The Anchoress
It is difficult for any read to be at once Kind, Contentious and Fretful, so you realize I am not talking about a single piece, but about several pieces now live at Patheos and elsewhere — what these pieces all have in common is that they are well-worth your time to read and think about.
First up: Kindness — if you missed it this weekend, do read Timothy Dalrymple’s open letter to those who expected to be raptured this past weekend. It’s a very good demonstration of a Christ-like response, and frankly, it directly counters some of the gleeful caricaturing drawn at the expense of Christians, this weekend.
At First Things, David Mills also tackles the subject with a tinge of sympathy.
Also, Taylor Marshall talks about Catholics and Rapture and Eschatology
Second: Contention — there is no shortage of that on the internets, of course, but here I am directing you to the waning days of Patheos’ Symposium on Family, Faith and the Future of Social Conservatism, where this afternoon we will see Tim Muldoon’s profound thoughts about Gay Marriage and the Gamaliel Moment get challenged by Accepting Abundance’s Stacy Trasancos, who declares that Christians need to be more, not less, entwined in our politics and laws. That piece should go live any minute, so check here for it
And the Fretting: Max Lindenman, who did such a terrific job of holding down the fort over here while I was in Rome, and then while I was sick, is in the process of creating his own blog here at Patheos, and he is a little worried about the process of getting naked amid all those newly empowered readers:
As I prepare to launch my first big-boy blog, I find myself in a paradoxical position. Without this new egalitarianism, I’d never have gotten a venue. A dropout of the master’s program at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunications, I have no real credentials. I have never covered a journalistic beat, never worked my way up from the police desk (if such things still exist). I belong to a by-now familiar type: the half-baked polymath who taught himself to write on message boards and in chatrooms. Not only will I have to sell myself to readers who may in fact know my subjects better than I do, I’ll get to see their feedback metastasize in the combox, an arena I will enter my peril.
All this freedom and interconnectedness is a great thing—love it. But it’s also made a mug’s game mugsier than ever. It might make me; it could just as easily break me.
In between the fretting, he takes a typically smart look at how blogs and alternative media have substantially changed the way we consume news, and even how the mainstream press is adjusting. So much for blogs being “over,” do read it all.
Appreciating the Unappreciated: How Black Catholic Nuns helped sow the seeds of change
In other news, my hubby and I were just talking yesterday about how women are taking over the social sciences, and today Instapundit has interesting linkage on that subject.
Ed Driscoll: We’ve got a man like Jimmy Carter, again. I can see that.
Heather King: Extols Magnificat Magazine, about which enough good things cannot be said!
The Pope’s Powerful Blend: I think a lot of folks could get into it, frankly.
Thinking outside the box: Twenty and Engaged
Call yourself “enslaved” — I’m not.
Finally, is this the guy scaring Obama?
And yes, that is Buster’s baby picture!
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