Some Links for Sunday

I tend to gather up links for days and days until I have way too many windows open, so I'll just post a bunch of them today.

First of all, this is the one year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Many words and photos have been shared, but here's a post that especially resonated with me. I'm praying for the people in Japan as they relive the memories and the terrible grief. We in Haiti stand with you in the fellowship of earthquake survivors.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: an ad campaign for diapers featured mockery of dads. These diapers are so good, the ads told us, that even foolish, clueless dads can use them. A backlash from dads who are neither foolish nor clueless led to the cancelling of the ads. Hooray for involved fathers!

I loved Sarah Bessey's post about what a Biblical woman looks like. I spend so much time feeling inadequate and comparing myself to others, and I needed her reminder that

"when your heart, mind and soul is deep within the reality of living loved, we discover that those 'rules' are really just characteristics, the natural fruit to be borne out of a meaningful life changing relationship. And there are many expressions and ways to live out love, joy, kindness, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, peace and goodness - as men, as women, as mothers, as fathers, as friends.

After all, if we one believes that Jesus is a relationship then there must be room for each of us having a unique relationship, vocation, season or calling."

I just read P.D. James' latest novel, Death Comes to Pemberley. My daughter laughed at me for reading "fan fiction" (since I laugh at her for the same thing). At some point I'll post a review, but meanwhile a friend sent me this one, which I thought was wonderful.

And here's another NPR link, this one to an interview with Alan Shapiro about a book I haven't read. I just liked his quote about how art works on the artist:

"But, you know, writing is a way of being happy even if what you're writing about is how unhappy you are, because - and not in a therapeutic sense, but in the sense that you get to convert things that you have to in life perhaps passively suffer into something that you can actively make on the page. And so it can give you some sense of agency and power. You know, I'm an easily distracted person. I've been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. One of my children had it and so the doctor had us tested as well. It's the only test I've ever aced. Elizabeth Bishop has a wonderful line. She says that the thing we want from great art is the same necessary for its creation, and that is a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration. And that's that kind of deep Zen-entranced experience that I have when I'm writing. You know, I sit down at the desk at 9 o'clock, I look up and it's 4 o'clock suddenly and all those hours have gone by as in a single moment. And, to me, that's paradise. That's heaven."

So there you go: a lot of unrelated links that won't all matter to anyone but me. Hope you, reader, found at least one you liked!