The Monday brief

Highlight of the week: Last Tuesday afternoon, I joined an impromptu meetup with Brandon, Brandon, and Ryan at Caribou Coffee. It was a wonderful break from the beginning of what was a stressful week.

Book(s) I'm reading: In halfway through two books right now: In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English, and Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans by Thomas Lynch (the latter which I got at the suggestion of Mike Stavlund). The back cover of Booking Passage calls it "part memoir, part cultural study," but there's something about Lynch's writing that transcends the categories of memoir and/or cultural study. It's about life, and it's written beautifully (Lynch is a poet, after all). Take this, for example:

Today, the easier communications become, the easier it becomes not to communicate. The more rapidly we travel to the ends of the earth, the more readily we avoid our nearest neighbors. The more communing we do, the more elusive a sense of community seems. We are each encouraged to make individual choices, to seek personal saviors, singular experiences, our own particular truth. We make enemies of strangers and strangers of friends and wonder why we feel alone in the world. (xxxix)

So good.

Music I'm digging: I haven't been listening to any new music, really. The majority of my music-listening time has been spent finding recordings and arrangements of Christmas songs to do with the praise team at St. Mark.

Something(s) that blew my mind: "Recently, researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in Rhode Island suggested that anal sex is on the rise among teens and young adults, particularly those who have unprotected vaginal sex." Is anal sex covered in public schooling curriculum? Youth ministry curriculum? Looks like it should be. Read the article: Study Reports Anal Sex on Rise Among Teens: Lack of Sex Education, Virginity Pledges, Ignorance Contribute to Risky Behavior.

Ministry update: We had the high school Christmas party last night and it was tons of fun -- good food, good games, and good white elephant gifts. I took the opportunity at the part to hand out these pencils that say "Jesus loves you snow much." 'Tis the season! The junior high Christmas party is this Wednesday night.

Seminary/ordination update: Nothing to report, but in Booking Passage, Lynch describes ordination as becoming "lieutenant in the standing army that wages war on sin and evil and the flesh."¹ Perfect.

Looking forward to: Reading and planning the Ireland trip itinerary.

That's it for the Monday brief. Feel free to leave a comment, and if you're feeling extra frisky, check out the Monday brief archives.

1. Lynch, Thomas. Booking Passage. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. 89. [↩]

Tagged as: ireland, monday-brief, sex, thomas lynch, Youth Ministry