We’ve made it halfway to the weekend. If you’re feeling like we are this week, Saturday can’t come quickly enough. But for now…Happy Hump Day, readers!

Since sharing the story of how we acquired our stuffed camel, Cleopas, we’ve been hearing about camels from friends and readers on a regular basis. One of our friends sent us a photo of a camel marionette named Navidad. Another took a photo of a stuffed camel he saw at a garage sale. Several others sent us video recordings of Geico’s Hump Day commercial. But one friend sent us a gift that (quite literally) takes the cake. We present to you…camel cupcakes!

One dromedary camel and one Bactrian camel, both missing their right ears and sitting atop chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting

We are unsure of how both camels ended up with their right ears missing, but we think it gives them character. They’re actually small trinket boxes that look like cupcakes. We’ve decided that at some point, we will buy caramels to put inside and serve to our house guests because honestly, who wouldn’t enjoy choosing a couple of caramel candies from cupcake containers crowned with congenial camels (or trying to say that five times fast)?

We hope you find our cupcakes as amusing as we do. (They made us happier than a camel on Wednesday :-p ). We’re looking forward to more illuminating conversation with all of you, but for now we would like to share some articles we’ve been reading within the past couple of weeks. (And by way of reminder, our linking to an article does not mean that we necessarily agree with its argument or endorse other content by its author.)

• Donald Miller published Five Principles of Civil Dialogue at Storyline last week. This article contains a few helpful points to keep in mind when engaging in conversation with others, especially during times of disagreement.
• We first found Rachel Smith’s blog, Food, Faith, and Fools, after she linked to one of Lindsey’s personal reflections. Sarah read Rachel’s post titled, Food Spirituality: The Path to Mindful Eating and found some immensely helpful tips in it. If you’re interested in learning more about mindful eating, this post has some great takeaways.
• Speaking of food and eating, if you’re interested in learning some new information for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, take this quiz.
• Against Heterosexuality, Michael W. Hannon’s recent article at First Things, raises some interesting points about the concept of sexual orientation, arguing that sexual orientation labels “inhibit Christian witness.”
• Anna Magdalena at The Catholic Transgender offers a different perspective on claiming one’s sexual orientation or gender identity in an insightful piece titled, Out of the Closet for Jesus?
• In the aforementioned piece, Anna quotes heavily from Gabriel Blanchard at Mudblood Catholic, which is another blog you should definitely check out if you haven’t already. This week, Gabriel has written a post on the response many conservative Christians have had to Uganda’s anti-gay legislation: The Least of These, My Brethren.
• Charlotte Norton at Middle Ground offers a heartfelt reflection on her relationship with her partner. Our Story: Just Friends (2) is one post in a series that Charlotte hopes to continue. You can find the link to Part 1 at her blog as well.
• Last week, Facebook made a significant change to its options for identifying one’s gender. If you’re unsure about some or all of the new gender options, read The Complete Glossary of Facebook’s 51 Gender Options at The Daily Beast.
• Yesterday, the editors of America Magazine published an excellent editorial titled, When the Law Is a Crime on why Christian supporters of a traditional definition of marriage should not also be supporting the criminalization of homosexuality.

That’s all for today, folks. Happy reading, and Happy Hump Day!

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