Links from the bunny trail

Happy Friday!  It’s about time for a link roundup.  Merry Christmas, safe bubbling, and happy reading!

What we see in Dwight 

Dwight Schrute Was a Warning

I’m not the only one who is rekindling my affection for The Office during pandemic.  This article offers a few hypotheses as to why the fifteen-year-old show is having a moment now (people missing their actual offices; its classic gif-ability; etc), but it doesn’t mention the catalyst for my own rewatch: the relatively new podcast Office Ladies.

I love that this article thinks deep thoughts about Dwight Schrute, the office buffoon, and in doing so points out what makes The Office so enduring:  the combination of brilliant humor and piercing observation of human nature.

Dustin Nickerson on coping with covid

Also in the humor category:  “A Couple’s Guide to Covid” from Dustin Nickerson.

Includes such bedtime parenting gems as “You need to be asleep, unconscious or dead in the next thirty minutes.”

British vs. American

Continuing the Office theme, I pulled up this Atlantic article from the archives:  “‘The Office’: Why the American Remake Beats the British Original.”  British purists not withstanding, I wholeheartedly agree; in this case, the American version is better, because “where the British found despair, the Americans found hope...the British office was mean where the American office is nice.  And that’s better.”  

[And that’s saying something coming from me, who would rather watch a British period drama than a blockbuster rom-com.  As much as I love the American Office, I’ve struggled to get into the original.  Thank you, freelance writer David Thier, for putting into words what I can’t get past: the British Office is kinda mean.]

Dreamy getaways

Have you seen these oh-so-tempting offers from resorts around the world enticing remote workers to come and stay a while?  Here’s one in Aruba, and a ridiculous one in the Maldives that makes my heart flutter.

How to wrap a present

How can we not love when science proves that, in certain cases at least, being lazy and/or inept is better?  Apparently people like it better when their presents are not wrapped prettily.

For the recipe box

A whole wheat homemade sandwich bread recipe from The Kitchn that I’ve found quite nice.

Joe Biden

An informative primer on our presumptive 46th president, which mentions his middle name, his asthma, his tragic marital history, his stances on such social issues as abortion and LGBT policies, and how his faith and politics intersect.

Some good news

And ending on a decidedly cheery note:  I loved this story about a bride diagnosed with covid who still found a way, with her groom, to get married.  Here’s hoping this devoted groom can soon kiss the bride!

He gives

God so loved the world that He gave...

John 3:16 

Stupid covid notwithstanding, tis the season for decorations, carols, lights, and cookies.

Every year I am forced by my abysmal lack of self-control holiday spirit to eat so, SO many cookies, but this year it seems like my patriotic duty somehow.  (Because covid.  You know, support essential workers by buying butter, sugar and flour.  And encourage the future economic restart by honing my daughters’ marketable baking skills.)  Also, calories don’t count at Christmas, and they don’t count in a pandemic, so add that up and Christmas fudge should pretty much give me a beach bod.  

This year I reveled in the fruits of parenting by sitting back with an adult beverage while my big kids hauled in, set up, and lit the Christmas tree.  I love having teenagers.

 

We have so much to be thankful for.  I am quarantining with my favorite people on the planet, for example.

More than that, as this season reminds us, God gave His one and only Son.

When our sin was black as a winter night, as this sermon says, God justifies not by demanding from us, but by giving to us.  Or as Caedmon’s Call said of grace, All that it asks it provides.

So we play in the snow and remember that though our sins are like scarlet, He washes us white as snow.

We love twinkle lights because He is the light of the dark world.

We give each other gifts to reflect the heart of the Father Who gave the best gift of all.

We honor one special evergreen tree with crusty pipe-cleaner ornaments because Jesus gives everlasting life.

And we eat cookies because knowing the Lord is sweet, and one day we will feast at Jesus’s table, where there will be no more sorrow or sickness or pain.

And that means more even than my patriotic duty.

Longing and hope

The mournful minor key of “O Come O Come Immanuel” always captures well the posture of the Christian’s heart—longing for Jesus to come again and bring us home.  It also well fits the spirit of the season, when daylight is waning and temperature is dropping.  Don’t leave us in the cold dark, Jesus; come to us.

But this year.  Oh, this year.  

Some of us fight anxiety when the sun is shining and the metaphorical birds are singing.  And now we’ve spent nine months trying not to breathe on anyone, knowing that our actions could take down all our best loved ones.  December’s short days and long nights are closing in; gloom pervades; death’s shadow hovers behind us more than ever.

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

We may not see our favorite loved ones this Christmas.  We may not open presents at Grandma’s house.  All manner of festivities are cancelled.  All of 2020 feels like Advent this year.  Come, Lord Jesus.

Praise God for peeling our hearts painfully away from this world, which can never bring peace and comfort and joy.  If not this year, in 2020, when will we ask the real questions:  What does it all mean?  Is Anyone in charge up there?  How long does this life last and what happens when it’s all over?  If not now, when will we lift our eyes above this world, to what is eternal—to Whom is eternal?  

If it’s not violence or a plague, it will be heart disease or simple old age.  This world is not forever for us.  And left to ourselves, our lasting prospects are darkness and gloomy night.  

Enter Christmas 2020.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  There is hope.  The Light has come, and He will come again.  He cheers us by drawing nigh to us.  He came to enter our world of sin and gloom and sickness—to die for those who fight over the Christmas cookies. 

How thankful we are that He came.

For we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute,

Candles in the window,

Carols at the spinet...

For we need a little music,

Need a little laughter,

Need a little singing

Ringing through the rafter,

And we need a little snappy

“Happy ever after,”

Need a little Christmas now.

Stay

 

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

I can’t do this, Sam.

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

I know. It’s all wrong.  By rights we shouldn’t even be here.  But we are.  It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo—the ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?  

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.  A new day will come.  And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer.  Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.  I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t.  They keep going, because they were holding onto something.  

What are we holding onto, Sam?

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

The night is dark but I am not forsaken

For by my side, the Saviour He will stay

And this is going to be a glorious unfolding.

Photo by Thandy Yung on Unsplash

The Two Towers

CityAlight, “Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me”

Steven Curtis Chapman, “Glorious Unfolding”

Birthdays and other celebrations

Pandemic fatigue, n.: the predictable mindset of helplessness and futility realized as a consequence of failing, long-term attempts at pandemic management.

-Urban Dictionary

WHO describes pandemic fatigue thus:  “people are feeling demotivated about following recommended behaviours to protect themselves and others from the virus.”

You think?

From UC Davis Health:

We’re tired of being cooped up, tired of being careful, tired of being scared...

“We know there are two kinds of stress that have long-term effects on our mental well-being and physical health—intense stress and prolonged stress,” [psychologist Kaye] Hermanson said.  “We have both.

...Eventually that heroic spirit wears thin as the difficulties and stress build up.  That’s when we hit the disillusionment phase,” Hermanson said...

That’s about where we stand now as a society.

We haven’t completely thrown in the towel around here.  But we have relaxed our standards bit by bit.  And the relaxing is not data-driven, no, not at all.  We see the scary charts.  But our souls are missing human contact.  

Truly it is not good for man to be alone.

New birthday fleece.

Caleb’s very accurately detailed answer to the question “How do glaciers move things?”

Ears poses for the camera.

Almost unbelievably, Bob Ross has further devolved from his rather horrifying life cycle last year.  He got knocked over so his head cracked in half, and then Jeddy drilled holes through his eyes to make him into a jack-o-lantern.  Here, Ears poses with his bestie, Zombie Bob Ross.

This picture of Jeddy doing the dishes with Caleb on his shoulders:

reminded me of this one from six years ago, of Jeddy doing his schoolwork with little baby Yoda on his shoulders, a la Luke Skywalker’s training montage:

Halloween.

And Vickie’s Jo’s birthday.

Social-distance trick-or-treating: three main strategies.  The most common, shown here, is to leave treat bags on a table and invite children to approach and choose one.

The most innovative:  clip bags of goodies to a low clothesline for kids to pick off.

And the most fun:  the new classic, PVC-pipe candy slide.

Stay safe, friends.  And be as kind as you can, to paraphrase Maclaren, for everyone is weary.