I read LOTS of interesting articles this past week! That tends to happen when I am in a creative low, because I end up reading more non-fiction stuff. Here are the Simmer Starters…
How Christianity Invented Children (Pascal-Immanuel Gobry) – With sometimes shocking examples of how people often treated children in the ancient world, this writer displays how Christianity changed the world with its love and tenderness toward little ones. “Today, it is simply taken for granted that the innocence and vulnerability of children makes them beings of particular value, and entitled to particular care. … What could be more natural? In fact, this view of children is a historical oddity. If you disagree, just go back to the view of children that prevailed in Europe’s ancient pagan world.”
Do You Take Care of the Body? (Tim Challies) – This article is about the church body, but it actually had the unintended consequence of making me think about how I take care of (or neglect) my own body. After all, an analogy about caring for the body of Christ loses all relevance if we don’t care for our physical bodies as we should! So that was very thought provoking for me, and the actual article and its main point are excellent, too.
Guide to Writing Steampunk (The Writing Cafe) – This article has a useful list of all the “punk” genres and what sets them apart from each other, and a roundup of inspiring links for technology, fashion, and other worldbuilding elements. Definitely check it out if you’re interested in steampunk and its related sub-genres!
Nothing Left to Hide (Jon Bloom at DesiringGod) – Fascinating analogy about sincerity and how we all tend to cover up our flaws to look good to others.
Is Having a Loving Family an Unfair Advantage? (Joe Gelonesi) – I and some friends and family have had “fun” gaping at this article…this is good inspiration for my dystopian series, that’s for sure. 😛 “One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.” – Adam Swift
15 Content Ideas That Your Followers Will Love to Share (Kim Garst) – Useful tips for my fellow bloggers!
The Heart of a Story: What Is It, Where Is It, and How Do You Get There? (PJ Reece at K.M. Weiland’s blog) – Awesome article about finding the heart of your story! And it also reminds us a little of why God lets us get the end of ourselves and despair at times, to teach us new things about Him. “The question for writers is this: Can we love our protagonists this much? Can we love them all the way to the heart of the story, so they might glimpse the inexhaustible world that exists beyond themselves?”
Wow – the one about children is something else. Yet another reason to be thankful for living in modern times. Though not everyone treated children like a commodity – look at Jacob and Joseph?
I know in Ancient Israel children were seen as a gift of God. Maybe because the Israelites and their forefathers knew the Lord, they were markedly different from the pagan lands around them. But I’d be interested to know if all ancient cultures were like this or mainly the Greco-Roman culture in Biblical times. Pharaoh and King Herod didn’t seem to have any problem massacring babies!