Week 15 (2022)
designing cities for welcome, mothering & unknown futures, florist stories & community supported agriculture, friendship & keeping holiness weird
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reading: books
The Scandal Of Holiness, Jessica Hooten Wilson — audio — Here’s her youtube channel with great talks, as well as her substack.
My Ántonia, Willa Cather — audio — I remember Grace Olmstead mention having read this a while back, and after that heard Willa Cather’s name come up repeatedly. I listened to her Death Comes For The Archbishop last year and think I enjoyed that more.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
Holy Weirdness — Josh Tiessen, Ekstasis — “It’s easy to poke fun at kitsch-y Thomas Kinkade cottage landscapes and Greg Olsen biblical prints found in your local Christian bookstore. But in a different way this is also present in the millennial Christian culture, where the creative output is kinfolk-style minimalism with bible verses overlaying pastel tones. We merely replaced the sentimental with the slick… What might Christian communities miss if we sanitize the Bible, making it less weird?”
A Rose Story Part 4: An Interview With Anne Belovich — Erin Benzakein, Floret — “Determine what it is you want to do and then acquire any skills or knowledge that you are going to need, get the books, take the classes. I bought three books when I decided to build the house on Camano Island; how to frame a house, how to wire it, and how to do the plumbing. You need to study and become an apprentice.”
Expanding the ‘Community’ In Community-Supported Agriculture — Caroline Tremblay, The Daily Yonder — “The programs in both Vermont and New Hampshire aim to reduce the cost of local CSA shares for residents in need of financial assistance, while at the same time ensuring farmers have the monetary support to be successful.”
In Hospitable Cities, You’re Welcomed By Design — Tiffany Owens, Strong Towns — “Our cities didn’t become inhospitable because someone intentionally set out to make life miserable for everyone not driving a car. They became this way because people with power during the mid-20th century made decisions around a certain set of values—privacy, convenience, speed, and profit—and then baked those values into the design, governing, and financing structures of our cities. Fast-forward seventy or so years and our cities have become paradoxical places: full of hospitable people, yet hostile by design.”
Reflections On Seaside — Seth, Build The Next Right Thing — “Walkable, humane urbanism is in such short supply that it becomes very expensive whenever it is created… To build more good urbanism, we need not only good architecture, better zoning and building codes, reform of utilities and engineering requirements, and an emphasis on walkable streets–we need to recover the business-model of development that built the places we most love.”
I Still Listen To The Trees — Lydia Kacey, Fathom — A poem.
An Ancient, Fertile Soil — Lindsay Younce Tsohantaridis, Dappled Things — “Before I became a mother, the Church as a body was more of a vague idea or a beautiful analogy. Now the Church as mother is tangible: I can see, smell, and hear what this means in my own life.”
In The Shoes Of The Woman Considering Abortion — Kirsten Sanders, Plough — “Many a woman repeats this sentiment, with the unstated assumption that the woman she became is better than who she would have been otherwise. Who knows how to value such things? I know only that the woman I am now knows that those dreams were only dreams, that they might never have existed and that even if they had, they might not have made me happy. I know something of what it is to make a holy offering.”
Teach Them Friendship — Bryan Baise, Mere Orthodoxy — “I am not suggesting that Friendship is the droid we’re searching for; a multiplicity of problems caused our current crisis of masculinity. But, friendship is a balm. And once applied, we can begin the slow remaking of what has been unmade. It can become another tool we wield to begin the process of making men with chests that withstand the measures of the moment because they understand masculinity is more than bravado and cannot be explained away by cultural mythos.”
watching/listening
Obedience, Interior Design & Family Culture (with Michelle Garrels, part 2) — Love In A Cottage — I shared part 1 of the conversation last week. Michelle is such a wise woman with a humble spirit. Thankful to get a glimpse of the beautiful life their family has been given and continues to cultivate. If you don’t know, her husband is Josh, who’s made some of my favorite music of the past decade.
Preaching The Rape Texts (with Jen Pollock Michel) — Mere Fidelity — A lady I admire on a podcast we appreciate in the Baumeister Household. Here is Jen's weekly substack.
Jessica Hooten Wilson Wants You To Be A Saint — The Rabbit Room — In this post are more places where the book has been featured or discussed!
using: product, tip, resource
Taking The Scenic Route — I had to drive up to Madison this past week and took the slower, more beautiful way back through country roads. Seek out seeing something new along the way of your next drive or walk (even if it takes longer).
remembering
A Year Ago:
Easter celebration with friends on Long Island. Taking the babies to Home Depot.
This Week:
Zuppa Toscana soup and BLT sandwiches. Enjoying the refreshment of slowly-arriving warmth and sun. Colored rice play. Listening to a lot of Beta Radio’s music (their old stuff reminds me of our early dating period when Jakob introduced me to it.) Golden Hour at the riverfront. Impromptu after-church picnic with new friends, being reminded that hospitality is not entertaining but a posture of welcome. Facetiming parents and sharing baby laughs (is a 13 month-old walker a baby or toddler??) Second house offer denied (a complete seller’s market with rising interest rates is a terrible combo for us first-time homebuyers, amright? And we don’t even live in a a wildly big, sexy city!)