Plot Points #103 💌
Good Friday, astronauts, origins of Easter, and fairy tales
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Hello friends! Happy Friday and welcome.
Today’s email is a short one. Tonight, we’ll be attending our church’s Good Friday services and looking forward to the joy of Eastertide on Sunday. I’m grateful for permission to engage with seasons of faith that for so long were completely foreign to me. I shared on Notes the other day what it means to learn about the beauty of the Church calendar alongside my children. I love it! How wonderful to raise them in the Anglican tradition and offer them roots as well as wings.
Things will slow down next week when the kids have spring break. We’re planning a short trip to the beach for part of it, so there’s a lot of excitement about that in the Nunnery house. We’ve been quite busy with school, sports, church volunteering, and work, and it will be lovely to sleep in and wake up to a beach view for a few days.
Wishing you all a beautiful Easter. Thanks for spending some of your time with me today.
Love,
Wendi
Word of the Week ✍🏻
Semantic satiation: (n.) When you say or read a word so many times that it stops making sense.
Point #1: Easter is not pagan.
In recent years, many Christians have begun using the phrase “Resurrection Sunday” instead of Easter out of a misplaced fear that the word is pagan and, therefore, inappropriate. I really appreciate Phylicia Masonheimer’s continued work in this area to help Christians understand the history of our faith—including the origins of various holidays and traditions—so that we can celebrate and rejoice in our Savior without that pesky fear joining the party, too.
Point #2: “The Gospel is a fairy tale.”
I just love it when someone writes a beautiful essay that gets to the heart of a thing. That’s what Hannah Elizabeth has done here in her latest piece on how the timeless truth of the Gospel can be found all over our fairy tales because it is, ultimately, the truth of God. So good!
Point #3: Christina Koch is my new hero.
For the very first time, we have a woman and a Black man on a team of astronauts headed to the moon. I watched this short video about Christina Koch with Theo yesterday and felt so grateful for women like her who are paving the way for others to accomplish incredible things! I pray their mission gets home safely.
Point #4: ICYMI
You’ll be seeing this logo on every post I share from now on 🫶🏻. Feel free to download and share it with your own readers.
Reading in The Nook 📚
Still working on the behemoth that is The Story of Christianity…
Still slogging through Wuthering Heights one page at a time…
Almost finished with The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies (it’s giving Emma M. Lion, so that’s an extra star right there)…
Haven’t even gotten past the first chapter of Lock Every Door…
I might be in a slump, friends.
Perhaps some beach time next week will get me back into the swing of things!
What are you reading right now? 👇🏻
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“In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”
—Luke 24:5-6, NIV—
Oh my goodness, I am so honored by this mention, thank you! And I've never heard of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies, but that sounds like something I need to read. I'm in a bit of a reading slump too, so that sounds like a good one to help me out of it!