Siblings Without Rivalry

Siblings Without Rivalry, Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlich

I have no idea where the recommendation came from for his book, but it was a good one!

Some of you will be dealing with major sibling rivalry issues in your homes whether it is toddlers not coping with new babies, teens picking at each other non-stop, or kids causing actual physical harm to each other. For others it may not be a current live issue. Either way this book is worth reading for all parents who have or hope to have more than one child.

Faber and Mazlich have written a clear, quick to read book with lots of practical ideas and suggestions. It was originally written in 1987, but a review and addendum have been added in the 2012 version.   It is all still very relevant today.

They have written it to mirror a series of workshops they held, so each chapter addresses a specific topic, describing it with specific examples; then shares ways for parents to manage it including details and suggestions; and then gives feedback from parents as they tried to implement the ideas.

Some of the key ideas were:

• Help children to identify & acknowledge their feelings they have, and then validate these feelings. Enabling a child to identify anger, rejection, isolation, unfairness, etc, and showing we understand can take a lot of heat out of emotional responses. Part of this is helping children find words for emotions, not downplaying or overemphasising the emotions they have, and assisting them to find helpful and constructive ways to manage them.
• Avoid comparisons between children. Both praise and discipline can be dealt with without comparison to anyone else. Praise a child for their achievement in an area because they have learnt something as part of growing up. Call them to a standard of behaviour because that’s how we live in this family (not because their brother does it well).
• Avoid assigning roles. Parents, siblings and children all can assign family members to roles – the baby of the family, the smart one, the musical one, the artistic one, the responsible one. Some children take on the roles they are assigned with burden, others flee the roles they are given, but most roles run the risk of pigeonholing a child’s character or opinion about themselves: “I am not the smart one”, “I have to be the responsible one”, etc, without showing them the opportunities they could have if they saw themselves differently.
• How to deal with fighting. Essentially this was about giving children the skills to solve their problems between themselves, while laying down family groundrules for behaviour, and ensuring no one is in physical or emotional danger.

The emphasis on personal stories, anecdotes and cartoon illustrations makes the application come alive for the reader, as you immediately think how you could implement the same concepts in your family. Also, many of the examples and illustrations are from adults reflecting on their own childhood and the sibling rivalry issues they experienced. The memories of these times remain strong well into the adult years. We should all think about our own childhood experiences in these areas and how it affects the way we parent our children on the same issues.

I came away from it with some personal challenges:

• To keep prioritising one-on-one time with each child.
• To keep having family discussion regularly – a family meeting time.
• To beware of casting our children into roles.
• To work at validating their feelings rather than succumbing to the temptation to gloss over them.

This reads as a bit of a dry review (the older our kids get the less keen I am to include specific examples from our family as I don’t feel I am honouring them by revealing our own family details), but I assure you the book is anything but dry, it’s full of anecdotes and sensible, easy to implement ideas. If you have kids, you and they will benefit from you reading this one!

Inside Out

This new Disney Pixar animation was a winner with all five of us when we saw it last week. Told through the emotions of an 11 year old girl, Riley - we hear the perspectives of the 5 major feelings she has: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear, all who control her brain headquarters. Throughout a happy childhood with a strong family, good friends, fun playing ice hockey and general fun times, Joy has ruled the roost until now. She has helped the other feelings find moments of happiness and tried to downplay all the sadness, anger, fear, etc.

But when Riley’s family moves to San Francisco, everything is turned upside down. Joy gets accidentally locked out of the brain control room with Sadness, and the rest of the movie is then trying to get back to Headquarters where Anger, Fear and Disgust are trying to keep things running smoothly. At the same time we see Riley trying to cope with her world changing – house, school friends and how she is managing (or not) with it all.

The movie makers have done an excellent job of illustrating each of the five feelings, from Joy’s yellow spiky cheerful nature, to Sadness’s dumpy blue, red Anger’s fiery head when provoked, Fear’s angular anxiousness at everything and green Disgust’s distaste at the general world. Adults and children will recognise and associate with each easily. Even more impressively was how they manage to explain in an understandable way how the mind works: how memories are made and stored, how imagination works, our subconscious, dreams, etc. For the majority of us with no specific knowledge in this area, this is probably as good a representation as we are likely to get that we can comprehend and later recall. We have referred to it as a family in the last week to illustrate a point, such as how a memory fades or imagination works.

Kids watching this will be helped to realise that the emotions they feel are real: true joy at points, yet also true sadness and hurt along the way.  We also see that as we get older emotions are more often complex and multilayered: some memories are happy and sad; and anger, fear and disgust can help us out at times. For me, one of the best aspects of the story line was that it was the strength of her family relationship that held it all together at the end.

The main point of correction we talked about afterwards was that the feelings inside you don’t control you. When my daughter said: “Anger pushes the button and that’s why you get angry”, we thought “uh oh, no – not at all!” So we talked about how that is not the case: your feelings don’t control your reactions, rather you are in control of your reactions. It’s normal and natural to have feelings of fear, anger, sadness and so on, but how you choose to act on them is always your decision. It led to yet another discussion about self-control and how we are always responsible for our reactions, a conversation we seem to be having often at the moment!

I highly recommend seeing this one with your kids. All three of ours (ages 12, 10, & 7) enjoyed it and it provoked good discussion afterwards.

Growing Yourself Up

Growing Yourself Up, Jenny Brown

For years I have been hearing glowing reports about this book. Good friends have benefitted greatly from it and my husband’s organisation has used it in training sessions for improving both team and family relationships.  Brown has taken on board Bowen family systems theory, which investigates how individual maturity affects our relationships.  Because all of us exist in relationships, be they with children, parents, spouses or work colleagues, our individual level of maturity will directly affect the maturity of these relationships.  Essentially the idea is: you need to take responsibility for yourself and manage your own growth, and in doing so, you will see benefits in your relationships.

Part of that is seeking to understand the family you were brought up in and how that influenced you. However she is very much about taking responsibility for yourself.  There is no blaming how you turned out on your parents, but rather recognising that all of us need to grow in maturity no matter how positive our negative the influences on us were.

“As you begin to think about your family experience you might be casting culpability in your parents’ direction.  Before pointing the blame finger, pause to consider the place each parent held in their family: how were their pathways to maturity shaped by how their own parents related to them and by the challenges their family faced?... Our mothers and fathers came out of their own families with a level of tolerance for upset, discord, involvement and demands.  In turn this played out in their marriage and the reactions to each of their children.  None of us, or our parents, has any say in the hand of maturity cards we are dealt as part of the inheritance of generations of families” (p40)

Then she works through the phases of adult life: leaving home, singleness, marriage, sex and parenting and how making decisions to grow your own maturity will reap great benefit for yourself and those around you.  As we are closely looking at a numbers of aspects of marriage and parenting at the moment, those sections were most relevant to me.

“The central challenge in staying mature in a marriage is to find the balance between being a separate person and being a connected person.  Staying separate is about managing your anxieties, addressing your own insecurities and changing the irresponsible aspects of your behaviour in your marriage…  Staying connected is about communicating and acting in ways to strengthen the intimacy you committed to in choosing to get married” (p86-7)

She also addresses relationships outside the family in the workplace and how developing a mature belief system can add to our overall maturity.  The later sections of the book deal with challenging times (separation/divorce and illness) and then working towards maturity though midlife, ageing and facing death.

All in all, it’s a very helpful book.  Because I had heard it so glowingly praised, I came to it with very high expectations.  The content is excellent and the principles well worth implementing, but it does require concerted concentration to read and digest.  None of us can claim to be fully mature in ourselves or in our relationships, so we can all benefit from implementing the principles she presents and then reminding ourselves of them on a regular basis.

Crazy Busy

It’s hard to believe it’s over 4 years ago that I read The Busy Christian Guide to Busyness and blogged through it in such detail. I know at the time I learnt a lot and was challenged in a number of ways.

We are in a less intense life stage at the moment, and I am feel I am less ‘crazy busy’. Even so, I really enjoyed the chance to stop and think about it all again. The reality is that we do live in a crazy busy world and even if at various points it is manageable, it can quickly fall apart, and there are many around us who are struggling.

This is a shorter book that The Busy Christian’s Guide. Obviously that means less can be covered in detail, but it is a very helpful read and one that will challenge you on many levels.

DeYoung’s outline has 3 dangers to avoid, 7 diagnoses to consider and 1 thing you must do.

His theory is that the 3 main dangers we face are spiritual:

• Busyness can ruin our joy – we are crushed by the daily grind of life
• Busyness can rob our hearts – we are consumed by the cares of this world
• Busyness can cover up the rot in our souls – there will be sins we never have time to consider

The bulk of the book is the 7 diagnoses of busyness to consider. All of these are very helpful and some will be more relevant that others at various life stages. All I found challenging in various ways.

1.  We are beset with many manifestations of pride that come out in busyness. There were many ideas here: people pleasing, performance evaluation, proving myself, pity, poor planning, power, perfectionism (yes, they were all ‘p’s!). A helpful analysis of many of our motivations or excuses for busyness.

2. We are trying to do what God does not expect. This is a useful idea for those who think they have to do everything, respond to every request, and be all things to all people.

3. We can’t serve others without setting priorities. This was the most helpful chapter for me personally. Both the idea that you have to set priorities to serve effectively because you cannot do it all, which includes setting posteriorities (the things you should not do! This guided me to think about some things I really should not be putting time into). And secondly, the idea that you must allow others to set their own priorities, and that is up to them to manage and for you to respect.

4. We need to stop freaking about the kids. The idea that much crazy busyness comes from either worrying about the kids or running ragged trying to give them everything.

5. We are letting the screen strangle our soul. We are never alone, we don’t set boundaries with technology and have time away from technology. How’s this for a comparison: the digital age is like a giant room, where everything is happening around us, we can see it and experience it. For a while, we love it. After a while, we may want to take a break from it, but no-one else is leaving and they all want us to stay.

“Like Tolkien’s ring, we love the room and hate the room. We want to breathe the undistracted air of digital independence, but increasingly the room is all we know. How can we walk out when everyone else is staying in? How will we pass our time and occupy our thoughts without the unceasing tap, tap, tap? For many of us, the Web is like the Eagles’ Hotel California: we can check out any time we like, but we can never leave.” (p84)

6. We need to rest before we wreck ourselves. Here he addresses the need for leisure, holidays, days off and sleep.

7. We find busyness hard because we don’t want life to be hard. Here he says we are actually supposed to be busy, and if we struggle we that, it’s possibly because that it’s a small part of the cross we have to bear. Life is messy, people take time, serving comes at a cost. Surely busyness is part of life.

His conclusion – the one thing we must do – is devote time to Jesus. Spend time in bible reading and prayer. Make it an absolute priority.

“If you are sick and tired of feeling so dreadfully busy and are looking for a one-point plan to help restore order to your life, this is the best advice I know: devote yourself to the word of God and prayer… no single practice brings more discipline and peace to life than sitting at the feet of Jesus. “ (p113)

I'll leave DeYoung with the final word on this very helpful book:

“It’s not wrong to be tired. It’s not wrong to feel overwhelmed. It’s not wrong to go through seasons of complete chaos. What is wrong – and heartbreakingly foolish and wonderfully avoidable – is to live a life with more craziness that we want because we have less Jesus than we need.” (p118)

I am Number Four

I am Number Four, Pittacus Lore

Mr 12 recently discovered this exciting and engaging series.

The premise is that as the Planet Lorien was destroyed by Mogadorian invaders, a few select children were sent to Earth to live undercover until they gained their special powers (legacies) which would enable them to overpower the Mogadorians and return to Lorien.  Each child, numbered One to Nine, has a guardian, who is responsible for their care and training as they mature and gain their legacies.  So far, Numbers One, Two and Three have been found and killed, so now the focus turns to finding Number Four.

John Smith (Four) has spent his life moving throughout country towns in the US, with Henri (his guardian), trying to remain undetected. For the first time he starts making friends and begins to wonder if his life can be like everyone else’s.  Clearly, though when you are an alien hunted by other super-powered aliens, your teenage life is far from normal!

It’s action packed and interesting. There are some very similar allusions to the Percy Jackson series, which is about Greek gods still active on earth and their semi-god children.

So far 5 books in the series have been written, I have read I am Number Four, The Power of Six and The Rise of Nine.  At that point I decided to stop, as Mr 12 made it clear both The Fall of Five and The Revenge of Seven finish on cliff-hangers, and the next ones have not yet been released.  He is keen to read the final books, of which we suspect there will need to be at least two.    It’s also fair to say that each book gets more complex as more of the teenagers are found and drawn into the story line.  I could keep up with 3 different fonts for different characters, much more than that and I might begin to struggle! Mr 12 also gives a clear warning: do not read the back cover of any of the subsequent books until you have finished the previous ones, or key storylines are given away!

It is pretty clear in the later books that the author Pittacus Lore (a pseudonym revealed online to be James Frey) is anti-religion, but that can be an interesting talking point.  Also, I kept wondering what is going to happen with all these teenagers who appear to be falling in love with each other.  At the moment, it’s all pretty chaste, and I hope it remains that way.

I am enjoying my regular exposure to youth fiction these days.

Marriage Matters

Marriage Matters: Extraordinary Change through Ordinary Moments, Winston T. Smith

I am reading or re-reading a number of marriage books at the moment. We are designing a marriage enrichment course and I am gathering information from many sources.

While many books on marriage focus only on that earthly relationship, Smith has focused strongly and continuously on God, his word and Christ and how a relationship with Jesus will define, strengthen and challenge us in marriage. This book is not only rooted in Scripture, it is overflowing with it.

Smith’s overarching premise is that change is really found in the ordinary moments of marriage, and that God is in all of these moments, showing us the problems in our relationship with Him, our idols, our lack of worship; and pointing us again and again to His way of love, worship and grace.

There are very good chapters on communication, conflict & forgiveness, and these topics take up the bulk of the book. He deals with how honesty, done properly (ie. speaking the truth in love) is essential and provides some biblical strategies for conflict. I also liked the chapter on gender and roles in marriage. For people like me who like structure, each section and chapter starts with an outline of what will be covered.

New Growth Press generously sent me this book along with a course manual developed to go alongside it. This has ten very detailed biblical studies, designed to analyse various aspects of our relationship with God and then apply it to marriage. Personally I wouldn’t use the course in it’s entirety, for a start it is too long for what we are able to do. However the ideas and principles are excellent.

There is a lot to recommend this book, especially for those who want to think biblically about their marriage relationship from a whole number of angles.

Our current advice for couples to strengthen & grow their marriage is to read a book on marriage each year and take time to talk about it. This would be an excellent one for Christian couples to add to the list.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Another great story.

Arthur Leander, famous actor, drops dead in the middle of a performance of King Lear. What would normally make international news headlines is in fact completely ignored for that same night the Georgia Flu epidemic sweeps the world. Within 2 weeks more than 99% of the planet’s population is dead.

Twenty years later, a travelling troupe of actors and musicians tour through their local area performing symphonies and Shakespeare, driven by the belief that ‘survival is insufficient’.

As the story moves back and forth, describing various events pre and post ‘Year Zero’, it slowly reveals the links between the lives of 5 people all somehow connected to Arthur.

I seem to be reading a fair amount of post-apocalyptic books at the moment. They have all been interesting and thought-provoking in various ways. This one I devoured in a few days. Very enjoyable.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

I have learnt over the years that when Meredith recommends a book, it is worth reading, and I was delighted to again discover how similar our tastes are when I read a book she recently praised.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is just marvellous. One day Harold, a recent retiree, receives a letter from an old work colleague, Queenie Hennessey. She is dying of cancer and gets in touch to say she remembers him as a good friend. Writing what he knows is an inadequate response, he heads out to post a reply letter. Finding himself unable to actually put it in the box, he walks on to the next box, yet passes it again and continues on. By the end of the day, he has decided to walk to see her, 600+ miles from the south-east of England to the north-west.

As he keeps walking, he slowly becomes aware of the vastness of the country around him and the variety of people he meets. At the same time, he begins to remember the varying details of his life, his wife Maureen, his son David, his job and his friendship with Queenie.

Having left his wife Maureen behind, and seeing how she deals with this sudden change of events, we then read of things from her perspective – what she thinks of what he has done and her view on the state of their marriage.

The wonderful part of this book is what happens to the characters along the way, and their interactions with each other. But if I revealed anymore, it would spoil it for you. However, if you also have liked some of my or Meredith’s book recommendations over the years, definitely try this one!

I will also follow her advice and read the companion volume after a few months gap rather than straight away!

The Book of Strange New Things

The Book of Strange New Things, Michael Faber

This book grabbed my attention from the very beginning and would not let it drop until the final page.

Peter Leigh was converted in adulthood from a life of addiction and crime, by the influence of the woman he grows to love and marry, Beatrice.  He has since become a committed Christian and church pastor, and is chosen by USIC, a multi-national corporation to travel to another universe to preach the gospel to the native inhabitants of the planet Oasis.

Peter sets off, full of excitement and hope about what he is called to do by God for these people. He expects hardship, language learning, cultural difficulties and problems to affect him, yet goes in the full excitement of serving the Lord in the way he has been called. Meanwhile Bea is left behind fully supportive, but not chosen to go with him.

The book details what Peter experiences on Oasis both with the other humans who are there in the settlement and with the native Oasans, which confound him yet also bring him joy and excitement. Meanwhile, his communication with Bea gives the reader an insight into what continues to happen on earth while Peter is gone and how his departure affects their relationship.

I hesitate to give any more details than that because it really would spoil the power of the story. Suffice it to say, for those that are Christians some of it will resonate with you, and some of it will cause to you to imagine how you would react in similar circumstances. Faber has managed to write about religion and mission in a balanced way and while you will not agree with all Peter says or does, it is a portrayal that has depth and insight.

I really enjoyed it and it has stuck in my mind for some time after.

Age of Opportunity

Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Paul David Tripp

I have come to appreciate much of Paul David Tripp’s writing in recent years, having learnt a lot from What Did you Expect? (on marriage), Dangerous Calling (on ministry) and How People Change (written with Timothy Lane) on general Christian living.

As a result I was excited to get my hands on his book about parenting teens.

Tripp comes back again to the issues all his books address – what is going on in our hearts. At every stage of parenting, but definitely with teenagers, parents must stop and think, where is my heart in this? What idols am I trying to hang on to: perhaps comfort, respect, appreciation, control or success? Or am I truly trying to lead my children closer to God and his sustaining grace?

“It is vital for us to confess that that the struggle of the teen years is not only about teen biology and teen rebellion. These years are hard for us because they expose the wrong thoughts and desires of our own hearts… the teen years expose our self-righteousness, our impatience, our unforgiving spirit, our lack of servant love, the weakness of our faith, and our craving for comfort and ease.” (p17)

In Part 1 Tripp points out the issues, and goes on to describe the family and how it is designed to function. He encourages parents to remember what it was like to be a teenager, and identifies the key characteristics of the teen years that we need to be aware of, such as having no hunger for correction or wisdom, a tendency to legalism and unwise companions, and a lack of heart awareness.

In Part 2 he outlines 5 foundational goals we should have:

1. To focus on the spiritual struggle – teach and show our kids that an eternal perspective is what matters.
2. To develop a heart of conviction and wisdom. Here we try to teach them to develop a biblical mind and to be able to determine the difference between a conviction (where there is an absolute right and wrong) and wisdom (how to analyse and assess a situation and the potential ways to respond)
3. To teach them to understand and interact redemptively with culture. We neither hide from the world we live in, nor accept all of it, rather we teach them how to think about the culture we are surrounded by: wisely, alertly and redemptively.
4. To develop a heart for God. In the end this is the ultimate goal of our parenting, to help our kids develop their own relationship with God, and a desire to live for him.
5. To prepare them to leave home. We want to help them develop the signs of maturity they will need as Christian adults.

Part 3 was essentially a summary of all of the above, just reworded. His three overall strategies for making this happen were: planning, constant conversation and helping teens come to repentance.

His final chapter was 20 (!) small steps to work towards making these goals happen. This is a great summary chapter of how to behave as a parent, while working towards these larger foundational goals. Things like: always talks lovingly and constructively (sound obvious, but hard in reality), stay calm, be honest about your own struggles, be willing to overlook the minor things and humbly admit your limits.

In addition there is a study guide at the back which had some really helpful analysis and application questions and ideas.

I came away with two main thoughts:

1. He calls us to an incredibly high standard of parenting, but one that is absolutely worth it. I have no problem being called to such a high standard for it is also surrounded with honesty, grace and forgiveness. Tripp makes the astute point that most families plan their holidays in much more detail than their parenting. We should be planning, we should be preparing and we should be praying for our parenting and our children.
2. I have recently come to realise that the next 12 years of parenting will be more intense than the first 12. I need to keep assessing how busy I am and the priorities on my time. It is very easy to think ‘they are older now, I can back off a little’. In order to be spiritually, emotionally and physically present in parenting older children, I still need to make sure I am careful how much else I commit to. It’s a helpful reminder to me as we enter this new stage. I now think of my life in decades: my 30s were with little kids, my 40s will be the teenage years, my 50s will be probably the empty nest stage. That helps me set my own expectations of what I can and want to do for the time being!

It is a great book and it really got me thinking theologically and practically about this next stage. 

Growing Up By the Book

Growing Up By The Book, Patricia Weerakoon

I have previously reviewed Patricia Weerakoon’s The Best Sex for Life, and alluded to her book for teenagers in a series on teaching children about the facts of life.  In that series I talked about 2 books we have read with our kids in the pre-teen stage (What’s the Big Deal? and Facing the Facts).

Now Weerakoon has released a book on puberty available for pre-teen children, Growing Up By the Book, and it is an excellent addition to other resources in this area. I read it in almost one sitting, and found it to be very good, very detailed and very strong on God’s word.

It is divided into 2 parts, the first of which has 4 chapters covering:

• God’s word on sex
• Your body different and special – this provides detailed information on external physical changes that occur in puberty
• Your brain – how it changes and forms over this time
• Knowing who and whose you are – here she looks at what the world will tell you vs what God says.

These are all really helpful.

Part 2 is an A-Z of issues and questions. It’s quite detailed on everything kids this age might ask, and some things they might not have heard about yet. She provides clear, honest, age-appropriate information. I think many parents shy away from being too honest and open in this area, but we all know that kids will ask Google to answer their questions if we don’t, so we need to be pro-active!

The book’s structure is aimed entirely at getting parents and kids talking about these topics. So in every section there is an “Ask Mum or Dad” box, to which they are supposed to come and ask you questions and get your opinion, or talk about your memories, experiences, etc. As such, parents have to read it before they give it to their kids, so they can readily, openly and willingly talk about anything that comes up. She also has clear “Think Spot” sections as well as “Alert” sections to raise issues of potential concern.

While aimed at age 10-14, when you would choose to give it to your children could depend entirely on where they are on the ‘puberty spectrum’. She covers 5 stages of physical signs for both boys and girls, all of which you would want them to be aware of before any changes start, or at least as they are starting. So while all kids 12 and over are probably ready for it, and perhaps should have this information now; some 10 years olds are clearly a little way off any changes starting, while other 10 year olds are getting well under way.

This is a great resource, and while it’s a lot more open and frank than anything my generation was ever given to read on this topic, it meets the needs of today’s youth clearly and helps them to think about how to live as God’s children in the light, while living in the reality of the 21st century world.

Lila

Lila, Marilynne Robinson

I was avidly awaiting this book, the third in a series.  Gilead is one of my favourite books and I very much enjoyed reading it again, as well as Home, in preparation for Lila.  On the second detailed read of Gilead I found much more humour in it than that first time, indeed I had not realised how funny it was; and I also enjoyed & understood Home so much more on the second read.

Lila is the Reverend John Ames’s wife.  In Gilead and Home her past is only alluded to, although it is clear it is a very different background than that of Ames.  He only ever speaks of her with adoration and respect, which tells of his deep Christian character and conviction yet also clear love for this woman who had graced his later years.

There are at least three timeframes covered in Lila: firstly, her childhood of poverty & young adulthood.  Despite all she lacked in money and education, there was a woman, Doll, who loved her and cared for her.  They travelled around the country with others looking for work and she was part of a community.  The second part details how she arrived in Gliead, met John Ames and how they came to be together.  Here the pieces of the other books start to come together as you see some details from her perspective rather than his.  The third part is a little later in their marriage when she realises she is carrying their son.  So the whole book is timed prior to that of Gilead.  As such, since you know how the story there will progress, the real interest is in Lila herself and how she slowly comes to adopt the faith and figure out how to reconcile her past with her present. Her real struggle is that if she comes to faith and believes in salvation through Christ, what happens to those loved people of her childhood who never believed?

In raising this issue, Robinson deals with something many of us with faith struggle with: how we believe and trust knowing at times that means others are condemned.

Yet again, Robinson’s writing shines through beautifully, and she deals with topics that make you keep thinking about them long after you finish the final page.

I truly hope she writes another book in this series.  I would love to hear from Della's perspective, Jack Boughton's wife.  

De-skilling or up-skilling

I have been made aware in the last few years how easy it is for married people to deskill, especially women.  If you have a husband who very competently manages finances, travel, online issues, phones and computers, servicing the car, and other details, you come to realise that you could easily lose the skills and confidence to do them yourself.

It is something I have watched newly widowed or divorced women realise - skills they once had, or confidence to try new things, has diminished over time.

I have also realised there is a risk that I could be the same.  Husband takes care of many things, something I greatly appreciate.  One reason I really enjoyed going to Dubai was the chance it was to prove to myself that I can manage on my own - international travel, bookings, metro systems, all the things you do while travelling.  I have also taken over much of the maintenance management in our home, so I am the one learning about how to replace locks, change tap washers, and restore and revarnish wood.

I suspect all of us should make sure we put ourselves a little outside our comfort zone, learning new skills and maintaining old ones.

It's not a particularly profound thought and probably a rather obvious one, but something to keep in mind as the years go on.

Hello Dubai

Hello Dubai, Joe Bennett

It was a treat to discover this book at the library for the usual 50c a few months ago.  Knowing that I was on my way there, I snapped it up and starting reading it on the flight over.  I have enjoyed Bill Bryson’s travel writing over the years, but have not read many other travel authors.

Bennett has a similar style to Bryson, that is, he can present history, facts & situations well, with insightful analysis as well as humour.  It's not a book I would have bothered reading if I was not going there, but since I was it was very interesting and instructive.  What I realised upon arriving in Dubai was that I have absolutely no knowledge or experience of that part of the world.  To I be honest I had to look up exactly where it was on a map to show my kids because I was not sure.

As such, I have no understanding of the region or much of Arab history, and no knowledge of the Emirates or Emirati culture, let alone all the people who live here from so many countries of the world. Bennett claims that only 5% of the population are citizens, the rest are guests.  Over 60% are from the Indian subcontinent, the rest from everywhere else, my estimate would be another 30% would be from Asia.  As such, there are almost no old people in Dubai. You go there to work and then you go home.

I am unable to test anything Bennett said or claimed, but from my incredibly limited time there and conversations with people living there, much of it rang true.

So I am glad to have read it and learnt just a little bit more about the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai.  I left the book in the hands of friends there, I imagine they will now have much more use for it than I do!

Hatchet

Hatchet, Gary Paulsen

This great series of 5 books by Gary Paulsen are about survival in the wilderness and would suit kids aged 10-15. They are quite short, so a keen reader will devour each in an hour or two. However because of that, they would also be excellent for reluctant readers, or to read aloud.

In Hatchet, Brian Robeson, age 13, is in a small aircraft on his way to visit his dad in the Canadian wilderness. A fatal heart attack strikes the pilot and Brian is forced to crash land. As he escapes the wreckage of the plane with only a hatchet attached to his belt, he learns first hand what he needs to survive on his own.

There are then 4 more: Hatchet: The Return (also called The River) – when he returns to try show a psychologist how he did it, but tragedy strikes making it again a matter of life or death. Brian’s Winter is what surviving the first winter would have been like.

By the time you get to Brian’s Return and Brian’s Hunt it is clear that the woods of Canada have changed him forever, and he needs to live in the wild. As you read these books, including the author explanations, it seems clear the Paulsen knows what he is talking about. Many of the situations Brian encounters are based on real events either the author or others have experienced.

For many city kids out there, of which my Mr 12 is included, these are great stories which present a very different reality from the one they live and operate in. It is clear from the writing that Paulsen loves the wild, and it is part of who he is. He doesn’t talk about taming it or conquering it, rather how it conquers you. We both really enjoyed these books.

A useful little application

I wonder if you, like me, don’t realise quite how much time you spend online, frittering away time?

Do you sometimes feel you need some help to manage the time spent, but aren’t sure how to go about it? I did and I have recently found a web application that has helped greatly.

There are now time management applications that can be set to monitor what you look at and how often you look at them. You can set time limits for various websites, you can block any number of sites or groups of sites, and/or limit the times of day you can view certain sites.

I have used one to limit my Facebook time to 10 mins during 9-5 and 10 mins in the evening. When I have two minutes left, it starts a countdown to when I will be blocked and shows it very clearly. I can imagine it would very useful for those who like to watch lots of online video clips, or get lost in some blogs/news sites for longer than they would like to.

I am using WasteNoTime which works for Safari and Chrome, but the other one I know for Mozilla is called LeechBlock (which Tim Challies also uses & how I heard about such things).

Of course you can get around it, as you set it all up and can change it anytime. But as a reminder and guide to limit the amount of time you want to have online, it’s very worthwhile.

John Wyndham

In high school my absolute favourite English text was The Day of the Triffids. Every couple of years I read it again and discover even more depths to it.

A new breed of plant, the triffid, which can walk, communicate, kill with a flying whip-like sting and feeds off rotting meat has been slowly colonising the world. When one night almost all humankind is struck blind by a dramatic comet fireworks display, Wyndham explores what would happen to mankind if a natural predator was on hand who now had the advantage.

It’s the story of Bill and Josella who through luck & circumstance remain sighted, and so both literally and figuratively see the decay of England around them. Who would you care for? Do you take responsibility for others in need or fend for yourself? Do you band together with others to survive or go it alone?

I have always found it a fascinating analysis of what man might do in such a situation and Wyndham’s assessment is quite possibly a frighteningly accurate one.

In all these years it never occurred to me to see if Wyndham had written other books. And, wonderfully – he did, quite a few in fact!*  There is no doubt he liked apocalyptic themes, and the question of how mankind would react to them.

In The Kraken Wakes, the threat to life on earth is something in the water; something that colonises deep water from outer space and moves calculatingly to threaten all life on earth. I won’t give all the details away, but similarly to The Day of the Triffids, Wyndham presents an alarming scenario of what might happen through the eyes of Mike & Phyllis Watson, a couple who see the events unfold from start to finish.

In The Day of the Triffids, you can sort of predict what’s going to happen and the interest lies in the telling of it and how it unfolds. By contrast in The Kraken Wakes, you have no idea what is happening, the reader discovers it alongside the characters when events take place, with explanation following later. As such the tension was markedly higher.

These are great books that make you think. Wyndham’s writing is very enjoyable to read: it’s highly intelligent and educated, with references you sometimes need to look up to understand. His prose is insightful, thought-provoking and very interesting. What a gift some writers have!

I started The Day of the Triffids with Mr almost 12, and he struggled a bit. Adult novels like this do not always have predictable happy outcomes and raise many moral challenges along the way. Interestingly what he struggled with was the tension of me reading it aloud – it took too long to find out the solutions to the problems raised. He went on and finished it himself. It seems he is on the cusp of being able to read adult fiction, yet with the caveat that he will not understand the full meaning. It made me realise that I could not possibly have understood it fully at high school either, but it whetted an appetite for good quality writing and interesting themes, which I am still enjoying feeding, over 20 years later.

* I also read The Chrysalids which explores the idea of genetic variation, and how people might decide which 'form' of humankind was the true one, in the image of God and which would be the work of the devil.  It's told through the eyes of children who gradually realise they are not in the 'acceptable form' of their society, and is an interesting analysis of religious fervour gone awry and how people are generally threatened by those who are different to themselves.  Wyndham chose interesting topics to explore!

Easter

Easter is approaching - no doubt the large amount of chocolate in the shops has alerted you to it!

If you would like to think about some ways to celebrate Easter with your family, you could read my previous posts on Easter.

If you would like to use the "Preparing for Easter with your family"  readings the link can be found via the resources tab on this blog.  It starts on Monday.

Also, this year I have included a pdf of the titles, key verses and clipart pictures I use, in case you want to cut them up and put them in your eggs.   This photos shows the things I print out and use.

Have fun with your family preparing for Easter!

The Girl in Times Square

The Girl in Times Square, Paullina Simons

I love this book. I have probably read it 4 times over the last 10 years and every time I come back to it, I enjoy it again.  A good, extended, long, involved story is a special treat.

Lily Quinn is 24, an arts student, and almost broke living in New York. Life just seems to go on around Lily, big things happen to those around her, but not to her. She heads off to Hawaii to visit her parents, yet on her return finds out her flatmate and good friend Amy has gone missing.

Enter Detective Spencer O’Malley from the missing persons unit, in his mid 40s and battling his own demons. As O’Malley searches more into Amy’s life, what was really going on, and how Lily’s family were a part of it, it takes a long time to unravel what has happened.

At the same time, some big things finally start happening to Lily – one very good and one very bad.

This novel has enormous scope covering the vast complexity of extended family relations especially mothers and daughters, the life of immigrants to the USA after WWII, and the careful unravelling of what happened to Amy.  What I love though is the development of the friendship between Spencer and Lily.  A great, enjoyable, long book.

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished, Scott James

It's been some time since I have reviewed any of the books sent to me by New Growth Press.  The only reason is not having time to read them - I hope to rectify that very soon!

This one however seemed worth putting time aside for now and indeed it was.   

This family devotional by Scott James is designed to be started on Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter) and continued through Easter for two weeks.

I love the format: one week is spent "Walking with Jesus to the Cross" and the second week looking at "The Risen King" and our response to him.

When I first began looking into Easter material many years ago, the only things available focussed heavily on the Passion Week, with details that I did not think needed dwelling on, especially for families of young children.  So as regular readers of this blog will know, I wrote my own material   (accessible via here) that our family has used for the last 6 years. 

James done a similar thing, with even more emphasis on the risen Jesus.  Each study (mainly from Luke's gospel), has a 1-2 page explanation, some questions to discuss, things to pray about, and then either a song to sing or an activity to do.  Each could easily be done in 10 minutes, but some of the things to talk about could take longer if there was time and everyone was interested! 

I think this will appeal to families with school-aged children.  James has pitched the explanations at a reasonable level of understanding, which could be simplified if needed for younger children, or used to stretch older children and teenagers.  

As our family has a tradition of doing our own material, we will stick with that, as well as the other things we do to celebrate Easter. 

However, I think Mr (almost) 12 would really benefit from this material.  I will give it to him to work through for his own devotional time though Easter and then talk about with him.  It will be good to stretch him a little further and I think this book will do that.  Because of this, the only thing I wish was different was that the answers to the questions were at at the back of the book (if you needed to look them up) rather than alongside the questions themselves.

New Growth Press are trying to get this to Australian distributors in time for Easter.  If it doesn't make it in time, perhaps look out for it over the next few months and save it for next year!

Pigs in Heaven

Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver

I love my local library. They sell old fiction books for 50c, so whenever I see something I might want to read, I tend to pick it up.

After having loved a more recent Kingsolver novel, The Poisonwood Bible, I thought I’d try this one.

Taylor is adoptive mother to 6 year-old Turtle, a child who was handed to her by a desperate aunt in a carpark to care for 3 years before. When Turtle becomes famous after helping to save someone’s life, she is recognised by the Cherokee Nation as being one of their own. Annawake Fourkiller, a Cherokee lawyer, with her own sad family history of Indian child removal, intervenes to ensure Turtle knows about her history and her people and in so doing, threatens the strong and loving relationships that Turtle and Taylor share. As events unfold it seems that all sides just might be most closely connected that anyone realises. This is another book where it pays dividends keep of the track the characters by name and relationship so you can see events unfold.

It’s a wise author that can raise issues well for both sides of an argument, ensuring that both are heard, understood and matter. The story of native American Indians is not one I know well, though there are strong parallels with our own Indigenous population.

Just like in the Poisonwood Bible, the beauty of Kingsolver’s writing shines in this book. It is a delight to read. A review of her website revealed that this book actually follows on with the same characters of her previous book (The Bean Trees). I read that one after and while it was fine, I  definitely preferred Pigs in Heaven, both the subject matter and the writing.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom

This is a gentle, honest book about a man’s descent to death. Morrie is a sociology professor who taught Albom in the 1970s. Sixteen years later when he is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Albom gets back in touch and they have one last ‘class’ together. A class about the lessons of life, what it important and what Morrie has learnt about living and dying. As he states “When you learn how to die, you learn how to live”.

I have never seen death close up, not really close up. I have seen it from afar and a bit more distantly, but I have not sat & watched it, week by week, day by day, all the while talking to that person about what really matters. Perhaps not many of us have, especially those of us who spouses and parents are still living.

What is clear is how things gain true importance and clarity when you come face to face with death. Does a career, or a house, or someone’s opinion of you matter? Morrie’s view is that what does matter is how you have lived – the way you treat people, whether you forgive, whether there is love in your life.

There is almost no spiritual element to this book, but it still has much to offer. For those of us who know there is more than this life, but sometimes forget to live that way, we can still be reminded from books like this of what really matters.

This would be a great book for a book club, it could open up discussion about things that really matter to each of us. 

Albom has also written some fiction – I am tempted to try them also. Have any of you read them?

Dangerous Calling

Dangerous Calling, Paul David Tripp

This is a very powerful book that everyone in ministry should read.

Tripp has spent years talking to and counselling pastors and he is convinced there is a malaise that has taken over ministers of the gospel: that pastors are in great danger of both losing their awe of God and of thinking they have ‘arrived’ and are no longer in need of change.

Tripp is clear from the beginning this is a diagnostic book encouraging pastors to look honestly at their lives and hearts, and to hold them up against the gospel for Christ for analysis. He calls on pastors, and those around them, to try read it with an open heart and mind, to deactivate their ‘inner lawyer’ and to be willing to address things in their lives that need change.

Boy does he use a scalpel to dig deep! Tripp starts with pastoral culture and the risks it brings:

• Letting ministry define your identity
• Letting biblical literacy and theological knowledge define your maturity
• Confusing success with God’s endorsement of your lifestyle
• The regular disconnection between public and personal life
• The fact that in the ministry of the body of Christ, often the minister does not allow himself to be ‘ministered to’
• That there is always a battle going on between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of self (a key idea also in Tripp’s marriage book What did you expect?)

He has quite a challenge to those responsible for employing ministers that they must try to see their heart, what really matters to them, not their ‘on paper’ success. Rather, how they relate to their families, treat their wives and listen to rebuke. I imagine this would be a very hard thing to do well in an interview process.

Then he comes to the first of 2 key areas – the danger of losing your awe of God, in forgetting who God is. When this happens, various things can result:

• A familiarity with the word of God, to the extent they are no longer moved by it
• Living in fear of man, caring more about what others think than how to be godly
• A contentment with mediocrity. This was a very helpful, sad chapter about the way we accept mediocre sermon preparation. If you are still preparing a sermon on Saturday, there is no way you have worked out its truths in your life, so how can you properly apply it to the lives of your hearers?
• Losing your awe of God, results in you starting to think you are pretty good, and therefore leads to the second area – the danger of forgetting who you are.

The risks of thinking you have arrived are:

• Self-glory – promoting ourselves, not God
• Always preparing – personal time with God gets squeezed out and preparation time takes over. We no longer let the word of God shape us personally
• We risk separating our public life from our personal life – we don’t let people in, we find it hard to hear rebuke, etc

As you can probably imagine, it’s a pretty devastating critique. Yet I also think it’s very accurate. I saw his truths in myself, in our lives and have seen evidence of them in others.

For those who are willing to listen and learn, there would be great benefit. Not many people are willing to stand up to their pastor and challenge their godliness (and perhaps not everyone should); but every pastor should make sure they have people around them who are willing to do so. I would say the same for ministry-wives.

Tripp’s solution is that pastors much keep coming back to the gospel, dwelling on God’s majesty, their sinfulness and the grace of God in Christ. When we raise again the glory of God and decrease again our own important, we are willing to change. There were ideas throughout the book about a way forward, although really much of it was depressingly diagnostic. The final two chapters were a proposed way forward which were helpful. However to really get into this further and analyse one’s heart and motivations, I would switch over to Lane & Tripp’s book How People Change and do some serious work from that one!

Very worthwhile reading for all in ministry, and those who are responsible for them.

The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

This book is great fun. Graeme Simsion hooks you in from the first page and keeps you interested and entertained right to the end. 

The story is told by Don, a university genetics professor, who is asked to cover a lecture for a friend. With very clever writing, it becomes apparent to the reader that Don is uniquely qualified to speak on the topic: 

"The sequence was initiated by Gene insisting I give a lecture on Asperger’s syndrome that he had previously agreed to deliver himself. The timing was extremely annoying. The preparation could be time-shared with lunch consumption, but on the designated evening I had scheduled ninety-four minutes to clean my bathroom." 

Don’s goal in life is to find a wife, up to now however he has been unsuccessful:

"I am thirty-nine years old, tall, fit and intelligent, with a relatively high status and above average-income as an associate professor. Logically, I should be attractive to a wide range of women. In the animal kingdom, I would be successful in reproducing. However, there is something about me that women find unappealing. I have never found it easy to make friends, and it seems that the deficiencies that caused this problem have also affected my attempts at romantic relationships." 

So, he designs a questionnaire to weed out unsuitable women – smokers, vegetarians and the like.

At the same time Rosie enters Don’s life, interested in genetics and searching for her true father.

What ensues is the lovely interactions between Don who analyses everything rationally and logically, who has set meals for days of the week and a schedule that he must stick to; and Rosie who is rather more free-spirited, is bewildered by him yet also finds him interesting and appealing.

It is great fun. I laughed out loud at points, the humour is so dry. You watch both Don and Rosie learn to adapt and consider things from another point of view. Don’s analysis of his own behaviour and experiences are very clever and astute. Simsion has created some excellent commentary on people in general, social situations and how those who struggle with them learn to negotiate their way through. 

Highly recommended enjoyable reading. And there is a sequel too – The Rosie Effect – already on hold at the library…

Later note:
Definitely enjoyed The Rosie Effect. I won't write a whole review, but I suspect that anyone who liked The Rosie Project will also like this one. Similar ideas again, very well written and very funny along the way.

Man on a Wire

This new CD by one of my favourite Christian artists has been on constant replay in the car.  I have reviewed Nathan’s CD Home previously and he has also had some great hymn CDs since.   

The Taskers have faced major grief in the last few years with the death of his father-in-law and then their unborn twin son & daughter all within a few months.

This album has raw emotion and honesty about those times, yet is also infused with hope.

I always get a bit choked up listening to ‘Nowhere to be Found’ – that raw feeling that God has left you alone. Other songs clearly talk about their sadness or grief, yet that God is in control and knows what He’s doing, such as ‘Sowing Tears’ and ‘Trust You in the Darkness’. This has always been a theme of Nathan’s music – that God is in control, He knows His plans and we can trust Him. In fact ‘Whole World’ (a new version of ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’) very catchily does exactly that.

In a recent concert, Nathan talked about songs that travel from grief to joy in 3.5 minutes; and how it may only take a short time to sing but the process of writing them and feeling their truth may take 18 months or more. It was a reflection that has enabled him to understand the Psalms better and one I have appreciated.

This is a great album to remind you of the promises of God, whether or not you are in times of struggle and grief.  Love it.

Grandma's Attic

Grandma’s Attic, Arleta Richardson

The first four of this series of books was given to our daughter and they have been quite a treat.

Written by Arleta Richardson they tell the stories her grandmother Mabel told her of her own childhood growing up in rural Michigan in a strong Christian home with parents who taught her the faith and how to live it.

Each story (chapter) tend to have a teaching point – what can result if you lie or disobey or don’t think. So a moral truth can be drawn from it and talked about. At the same time they are just lovely stories about families and children, the silly things kids do and the mistakes we all make and learn from as we grow up. There are positive adults in them and fun friends.

My daughter still laughs about the story where Mabel wore a hoop skirt (without permission) to church for the first time and not knowing how to sit properly in it, ended up with it flicking up and her showing the minister her underwear!

I read them with Miss 7 and she loved them, and Miss 9 enjoyed listening in as well. They will probably mostly appeal to girls, but could well be enjoyed by boys. I have just discovered there are more books in the series, so we may well try get those as well!

Being involved at school

We are now in our final year of all children at the same school. It’s been a great seven years of concentrating on relationships in one place and  we now know many students, parents, teachers and staff.

There are many ways to be involved in a school, but as with all things, no-one can or should do everything.  Each year we reassess how we can be involved. I talked about it a couple of years ago, but haven’t for a while. 

It’s worth mentioning that we consider it a ‘joint involvement’ and make the decision as a couple. Sometimes Husband will be more involved with a school team or on council, which means I have less time to help; sometimes it’s the other way around. As every decision you make impacts the whole family, we make sure we consider these things together.

As we start another year, these are some of the things we try to do.

1. Get to know their teachers

This has been a priority each year. Our children’s teachers have all been excellent and I have always felt we were 'on the same page' when dealing with any issues that arose. We try to get to know them personally, ask about their families, weekends, etc, so that not every conversation we had was about our child.

I have come to realise that this is not what parents generally do. Each year, teachers have thanked us for being so supportive of them and the class. We just thought we were taking an interest, but apparently it stands out.

2. Figure out how to be involved in the school community

Over the years we have been involved in various ways: sports committees, Governing Council, sports team coaching, listening to reading, testing students at times tables, going on excursions and hosting get-to-know-you events for class parents. I have found that most years I commit to more than I can manage and end up feeling guilty about pulling out of something.

In the past I have listened to reading, but I no longer sign up to do this straight away.  Quite frankly, after years of listening to reading, I am a bit over it, last year I offered to test times-tables for one of the older classes, that was much more fun!

Our school has had a change of all senior leadership in the last 12 months and I did spend time last year trying to meet them, be supportive and make connections so that we have develop those relationships. I will need to do the same this year.

I always try to get to know the staff in the front office by name, and again being a friendly cheerful face with no agenda appears to be a refreshing change!

3. Get to know the children at school

In the years that I did go into the classroom, for reading or times-tables, the main benefit was meeting all the children and that they all know whose mum I was. I was able to understand some of the class dynamics a little more, and I could encourage certain friendships.

As the kids get older and I have done less of this, I don’t get to know the kids in class as well anymore. Although really, once you meet them in Reception (Kindergarten) or Year 1, you still know who they are for the next 7 years!

Sometimes, an excursion has helped fill in this knowledge gap a little.

4. Get to know the parents and families of the children in the class

This is easier in the first few years of school, but gets much harder later. We have almost finished meeting new parents in class now, with the kids in Years 7, 4 and 2. Not many parents are in classrooms regularly anymore, including us.

The main way we now get to know parents is by being involved with sporting teams. We know all the kids who play soccer and their families, and are now getting to know a lot of netball families. That has been great and we are very thankful for that opportunity.

5. Pray for the school

Obviously we pray for the school, students, teachers and families personally.

We have had a prayer group on and off over the last 7 years. The most exciting thing to come from that was our gingerbread event last year. We are hoping to do the same this year and keep building connections across the school.

We have loved being involved in a school community. It takes time and effort, but it is certainty worth it – both for our kids, for us and hopefully, for the people we meet and support along the way.

(If you want to read more about school involvement and our potential roles in a school community, I found the book Going Public very helpful a few years ago)