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1. Apostle:Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve,
and Supporting Transgender Autistic Youth and Adults
2. Saving Fish from Drowning
3. Smelling my lilacs blooming

@rachelsbrittain #weekendreads

Went into this book with the above question in mind, and came out with the subsequent answer, plus a whole lot of other questions besides - and I like that that's what happened. Can be a bit dense and dry in places, but otherwise an interesting read that rewards a patient and inquiring, open mind.

An American atheist blessed by a Muslim woman who is friends and exchanges poetry with a Russian Orthodox priest, all of them standing in a wooden church in Kyrgyzstan. I wish the world worked like this.

Had to deal with this quite a bit, in my teens - especially when I asked "But how do we know this is true?"

I wish I still had access to the university library just so I could look this up. There must be some awesomely ridiculous stories about this guy.

Huh! I can imagine how horrific that conflation could be.

It's funny (okay, not very funny) how so very many Christians are so ill-informed about the history of their own faith. Then again, I'm sure there are people who'd like to keep it that way, so.

The "strange letter" is the Letter of Jude (from the New Testament), and yes, reading it DOES feel like what Bissell described - except you have no clue just WHY you're being jabbed in the chest and called a skeeze by (I imagine) a grumpy old man you weren't even bothering.

Funny how well this captures the "shock and awe" architecture so prominent in Catholic churches: no matter the TYPE of architecture, the goal is, always, to emphasize how unworthy the supplicant is in the face of God.

I think Bissell missed out on "the skull of a ten-year-old John the Baptist" - or is that a relic of a non-European church? I could swear it was a French one though...

I mean, really.

Huh!

Actually the "reciting without really thinking about it" applies to the whole Mass: my cousin called it "Catholic aerobics" once because you can go through the motions without really thinking about it.

Nice to know that, even from the very beginning of Christianity, people have been sleeping through sermons delivered by boring preachers - though the consequences nowadays tend to be far less, ah, lethal XD.

You learn something new every day. Wow.

This is pretty much my relationship with faith. The painting is The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio.

This unnamed backpacker is just. WOW. I came across this part and my mouth fell open at it.

This here is why it's so problematic when Western filmmakers try to make movies set in India: because such films tend to be "a delusion of having arrived somewhere, perceived something, more intense than oneself." To be fair, not ALL of them are, but a huge majority tend to be.

"...that some things--indeed, most things-- could be true and untrue at the same time, that the untrue could abide with the true as the believer abided with the unbeliever..." Huh. As someone who's got a complicated relationship with the idea of a higher power, this speaks to me.

Much of this book might be pretty dry, but every now and then I stumble across gems of snark like this and find myself snickering with delight XD.

"We were friends, and friends embraced." Aw!

That "Father Spiridon, no!" is exactly how I feel every time a person whose opinion I respect says something racist/misogynistic/homophobic.

"What stayed with you, when looking up at the Byzantine Jesus, was the face. The expression of the typical Byzantine Jesus ranged from blank to disappointed to blankly disappointed. It was, almost always, a face devoid of love and concern." Well, Bissell ain't wrong...

I'm just a little under halfway through this book currently, and it is fascinating. A little tedious in places, but I kind of expected that given the genre.