Saturday Good Reads

It’s Halloween, and Chris Yokel asks why ghost stories and tells a tale a Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Rod Dreher at American Conservative has been telling the story all week of the Catholic liberal theologians who wrote a letter to The New York Times, protesting a column on Pope Francis by Catholic Ross Douthat. The pixels are flying all over the place; Dreher decided to take a look at one of the academics who signed the letter, and it’s amazing what passes for adacemic scholarship these days.

Good poetry – good stories about writing – and a wake-up call about Planned Parenthood.

And the Piano Guys do what only the Piano Guys can do – combine a fight song with Amazing Grace, way up in Scotland.

Halloween

Why Ghost Stories? and The Spiritual Quest of Jack Skellington – Chris Yokel.

Top Ten Spooky Poems for Halloween – Lyla Lindquist at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poetry

Through the Windy – Robbie Pruitt.

Perfect Dragonfly – A Cento – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

The Seven Types of Poetry – Robert Peake at Huffington Post Books.

After the Exile – Corey Mesler at Curator Magazine.

Sylvia Plath Reading Her Poems – via Englewood Review of Books.

Writing

Five Minutes with Peter Ackroyd – BBC News.

The Writing Life Podcast: Never, Never, Never Sit on a Story – Ann Kroeker.

Tiny Distractions and Silent Vows – Mick Silva.

A Sincere Thank You – My Final Post – Matt Appling at The Church of No People.

She’s So Lovely – Travis Thrasher at The Journey is Everything.

Photography

The Champion Table Build, Part 3: Leg Joinery – Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

Fall Hydrangea – Tim Good.

Faith

Why Study Academic Theology? – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

When God Goes Away, Superstition Takes His Place – The American Interest.

Refugee Stories: The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

On Revivalist Christianity – Owen White at The Ochlophobist.

Can I Love My Children Enough to Let Them Fail? – Shawn Smucker.

Planned Parenthood

This is Your Wake-Up Call – Betsey Childs Howard at First Things.

Amazing Grace – Scottish Style

Top photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

 London Waking Up

We’re skewing back in a British direction this today. Above, you can see “London Waking Up,” via Londontopia. Having taken a few while early-morning walks there when we were on vacations, I can say it’s just like that (Hat top: my wife, Janet Young). At the bottom, you’ll find “London Going to Sleep,” and that’s my wife’s godson singing in Spitalfields Market in London.

In between, you’ll find a video tribute to the poet Seamus Heaney (who was Irish, not British). And a lot of other good stuff, too.

Faith

Faith in the Wibbly-Wobbly Universe of Doctor Who – Sarah Bessey at Christianity Today.

“How is Your Spiritual Life?” is the Wrong Question to Ask – Hugh Whelchel at Faith, Work & Economics.

Miracles in the Middle East: is there hope in the chaos? – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

Preserving a nation’s integrity requires diligence – Dr. Melvin Banks at Urban Faith.

Good Ol’ Words: Glory – Winn Collier.

The Sympathy of the Puritans – Bria Sandford at Fare Forward.

Twelve Syrian Martyrs – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

Life and Culture

Debunking the Myth of Generational Gaps – Daniel Weinzveg at Thin Difference.

Why ancient Rome matters to the modern world – Mary Beard at The Guardian.

Weird Lessons from Macbeth – Travis LaCouter at Evangel.

Human Fallibility a Historical Constant – Rod Dreher at American Conservative. And the essay by Tish Harrison Warren in Christianity Today that he cites.

Poetry

Octoberal – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

The Pearl Poet – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Screen Time (A Found Poem) – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

The End of Fifty Two - Steven Marty Grant at Urbanality.

For Seamus (Heaney) – Elaine McMillian Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon for The New York Times:

Writing

How to Break Your Writer’s Block – Tania Runyan at How to Read a Poem.

Face your shame – Mick Silva.

The Writing Life Podcast: How to Find and Generate Energy – Ann Kroeker.

Photography and Art

Spring Rainforests – Randall David Tipton at Painter’s Process.

Beautiful Poison – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Planned Parenthood

The repeated, misleading claim that Planned Parenthood ‘provides’ mammograms – Michelle Ye Hee Lee at The Washington Post.

London Going to Sleep

American Andrew Duhon sings “Too Late” at The Spitalfields Market in London as vendors are closing up their booths for the day.

Saturday Good Reads

I’ve read a number of good posts on writing in the past week – from how to generate ideas, resources for writers and poets, writers for writers to read, telling a respected and perhaps beloved teacher goodbye, and what we can learn from penmanship (remember when they used to teach that in schools?).

Kronos Media recently assembled video footage from a number of sources of what Berlin looked like in July, 1945, two months after the end of World War II in Europe. Included are scenes of the “rubble women” (who worked to clear bombed sites), the area around Hitler’s bunker and the ditch where his dead body was burned, the Mosaic Hall of Hitler’s Chancellery (painted by Anselm Kiefer), and a city trying to come to grips with a very different world. The video is below.

The eighth Planned Parenthood video has been released by the Center for Medical Progress, and if you’ve ever doubted that abortion has become a big business in the United States, then watch the video. Executives with StemExpress, the company buying organs of aborted babies from Planned Parenthood, talks about how important it is that Planned Parenthood profit, too. And in something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984, one of the executives has the title of procurement manager.

In that regard, Joe Carter and Time Challies remind us that we don’t need to take the words of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, out of context, and there is a lot of that happening on social media. The things she said and believed are damning enough in context.

Writing

How to Generate Ideas for Writing - @annkroeker http://annkroeker.com/2015/08/19/how-to-generate-ideas-for-writing/

Resources for Poets and Writers – Mary Sayler at The Poetry Editor.

We are slaves to the printed word, but only handwriting conveys real beauty – Simon Jenkins at The Guardian (Hat tip: J of India).

What came of the things we once believed? – Travis Thrasher.

The Little Spec-Fic Conference That Could – Mike Duran at Novel Rocket.

Five Questions with Author Karen Swallow Prior – Boundless.org (Hat top: Mike Duran and Maureen Doallas).

Writing to Heal the Hole-Hearted – Mick Silva.

A Goodbye of Sorts – Jake Lee at Very Much Later.

Writers to Read: 9 Names That Belong on Your Bookshelf – Mary H. Sayler at In a Christian Writer’s Life.

Poetry

‘Only His Hands, Quiet On The Sheet’ - 3 poems by Wendell Berry via @roddreher at @amconmag http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/wendell-berry-dying-ray-dreher/

Sandra Duguid –D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

The Torrentials – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

Inside Ship Windows – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Art and Photography

Artist Watch: Noel Paine – Maureen Doallas at Escape into Life. http://www.escapeintolife.com/painting/noel-paine/

Hummingbirds – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

The Katrina Decade – David Spielman at Oxford American.

November Dusk and New Mexico Watercolors – Randall David Tipton at Painter’s Process.

Work

How to put an end to stupid job interviews – Nick Corcodilos at PBS (Hat tip: Janet Young).

Commerce – Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

Faith

A letter for my daughter who is all growed up – Troy Cady at T(r)oy Marbles.

That was a Man – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

Planned Parenthood

The 8^th Video from the Center for Medical Progress – Justin Taylor at The Gospel Colation.

9 Things You Should Know About Margaret Sanger – Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition.

The Truth About Margaret Sanger – Tim Challies at Informing the Reforming.

Witches Can Be Right, Giants Can Be Good – Jody Lee Collins at Three Way Light.

Berlin – July 1945 – Kronos Media

Top photograph by Francisco Faris Jr. via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Making a Difference – Poem by Lynn D. Morrissey

If you’ve seen my Saturday Good Reads of the last few weeks, you know I’ve been including the ongoing release of the Planned Parenthood videos by the Center for Medical Progress – even though they are more of an “urgent” read than a “good” read. The subject of each successive video has been getting progressively worse, with the seventh video (posted last week) covering the subject of the process of “harvesting” of a baby’s brain in a late-term abortion.

There are no “key message points” from Planned Parenthood, its allies in “medical research” or the press secretary for Obama Administration sufficient to justify what I can only call a horror – an evil horror. So far, my two U.S. Senators from the state of Missouri have responded as expected – with Sen. Claire McCaskill supporting Planned Parenthood and Sen. Roy Blunt opposing it. At least Sen. Blunt is on record for opposing this evil.

My friend Lynn Morrissey, whose poem “Charleston” I published here in July, has written another poem. It’s not about the videos, but it is about Planned Parenthood, and it asks questions, heartrending questions.

Making a Difference

In recognition of the work of Planned Parenthood

August 2015

by Lynn D. Morrissey

Before the babies’ demise,

did the good doctors

hear the chilling cries of women

in the inchoate aftermath of their non-pathological operations:

their legal abortions?

Did the doctors warn them that the savagery

of surgery could invite hemorrhaging or ravage them

barren?

Did they advise about the post-abortive risk for breast-cancer or suicide?

Did they abide professional protocol to lessen their gut-wrenching pain

from near-disembowelment with a dose of two Extra-Strength Tylenol

or a sympathetic pat on the hand,

and assure them that their pain was all in their head?

Did they avert their eyes

and rationalize that those who shook and sobbed uncontrollably

were just having a bad reaction to sedation?

Did their gaze penetrate the masks of those resolute Stoics?

Did they see that they had absolutely shut down their emotions?

Did they high-five the nonchalants, applauding their cavalier demeanor—

for now?

Did they sing their praises with a laid-back, “Good job, babe!”?

Did the doctors practice good patient follow-up through the years

(and years and years),

and prescribe barbiturates—pretty palliatives to deaden unpalatable dreams

about human dismemberment

and to hasten sleep?

Did they keep oft-resulting alcoholism and drug abuse at bay with timely referrals to AA?

Did the doctors  prepare their patients for PAS, those frequently assaulting flashbacks

that rear up unexpectedly like wild stallions,

with swift kicks to the gut to

keep the memory alive?

Did the doctors cradle the broken disconsolates,

whose arms ached to rock desolate cradles?

Did they remain conscious of women’s impossible-to-abort consciences?

Did the good doctors do all this as professionals,

committed to the well-being of their patients?

Did they do all this to show how much they cared?

Did they do all this to make an indelible difference in the lives of those under their care,

in a world-turned-cold?

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

We’ve been watching via Netflix the mini-series Band of Brothers, which originally aired on HBO in 2001. The quality is what you’d expect from the executive  production of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and the late historian Stephen Ambrose. Watching a series like this raises a contemporary question: Did you notice all of the U.S. observances for the 70^th anniversary of the end of the end of World War II? Except for the recreation of the famous kiss in Times Square, I didn’t either, although I did see a number of stories about the atomic bomb and Hiroshima.

Britain, however, was another matter, and even St. Paul’s Cathedral honored an American who died in the Battle of Britain (see below). Queen Elizabeth led the observance at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London.

Why do we turn a blind eye to a war that, like the Civil War did in the 19^th century, defined America in its own century?

Speaking of turning a blind eye, welcome to 21^st century America. The seventh Planned Parenthood video was released by the Center for Medical Progress. While the expected chorus of “deceptive video,” “agenda-driven extremists,” and “we have broken no laws” continues, and as the outraged business that buys fetal parts from Planned Parenthood (“pays for transportation costs”) sues to stop the videos' release, we have this new horror, so awful I can’t even find words to describe it. The Gospel Coalition continues to post each video as it’s released.

Yet even with this atrocity, there is still great beauty happening all around us. And I have to keep reminding myself of that.

For map lovers: A curator of maps at the Los Angeles County Library was called to home one day, and asked if the library would be interested in a collection of maps. Expecting to find a box or two, the curator found an entire house filled with maps. And the Los Angeles Review of Books filmed the result (Hat tip: American Digest; the full video is below).

Lots of good poetry this week. And articles on writing (as Marilyn Gardner says in the link noted below, it’s not just the story you tell – but how you tell it.)

Poetry

Broken – Loren Paulsson at World Narratives.

Poetry as Enchantment – Dana Gioia at The Dark Horse (Hat tip: Ann Kroeker).

Haiku (after Hiroshima) – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Beggar – Chris Yokel.

Izaak Walton – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

What I Would Do Again – Troy Cady at T(r)oy Marbles.

A Grief Conserved – John Blase at The Beautiful Due.

The Man Behind London’s Only Poetry Book Shop – Kyra Hanson at Londonist (Hat tip: Maureen Doallas).

Handful of Cockle Shells – Heather Eure at The Consolation of Mirth.

Art and Photography

Top of the Mornin' to Y'all – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Women of Bellefontaine Cemetery – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

The Italian Girl: An Old Tale – Trevor Logan at Curator Magazine.

Faith and Culture

The Coddling of the American Mind – Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt at The Atlantic.

Ben Carson is a messenger the GOP needs to hear – editorial in the New York Post.

An American soldier who died that England might live – St. Paul’s Cathedral.

7 Signs You Were Raised as an Evangelical in the Last 25 Years – Joshua Rogers at Boundless (Hat tip: Tim Challies)

Planned Parenthood

PlannedParenthood’s Custom Abortions for Superior Product – The Gospel Coalition. The post include four fact sheets.

Writing

Writers’ Apps – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Good Old Words – Winn Collier.

Does Christian Fiction Have a Race Problem? – Mike Duran at deCompose.

7 Questions to Ask Before You Post on Social Media – Ron Edmondson.

The Stories of Others – Marilyn Gardner at Communicating Across Boundaries.

Are Curators the New Experts? – Heidi Oran at @ThinDifference.

Maps

Photograph: A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge by William Morris, via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Saturday Good Reads

This week, I’ve been reading Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land, the biography of T.S. Eliot by Robert Crawford of the University of St. Andrews. Yesterday, I had a meeting in mid-town St. Louis on Locust Street, which just happens to be the street where the Eliots lived, and actually only five blocks away. I knew the house at 2635 Locust was long gone, but I drove by anyway.

The property on the north side of Locust is now a fenced, unused, weed grown parking lot in a commercial / light industrial area. It set me to pondering the impermanence of life on this earth, and what had been an upper middle class neighborhood in the late 1880s and 1890s now resembled something of a waste land.

Good things in poetry this week, and photography, and writing. Another Planned Parenthood video was released, and I think I was right – with each video, the subject and details are getting worse.

And if you asked me what I think heaven might look like, I would say watch the video of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. Watch the faces. This is also a picture of what the church might be, might become.

Poetry

Franz Wright – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

First Words – Amy Billone at Verse Wrights (Hat tip: L.L. Barkat).

Noteworthy: On James Tate – Kelly McBride at Curator Magazine. And his obituary in The Guardian (the Brits do these so much better than we do).

County Crow – D.R. James at Curator Magazine.

Photography and Art

Bodark Obed Edom – Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

Creating Paris Street, Rainy Day: New Discoveries about Caillebotte’s Process – Art Institute of Chicago.

Seeking Balance: The Lives of Evangelical Pastors in Rural Florida – Jeff Rich at Oxford American.

Monarch Caterpillars – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

Writing

How to Write Your Story to Value the Honest Truth – Mick Silva.

Five Encounters with Vegetation – Will Blythe at Oxford American.

The Literature of Witness – Alex Miller Jr. at Curator Magazine.

Planned Parenthood

I Don’t Know if I’m Pro-Choice After Planned Parenthood Videos – Ruben Navarrette Jr. at The Daily Beast.

The Sixth Planned Parenthood Video – how Planned Parenthood and StemExpress planned “production and harvest” – Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition.

The Sanctity of Human Life – Matt Chandler of the Village Church.

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

Painting: Paris Street, Rainy Day, oil on canvas by Gustav Caillebotte (1877); Art Institute of Chicago.

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.