Yoga, Mr Rogers, Fauxnerability, and Listening

Is it too soon to share another smattering of links I read this week? I hope not, there were some good ones in here. 

If you keep up with me on Twitter or Facebook, please note that I've logged out for a few months. When I was looking ahead at this year, I knew I wanted to repeat the break from them both that I took in January. That month was so holistically good for me. We are subscribed to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and a few other literary magazines, so we aren't without news and views aplenty. I just appreciate a good step back from the flurry of opinions and the demand to Have One On Everything All The Time. That's exhausting and no one can do it well, though most of us try. I want to always read, listen, and observe more than I talk, commentate, or teach. That was a long way to say first, I'm away from Twitter and Facebook and second, I'm reading less online right now, so Link Love may be sparse this summer. 

Nate and I went to go see Won't You Be My Neighbor this past week and while Nate insists his "allergies were bothering him," I freely admit to openly crying through much of it. This piece from Jason Gray at The Rabbit Room on a biography about Mister Rogers is beautiful. 

I finished up the spring semester of the Writing Mentorship a few weeks back and mostly just feel like I received such a gift in knowing these writers. Sarah Willard is one and I hope you'll spend some time with her contemplative, creative, deeply profound writing here with Table for Three at Blind Mule Blog. 

While you're at it, Annie Parsons submitted her final project to Fathom Magazine and they published it. It was a perfect piece in my estimation and I'm so glad it's getting the attention her writing deserves. On the Yoga Mat as it is in Heaven. 

Almost all of my friends are verbal processors (really, except Nate, I think all of them are). I am not. This means most of my time with friends is spent listening to them, sometimes asking them questions, but mostly listening. There are times when I can resent this lopsided way of friendship, but mostly I do want to be a good listener. This piece on Mistakes I Made with my Grieving Friend made me remember what a gift a good listener can be if they are active in their listening and not just passive (which I often am).

This piece from Chuck Degroat got me all sorts of choked up while reading it. I think the Church is learning more about this (and hopefully maturing in our hiring processes and willingness to promote based mainly on giftedness), but I still lament how common narcissism is and how we seem willingly blind to it in many ways. If you're in ministry or want to be in ministry or are ministered to, please read this: Fauxnerability in the Church. I don't get angry about much, but I am angry at how many of my brothers and sisters walk in narcissistic behavior and even more angry at how many more of my brothers and sisters are duped by it. Let's be aware of these patterns, church, and faithful to address them as sin and not simply "personality quirks."