally see that all of his little friends put the toys away before they go home."

"That is a splendid idea," said Hubert's mother, "but I am trying to train Hubert, not his playmates."

"Well, of course Hubert is very strong and healthy, but Gregory is intelligent,"said Mrs. Moohead.

"Is he?" said Mrs. Prentiss crossly, because she resented this inference that her son was all brawn and no brain.

"Oh, dear," squealed Mrs. Moohead, "I think Gregory is running a temperature. I must go to him." She hung up the phone.

Mrs. Prentiss then called Mrs. Grapple. "Hello, Marge," she said. "How's Susan?"

Mrs. Grapple said, "I've spanked her seven times since breakfast and I just heard a crash so she is probably getting ready for another. How's Hubert?"

"That's what I called about," said Mrs. Prentiss. "Can you suggest a way to make Hubert want to pick up his toys? His room looks like a toy store after an earthquake."

"Why don't you call this Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle? I have heard she is perfectly wonderful. All the children in town adore her and she has a cure for everything. As soon as I spank Susan, I'm going to call her."

Betty MacDonald, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

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