are the love languages lacking?

“The 5 Love Languages” were a staple of my evangelical college experience. We didn’t take the concept too seriously, but we loved taking the quiz and comparing our results. Although it was a fun couple’s activity, I always found it more intriguing when applied to family relationships. (For the record, my love language is quality time.)

A Cardus blog post today makes me think twice about it. Excerpt:

“… there is good merit to the metaphor of love language, but like too much of evangelical literature on relationality and community it assumes that with the right disciplines, therapies and understandings our marriages, relationships, families (etc) can become sites of intimate communion which fulfill our desires as human beings. And nothing could be further from the truth. This ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ is a market for self-interested, love starved individuals looking for the latest fill of the ‘love tank.’ It suggests: my desires are ok, you just need to learn how to meet them.”

Is this treatment too harsh? How can we use the love languages in a way that is unselfish?

snow soup

Okay, so I ate two thirds of it before taking the picture. And it looks oddly like ricotta. But I have to celebrate record-breaking snowfalls in the D.C. area somehow!

This treat goes by many names – the Washington Post had this article on “snow cream” – but in my family it’s always been called “snow soup.” I make my snow soup the same way my family has made it for generations (yes, hyperbolic): a splash of milk or half & half and a generous drizzle of real maple syrup. Syrup drizzling requires significant restraint or the snow soup quickly becomes an expensive endeavor. Bon appétit!

culture on the web, not of the web

I’d like to recommend a few “culture” sites I’ve come across in my browsing as I strive to be a “well-informed generalist.”

These webmags, blogs, forums – whatever you want to call them – are providing valuable content for consideration. This content may vary from film reviews to personal essays to recipes. But I’m as interested in the curation of the content as the content itself; in an age of information-overload, curating may be the thing I value most on the web. In learning to name it, I benefited from Brett McCracken’s blurb about “taste-keepers” in a trends-analysis piece for Relevant.