Sorry to double-post...I listened to this "article" on NPR last week on the connection between children's play and their ability to self-regulate, an essential element in success at older ages in both school and work. I'm sure we all know a lot of this but some of the underlying reasons are interesting as are the suggestions on how to encourage self-regulation in young children.
Here's the link to listen and/or read-- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514 and then tune back in on Thursday, 2/28 for more.
Monday, February 25, 2008
This weekend's reading
NASCAR season started last weekend which means I'll be going through books like a madwoman in an attic. This weekend, even with the races rained out, I had plenty of time as D was reading for class (we both had books open at the same time!) and he fed his addictions by playing NASCAR on the Xbox.
Two vastly different reads...First, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I've been wanting to read this one for a while, just forgot about it until I saw the striking cover on the library's "new books" shelf. Hirsi Ali was born in Somali, lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya before escaping a forced marriage and finding asylum in Holland in the early '90's. Though her parents were at times progressive for the culture and time they lived in, they were also contradictory and Hirsi Ali begins to see the destructive power of Islam personally, individually, culturally, and politically. Ali, who is educated mostly in Islamic schools and receives additional instruction in the Qua ran, also learns English and reads novels ranging from Wuthering Heights to Danielle Steele. She has dreams of a vocation and romance. And upon her immigration to Holland, she abandons Islam altogether and fully assimilates into Dutch/Western culture.
Once in Holland, she sees the immigrant experience played in several ways. And she begins to rebel against the Muslim culture that condones physical abuse of women, female genital mutilation, fundamental schools, arranged marriages, and the refusal to assimilate into Western culture. She sees Islam and the culture it creates as negative. It's not coincidence, she decides, that the failing political systems of the countries she has known, all have Islam as a shared factor. And she further condemns Western governments for their tolerance, for letting immigrants remain unassimilated. As a member of Parliament she does make some strides in getting the problems of Muslim women notices until her own life is threatened. Her analysis of international politics between the West and Islam is interesting--and makes me very afraid of Saudi Arabia. And she ends up refuting a lot of the American liberal ideas about why we are hated and why incidents like 9/11 happen.
Her style is matter-of-fact, sparse at times, and analytical. But in other instances her mother's abusive treatment, her father's duplicity, and her pain over being separated, disowned, forsaken by her family after leaving Africa are heart-wrenching. I had to put the book down before I continued reading the passage where Ali's and her sister's circumcisions (at ages 9 and 6) were detailed. Horrific.
But I was just as saddened in reading Ali's logical reasoning for becoming an atheist. The discrepancy she sees in the Qua ran calling Allah "holy" and the verses that subjugate women lead her to the conclusion that she must reject God altogether. She sees the ridiculousness of the sexual practices of Muslims and knows from experience that it didn't address her heart. She understands the failings of Islam and how it cannot be true. She just never sees that there is a true, loving God who does want relationship, not simply submission. That there is grace, not just works and a hope.
Mesmerizing book though.
Second, a way more light-hearted read, Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, the fourth Thursday Next. I can't possibly begin to summarize the plot, especially since this is the fourth in the series. But let me just say that Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, from the play comes into Swindon, England, 1988 and he is hilarious. He wants to find out if people in the real world think he really is a "ditherer." He's also a bit depressed since he lost the Most Troubled Romantic Lead award to Heathcliff for the 80th time and "he would worry about not having anything to worry about if he didn't have anything to worry about" so the BookWorld Council lets him have a look for himself.
But here is one of my favorite parts. Here is Hamlet finding out that people portray him in plays:
"..I've heard that some people in the Outland think I am a dithering twit unable to make up his mind rather than a dynamic leader of men, and these 'play' things you describe will prove it to me one way or the other."
I [Thursday] tried to think of the movie in which he prevaricates the least. "We could get the Zeffirelli version out on video for you to look at."
"Who plays me?"
"Mel Gibson."
Hamlet stared at me, mouth open. "But that's incredible!" he said ecstatically. "I'm Mel's biggest fan!" He thought for a moment. "So...Horatio must be played by Danny Glover, yes?"
"No, no. Listen: the Lethal Weapon series is nothing like Hamlet."
"Well," replied the Prince reflectively, "in that I think you might be mistaken. The Martin Riggs character begins with self-doubt and contemplates suicide over the loss of a loved one but eventually turns into a decisive man of action and kills all the bad guys. Same as the Road Warrior series, really. Is Ophelia played by Patsy Kensit?"
"No," I replied, trying to be patient, "Helena Bonham Carter."
He perked up when he heard this. "This gets better and better! When I tell Ophelia, she'll flip--if he hasn't already."
I laughed out loud, interrupting D's concentration as he tried to avoid a wreck. The better portion of the book is like this--English-teacher inside jokes.
Up next is Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and book club meets Friday so we'll have a new selection as well. Plus, I'm now on Shelfari.com so you can see my book shelf--my favs, my current reads, and what I hope to read next. Become my "friend" and we'll trade recommendations.
Happy Reading!
Two vastly different reads...First, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I've been wanting to read this one for a while, just forgot about it until I saw the striking cover on the library's "new books" shelf. Hirsi Ali was born in Somali, lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya before escaping a forced marriage and finding asylum in Holland in the early '90's. Though her parents were at times progressive for the culture and time they lived in, they were also contradictory and Hirsi Ali begins to see the destructive power of Islam personally, individually, culturally, and politically. Ali, who is educated mostly in Islamic schools and receives additional instruction in the Qua ran, also learns English and reads novels ranging from Wuthering Heights to Danielle Steele. She has dreams of a vocation and romance. And upon her immigration to Holland, she abandons Islam altogether and fully assimilates into Dutch/Western culture.
Once in Holland, she sees the immigrant experience played in several ways. And she begins to rebel against the Muslim culture that condones physical abuse of women, female genital mutilation, fundamental schools, arranged marriages, and the refusal to assimilate into Western culture. She sees Islam and the culture it creates as negative. It's not coincidence, she decides, that the failing political systems of the countries she has known, all have Islam as a shared factor. And she further condemns Western governments for their tolerance, for letting immigrants remain unassimilated. As a member of Parliament she does make some strides in getting the problems of Muslim women notices until her own life is threatened. Her analysis of international politics between the West and Islam is interesting--and makes me very afraid of Saudi Arabia. And she ends up refuting a lot of the American liberal ideas about why we are hated and why incidents like 9/11 happen.
Her style is matter-of-fact, sparse at times, and analytical. But in other instances her mother's abusive treatment, her father's duplicity, and her pain over being separated, disowned, forsaken by her family after leaving Africa are heart-wrenching. I had to put the book down before I continued reading the passage where Ali's and her sister's circumcisions (at ages 9 and 6) were detailed. Horrific.
But I was just as saddened in reading Ali's logical reasoning for becoming an atheist. The discrepancy she sees in the Qua ran calling Allah "holy" and the verses that subjugate women lead her to the conclusion that she must reject God altogether. She sees the ridiculousness of the sexual practices of Muslims and knows from experience that it didn't address her heart. She understands the failings of Islam and how it cannot be true. She just never sees that there is a true, loving God who does want relationship, not simply submission. That there is grace, not just works and a hope.
Mesmerizing book though.
Second, a way more light-hearted read, Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, the fourth Thursday Next. I can't possibly begin to summarize the plot, especially since this is the fourth in the series. But let me just say that Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, from the play comes into Swindon, England, 1988 and he is hilarious. He wants to find out if people in the real world think he really is a "ditherer." He's also a bit depressed since he lost the Most Troubled Romantic Lead award to Heathcliff for the 80th time and "he would worry about not having anything to worry about if he didn't have anything to worry about" so the BookWorld Council lets him have a look for himself.
But here is one of my favorite parts. Here is Hamlet finding out that people portray him in plays:
"..I've heard that some people in the Outland think I am a dithering twit unable to make up his mind rather than a dynamic leader of men, and these 'play' things you describe will prove it to me one way or the other."
I [Thursday] tried to think of the movie in which he prevaricates the least. "We could get the Zeffirelli version out on video for you to look at."
"Who plays me?"
"Mel Gibson."
Hamlet stared at me, mouth open. "But that's incredible!" he said ecstatically. "I'm Mel's biggest fan!" He thought for a moment. "So...Horatio must be played by Danny Glover, yes?"
"No, no. Listen: the Lethal Weapon series is nothing like Hamlet."
"Well," replied the Prince reflectively, "in that I think you might be mistaken. The Martin Riggs character begins with self-doubt and contemplates suicide over the loss of a loved one but eventually turns into a decisive man of action and kills all the bad guys. Same as the Road Warrior series, really. Is Ophelia played by Patsy Kensit?"
"No," I replied, trying to be patient, "Helena Bonham Carter."
He perked up when he heard this. "This gets better and better! When I tell Ophelia, she'll flip--if he hasn't already."
I laughed out loud, interrupting D's concentration as he tried to avoid a wreck. The better portion of the book is like this--English-teacher inside jokes.
Up next is Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and book club meets Friday so we'll have a new selection as well. Plus, I'm now on Shelfari.com so you can see my book shelf--my favs, my current reads, and what I hope to read next. Become my "friend" and we'll trade recommendations.
Happy Reading!
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Shack
....not the newly acquired Phoenix Suns player.
No, this is a novel, another "Christian fiction" novel, of dubious literary quality. I can't believe we picked two in a row. What is becoming of our book club? Where are the ideals and standards we once held ourselves to?
Maybe this is the margarita talking...I ate fajitas tonight and D's at class.
To back up a bit, at the women's retreat last month, we had a book table of recommended reads from our speaker. The Shack was one of those books. It was touted by the speaker, quoting Eugene Peterson's compliment, that this had the potential to be our generation's Pilgrim's Progress. That's pretty high praise and though Bunyan's prose is not really my cup of tea, the concepts and imagery of that book has had lasting impact on both the Christian and literary landscapes.
This will not have the same effect, I predict.
The Shack centers around Mack Phillips, a middle-aged father in the midst of a four-year Great Sadness after the abduction and brutal murder of his youngest daughter. The italics are not mine; they set off The Great Sadness each time in the novel. (I tend not to like those kind of call-attention-to-me devices that are artifically trying to make up for lameness. Maybe it's the years of reading high schoolers essays. In blogs it's okay.) One winter day, Mack finds a mysterious note in his mailbox, calling him to return to the shack in the Oregon woods where his daughter, whose body was never recovered, is believed to have been murdered. It's simply signed, "Papa," the name Mack's wife uses to refer to God. Mack, who has major daddy issues, thinks this is either a horrible prank, a taunt by Missy's killer, or actually God himself and decides to head up to the shack, alone, for a face-to-face encounter.
Once you get to this point, the novel does pick up. And there are some great lines in the conversations between God (turns out He did send the note) and Mack as Mack struggles to regain his trust in God despite the existence of tragedy, pain, and evil in this world. Mack sees God interacting in relationship through the three personifications of the Trinity which blows his idea of relationship out of the water. (He gets to walk on water with Jesus too!) I especially appreciated the discussion of fear and imagination and how we label good and evil so arbitrarily to keep ourselves comfortable and protected. The contrast between expectancy vs. expectation and respond vs. responsibility reveal how sin has corrupted our relationships (I did have a bit of DC Talk "Luv is a Verb" running through my head in that chapter.)
There's a swelling of interest in this book from blogs, websites, podcasts, and rumors of a movie in the works. I know of someone leading their small group through the book, chapter by chapter. I could see a Bible class discussing some of the conversations and arguments that Mack has with God.
I'm hosting book club this time and I'm sure we'll enjoy discussing this one; we almost always do. And I think I'll make scones this time.
No, this is a novel, another "Christian fiction" novel, of dubious literary quality. I can't believe we picked two in a row. What is becoming of our book club? Where are the ideals and standards we once held ourselves to?
Maybe this is the margarita talking...I ate fajitas tonight and D's at class.
To back up a bit, at the women's retreat last month, we had a book table of recommended reads from our speaker. The Shack was one of those books. It was touted by the speaker, quoting Eugene Peterson's compliment, that this had the potential to be our generation's Pilgrim's Progress. That's pretty high praise and though Bunyan's prose is not really my cup of tea, the concepts and imagery of that book has had lasting impact on both the Christian and literary landscapes.
This will not have the same effect, I predict.
The Shack centers around Mack Phillips, a middle-aged father in the midst of a four-year Great Sadness after the abduction and brutal murder of his youngest daughter. The italics are not mine; they set off The Great Sadness each time in the novel. (I tend not to like those kind of call-attention-to-me devices that are artifically trying to make up for lameness. Maybe it's the years of reading high schoolers essays. In blogs it's okay.) One winter day, Mack finds a mysterious note in his mailbox, calling him to return to the shack in the Oregon woods where his daughter, whose body was never recovered, is believed to have been murdered. It's simply signed, "Papa," the name Mack's wife uses to refer to God. Mack, who has major daddy issues, thinks this is either a horrible prank, a taunt by Missy's killer, or actually God himself and decides to head up to the shack, alone, for a face-to-face encounter.
Once you get to this point, the novel does pick up. And there are some great lines in the conversations between God (turns out He did send the note) and Mack as Mack struggles to regain his trust in God despite the existence of tragedy, pain, and evil in this world. Mack sees God interacting in relationship through the three personifications of the Trinity which blows his idea of relationship out of the water. (He gets to walk on water with Jesus too!) I especially appreciated the discussion of fear and imagination and how we label good and evil so arbitrarily to keep ourselves comfortable and protected. The contrast between expectancy vs. expectation and respond vs. responsibility reveal how sin has corrupted our relationships (I did have a bit of DC Talk "Luv is a Verb" running through my head in that chapter.)
There's a swelling of interest in this book from blogs, websites, podcasts, and rumors of a movie in the works. I know of someone leading their small group through the book, chapter by chapter. I could see a Bible class discussing some of the conversations and arguments that Mack has with God.
I'm hosting book club this time and I'm sure we'll enjoy discussing this one; we almost always do. And I think I'll make scones this time.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A slight retraction
Can you retract something slightly?
If so, then I do temper my last post. I finished Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright last night and truly enjoyed it. The first paragraph was haunting and the story tragic, sad, and sweet. And nothing was tidy. The dialogue was even realistic, normal. There was even a couple of sex scenes! *gasp*
"In Beulah, Iowa, widow women all over town garden in the clothes of their deceased husbands. From a distance, they often look like small-framed men. They keep their husbands clothes because it's wasteful to throw away hats and shirts that still have wear in them. They wear the clothes in the memory of the men they have survived, even after the scent of them has been laundered away."
That's how Dwelling Places begins. The story of a farming family who has lost its identity and grip on the world once farming is no longer their vocation. Their ties to the land and each other slip away and each attempts to navigate the foreign world in their backyard. Mack has spent two weeks in a mental hospital after his wife finds loaded shotguns. His brother, Alex, drank himself to death. His wife, Jodie, contains her anger and seeks the smile of another man. Kenzie, their 14 year old daughter, prays and meditates on a picture of Jesus until she can see his eyes move. Young Taylor, named after his grandfather whose death was tragic and mysterious, dresses in black, wears makeup, and speaks as little as possible. And matriarch Rita does and does and does, trying to keep them all together.
I won't say too much more except to recommend it. It's not Brothers Karamozov or anything but a worthy, modern novel of a modern family trying to find their way and their faith.
If so, then I do temper my last post. I finished Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright last night and truly enjoyed it. The first paragraph was haunting and the story tragic, sad, and sweet. And nothing was tidy. The dialogue was even realistic, normal. There was even a couple of sex scenes! *gasp*
"In Beulah, Iowa, widow women all over town garden in the clothes of their deceased husbands. From a distance, they often look like small-framed men. They keep their husbands clothes because it's wasteful to throw away hats and shirts that still have wear in them. They wear the clothes in the memory of the men they have survived, even after the scent of them has been laundered away."
That's how Dwelling Places begins. The story of a farming family who has lost its identity and grip on the world once farming is no longer their vocation. Their ties to the land and each other slip away and each attempts to navigate the foreign world in their backyard. Mack has spent two weeks in a mental hospital after his wife finds loaded shotguns. His brother, Alex, drank himself to death. His wife, Jodie, contains her anger and seeks the smile of another man. Kenzie, their 14 year old daughter, prays and meditates on a picture of Jesus until she can see his eyes move. Young Taylor, named after his grandfather whose death was tragic and mysterious, dresses in black, wears makeup, and speaks as little as possible. And matriarch Rita does and does and does, trying to keep them all together.
I won't say too much more except to recommend it. It's not Brothers Karamozov or anything but a worthy, modern novel of a modern family trying to find their way and their faith.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Velma Still Cooks
A few months ago, our book club heard Lauren Winner speak at RTS on her book, Real Sex. She mentioned how ashamed she was that she had not included anything about sexual violence in the book and would redress that omission if there was ever a future edition. She cited Velma Still Cooks in Leeway by Vinita Hampton Wright, a Christian ficiton novel with a storyline of rape and abuse within the church. She called Wright one of "our" best Christian novelists. I was curious enough so I suggested we read it for the next book club meeting.
Now, generally speaking I do not read Christian fiction (at least not anymore)and I'm kinda proud of the fact that our book club of intelligent, insightful Christian women has not read any Christian fiction until this novel. I glance through the flyers from the Christian bookstore and I'm generally disgusted by the plot summaries. Yes, I did read just about every Janette Oke book as a kid (my mom worked at the church office for my middle school years so I read just about everything appropriate and interesting in the church library). I read the Mitford novels the summer I was pregnant with Rebekah, partly because I was bored and partly because Lauren Winner mentioned them in Girl Meets God. I did not really like them. And I'm beginning to wonder about Winner's taste in fiction.
Velma Still Cooks in Leeway does concern, in part, the rape of Shelleye by a high school friend during a date. The boy and his well-respected family are members of her church as well. Little is done about the rape by the church's pastor or board of elders and the girl, now pregnant, initially leaves the church. But the thrust of the novel really is about Velma and her relationship to the town she cooks for at her diner. There are several (too many, I think) additional storylines that Velma comments on since she seems to be connected to everyone through either her restaurant or her janitorial work at Jerusalem Baptist Church, both occupations condusive to eavesdropping or at least knowing all the news of the town. Maybe the discrepancy between what I thought the novel would be about and what it actually was contributed to my disappointment. I commend Wright for tackling a tough subject but I wish more of the novel would have focused on the Shelley and the boy who raped her. There is a much tighter and better-written novel within the one I read.
Reading Velma has highlighted my general disgust for things with the adjective "Christian" in front of it. I thought the same things while watching Facing the Giants. Apart from poor cinematography and editing and acting (I know they didn't have a Hollywood budget) the script was blah! (I can't think of the word I want that is not too mean.) Why does "Christian" fiction have to be so trite, so poorly written, so cheesy? And what does a writer (of fiction), who is a Christian, write about so that his or her work does not come out so cheesy? Is anyone producing contemporary fiction that is good? The Christian life is anything but trite and cheesy; why does it come out like that? Or is it just me?
Now, generally speaking I do not read Christian fiction (at least not anymore)and I'm kinda proud of the fact that our book club of intelligent, insightful Christian women has not read any Christian fiction until this novel. I glance through the flyers from the Christian bookstore and I'm generally disgusted by the plot summaries. Yes, I did read just about every Janette Oke book as a kid (my mom worked at the church office for my middle school years so I read just about everything appropriate and interesting in the church library). I read the Mitford novels the summer I was pregnant with Rebekah, partly because I was bored and partly because Lauren Winner mentioned them in Girl Meets God. I did not really like them. And I'm beginning to wonder about Winner's taste in fiction.
Velma Still Cooks in Leeway does concern, in part, the rape of Shelleye by a high school friend during a date. The boy and his well-respected family are members of her church as well. Little is done about the rape by the church's pastor or board of elders and the girl, now pregnant, initially leaves the church. But the thrust of the novel really is about Velma and her relationship to the town she cooks for at her diner. There are several (too many, I think) additional storylines that Velma comments on since she seems to be connected to everyone through either her restaurant or her janitorial work at Jerusalem Baptist Church, both occupations condusive to eavesdropping or at least knowing all the news of the town. Maybe the discrepancy between what I thought the novel would be about and what it actually was contributed to my disappointment. I commend Wright for tackling a tough subject but I wish more of the novel would have focused on the Shelley and the boy who raped her. There is a much tighter and better-written novel within the one I read.
Reading Velma has highlighted my general disgust for things with the adjective "Christian" in front of it. I thought the same things while watching Facing the Giants. Apart from poor cinematography and editing and acting (I know they didn't have a Hollywood budget) the script was blah! (I can't think of the word I want that is not too mean.) Why does "Christian" fiction have to be so trite, so poorly written, so cheesy? And what does a writer (of fiction), who is a Christian, write about so that his or her work does not come out so cheesy? Is anyone producing contemporary fiction that is good? The Christian life is anything but trite and cheesy; why does it come out like that? Or is it just me?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Maybe we've been listening to NPR too much....
This afternoon, as R gets dressed up in some mismatched clothes as a costume of some kind:
"Mom, I'm getting ready to go to the neutral party."
Actually, it's from Click, Clack, Moo, where Duck, the neutral party in the conflict between Farmer Brown and the striking cows and hens, delivers the ultimatum that there will not be any electric blankets. Also great is the follow-up, Giggle, Giggle, Quack.
"Mom, I'm getting ready to go to the neutral party."
Actually, it's from Click, Clack, Moo, where Duck, the neutral party in the conflict between Farmer Brown and the striking cows and hens, delivers the ultimatum that there will not be any electric blankets. Also great is the follow-up, Giggle, Giggle, Quack.
For real?
I leave tomorrow afternoon for a weekend women's ministry retreat in Sarasota. I haven't been on one of these since college. That time I went with the ladies from my home church--the ones I used to babysit for and who taught my Sunday School classes. The speaker then was Nancy Groom, the theme, "This is My Story." She has a remarkable story of sin and grace, depression, redemption, hopelessness and faithfulness. Her books are incredible too, if you can find them.
This weekend will be different, I'm sure. For one, the location is fabulous; Lido Key in Sarasota, on the beach. I'll be there with women who are more my peers, though I'm pretty sure I'll still be about the youngest one there. Of course, this time my thoughts may be divided between there and home. I've never left B overnight and I've never left R for two nights and I've never left them with D. (I've stocked up on chicken nuggets, peanut butter, and milk and made sure every bit of clothing in the house is clean.)
The speaker this time is Linda Werner, who I mentioned a few posts back. The theme, from best I can tell, is about understanding your purpose. I think this is a big theme for Linda in her ministry. I struggle off and on with this. I don't doubt my role as wife and mother and I've relinquished the career ambitions for the most part. Occasionally I do long for a more academic or intellectually challenging task--though coming up with workable definitions for some of the words R asks is keeping me on my toes. Sometimes I'm able to dismiss those feelings, sometimes I can channel it into something else (blogging helps a bit and I've even made power point slides for an invisible classroom). I also struggle with self-confidence or self-assuredness. Now for my family and husband who have seen my hubris, my resoluteness, and my insistence on my opinion, that's sorta funny to say. But as much as I can be prideful and confident--or at least look the part--I truly doubt my abilities in many things. My years of teaching wrecked havoc on me as I felt like a failure most days. I still honestly don't know what I'm good at and how to use it. I usually don't believe people when they compliment me; I have a hundred reasons why they're wrong in their perception. And I flee failure by not attempting anything that I may not be successful at. I don't think I'm going to figure it out this weekend, by any means, but I'm hoping God may speak to some of this.
I do have some plans in the works for '08 so I'm glad this retreat comes so early in the year. I think it will be a great kick-off for the year. I'm not a resolution person though so we'll see how it goes. Also, I tend to get, well, a bit cynical about how girly women's retreats can get. I'll try to keep it in check.
So pray for me this weekend--and the rest of the ladies--as we have some time away and out of our normalcy for rest, retreat, and reflection. I pray that this will be a remarkable weekend in whatever way God wants to use it.
P.S. And pray for the man of the house. R already said this morning that they'll go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and dinner.
This weekend will be different, I'm sure. For one, the location is fabulous; Lido Key in Sarasota, on the beach. I'll be there with women who are more my peers, though I'm pretty sure I'll still be about the youngest one there. Of course, this time my thoughts may be divided between there and home. I've never left B overnight and I've never left R for two nights and I've never left them with D. (I've stocked up on chicken nuggets, peanut butter, and milk and made sure every bit of clothing in the house is clean.)
The speaker this time is Linda Werner, who I mentioned a few posts back. The theme, from best I can tell, is about understanding your purpose. I think this is a big theme for Linda in her ministry. I struggle off and on with this. I don't doubt my role as wife and mother and I've relinquished the career ambitions for the most part. Occasionally I do long for a more academic or intellectually challenging task--though coming up with workable definitions for some of the words R asks is keeping me on my toes. Sometimes I'm able to dismiss those feelings, sometimes I can channel it into something else (blogging helps a bit and I've even made power point slides for an invisible classroom). I also struggle with self-confidence or self-assuredness. Now for my family and husband who have seen my hubris, my resoluteness, and my insistence on my opinion, that's sorta funny to say. But as much as I can be prideful and confident--or at least look the part--I truly doubt my abilities in many things. My years of teaching wrecked havoc on me as I felt like a failure most days. I still honestly don't know what I'm good at and how to use it. I usually don't believe people when they compliment me; I have a hundred reasons why they're wrong in their perception. And I flee failure by not attempting anything that I may not be successful at. I don't think I'm going to figure it out this weekend, by any means, but I'm hoping God may speak to some of this.
I do have some plans in the works for '08 so I'm glad this retreat comes so early in the year. I think it will be a great kick-off for the year. I'm not a resolution person though so we'll see how it goes. Also, I tend to get, well, a bit cynical about how girly women's retreats can get. I'll try to keep it in check.
So pray for me this weekend--and the rest of the ladies--as we have some time away and out of our normalcy for rest, retreat, and reflection. I pray that this will be a remarkable weekend in whatever way God wants to use it.
P.S. And pray for the man of the house. R already said this morning that they'll go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and dinner.
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