The Corner
Twenty-one Things that Caught My Eye Today: Equality Act & Female Inmates, America’s Drinking Problem, Forgiveness in Nigeria and for Milli Vanilli & More
1.
Heartbreak: The North Kivu branch of the Red Cross said it had received 1,328 requests from parents still looking for their children. https://t.co/k14v0uaRgv
— Barb Fraze (@bfraze) June 3, 2021
2. Uyghur exiles describe forced abortions, torture in Xinjiang
3. Xueli Abbing: The abandoned baby who became a Vogue model
4. Nigerian archbishop prays for killers’ conversion at burial of murdered Catholic priest
5. Abigail Shrier: Male Inmates in Women’s Prisons: If Congress passes the Equality Act, California’s dangerous policy would go nationwide.
6. Rick Garnett: Religious Health Providers Deserve Legal Protection, Not False Charges of Discrimination
7. Australian state moves to cancel Catholic cemeteries
8. State Department Should Deliver an Honest Message about Turkey’s Religious Freedom Record
9.
3 June 1935 | A French Jewish boy, Jacques Moncarz, was born in Paris.
He arrived at #Auschwitz on 13 February 1944 in a transport of 1,500 Jews deported from Drancy. He was among 1,229 of them murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. pic.twitter.com/73LXPQGo0e
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 3, 2021
10. Vatican summit a ‘source of hope’ for Lebanese Christians
11.
Really excited about this: a full graduate scholarship for young Palestinian Christians looking to study in American universities. Spread the word! https://t.co/zotXxNQHHn
— Robert Nicholson (@rwnicholson_) June 3, 2021
12. Michigan High-School Valedictorian Will Be Allowed to Reference Jesus in Graduation Speech
13. Court affirms tuition for students at religious school
14. The Meaning of Fear of the Lord: You Stop Fearing Everything Else
15. America Has a Drinking Problem: A little alcohol can boost creativity and strengthen social ties. But there’s nothing moderate, or convivial, about the way many Americans drink today.
16. Beer-making returns to Belgian Catholic abbey after 200 years
17. Arthur Brooks: It’s Okay to Feel Happy, Even When Times Are Bad
18. Tod Worner: Tweet, Text, Post: Welcome to the Exterior Life
The Exterior Life doesn’t want you to feel sad. Ever. It recoils at the prospect. It wants there to be nothing but pleasure. But this is unnatural. To be fully human is to endure the full range of emotions in response to the broad continuum of life’s experiences. That means that we are destined to experience sadness as well as joy, anger as well as love, restlessness as well as contentment. To live the Exterior Life’s lopsided emotional existence is to bury honest and necessary emotions, to heap tension upon tension while covering them with a yellow smiley face. Such a life involves the willful stunting of our growth until we ultimately become, as Georges Bernanos would describe, horrible undeveloped monsters, stumps of men.
19. Haley Stewart: The Year of Madeleine: Motherhood and writing as acts of co-creation
Madeleine (L’Engle) insisted on writing and she insisted on raising her children. However, while she sees each as holy calling, she does not romanticize the challenges of either one. “There was, for me, nothing idyllic about struggling to raise our children, trying to keep house in drafty old Crosswicks,” she explains in The Irrational Season (1977). “There was nothing idyllic in the violent conflict between Madeleine, wife and mother, and Madeleine, writer. I struggled to write under the worst possible conditions, after the children were in bed – that force field of concentration would have been a dangerous idea while they were awake and active. Like most young mothers I was constantly tired.” She describes the decade of her “tired thirties” when her home was busy with the needs of her small children and she would fall asleep at her typewriter after putting them to bed. As a tired mother struggling to find the hours to write, I find her vulnerable honesty comforting. This season feels hard because it is – even for someone as talented as Madeleine.
20. John Davis, a Voice Behind Milli Vanilli, Dies at 66 — he was one of the actual voices behind the fraudulent success of the pop band, and actually would go on to perform with one Fabrice Morvan, one of the duo. Something beautiful about forgiveness there.
21.
Last night we spontaneously decided to go out to dinner at a local restaurant that we love (& haven’t been inside since March 2020).
This morning, totally unprompted, Rose said “I like going places & doing things together.”
Never again taking those little things for granted.
— Katie Prejean McGrady (@KatiePMcGrady) June 3, 2021