A Random Assortment

New college chapel.

~ I love this book cover. I've never read Dorothy Parker, but this makes me want to.

~ Gender-reveal parties rub me the wrong way, too:

These parties seem to marry the oversharing of Facebook and Instagram with the contrived ceremonies that modern people in search of meaning impose on normal life events: food journaling, birthday parties for grownups, workout diaries, birth-experience planning.

(via Miriel)

~ The Pope gave another interview (I know, I know, it was a couple of weeks ago). I've heard maybe that the translation is weak, but I still like this guy:

It's a joke, I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.

He smiles again and replies: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good." ...And you think that mystics have been important for the Church?"They have been fundamental. A religion without mystics is a philosophy." 

I don't think that he's being relativistic in this interview--I think that he's a proponent of a model of engagement with the world that praises honest communication and lets the Holy Spirit handle the work of conversion. In fact, in his conversation with his non-Christian interviewer, Pope Francis gives us an example of what he means--he engages with his interviewer, asking what his fundamental beliefs are, and attempts to show the commonalities between them, as well as their differences.

Also, on Augustine and why he feels feels close to Augustine:

Augustine feels powerless in the face of the immensity of God and the tasks that a Christian and a bishop has to fulfill. In fact he was by no means powerless, but he felt that his soul was always less than he wanted and needed it to be. And then the grace dispensed by the Lord as a basic element of faith. Of life. Of the meaning of life. Someone who is not touched by grace may be a person without blemish and without fear, as they say, but he will never be like a person who has touched grace. This is Augustine's insight."

~ Why read fiction?

It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.

~ For Francisco, a map that shows buildings in the Netherlands by their age. (He loves maps.)

~ For Ilana (who has probably already seen this):



~ I guess this is too manufactured, but I like that it's a nod to stamp-collecting history.

~ Love this (it is weird, isn't it, that he swam in his clothes?):

Davies, who adapted the Jane Austen novel for the BBC, has disclosed he wanted his Mr Darcy to be a "natural man", and suggested his plans were only thwarted by actor Colin Firth's "anxiety about his love handles"...."It was about nature and culture. It was my notion that Darcy was a natural man but he spent all his time constrained by the demands of society.

How sweet that Colin Firth was concerned about his weight--makes me love him even more. Thankfully, I married my own Colin Firth (not in the concerned-about-weight sense, but in the dark, curly hair and dreamy, intense eyes sense).