Week 28 (2024)
vanitas skulls & the scent of memory, gift economies & domestic workers, the housing crisis, kids in public & summer camp
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to read: books
Escaping The Housing Trap — Charles L. Marohn & Daniel Herriges — This housing situation is insane, is it not? (This is the the business/economics major in me nerding out.)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
Toward A Gift Economy — Simon Oliver, Plough — “The gift is not a mere object or commodity; it bears meaning and mediates a relationship.”
(related: The Intimacy Of Imbalance, What Happens When A Community Comes Together and The Rise Of The Gift Economy shared previously)
Homemade Tales — Gustavo H. R. Santos, Comment — “…I thought of the millions of women in similar circumstances in Brazil and the United States. But then, as I mourned their tragedy after years spent studying the complex whole of the biblical narrative, Hagar’s story came to mind… Do we understand God’s work only through our own social location?”
Shortages And Spillovers: How People Misunderstand The Housing Crisis — Daniel Herriges, Strong Towns — “…the neighborhood is the proper scale here. In other words, every neighborhood needs the ability to flex and grow. To add housing units at some appreciably nonzero rate, in response to demand.”
(related: The 6 Zoning Reforms Every Municipality Should Adopt, Yes In My Backyard—And In My Frontyard and Why Catholics Should Resist NIMBYism, shared previously)
Buildings And Analogies Of Grace — Tim Gorringe, Theopolis — “Human beings, our contemporary western built environment tells us, are pleasure seeking rational utility maximizers, hopefully well heeled… Without a vision of the common good we cannot build well.”
Urbanism And Kids (Not The Way You Think) —
, The Deleted Scenes — “What if the decline of urbanism, and the increasing invisibility of children amid traffic and out on the street, actually led us to care less about children in a broad sense? …What if, by concealing family life behind the walls of “family-friendly neighborhoods,” we made the concerns of children and their overall visibility less obvious to everyone?”(related: How To Build A Family-Friendly City, Free The Children, Cities Aren't Built For Kids, Walkability And The Culture Wars, The Case Of The Carseats, Our Year Without A Car (With Kids), Cities Aren't For Families… But They Should Be, Grilling Man At The End Of History, shared previously)
- , Nuclear Meltdown — “…the reverse is also true: Kids are treated more like dogs. They’re an optional accessory that might bring fulfillment to an owner’s life, but who also aren’t presumed as having any larger social benefit, rights, or claim on the public sphere.”
The Undertones Of Heaven — Cameron Miller, Ekstasis — “Why should we squint our eyes to see better,
but perhaps because, wide-eyed,
we see too much to notice the light?”Following My Nose — Jeffrey Essmann, Dappled Things — “The fragrance of Christ, then, is connected to the memory of moving toward God, relentlessly, longingly, to the very heart of Him. It’s the shining memory of transcendence, the cedared smell of eternity, an endless procession and we’re the incense, sweetly reeking of lilies at the door of an empty tomb.”
How A Skull And Hourglass Alleviate My Anxiety —
, Mere Orthodoxy — “Before a century ago, death was a more blatant part of society… But modern Western society lives in “denial of death.” It only enters our imaginations in worst case scenarios… those who come to terms with their mortality can more easily surrender their anxieties and pressures to achieve.”Summer Camp: An Ailing American Institution — Felix James Miller, The Public Discourse — “…the traditional sleepaway camp and the contemporary educational camp work from different notions—or at least aspects—of human formation. The sleepaway camp hopes to form young men and women who, no matter their paths in life, will develop a lasting love for nature, physical competence, and a sense of adventure and authentic leisure.”
to watch, listen to
We Are In A Housing Trap. Can We Escape? — A high-level explanation of the book’s premise, and a concise summary of its main points. (And if you’re wealthy or comfortably well-off, perhaps surrounded by people who are, maybe read some of those comments.)
Continuing On:
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — Avoiding The Black Hole of Winter Homeschooling and Humility In Mother Academia
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Forrest Frank: New Hymns — Our family’s driving soundtrack this past week. Pretty sure our four year-old learned Nothing But The Blood from it. Honestly I love it. “Does this bring you back to your Atlanta days, Haley?” the husband asks (a story for another day). Yeah. Yeah it does a little bit.
Poor Bishop Hooper: Hymns + Hymns II + Hymns III — For some less intense vibes, those are some beautifully stripped-down renditions. I first learned of Leah (and the music made with her husband) from this podcast conversation.
to look back on
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I don’t usually watch YouTube videos but that one was really informative!
Love all the housing and development-related pieces this week! The Buildings and Analogies of Grace piece is so good: "Without a vision of the common good we cannot build well” and "human beings need justice, beauty and order to thrive. This is not an argument for architectural or stylistic uniformity... It is an argument, rather, for much more reflection on just what it is we want to build and what kind of criteria we apply in doing so. Well insulated, weatherproof, durable, certainly, but also buildings which respect human proportion, which seek to be beautiful, and which respect the priority of the common treasury."