The Summer Alphabet Saga

"T" was for trees last week. (I do believe I may have to go until the equinox to get all the way to Z unless I really crank it out these last two weeks!)

So we went to Big Tree Park to see the Senator tree. With the boardwalks, I was able to use the stroller with Big Ben and we walked up to the 3,800 year old tree and went--"yep, that's a big tree." It was pretty amazing and very tall. I asked R if she wanted to continue down the path to Lady Liberty but nope, she was done.

They played on the playground for a while and then we were going to eat our snack. But I kept seeing two of the most diseased squirrels I've ever seen so I decided we were not going to open our peanut butter crackers with them around. R did tree bark rubbings on a variety of trees around the playground and did get a bit dirty. She lost it when she slipped and fell into the wet grass and dirt around one tree. "I'm DONE! I want to go HOME!" she cried. What a monster I've made.

This summer project has been good for us--pushing her beyond her comfort and clean zone and forcing me to be creative, productive, and purposeful with our time. It has been so hard to get everything in. Between meals and naptime, we don't have that much time to do a big project and we are somewhat limited by the boy getting into things or by what he is able to handle. Or by R's attitude when she poops on an idea I've had like my Q is for quilt project. Brat.

All in all, I will be a bit sad when she goes off to her first first day of preschool in just two weeks. Just a wee bit though. Did I mention she completely pooped on my quilt idea?

Pedicures, Pigs, and Pancakes

Today's letter of the day was "P." It may be my favorite letter so far.

First, R wore her pajamas the entire day--even to swim lessons and the library.

We checked out books with pigs, pirates, and parties (If You Give a Pig a Party and Pirates Don't Change Diapers).

We ate popcorn and watched the "Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore" episode of Between the Lions for morning snack.

Peanut butter for lunch (no different from any other day there).

Pedicures and pink polish after nap.

And pancakes for dinner.

Perfect.

Week 7 - Die/Live

"I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Galatians 2:20

Every chapter in this book of 7 hard things has culminated in the final chapter--God asks women to die; God asks women to live. The chapter was lengthy and involved; I had a hard time condensing all the topics into our handout of questions. And there was much we didn't, or couldn't, get into. But I believe we were all convicted, moved, and encouraged by wrestling with the paradoxical idea that we are both dead and alive, that we are called to die continuously and live actively. (And once again, our study and discussion dovetailed nicely into this morning's sermon from Colossians 3:1-4--even with a guest preacher!)

We considered how we know something is physically, literally alive. I loved the responses! We see breath, growth, a desire for nourishment, fruit, bleeding, and reproduction (both inwardly with old cells replaced with new cells and outwardly in the making of reproductions or copies). A plant that is alive will stretch, grow, fill. And, if you've seen my black-thumb garden, you'll know that things that are alive look different, look better that those that are dead. The proof of spiritual life is much the same: there must be growth, change, fruit (of the Spirit), we seek nourishment if we are truly alive (not waiting for it to be dropped into our mouths). We bleed and hurt for the lost and for our world. We are able to heal from wounds (amazing thought that those that are alive in Christ are not slain by wounds of the world but find healing through Christ). There is joy and peace in the appearance of those alive in Christ--we look different, look better than those who are dead or not really living.

And we begin to fail to live fully alive by focusing on our selves, instead of Christ. By settling for the world instead of oneness with God. We don't live out of the reality that we have been raised up with Christ and sit together in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

We then considered the four "selfless snapshots," metaphors of living and sacrificing--the dual crucifixion, the living garden, living sacrifices, and the free slave. The concept that Christ really lives through us, when we get our self completely out of the way came out to us in a new way. The life of small, daily incremental sacrifices of self--not one large donation of "whew, got that over with, now I'm done--is the call to be a living sacrifice, to see first his kingdom and not mine. And amazingly, we can be free slaves. Employing the picture of the free slave who willingly chooses to remain with his master, piercing his ear to show his commitment resonated with us. This is who we are. We have a transformation that others can see (our piereced ear) that signifies who we belong to. We know that life with the Master is better than any life away from him. That service to Him is sweet and rewarding. That He is benevolent and generous. We are no longer enslaved to sin but to Christ. And we choose to remain a slave to him by the choices we make every day. Though we are prone to wander, prone to leave, being a slave to Christ, resting in his care, becomes sweeter and sweeter.

Our closing time was spent sharing which pair we were called to the most right now--either by the season of life we are in or by what God has laid on our hearts that we need to address. I loved hearing more about what God is doing in your lives. And I especially loved praying for you and hearing your prayers for each other (and for me).

Thank you to all the ladies who joined in this study. I was blessed by your presence, encouraged by your words, convicted by your exhortations, and reassured of God's love and strength. We can do all things through Christ who strengths us. Let us not grow weary of doing the hard things he has called us to.

NEA List: How many have you read?

If you're the "average" person, you've only read SIX, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. You all of course, dear readers, are not average at all.

So, here's what you do: Copy onto your blog. Bold the books you have read. Italicize the books you intend to read. Underline or change the color of books you love. Then bug those people who have only read six of these.

Reading through this list, I realized that (1) I have spent quite a bit of time reading things other than these books, (2) I'm surprised at some of the "classics" (three Thomas Hardy books, puh-leeze!), (3) I'm surprised at some of contemporary books here (Five People You Meet in Heaven? Time Traveler's Wife, really?) (4) the absence of other African-American writers like Zora Neale Hurstson, Ralph Elliot, Toni Morrison, and Ernest Gaines; only Alice Walker is represented (5) while I've read quite a few, I've never heard of some of these (6) yay! for some of the children's classics like Anne of Green Gables and The Wind in the Willows (7) I've seen the movie; does that count?

Lists like these always bring up questions of quality, diversity, tradition, authority. Who decides what should be included? What are their criteria? What is their intention? Why are there FOUR Jane Austen novels (not that I don't love, love, love Austen, but let's give some space to someone else)? Why no Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor? And of course, based on your schooling or preferences, you may have missed a bunch of these. In Amer. Lit. I, I read other Melville stuff, not Moby Dick, since my prof wanted more diversity. In 12th grade, I took AP English Lit, which meant I didn't read 1984 or Animal Farm back then. And I don't really like Dickens.

Anyway, I can update Good Reads this week with some more "intend to read" books for my shelf. Maybe you'll do the same.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (how I taught senior Brit Lit English without having to read this whole thing is probably enough to have my teaching certificate revoked)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read most)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (NOOOOO!!!! One Rushdie was enough!)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Week 6 - Lead/Follow

"...submission is not an occasional event. It is a lifestyle. It isn't a negative obligation on women, but the natural outworking of the gospel in every Christian's life. Submission is an attribute of Jesus, so it ought to show up in all of his followers" (James 161).

Whenever you bring up the topic of leading and following with a group of women, it seems gender tensions inevitably arise. Since the curse, we find ourselves wanting to follow strong leadership but find it lacking; with critical spirits then, we can take over, dominate, and dictate whether in our homes or churches. But every women is called to lead--in action and attitude--and every woman is called to follow--with sacrifice and submission.

This chapter focused us on the centrality of faith and trust in both leading and following. And in looking at Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, we see the centrality of submission in all three people and the way the gospel is lived out through their actions. Carolyn James devotes a chapter to the role of submission in her book on Ruth. So we started our discussion there.

Naomi deeply desires to see Ruth "well-provided" through a husband, the primary means of provision and security for a woman in that culture. She knows there is a connection between Ruth and Boaz so she sends Ruth to the threshing floor with the intention of securing a marriage that night. She sacrifices her own future security by sending Ruth to Boaz--who is not the closest kinsman-redeemer--and essentially releases her hopes of restoring her husband's land or lineage. Ruth's future, the future after Naomi's death, is most important to her.

Ruth, however, challenges Boaz, the "man of high standing" to undertake a rescue mission that night. Risking humiliation and rejection, she pushes Boaz beyond the letter of both the levirate and kinsman-redeemer laws. Boaz is not a brother (more like a cousin) and not even the closest kinsman-redeemer. Ruth, now barren for ten years, offers to marry Boaz and produce a child for Naomi which will inherit the land and continue the family line. Boaz, not emasculated in the least by this strong woman, listens to Ruth's plan and resolves to act immediately.

Boaz, for his part, sacrifices his own financial and family interests, by joining Ruth. Rather than refuse to help, getting off on a technicality, he recognizes the call of Yahweh to care for widows, to restore families, to show great kindness to the least.

This week's chapter also looked at the lives of Deborah and Esther, two more strong women leaders in Israel's history. Judges 4-5 gives the account of a battle in which Barak, the general of the army refused to go to battle without Deborah with him and in which the greatest victory was given to a Jael, the woman who drove the tent peg through the enemy's skull. In looking at the meaning of "lead" and "follow" this week, I saw over and over again in Deborah's song (Judges 5) that both the leaders of Israel and the people "offered themselves willingly" or volunteered. In contrast, tribes who did not send soldiers were said to be on their ships still or in the inlets of safety. They were unwilling to sacrifice.

This willing offering on the part of both leaders and followers is the call of every follower of Jesus. It is an offering in faith and a dependence on someone else--first God and then others. It demands a complete lack of self-sufficiency and a relinquishing of control, power and to cease fighting. It is a willing, conscious laying down of one's own interests and desires for the sake of another.

• Do you consider yourself more a leader or a follower? Where are you more comfortable?
• What does "lead" mean? (You can use your thesaurus.)
• Why do we refuse to lead?
• (from Question 2) Examine any obstacles that might be in the way of you being a good emotional leader in your home.
• What are some practical ways we can lead or initiate in our homes, our neighborhoods, and church?
• What does "follow" mean?
• "Faith, submission, surrender, leadership, followship--it's really all about how much you trust God" (157). How do you define faith, trust, dependence, surrender, submission?
• By faithl...."What would you want the faith chapter to say about you? What does it say about who you are as a leader, and as a follower" (157)?

Still here...

Still without a computer to call my own. So I have to catch up at night as best I can which means trying to remember all the things I wanted to do, e-mails to send, books to order, blog posts to write.

I thought I would catch up on the book reading and movie watching we've done lately. And, side note, I'm currently on both Shelfari.com and GoodReads.com--two book cataloging/organizing social websites that essentially do the exact same thing--which means I'm updating and reviewing books on both sites. If you're on either one, look me up. Maybe one of these days, one site will win out over another but right now I have friends on both and I like certain features on both.

Books - I feel I need to fully recommend Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Several people have asked me lately if they are really all that good. I just finished book 6 last night (I believe it is my favorite so far) and I can wholeheartedly recommend them, especially for light summer reading that won't leave you sorry in the morning. McCall Smith is an older Scottish gentleman who lived in Africa for some time. Amazingly, he writes Mma. Precious Ramoswte, the traditionally built Botswana woman who opens the first detective agency in Gaborone, with skill and humor. The books are not Murder She Wrote mystery novels, especially as the series continues, but novels about Africa, about relationships, and about the dreams of the main characters. McCall Smith has a unique style that is readable and enjoyable. You can clearly tell that he loves Africa and its people as much as his characters. In fact, Africa--Botswana, the Kalahari desert, the heat, the dry season, the politics, the changing culture--is as much a character as the imposing Mma. Ramoswte. My favorite character though is actually Mma. Grace Makutsi, the assistant detective and secretary who graduated with an unheard-of 97 percent at the Botswana Secretarial College, a fact that she frequently brings up. She is somewhat awkward and shy at times, dogged by a background of poverty and a peculiar complexion--certainly not a glamorous woman who becomes a secretary with the intention of snagging a handsome executive. But her hopeful attitude toward her future, her ability to rise to challenges, her humility and kindness, and her less than worldly ways make her a great counterpoint to her Boss. Plus, you throw in a manipulative orphanage matron, two foster children, the best mechanic in Gaborone, two feckless garage apprentices, and a mystery or two to unravel and you have a pleasant read for a warm summer night. My only warning--read only one or two in a row. Also, McCall Smith's Scottish "mystery" series--The Sunday Philosophy Club--is also enjoyable though I've only gotten to read the first one so far.

Movies - Two favorites and one I really wanted to like
After reading two glowing reviews from sources I trust, I moved these up in our queue: Lars and the Real Girl and Once. Lars was sweet and quirky and clean (I promise!). I loved how the family and community rallied around Lars and was willing to "become all things" in a way to help him. Once--what can I say? I nearly hit "play" again as soon as it was over. Simply beautiful, affirming, and refreshing (you just have to get past all the f-words, they are Irish after all).

This weekend, we watched The Ultimate Gift with James Gardner, Abigial Breslin, and some others. Gardner plays a recently deceased multi-billionaire. In his video will, he leaves his grandson with a series of tasks (gifts) to accomplish to get to the ultimate gift. It is clear his spoiled, trust-fund grandson needs to learn some values and lessons. For most of the movie, this is done without sap and sentimentality, and even humorously. Then, it jumps the shark with a plot point involving Ecuadorian drug lords and ends predictably. But I'm glad we supported the producers for making a movie with values and morals we share. And they did it better than most. The soundtrack did include some Switchfoot and Sara Groves so it wasn't too bad.

Summer A to Z - We're still trying to make it through the alphabet before school starts. We did accomplish "J" is for "Jumping" with a series of jumping activities outside and an attempt to jumprope. I actually did okay, though my bladder isn't what it used to be. "L" was for "Lemonade" and R and I squeezed lemons for refreshing lemonade with our cookies. Wish I had pictures, but that's more complicated on D's computer. We'll do a few more this week with my mom and brother who are coming down later.

Week 5 - Hold On/Let Go

So sorry I've been a bit behind here. We've been without a home computer for about a week and a half. It's like losing an arm. So, I have to commandeer Dave's laptop at night instead of during my quiet nap time.

I thought this was a long chapter, full of stuff, and our discussion was so encouraging and uplifting as we focused on the amazing things God gives us to hold on to--the Person of God, the Plan of God, the Power of God, the Peace of God, the Presence of God, and the Provision of God. This is what sustains, inspires, and strengthens us.

The things we found the hardest to let go of seemed to center around control--fear, hurt, and expectations. All of these things have our desire to control our lives, be independent, keep hurt and disappointment away, and find a way to maintain our plan for our lives at their heart. One aspect of the chapter which we didn't touch on as much was the need to see Christ as LORD. "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things I say?" (Luke 6:46). Instead of allowing him to be in control of our actions, attitudes, and thoughts, we control, micromanage, avoid, push away, and seek satisfaction in things other than Him.

In looking at the lists outlined in the chapter, we also reflected on what we need to hold on to to replace what we're letting go of--the only way we will truly be able to let go of these tough things. How do you connect them, so to speak? As you learn to let go of hurt, what do you cling to? And it is a continual process to keep on letting go, putting off the old and putting on the new.

Let go of....
Fear
Hurt
Expectations
Control
Comfort Level
"Things"
Guilt

Hold on to...
The Person of God, Jesus Christ
Plan of God
Power of God
Presence of God
Peace of God
Provision of God
Salvation

• Which is the hardest thing for you to let go of?
• What else do we tend to hold on to that we really should let go?
• (from Question 3) Why do you think it is so hard for us to open our hands and hearts and let God be our "Everything"?
• (from Question 2) What sustains, inspires, and strengthens you most in your Christian walk, besides the person of God, himself: God's plan, God's power, God's peace, God's presence, God's people, or God's provision?
• "Isaiah 65:2 is a powerful verse which gives us a promise we can hang out hats on: "I will answer them before they even call me. While they are still talking to me about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers'" (page 131). How does the "principle of prior provision" sustain you? Have you experienced God providing while you were still praying?

I also appreciated hearing the verses that sustain those in our group--life verses or just ones that have been with us lately for the season of our life--and the stories and reflections everyone shared. For those who were unable to attend, I'd love for you to share yours either here or next week. Next weeks, we'll look at Chapter 6--Lead/Follow.