(I loved that post at the time! It really made me think. And I have gone back to it >= 3 times since I first read it.)
I see now that a large portion the UY post is quoting the Richard Beck post linked above, so a second on that one!
How fun - people who read the original post can now know the follow-up story - that his church created a clean (GORGEOUS) and welcoming space, competently managed.
And I really love some of the thoughts here.
*hopes to comment more later* (possibly including descriptions of the discouragement of apartment complexes' basement laundry rooms I've experienced.)
This made me reflect on my time living and traveling in Catholic countries (I'm thinking of South America here mostly, but Europe to a lesser extent) and how easy it was to come across accessible places for prayer. I'm not just thinking of cities densely packed with Catholic churches—which, yes, but not everybody lives in cities!—but of the countless roadside shrines. This happens in the US too, usually to memorialize car crash victims. But what if they were much more than that? I'm thinking of the "Little Free Library" movement that has popped up and proliferated DIY neighborhood book exchanges. What if more of us set up Little Free Shrines, basically? A Marian grotto in every Catholic homeowner's front yard!!!! A chapel for every rest area on major American highways!!!
That's a great point about roadside shrines for car crash (or bike) victims. I've seen "bathtub Marys" in lawns, but I've never had the sense I could wander onto the lawn to pray there in the way a Little Free Library invites people in.
If I imaging trying to create an inviting front yard shrine, I think I'd put a bench out there, and maybe a "free decade rosary" box? Or a little box of holy cards?
Fellow TinyBook Club peoples-
Here's a post on Leah's old blog, UY, that touches on third spaces / that laundromat idea:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2015/02/offering-hospitality-to-introverts-athletes-and-other-strange-types.html
(I loved that post at the time! It really made me think. And I have gone back to it >= 3 times since I first read it.)
I see now that a large portion the UY post is quoting the Richard Beck post linked above, so a second on that one!
How fun - people who read the original post can now know the follow-up story - that his church created a clean (GORGEOUS) and welcoming space, competently managed.
And I really love some of the thoughts here.
*hopes to comment more later* (possibly including descriptions of the discouragement of apartment complexes' basement laundry rooms I've experienced.)
Thanks for sharing this link. I was delighted to read the block quote from Kate Donovan, a great hero of mine!
This made me reflect on my time living and traveling in Catholic countries (I'm thinking of South America here mostly, but Europe to a lesser extent) and how easy it was to come across accessible places for prayer. I'm not just thinking of cities densely packed with Catholic churches—which, yes, but not everybody lives in cities!—but of the countless roadside shrines. This happens in the US too, usually to memorialize car crash victims. But what if they were much more than that? I'm thinking of the "Little Free Library" movement that has popped up and proliferated DIY neighborhood book exchanges. What if more of us set up Little Free Shrines, basically? A Marian grotto in every Catholic homeowner's front yard!!!! A chapel for every rest area on major American highways!!!
That's a great point about roadside shrines for car crash (or bike) victims. I've seen "bathtub Marys" in lawns, but I've never had the sense I could wander onto the lawn to pray there in the way a Little Free Library invites people in.
If I imaging trying to create an inviting front yard shrine, I think I'd put a bench out there, and maybe a "free decade rosary" box? Or a little box of holy cards?