Odds and Ends, Vol. 9

I've got another great line up of articles for you, and it has been so nice to hear from several readers that you are enjoying these links!

Sarai at Colleterie has been collecting links on simple life and finding contentment in the everyday, and I found this article on the medium chill to be a useful perspective, particularly as I'm a satisficier in some areas of my life, but a perfectionist in others.  Equally intriguing is this short piece from The Nife En L'Air that pokes holes in our ideas of simple living (hint: it's not an aesthetic, and it's not necessarily something you can easily Pinterest).

Mat. Anna posted a short story a while back, and I found it such a useful way to think about saying the Jesus Prayer.

Amazing color photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia.  The color makes them seem contemporary and close enough to touch.

Via

Rod Dreher ponders the collapse of the American family in the last 40 years.  What is especially interesting is reader Anastasia's comments included at the end of the piece.  Indeed.

Ivan Plis writes about the dangers of seeking Christ through the internet instead of by living the life of the Church and the liturgical cycle.  I've encountered this phenomona many times over the years, and it is still worth repeating: The best way to learn about the Orthodox Church is to live it; go to the services, participate in the cycle of fasting and feasting, pray the prayers, read the Fathers (not online!), go to monasteries.  This is the way of discipleship.

Also in First Things, John P. Burgess writes about the modern Russian Orthodox Church, and the complex legacy of the Soviet period and how that is being worked through today.  From the article: 

"But the story of the Church’s rebirth is more complicated than Western analyses suggest....The biggest impediment to success is Russians’ low rate of active participation. Although as many as 70 to 80 percent call themselves Orthodox and have been baptized, only 2 to 4 percent regularly attend the liturgy. Even fewer keep the Church’s fasts. Still, sociological surveys have established that Russia is one of the few places in the developed world where people report that religion is becoming more important to them, not less. I am constantly surprised by Russians like my friend Tanya. A well-educated and professionally successful Moscow resident, she questions the existence of God, never attends church services, and doesn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer, yet makes pilgrimages to remote Orthodox monasteries, where she says she experiences a holy world that fills her with utter joy and peace. For her, a low rate of everyday participation clearly does not contradict a high degree of affective affiliation. The Church believes that the explanation is both simple and powerful: Orthodoxy helps Russians understand who they are as a people and what makes Russia unique among the world’s nations."

Via

An Atlas of True Names: this is quite interesting, as it identifies place names by geography and history, rather than a random name.  For instance, Ohio is called the Land of the Large Creek, and Pittsburgh The Pit-Dweller's Town.  I'm geeking out over here.

Kelly Flannagan talks about how our cultural American Protestant work ethic might lead us to teach the wrong lessons about what is important to our children.  I think he gets at something important, which is, yes, you can accomplish many things through hard work alone, but there is a cost to doing hard work at the expense of everything else in your life.

I found these paintings of the sea by Samantha Keely Smith oddly mesmerizing.

Samantha Keely Smith

The Farmer's Wife offers a useful corrective to us mothers who feel pressure to do it all, be it all.  In short? Prioritize your children's hearts, be very selective about what you read about parenting on the web and in books, don't be your children's primary entertainer, and define your own fun.  All good rules to live by, and most of her guidelines are things we are trying to do at our house as well.

Protopresbyter Vasile Tudore writes about how living in the information age can get in the way of our spiritual life.  From the article: 

"This avalanche of information about everything and anything has turned all of us into information junkies. We constantly check our phones waiting for the next piece of news or conversation to pop out. We live and breathe information. There is only one downside to this addiction, we start having less and less time. Paradoxically, when we can find anything quicker than ever, we end up having less time than ever. Work doesn’t get finished, conversations, unless virtual, are on the brink of extinction, human interactions are a bare because they take you away from the urge to know everything right now!"  I'm still working on balance with my computer use, and I find it a tricky line to walk, because I have a lot of social interaction online that I wouldn't get anywhere else, and I do a lot of our household shopping online, but I'm trying to be more mindful when I'm online, and ask myself, am I here to create, to work, to contribute?  Or am I here to numb, to tune out, to ignore my life?   If the latter, I try to turn off the computer and do something else.

Sometimes, I think Christy lives in my head.  I'll be thinking about writing something, and then she goes and says it better than I ever could!  A few weeks ago, she wrote a quick take (#2) about how searching for "easy" in every day life can be a pitfall.  It is something I've been thinking about a lot lately too--I think we do a disservice to the hardships of life by constantly praising and seeking out that which is easy.  There is much in life that is hard, and while I don't think we should seek out hardship for the sake of it, neither should we ignore difficulty, or pretend it doesn't exist, or that there isn't something spiritually useful to working through hard things, or learning how to master a skill that is difficult.  I think there is more to say on the topic, but I'll leave it there for now and perhaps revisit it soon.  

I seem to be stuck on images of the sea lately.  This photograph is amazing.

Jem Cresswell

I started out my history career in the medieval period, and so I'm always drawn to articles and stories from that time period.  I found this myth-busting article about the Crusades to be so illuminating, especially for our current relationship with the Muslim world.  Turns out, what goes around, comes around.  But then, we knew that, didn't we?

Via

Finally, Rod Dreher continues with an ongoing theme of storytelling with a brief post.  At some point, I need to parse this out, as it is a theme I think about a lot: who I am, how the stories I tell about myself are influenced by what others have told me, how my thoughts about who I am are shaped by those stories, etc.  I read a fascinating book a few years ago that raised a lot of these questions for me called What Alice Forgot.  Stories have a tremendous ability to define us, to narrate our lives, and the stories we tell and how we tell them are important.  

In a related note, we are entering the great big world of audiobooks for kids, and having listened to Danny Kaye's fabulous retelling of several lesser known fairy tales ad nauseum, we have discovered the wonderful storytelling of Jim Weiss.  We listened to his narration of King Arthur's Knights on our way to church yesterday, and after church, I went on Amazon to find more of his recordings because he is a wonderful storyteller!  We also ordered the first Adventures in Odyssey, as I remember those stories from my own childhood, and remember them being entertaining for adults too.  We have several car trips planned this summer, so we need good listening material--the kids are so quiet when there are stories on!!

And two more:

Gracy Olmstead writes about not idealizing pastoral over place, and in an excellent linked piece, also compares Thoreau and St. Benedict's approach to simple life.  Skip Waldon Pond and go for Benedict, I say.  There is so much I want to say about these two articles, but I'll save it.  Just read them!!