Link Love: Seven Quick Takes

Yesterday I mentioned “sitting with” pain or suffering (as well as learning to sit with my happiness, when it materializes). Today I saw that Madonna House has a wonderful letter by Caryll Houselander on the topic.

Stop trying to think out a solution for the moment; there isn’t one. One day there may be; God will then show it to you. In the meantime, accept it all as being the big thing for God and his Church that he asks of you—that, and the depression, too.
You will find the relief of merely accepting instead of struggling, wonderful. 

Please do read the whole thing–it is a brief, quick read, but very worthwhile.

I wholeheartedly endorse this:

My experience of having taught at relatively elite schools, like Emory University and Oglethorpe University, as well as at schools like Kennesaw State University and Kirkwood Community College, is that there are among future plumbers as many devotees of Plato as among the future wizards of Silicon Valley, and that there are among nurses’ aides and soldiers as many important voices for our democracy as among doctors and business moguls.

…and this:

The philosophy department is invading the M.B.A. program—at least at a handful of schools where the legacy of the global financial crisis has sparked efforts to train business students to think beyond the bottom line. Courses like “Why Capitalism?” and “Thinking about Thinking,” and readings by Marx and Kant, give students a break from Excel spreadsheets and push them to ponder business in a broader context, schools say.

Some of my fellow alumni have started a blog and facebook page where we can feature our entrepreneurial efforts and network with each other to our mutual advantage (and to the advantage of our clients). It’s early days yet, but I imagine this will turn into a valuable resource for connecting with ethical business owners and professionals. In true Catholic liberal arts college fashion, it has a latin name: Laborem Amici. I haven’t got my profile ready to send over–this is a good kick in the butt to get my professional website finished–but hope to participate soon.

Choir people, you will get a kick out of this.

I can’t decide which I love more—their Beethoven, Debussy, or Wagner. (When they aren’t singing the composer’s names, they are singing musical terms that refer to the various styles. Listen close, because some of those are pretty fun).

To mix the heavy with the light, this should inspire grief, and prayer: Hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian school girls reportedly sold as brides to militants for $12, relatives say. I have to do this one as a quick take, because if I try to write about it, I’m going to cry or curse or make terribly biting and snide comments about how we obviously “don’t need feminism anymore.”

Please note: people live down to expectations, as well as up to them. If you tell a girl she is fat, she’s more likely to become a fat woman. 

Jen Fulwiler’s book Something Other Than God has been released, and the reviews are about as awesome as you’d expect. My book budget is blown a couple of months into the future, but I really look forward to reading this once I manage to beg/borrow/win/convince the library to buy a copy!

So there you go! For more linky love, check out the linkup for everyone else’s quick takes over at Jen’s!