Love all the pairings this week! I had never read that "Vital Pleasure of Existing in Public" piece before, but I like how it explains urbanism as how it feels, rather than what it ~is~. And, naturally, I love the pieces about the bus and the train. :)
A couple summers ago we went on a 2 week vacation in the Pacific Northwest. We saw tons of great stuff, but my absolute favorite thing of the entire trip was just a random park with a huge swing set that was big enough for adults to use. All-age parks are so great.
Wow that Amtrak in college throwback got me! 😅 I haven’t thought about that in years, but such good memories! I made a friend on one ride to Chicago to visit other friends. Such sweet times when we were less absorbed by our cell phones. 🤍
I've enjoyed Amtrak trips both when I was younger and with a toddler (who was more free to walk and explore and wave to people than if she would have been buckled in a car seat for a 12 hour drive).
On the Good Wells and Safe Streets piece, we're centering our life around building up community in a walkable neighborhood, this is our life's project for the Lord. And yet, I felt a little insulted that he dismissed robbers so lightly as less of a problem these days. The reason things get privatized so often is because there's unstopped crime. Robberies, from theft of Amazon packages to home break-ins to car thefts, are way up over the last five years in my city and it seems that nothing ever gets done about it. Even a criminal with thirteen prior arrests for car theft was immediately let out and his next car theft led to a car accident that killed someone, just a few streets away from where I live with my children. We can't have nice public things if people are vandalizing or stealing things all the time. Without clear rule of law and enforcement of the law, with consequences for law breakers, even areas that used to be high trust societies become low trust societies. In low trust societies, you privatize amenities because you can't trust the general public to respect them. I do want public amenities in my city and I do invest money and time in building up community in my walkable neighborhood, but it feels like my state's current legal landscape is pro criminal and anti safe neighborhoods. I do what I can, but it's demoralizing and scary.
In related thoughts about neighborhoods and third (if not technically public) spaces, it's unfortunate that the Catholic Church in America in this era is so risk management focused about their buildings vs having a Christian community building mindset. And that decisions are made at a Diocesan level instead of a parish level.
The Catholic homeschool co-op (run by parishioners of my parish) in my neighborhood rents space regularly from a Protestant church, because all the Catholic Church buildings, including their own parish, require such high insurance that's it's way too expensive for the homeschoolers to cover. (The Church can rent to secular government funded preschools, because they have more money, even if they're not aligned in values.) Catholic homeschool co-op moms in other cities have said that they also meet in Protestant churches for this reason.
Even the Church has become a low trust society in this era of rules and regulation.
It's unthinkable today to say, "I see you at Mass every week, and some daily Masses and Adoration hours and church events and gatherings, I know you well and I know what you're trying to build and I trust you and can allow an agreement with you that I wouldn't make with someone I don't know and trust." Every decision has to be made by policy flowchart and no one has authority or can take responsibility.
It means everything my Catholic friends and I are trying to build, we have to build outside of Diocesean buildings and schools, because otherwise even if we get permission and invest time and money, a new hire at the Diocese can just decide to ban our programming (just happened with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at our parish school, they also said classroom time was more important than the students attending Mass weekly 🙃).
These actions and policies, similar to the city not policing crime, disincentivize us from building "public" or parish amenities and just make it more likely we'll build private things on our own. Our private non Diocesan classical school in the Catholic tradition is so beautifully faithful and they're out of space in their building because so many Catholic families want to send their children there, whereas the Diocesean schools are indistinguishable from public schools and keep closing one after another.
If you keep pouring time and money into public amenities and your work is repeatedly destroyed and the people you wanted to benefit are unable to benefit... Of course you're going to move things private.
(And then the older parishioners at our parish wonder why young mothers of small children aren't able to help on garden days and join the choir. It feels like all the supports families had from even twenty years ago were pulled out and we're trying to rebuild civilization for our children. "Nice to haves" like a pretty garden on the church property just doesn't rank above educating our children in the faith and building for them a community of friends who share our values.) /end rant
your ability to process & share valuable work is amazing
Love all the pairings this week! I had never read that "Vital Pleasure of Existing in Public" piece before, but I like how it explains urbanism as how it feels, rather than what it ~is~. And, naturally, I love the pieces about the bus and the train. :)
A couple summers ago we went on a 2 week vacation in the Pacific Northwest. We saw tons of great stuff, but my absolute favorite thing of the entire trip was just a random park with a huge swing set that was big enough for adults to use. All-age parks are so great.
Wow that Amtrak in college throwback got me! 😅 I haven’t thought about that in years, but such good memories! I made a friend on one ride to Chicago to visit other friends. Such sweet times when we were less absorbed by our cell phones. 🤍
I’ve never encountered Peder Severin Kroyer, but wow! What beautiful pieces! Thanks for sharing them. :)
So much to ponder in this list! Thanks for sharing.
I've enjoyed Amtrak trips both when I was younger and with a toddler (who was more free to walk and explore and wave to people than if she would have been buckled in a car seat for a 12 hour drive).
On the Good Wells and Safe Streets piece, we're centering our life around building up community in a walkable neighborhood, this is our life's project for the Lord. And yet, I felt a little insulted that he dismissed robbers so lightly as less of a problem these days. The reason things get privatized so often is because there's unstopped crime. Robberies, from theft of Amazon packages to home break-ins to car thefts, are way up over the last five years in my city and it seems that nothing ever gets done about it. Even a criminal with thirteen prior arrests for car theft was immediately let out and his next car theft led to a car accident that killed someone, just a few streets away from where I live with my children. We can't have nice public things if people are vandalizing or stealing things all the time. Without clear rule of law and enforcement of the law, with consequences for law breakers, even areas that used to be high trust societies become low trust societies. In low trust societies, you privatize amenities because you can't trust the general public to respect them. I do want public amenities in my city and I do invest money and time in building up community in my walkable neighborhood, but it feels like my state's current legal landscape is pro criminal and anti safe neighborhoods. I do what I can, but it's demoralizing and scary.
That's a good point. Thanks for brining up the rampant and disregarded theft, etc - Reminds me of this piece from a while back which was absolutely infuriating: https://lucagattonicelli.substack.com/p/retail-theft-in-my-backyard
Exactly!
In related thoughts about neighborhoods and third (if not technically public) spaces, it's unfortunate that the Catholic Church in America in this era is so risk management focused about their buildings vs having a Christian community building mindset. And that decisions are made at a Diocesan level instead of a parish level.
The Catholic homeschool co-op (run by parishioners of my parish) in my neighborhood rents space regularly from a Protestant church, because all the Catholic Church buildings, including their own parish, require such high insurance that's it's way too expensive for the homeschoolers to cover. (The Church can rent to secular government funded preschools, because they have more money, even if they're not aligned in values.) Catholic homeschool co-op moms in other cities have said that they also meet in Protestant churches for this reason.
Even the Church has become a low trust society in this era of rules and regulation.
It's unthinkable today to say, "I see you at Mass every week, and some daily Masses and Adoration hours and church events and gatherings, I know you well and I know what you're trying to build and I trust you and can allow an agreement with you that I wouldn't make with someone I don't know and trust." Every decision has to be made by policy flowchart and no one has authority or can take responsibility.
It means everything my Catholic friends and I are trying to build, we have to build outside of Diocesean buildings and schools, because otherwise even if we get permission and invest time and money, a new hire at the Diocese can just decide to ban our programming (just happened with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at our parish school, they also said classroom time was more important than the students attending Mass weekly 🙃).
These actions and policies, similar to the city not policing crime, disincentivize us from building "public" or parish amenities and just make it more likely we'll build private things on our own. Our private non Diocesan classical school in the Catholic tradition is so beautifully faithful and they're out of space in their building because so many Catholic families want to send their children there, whereas the Diocesean schools are indistinguishable from public schools and keep closing one after another.
If you keep pouring time and money into public amenities and your work is repeatedly destroyed and the people you wanted to benefit are unable to benefit... Of course you're going to move things private.
(And then the older parishioners at our parish wonder why young mothers of small children aren't able to help on garden days and join the choir. It feels like all the supports families had from even twenty years ago were pulled out and we're trying to rebuild civilization for our children. "Nice to haves" like a pretty garden on the church property just doesn't rank above educating our children in the faith and building for them a community of friends who share our values.) /end rant