Long Weekend, Quick Post

I didn’t really have much time to craft a long, involved post this weekend. We spent all of Friday “in town” (and when you live in a rural area, that’s a big deal); on Saturday we helped Emily and Forrest move into their new apartment (which is ADORABLE), and on Sunday Anna and I went to church before coming home for much-needed haircuts. It was all good stuff; I just wasn’t home long enough to do any serious writing, blogging or otherwise.

But never fear: I’ve got some fun content for you!

First and foremost, about that haircut…

Dun-dun. I call it my “Clara Oswald, Series 9” Hairdo. Gah, I needed this haircut so badly. It’s so light and low-maintenance! My hair is neither pencil-straight like Anna’s, nor super-curly like Emily’s. It just…does its own thing. But I really love it when it’s shorter like this.

Speaking of my Fictional BFF, I’ve finally made my way back around to Clara’s episodes in Doctor Who! Ever since I got Series 1-10 for Christmas, I’ve been watching them straight through, starting with the very first episode with the Ninth Doctor. Now I’m back to Series 7, which is the season I originally started watching simply for Jenna Coleman’s sake back in 2017. I’ll write a post (maybe more than one?) about this experience soon, but for now I’ll just say that I’ve had several surprises regarding how I’ve felt about certain characters, and that my mom is now watching it with me! She’s amazing, guys. She jumped right into River Song’s convoluted storyline and barely batted an eyelash. Now that is True Awesome Factor.

But don’t worry, life is not all about Doctor Who: I’ve been faithful to my New Years’ Resolution to read more. My goal is to read 25 books in 2019. So far, I’ve finished three: Till We Have Faces* by C.S. Lewis, Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life*by Sarah Clarkson, and The Crown: The Official Companion* by Robert Lacey. I’m currently reading The Maiden’s Bequest*by George MacDonald, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business* by Neil Postman, and Orthodoxy* by G.K. Chesterton.

If you’d like to read my reviews of the books I’ve completed so far, you can view them here on my Goodreads account:

Till We Have Faces

Book Girl

The Crown: The Official Companion

And if you’d like to be my friend on Goodreads, feel free to send me a request! I’m really loving this website–especially the “Want to Read” feature.

And speaking of reading…thanks to my mom, who shared it with me, I have an article I’d love to share with you! It’s from The Rabbit Room–a blog which “fosters Christ-centered community and spiritual formation through music, story, and art”–and it’s called “Born to Fly: Mary Poppins, Bruce Springsteen, and the Spell of Immortality.”

The article is a bit long, but trust me, it’s worth it. And yes, Bruce Springsteen and Mary Poppins do seem like a very strange combination, but trust me again: it’s worth it, and it all makes sense in the end! I read this article on Sunday morning before church with a hugesmile on my face–and not just because the author, Jennifer Trafton, mentions several of my favorite characters. She also touched on something I’ve been pondering for the past several months: the power of storytelling, and the yearning that the very best stories (and characters) inspire in us.

Wonder is easy to recapture, I think. And forget again, and recapture, and forget. The problem is not our capacity for wonder, per se, but our capacity, period. We run out of space. We are giant Alices in a shrinking rabbit house. We are Luke and Han and Leia struggling to wedge a saving grace into the rapidly closing walls of our lives, our hearts. We are characters in a Springsteen ballad wishing we could just throw a suitcase in the trunk, get out of this smothered town, and drive somewhere, anywhere, to the promised land…

Freedom [however] can be remembered but not seized, or created, or even chosen; it is something granted to us. Someone else has to loosen the chains and throw open the door. A nanny. A time lord. A superhero. A droid. An angel. A Messiah. [emphasis mine]

Please treat yourself to this beautiful article…and ponder the quiet yet earth-shattering power of a good story that taps into those “primal human longings” for a Savior!

See y’all again next week 🙂