Week 27 (2022)
faithful repetition & children's literature, care over violence, zoning & car-free families, useless play & the summer moon, wholistic physical & social health
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reading: books
Phantastes, George MacDonald — audio — Second time through in a few years. Beautiful prose to bring you into a fantastical world.
The Cost Of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer — paperback/audio — The way he delves into the Beatitudes is searing in the best way, making you see Jesus was serious about those upside-down statements. The most valuable part of the book for me.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
10,000 Times — Katie Blackburn, Coffee & Crumbs — “Once I finish my ride, breathless and sweaty, I lay down on the ground to stretch, and I think about my thousands list:
The walks to the park.
The therapy.
The “apologize to your brother” conversations.
Returning the plastic bags the toddler threw off the pantry shelf to their place.
Rubbing the back of a crying baby.
Seeing the clock at 3:30 a.m.
Washing the high chair tray.
Folding laundry and giving up on the socks even matching anymore.”Our Year Without A Car (With Kids) — Grace Olmstead, Granola — “Walking becomes a formative habit of delight, one that can be enjoyed for its own sake, and not just for its destination… It’s building habits of love and attentiveness and resilience that will stick with us, I hope, as we all get older.”
(related: Car-Free With Kids and More On Pro-Family Urbanism, shared previously)
The Case For Abolishing Zoning — Nolan Gray, Strong Towns — “Where zoning does attempt to prevent traditional impacts among neighbors—like noise or traffic—it often does so in a discriminatory way, solving the problem by shifting the burden to the poor and politically weak. Yet zoning focuses the bulk of its energies on preventing impacts—such as coded claims about how certain residents may change the “community character…”
The Value Of Uselessness — Elizabeth Corey, Fare Forward — “Though we can never escape the constraints of time, we can sometimes act as if time doesn’t rule our lives. Play affords us this interim.”
On Reaching The June Moon — Adriana Watkins, Dappled Things — “It was as if dawn were appearing but the sun no longer hurt your eyes, and you could look at it to your heart’s content. The fat scarlet moon grew slowly and sat on the Atlantic. The waves threw their foamy heads at our feet, tossed aside by their beautiful new monarch, and the stars came out, attracted by it.”
Reading Children's Literature After The Tragedy Of School Shootings — LuElla D’Amico, Church Life Journal — “It is easier for adults to think that children do not know things—that they are protected by the mere fact of being children... As a parent, you are always trying to prepare children for what is to come, yet you never know if you are doing it right, if you are sharing information too late, or too soon.”
The Hidden War — Johann Christoph Arnold, Plough — On our broken framework for understanding the interconnectedness of sex, family, life, and responsibility.
The Violence We Can't Live Without — Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy — “Because we in America have lived in a deeply violent nation for so long, a nation that would not exist in this state were it not for centuries of unjust violence, we have come to believe that problems are best resolved through violence.”
I Was Pro-Life In Theory. It Took Much More To Actually Help. — Jen Pollock Michel, Christianity Today — “But one thing has changed: I have evidence to bolster the imagination for another possible world. A world where the work of many hands makes lighter the efforts of love—for a mother, for her children, and for this noisy gift called life.”
(related: Colleges Can And Should Accommodate Parents And Families, Against Pro-Life Triumphalism, and The Pro-Life Movement's Work Is Just Beginning)
Building Community From The Ground Up — Leah Libresco Sargeant, Breaking Ground — “…three Milwaukee organizations have teamed up to open Trinity Woods: an intergenerational housing project that will see seniors, single mothers, and religious sisters mingling as one community.”
watching/listening
Why Public Discourse Has Become So Stupid — Yascha Mounk & Jonathan Haidt, Persuasion — Jonathan Haidt’s recent essay in The Atlantic is one of (if not the most?) viewed pieces they’ve published. I recently shared his related conversation with Andy Crouch over at The Trinity Forum.
Simple Farmhouse Life — Lisa Bass — I’ve shared this podcast before, but I always find her conversations with guests so practical & informative… for anyone interested in learning about food from scratch, natural living, or a more handmade home. (And her main youtube channel.)
Starting Fertility Awareness Conversations Sooner — Bridget Busacker & Christina Valenzuela, Managing Your Fertility — The poll below was inspired by this podcast episode. Because, from what I’ve gathered over time… many women learn the basics of how their natural reproductive/hormonal system works far later in life than would have been helpful for managing their health & well-being.
(related: two books mentioned here: The Happy Girl's Guide To Being Whole and Wholistic Feminism)
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using: product, tip, resource
Soliciting tips from y’all on prepping and painting trim (baseboards, windows, doors) that’s in dirty/cracked/peeling condition! Or just painting trim in general. I’ve gathered some tips from Youtube, but crowdsourcing never hurts.
remembering
A Year Ago:
Beach goodbyes, our little helmeted 4 month-old, and the Fourth on the Long Island Sound with friends.
This Week:
My mom came down from Minnesota, allowing Jakob and I to finish a house-painting project. Sore arms from painting. Building forts and exploring fields. Basketball hoops and hotwheel tracks. Haircuts (and tears) all around. A long list of house needs and to-do’s. Tee ball and fly swatters. Whole apples to eat (and throw). 24-week pregnancy exhaustion and sleeping a lot.