7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 92)

1. I meant to do Quick Takes last week, but I scurried home to celebrate my dad’s birthday and never got around to it. I am most unproductive when home. 

2. Which doesn’t bode well for this weekend. I’m home dog-sitting and recovering from an eye problem while still trying to get about 10 pages written by Monday. Ha.

3. This semester is going way too fast. All the end-of-year projects are picking up, I need a thesis topic, and I’m quickly falling behind on things. The beginning of December seems much too close, yet the middle of December seems much too far.

4. While trying to stay on top of work, I’ve been listening to a lot of music and podcasts. But I find myself just overanalyzing everything. For example, last week I concluded that “Bare Necessitates” was a criticism of certain parenting styles whereas “Land Down Under” had some theological positions on how strangers/sinners should be treated.

5. I caught up on this season of Doctor Who. I was amazed at how pro-life the episode “Kill the Moon” was. The women have to make a decision about killing a creature before it hatches, the world votes to kill it, but Clara does the right thing anyway. Then she’s angry that the Doctor left the decision up to her in her moment of need. I think it made a really good case for the beauty and importance of life, as well as showing the triumph in choosing life in a situation of danger and fear.

Clara: “Doctor, what is it?”

Doctor: “I think that it’s unique. I think it’s the only one of its kind. I think that is uttering beautiful.”

Lundvik: “How do we kill it?”

6. The diocese is investigating the claim of a medical miracle attributed to the intercession of Servant of God Isaac Hecker. Hecker founded the Paulists, one of the missionary orders present in the area. If the diocese determines that it was a probable miracle, the case will be sent on to Rome. If the Roman investigation determines it was a miracle, the incident will be added to Hecker’s case for canonization. I’m more interested in the process itself than the actual result.

7. This link was meant to be posted in last week’s list, seeing as it played into the Columbus Day weekend. Let’s remember that European explorers often were not very nice guys, and in commemorating colonialism, we have to also acknowledge how native populations were affected. And we should learn more about men such as Bartolome de las Casas.