Though it’s Monday afternoon, I still am not ready to admit that the weekend is over. So, with that denial firmly in place, here are a few good things I read on the internet in the past week or so:

When This is the Dinner Party Revolution
by Ed Cyzewski

Jesus shared dinner with some pretty unsavory folks. Make no mistake: his reputation was repeatedly dragged down because of his company. However, Jesus didn’t see himself as “reaching out” to sinful outcasts. He just wanted to have dinner with these people, and sometimes redemption resulted.

The Magdalene
by John Blase

She loved him because

his ways were gentle.

How he came to be like

that she did not know

and did not care.

 

Mary Lambert: The voice behind Macklemore’s ‘Same Love’
by Casey McNerthney

Her echoing line “Not crying on Sundays” came from her own experiences at Mars Hill Church in Seattle – a place Lambert said isn’t hateful, but clearly thinks being gay is a sin. She would come home from services and cry, ashamed and apologizing to God for being who she was.

Five Insane Lessons from My Christian Fundamentalist Childhood
by Hännah Ettinger

Male masturbation is treated like a D.A.R.E. class treats heroin addiction. If you do it at all, even once, you’re considered an “addict.” Or you probably think you invented a new sin. So all the little Quiverfull boys essentially grow up and go into marriage believing that they’re sex addicts or perverts. It’s worse for women, because the slim sex education we girls get never even addresses the concept of female masturbation or orgasm. We just talk about periods and babies.

 

I am a Witness. I have a Voice. I Intend to Use it.
by Melody Harrison Hansen

The responsibility to scratch words down is about more than cleverness, more than holding truths in my two hands and hammering it down on the page, more than dazzling others and more than pride in my work. It is about letting go of sacred totems and knowing when to hold back. It is accepting that your soul truths are precious and must only be shared with intention. One’s life and experiences, the anguish and pain must (at times) be sacrosanct.

 

Everything I Wish I Knew About Twitter When I Started
by Kevan Lee

Until three weeks ago, I barely had a Twitter account. It existed by its lonesome for a few years as a placeholder for the day when my work allowed me to tweet freely. That day came three weeks ago, and I dove right in, applying all the Twitter knowledge I had stowed away. And still, even with a running start, I had so much to learn. Knowledge seldom takes the place of experience. So while I muddled through my first few weeks on Twitter—experimenting and fiddling—I noticed the many things I could have only learned by doing.

“God’s Not Dead” and the Angry Atheist Professor
by James Hoskins

Part of getting a good education means questioning some of your previously held assumptions. Getting a good philosophy education means questioning all of your assumptions. Many aspects of my faith at that time were presumptuous, ignorant, and needed to be challenged. My professors pushed me to wrestle with the arguments of the great atheist philosophers of history—people like Hume, Nietzsche, Sartre, and others—and to take them seriously. I’m so glad they did

25 Lies Writers Tell (And Start to Believe)
by Chuck Wendig

Writing relies on very few things, my friend. All you need to write is your brain, a way to convey the story into existence (pen, computer, whatever), and a place in which to do it (office, kitchen table, lunar brothel). That’s it! Oh, and coffee. If a dude tries to take my coffee I will staple his hand to his face and push him down a hill.

I also want to show you the Swan Children Magazine. It’s an awesome project that my wife and a few of my friends have been working on this year, and it looks beautiful. Check it out: