Monday Must-Reads (November 10)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

It's Monday and--after surviving a sleepover with 6 10-year-olds this weeken-- I sleepily present to you a few good reads I stumbled into this week:

On pregnancy and the secrecy we keep to deal with potential loss: I'm Pregnant. So Why Can't I Tell You?

A fresh look: School Prayer Doesn't Need a Comeback.

On what God is like: If You Can't Say it about Jesus, then Don't Say it about God.

As usual, a little edgy, but to the point: Jamie the Very Worst Missionary criticizes the use of the word "blessed" in her post #Blessed.

Parenting through our anger: Why Yelling Doesn't Help.

For laughs, if you're a Jane Austen fan: If the characters of Pride and Prejudice Could Text.

***Heather Weber is the author of Dear Boy,: An Epistolary Memoir.

"Dear Boy, is a brilliant and unusual memoir of distance and absence--the absence of a beloved brother from his sister's life and the absence of healthy mothering that, over the years, drove brother and sister apart. Weber deftly shifts point of view so that, piece by piece, readers gather the sum of confusion and loss. Yet there is so much love and forgiveness in the narrator that, in a way, each character is redeemed. I'm moved by this life, this telling of it." --Fleda Brown, author of Driving with Dvorak.

Monday Must-Reads and Watches (September 1)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Happy September to you readers! I've got a great list of reads this week, starting out with something reminiscent of a topic we'll be covering at our women's retreat this coming October (all ya locals are invited!)--it's What I Want You To Know About Being the Stepmom.

There's also a humorous account of a parent's "back-to-school" experience in 2014 vs. 1970, which dovetails nicely with Health, Home, & Happiness's post about helping children feel content without feeling deprived.

Kate Conner has a great meditation "On Ripening" and Sarah Bessey writes to her husband about their married love, which will go down in the family history books as the stuff of legend. 

Owlhaven is challenging us all to spend less and save on groceries this month, something I will have a hard time doing because of all the back-to-school extras we've been buying. 

On a more serious-but-funny-to-make-a-point is Jon Stewart on White Privilege.

Also, Matthew Paul Turner's Lingering Effects of Fundamentalism is for those still raw from harsh religious church cultures and, speaking of church culture, this is the latest on Seattle's Mars Hill church: the board of elders are asking for Mark Driscoll to resign and seek personal help. 

Until next time!