Week 25 (2022)
ordered creation/disordered lives, Berry & fathers of daughters, hormonal contraceptives & reading as formation, the angels & a Croatian experience, creating & affording families
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reading: books
So Brave, Young, And Handsome, Leif Enger — audio — My short review.
This Is Your Brain On Birth Control, Sarah E. Hill — audio — My long review. (same energy)
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
If You Don’t Feel Yourself On Birth Control, You’re Not Alone — Grace Emily Stark, Verily — “Dr. Hill doesn’t mention fertility awareness in This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, but perhaps she should have. Given the small but steady rise in women dropping the Pill and turning to fertility awareness, it seems like the next natural step for women looking to feel more themselves—and their best.”
(related: The Side Effects of Birth Control on Women’s Empowerment — Mariel Lindsey, Verily)
Creatures Of Chaos — Hannah V.M. Stewart, Ekstasis — “We lie in the chasm between what should be and what is. We die at the hands of the very patterns that give us breath, the patterns that fail us time and time again…
I hear God weep in the rain that falls. I hear God laugh in the sparrows that sing. I stand under this smiling, crying, God, and I think of the little boy, his hair and grin, his parents who have lost the world.”
Reading To Behold — Justin Lonas, Fathom — “Some of the novels Wilson engages are old friends of mine—Laurus, That Hideous Strength, The Violent Bear It Away, The Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair, The Last Gentleman, Death Comes for the Archbishop—but her attention to their focus on spiritual disciplines and specific fields of heart work makes me love these works all the more.”
How Dads Affect Their Daughters Into Adulthood — Linda Nielsen, Institute For Family Studies — “In sum, fathers have a far-reaching influence on their daughters’ lives—both negative and positive. Many still seem to believe that daughters should spend the most time and share the most personal information with their mothers, but women miss out if they neglect the bond they have with their fathers.”
Wendell Berry's Advice For A Cataclysmic Age — Dorothy Wickenden, The New Yorker (audio version available) — “His ideas about the virtues of agrarian societies had sweeping implications—to solve the problems of the modern world required thoroughly reconceiving how we live. Wallace Stegner once wrote to him, ‘Your books seem conservative. They are actually profoundly revolutionary.’”
The Consume With Fire — Sarah Malone, Dappled Things — “They should be alarming at least, terrifying, really. But I’m so drawn to them, to the bliss they must feel by not having a corporeal body, or the bliss of having and knowing and serving a purpose. Even their name, from the Greek saraph, meaning “to consume with fire,” is alluring. Haven’t you ever wished to burn, to be ignited for something, for someone?”
The New Malthusians — Lyman Stone, Plough (audio version available) — “The striking thing is how free Americans seem to feel in expressing that life is fundamentally bad, that on the grand scale of being, nonexistence is better than existence.”’
(related: Can We Justify Bringing Children Into This Dark World? — Haley Stewart, The Public Discourse)
Markets and the Strangulation of the American Family — Grace Olmstead, Mere Orthodoxy — “Both books filled me with questions concerning the cultural assumptions we’ve encouraged surrounding the human person—and encouraged me to dream about what it might look like to cultivate the opposite. What if CEOs were taught to assume that every worker they employ is responsible for a plethora of human ties and obligations outside of their office, all of which must be preserved and protected? What if we taught companies and employers to think of their average worker as obligated to care for at least one vulnerable person, and in need of space and time to fulfill that caretaking role?”
(related: Lyman Stone, from the Plough article above, testifying at the hearing "Making it More Affordable to Raise a Family" — watch the full hearing here.)
Home Business: In Rovinj, Croatia, a Peek at What's Possible — Addison Del Mastro, Strong Towns — “What if we allowed more individuals to make a little money at a hobby, or trial run a business idea, without asking them to jump through zoning hoops or borrow large sums of money?”
watching/listening
Reading In Community — Matthew Lee Anderson & Anika Prather, The Trinity Forum — This was full of gems (or, as the kids say, FLAMES) through and through.… from beginning to end. Listen to professors! Especially the ones who know why the liberal arts are important for everyone!
Bonus Episode: Paint The Beauty We Split — Mike Cosper & Chad Gardner, The Rise And Fall Of Mars Hill — A refreshing surprise of an episode. Grateful he and the other bands he mentions are still making music as an act of worship, an overflow of faith that’s still alive and active, despite the terrible things that happened during their genesis at the church. (In this house… we are still fans of the music made by the former Mars Hill Music bands mentioned: his own Kings Kaleidoscope, The Sing Team, Citizens, and Ghost Ship.)
using: product, tip, resource
Spray Painting Stuff — Thrift store frames, air vent covers, light fixtures, lamp stands…. the list of things I’m willing to refinish with a fresh coat of spray paint for our new house could go on. Try it out!
These Teas — Always drinking hot tea as a main source of hydration (year-roud), I had never tried this brand. And wow, are these flavors delicious.
remembering
A Year Ago:
Four months with the little guy. Successfully taking both boys grocery shopping, solo. Enjoying the goodness of summer in the company of friends.
This Week:
Visiting the (toasty) new house for project planning & weekend working. Priming exactly one bedroom…. which took out my bicep muscle for a couple days. Serendipitously running into & meeting Elizabeth in Madison(!) Old and new favorite playgrounds. Completing week 22 of pregnancy. Trying to figure out more house project/moving logistics. Needing to pray all the prayers. Laughing with my guys. Taking in that long, slow, summer evening light.