Worth a Thousand Words: A Study for a Horse and Rider

Peter Paul Rubens, A Study for a Horse and Rider
via Arts Everyday Living

Well Said: My stories affect my Christianity, restore me ...

I stray, and then my stories pull me back if I listen to them carefully. I have often been asked if my Christianity affects my stories, and surely it is the other way around; my stories affect my Christianity, restore me, shake me by the scruff of the neck, and pull this straying sinner into an awed faith.

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

Well Said: Literature

Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

Worth a Thousand Words: Five Bighorn Sheep

Five Bighorn Sheep, Colorado Nature Photography

Genesis Notes: Growth and Testing

GENESIS 29 & 30

These chapters are interesting. Jacob, avoiding Esau's anger, is off to seek his fortune. He's been used to getting his own way through trickery and his own wits. but now he's going to come up against other people who are just as wily as he is. And who are also used to getting their own way.

This doesn't make Jacob any less determined, but it does mean it's an opportunity for growth and change. When the chips are down, how do we react? It is this which forms our character.

Also in these chapters, the focus is on family. Jacob falls for Rachel, works to earn her and then is fobbed off with first-born sister Leah. We greatly feel the injustice for Jacob and Rachel. But we also now have Leah in the mix. She longs for her husband's love and is denied repeatedly. And Jacob is continually dealing with his tricky father-in-law who wants nothing more than to cheat him. This is both humbling and serves to teach lessons.

It is not done thus in our place, to give the younger girl before the firstborn. Laban is an instrument of dramatic irony: his perfectly natural reference to "our place" has the effect of touching a nerve of guilty consciousness in Jacob, who in his place acted to put the younger before the firstborn. This effect is reinforced by Laban's referring to Leah not as the elder but as the firstborn (bekhirah). It has been clearly recognized since late antiquity that the whole story of the switched brides is a meting out of poetic justice to Jacob—the deceiver deceived, deprived by darkness of the sense of sight as his father is by blindness, relying, like his father, on the misleading sense of touch. ... *

Jacob has a visceral sense of just what his actions felt like to Esau.

God shows himself in this family struggle as he has through every family we've encountered in Genesis. I think about how he reveals himself through the everyday like breeding sheep and the big events like Leah's children. No special dreams or spoken voices are needed. God's there through everything in this story of our long-ago ancestors in faith.

Jacob and Rachel at the Well, Francisco Antolínez

*Quote from Robert Alter's translation and commentary of Genesis. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Well Said: The common people and the high lords

The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are.

George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones

Worth a Thousand Words: Return from fishing, dragging the boat

Return from fishing, dragging the boat; Joaquim Sorolla y Bastida

Save Send Delete Review of Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life

Danusha Goska has published a thoughtful and generous review at her blog, Save Send Delete.

Here's a bit:

Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life: Prayers and Reflections for Getting Closer is one of the weightiest little books I've ever read. There are just 209 pages of main text, and each page has few words. I open randomly to page one hundred and I find a three-sentence quote from the Gospel of Luke, a brief, one-paragraph quote from Saint Augustine, and ten sentences of reflection from Davis. The few words that appear on each page, though, like the words in a rich poem, are dense with meaning. They are the kind of words that cause the reader to pause and ponder. [...]

Davis wants this book to be an aid to other Christians in their prayer life. Online reviews attest to its value and success at just that. ...

I think Seeking Jesus has another use. I think this would be a great gift to an open-minded Christophobe. There are a lot of people these days who insist that all Christians are violent bigots. Jesus is certainly the main character of this book, but Davis is a very appealing sidekick. She is humble, eager to learn, thoughtful, and patient. I think giving this book as a gift to someone trying to understand a modern American Christian's interior life would be a very charitable act.

Do go read it all. It gives a wonderful overview coupled with Goska's feelings about the book.

Then stop by Amazon to pick up your own copy!

Hansel and Gretel - on SFFaudio

Jesse, Maissa, and I discuss the classic fairy tale, Grimm Brothers style, at SFFaudio. Our discussion is preceded by my unabridged reading of the folk tale.

A good time was had by all. (Except, of course, by the wicked old witch. That goes practically without saying.) Join us!

Worth a Thousand Words: Snow, Moon, Flowers

Sakai Hôitsu; Snow, Moon, Flowers

Well Said: Love and marriage and the right room

It seems like people make the mistake of thinking love is about the bedroom. It's not. It's about the emergency room. Love and marriage are about who will sit there and wait.

Stephen Tobolowsky

Truer words were never spoken.

National Catholic Register Review of Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life

A lovely review from Sarah Sarah Reinhard at National Catholic Register.

Among other things she says:

"This is about forming a friendship that will last through eternity," Davis writes. And that's exactly the foundation she's set for each reader of this volume.

Go read the rest at NCR and then stop by Amazon to pick up your own copy!

Worth a Thousand Words: Elisabeth of Bavaria

Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria (1865).
Franz Xaver Winterhalter (German, 1805-1873).

Look at that dress! I know she was a great beauty of the time but that dress is the star of this painting to me.

Lagniappe: Cooking With Actual Food

It was lovely to be cooking with actual food. There's something so grounding about it. It's not that I was doing any magic, beyond the magic it is to take big flat mushrooms and raw potatoes and turn them into something totally delicious. I was just making dinner. But I wonder how much of cooking for someone else is magic anyway, more than I know about. I think it might all be.

Jo Walton, Among Others

This evokes a sense of place and activity that speaks strongly to me, even if it is "just making dinner." And she's right, cooking for others is magical though it is usually felt most strongly when you all come together for the meal.

3 Myths (and 1 Truth) About Grain-Fed Beef

I've been a fan of the Nutrition Diva for a long time. I especially love the way she looks into facts versus what "everyone knows" (a.k.a. "myths) on different topics.

This time she's looking at grain-fed beef, In particular 3 myths and 1 surprising truth about the impact of various feeding programs on the health of the cow and on the environment. That's an area where there are a lot of misconceptions. And I was really surprised by the truth ... also pleased.

You can listen her podcast episode or read the transcript — both are at Nutrition Diva.

Worth a Thousand Words: Sun and Sundial

Sun and Sundial, Wettenhausen monastery emblem

To go with today's quote!

Well Said: May the gods confound the man ...

May the gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish hours, and the man who put this sun-dial here to cut my day to pieces.

Plautus

Well Said: If you feel like fighting fire with fire ...

If you feel like fighting fire with fire, remember real firefighters use water.

Anonymous

via Lynn Underwood

I love this. It goes hand in hand with the quote someone used at dinner last night.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Anonymous

(attributed to many, confirmed for none)

Genesis Notes: Esau's Resume

I've already talked about my soft spot for Esau. Let's look over his resume to see what we can apply from his example to our own lives.

I haven't mentioned this before, but one of my favorite parts of these resumes is at the end when we see where else a person is mentioned in the Bible. I like to read up on how others use their examples also.

Francesco Hayez, Esau and Jacob reconcile

Common sense isn't all that common. In fact, the common thread in many decisions is that they don't make sense. Esau's life was filled with choices he must have regretted bitterly. He appears to have been a person who found it hard to consider consequences, reacting to the need of the moment without realizing what he was giving up to meet that weakness. He also chose wives in direct opposition to his parents' wishes. He learned the hard way.

Strengths and accomplishments:

• Ancestor of the Edomites
• Known for his archery skill
  
• Able to forgive after explosive anger

Weaknesses and mistakes:

• When faced with important decisions, tended to choose according to the immediate need rather than the long-range effect
• Angered his parents by poor marriage choices
  

Lessons from his life:

• God allows certain events in our lives to accomplish his overall purposes, but we are still responsible for our actions
• Consequences are important to consider
• It is possible to have great anger and yet not sin
  

Vital statistics:

• Where: Canaan
• Occupation: Skillful hunter
• Relatives: Parents - Isaac and Rebekah. Brother - Jacob. Wives: Judith, Basemath, and Mahalath.

Key verses:
"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears." (Hebrews 12:14-17)

Esau's story is told in Genesis 25-36. He also is mentioned in Malachi 1:2, 3; Romans 9:13; Hebrews 12:16, 17.

All material quoted is from the Life Application Study Bible. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Study reports beautiful churches important in young people's conversions

Inside of Notre-Dame Basilica (Montreal)

Now that there's a study proving what most of us already knew, can we return beauty to our churches?

The Telegraph revealed the results of the study, stating that, “Around 13 percent of teenagers said that they decided to become a Christian after a visit to a church or cathedral.”

Even more surprising was the report’s finding that the “influence of a church building was more significant than attending a youth group, going to a wedding, or speaking to other Christians about their faith.”

In fact, “The study suggests that new methods invested in by the Church, such as youth groups … are less effective than prayer or visiting a church building in attracting children to the Church.”

Philip Kosloski reports on this as well as considering how U.S. parishes have begun building traditionally beautiful churches again.

I still remember being in Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal and seeing a young man standing in the center aisle with tears running down his face. His concerned girlfriend was asking if he was ok. He looked somewhat embarrassed, responding, "No, I was just having a moment. It just hit me all at once."

Yes, that beauty does hit you and hits you hard. If we are open to it, often God's presence is using beauty to touch your soul.

More than beauty is converting young people

The Telegraph reports on the study's other points. Interestingly, the British are dumbstruck that one in six young people are Christian, saying how high these numbers are. I was interested in the point that it is not youth groups or guitar masses that pull people in but having read the Bible or being taken to visit a church.

The study suggests that new methods invested in by the Church, such as youth groups and courses such as Youth Alpha, are less effective than prayer or visiting a church building in attracting children to the church.

One in five said reading the Bible had been important, 17 per cent said going to a religious school had had an impact and 14 per cent said a spiritual experience was behind their Christianity.

“Things which we would class as old hat methods are some of the more effective ways."

Yes, the good old fashioned ways of personal encounter with Christ still work just fine.