Week 24 (2024)
wayward daughters & our new religion, stability & liturgical anthropology, cars, cohousing & our demographic ennui
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to read: books
Kristin Lavransdatter — Sigrid Undset — Even better the second time through. (Last time being 20 months ago, surrounding the birth of our third child. I even had the middle part of the audiobook in my headphones for part of the lengthy hospital labor… until it became a bit much and a vibe change was needed.)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
- , Church Life Journal — “They are punished by their sin, not for their sin… Like a mother ready to comfort and embrace the foolish child who burned his hand, God’s mercy is waiting to be poured out on Kristin and he uses the self-inflicted pain she suffers to draw her back to him.”
(related: Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter Turns One Hundred and Stay In My Heart, shared previously — also
’s bit in this post on Six Inspiring Mothers In Literature) Our New Religion Isn't Enough —
, GIRLS — “Worth asking ourselves, at least, why we mocked religion only to mimic it. And why what we’re doing isn’t working… Could just be me but when I listen to the misery and confusion of my generation beneath it I hear a heartbreaking need—a need to be bound to others, to a community, to a moral code, to something more.”Two Roads In Christian Discipleship —
, Mere Orthodoxy — “We’ve given them stories to belong to — in their heads and in their bodies. When they lose their way, we pray those stories won’t just be nice memories but also deep reservoirs of belonging that get at a deeper well of what it means to be human that they will continue to hunger and thirst for. I use this example not to prescribe a parenting tactic, but to remind us how stories usher us into contours of meaning, of telling us what’s possible.”
Stability As Spiritual Formation — Alex Sosler, Front Porch Republic — “As I talk about stability, I can’t promise I’ll never move, but I always want to live in a place as if I’ll be there forever. Doing so commits me there… If I’m not caring for a place and people, then my love for God is mental and ethereal but makes no impact on where I live. I’m not sure that’s the kind of peace and healing that God is passionate about bringing to earth.”
Can Cohousing Solve The Housing Crisis And Loneliness Epidemic? — Emma Avery, Strong Towns — “But to make socially connected, multiunit housing options widely accessible, we need to make them easier to build… As humans, we are hardwired for social connection. As one resident at Our Urban Village told us, since moving into the building, they have felt so convinced that “sitting down and breaking bread together is fundamental to being human.”
(related: Arbitrary Lines, 5 Perspectives On Building Cities Where Kids (And Parents) Can Thrive and Multigenerational Mothering, shared previously)
- , Plough — “We thought we were buying a new car, but all these other items came stowed in the trunk. The question is, can they be removed? Or are they an invisible but inherent component? Was the car a fantastic innovation that merely happened to have some unfortunate and avoidable, or at least tolerable side effects, or were we consenting all along to everything that it wrought?”
(related: The Hidden Inequity Of Car-Based Design and Our Year Without A Car (With Kids), shared previously)
A Corner Away — Ife E. Sonaike, Ekstasis — “you capture
our mundane
and tether it to
your realitypouring radiance
over
life”The Cultural Roots Of Our Demographic Ennui — Patrick T. Brown, The Public Discourse — “In essence, we’ve unbundled the institutions that used to provide us with meaning, choosing to substitute spiritual or metaphysical belonging with economic growth. The result is greater optionality, but less stability; greater wealth, but less transcendence; higher individual consumption, but fewer people to share it with… Is there any surprise that our social understanding of human dignity feels so tenuous when our view of the good life feels increasingly shaped by our ability to experience material comforts?”
(related: Hannah's Children and discussion, shared previously)
Are Children A Good Idea? — Mary Ellen Mitchell, Comment — “But something deeper is going on than poor planning or contraceptive sloppiness. What I’ve learned in doing this work is that children are one of the few ways that women in our circle of care have of saying yes to the goodness of life and relationships… Children create family and meaning and bring joy. When all other trappings of the world are wiped away by material poverty, this truth seems to rise up.”
(related: Promises I Can Keep, of which I’ve heard good things)
to watch, listen to
The Scandal Of Reading: Kristin Lavransdatter —
w/ — I was chuckling when Haley said she read it when she was fifteen due to her parents hearing about it on Mars Hill Audio Journal. That’s gonna be our boys some day, because my husband has a subscription and loves finding good stuff from those interviews. (“But he’s gonna have to retire someday, and it’s gonna be sad.”) That aside, a beautiful discussion.
Continuing On:
to glean from: tip, product, resource
A couple upcoming events that caught my eye, in case they’re of interest to those who found some value in this resource list:
- — July 24-26, 2024 in Langhorne, PA — “Perhaps more than anything else, the technological developments of the past two centuries have obscured the truth of who we are as embodied creatures.”
Regional Conference for Restorative Reproductive Medicine and Annual Meeting of The Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine of America — June 22, 2024 and virtual.
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to look back on
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I started rereading Kristin Lavransdatter this past week after the previous post here! And am expecting to have something coming out tomorrow at the Hollow from a guest author about Lavrans as a father...I can't get enough of talking about this book.
'Flower Beds in Holland' is one of my favorites! My grandfathers both immigrated from the Netherlands and my grandmothers are second (maybe third?) generation immigrants from there as well, so I'm always drawn to scenes of Holland/the Netherlands. I lived near my mom's side of the family growing up and her father (now her brothers) owned a Dutch flower bulb farm. Before I was born there was a tulip festival that drew people from all over NC, but sadly that was discontinued. In recent years, my uncles have taken to planting a roadside field full of tulips and it's so much fun to see people stop to admire them and take pictures there.