en-US Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:44:55 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 21971459
Eve Tushnet was among the unlikeliest of converts. The only child of two atheist academics, Tushnet was a typical Yale undergraduate until the day she went out to poke fun at a gathering of philosophical debaters, who happened also to be Catholic. Instead of enjoying mocking what she termed the "zoo animals," she found herself engaged in intellectual conversation with them and, in a move that surprised even her, she soon converted to Catholicism.

Already self-identifying as a lesbian, Tushnet searched for a third way in the seeming two-option system available to gay Catholics: reject Church teaching on homosexuality or reject the truth of your sexuality.

Gay and Catholic is the fruit of Tushnet's searching: what she learned in studying Christian history and theology and her articulation of how gay Catholics can pour their love and need for connection into friendships, community, service, and artistic creation.]]> 215 Eve Tushnet 1594715424 ariana 5 theology-etc, favorites Why I Don't Call Myself Gay mentions in a brief chapter the "temptations of friendship", I didn't feel that he offered much of a solution. Tushnet knocks it out of the park with total humility and self-awareness (and genuinely funny humor). This is all without compromising Christian faith and morals. Caritas in veritate!]]> 4.12 2014
author: Eve Tushnet
name: ariana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: theology-etc, favorites
review:
Phenomenal. I have dipped my toes into ex-gay literature and was hesitant to read this alternate perspective -- mostly for fear of liberalism and a lukewarm stance against the related sin -- but am so very glad I did! Tushnet's point of view seems to be much more wholesome and fruitful (for my own self) and addressed fears I had but couldn't articulate with "ex-gay" rhetoric and programs. Where Dan Mattson's Why I Don't Call Myself Gay mentions in a brief chapter the "temptations of friendship", I didn't feel that he offered much of a solution. Tushnet knocks it out of the park with total humility and self-awareness (and genuinely funny humor). This is all without compromising Christian faith and morals. Caritas in veritate!
]]> 30659 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.]]> 254 Marcus Aurelius 0140449337 ariana 5 big-brain, favorites 4.29 180
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: ariana
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/01
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: big-brain, favorites
review:

]]> 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 ariana 5 favorites 3.99 1932
author: Aldous Huxley
name: ariana
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 5
read at: 2020/06/16
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 271718 -- Thomas Howard]]> 170 Thomas Howard 0898702216 ariana 5 favorites
Admittedly, I expected the book to discuss only surface level points that are so commonly found in Catholic apologetic material - “beginner-friendly” pamphlet statements, with historical citations from Church Fathers and everything I’d already heard before, as a “recent” convert. But Howard thoroughly explores the ideas and contrasts the underlying worldviews of these very different threads of Christianity.

”My debt to Protestantism is incalculable.”
Howard walked a path familiar to many American Christians, marked by names such as Billy Graham, Scofield, Moody, Wycliffe, Tyndale, and groups such as Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ.
His high praise and appreciation for his Evangelical upbringing was welcome. More than just a passing praise, Howard brings the reader to such a point as to make him wonder, why? ”…If home base was that good, what is there to seek? If the Reformation may be credited with fostering this sort of Christian earnestness, zeal, and fidelity, where else would anyone want to turn?”

Every Catholic should read this for its beginning chapter alone; the importance of and reverence for Scripture, while it is certainly present in the Church, could do to be enkindled more particularly! Howard’s gratitude towards and defense of evangelicalism also opened my eyes to some prejudices I have unknowingly held onto concerning our Protestant friends. The bit about a hillbilly “pleading the blood of Jesus” not being so very different from our own devotion towards Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood was a check on my own pride.
His stance is that evangelicalism truly taught him orthodox doctrine - but was incomplete.

Howard seeks a balance between the all-too-true Protestant argument of avoiding self-delusion and superstition, and the all-too-true Catholic argument of avoiding self-delusion and gnostic heresy.
”But it is one thing to see dangers; it is another to be true to the Faith in all of its amplitude. By avoiding the dangers of magic and idolatry on the one hand, evangelicalism runs itself very near the shoals of Manichaeanism on the other. … To correct a flood, one does not want a drought.”

An argument in favor of ceremony, of ritual, of liturgy, and of sacrament, drawn from the viscerally real and Incarnate drama of the Gospel.

Life is mystical - this is the truth. Reality is more glorious and mysterious than we can imagine.
The gnostic decries the material world as evil, cleaving it entirely from the “spiritual world”, unknowable but by their secret rites. The creation that we know to be formed by the hands of God and declared by His mouth as *good* - to them it is an abomination and a hindrance to “true” good.
How ridiculous! Reality is Incarnational. The fact and paradox of God’s becoming man is the most real thing of all existence.

”The Incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed.”

”Is it objected that this [worship by bowing “with kneebones and neck muscles… with our feet, singing great hymns with our tongues, our nostrils full of the smoke of incense”] is too physical, too low down on the scale for the gospel? Noses indeed! If the objection carries the day, then we must jettison the stable and the manger, and the winepots at Cana, and the tired feet anointed with nard, and the splinters of the cross, not to say the womb of the mother who bore God when He came to us. Too physical? What do we celebrate in our worship? It is Buddhism and Platonism and Manichaeanism that tell us to disavow our flesh and expunge everything but thoughts. The gospel brings back all of our faculties with a rush.”

I need to prevent myself from quotemining to the point of reproducing the entire book - so just go ahead and read it!]]> 4.15 1984
author: Thomas Howard
name: ariana
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/05
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: favorites
review:
My introduction to Thomas Howard. Absolutely phenomenal. I was addicted to reading this book. Worth it even just for the prose alone.

Admittedly, I expected the book to discuss only surface level points that are so commonly found in Catholic apologetic material - “beginner-friendly” pamphlet statements, with historical citations from Church Fathers and everything I’d already heard before, as a “recent” convert. But Howard thoroughly explores the ideas and contrasts the underlying worldviews of these very different threads of Christianity.

”My debt to Protestantism is incalculable.”
Howard walked a path familiar to many American Christians, marked by names such as Billy Graham, Scofield, Moody, Wycliffe, Tyndale, and groups such as Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ.
His high praise and appreciation for his Evangelical upbringing was welcome. More than just a passing praise, Howard brings the reader to such a point as to make him wonder, why? ”…If home base was that good, what is there to seek? If the Reformation may be credited with fostering this sort of Christian earnestness, zeal, and fidelity, where else would anyone want to turn?”

Every Catholic should read this for its beginning chapter alone; the importance of and reverence for Scripture, while it is certainly present in the Church, could do to be enkindled more particularly! Howard’s gratitude towards and defense of evangelicalism also opened my eyes to some prejudices I have unknowingly held onto concerning our Protestant friends. The bit about a hillbilly “pleading the blood of Jesus” not being so very different from our own devotion towards Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood was a check on my own pride.
His stance is that evangelicalism truly taught him orthodox doctrine - but was incomplete.

Howard seeks a balance between the all-too-true Protestant argument of avoiding self-delusion and superstition, and the all-too-true Catholic argument of avoiding self-delusion and gnostic heresy.
”But it is one thing to see dangers; it is another to be true to the Faith in all of its amplitude. By avoiding the dangers of magic and idolatry on the one hand, evangelicalism runs itself very near the shoals of Manichaeanism on the other. … To correct a flood, one does not want a drought.”

An argument in favor of ceremony, of ritual, of liturgy, and of sacrament, drawn from the viscerally real and Incarnate drama of the Gospel.

Life is mystical - this is the truth. Reality is more glorious and mysterious than we can imagine.
The gnostic decries the material world as evil, cleaving it entirely from the “spiritual world”, unknowable but by their secret rites. The creation that we know to be formed by the hands of God and declared by His mouth as *good* - to them it is an abomination and a hindrance to “true” good.
How ridiculous! Reality is Incarnational. The fact and paradox of God’s becoming man is the most real thing of all existence.

”The Incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed.”

”Is it objected that this [worship by bowing “with kneebones and neck muscles… with our feet, singing great hymns with our tongues, our nostrils full of the smoke of incense”] is too physical, too low down on the scale for the gospel? Noses indeed! If the objection carries the day, then we must jettison the stable and the manger, and the winepots at Cana, and the tired feet anointed with nard, and the splinters of the cross, not to say the womb of the mother who bore God when He came to us. Too physical? What do we celebrate in our worship? It is Buddhism and Platonism and Manichaeanism that tell us to disavow our flesh and expunge everything but thoughts. The gospel brings back all of our faculties with a rush.”

I need to prevent myself from quotemining to the point of reproducing the entire book - so just go ahead and read it!
]]> 742604 265 Thomas Howard 0898706084 ariana 5 favorites 4.34 1997
author: Thomas Howard
name: ariana
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 1236244 112 Jacques Philippe 0818909064 ariana 5 favorites 4.75 1991
author: Jacques Philippe
name: ariana
average rating: 4.75
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/14
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 341340 sound of poetry, Gerard Manley Hopkins was no staid, conventional Victorian. On entering the Society of Jesus at the age of 24, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless by the wish of my superiors.' The poems, letters, and journal entries selected for this edition were written in the following twenty years of his life and published posthumously in 1918.

His verse is wrought from the creative tensions and paradoxes of a poet-priest who wanted to evoke the spiritual essence of nature sensuously, and to communicate this revelation in natural language and speech-rhythms while using condensed, innovative diction and all the skills of poetic artifice. Intense, vital, and individual, his writing is the 'terrible crystal' through which the soul--the inscape, the nature of things--may be illuminated.]]> 260 Gerard Manley Hopkins 0140420150 ariana 5 favorites 4.24 1953
author: Gerard Manley Hopkins
name: ariana
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 57977544
What would happen if gay Christians began to believe the truth about God—that he loves all people unconditionally? In Tenderness, Catholic writer and speaker Eve Tushnet says trusting God’s love would be the beginning of a transformation, not only in the lives of gay Christians but also in the Body of Christ itself. She offers hope and companionship to those who have been deeply hurt by their parishes, a wound that also damaged their relationship with God. Tushnet also offers practical guidance from her own journey as a celibate lesbian. Tenderness explores scripture and history to find role models for gay Christians—including Jesus, King David, Ruth, St. John, Mary, poets, mystics, penitents, leaders, and ordinary gay people who have found unexpected paths of love. The book also offers guidance on living through or recovering from the painful experiences that are all too common in gay Christian life—from familial rejection and weaponized Christianity to ambivalence and doubt. Weaving her own story with resources, prayers, and practical actions that can help gay people trust that God loves them, Tushnet renews our understandings of kinship, friendship, celibacy and unmarried life, ordered love, personal integrity, solidarity with the marginalized, obedience, surrender, sanctification, and hope. This book is primarily for gay Christians, but it also offers a window into their experiences and needs that will make it useful for anyone in pastoral care or who wants to be a better friend to the gay people they know.]]> 224 Eve Tushnet 1646800745 ariana 5 theology-etc, favorites 4.51
author: Eve Tushnet
name: ariana
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/18
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: theology-etc, favorites
review:

]]>