Week 3 (2024)
formational labor & community work, The Abolition of Man, our collective degradation & tech safety, the literary vocation, Endō & martyrdom
(Click title to open in browser, on the Substack website)
to read: books
The Samurai, Shūsaku Endō — audio — Was prompted to get to this one from Claude Atcho's list. I would also like to re-read Endō’s Silence.
The Abolition Of Man, C.S. Lewis — audio — It’s perpetually relevant.
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
What Happens When A Community Works Together — Grace Olmstead, The Rabbit Room — “In [the spreadsheet], each of us has listed a project that needs doing, and the dates we’re available to work. Each month, one family will host the rest of us, and we aim to get their project finished. We will show up with food and drink, tools and working gloves, eager either to hold babies and watch toddlers, or to get our hands dirty working on a needed project… As we build a habit of working together, I hope our eyes will be opened to see the needs around us. We will work together and feast together, joining the labor with laughter. I can't wait.”
(related: Put The Kids To Work and The Intimacy Of Imbalance, shared previously)
A Renaissance Is Upon Us (part 2) + Craft And Theology: The Reason (part 3) — Nathaniel Marshall, Front Porch Republic — “The dignity of manual labor is found in our ordering the material world around us such that it in turn orders the humans situated in it toward the good…”
“We thought that in outsourcing the difficulties, frustrations, and exertions involved in learning skills and wielding them to earn our daily bread, we’d save ourselves time… we waste it doomscrolling; umpteen hours per year freed up from physical toil only to be inflicted with crippling emotional toil; we gave up gripping tools and lost grip of ourselves.”
(related: part one of three, shared previously — and this promo video in the comments of part 2 is literally my dream experience for our boys.)
The Best Defense Is A Good Offense: C.S. Lewis's Abolition Of Man — Micah Watson, The Public Discourse — “Lewis’s book continues to strike a chord because technology has advanced enough to render questions about reengineering human nature practical and no longer merely hypothetical… the attempts to transfer human consciousness, significantly delay or even eradicate death, and bio-engineer coming generations no longer feel far off in the future. They are very much live issues.”
Celebrities Against Pornography — Jonathon Van Maren, First Things — “Pornography is grooming women and girls to accept sexual violence as normative and men and boys to desire it; it is ravaging marriages and destroying childhoods. I am very encouraged by the fact that so many celebrities who embrace every other aspect of the sexual revolution are willing to be so honest about pornography.”
Ban Porn Now — Joshua Heavin, Mere Orthodoxy — “Even if you refuse to give your own child a smart phone, their peers with smart phones in 6th grade and younger are in some instances effectively learning sex education by means of pornography that depicts rape and violent humiliation of women. Is that a good world we want to live in, which promotes human flourishing? …To more fully appreciate why novel, contemporary forms of pornography pose a societal and civilization threat, we need to appreciate at least three dynamics that represent genuinely new developments in recent decades.”
(related and previously shared: essays from Mary Harrington, Isabel Hogben, John Shelton, Matthew Loftus, Caleb Morell, research from IFS, and books from Mark Regnerus and Ray Ortlund)
The Problem With Everything Being Pornified — Freya India, GIRLS — “We need to wake up to how insane this all is, how utterly mental it is that we allow young girls anywhere near social media, and how we’ve let the liberalising of sexual mores escalate to the point where pre-teens are posing like porn stars and are lied to that it’s liberation. And where we need to start is with an absolute refusal from parents to let their kids on these platforms.”
(related: her After Babel guest post and Parents Take The Postman Pledge, shared previously)
How To Make Smartphones And Apps Safer For Kids — Michael Toscano, Brad Wilcox, and Elizabeth Self, Deseret — “Devices and the app stores they host are virtually unregulated… even though they are the most common way that minors access social media and stumble across pornography. Regulators would never grant this same impunity to toy manufacturers, food producers or the providers of numerous other products and services to kids.”
Ars Poetica, Ars Sacra — Sarah Law, Ekstasis — “Take it. The one body I can raise –
your presence, concentrated as a pulse,and I the poorest of conduits, tenderly
wrapped in my humeral veil.”The Difference Between Martyrdom And A Victim-Complex — Wesley Walker, Church Life Journal — “Shusaku Endo's novel The Samurai offers a helpful case study… From Velasco's character arc, we can make three distinctions between martyrdom and the development of a victim-complex that can be brought to bear on our present context. Namely, they differ in three ways: mode, manner, and aim.”
Self-Gift And The Literary Vocation — Katy Carl, Dappled Things — “This act of love is a gift to the common good. It helps diminish the alienation that human beings experience from ourselves and from each other… it is essentially a communication of the inner life, offered freely to any persons willing to receive it by a corresponding act. Both acts require effort and skill, which is why relatively few are willing to make them. Yet, like all communications of love, they prove themselves many times over to be worthwhile.”
to watch, listen to
Continuing On:
Verity with Phylicia Masonheimer — Episode 127 — The Call To Social Martyrdom (Church History Series)
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — Your Smartphone Might Be Making Life Harder… In The Wrong Way
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Related to some of the essays above:
Fight The New Drug — A “non-religious and non-legislative nonprofit… We aim to decrease the demand for sexual exploitation through education while helping individuals live empowered lives free from the harmful effects of pornography.”
Protect Young Eyes — “We show families, schools, and churches how to create safer digital spaces.”
For Men — Strive21 (from Matt Fradd of Pints With Aquinas) and this book from Ray Ortlund.
For Women — Magdala Ministries and this book from Phylicia Masonheimer.
to look back on
This Week:
You can reply directly to this email if received in your inbox — I always enjoy hearing from y’all that way.
I appreciate your posting about an anti-porn movement, especially as it pertains to our children. Thank you for talking/writing about this important and devastating-to-families topic.
Hi Haley, this is kind of a niche ask but I’m wondering if you’ve come across some good resources about how to be a better listener/question asker/conversationalist. 🤓 I’m such a chatterbox and I’m in a stage of life where I’m meeting a lot of new people. I’ve realized it’s such an art, conversing in a way that is true, comfortable for the other person, not too shallow but not too deep, etc. Sheesh! Anyway, thanks. 😊