Twelve Portions of the Bible to Study in 2012

Feb13

1. I’m involved in a Beth Moore Bible study at church: David, a Man After God’s Own Heart. So, we’re studying in First and Second Samuel. We’re going to be discussing the rather distressing story of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom at Bible study on Wednesday, and I’m hoping to gain some insight into the parenting and letting go of adult children, although I can assure you that if I had a son like Amnon, I would be completely devastated and paralyzed for life. The story, if you want to read it, is in II Samuel 13-15.

2. Also at church, my pastor is preaching through the book of Revelation. So, I’m studying that, even though it’s my least favorite part of the Bible.

3. At our Women’s Retreat in April we’ll be doing a topical study on loving and living the law of the Lord, the Word of God. I’m looking forward to that study.

4. I’ll be reading through the New Testament during Lent, perhaps using this plan. I plan to read from the new paraphrase/translation, The Voice, from Thomas Nelson Publishers, to see what I think of it as I read.

5. After Easter, I want to do a study of the books of Judges and of Acts, to compare and see what I might need to be doing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in times like these. I think we’re living in Judges and in Acts, both at the same time, but I need to do some study to flesh that analogy out.

6. I hope to spend the summer in one of the major prophets, probably either Isaiah or Jeremiah.

7. Beginning in August, I will probably listen to Beth Moore’s study of the gospels, Jesus, the One and Only.

8. Z-baby and I are doing this 2012 Bible Reading Challenge, courtesy of Redeemed Reader. At least, we’re trying. We’re still only on Week 1.

9. On August 5, 2012 my pastor will begin a fall series in 1st Peter. So, that would be a good place to be concentrating.

10. I would like to memorize a psalm this year, but I haven’t decided which one.

11. I’d also be interested in memorizing some portion of the Sermon on the Mount, maybe in the fall along with my study of the life of Christ.

12. Finally, I want to go over the Old Testament prophecies that speak to the coming of Jesus as Messiah and Lord during Advent with my urchins.

Too ambitious? Not enough? I may not do all of the above, but I know enough about myself to know that if I don’t have some sort of plans and a variety of ideas, I will do nothing at all.

Africa Is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove

Feb13

“Africa is not a country—it is a vast continent made up of 53 nations. . . From the tiny island nations of Comoros, Syechelles, and Sao Tome and Principe, to its largest country (Sudan), Africa is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres.”

Z-baby (age 10) read this book, and commented as she read:

“You mean Africa is bigger than the United States?”

“It says Africa is almost as wide as it is tall. No way!”

“Here’s what I don’t understand: why is it when they talk about Africa on the radio they always talk about the children? Something’s always happening to the children?”

“Pula is the name of the money in Botswana and it also means rain.”

“It told about this girl who sold milk, and she carried it on her head.”

I thought this book, consisting of several brief stories of children in various African countries and colorful illustrations depicting the children’s lives, was a good introduction to the continent of Africa and the idea that it is a vast place with many different nations and cultures. Z-baby learned some things, but she was not terribly impressed with the book or its content.

Unit study and curriculum uses for Africa Is Not a Country: Africa, world geography, Black History Month, cultural geography.

Nonfiction Monday is being celebrated today at the blog Wrapped in Foil.

1962: Events and Inventions

Feb12

January 9, 1962. Cuba and the Soviet Union sign a trade pact.

January 13, 1962. Albania allies itself with the People’s Republic of China.

February, 1962. President imposes an embargo on the importation of Cuban goods into the United States.

February 20, 1962. Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth. Either the movie, The Right Stuff, or Tom Wolfe’s 1979 novel from which the movie was adapted would be a good introduction to the early years of the U.S. space program.

March 1, 1962. The S. S. Kresge Company opens its first K-mart discount store in Garden City, Michigan.

July 1, 1962. Rwanda and Burundi in south central Africa separate into two countries and gain independence from Belgium. In Rwanda, Rwandan Hutu attack the Tutsi and massacre them by the thousands. Many Rwandan Tutsi escape to Burundi and Uganda.

July 3, 1962. The French president Charles de Gaulle “solemnly recognizes” the independence of Algeria. After 132 years of French rule, Algeria is an independent nation.

October, 1962. Amnesty International, an organization set up to investigate human rights abuses around the world, is formed.

October 15-28, 1962. Cuban Missile Crisis. President John F. Kennedy receives information that the Soviet is constructing missile sites in Cuba to house missiles aimed at the United States. Kennedy imposes a naval quaratine around Cuba to prevent the delivery and deployment of Soviet missiles. Khrushchev demands the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. THe U.S. agrees to guarantee no invasion of Cuba if the Soviets will remove the missiles. Crisis averted.

December, 1962. The U.S. space probe Mariner II sends back the first close-up pictures of the planet Venus.

Saturday Review of Books: February 11, 2012

Feb10

â€œThere are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well worth staying up all night to finish.â€ ~Lemony Snicket

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Semicolon (Twelve Miles Long)
2. Semicolon (Girl of Fire and Thorns)
3. Semicolon (The Devil in Pew Number Seven)
4. Jessica Snell (Stashbuster Knits)
5. JoAnne @ The Fairytale Nerd ( The Fault in Our Stars)
6. Becky (The Great Migration)
7. Becky (All Good Children)
8. Becky (The Friendship Doll)
9. Becky (Sylvia & Aki)
10. Becky (Earth Abides)
11. Becky (We)
12. Becky (The Demolished Man)
13. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Valentine’s Day books)
14. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Shadow of Ghadames)
15. Hope (The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne by Kathleen Norris)
16. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (“The Gift of the Magi”)
17. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (This Week in Books)
18. Reach the Stars (Each Little Bird That Sings)
19. Reach the Stars (The Young Man and the Sea)
20. Reach the Stars (The Mysterious Benedict Society)
21. Reach the Stars (A Living Nightmare)
22. Becky (The Way We Fall)
23. Staci (The Borrower)
24. Bonnie (Facing East)
25. Alice@Supratentorial(Still by Lauren Winner)
26. Collateral Bloggage (Shadows in Flight)
27. Beth@Weavings (Throught the Looking Glass)
28. Beth@Weavings (The Blythes are Quoted, The Organized Heart & More)
29. SuziQoregon@ Whimpulsive (Missing Persons)
30. SuziQoregon@ Whimpulsive (The Treasure of Khan)
31. SmallWorld Reads (A Secret Kept)
32. SmallWorld Reads (Sex Lives of Cannibals)
33. Donovan @ Where Pen Meets Paper (Abraham Kuyper)
34. Andrew @ Where Pen Meets Paper (Blueprints of the Afterlife)

35. Barbara H. (I Remember Laura [Ingalls Wilder])
36. Joseph R. @ Zombie Parents Guide (The Black Cauldron)
37. Janet ( Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking))
38. Ajoop @ on books! (The Academie by Amy Joy)
39. Glynn (Letters to heaven)
40. Glynn (Unexpected Elegies)
41. Sarah Reads Too Much (Spin)
42. Mental multivitamin (On the nightstand)
43. Becky (Cleopatra Confesses)
44. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Night Road)
45. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Honored Redeemed)
46. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Accidental Bride)
47. Lazygal (The Innocent)
48. Lazygal (The Bedlam Detective)
49. Lazygal (Accidents of Providence)
50. Lazygal (Restoration)
51. Lazygal (Far From Here)
52. Lazygal (The Fallback Plan)
53. Lazygal (The Age of Miracles)
54. Lazygal (The Red Book)
55. Lazygal (The Leopard)
56. Jules Book Reviews (Offshore)
57. Jules Book Reviews (The Sense of Ending)
58. Jules Book Reviews (The Boxcar Children)
59. Girl Detective (Swamplandia)
60. Amy’s Assorted Adventures (30 Lessons for Living)
61. The Story Factory Reading Zone (Pyramids)
62. Thoughts of Joy (Saving June)
63. S. Krishna’s Books (Fragile Eternity)
64. S. Krishna’s Books (Tina’s Mouth)
65. S. Krishna’s Books (One Moment One Morning)
66. S. Krishna’s Books (Outside the Lines)
67. S. Krishna’s Books (The Rebel Wife)
68. S. Krishna’s Books (The Crown)

69. S. Krishna’s Books (The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook)
70. Debbie @ Exurbanis (Blizzard of Glass)
71. Debbie @ Exurbanis (The Carpet People)
72. Carol in Oregon (Barbara Tuchman’s Practicing History)
73. Debbie @ Exurbanis (These Happy Golden Years)
74. Debbie @ Exurbanis (The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy)
75. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis)
76. bekahcubed (Cybils Easy Reading)
77. bekahcubed (Cybils Fiction Picture Books)
78. Cindy@OrdoAmoris (Wordsmithy)
79. Cindy@OrdoAmoris( The Roots of American Order Book Club Announcement)
80. Emily C. (AfterWords)
81. Nicola (How Do We Stay on Earth? A Gravity Mystery)
82. Nicola (How Do We Know About Dinosaurs? A Fossil Mystery)
83. Nicola (Women of the Titanic Disaster)
84. Nicola (Titanic 2012 by Bill Walker)
85. Nicola (The Flint Heart by Katherine Paterson)
86. Nicola (Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, Vol. 1)
87. Nicola (Giveaway: The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott)
88. Nicola (The Midnight Zoo by Sonya Hartnett)
89. Becky (The Toddler’s Bible)
90. Becky (The Gospel-Driven Life)
91. Becky (The Worthing Saga)
92. Becky (The Stars My Destination)
93. Becky (Crow)
94. Amy@book musings (Der Vorleser)
95. Amy@book musings (Quiet: The Power of Introverts…)
96. utter randomonium (All Her Father’s Guns)
97. Gina @ Bookscount (Cherished)
98. Quieted Waters (Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater)
99. The Girl @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
100. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Golden Hour)
101. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Baker’s Daughter)

100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.

The Devil in Pew Number Seven by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo

Feb10

I am in a quandary. I don’t want to discourage anyone form reading this memoir, a true story that carries a wonderful message about the necessity of forgiveness, even in the direst of circumstances.

However, to be honest, the book could have been edited down to about half or three-fourths of its almost 300 pages and not have lost a thing. If you’re a good skimmer, you’ll really appreciate this story of a pastor and his family terrorized and very nearly destroyed by a man who acts like the devil incarnate. In 1969, Robert Nichols moved with his family to Sellerstown, North Carolina to serve as pastor of the Free Welcome Holiness Church. As the name of the church indicated, the Nichols family was welcomed by the community, except for one man, Mr. Horry James Watts, who lived across the street from the parsonage and occupied pew number seven in the Free Welcome Church every Sunday morning. The violence and harrassment began with threatening phone calls and escalated until . . . No spoilers here.

The amazing thing about the story is the ending. Could you forgive a man who threatened to make you family leave the community where you lived “crawling or walking, dead or alive?” The sction near the end of the book on forgiveness is worth the price of the book because the author speaks from hard-earned experience.

“If I allow myself to go down the pathway of rage and retaliation, several things happen, and none of them are good. Here are my top four:
My sins will not be forgiven by God if I refuse to forgive those who have sinned against me.
I miss an opportunity to show God’s love to an unforgiving world.
I’m the one who remains in jail when I withhold God’s grace by failing to forgive.
If I have trouble forgiving, it might be because I’m actually angry at God, not at the person who wronged me.”

So, I’m recommending this book with the caveat that you’re not to expect deathless prose, just a riveting and inspiring story of nitty-gritty forgiveness and even joy in very difficult circumstances.

Once Upon a Time . . . We All Believed in Marriage

Feb9

The urchins and I have been watching the new TV series Once Upon a Time, and it’s been a good experience. It’s not LOST, but it does remind me of some of the best parts of that now-classic TV series. (Sometimes the reminders are intentional on the part of the writers, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, who also wrote for LOST. Lots of Lost Apollo candy bars turn up in Storybrooke, Maine, the setting for Once Upon a Time.)

So, as I said, it’s a good show. The premise is that a bunch of fairytale characters have been transported by the Evil Queen to Storybrooke in our world and have lost the memory of who they really are. Only the Evil Queen, who is the mayor of Storybrooke, knows who the people really are and that they’re under her evil curse. Sort of. Mayor Regina (Evil Queen) has an adopted son, Henry, and he spends his time trying to figure out who the people of Storybrooke really are in Fairyland and persuading his birth mother, Emma Swan, to “bring back the happy endings.”

The show alternates scenes between fairyland and the real world in Storybrooke (which isn’t really the Real World because it’s under a curse, if you see what I mean), and that’s where the fly in the ointment comes in. Without getting into too much detail or spoiler territory, there’s this one character, call him P.C., who has amnesia, even in Storybrooke world, and he has a wife he can’t remember at first. And it turns out he “has feelings” for M.M., who is his real wife and love from fairyland. But he doesn’t remember fairyland either, and neither does M.M. (Get it? If not, you’re not alone. It’s complicated.) Anyway, my kids and I are sitting here in front of the TV rooting for this amnesiac to leave his wife, who isn’t a very likable character, and get together with his “true love”, M.M. And I don’t like the way we’re being manipulated.

In its most recent issue, WORLD Magazine references a 2008 University of Chicago General Social Survey: “In it 81 percent of Americans responded that it is ‘always wrong’ for a married person to have sex with someone other than his or her spouse.” (P.C. and M.M. haven’t had sex, just kisses . . yet . . . except in fairyland . . . where they’re married to each other.) You see, we know what’s right and wrong, except when it comes down to cases. What if “his or her spouse” isn’t a very nice person? What if he’s found his True Love and he can’t control his feelings for her? What if she married young and made a mistake? What if husband and wife both want a new life, both want to find a new love or return to an old flame? What if the “married person” in question isn’t “someone out there”; it’s me, and I’m tired of being married to this person. My situation is different, doesn’t fit the normal rules. I should be allowed to find my own happy ending.

I don’t know where the writers of Once Upon a Time are going with this storyline. There’s a possibility that amnesiac P.C. isn’t really married to the annoying blonde he’s supposed to be married to, and then he would be free to pursue M.M. Nevertheless, I’m old-fashioned enough to agree with another fictional character, Jane Eyre, who had her own “hard case” of love and marriage to sort out: â€œLaws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.â€

100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.

Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Feb9

I can’t count this one for my North Africa Challenge, but the geography and culture of this fantasy world sort of felt like North Africa–or the American southwest: desert winds, adobe houses, camels, cowls and robes, a language related to Spanish or Portuguese.

The story itself reminded me of Dune, not just the desert setting but also the political intrigue and war strategy. Dune is, if you’ve read it, a bit more sophisticated than this book, but then again while author Frank Herbert (Dune, Dune Messiah, and many sequels) overdid the philosophical and political complications to the point of farce, the world of Girl of Fire and Thorns feels more believable and down to earth, if one can use that term in reference to a work of fantasy.

Our protagonist, Princess Elisa, second daughter of King Hitzedar de Riqueza of Orovalle, feels fat, useless and unloved. Then, when she is rushed into an arranged marriage with King Alejandro of the neighboring country of Joya d’Arena, she feels even more disregarded and unappreciated. Alejandro won’t even announce their wedding in his own kingdom for some reason, and the marriage remains unconsummated. Elisa carries the Godstone, the special gifting that only comes into the world once in a generation, but her special gift doesn’t mean anything when she doesn’t know what her service is supposed to be or how to find out.

Religion plays a big part in this story, another aspect reminiscent of Dune. Elisa prays and receives answers to her prayers, assurance of God’s presence through the Godstone which turns warm in the midst of prayer and praise and icy cold in the face of danger. The religious practices and tenets in the world that Ms. Carson has created for her debut novel are not really like any one religion that exists in this world, although the “Sancta Scriptura” that is quoted sounds a lot like the Hebrew psalms in English translation. Anyway, it’s good to see religious practice integrated into a fantasy novel instead of its being jettisoned in favor of a modern, evolved consciousness or vague spirituality.

The moral dilemmas and the coming of age of the main character are all a part of the novel, too, making it a classic fantasy with the usual themes. But Girl of Fire and Thorns is fresh and compelling. Without its becoming a feminist tract, the novel has a strong female protagonist who deals with her own weaknesses without becoming dependent on a man for her salvation and her growth as a character. Elisa is a well-rounded character, sometimes weak and self-indulgent, but finally reaching within herself and looking to God to find the strength she needs to carry out the task assigned to her for the sake of the people of her country and of her world.

The final plus for this novel is that it’s self-contained. It has a perfectly adequate ending, and although I see the wiggle space for the sequels in a planned trilogy, I didn’t feel cheated or teased by a cliffhanger ending. I appreciate that kind of respect shown by the author for her readers, and I will reciprocate by reading the next two books in the series, if they’re anywhere near as good as this one.

100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.

1961: Events and Inventions

Feb8

January 3, 1961. President Dwight Eisenhower announces the severing of diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.

January 17, 1961. Imprisoned former prime minister Patrice Lumumba of Republic of Congo is executed by firing squad. The CIA, the Belgian authorities in Congo, and the president of Congo, President Tshombe, may all have been involved in Lumumba’s death. “We are not Communists, Catholics, Socialists. We are African nationalists.” ~Patrice Lumumba.

January 31, 1961. The United States sends a monkey named Ham 150 miles into space in a Mercury capsule. Ham safely splashes down and receives an apple as a reward for his performance as the first monkey astronaut.

April 12, 1961. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth and becomes the first human in space.

April 19, 1961. The United States sponsors and funds 1500 Cuban exiles in an invasion of Cuba at The Bay of Pigs. The invasion fails, and President Kennedy and Soviet premier Krushchev warn one another not to interfere in the internal affairs of Cuba.

June 16, 1961. The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over the tiny sheikdom of Kuwait, and Iraq claims the territory as part of Iraq. Kuwait successfully resists Iraq and remains independent.

August 13-31, 1961. East German authorities build a huge wall of concrete blocks and electric fences and barbed wire separating East and West Berlin. Since the post World War II partition of Germany, more than two million Germans have fled East Germany into the West.

September 28, 1961. A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.

October 1, 1961. The formerly British Southern Cameroons unites with French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.

November 18, 1961. U.S. President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

December 9, 1961. Tanganyika gains independence and declares itself a republic, with Julius Nyerere as its first President.

Love Twelve Miles Long by Glenda Armand

Feb8

How long is a mother’s love for her son? Twelve miles long. Frederick’s mama must walk twelve long miles to visit her son who lives in slavery in the master’s Big House while his mother toils far way in the fields. Mama measures her journey in twelve miles of forgetting, remembering, listening, looking up, praying, singing, smiling, dancing, giving thanks, hoping, dreaming, and loving. And she tells Frederick the story of her twelve miles so that he will know who he is and how much she loves him.

Love Twelve Miles Long is illustrated with the beautiful paintings of artist Colin Bootman. In fact, here’s a link to a couple of desktop background illustrations from Love Twelve Miles Long. The story is based on stories from the 1820’s childhood of abolitionist, escaped slave, writer and public speaker Frederick Douglass. In his autobiography Douglass wrote that his mother taught him that he was not “only a child but somebody’s child.”

The love and encouragement of a parent, mother or father, can give a child confidence to rise above difficult circumstances and become more than his background would indicate that he can achieve. I can picture a mother and child reading this book together and using that reading as an expression of love and support.

Four brave employees from LEE & LOW BOOKS set out to see what it is like to walk twelve miles through the streets of New York City from Zuccotti Park to Frederick Douglass Circle in Harlem to the New York Public Library:

Mama had told him that there were things he could not count or measure: there were too many stars, the ocean was too wide, and the mountains of corn were too high. But there was one thing he could measure. Frederick knew with all his heart that his mama’s love was twelve miles long.

Unit studies and curriculum uses for Love Twelve Miles Long: Biography, Black History Month, Frederick Douglass, Family Traditions, Heroism, Mothers, Christian Heritage, Slavery, United States History.

100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.

1960: Events and Inventions

Feb7

January 1, 1960. French Cameroon becomes an independent country.

January 9, 1960. President Nasser lays the foundation stone of the Aswan High Dam as work begins on the engineering marvel on the Nile River in Egypt.

March 21, 1960. In the black township of Sharpeville in Transvaal, South Africa, local white police officers open fire on demonstrators who are protesting apartheid laws in South Africa. Sixty-nine people are killed and 186 are left wounded. Police Commander D.H. Pienaar is quoted: “If the natives do these things, they must learn their lesson the hard way.”

April 19, 1960. Labor and student groups overthrow the autocratic First Republic of South Korea under Syngman Rhee. This revolution leads to the peaceful resignation of Rhee and the transition to the Second Republic.

April 21, 1960. The planned futuristic city of Brasilia becomes the capital of Brazil. The picture above is central Brasilia in 1986.

April 27, 1960. Togo gains independence from France.

May 1, 1960. Several Soviet surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, CIA agent Francis Gary Powers, is captured.

May 11, 1960. In Buenos Aires, four Israeli Mossad agents abduct the fugitive Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in order that he could be taken to Israel and put on trial. Eichmann is later convicted and executed.

July 1, 1960. The UK- and Italian-ruled territories of Somaliland gain their independence and unite to form the nation of Somalia.

October 1, 1960. Nigeria declares their independence from the United Kingdom and becomes a member of the British Commonwealth.