My Quick Takes this week are themed ones so here are some things in my brain that I need to talk about so I can fill it with other material.
[+] Please lift up a prayer or two for my friend Kathleen Basi and her son Michael who was born 3 weeks early and is in the NICU with lung issues.
[+] This is an interesting article on why some who identify as atheists go to church — it’s for their children. Some want to give their children exposure to different ideas so they can be freethinkers and maybe decide for themselves what they believe. I think we (the Church) have more than a few people who are atheist/agnostic in the pews but who attend for the purpose of having a community. I’m not arguing that they should or shouldn’t attend or whether it’s ethical to — I just simply think this interesting from a religious scholar standpoint.
[+] Apparently, Egyptian ballots had symbols for the candidates in addition to their names. (HT: CNN.Com) According to Fareed Zakaria, almost half of Egyptian adults are illiterate so having the symbols was a way of identifying the candidates on billboards for those who couldn’t read. This brings up thoughts of the purpose of stained glass windows in the Middle Ages: a means of teaching the faith to those who were illiterate.
[+] I’m taking Daniel off of his bottle cold turkey and putting him on sippy cups. I am in serious disgrace in his eyes but I’ve been backed up by his occupational therapist and child development specialist who told me that if he’s thirsty enough, he’ll drink from them.
Hey! Just reading through some of your recent posts . . . I had no idea that was why the symbols were used leading up to the Egyptian elections, fascinating. We were actually in Alexandria the week before the elections were held, and we were like, why is there a blender on every one of this candidate’s signs? We had no clue!