Happy Independence Day! Thanks to an article in the UK edition of the International Business Times, I have learned a few things that I probably learned in school and then completely forgot: for example, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 – but Great Britain didn’t actually get it until November; then it was seven more years before they abandoned their claims in the U.S. – and the treaty was signed in Paris.
Also, we seem to be known internationally for eating hot dogs…
There are probably a few of my IRL friends wondered what on earth I was doing, reading the IBT. To be fair – I found it while doing a google search for weird facts about Independence Day. I figured there had to be some. I was right. According to an article on www.brittanica.com, the melody for the Star-Spangled Banner was taken from a drinking song in London. Hymns, national anthems… drinking songs are apparently an awesome source of musical material.
© 2014 Simple Felicity
Speaking of freedom, I am on vacation this week, and vacation in my world means I get to read! I went up to Holland, Michigan for a couple of days, spent some time on the beach (goodness, I’ve missed that!) and a lovely couple of hours on the patio of an Irish pub, and made it about halfway thru an excellent book by Danny Silk called Powerful And Free: Confronting The Glass Ceiling For Women In The Church. I’m blessed to be in a church environment where women are a lot freer to step into God’s calling on their lives than they are in other places, but I’m also finding much within the pages of this book that resonates deeply in my soul. I’ve also finally found some insight into some of Paul’s more confusing statements in the Bible about women, and am looking forward to digging up some of Silk’s resources from his footnotes and learning more.
As I’ve spent time coming to terms with my inner Donna Reed, and begun to step out more and more into my calling as a leader in the Church, there has yet, until now, been a small voice in the back of my mind whispering, “Yes, but what about…?” in reference to a few of those verses. No more. I have yet to do all the research I need to in order to feel like my understanding of these passages is clear enough that I could defend it well – but if Silk’s research is accurate – and I think it is – I just found so much freedom. More on that in the future.
In other news, Simple Felicity finally has an email subscription option! You can sign up (either to your right or at the bottom of the page) for weekly updates from my website. How cool is that? Each Friday, I’ll send you an email summarizing any new posts for the week. (It’ll also be a fun way to keep you updated on things I’m thinking about that might not make it into an actual post.) If you’re interested, go ahead and fill out that little three-item form, and look for an email confirmation within just a few minutes. Or, better yet – leave me a comment and just check the “add me to your mailing list” box before you post it. I’d love to hear from you!
Disappointed that you’ll only be getting a weekly summary? While I don’t have an email option to address that for you right now, there are three other ways to be sure you never miss a post. You can:
If you’re looking for a great podcast series, I would highly recommend Lakeside Church’s series, “Myths We Love To Believe.” Brad Franklin is quickly becoming one of my favorite teachers. “Myth #1: God Wants Women To Submit To Men” was hands down one of the best sermons on the subject I’ve ever heard – and I suspect that even my friends who would lean more towards complementarianism would find little to disagree with in it. Give it a listen (or a watch) and let me know what you think.
Never let it be said that late-night procrastination on Facebook is a waste of time. Chris-who-does-not-blog-often-enough was kind enough to share this incredibly exciting news via the Huffington Post: a recording of Tolkein’s speech at a Hobbit Dinner in Rotterdam in 1958 is being remastered for all the world to hear this fall, and since I was procrastinating on Facebook, I saw the post and completely geeked out. Here’s a preview:
There is only one question left to ask once you have read that article: why in Middle-Earth has there never been a Hobbit Dinner since? I mean, really…
Speaking of geeking out – I finally got around to splurging on Netflix, and am totally hooked on a Syfy show called Continuum. It’s like LOST meets Star Trek: Next Gen meets Covert Affairs. I might be halfway thru the 2nd season – and I just started watching it a week ago… The script-writing is fantastic, the main character is completely believable and relatable, and the technology of the futuristic society she comes from set against the backdrop of the technology of our time is just really cool. I’m looking forward to spending at least part of the weekend watching the rest of the second season.
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