As I said in my last post- even though I haven’t been writing, I have been keeping up with other people’s blogs. And I’m always checking out the news. Here are some articles you should check out:

1. Daughter on her own, but still needs dad

This article is written by Nat Irvin, the fabulous father of Jovian Irvin, who many of you all know and love. I read his articles every week, because they always provide some sort of fatherly insight; and I feel more educated when I finish. I thought about including an excerpt from this article…but it’s so touching, that no excerpt would do it justice. You’ll have to read the whole thing yourself. Kudos to Papa Irvin and other men out there for being excellent fathers and for standing in the gap and being mentors and father figures for others. We appreciate you.

2. Students and Faith

I read this article last week on InsideHigherEd.com, which is a great site that keeps me aware of some of the happenings in higher education. I’ve often wondered how college affects the faith of students. There are tons of books out now about maintaining your faith in a collegiate environment such as “How to Stay Christian in College“, “University of Destruction: Your Game Plan for Spiritual Victory on Campus“, and”Survival Guide for Christians: How to be students and disciples at the same time“. And we all know there can be challenges to your faith in the collegiate environment. Shoot, there are challenges to your faith in every environment. But that’s another story for another time. Here’s a snippet of the article:

The more you pursue a higher education, the more likely you are to abandon your faith — at least that’s what conventional wisdom holds.

“Actually we’ve just been wrong about this for quite a while,” said Mark D. Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of a new study that suggests students who attend and graduate from college are more likely than others to hold on to their faith.

It’s not that colleges necessarily encourage faith, he said, but for all the talk about how intellectuals are out to destroy students’ relationships to their religions and God, the main obstacles to such relationships have to do with maturing and how young people spend their time. “Some kids were bound to lose [their faith] anyway and they do,” Regnerus said. But the evidence suggests that college isn’t responsible.

I better stop with school now…or else I won’t have any faith! But seriously, as someone who came to Christ ON MY OWN for the first time when I was in college, I don’t know how I would have made it through the remainder of college or graduate school without my faith. Just my two cents…

3. ‘Beautillions’ a rite of passage for black males

I think I was slightly surprised to find this article on MSNBC.com, I guess because I was thinking beautillions were such a southern thing. I know in Durham, it was really big, along with cotillions and other debutante stuff. I wish I had the pics from my own little pageantry/cotillion experience to post up here. They are quite embarrassing and I’m sure they would bring you all lots of laughter.

Anyhow, what I love about this is that it really shows the other side of the black community where older black men are relating to the younger generation, and helping to provide them with tools to be successful. There are black men who are raising their kids, involved with their communities, and not being the stereotype.

However, I never knew that Phi Beta Sigma did a beautillion. For real. In all seriousness.