January 6 blog reviews

From Coffee Hour

A belated Happy Birthday to Nancy Johnson, a Congresswoman from Connecticut who is one of only three UUs in Congress. (The others being Rep Pete Stark from California and Senator Kent Conrad from North Dakota.) Johnson is a really cool woman, and a fabulous example to pull out when someone accuses UUism of
not having any Republicans. Johnson turned 70 on January 5, but looks fifty tops.

This was a really excellent week for blogs, BTW. There’s some seriously good stuff out there. Good call, kids.

Facilitating Paradox has a “litany of Goodbye 2004, hello 2005” It’s an interesting thought, though the litany as written cheats one out of the opportunity to say goodbye to Paris Hilton, something lots of us would like to do.

It really gets me that I don’t even like children, and people talking about their children usually bore me, but I always read Ibeth with great pleasure. Must be because it is typically very well-written and insightful. Her anecdote about her kids writing on the driveway alone is worth the price of admission.

On B-net last year, we made an abortive attempt at a Round Robin story about a guy joining a UU church. As far as I can tell, I killed it by giving people writing advice and thus making them self conscious. Maybe I should have just linked to It’s all one thing instead. His advice is just as good as mine was.

One of the better new blogs recenty, in my unhumble reviewer opinion, is Ministrare the blog of Sean Parker Dennison, a UU minister from Salt Lake. As he’s answered questions I’ve posted here before, I’d like to ask some more.
“What’s it like to be a UU minister in a town full of Mormons? Do you have a lot of pissy ex-Mormons in your congregation? How does your congregation view the Mormon church?”

Phil’s Little Blog on the Prarie continues the ongoing discussion on the place of marriage within the UU church. These posts are not the first I’ve read that use marriage terminology in metaphors about faith. For years, I’ve thought of people who switch religions every few years as “beliefsluts,” to give my crudest yet most amusing example. What Phil has to say is good here, emphasizing the importance of commitment and connection in all aspects of our lives.