Compendium of Links #28 (Guide to Singleness)

Yesterday was a fantastic day. I got a big writing project accomplished, cooked something healthy for supper, was told I was an answer to prayer, and got to talk about some serious theological matters via IM with a friend from college. And today was also quite lovely—very, very productive (with laundry and grocery shopping all done), plus a fruitful trip to both a moving sale and a library booksale.

Anyhow, I realized this evening that a good portion of the links I had open in my Internet browser had to do with singleness in one way or another (despite last week’s tab cleanup). Thus unfolded the following collection:

Via a link posted in a comment thread on some blog somewhere, I meandered through the Internet to a blog called The Sexy Celibate (so named, says the author, to give an ironic, interesting twist on the somewhat cliché single-Christian theme). It’s one of the best blogs I’ve read in a long time. The most recent posts take the horns of a huge issue in the Christian single’s world: Joshua Harris’s book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and the good, and bad, influences it had over the following decade’s worth of Christian romantic relationships. After reading several posts, I decided the blog was well worth adding to my Google Reader stash of RSS feeds—because if I wrote a whole blog about singleness from a Christian perspective, I would want it to sound exactly like that blog sounds. Funny and wise (as far as I can tell).

The Atlantic Wire asked whether living alone was making people weird. I love these random articles from them. Conclusion? Well, there isn’t one, really, but mine is that people are just weird anyways, and living alone probably doesn’t make much difference.

One in two new grads are jobless or underemployed. (And of course, new grads are really likely to be single.) Yep. I’m a lucky one I suppose. But if you are talking about a bunch of graduates who went to college for a creative writing degree… well, of course he’s not employed in a fulfilling job directly related to his major!

Don’t let cynicism get you down. The Atlantic Wire (yes, it’s that site again) delivers a handy how-to for finding joy in one’s everyday life. So funny, and ironically sad that something like this has even been written.

Carolyn McCulley talks about how single women can fulfill their biblical/complementarian roles without a “better half.” She’s been single her whole life, I think. I was hoping for some excellent breakthrough insights from her—her other writings have been certainly perspicacious—but most of the parts meant to speak to singles specifically felt more like a study in psychology than a study of the Bible. Not knocking psychology or anything, but let’s call things what they are, rather than confusing psychological principles with biblical ones.

My Life is Average—this is what single young folks think is hilarious. At least, I and my sister crack up at some of these. (OK, so this is a stretch, but the link is too funny to hold for longer!)

This week’s video is kind of unrelated to the topic at hand. It’s a trailer for a documentary I recently watched in a church screening. The documentary covers the global sex trade. WATCH THIS (if you’re part of a “mature audience,” that is). Then track down a screening near you via nefariousdocumentary.com and watch the whole documentary. Then pray.

The sale of women constitutes the third largest industry in the world.