We may be in the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, but that doesn’t mean things have slowed down here at TJP. Just the opposite, really. In addition to our standard stellar content (see below), several TJP editors and writers have traveled to Brazil to cover World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, including the Magis experience for pilgrims from Jesuit schools and works.
So whether you’re new to the site or are coming back from vacation and wondering what you might have missed around these parts, here’s some of what’s we’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about during these first weeks of July.
Stop Here, Click Now
Three Posts Not to Miss
- Rolling Stone made waves when it featured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, on its cover. This caused Matt Spots to wonder aloud: is something outrageous just because it sparks outrage?
- TJP’s Joe Simmons sat across from one of his heroes while at church recently. Once he stopped staring and calmed down, he penned (okay, typed) some reflections about the experience: “It’s easy for me to imagine that those I admire have superhuman strength. It’s easy to imagine that they’re untroubled by the monotonous, by daily challenges of fatigue, or fear of failure. But […] even the admirable get annoyed and the courageous grow weary.”
- “I’m becoming only more convinced that encounters with the holy should make us more human, more able to smile, more able to laugh until it hurts.” Michael Rossmann’s spiritual manifesto on fun. Preach!
Live From Brazil, It’s TJP
TJP’s Jason Welle interviewed by TVBrasil
WYD/Magis Highlights
- “Can a pilgrimage arrive at people and not just places? It seems this one has.” Or so believes our Chris Schroeder thinking through part of his time with a Brazilian family as part of the Magis experience.
- Sam Sawyer covered a discussion about young people and the Church, learned that: “Young people are asking for ‘more’ from the Church, and often doing so in language that the Church may have trouble recognizing, but needs to hear.”
- Also, don’t miss out WYD coverage, updated on the daily.
What We’ve Seen on the Web
- Hey! A new papal encyclical dropped on June 29. Sam Sawyer had this quick first look at “Lumeni Fidei.”
- Our resident lawyer and legal correspondent, Nate Romano, has been working overtime lately, covering both the Supreme Court’s rulings on same-sex marriage, and a broader look at the recent verdict in the Trayvon Martin case (or: how the law will let us down).
- In other papal news, Pope Francis announced that he would invite 200 of Rome’s poor to lunch. Jason Welle notes that his predecessors have done much the same, and speculates about what is truly “novel” about the new Pope.
Worth Thinking About
- Paula Deen has been putting the old maxim that “all publicity is good publicity” to the test lately. The scandal around her use of racist language has Tim O’Brien asking: when we throw stones, who are we really aiming at?
- Brendan Busse’s “This Old House” is not a love song to the PBS show, but it does consider what living in places older than ourselves can do to (and for) us: “I loved the people who lived in those places, but mostly, I think I loved who I became in them.”
- What does the world need today? Revolutionaries? Mystics? Paul Lickteig thinks we need both, and that Christians are called to be both.
If you like what you see here, stick around. We’ll be right back with more.
