Weeks 36 / 37 (2021)
commodification & market mentalities, the hope of incremental habits, making domestic work invisible, advice on creative stamina & sharing your work
(Open in your browser — emails cut off at the end!)
In lieu of curating a few excellent published pieces, I’m sharing my favorite newsletters that showed up in my inbox during the past two weeks. Subscribe to any that pique your interest!
to read: essays, articles
The Wonders Beyond Your Head — Grace Olmstead, Granola — “A controlling, commodifying disposition isn’t limited to our interactions in the natural world.” (I love that Grace shares reader comments from these newsletters.)
The Pressure To Make Domestic Work Invisible — Leah Libresco Sargeant, Other Feminisms — “What does a work space look like when the work is valued? Are there parts of your home that feel like a work space and wear that identity proudly? What work do you feel the strongest impulse to make invisible?”
Advice On Building Creative Stamina— Mason Currey, Subtle Maneuvers — “I’d love to pour more of myself in… but I lose focus, get tired, get frustrated, feel disappointed in my progress.”
How Do You Know When Your Work Is Ready? — Stephanie Duncan Smith, Slant Letter — “Ideas are social creatures, they are meant for relationship. I like to think of writing as the liturgical form of call and response.”
Where's Your Heart? — Jessica Hooten Wilson, The Scandal of Holiness — “Here are some practices that I find beneficial for keeping my eyes on my beginning and end, while continuing to serve where I have been called.”
Upside Down Guess Labels And The Aspirational Class — Sara Billups, Bitter Scroll — “The Christian story redefines our identities away from people who produce and purchase. And as Christians, we’re called to consider how Jesus can untether our worth from work and lifestyle, inviting a loosening of our grip on the things we buy and the way we fill up our time.”
Planting Season — Emily Jensen — An archive is not available, but sign up at the bottom of the page for monthly goodness & practical wisdom.
Habit Reset— Justin Whitmel Earley — “Small things matter. Because the small things become the big things.”
On The Hopeful Turn Of September - And The Hope Of Habits — Jen Pollock Michel, Post Script — “Maybe life requires less outsized ambition than we think. Maybe we should aspire to grow things slowly, by habits of everyday faithfulness.
God’s work in and through his people produces new habits of being in this world: habits of living for the glory of God, habits of living to bless our neighbor.”
to read: books
Dedicated: The Case For Commitment In An Age Of Infinite Browsing, Pete Davis — audio — Here's my review!
Additionally, a teaser, in the form of a warm and jolly interview, peppered with the most perceptive shots of wisdom (a good snapshot of the audiobook.)
to watch
to listen: music
We road-tripped across the country, so there was a lot of music. Some favorites:
Pressure Machine — The Killers
A Beginner's Mind — Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine
The latest from Kanye, Bieber, and John Mayer… because we aren’t ashamed to love that pop music.
to listen: audio
We sat like 20+ hours in the car recently, so of course there were podcasts. Some good ones:
Pete Davis: The Case For Commitment In An Age Of Infinite Browsing — Strong Towns
Demon Hunting — The Rise And Fall Of Mars Hill
FSBT — Anything to cleanse the palette with some dumb fun. (Thank you Casey and Matthew for the laughs, as always.)
Jenifer Acosta: Giving New Life To Historic Buildings And Neighborhoods — The Bottom-Up Revolution
to cook
There was a lot of takeout during packing week. And a lot of grandparent-provided meals this week.
to celebrate
Team Baumeister successfully packed up the Long Island house (with help)… stayed in 4 hotels throughout the county (with 2 tiny ones)… and made it to our Minnesota destination (for a few days of rest with family).
to remember, reflect
A Year Ago...
Our little family got glammed up for photos in our beloved Port Jefferson. (Lukas was the tiniest one.)
This Week...
Besides the busy blur of packing & traveling noted above, the past two weeks included:
A goodbye seafood dinner with Jakob’s old boss, and making do with a sparse house.
A viral-for-me tweet, on a father’s improvisation.
A final sunset dinner and goodbye. The beauty helps.
(We love and are grateful for the Bburgs!)
Leaving the home we brought a newborn into, and then brought another newborn into a year later. The 700 square-foot rental we shared many meals in, lived a lot of life in, and spent over half our marriage in.
Leaving Long Island via New York City via the Bronx. We never visited the city. (But I have lived there in the past, so I’m not sad about it.)
Feeling very over being in the car.
Getting good at hauling our kids & stuff into hotels.
Visiting my brother and sister-in-law at their family dairy farm. We benefit from lives of long-haul dedication.
Facetiming the cool dad, as he went ahead of us to Wisconsin to start work. We are waiting out our household goods, still in transit.
Ezra befriending the family dog, finding all the playgrounds, and trying mead.
Getting the boys sitting on the couch together for the first time.
“For you, O God, have tested us;
You have tried us as silver is tried…
We went through fire and through water;
Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.”
Psalm 66:10,12