Week 2 (2025)
Dante, daily reading & the Daily Office, human nature & Protestant friendships, Berry poems & a parish manifesto
Click title to open in browser. You can reply directly to this email if received in your inbox.
to read: books
Fidelity: Five Stories — Wendell Berry — Soul food to keep us humane.
(related: An Education In Thanksgiving and Hannah Coulter The Green Lady And Me, previously shared essays from the world of Port William which have been the most personally memorable)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
- , Mere Orthodoxy (audio and abridged versions here) — “The church can help to reconnect the work of our hands to the needs of our souls. The church can help to reconnect people to one another and to their particular place. The church has always done this. We can begin again to do it now. What if the inheritance of our grandchildren was a holy church?”
A New Gardening — Michael David Jones, Ekstasis — “In another time,
I may have been a gardener
charged with tending to the trees,but in this one, I am an amateur electrician,
bringing insulated pliers to bear
on the weeds of the moment.””As I Know By Love": Wendell Berry's Another Day — Jeffrey Bilbro, Front Porch Republic — “…he continues to evade cliché by grounding the poems in his place and the creatures whose lives and loves enable him to imagine the Creator’s love.”
The One Hundred Pages Strategy — Matthew Walther, The Lamp — I simply take many of these chunks of time for audiobooks. If you’ve been the full-time caretaker of multiple tiny children, perhaps nursing, while also being the maker of meals and keeper & cleaner of the house—sans help with any of it, save your husband obviously—you know how much you’re on your feet in a day, working with your hands. As
memorably put it, “if you want to be pedantic about it, it’s fair to say that listening to a book is not the same as reading it. As far as that, though, I feel like, on International Women’s Day, that’s exactly the sort of thing a man with a lot of quiet on his hands might think was a sign and portent of the end of all things… if it weren’t possible to plug in my headphones and listen to books, I would not be able to engage meaningfully in the world of ideas.”Dante's New Year — Mike Schramm, Dappled Things — “It is in the every day that Saints are made, even when this every day seems monotonous and arduous and feels like little progress is being made. Dante’s climb was slow too, but he got there, and beyond.”
“Could Ye Not Watch With Me One Hour?”: The Abiding Necessity Of The Traditional Daily Office —
, The North American Anglican — “With the goal being full participation, there are several good options to begin the journey.”(related: The Riches Of Your Grace (book), shared previously — even Presbyterians recommend the prayer book)
I Don't Know How To Write This But I'll Try — Justin Lacour, Fare Forward— “and somehow we believed
we were still free
that our choices hadn’t swallowed us”
Imago DEI: Human Nature, Technology, And The Progress Dilemma —
, The Heritage Foundation — “In what follows, I will draw on the first half-century of the transhumanist era—an era that began with the contraceptive pill—to show that much of the contemporary confusion within the Right concerning technology, and especially biotechnology, stems from the coexistence within the conservative coalition of two mutually incompatible metaphysical paradigms for the “human”: one that assumes humans have a stable nature and another in which no such nature need be assumed.”(discussion here)
Protestant Futures And Friendships — Carl R. Trueman, Public Discourse — “In this context, Protestants would do well to engage—or, more correctly, reengage—with the natural law tradition (or traditions, given that they are pluriform). Natural law arguments in themselves, of course, will not work in the public square, at least not in our current climate of emotivism and irrationality. But they will hopefully clarify and solidify the thinking of ordinary Protestants on key matters, helping them to understand how to move from biblical text to concept to contemporary application.”
(related: his appeal for good Protestant ethicists and ’s response, shared previously — as always, more in that vein here)
to watch, listen to
Starting Up:
Black & Red All Over: A Classic Confessing Anglican Podcast with Steven Wedgeworth & Richard Tarsitano (author of the Daily Office piece above) — Episode 0 — Introduction and First Things — Some comments on Anglican books, and a clarification of what Classic Confessional Anglicanism even is. It is typically defined by adherence to the historical formularies, including 1) the 39 Articles of Religion 2) the 1662 Book of Common Prayer 3) the Ordinal 4) the Book of Homilies 5) Canon Law of 1604 — Wedgeworth is kind of a hoot, and I’m excited to delve into their exploration of the 39 Articles.
“It’s gotta be kinda hard… the Lord has certain things He wants from us which are not normal, we’re not accustomed to them, they cut against the grain of our society… this is not gonna be the cultural option for the well-to-do American.”
Continuing On:
The Natural Womanhood Podcast with
& Cassondra Moriarty — Season 2, Episode 5 — A Midwife Can Do That!? — Fascinating (and personally glad) to hear the number one reason for transfers to a hospital are not for emergencies but for very long, drawn out labors… where it becomes vital for mom to get some relief and rest in order to have the strength for the intense finale of birth. This has always been the case for me, and I’m thankful for epidural naps. Maybe if my labors were shorter I could be a midwife kinda girl. It was actually reassuring to hear from these midwives that we aren’t all blessed this those, and such marathon labors often end up at the hospital anyways. Hospital midwives in my experience are basically OBGYN Light—not ideal—but I’ve had decent experiences in three different states, and in my case the tradeoff is worth it for the way my body handles labor (and for the insurance coverage.) Let me know if you’ve had a midwife AND very long labors.Woven Well Podcast with
— Episodes 29-30 — Should We Think Theologically About Fertility? and Fertility Myths 101 — As always, tackling the body-soul unity as it ought to be.
(more resources on female embodiment in the Big Ol' Compilation)
to glean from: tip, product, resource
New Year’s Series — Sorry if you’re sick of this kind of stuff, but
truly gets behind the surface of things:
Part 1 : “Before Making Any New Year’s Resolutions, Do This” (Free for everyone, including downloadable worksheets)
Part 2: “Why Things Work (or Don’t)” (Free for everyone)
Part 3: “Setting Goals for Our (Actual) Selves” (Free for everyone)
Part 4: “Find Your Method: Six Things to Consider” (For paid subscribers, with an audio recording)
Part 5: “Figure Out When” (For paid subscribers)
(I’ve shared her talk Discerning God's Will For Your Life a couple times before, but I do think it’s a helpful primer on discernment—and her particular work at Cultivating Clarity. Yes, I searched you on YouTube like a year and a half ago, after interacting a while on here and wondering WHO IS THIS COOL AND WISE WOMAN.)
Well now I’m blushing!
Thanks for sharing and for another amazing round up- looking forward especially to sitting with a few of these poems.
Wonderful list. Though I am not a woman, I have also found audiobooks to be the best (only?) way for me to read consistently in my season of life. They’re a game-changer. Also, thank you for reading Parish Manifesto. Glad you found it worth sharing.