As the days grow colder and the to do lists grow longer, ESN is sharing a series of time management tips, interspersed with longer reflections on aspects of our relationship to time. Today’s reflection is from graduate student Kateri Collins. You can read more of Kateri’s work for ESN here or click here for the rest of the time management series. Like many of the topics we publish on, time management is an area that combines opportunities for practical growth and spiritual formation. Our goal is to encourage readers to steward the gift of time God has given us, using it to love God and others and live out Christ’s Kingdom. [Read more…] about Time Management Tips: Managing a Different Sleep Schedule
sleep
Sleep and the Graduate Life (Scholar’s Compass)
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.†– Attributed to Benjamin Franklin
The programmer disagrees. A clever graphic has resurfaced for its round on the internet. It shows that the programmer finds the only productive work by “burning the midnight candle.†Sleeplessness is worn like a badge of honor. But there’s a tension in this: rest is an imperative. When we rest and how we rest is a murky question we fumble with all through our lives. The new parent cannot sleep as much as a college student. A college student cannot rest as much as an infant. We are left then with the gray areas of murky decisions.
How much sleep does someone need? And when should we sleep? And when have our late nights turned into restless hearts? [Read more…] about Sleep and the Graduate Life (Scholar’s Compass)
Week in Review: Sleeping Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. Ever struggle with The Morality of Sleep (The Chronicle of Higher Education. 8/11/2010)?   Hope this research helps encourage the driven (including myself) to remember to take a day of rest, develop margin, and step into helpful habits/rhythms of life in order to be a blessing to those who the Lord brings along their path. A learning community which is committed to such a perspective provides a great context for mature relationships which bless others, without it the counter-cultural nature of seeking sleep/rest can cause conflict in and of itself.
2.  Yale’s New ‘Jewish Lives’ Series seeks to address the provoking question of what it means to be Jewish. Why do the editors start the series with a biography of Sarah Bernhardt?
A: We launched with Bernhardt because her life raises so many powerful questions about what it means to be Jewish. Though she converted to Catholicism, she felt deeply identified as a Jew throughout her life. Then there is the sheer fascination of her life, especially through the eyes of Bob Gottlieb; and her enduring legacy as the greatest actress who ever lived. — Sarah Bernhardt Premieres in Yale’s New ‘Jewish Lives’ Series (The Chronicle of Higher Education. 8/11/2010).
3. Brainstorm: Justification by Faith: Michael Ruse is repelled by some Christian believers’ eager anticipation of a deathbed conversion from Christopher Hitchens, the cancer-stricken writer and atheist. (The Chronicle of Higher Education. 8/10/2010). Well worth a read, consideration, and response in your campus discussion group. Would love for someone to start a conversation on the article before I have opportunity to return to it.
Photo credit: Easter afternoon nap with sleep dog by Mark Stosberg via Flickr
More in Christians in the academy and some talk about poetry after the jump. [Read more…] about Week in Review: Sleeping Edition
Week in Review: All-Nighter Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. All-Nighters: Failing to Fall (Siri Hustvedt, NY Times Opinionator, March 3, 2010): Do you find your imagination flourishing as you fall asleep, so much so that you fail to fall asleep? How do you address not being able to fall asleep when you have a lot of work?
2. Learning From the Sin of Sodom (Nicholas Kristof, NY Times Op-Ed, 2/27/2010): A liberal columnist looks as the influence of evangelicals on U.S. support for international health, development, and humanitarian activities. It is an interesting comment on the changing tone of many secular commentators toward faith-based organizations. — Link/comment passed along by a post doc at whose Graduate Christian Fellowship (GCF) a Political Theory PhD student shared (among other things) that he didn’t think human rights were possible without a theistic, i.e, Christian framework.
3. Religion Among the Millennials: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently a report in February detailing the religious beliefs and practices of “Millennials” (people ages 18 to 29). Here’s how Pew introduces their report:
By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations were when they were young.
4. InterVarsity’s History on Campus: Two recents events brought InterVarsity’s history on college campuses into the present. First, one of our earliest campus planters, Grace Koch Belden, passed on to glory at the age of 93. Grace’s story was told on IV’s website in 2007 – she organized Swarthmore’s InterVarsity chapter as a student, then traveled throughout the East Coast as a staff member, touching other campuses you might have heard of – Harvard, Johns Hopkins, places like that.
Second, InterVarsity held its Asian American Ministries Staff Conference this past week. Check out this post on the event from Kathy Khang. Kathy notes that InterVarsity hired Gwen Wong in 1948 . Like Grace, Gwen was a true pioneer, launching student work in Hawaii before moving to the Philippines in 1953 to found the IFES campus ministry there. Praise God for these two faithful women who laid the groundwork for our ministry today.
Books
Tom’s been digging into Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers (Donald Fairbairn, InterVarsity Press, 2009) and finding it to be an engaging combination of Scripture, quotes from the Church Fathers, and author commentary. Tom will be sharing some quotes in the coming weeks, but if you can’t wait, swing by Google Preview. HT: Dan and Miller.
Mike is pretty excited about the new book from Gerald McDermott, The Great Theologians. McDermott profiles 11 key theologians in the history of the church, such as Augustine, Origen, Aquinas, Luther, and more recent thinkers like Hans Urs von Balthasar. If it’s as good as his 2007 book, God’s Rivals, it will be a great introduction for anyone who wants to be introduced to these important thinkers and pastors.