Leah Libresco's Blog, page 39

The Last 5 Years is totally our next Symposium topic

Eeeeee!  EEEEEEEE! Eeeeee! For folks who aren’t familiar with Jason Robert Brown’s The Last 5 Years, it’s a musical that covers the five year relationship between Cathy and Jamie, from the moment they meet, through their engagement and marriage, till the morning after Jamie leaves. The two leads alternate numbers, which respectively tell the story of [Read More...]

Is Your Christianity Ever Mistaken for Criminality? [Pope Francis Bookclub]

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus.  Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s reading, Pope Francis points out that Christ was stripped of more than his clothes when [Read More...]

My 10 Best Books of 2014

Every year, I like to make a list of my favorite books I read for the first time in that year.  Thus, my ten best books of the year aren’t limited to those that came out in this year.  In chronological order of when I read them, these are my favorites. Oh, and if you’d like [Read More...]

Paying Penalties to Keep a Prayer Rule

Today, I’m over at the Beeminder Blog, with a guest post on ways to use Beeminder to help organize my spiritual life… without ending up with a weirdly corporate or Pharisaical vibe.  Beeminder is a service that makes it easier to do in the short term what you mean to do in the long term, by letting you [Read More...]

So, where should a gal go to meet some saints?

A new month has begun, so I’ve popped over to Jen Fulwiler’s saint generator and spun up my final randomly chosen saint for 2014. But, before I do this again in 2015, I’d like to rejigger my approach, and I’d appreciate any advice, O Readers. The nice thing about using a random saint generator is [Read More...]

Avoiding Glib Grace-Notes in Advent

Yesterday I talked about trying to find an Advent discipline that wasn’t just hard-for-the-sake-of-hard, but that would form my conscience in some way. Here’s my attempt: I’m trying to undertake a conversational fast this Advent season.  I want to avoid using any one-liners or other kinds of glancing, meant-to-be funny comments in conversation. It’s not that [Read More...]

Choosing a Prudent (not a ‘Tough’) Advent Fast

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus.  Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s reading, Pope Francis’s discussion of Christ’s preparation for death nicely parallels Joseph Pieper’s chapter on [Read More...]

“Safety” is a Piss-Poor Pitch for Chastity

A recent First Things post aimed to arm its readers with a positive case for chastity, one that could appeal to non-Christian friends.  But I struggled to find anything positive or invigorating in the sample arguments presented.  For example: A case at University of Houston may serve. According to a legal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the [Read More...]

Why Welcome Sorrow? [Pope Francis Bookclub]

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus.  Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s chapter, I was particularly struck by some excerpts from St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises that Pope [Read More...]

7QT: Time, Taylor Swift, and other deeply philosophical matters

— 1 — Ok, move fast readers!  The NYT is doing a wacky contest to supply the opening paragraph that you feel should go with this pulpy book cover. Full details are here, and the deadline is midnight tonight.  Before any of you think of writing me into it — I’ll have you know that I [Read More...]