Sunday, June 19, 2016

Weekend Links: a Cure for Cancer, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Ugly Bridesmaids' Dresses, and more!



SOME GOOD READING FOR YOUR SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SET OUT IN MY USUAL CATEGORIES OF FAITH, AND FAMILY, AND FICTION...

 

Faith 

-"What It's Like to Be Gay at Wheaton College":  Great essay, and I especially appreciated this call-to-action:
For Christian communities to encourage gay people to remain celibate, they will have to model with integrity the implications of their teachings. Whether gay or straight, this means valuing celibacy to an equal if not greater degree than valuing marriage. On Facebook, through sermons, and in conversation, they must highly esteem Jesus’ celibacy. They will have to model in word and practice that all humans need love and connection—and not primarily in marriage and dating relationships. If this does not occur, LGBT Christians will not be convinced. No one likes a double standard. 
-"Voting for Donald Trump Is Not the Only Conservative Option"

-A couple of newsworthy articles regarding (sigh) my home state:
   -"Preserve Faith-Based Higher Education"
   -"'It's Going to Be an Issue': Biola, Conscience, and the Culture War"

-A good podcast listen: "The Gospel-Marinated Life: Mike Duran on Christian Horror"

-Another good podcast listen: "Momentum: Interview with Erin Straza"


On those last two: I met Mike Duran at a writing conference and really enjoyed my conversation with him, and Erin Straza provided excellent editing on my Christ and Pop Culture piece. You might assume that means I'm positively biased towards them*, but I prefer to think that my good fortune in meeting a couple of excellent writers and thinkers is your gain, because it means I get to introduce you to their work!



Family 

-Interesting: "10 Top Reasons You Should Have Kids Before Thirty"





Fiction


2 comments:

Bethany said...

Thanks for linking to "10 Reasons to Have Kids Before Thirty"! While I never tell my college students what they should do with their lives (who knows what each person will face?!), I make sure to tell each class at least once that they should--if appropriate--consider having kids in their twenties instead of their thirties. They always sort of laugh and act like I'm nuts for talking about something like family life and fertility with them, but I figure that they aren't hearing a lot of other voices encouraging young people to consider child-bearing before getting every other part of their lives just *perfect.*

Jessica Snell said...

You're welcome! I'm glad you're telling your students that. Even if they laugh it off, at least they've heard the idea once, and it might resonate and sink in when they hear other things that remind them of it.

I know that sometimes there are good reasons to wait, but it's always better (I think) for that to be an informed decision.

It's funny how we sort of expect our bodies to be ready for anything, ready to jump up and serve us whenever we change our minds about how we're living - but they're really more like animals than like machines, and deserve to be handled with the same care and knowledge we'd give our pets. <--I'm sorry, that's not put very well. But it's the best I can do right now! :)