Bloggy Linky Goodness
My 2 Great Guys A great post from regular reader and commenter O.R. Pagan/The Bald Scientist about one of those moments that parents of kids with autism cherish. I hope you’ll go check it out. And say “hi”. You guys are too quiet!
He Said/She Said I just discovered this blog – good2begone – and I’m loving it. (I spit my drink out reading about his stepdaughter saying Lincoln lived in a “login” in another post. That’s quite an accomplishment.) This post looks at the differences between men and women’s communication styles.
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother or You’ll Burn in Hell For All Eternity OK, Clotilda Jamcracker says her parents are idiots. And she uses pictures from her old year books and names names. Which I really want to object to. But from the stories she tells, I doubt these people use the internet for anything other than porn, celebrity gossip and maybe funny cat pictures on a good day. So I guess, no harm no foul. Be careful if you start reading her – her writing is irresistable. This post is about the fate of people who do whatever their parents say. And those who don’t.
Andrea Palpant Dilley – The Melancholy Christian I just loved this post that starts with a story about a teenaged hitch-hiker her dad picked up. Great story telling.
Of Dust and Ashes Crystal St. Marie Lewis share her thoughts about Job and his famous “I repent with dust and ashes” statement. Turns out that’s probably not quite what he said and the alternative may be more useful for Christians who want a living faith that grows and develops over time.
Things I Learned From My Foster Children Sharon Astyk share some hard realities of life from the perspective of at-risk, underprivileged kids. This sort of thing reminds me of why I think it’s so important for Christians to perform the Acts of Mercy (basically serving the poor, imprisoned, discarded, etc). It’s not just that there’s a need. It’s also because until you are in regular, intimate contact with those who are in need, your opinions about things like poverty, addiction, dysfunction, etc aren’t worth two dead flies. They are based on nothing more than how you imagine life to be. When you get up-close and personal with those you purport to have opinions about, it nearly always opens your eyes to realities you never even considered.
Honoring Hannah Julie Anne is a woman who is being sued, along with several others, by their old church for defamation. The church is a fundamentalist outfit fueled by the pastor’s cult of personality according to her and other former members. The lawsuit (asking for $500,000) appears to be one more attempt at control and intimidation by the leader there. I’ve read quite a few things lately from people coming out of spiritually abusive, controlling Christian environments which are just fascinating. Not coming from anything close to such a background myself (I like to say that I grew up in the easy-listening period of the Roman Catholic Church), it’s a perspective I could only guess at. In this post, Julie Anne shares the amazing story of her daughter’s escape from their hyper-restrictive and controlling church – against her parent’s wishes. Whatever mistakes Julie Anne and her husband made in raising their children in a spiritually oppressive community, they must have done something right because her daughter is a remarkable, strong and brave woman.
God’s Grandchildren Karen Spears Zacharias offers one of the best explanations for the place of art in God’s creation that I’ve encountered in this wonderful story about whimsy and art in unexpected places.
A Contemplative Revolution This essay by Carl McCorman gets off to a rather dry, slow start, but if you stick with it, he does a great job of explaining the importance of living faithfully in a hostile environment. It’s only by focusing intently on our own ways of living, relating and even praying, that we gain power and footing in a world gone mad.
To top things off this week, a bit of unexpected synchronicity. Early last week, I wrote a post “Suffering as Service” in which I talked about my views of suffering and how by processing it well and letting it go rather than passing it on, we are helping to reduce the amount of suffering in the world. Well, later that day, I came across an essay about Bodhisattva’s. In Buddhism, a Bodhisattva’s are “beings who intentionally cultivate the supernatural capacity to experience extreme affliction without being traumatized, who willingly take on the forces of evil in order to liberate all sentient beings—both good and bad alike.” The explanation of who these people are and what they do is very much in line with what I wrote about in my blog post. The essay is called “Redemptive Love”.
Again, if you have a blog post that you are especially proud of or read one that you think everyone should read, let me know so I can include it in next week’s Bloggy Linky Goodness. You can email me at ratrotter73@yahoo.com or fill out the form on the “Contact” page. You’ll get your link in front of a couple thousand people and I’ll get a regular reminder that I’m supposed to keep doing this every week. Because walking through a doorway makes me forget what I’m supposed to be doing. And I walk through a lot of doorways in a week’s time.