January (2026)

monthly newsletter

Jan 29, 2026

The next few days, weeks, months (really an undetermined amount of time) will be preoccupied with navigating a family medical crisis and some unknowns of various shades of devastating. Putting any expectations of long-form writing on hold. If you pray, please do for my extended family and I.

to read: books

The Holy Angels — Mother Alexandra — Have not truly thought much about angels until now. Fascinating without being sensational. Something to clear the vision and tune the weary soul toward the wonderful works of God.

h/t Nate Marshall

War In Heaven — Charles Williams — Not my favorite, but at least the last couple pages were incredible.
The Consolation of Philosophy — Boethius — “Hide it not in your heart. If you look for the physician's help, you have to show your wound." / "You have reason to thank me for the use of what was not your own. You have no right to complain, as though you had lost what was wholly yours."
A Canticle for Leibowitz — Walter M. Miller Jr. — “The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well.
They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow.
When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”

enjoyed the Close Reads Podcast HQ chats on this one

The Abolition of Man — C.S. Lewis — This circulates in classical education circles a lot, but it screams biomedical ethics to me. Go figure these things are all connected.
The Odyssey — Homer — First timer for this, I think.
Gift From the Sea — Anne Morrow Lindbergh — Very much a Madeleine L’Engle Circle of Quiet vibe.

h/t Olivia Marstall

The Place of the Lion — Charles Williams — Would read again. Here’s some quotes that stood out.

h/t Ross Byrd

The Shattering of Loneliness — Erik Varden — Forgot to add this in the last newsletter, oops. Varden’s writing is sublime, though I was much more taken with his book Chastity. This one seemed to be missing something to me.

Shop my booklists

to read: essays, articles, newsletters

on the body, sex, and procreation—in medicine, society, and our own lives:

Body Literacy Is the New "Sex Ed" — Merlot Mary Fogarty & Katie E. Vidmar, Public Discourse — “By filling this educational void for our students, we can undercut the contraceptive, body-hating culture that teaches that the body is merely matter to be molded according to our every whim. Through body literacy, we help students to recover the reality that authentic health and freedom are found in working with our nature, rather than seeking to control, manipulate, or override it… A culture that teaches girls to silence their pain, medicate their cycles, and dismiss the body’s signals is a culture that will inevitably reap infertility, despair, and declining birthrates. A culture that teaches body literacy, by contrast, will raise young people who see their fertility as a vital sign of health and an essential part of their future.”

This talk of Katie’s at the Guiding Star conference blew me away, and I hope to write about her approach to wholistic pro-life advocacy at some point. We need more of it.

*Early Spring Landscape, Gustaf Fjæstad*

In This House of Death: What Does Sanctity of Human Life Month Mean In 2026? — Nadya Williams, Mere Orthodoxy — “Yet there are undoubtedly spiritual repercussions to violence against our bodies and those of others, and things of the spirit are, by definition, often things unseen.”
Embodied and Consequential — Keith Lowery, Stuff I’m Thinking About — An excellent essay. It captures quite poignantly what has gnawed away at me: “If, as evangelical Christians, we are ready to accept that the death and resurrection of the incarnate Word - physical and embodied - produced eternal spiritual effects, then perhaps we should avoid rushing to the fainting couches upon hearing someone suggest that there could be other ways and means within the world, whereby material things are intertwined with spiritual effects of their own. Maybe the analytical tools of scientific materialism can never fully describe the kind of world we live in, or the complete nature of reality.”
Timber Cart on Ice, Gustaf Fjæstad
Sexual Ethics, Freedom in Christ, and the Need for Deeper Conversations — Jonathan Voos, Finding Balance — “Paul’s letters show that such blindness, deafness, and ignorance is not unique to Israel. Who are we to assume that our hearts are better than theirs?”
So What If the Bible Doesn't Mention Embryo Screening? — Brad East, Christianity Today — Did not have have influencing Brad on my bingo card for this year, but he said as much in reply to my “thank you for writing such a thing for the CT crowd” email.