Oh. Em. Gee. Rachel Held Evans’ new book!!!!! I mentioned the publication of said book in my Favorites a few days ago. I finally finished what I was reading and started it today. Let’s just say that I would publish some of my favorite quotes from it on this blog… but that would involve typing the entire book verbatim. I recommend that y’all go acquire a copy of it, especially those who are having conniptions over your kids “leaving the Church”.
Love. I helped out with a funeral at church on Wednesday and it was fun. (I know… how can a funeral be fun?) It reinforced the awesomeness of the community of which I am part and the part that pulled on my heartstrings the most were when members of the Wednesday morning Bible study saw me and gave me hugs, calling me their “sweet girl” and one of them telling me how much I enrich her life. (One of them is 94 and reminds me so much of my grandma that it almost brings me to tears when I get hugs from her.) Considering I’ve known most of them for only 3 1/2 months (as most of them attend the 8:00 service while I’m part of the choir at the 10:00 service), this is really sweet of them.
Kitchen cheat sheets. I saw this on Facebook and bookmarked it to share in my Quick Takes because it was pretty amazing and something I would totally laminate and use for myself. I’m almost tempted to laminate them and make a book with them for Jon’s cousin who is getting married this summer — they’re that good.
Going back to Rachel’s book… This article was linked and I think it would be something good for my mainline Christian friends to read — it’s about how to welcome disenfranchised evangelicals to your church.
Moved almost to tears. I was catching up on podcasts yesterday and was listening to some things that Frederica Mathewes-Green (one of my favorite authors) had to say. (She’s an Antiochian Orthodox priest’s wife — a *real* khouria unlike my poseur self.) One of the podcast episodes I heard was the Nativity Paraklesis done at her parish in Maryland. It was hauntingly beautiful — very foreign sounding musical settings to my decidedly western ears but just stunning in such a way that it almost brought me to tears in the middle of Starbux. You can listen to it here.
One last adventure for Elizabeth. I first found Elizabeth Dehority through Ginny’s blog a few years ago so I was tickled to see that Ginny and her family made it to Elizabeth’s funeral. Go read about it! Do it now!
Instead of a tattoo. Instead of getting a tattoo for my 35th birthday this year, I’ll be walking a 5K to raise money and awareness for the Preeclampsia Foundation. Details are here.
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.