Weekend Top 10: Lent Is Coming edition
A curated list of what I've been up to lately: places, people, books, podcasts, music, links & more for your weekend downtime with thanks to the creators and cultivators filling the internet with truth, goodness, and beauty.
First, a photo from this week!
A Valentine’s breakfast with some of our dearest and best! My Mom came all the way to Connecticut to make us cinnamon rolls.
Here’s what I published this week!
On Patreon:
I heard from many of you throughout the series that you'd like to share what you've been discovering for your own Rule of Life and would like some feedback. Here's what I've brainstormed to help you with your own unique journey of cultivating a well-ordered way for whatever season of life you're living! If you haven’t yet joined our Patreon community, the good news is that these talks and handouts will be available going forward to anyone who subscribes as a Daybook patron (that’s the $5 a month level).
Looking ahead
Lent Daybook 2020
Helping you look, listen, read, pray, and do simple spiritual practices for Lent.
Now for more online truth, goodness, and beauty I’ve enjoyed this week…
My Top 10
(Click through each heading to see the Pinterest boards I’ve curated.)
1. Creators & Cultivators
Have you met Grandpa Chan & Grandma Marina from Drawings For My Grandchildren? You really must. They are 77 years-old Korean grandparents. Grandma writes and grandpa draws the stories of their lives for their four grandchildren. While the drawings are amazing (e.g., check out this sweet story Grandma wrote of her favorite memories of Kobe Bryant), but I feel like this recent Instagram post captures their essential delightful selves. Make sure you follow them on Instagram!
Speaking of famous Insta-Grandparents, have you met Geoffrey and Pauline yet?
2. In Season (Lent & Holy Week)
We’re only a few days away from the beginning of Lent. This Wednesday, February 26, is Ash Wednesday and I’ve been working behind the scenes at my Patreon page to prepare a daily devotional for the 40+ days of Lent. I’d love for you to join us!
Here’s a few posts I’ve written on this blog over the years to help us prepare.
3. Justice, Reconciliation, and Social Critique
January 27 was the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I keep re-watching this beautiful video made for Remembrance Day in 2018. Thanks to Paul at Global Christian Worship blog for consistently sharing beautiful gems from around the world.
4. People & Place (Beautiful Places & Spaces board)
Speaking of global Christian worship, have you heard about this? A stunning example of conserving the beauty of the earth: Church forests in Ethiopia: An ancient example of creation care via The Pollinator
Source: What Makes a Church? A Tiny, Leafy Forest via NYT
5. Reading & Writing
Speaking of Christian responses to the environment, man I loved reading Amy Peterson’s review essay from the latest issue of Image Journal: Making Literature in the Anthropocene
“WHO SPEAKS, AND WHO LISTENS, in our literature? This question began to consume my thoughts last summer while at a writing workshop in the upper Midwest. Every morning, I’d sit on the shores of Stumpf Lake and listen to loons call over the water; and most mornings, I’d also spray myself with deet and walk in the woods, where deer, motionless, made eye contact with me and watched me pass, and horseflies tried to nest in my hair. That week I was reading the collected writings of British environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth. He argued that it was too late to save the planet; changing the way we tell stories about the world, he said, might be the only effective strategy left. ”
6. Spiritual Direction & Disciplines
I was delighted to listen to this podcast interview having just recommending Justin Whitmel Earley’s Common Rule for our Cultivating A Rule of Life series on Patreon: #37 Justin Whitmel Earley on Overwhelm + Your Life Architecture via The Finding Holy podcast
“You are free when you are free to do what you’re made to do. Pick the master whose yoke is light.”
7. Watching & Listening
I’m delighted that this sweet short film won an Oscar! Have you seen it yet?
Here’s a thoughtful reflection from Michelle Reyes via Think Christian: Hair Love and Church Love
“Hair Love, which won Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Oscars, is a sweet and charming story about a Black father learning to do his daughter’s hair for the first time. It highlights the special role that mundane moments like combing hair can play between parents and daughters. More than that, the short means to elevate Black beauty and, as writer and co-director Matthew A. Cherry said in his acceptance speech, “normalize black hair.” Representation matters deeply, and this is true not just in cinema, but in the Church as well.”
8. Wholeness & Healing
The Perennial Gen blog’s been publishing reflections on chronic illness and suffering throughout February. Writers have thoughtfully fleshed out the theme (pun intended!) with reflections that range from living with chronic illness to the ways eating together embodies reconciliation. Last week I had the privilege to give a talk on how God’s love reconciles us with our own bodies and was especially thankful for the timing of Liuan Chen Huska’s post, Six Ways To Come Home To Your Body. Huska’s book, Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness, releases in November with InterVarsity Press.
Here’s a bit from the blog post I shared in my talk…
“‘In this life we do not have the option for ad extra vocation, the living out of God’s calling beyond the body,’ writes theologian Joyce Mercer. ‘Christians have not always been comfortable with the idea that God’s call for us to receive others in relationship takes place in and through our bodies. Bodies matter in God’s call and in our responses,’ she continues. If Mercer is right, and God’s call to us takes place in and through our bodies, not outside of our bodies, how can we be present in our suffering bodies? How can we receive God’s call here in these bodies that no longer perform as they used to, that often fail and betray us? How can we come home to our bodies, so we can know God, even here?”
9. Work & Callings
I mentioned above Ashley Hale’s excellent podcast Finding Holy. Here’s another interview I listened to recently and found fascinating and instructive: Kate Bowler on The Preacher’s Wife
Note: You don’t have to be a preacher’s wife to find Bowler’s research and reflection instructive and fascinating.
10. Worship & Liturgy
My friends David and Phaedra Taylor have combined their individual genius into a beautiful collaboration for the release of Open and Unafraid: The Psalms As A Guide To Life.
You can pre-order David’s book prior to the March 10 release date wherever books are sold, and you can purchase the companion Prayer Cards that David wrote and Phaedra illustrated through The Rabbit Room. Put this at the top of your list this weekend. You’ll be so glad you did.
