Kresta in the Afternoon – May 27, 2020 – Hour 2

+  Was Moses a Stutterer?

  • Description: It's one of the most iconic scenes of the Old Testament - God speaking to Moses through the burning bush, calling him to lead His people out of Egypt. And Moses resisted - "I am not eloquent…I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue." Many Biblical scholars have interpreted this to mean Moses was a stutterer. Was he? We take a look at the influence of Moses - and other famous stutterers - with Gerald McDermott.
  • Segment Guests:
    • Gerald McDermott
      Gerald R. McDermott is Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. He's the author or editor of 17 books including Famous Stutterers: Twelve Inspiring People Who Achieved Great Things while Struggling with an Impediment. He is also a stutterer.
  • + Articles Mentioned:

  • + Resources Mentioned Available in Our Store:

    • Famous Stutterers: Twelve Inspiring People Who Achieved Great Things while Struggling with an Impediment

      Moses, Aristotle, Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain, King George VI, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, distinguished historian Peter Brown, TV journalist John Stossel, Senator's wife Annie Glenn, ABC correspondent Byron Pitts, novelist John Updike. For all of these accomplished persons, stuttering was an enormous difficulty. None had a sure-fire remedy. Most had to blunder and stumble through. The persistence and courage they displayed tells us that there might be ways we too can survive and achieve--despite our own difficulties. (learn more)

+  My Journey from Atheist to Catholic (2 segments)

  • Description: Though she didn’t have any kind of religious formation growing up, by the time she’d reached middle school, Leah Libresco Sargeant was interested in philosophy and virtue, specifically stoicism and the thought of Immanuel Kant. As she got older, she found that pieces of her ethical orientation seemed to match up with the Christians she was meeting. She admired the internal consistency of Catholicism, but didn’t yet believe in God, until a breakthrough in a late-night conversation with a friend that seemed to put all the pieces together for her.
  • Segment Guests:
    • Leah Libresco
      Leah Libresco is a Catholic blogger and speaker and the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. Visit her at leahlibresco.com
    • Resources:
  • + Articles Mentioned:

  • + Resources Mentioned Available in Our Store:

    • Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers That Even I Can Offer

      In 2012, media outlets from CNN to EWTN announced that Leah Libresco, a gifted young intellectual, columnist, and prolific blogger on the Atheist channel on Patheos, was converting to Catholicism. In Arriving at Amen, Libresco uses the rigorous rationality that defined her Atheism to tell the story behind that very personal journey and to describe the seven forms of Catholic prayer that guided her to embrace a joyful life of faith. As a Yale graduate, Libresco launched her writing career by blogging about science, literature, mathematics, and morality from a distinctively secular perspective. Over time, encounters with friends and associates caused her to concede the reasonableness of belief in God in theory, though not yet in practice. In Arriving at Amen, Libresco uniquely describes the second part of her spiritual journey, in which she encountered God through seven classic Catholic forms of prayer—Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, examen, intercessory prayer, the Rosary, confession, and the Mass. Examining each practice through the intellectual lens of literature, math, and art, Libresco reveals unexpected glimpses of beauty and truth in the Catholic Church that will be appreciated by the curious and convinced alike. (learn more)

    • Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name

      Building the Benedict Option is a combination spiritual memoir and practical handbook for Christians who want to build communities of prayer, socialization, and evangelization in the places where they live and work. Beginning when the author was a new convert, she desired more communal prayer and fellowship than weekly Mass could provide. She surveyed her friends--busy, young, urban professionals like herself--and created enriching or supportive experiences that matched their desires and schedules. The result was a less lonely and more boisterous spiritual and social life. No Catholic Martha Stewart, Libresco is frank about how she plans events that allow her to feed thirty people on a Friday night without feeling exhausted. She is honest about the obstacles to prayer and the challenge to make it inviting and unobtrusive. Above all, she communicates the joy she has experienced since discovering ways to open her home (even when it was only a small studio apartment). The reader will close this book with four or five ideas for events to try over the next few weeks, along with the tools to make them fruitful. From film nights to picnics in the park to resume-writing evenings, there are plenty of ideas to choose from and loads of encouragement to make more room in one's life for others. (learn more)

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