The Dominion Family celebrates advent.
Cindy has some ideas for families with little children and families with older children. I like the idea of listening to and discussing a portion of Handel’s Messiah each day.
Engineer Husband wants me to come up with something to read or listen to (daily?) that will lead our urchins, especially the younger ones. into Christmas. I’m not sure what to pull out or suggest at this late date. Any suggestions?
Lars Walker tells a parable of “God with us” at Brandywine Books.
I’m collecting advent/Christmas stories, true stories, fiction, even poetry —whatever I find inspirational or memorable that my favorite bloggers share this Christmas. I may put all the links together in a carnival-type post on Chirstmas. But for now I’m sharing one a day as I find them.
Do you have Christmas stories to share? Write them down for yourself and for your family. Do it now. Next year may be too late. And maybe there’s someone, maybe me, who needs to hear what only you have to tell.
What do you do to celebrate advent? We have an advent “calendar” of sorts, a wooden Christmas tree that my father made with an ornament to hang on the tree for each day from December 1st to December 25th. We look forward to decorating our advent tree each December, and the children take turns putting an ornament on it each day.
Some families have a nativity set and move the three kings closer to the nativity each day of advent. Others use advent candles in an advent wreath to remember the season of waiting for the advent of our Lord. What about you? Tell us your story; leave a link or a comment, and don’t forget to visit Violet’s Advent Calendar each day to see her surprises. My curiosity is piqued; how about yours?
Joe McKeever says everyone has a story and then he tells one entitled The Brown Bag Christmas.
Today begins the waiting for Christmas, for the coming of the incarnate Lord. I’m going to try, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, to post something inspirational for each day of Advent.
Do you have a story? That’s what blogs were made for. In this season, tell your story of how the Lord Jesus Christ has made himself known to you. Or if you haven’t experienced the miracle of Christmas, read about some other people who have, and maybe your faith will come alive through their stories.
Last year during the month of December I set up a Salvation Army Red Kettle in my sidebar through which readers could make secure online donations to the Salvation Army. This year I’m doing the same –two days early.
If you’ve enjoyed reading the posts here at Semicolon this year, please consider a small donation (or a large one) to the Salvation Army. You can donate online by clicking on the red kettle in the sidebar.
Also, all profits from sales of my book, Picture Book Preschool, during the month of December will go to the Salvation Army. So if you’re interested in purchasing a copy for yourself or for a gift, now would be a good time to buy.
Click here for more information on the preschool curriculum book, Picture Book Preschool .
For the past several months during our morning family devotional time, we’ve been going around the circle and each naming one thing that we’re thankful for that morning. The answers tend to be predictable and not terribly thoughtful or creative; we’re not all awake in the morning, and believe it or not, my children can be flippant at times. So they say: “sleep” or “my family” or “my house” or “my bed” or “Z-baby.” (I told you we were still sleepy.)
One of the urchins has lodged a protest; he thinks that the morning exercise in gratitude is forced and not really conducive to true thankfulness. He further says that we should save the naming of things that we appreciate for once a year, Thanksgiving Day. Somehow, naming the things we are thankful for daily devalues the sense of gratitude, according to Mr. Thankful-But-Not-Wanting-To-Say-So-Daily.
I disagree. Even if the things we name are trivial, and even if the gratitude we feel each morning is not always profound, just thinking about thankfulness each morning is an exercise that can, with time and persistence, produce a heart of gratitude. Like many, many other things in parenting and discipling my children, I can only compel the outward display of Christian virtue. The Holy Spirit must supply the inward change. So, I can require the children, or myself, to memorize Bible verses; I cannot change their hearts, or even my own, to make us want to obey the precepts in those verses. Does this mean the memorization is useless? No, it means that it is only a beginning, a turning toward that which is right and good; God can use the words of Scripture to change my attitudes and my behaviour.
Other examples:
I can require them to do math; I can’t make them love math or see its beauty as a reflection of the order that God has built into the universe.
I can compel outward obedience; I can’t compel an attitude of unselfish service.
I can make myself exercise; I can’t make myself enjoy the process.
I can make myself read the Bible; I can’t force myself to receive any benefit or blessing from doing so.
Disciplines, of gratitude or physical exercise or obedience or math, may lead to dull, spiritless habit, a glazing over of the spirit as the eyes lose their spark when we are bored or the same disciplines may lead to joy —joy in math or joy in physical activity or joy in thankfulness. Much depends on our attitudes and expectations about discipline itself, and much more depends upon the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer.
For all the blessings we have received and for all that we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.
In the meantime, we’ll keep on practicing.
Hold your taters! (books)
Backyard Ballistics: Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars, and More Dynamite Devices by William Gurstelle. You can read here about how Engineer Husband and Karate Kid planned to build a potato cannon. I will finish the story by reporting that the potato cannon was a huge success, the potatoes hit the fence with a satisfying thud, and no animals were injured or mistreated in the production or execution of this project.
In Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner, Willy must harvest the potato crop by himself when Grandpa becomes ill. Here’s a teaching activity to accompany the reading of this book. (The book continues as Willy enters a dog sled race to raise money to pay the taxes and to save Grandpa’s farm.)
More Potatoes! by Millicent Selsam is an older, out of print, beginning reader about how potatoes get from the field to the table. It’s told as a story, and it’s a good introduction to food production in general for younger children.
Potatoes, Potatoes by Anita Lobel. Potatoes, love and war all in a picture book.
Blue Potatoes, Orange Tomatoes by Rosalind Creasy. This picture book actually tells how to grow blue potatoes —and other vegetables in rainbow colors.
The Amazing Potato: A Story in Which the Incas, Conquistadors, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Wars, Famines, Immigrants, and French Fries All Play a Part by Milton Meltzer. Also out of print, but worth tracking down in the library or used bookstore, this book tells the history of the potato for upper elementary age children. I like the long title, don’t you?
Hot potato (quotations):
“What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.” —A. A. Milne
“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.” —Louisa May Alcott
“Let the sky rain potatoes.” —Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
“Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.” —Charles Dickens
Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.
“Well, are they all right?” said the soldier with a smile. “You should do like this.”
He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the rag, and handed it to Pierre.
“The potatoes are grand!” he said once more. “Eat some like that!”
Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better. —Tolstoy War and Peace
“Po-ta-toes,” said Sam. “The Gaffer’s delight, and a rare good ballast for an empty belly.” —JRR Tolkien
Couch potato (links)
History of the Potato
Potato links for students and educators.
Mashed potatoes (news)
“In Libya, there are no independent broadcast or print media, an anachronism even by Middle East standards.”
“Equatorial Guinea has one private broadcaster; its owner is the president’s son . . . The U.S. State Department reported in 2005 that foreign celebrity and sports publications were available for sale but no newspapers, and that there were no bookstores or newsstands.”
“In Burma, citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public.”
—From Committee to Protect Journalists List of 10 Most Censored Countries.
Banned in Iran
Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody
Banned in Cuba:
Diary of the Cuban Revolution by Carlos Franqui
A Way of Hope by Lech Walesa
Sakharov Speaks by Andrei Sakharov
El Pasado de una Iilusion by Francois Furet
Living in Truth by Vaclav Havel
The Country of 13 Million Hostages by C.A. Montaner
The Magic Lantern by Tomothy Garton Ash
The Art of the Impossible by Vaclav Havel
Toward a Civil Society by Vaclav Havel
Cuba’s Repressive Machinery by Human Rights Watch
L’ile du Docteur Castro by Corinne Cumerlato and Denis Rouseau
1984 by George Orwell
Letter to the Soviet Leaders by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Castro’s Daughter by Alina Fernandez
Persona non Grata by Jorge Edwards
Banned in Malaysia:
Mona Johulan, The Bargaining for Israel: In the Shadow of Armageddon (Bridge-Logos Publishers,
United States)
Mathew S Gordon, Islam (Oxford University Press)
Trudie Crawford, Lifting the Veil (Apple of Gold, United States)
Bobby S Sayyid, A Fundamental Fear of Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Zed Books
Ltd, United Kingdom)
Dr Anis A Shorrosh, Islam Revealed – A Christian Arab’s View of Islam (Thomas Nelson Publishers,
USA)
John L Esposito, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam (Oxford University Press)
Christine Mallouhi, Mini Skirts Mothers & Muslims (Monarch Books)
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Harper
Collins, UK)
I realize that many of my readers are not going to like my take on Banned Books Week. I do not believe that there are any “banned books” in the United States of America in 2006.
The American Library Association website for Banned Books Week does not list one single book that has been banned by any government entity in the United States of America in 2006. Some books are challenged every year, usually by parents who are concerned that a particular piece of literature is not appropriate for the children or young people to whom it is being taught or made available in the library. Some of these challenges are ridiculous; others have some merit. Saying that a book is not appropriate for a particular age group or even actually removing a book from an elementary school library is not the same as “banning” that book. ALA defines “challenged” as an attempt to ban.
If I say publicly that it is not appropriate to teach Hamlet or Lolita to fourth graders or not appropriate to have those works in an elementary school library, am I attempting to “ban books” or am I suggesting that the selection criteria of the librarians and teachers are poorly suited to the children they are serving? (Actually, I think Hamlet would be fine for kids although some portions of the plot and thematic material would be over the heads of most fourth graders. I’m just picking somewhat random examples.) I attended library school and heard librarians say, with a straight face, that when they chose to not purchase Nancy Drew books or comic books, the process was called “selection,” but when parents or citizens tried to voice their opinions about what should or should not be purchased by the libraries that they support with their taxes, it was “censorship.” Librarians were an elite group of educated professionals who knew how to “select ” library materials; others were yokels who were out to keep information out of the hands of the people, book-banners.
“Censorship occurs when expressive materials, like books, magazines, films and videos, or works of art, are removed or kept from public access.” The truth is, if you use the ALA definition of censorship, librarians “ban” books every day because they cannot purchase every book that is published. They keep those books they cannot or will not purchase from public access. The only difference is that the librarians are assumed to have good motives, to provide as many materials as possible to the lbrary’s patrons, and the public citizens are assumed to have bad motives, to keep materials out of the hands of others. Could we possibly judge each case of citizens questioning or challenging the purchase of certain books or materials on its own merits instead of lumping them all together as instances of book banning?
Truly, no one in the U.S. is completely denied access to any piece of information or literature that he or she wants to read, except in cases of parental oversight or obscenity or financial limitations (can’t afford to buy everything I want to read). Citizens of other countries are not so blessed. Perhaps we should focus on those places where there is true government censorship and attempt to shame them into granting the freedom that we already enjoy here in the U.S.
Selected museums across the the country (U.S.) will be participating in Museum Day on Saturday, September 30th. The celebration means free admission to any of the participating museums on that day.
Go here to see which museums in your state are participating.
Sometime tonight I should get my one hundred thousandth visitor to Semicolon since I started counting. We need to have a party!
Anyway, thanks for reading!
UPDATE: I think my 100,000th visitor was someone searching Google for “why is the semicolon bad.” Ouch. I didn’t know it was bad, but welcome to everyone anyway. (I know the searcher was talking about the punctuation mark, but if I believed in signs and omens . . . )