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Top Tweets | 04/18/13.

Happy Thursday! Since the blogosphere pros propelled me with words (and probably magical powers) to return to Twitter, I’ve made a compelling discovery: I KIND OF LIKE IT. While I am still up for talking you out of using social media (which is to relationships what fast food is to nutrition), there are perks to following good people. You can expect, then, that I’ll occasionally share the top tweets in my feed (as defined solely by my opinion [#itsmyblog&illdowhatiwantto]). Here are the top tweets from this week:

FUNNIEST:

OH on #Pasco scanner: Baby alligator loitering at drain of Dade City car wash. #gogators
— Bridget Grumet (@bgrumettimes) April 15, 2013

MOST INSPIRING:

“No one is ever holy without suffering.” – Evelyn Waugh
— Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) April 14, 2013

MOST ENCOURAGING (A reformed Protestant quoting the pope, let alone a Catholic? #awesome.):

“Inconsistency on the part of pastors & the faithful between what they say & do is undermining the church’s credibility.” –Pope Francis
— Mark Driscoll (@PastorMark) April 16, 2013

MOST CHALLENGING BUT TRUE:

I find there’s often a direct correlation between praying very little and being under immense stress.
— Tyler Braun (@tylerbraun) April 18, 2013

BEST PHOTO (heck yes that’s the sky over my state! #IloveFL):

Beau.ti.ful. #socialfresh twitter.com/RyanEggenberge…
— Ryan Eggenberger (@RyanEggenberger) April 17, 2013

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“8 Catholics to Watch This Spring”

Grateful to be among the eight Catholics featured on this fabulous list compiled by my friend and fellow blogger Ryan Eggenberger.

From Ryan’s intro:

Ever heard any of these dismal statements?

“Young Catholics are totally disconnected from the faith.”
“There are no young Catholics engaged in the Church anymore.”
“The Church is a dying institution.” 

If you ever discuss the faith outside of the four walls of a parish, you probably have.

If you’re like me, though, I prefer to magnify the good that happens when given the opportunity; and I’ve been given that opportunity, lucky you.

Below are eight young Catholics engaged in the New Evangelization in some capacity. Some are writers, others are catechists, teachers, musicians, artists, and parents. Each is diligently working on a cool project for spring and summer; projects which, I sincerely trust, you will want to know about.

Click here to read Ryan’s list of active young Catholics.

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It is better to feel pain than to run from it.

The end of grad school, as it turns out, is the polar opposite of conducive to reading for leisure (and to sleeping, and to eating food fit for human beings, for the record).

It is with joy, then, and multiple bowls of movie theater butter popcorn that I read Letters to a Young Therapist, assigned (but enjoyable) reading for my internship class.

The book, by psychologist Mary Pipher, is a collection of letters to Laura, a young therapist Pipher supervised. While it imparts the author’s wisdom to the young therapists who read it, one need neither be young nor a therapist to get something good from my favorite parts of the book.

Here are my favorite excerpts:

On silence: 

“Therapy isn’t radio. We don’t need to constantly fill the air with sounds. Sometimes, when it’s quiet, surprising things happen.” -p. 42

On pain:

“Most of the craziness in the world–violence, addictions, and frenetic activity–comes from running from pain.” -p. 54

“The only thing worse than feeling pain is not feeling pain. Healthy people face their pain. When they are sad, they cry. When they are angry, they acknowledge they are angry.” -p. 54

“The capacity to tolerate pain and sorrow is an under-appreciated virtue.” -p. 71

On happiness: 

“Happiness bears almost no relationship to good fortune. … As my Uncle Otis put it, ‘Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.'” -p. 58

“Satisfying lives are about much more than the absence of tragedy. They are about appreciating what we have.” -p. 60

On dating: 

“…dating in America in the twenty-first century unhinges us all.” -p. 87

“Teenagers receive more lessons on driving a car than on dating and making relationships work.” -p. 89

On family:

“Family rituals strengthen families. One of my favorites is the high-low report at dinner, in which everyone at the table tells about the best and worst thing that happened that day.” -p. 117

– – – –

Click here to learn more about Mary Pipher’s book.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. So, if you click the links and purchase the products I recommend, I earn a little commission at no extra cost to you. And when you do, I am sincerely grateful.

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Goodbye is a hard word.

I listened to a sad song on repeat on the parkway earlier.

It worked.

It worked because it dawned on me during class tonight that I have class only two more times. What has monopolized my time since 2009 in easy ways and hard is ending.

It’s ending in the best ways.

Tests from now on don’t have grades. All of them are open book. The books are cheaper. I can commit where I wouldn’t. I can sleep when I couldn’t. I am shifting from unable (to socialize, to read, to write) to able.

It’s ending in the worst ways.

I cried here. I laughed here. I grew (up) here. I am a little bit attached to here. There is comfort in the couch outside my adviser’s office. In the creased counseling magazines on coffee tables. In the classrooms where I learned everything I know (later to learn I kind of still feel like I sort of don’t know what I’m doing).

I am ready but not ready.

Happy but sad.

Goodbye is a hard word.

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Sex! And other stuff. | 04/08/13.

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

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The hook-up culture: fact or fiction? In Sunday’s Perspective section of the Tampa Bay Times, a couple columns competed for reader allegiance: one called “Empty college sex” by Donna Freitas, who writes about the damage done by the hook-up culture and another called “Hooking up isn’t hot or bothering” by Amanda Hess, who posits college kids “aren’t hooking up that much.” If I have to pick a side, I pick Freitas’s. And here’s my favorite quote from what she wrote: Today, sexual experimentation might be getting to know someone before having sex, holding out for dates, and courtship focused on romance rather than sex. From where I sit, meeting a student confident enough to say she’s not hooking up and is proud about that is as experimental as it gets.

 And if you missed it last week, what does a clinical sexologist and sex therapist say about saving sex for marriage? “It is difficult in this day and age, with the pressures and the feeling that everyone’s doing it. You are holding yourself to a higher standard and that is to be commended.” For more of my interview with sex therapist Dr. Dae Sheridan, click here.

And THIS (perhaps the best premarital advice you’ll get all day): 

Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.
— Peter Klesken (@PeterKlesken) April 6, 2013