Review: the voice of psalms

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The voice of psalms is a paperback retelling of the Biblical book of Psalms by the Ecclesia Bible Society, published by Thomas Nelson. It's part of a larger project called “the voice”. Like many Bibles, it includes some commentary and some daily reading plans but that is pretty much where the similarities end.

The first thing that struck me was that here is a very beautiful book. The text is laid out like poetry, with a single column per page, and the pages themselves have a lovely background design giving a feeling of sacred art that the plain-white, onion-skin pages of a standard Bible never really conveyed to me.

Additions to the text have been inserted in italics rather than footnotes, and I found myself in two minds about this. The translator in me understands the need to expand on a phrase because the English equivalent doesn't convey the subtler nuances of the original. At the same time I find the voice in the back of my head going “aha, italics: an optional extra” very distracting! However, having finished reading a whole passage I could then look back and see what the italics had really added, for instance in the 23^rd Psalm a sense of present danger, which isn't so tangible in the more traditional versions, with or without footnotes. Of course, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so I can't really tell how accurate that sense is either!

I did appreciate that the translators didn't feel the need to modernise the language all the way into slang, which was something I found very off-putting with the Message version of the Psalms even though I was in my early twenties then.

All in all I like the book, but I wonder if the format – especially the italics - will be too hard to get used to, so I won't ditch my NIV just yet. I wouldn't buy it as a first Bible for a new believer, but it's good as a fresh look at a too-familiar text, as long as you're looking for a narrative rather than a constitution-type document to be taken literally.

Just two more things (which I didn't put in my amazon review): some of you may remember I was looking for a program of advent readings last autumn. Well the voice of psalms has one with readings from Psalms and other books! And also a Lent program! Pretty cool huh.

And secondly, they also do various other books, but the one that attracted me most is called the voice from on high, which contains excerpts from 19 Bible books referring to Jesus as the Liberating King. That one sounds really cool and I think would work well in this format, not to mention that Brian McLaren, one of my favourite authors, is involved, so I'll get it and keep you posted. :-)

First words

Froglet's first word, at the age of about 13 months, was "Cake". Prior to this he was using the sound "neng-neng" to mean food or more often drink from the age of about 9 months, but that robably doesn't count as a real word.

About 4 months ago, Nutmeg started emitting a very piercing shriek if food or drink was too slow to arrive, so we began actively encouraging her to say "more" instead. I can't remember exactly when she first said it, but I guess by the time she turned one she was saying "maaa" and meaning more. (She actually said "more" properly once, but it seems to have been an accident because she hasn't said it again).
Now she has acquired a second word. "Nana", for banana. She says the first n a bit strangely, as if she was trying to get the whole "ban" syllable into one letter.

There seems to be a theme here. But at least banana is healthier than cake - if we had a third child perhaps its first words would be "wholemeal bread"?

Lent Bible readings for kids

Haven't had chance to blog for a while. Life takes over...

Nonetheless, I wanted to write a bit abut what we're doing for Lent. We haven't given anything up (although I am working on giving up shouting at the children!) but rather we have picked something up: Bible reading. I've never felt like Froglet could really follow the Bible itself, although of course we have Bible story books. But since we enjoyed having daily readings over Advent, I thought we'd have daily readings for Lent too. These are (mostly) from the Gospel of Luke. I tried to pick stories and things Jesus did rather than too many of the straight teachings, because Froglet is, after all, only four. On Sundays we're reading the bits where Jesus talked about his death. We have a great illustrated book that was also mine as a child, published by Ladybird, and called The Easter Story. Froglet loves it. As he already knows about the death and resurrection, I thought it was worth showing him that Jesus knew this was coming. But you could easily just leave out the Sunday readings (or replace them), as they aren't in chronological order with the rest anyway.

We are reading these out of a copy of the Good News Bible which was mine when I was small - it has more pictures than my NIV, although not many, and the wording is a bit simpler.

Today (Wednesday) is day 25. Sundays aren't counted in the 40 days of Lent so I haven't numbered them.

Day 1: John the Baptist - Lk 3:2-22
Day 2: In the desert - Lk 4:1-15
Day 3: Nazareth - Lk 4: 16-30
Day 4: Lk 4: 31-44
1st Sunday: Who am I - Lk 9: 18-27
5: Calling the disciples - Mtt 4:18-22 and Lk 5:27-31
6: Skin-disease - Lk 5:12-16
7: Paralysis - Lk 5: 17-26
8: The Sabbath - Lk 6: 1-11
9: The Apostles - Lk 6: 12-19
10: Love your enemies - Lk 6: 27-36
2nd Sunday: The transfiguration - Lk 9: 37-43
11: The house on the rock - Lk 6:46-49
12: The Roman officer - Lk 7: 1-10
13: Raising the dead - Lk 7:11-23
14: Forgiving sins - Lk 7:36-50
15: The parable of the sower - Lk 8:4-15
16: The storm - Lk 8:22-25
3rd Sunday: Predicting Jesus' death - Lk 18: 31-34
17: Jairus' daughter - Lk 8:40-56
18: Feeding the 5000 - Lk 9:10-17
19: The boy with an evil spirit - Lk 9: 37-43
20: Sending out the 72 - Lk 10:1-11, 16-20
21: The Samaritan woman - Lk 10:25-37
22: Martha - Lk 10: 38-42
4th Sunday: The tenants in the vineyard - Lk 20:9-18
23: Prayer - Lk 11:1-13
24: Don't worry - Lk 12:13-31
25: Healing on the Sabbath - Lk 13:10-17, 14:1-6
26: The lost sheep - Lk 15: 1-7
27: The lost coin - Lk 15:8-10
28: The lost son - Lk 15:11-32
5th Sunday: the rich man and Lazarus - Lk 16:19-31
29: Forgiveness - Lk 17:3-4
30: Healing the ten lepers - Lk 17:11-19
31: Always pray - Lk 18:1-8
32: Pharisee and tax collector - Lk 18:9-14
33: Children - Lk 18:15-17
34: Rich man / widow - Lk 18:18-27, 21:1-4
Palm Sunday: Entering Jerusalem - Lk 19:28-40
35: The blind beggar - Lk 18:35-43
36: Zacchaeus - Lk 19:1-10
37: Parable of the talents - Lk 19:11-26
38: Passover meal - Lk 22:1-23, 31-34
39 (Good Friday): Arrest and death - Lk 23 (I will use the afore-mentioned book here)
40: Burial - Lk 23:50-56
Easter Sunday: the Resurrection - Lk 24 (book again)

Happiness is...

Watching my four-year-old chase my just-turned-one-year old so he can snuggle her, then seeing her turn round and throw her arms round his neck delightedly.

Snow sparkling in the lamplight outside our bathroom window.

Time to do lots of reading (most recently John Ortberg "Everyone's normal till you get to know them")

Nutmeg having her check-up and MMR jab without crying or complaining at all, then waving her cookie happily at the doctor afterwards, as if he hadn't just stuck a needle in her arm.

Froglet finding words for me to help him read wherever we go.

Lying on the floor with a happily-squeaking Nutmeg crawling all over me.

Froglet stroking my arm and saying "I love you Mummy".

Nutmeg wandering about saying "yeah, yeah" and "oo-ah-oo". If she says it fast enough, it sounds like wow.

Getting a little box to store paperclips in, complete with paperclips, as a free gift from the pharmacy. I'm always short of paperclips.

Watching Nutmeg dance to the strains of Cuban music.

Nutmeg following Froglet wherever he goes.

An elder brother's love for his baby sister: "She is my little sister, Mummy. Don't smack her."
(For the record, I had no intention of smacking her. I must have looked like I was gearing up to it though!)

Going to our first German-language parent-teachers' meeting to find out what school will be like for Froglet when he starts in mid-August. Evidently it will be wonderful. The Swiss are remarkably Waldorf in their attitude to education. (In fact the school down in our cantonal capital is named after Pestalozzi, who once worked in the canton).

Conversation with Nutmeg

She's too young to have a real conversation but nonetheless...

Scene: Nutmeg is carrying her nappy (diaper) to the bin in the kitchen. The Engineer is holding the bin-cupboard door open for her.

The Engineer: "Come on, in the bin!"
Nutmeg drops the nappy, and sits down next to it.
TE picks it up and holds it near the bin. "Come on sweetie, come and get it."
Nutmeg gets up, retrieves nappy from TE, drops it next to bin, sits down by it. Looks at her father and shakes her head very firmly.
Nutmeg thinks: "My intention is to play with this nappy, and hopefully chew it a bit. I'm not putting it in there. I know you won't let me have it back afterwards!"

More conversations with Froglet

Froglet is four years and 3 months.

Yesterday I taught him how to peel carrots. As I stood behind him explaining how to hold the peeler so that it works properly, he said "You sound like Granwen" (my mother). This to me is a compliment, and I think he intended it as one too. Then he volunteered to teach Uncle Luke, my brother-in-law, how to peel carrots too*.

Today The Engineer received an in-depth explanation of tectonic plates:

(Froglet holding up two hands parallel with the floor.)
This hand is Switzerland and this hand is Haiti. Then they go like this!
(bangs hands together vigorously)
And it makes Haiti wobble.
(wobbling Haiti-hand to demonstrate)

*This is admittedly funnier if you know Luke and are aware that he and the kitchen are not always on first-name terms.

Conversation with Froglet

We had this conversation at bedtime after reading Guess How Much I Love You.

Froglet: I love you as far as the moon and the sun.
Mummy: I love you as far as the moon and the sun and back again.
Froglet: How much else do you love me?
M: I love you enough to make your breakfast, and make sure you have clean clothes, and wash your hair even when you don't want it washing. How much do you love me?
F: I already said I love you as far as the moon and sun!
M: Well I said that too, but you still wanted to know more.
F (thinks carefully before answering): I love you as far as God.

One happy Mummy. :-)