Saturday Good Reads

It was a good week for poetry, writing about poetry, and a documentary about one of the most beloved of poets – Emily Dickinson. And it was a good week for writing – good advice and counsel, practical tips, a lost story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and some myths about social media for authors. There were encouraging stories about faith, too, with a manifesto, a wonderful story about missionary Hudson Taylor, Susan Jones telling her story of faith (and she wasn’t the one who was faithful), and more. And photographs, both beautiful and somber.

It was also the week that saw the fifth Planned Parenthood video released. The evidence is mounting rapidly. Set the official talking points aside (and the talking points are flying fast and thick), and consider the five videos as a group. The evidence – what the videos (both edited and unedited) demonstrate is that the subject matter is getting more damning with each video. Frank Schaeffer (no darling of conservative evangelicals, that’s to be sure) takes on the videos in an unexpected way. Russ Douthat in The New York Times addresses those pro-life Christians who think they can still find some justification for giving Planned Parenthood tax dollars. And Corey Poff pulls together a collection of links.

But if you read nothing else on this list, I urge you to read the story of President Obama’s visit with young African leaders in Washington on Monday. Unintentionally, he makes the best case of all against Planned Parenthood.

Poetry

God Joined Me for a Drink – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

Dante Alighieri – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Higher Stakes – John Blase at the Beautiful Due.

Untrending – Aaron Belz at Curator Magazine.

Emily Dickinson, The Documentary – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Wings – Tim Good at Poetry by Tiwago.

Four Poems and Scene, Scene Change – Davis McCombs at Oxford American.

Photography

Tiger Swallowtail – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Florida Heartland – Brian McSwain at Oxford American.

Writing

My Embarrassing Trick to Making Writing into Easy Self-Improvement – Mick Silva.

3 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me As a Writer – Margaret Feinberg.

The State of Christian Fiction – Sarah Bolme at Marketing Christian Books.

What I Miss Most About Traditional Publishing – Debra Cooke (Hat tip: Ed Cyzewski).

Publishers: Avoid Grading an Author’s Social Media Status – Rob Eager at WildFire Marketing.

A lost short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald to be published – Slate.

3 Myths About Social Media for Authors – Tim Grahl (Hat Tip: Ed Cyzewski).

Faith

Why How You View Yourself Matters – Jason Stasyszen at Connecting to Impact.

The Unproductive Church – Winn Collier.

Reflections on Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Implosion – John Piper at The Gospel Coalition.

Holistic Mission for the Church – Bob Robinson at Re_Integrate.

Faithful – A guest post by Susan Jones for Jennifer Dukes-Lee (2012) (Hat tip: Laura Barkat).

A Manifesto for the World You Live – Tammy Hendricksmeyer at Outside the City Gate (Hat tip: Amy Breitman).

Hudson Taylor and the Power of Gentleness – David Neff at Christianity Today.

The Planned Parenthood Videos

The fifth Planned Parenthood video drops – The Gospel Coalition.

We Are a Hardhearted People: Jesus, the Planned Parenthood Videos, Politics and Guns – Frank Schaeffer at Patheos (Hat tip: Jim Schmotzer).

Wrapping the violence up – Corey Poff at Torrey Gazette.

Obama: Killing Humans and Harvesting Their Organs is an Atrocity That Must End (in Africa) – The Federalist.

There is No Pro-Life Case for Planned Parenthood – Russ Douthat at The New York Times (Hat tip: Mike Duran).

Planned Parenthood: A Failure of Imagination – Sarah Clarkson at Human Pursuits. 

‘You’re Not Really Pro-Life Because…’ – David Koyzis at First Things.

The Real Story of the Summer - Pete Spiliakos at First Things.

An Honest Conversation about Abortion that Asks Us not to Turn Away from Anyone - The Emmaus Option - Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience.

Painting: The Artist’s Father Reading, oil on canvas by Paul Cezanne (1866); The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.