Quick take on favorites of mine over the last couple of weeks:
1) Beyond the Guitar’s Latest – Enjoy!
2) Parenting Pearls – So thankful for wisdom of others…especially in parenting and raising children to be mentally healthy and resilient. How other cultures parent is also intriguing. Below are some of both.
Mom blogger Becky Mansfield wrote a great piece on things we don’t want our kiddos to forget. Please share in the Comments what you hope your children don’t forget.
What Really Matters: Things I Never Want Our Kids to Forget – Becky Mansfield
Photo Credit: Facebook, Becky Mansfield, Your Modern Family
First, You Decide that Kids Belong in School – Carrie McKean – a writer friend of mine in Texas; everyone won’t agree with her, but she writes well and with reason for us as parents during our time with COVID.
A Top Researcher Says It’s Time to Rethink Our Entire Approach to Preschool – Anya Kementz
It’s Easy to Judge Until It’s Your Kid; Let’s Try Compassion – MaryBeth Bock
The Secret of Arctic ‘Survival Parenting’
3) Aging Well – Start young. Start young to age well. If you have to catch up (like me), there is still time.
The Seven Habits That Lead to Happiness in Old Age – Arthur C. Brooks
Forgiving People Is Good for Your Health. Here’s How to Do It. – Rachel Feltman
The situation with my mom (cancer and heart) and my dad’s (Parkinson’s and dementia) health has been making me so sad. I wish I could be with them right now. ? So my sister sent a video of them together tonight, dancing to Neil Young. ? Take a moment to love your loved ones. pic.twitter.com/y2fBu26NlP
— Holli (@holli) January 23, 2022
Forgiving People Is Good for Your Health. Here’s How to Do It – Rachel Feltman
Photo Credit: John & Julie Gottman, Yes! Magazine
What to Read About Wordle While Everybody’s Still Talking About It – Alex Dalenberg
My Wordle philosophy—a short thread:
I don’t use a strategy. I don’t want a strategy. (Please don’t reply with any.)
I’m not competitive with anyone but myself (in this game and in all things).
I’m terrible at games and seldom play any.
1/2
— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) (@KSPrior) January 27, 2022
Twitter, Karen Swallow Prior (Click to read the full thread)
Wordle App (different game, different creator)
5) War – We have all read and watched about the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia. How to respond? Who to respond? I won’t pose an opinion here because we have so many, and they don’t help really. Praying is the most important thing we can do. Below are some links I found interesting this week (well, links that weren’t behind a paywall). Praying…
Photo Credit: Facebook
War in Ukraine: Essential Reading
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky: the Comedian President Who Is Rising to the Moment – Stephen Mulvey
Wendell Berry’s Advice for a Cataclysmic Age – Dorothy Wickenden [Lengthy biographical piece on Berry’s advice – also includes an audio file which you can listen to instead of reading the story.]
Here are a few quotes from the piece above:
“Think Little. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet.” Berry went on to say that he was “ashamed and deeply distressed that American government should have become the chief cause of disillusionment with American principles.”
In a Jefferson Lecture in 2012, he quoted Stegner’s description of Americans as one of two basic types, “boomers” and “stickers.” Boomers are “those who pillage and run,” who “make a killing and end up on Easy Street.” Stickers are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.” They are “placed people,” in Berry’s term—forever attached to the look of the sky, the smell of native plants, and the vernacular of home.
He told the crowd that, as a member of the human race, he was “in the worst possible company: communists, fascists and totalitarians of all sorts, militarists and tyrants, exploiters, vandals, gluttons, ignoramuses, murderers.” But, he insisted, he was given hope by people “who through all the sad destructive centuries of our history have kept alive the vision of peace and kindness and generosity and humility and freedom.”
“A properly educated conservative, who has neither approved of abortion nor supported a tax or a regulation, can destroy a mountain or poison a river and sleep like a baby,” he writes. “A well-instructed liberal, who has behaved with the prescribed delicacy toward women and people of color, can consent to the plunder of the land and people of rural America and sleep like a conservative.”
“If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand, like a fire extinguisher.”
“Jesus said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ which I take to mean that if we do the right things today, we’ll have done all we really can for tomorrow. OK. So I hope to do the right things today.”
Wendell Berry – Americans Who Tell the Truth Website
Any favorite finds you’d be willing to share? Post them in the Comments and thanks so much for stopping by.
Bonuses:
Setting a Valentine’s lunch for our grandchildren:
The Real-Life Diet of Kenny G, Who Learned to Cook to Set an Example for His Son – Mick Rouse
YouTube Video – Jesus’ Heart – Eric Gilmour and Dane Ortlund
