How Should We Then Live

Briana and Destry recently finished reading Francis Schaeffer's classic How Should We Then Live.  We had previously watched most of the episodes on dvd when studying the correlating period of history, but reading the book was so much better for them.  I'm behind in reviewing the books I've read the last couple of months (we've heard this before, right?) so I asked them to each write a quick blurb about how the book affected them.

I think they "got it".  Read their thoughts and prepare to read this great book if you haven't done so yet.

DESTRY:

How should we then live? A profound question really. A question that demands both thought and an answer. The purpose of How Should We Then Live by Francis Schaeffer is to trace the connection between thought and action in history. “What they are in their think world determines how they will act.” Throughout the entire book, Schaeffer focuses on the moral standard applied to each culture in history. He tells us the causes, effects, and future influences of each worldview by tracing the changes in the arts. Each time period in history uses the arts to manifest its answer to the questions “is there meaning in life? If so, what is it? And from whence does it come?” Schaeffer’s down to earth and simply stated style convincingly demonstrates the importance of absolutes in the structure of a civilization. He shows us how the lack thereof has produced the failures of Greece, Rome, Humanism, the Enlightenment, Darwinism, Nazi Germany, and even future America. Schaeffer closes his fascinating, eye opening, and even disturbing account with the simple question: “How should we then live?” Throughout the book we have been wondering how he will answer this thought provoking question. He gives us the source of this question from Ezekiel 33:1-11. The question is found in verse 10. Instead of answering it himself, he gives us God’s answer from verse 19:  if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby. Schaeffer wants to encourage us to abstain from the great wickedness of placing anything in the place of our Creator and live by that which is lawful and right. This is “how we should then live.”

BRIANA:

How Should We then Live was assigned to us by mom as a part of our art appreciation course. While this book is about art, its true subject is much more. It is a history of human worldview starting with the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, and finishing with the 1970’s. Dr. Schaeffer’s purpose with this book is to explain the thinking behind the actions of society; to explain why we do what we do. Art is a helpful tool for this, because artists use their works to express the worldviews of themselves and their societies. Dr. Schaeffer moves through Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and into the modern era, using art, politics, education and entertainment to describe how our worldviews affect our actions.

                I learned so much from How Should We then Live. I was especially fascinated by the last few chapters which dealt with the shifting worldview of America in the 1900’s. Dr. Schaeffer’s words gave me new insight into how humanism leads to pessimism which in turn leads to a desire to just “take it easy” in life, and do what feels good. Dr. Schaeffer explains that this progression is what happened in the sixties and seventies, and I can see it continuing today. I have been able to apply this book to my other areas of study, including history and government. I can more readily understand the “why” behind the “what” of people’s actions and decisions. This book has helped me examine my own worldview and realize that I need to reject humanism and embrace God’s love as the reason for my value.

                How Should We then Live is one of the best books I have ever read, and I believe it has been very beneficial to my education. I would go further to say that it is not just beneficial to education: it is essential. If you have not read this book, I urge you to do so. Your view of the world will be forever changed.   

The Kitchen Boy

If you are ever looking for a great, character-driven story to keep you up half the night, you might consider asking your friends on facebook for suggestions.  And if you have friends like mine, you just might end up reading a gem like The Kitchen Boy:  A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander.

This book is an excellent piece of historical fiction.  Even though my eyes got really, really tired, I kept wanting to read "just one more chapter" so I could see what happened next.  The author truly is a storyteller.  While I knew nothing (seriously, nothing at all.  I knew nothing about the Romanov family--there is so much to learn and so little time!) about this time period, the country of Russia, or the real-live people who are characters in this book, The Kitchen Boy piqued my curiosity and motivated me to learn a little.  It's always enjoyable when an author stays true to true events of a revolution, the last Tsar and his family (down to the haemophilia) and even the disreputable mystic-faith-healing Rasputin.  (fascinating!  It really is!)  And then when he takes a real-life mystery and speculates on what possibly happened. . .well, that's just fun!

I also enjoyed his commentary about the time period, the ingredients that resulted in the collapse of the Russian dynasty, and his insight into the character and motivations of historical figures:

"A great curse was unleashed that night, inundating every corner of his vast homeland.  If his comrades could commit such an act, was it any wonder that Stalin could kill upward of twenty million of his own people?  No, of course not.  On a hot night in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg the individual had become expendable" (4).

"But in fact. . .in fact the dynasty itself exploded for a myriad or stupidly brilliant reasons.  Simply, it somehow stumbled upon a perfect, and yet altogether not random, chemical reaction:  you take one part decent man but not enlightened ruler, one part heartbroken mother clutching for any way to save her son, two parts inbred dynasty and gossip-obsessed court, one part Great War, and three parts uneducated, worn, and hungry people and-boom!-what do you get?  Revolution, terrible, terrible revolution, of course!. . .literally overnight a three-hundred-year old dynasty evaporated-poof, gone!-with no one lifting a finger to save it.  Ironic that the Soviet Union collapsed just as easily, which proves it was no better, that the cure, kommunizm, was in fact far worse than the disease itself"  (92).

"Bloodshed was not at all what he wanted. . .and yet any fool would admit that that was his legacy.  When Batyushka, the Dear Father, departed this world, he left behind a vast sea of blood, his own, his family's, his country's.  Up until the ironfisted, totalitarian rule of the Red tsars--the kommunisty, who made the terrible Ivan look like a choir boy-his reign was one of the most violent in all the history of Russia.  One must not forget that it was during the reign of Nicholas II that two disastrous wars, two bitter revolutions, and countless pogroms befell Holy Mother Russia.  And thought Tsar Nikolai wanted nothing more than to avoid violence, though many of the disasters were not of his doing, virtually all of them were his fault because he was Tsar, Russian Tsar, absolute Tsar, Orthodox Tsar.  When you look back through the decades, it now seems utterly obvious that there was no way it could be done, no way an autocrat could rule so vast a country, at least not without complete terror and oppression"  (73).

You'll likely want to read Carrie's review, as it's much more articulate than mine and she is the friend who kindly recommended it to me.  I think I'm going to have to read the next two books Alexander wrote about this time period!

Freezer Cooking--December

The girls and I had so much fun spending  a day cooking together last month, and we were so blessed by the ready-made meals in our freezer, that we decided to make this a monthly event.  I know others may not care about me monthly posting our freezer cooking adventures, but it's a handy way for me to keep it all in one place under the "freezer cooking" label so here it is.

Jenna, Jamie, Alena, me and Briana

In addition to the excuse to spend several hours with these fun ladies (which I have to admit is a major factor in my participation), another reason I like freezer cooking is because it makes some days/evenings soooo easy.  When we use a freezer meal, all I have to do is set it out ahead of time (although I recently read that they could be cooked frozen just bake them for time and a half).  Not only do I not have to cook that night, but cleanup is also super easy!  No piles of pots and pans and measuring spoons and mixing bowls to wash.  It really frees my time up for other things.

We've only tried one so far, which was the Breakfast Burrito. YUM!  It was so delicious.  We had friends here for the last couple days and I served these Friday morning.  They were so easy and yummy that I'm hoping to make up another batch to freeze and take with us when we go visit some friends next weekend.  That pepper jack cheese is just such a treat.

Next month it will be my turn to choose the eight meals and do the shopping for all of us.  In preparation, I treated myself to a book that has been in my Amazon wishlist for the last 2-3 years.  :)

 It seemed like a good excuse, don't you think?  I've only read to page 25 (for yes, this is more than a cookbook--it's more like a textbook!) but I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I'm listing the entrees Jamie chose for December with links to the recipes and I'll try to come back and rate them like I did last month.

Breakfast Burritos--5
Taco Braid--4
Orange Chicken--3
Black Bean Chicken--3
Chicken Parmesan--3.5
Lasagna--4
BBQ Beef--3.2
Smothered Pork Chops--4

Elf Party, Round Two

Well, it had been several months since we had a family party (especially since Alan was sick on my 40th birthday so we had to cancel that one--wasn't that inconsiderate of him?!) so we decided to have another Elf party this last weekend.   We only invited one family of dear friends for the last Elf party, but this time we went all out--we invited four other families for a grand total of 32 people in our home.

We went a little crazy on decorating too, which was lots of fun.  The kids helped me make paper chains and snowflakes to hang all over the house, and Briana wrote quotes from the movie Elf on the mirrors in the living room and bathroom (Smiling's my favorite--appropriate, don't you think?)  We even printed out some cute banners boasting lines from the movie to hang on one wall above the candy table and on the windows and made "World's Best Cup of Coffee" labels for the coffee cups.

First we all gathered in the living room to watch the movie and eat the requisite "Stinky Santa" (beef and cheese) sandwiches (which are so tasty, by the way).  We also served finger food fruits and veggies before the candy feast began (hoping that might balance out the sugar from the candy, candy corn, candy canes and syrup!).

We were packed in there, so it was hard to get everyone in the picture.  It was a pretty fun group because the Nooks, like us, had seen the movie several times and could quote many of the lines.  The Altmans and Kirkmans had seen it before, but it had been a long time and they didn't remember it very well.  The Horns had never seen it and were anxious to see what the fuss was all about.  That was a fun combination of experience.

After the movie, it was time to let the games begin!  I had some stations set up around the house for the "individual games", such as a jar filled with candy corn for people to guess how many there were and a place for people to make and hang snowflakes to compete for the best paper snowflake.

Snowflake fun.  I got an email from Amy the day after the party saying that her kids loved learning how to improve their snowflake skills and were filling her house with paper snowflakes.  Fun!

We had to break into age groups for the coke-chugging contest and the first group was made up of kiddos from age three through age 10.  The oldest boy of the group, Justin, won this round and chose some Angry Bird popping candy for his prize.

The second group included kids age 12 through all the teenagers.  Unfortunately, Destry missed the party due to the stomach flu so he retreated to the basement.  (I know, it might have been mean to continue on with the party, but everyone was looking forward to it, there was no date available to reschedule, and he is old enough to take care of himself when he's sick, so he was just fine.  But we missed him anyway--especially in games like this).  His good friend Jarret won this round and chose a candy cane full of M&M's for his prize.

Next all the dads, Brett, Dave, Alan, Gerald and James got into the competition.  I figured Alan would win, but Gerald easily beat the other men by a mile.  Way to go Gerald!  He declined the offer of cute candy ankle socks as his prize (although ironically, his wife later won them in the candy corn guess-the-number game).

Here we have Kiana sniffing away at the "It's not free candy" (chewed gum) game to match the flavor with the correct wrapper.  The little stinker was one of the winners of this game!  I will note that it was a little disgusting to make this game as I had the kids help me chew the gum and then had to stick their slobbery globs on the paper plate.

The "I like to whisper too" game is always lots of fun as we passed quotes from the movie from person to person (like the telephone game) to see if it could make it all the way around.  I just love parties and games like this because kids and adults of all ages play together.

This was another good game to get people giggling and being silly as they misunderstood words or a particular quote just hit them funny.

Of course, no Elf party is complete without playing the "I'm a Cotton-Headed Ninnimuggins" game.  Briana and her friend Ellie tried valiantly to stuff large marshmallows in their mouths and still be able to say the above phrase, but they weren't even close to winning.

Cadie and Trevor struggled to keep their marshmallows in their mouths.

The real contest came down to Alan and Deana.  I was amazed at how many marshmallows Deana was able to cram into her little mouth, but she was determined.  Alas, Alan finally edged her out of the game with marshmallow number 10.  Be glad I spared you the picture of him letting the gooey slimy marshmallows drop from his mouth onto the plate.

After the silly Elf-inspired games were over, the kids ran around and played, the teenagers pulled out Pictionary for lots of fun and laughs, and the adults sat around to giggle and gab until about 11 o'clock.

The Elf party was pronounced a great success. . .and I still haven't mustered up the energy to take down the decorations.  Maybe tomorrow. . .

Son a Disappointment

Unless you are an avid book lover you just might think this post is going to be about a naughty child of mine.  Fortunately, my disappointment is not in a child, but in the most recent installment of Lois Lowry's series that started with Newbery-Award-Winning The Giver.

The Giver is a simply wonderful piece of dystopian literature for young teens (although I very much enjoyed it both times I read it as an adult) which was followed up by the less memorable Gathering Blue and thought-provoking The Messenger (my review here).  I was pretty excited when I heard she had released another book last fall, but I somehow didn't get around to reading it until last week.

Don't you just hate it when you anticipate something for a year and then it falls flat?

Son, this fourth book in the series, seems to exist merely to wrap up a few loose ends from the previous books.  It was an interesting idea to revisit Jonas's village and Gabe's story from the perspective of Gabe's birthmother, and it started out pretty well (even though I felt like I was reading the same story again only from a different perspective), but then she just seemed to randomly revisit all the old characters and try to connect them together while giving the reader a peek into "where they are now."  The confrontation with the Trademaster was particularly jarring and contrived, I thought.

Really, I think she could have just summarized this book with "and they all lived happily ever after."

Except that is inconsistent with the characters and world Lowry introduced us to.  The previous books were filled with richly developed characters and comprehensively described societies.  They showed us that the decisions we make have consequences, they taught us where true value lies, they reminded us to learn from the mistakes of the past--but these lessons were learned the hard way.  As nice as it might be to hope for a "happily ever after", Lowry had previously illustrated that we are human and there simply is no fairy-tale-ending on this earth.  I was disappointed in her betrayal of the society she had so eloquently created.  I think it was better to leave the reader wondering and caring about the characters than to try to wrap everything up and tie a pretty bow on top.

The Atonement Child

My friend Alana chose The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers for our November book discussion.  I had read the book several years earlier and as usual, enjoyed Francine's rich characterization and the way she uses a fictional story to illustrate a rich message and drive a point home.

At first glance, the theme for this particular novel was abortion.  What will the main character, an innocent, sheltered Christian college girl, choose when she conceives a child through rape?  The author exposes many points of view through the counsel she receives from her friends at the christian college, her pastor-majoring-fiance, her parents, and her grandmother.  As the story unfolds, we learn of others who were faced with the same decision--to kill, or not to kill.  A married woman with children whose doctor says delivering her baby will likely kill her.  An unmarried young woman whose boyfriend abandons her and she has her whole life before her and limited resources to care for a child.  Rivers even manages to smoothly insert the experience of an abortionist doctor into the main storyline.

I think Francine Rivers once again humanizes a hot topic.  She addresses all the issues, all the arguments people use to justify aborting a baby, by introducing us to characters we can care about and letting us feel the emotions.  Not only does she introduce us to characters as they wrestle through the decision, but she also shows us the consequences of their choices.

As I said, abortion is the theme of the novel at first glance.  Yet I think there is a deeper theme that makes the book so successful--what position do you give the Lord in your life?  Because the place you give the Lord determines how you handle the trials in your life.  Some people blame the Lord in anger, some people feel like the Lord let them down and cheated them from what they deserve (and after all their good works and service too!), some people decide they have to take their lives into their own hands because the Lord must have messed up or at least dropped the ball here, and some people are so bound by lists and rules and tradition that they don't even realize they are missing the Lord completely.  Other people, however, turn to the Lord, burrow into His rest and comfort, trustingly place their hand in His and follow where He leads.

In many ways, this book is a difficult read for me.  I can't help putting my nearly-18-year-old daughter in the place of the main character, which horrifies me.  I can't imagine how broken she would be by such an experience.  I'm also passionate about life and the blessing children are so abortion makes me feel sick to my stomach.  But it's a really good book, a well-told story, and it reminds me to continually keep the Lord on the throne and to trust Him with my life.  He never promises our lives will be easy or free of trials.  What He promises is that He will be there with us through it.

For Real Friday

I had too much fun first reading Laura's blog today, and then popping over to her friend's "For Real" post to read of a mom who couldn't remember the last time she had bathed her child.  It made me laugh and like this total stranger, so I thought I would turn today's (this week's??) funk into a For Real post as well.

FOR REAL:

• I stayed up past 1 am two nights this week to re-read The Hunger Games trilogy.  Why?  I don't know.  I realize it's pointless, they were fine to read once but twice?  really?  It's just such an interesting alternate universe and it sucks me in. . .
• My daughter stayed up past 11 pm two nights this week also reading The Hunger Games which irritated me mightily because she was tired and slow-moving the next morning.  (Because I, of course, would never do that!)
• I'm feeling kind of tired and crabby the last couple days (what? you think that's related to the above?  pschaw!)
• I still don't feel like I have any friends in this church congregation.  Sometimes I think it's my problem.  Most of the time I think it's everyone else's.  (hey, we're being real here, right?!)
• Sometimes on Sundays this song won't leave my head.  I'm just not a fan of big smiles, hearty handshakes, backslapping, and shallow conversations about nothing week after week.  Yet I'm tired of inviting people over, trying to get below the surface, and it just makes me feel lonely.
• I want to have a really fun New Year's Eve party this year.  It's my favorite excuse for a fun party with friends and silliness and laughs.  And I'm trying to justify inviting people I have the most fun with instead of thinking about my kids and who they would have the most fun with.  But we'll probably end up going where my teens will have a good time again this year.
• I picked a fight with my husband this week because he paid the homeowner's and auto insurance bill and the amount of it made me annoyed.  As if he's the one who chose the amount.  (You know we have two teen drivers, right?)
• When my teenaged son is in a bad mood or we are having a little rift in our relationship, I can always make him laugh by making a farting sound with my mouth.   Then he tells me I'm the weirdest mom ever.  But at least he's smiling at me when he says it.
• I think the worst thing about being a stay-at-home mom is the supper smells that torture me all day long.  Right now I have a beef brisket slowly cooking in the oven with garlic, thyme, oregano, onion, and sun-dried tomatoes.  It just makes me want to eat all day long.  Chips, chocolate, popcorn, whatever I can find. . .until I'm not hungry when supper time finally arrives.  Then I'm hungry after the kids go to bed.  Don't ask how those weight-loss goals of last Spring are coming along.
• If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't have let my son watch Napoleon Dynamite.  It is really, really, REALLY annoying to hear quoted day after day after day.

That's kind of therapeutic!  Let's be real--what are you REALLY thinking today?