Week 11 (2024)
oratories & the rooms that make a home, contemplative realism, dandelions & tree metaphors, literacy & dopamine culture, Aquinas & classical education
(Click title to open in browser, on the Substack website)
to read: books
Death Comes For The Archbishop — Willa Cather — Brief thoughts.
You Are A Tree — Joy Marie Clarkson — Metaphors to seep into your bones.
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
Contemplative Realism: The Germinal Yearnings Of A New Literary Movement — Joshua Wren, Mere Orthodoxy — “I started to think of writers like Willa Cather and others who were more willing to dramatize a truthful tension, a juxtaposition she represents in Death Comes for the Archbishop: yes… not all the created world is immediately beautiful some of it is kind of overwhelming and scary, but then its sublimity has a primordial capacity to bring us to silent gratitude and awe—as when Father Latour, lost in the missionary desert, encounters a “cruciform tree” in an hour of need.”
Good Things — Urhuru Erebi, Ekstasis — “Shut off the tap of tears
Today we'll laugh at everything.”Dandelions: An Apology — Clare Coffey, Plough — “You can have a meadow, green and gold, dotted with the ease and abundance of summer, a feast for the eyes and the body and the bees, all by working a little less. And is summer really the time for finding more reasons to work? No. It is the time to receive gratefully the abundance of creation, the symphony of yellow.”
Arboreal Theology: Trees In Colossians — Tim Suffield, Theopolis — “One of the dangers that Paul is attending to with this strange Colossian obsession with spiritual mysteries and accessing them through grand encounters with angels, is that they would attempt to shortcut the slow work of growing trees that is following Jesus. We’ve seen how well that goes down in Eden.”
Restoring Home Life, Room By Room (Mini-Series) — John Cuddeback, Life Craft — “A house is where humans live; a home is where they truly come alive. Christoper Alexander, an architect, is keenly aware of the deep connection between patterns in space and patterns of living. The connection is reciprocal.”
(related: Hallowed Be This House, on my to-read list)
A Place To Pray — Mary Catherine Adams, The Interior Life — “This is an unconventional room to decorate because its function is unconventional—neither a chapel nor a family room but something verging on both; not meant for socializing necessarily but for communion; not for speaking to one another only but for trying to speak to God.”
The State Of The Culture, 2024 & follow-up How To Break Free From Dopamine Culture — Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker — “The more addicts rely on these stimuli, the less pleasure they receive. At a certain point, this cycle creates anhedonia—the complete absence of enjoyment in an experience supposedly pursued for pleasure… What happens when this same experience is delivered to everybody, via their phones? The results are devastating… We’re now seeing the first effects on a grand social scale of this deadening effect.”
Resisting The Rise Of Dopamine Culture — Grace Olmstead, Granola — “It seems there are larger institutional, cultural, and political efforts that are also needed. But we must start somewhere—and protecting and preserving our own minds, our own attention, is likely a good place to start.”
The Loss Of Things I Took For Granted — Adam Kotsko, Slate — “This is a matter not of snobbery, but of basic justice. I recognize that not everyone centers their lives on books as much as a humanities professor does. I think they’re missing out, but they’re adults and they can choose how to spend their time. What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit.”
The Surging Growth Of K-12 Classical Education — Keri D. Ingraham, RealClear Education — “Time will tell how strong the classical surge is, but one thing is certain — parents want alternative school options beyond traditional district public schools for their children, and record numbers are selecting classical education.”
Courage To Engage The World: Thomism at 750 — R.J. Snell, Church Life Journal — “Thomas Aquinas had an intellect fully alive. We might not share his title of Doctor of Humanity, but we have the same obligation: to cheerfully explore all, in service of all, for the good of all… We’re well-served to read, mark, and inwardly digest his writings, to be sure, but we’ll do better to become like him, in our own, limited ways, and thus allow not merely Thomism, but intelligence, to thrive… if we keep the tradition.”
(related: Snell’s name sounded familiar and that’s because I’d started his small-but-mighty book on acedia a few months back… and it’s been sitting, sadly unfinished, in a stack in our living room.)
to watch, listen to
Death Comes For The Archbishop Episodes — The Close Reads folks never fail to help me along in certain novels, with their fun and illuminating discussions.
Continuing On:
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — Why Does Classical Education Only Use Old Books? and In What Order Should I Read The Chronicles Of Narnia?
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Paintings From Paige Payne — Specifically her Holy Week and Easter Collection, though if you take a look at her other collections, you’ll see she has range. (Speaking of Holy Week art, we have this empty tomb print from Bible Sketches, which is another great shop with fascinatingly simple and lovely drawings.)
Dry Erase Markers On Mirrors — I ordered some new ones for the boys and also for myself. If you need the reminder: these are super fun for writing reminders, love notes, things to memorize, etc. This is old news but it’s a small, analog delight for me.
to look back on
This Week:
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The mattress surfing is the best ! 👏
I’ve been following you for about a month now - reading your post have become the highlight of my week