Week 17 (2022)
partial solutions & third place friendships, erased neighborhoods & embryo adoption, caring for the dead & holding onto origins, parenting & creativity, mothers in need of villages
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reading: books
The Deep Places, Ross Douthat — audio — Here’s a review from The Front Porch Republic, and Leah Libresco Sargeant invited invited discussion of themes in the book at her substack.
The Power And The Glory, Graham Greene — audio — I picked this up because Jessica Hooten Wilson mentioned Graham Greene novels in her recent book The Scandal Of Holiness and I had been meaning to dig into his work for a while.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
On Making Friends & Partial Solutions — Tsh Oxenreider, The Art Of Simple — “Yes, pray for and hope for new and closer friendships. That’s a good thing to want. But also don’t be so idealistic that you don’t see the opportunities for friendship right in front of you… It looks like taking the initiative when we’d rather wait to be invited. It looks like pursuing that person already in our life instead of waiting for someone who might not exist. It looks like looking out for who might need a friend more than me.”
(Found when Tsh linked to this throwback in her latest edition of The Commonplace.)
Rediscovering “Third Place” Friendships In A Post-Pandemic World — Bruno V. Mann, Merion West — “Looking back, I know now I had an intuitive sense that the connections people had to third places like the Golden Gate Inn were good for them and good for their neighborhoods. They created sticky friendship networks that glued people together in our neighborhood and with different neighborhoods that otherwise would not have existed.”
The Way Our Landscapes Overlap — Jonathan Chan, Ekstasis — “Even when I find myself dealing with the grief and mystery of being cut off from geographical and cultural origins, there remained a profound sense of God in that place—my steady companion through runs and ruminations.”
Why Today’s Mothers Need Support And Community More Than Ever — Rachel Quednau, Strong Towns — With a wonderful conversation which expands even more, at the bottom of the piece. And whew, I felt every bit of it.
Related:
-In The Absence Of ‘The Village,’ Mothers Struggle Most (Beth Berry, Motherly)
-Women's Work Is Communal* (Leah Libresco Sargeant & commenters, Other Feminisms) One of my favorite collaborative posts, which I’ve shared here before.
The Inherent Dignity Of Creative Work In Motherhood And Beyond — Alexandra Davis, Verily — “Likewise, the all-consuming nature of parenting young children can force us to slow our pace so that we can notice and appreciate life and the world around us. Late nights spent rocking a colicky infant, long hours in the pediatrician’s office, or quiet nursing sessions, for me, have forced a slower cadence that creates space for deeper thinking. A little less frenzy, a little more focus. A little less productivity-obsession, a little more noticing. And in turn, a little more fodder for things to think about, write about, share, and create.”
Related: The Year Of Madeleine (Haley Stewart, Plough) which I’ve shared before.
Are Stay-At-Home Mothers Really Miserable? — Lyman Stone, The Institute For Family Studies — “Thus, while being a stay-at-home mother might have some adverse effects on physical and mental health, being highly successful in one’s career might too. In a society where the work done by primary caretakers at home goes largely uncompensated, those caretakers, usually women, face a Catch-22.”
Zillow’s Satellite View Shows The Ghosts of Neighborhoods Erased By America’s Highways — Peter Holderith, The Drive — “The way our highway network feels like such a permanent, immutable aspect of modern society makes it easy to forget that it wasn't always like this. Today, we're living with the decisions that urban planners made decades ago, living in cities that they had a hand in shaping for better and for worse.”
No Way Out? What To Do About A 'Frozen Generation' — Charlie Camosy, The Pillar — Mulling over the ethics of embryo adoption (from a glut of embryos created for such procedures as IVF) from a Catholic perspective.
The Bones Of Memory — Dori Moody, Plough — “The fact that members of my church, the Bruderhof, live together in a committed community enables each of us to take a personal role in death care throughout our lives. My church calls this ‘the last service of love.’”
Jerusalem Calling — Tammy L. Priest, Fathom — “They - like me, two millennia later - discovered that there was so much more to these ancient feasts than they’d ever imagined. With these new eyes, we could see that our beloved pilgrimage feasts were, yes, about looking back, but also about looking forward. About the Messiah foretold and now fulfilled.”
watching/listening
How A Productivity-And-Efficiency-Obsessed Culture Harms Parents — Beth Berry with Chuck Marohn, Strong Towns — (Scroll to the bottom for the conversation.) I felt every bit of this conversation. Modern mothering in the West has a default of being very lonely and overwhelming… whether you work, stay home, or do some combination of both.
Jessica Hooten Wilson and Karen Swallow Prior — with Jen Pollock Michel, Englewood Review Of Books — Two of the best women to read or listen to talk about books. (And Jen has a few of her own.)
How To Engage On Social Media With Grace — Beth Moore, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior, and Joash Thomas with Daniel Gilman, The Centre For Public Speaking — Fun and wise people.
using: product, tip, resource
Bluetooth Earbuds (in discreet skintones!) — These are what I’ve been listening to audiobooks with. I did drop one in water the other day, so I ended up re-ordering a colored pair from Target.
remembering
A Year Ago:
Giving blood (in case Lukas needed it for his surgery), Lukas getting his own pricks for bloodwork (a thing I never want to hold a baby down for ever again), and a Long Island beach evening with the Brandenburgs.
This Week:
Home inspection & warmer weather. A needed weekend visit with good people from Columbia, Missouri. New church potluck with old friends. Tiny barefoot boys. Feeling my limits and general overwhelm… and thus the late newsletter.