Just How Superficial Am I?

I got an e-mail this morning advertising some new book. A picture of the author sat beside the book cover. This author had really, really dated hair. Her hairstyle reached further back than my stone-washed skinny jeans with ankle zippers. You would need a timeline to find the date for that hairstyle.

Then I thought, What could this person possibly have to say that would interest me? And I deleted the e-mail. And then I thought about how vain and superficial that was. But seriously. Shouldn't someone somewhere have caught that photo before it went forth to the world in marketing material? I'm just sayin'.

Hope

"And again Isaiah says,
'The root of Jesse will come,
even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.'
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."

Romans 15:12&13

These Kids Crack Me Up

So we're doing subtraction flash cards this morning, and we come to one that Joshua doesn't know. "Mmmmm," he says thoughtfully. He closes his eyes. "Let me look back into my mind."

Take your time, young padawan. Take all the time you need.

Can you relate?

HT: Mary Bernard

213 Lipton Court. Worth the Time.

Wizards in Winter - 2009 from Alan Sielbeck on Vimeo.

Lipton Lights. Bring hot chocolate and a blanket. Pajamas preferable. Park and turn your radio station to 107.7. Enjoy.

HT: Keely Keith

The Ghost of Christmas Past

On Wednesday I stopped by Ann Taylor Loft to look for some skinny jeans. I found some I liked and brought them home. Yesterday morning I put them on, and it was no small mercy that I didn't remove the tags before stuffing myself into them like a pillow into a pillowcase. The full length mirror in your own closet doesn't lie. Earth to Jennifer. It's not 1987 anymore. Embrace it.

Christ's Incarnation as it Relates to Pagan Mythology

"I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion ... was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it. And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognizable, through all that depth of time, as Plato's Socrates or Boswell's Johnson ... yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. ... This is not 'a religion,' nor 'a philosophy.' It is the summing up and actuality of them all."

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 129