Week 42 (2021)
unasked for miracles, long-game vision & communities of proximity, medicine & the dignity of portraits, family vs. competitive formation
(Open in your browser — emails cut off at the end!)
to read: essays, articles
In The Midst Of Angst About My Growing Family, Three Words Helped Me Find Peace — Jennifer Fulwiler, America: The Jesuit Review — “Wholeness of vision. That is what I was missing in all of my tortured calculations about family planning and the stressful timing of this pregnancy.
I never imagined that same baby as a 25-year-old passing the gravy at my Thanksgiving dinner table or as a 50-year-old walking into my hospital room with a bouquet of flowers… I lacked a wholeness of vision, and I now saw that I would never be able to accurately discern matters of family size without it.”
Small Letters And Sparrows — Mischa Willett, Mockingbird — “Maybe this stuff isn’t weird for those who pray with more zeal than I and are used to having prayers answered, but it’s still pretty weird for me... Sometimes the responses (miracles?) are so small as to be hardly worth noticing, except that they gather into a kind of choir.”
Lena Edwards And The Humanity Of Medicine — G. Marie Aquilina, Plough — “She had seen what happened to her field when the humanity of patients was forgotten, and she strove to demonstrate a better way.”
Ghosts In Los Angeles — Arthur Aghajanian, Ekstasis — “As a form of artmaking, portraiture attempts to get at something deeper than outward appearance… Serrano gave the people he met agency, trusting that the beauty of the resulting images would transform each of them in our eyes.”
Growing Up Absurd: A Review Of Little Platoons — Kay Hymowitz, Institute For Family Studies — “The ruthless race for a spot at an elite college governs not only where parents live, how much mortgage debt they’re carrying, and what k-12 schools their children attend, but the texture of daily family life.”
The Importance Of Proximity In Community — Tiffany Owens, Verily — “If anything else, we should be befriending our neighbors for the sake of growing in this virtue. But building a community of proximity has practical benefits.”
to read: books
One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both, Jennifer Fulwiler — audio — Here’s my review. (And here’s an excerpt, which I also linked above. It happens to be one of my favorite passages in the book.)
Habits Of The Household, Justin Whitmel Earley — This isn’t one I read this week. But the author of The Common Rule wrote a follow-up at the request of readers wondering how these practices apply to the rhythm of family life. It has some wonderful endorsements. I pre-ordered, and maybe you’d like to, as well.
to watch
Thinking Outside The Box — Jessica Hooten Wilson & Andy Crouch, The Liberating Arts — Wisdom, as can be expected with these two. A reminder of the goodness of beauty, wisdom, stories, virtue, music, philosophy, art, even prayer — despite the fact they have no immediately practical benefit, quantifiable outcome, or measurable utility.
to listen: music
Aventine — Agnes Obel
to listen: audio
A Spacious Life With Dr. Ashley Hales — Mere Fidelity — Learning to love the goodness of limits and commitment, despite the allure of endless options, seems to be a theme I’ve come across recently. (See essays and books linked above for some examples, as well as Dedicated, which I was reminded of when similar themes came up in this conversation.)
to cook
Strawberry Crisp — With a lot of lemon. Tasted like rhubarb. (Use any recipe and adjust as you like. I don’t really use strict recipes for these kinds of crisps anymore! I may have to give up on this section, since I mostly wing it in the kitchen… with cooking… baking… everything.)
to celebrate
Our boys turned 22 months & 8 months! — We’re quite satisfied with the gift of having these boys 14 months apart. It’s fun, and wild.
Other Feminisms celebrates one year! — “instead, the world must remake itself to be hospitable to women, not the other way around. That means valuing interdependence and vulnerability, rather than idealizing autonomy.”
to remember, reflect
A Year Ago...
Pumpkin carving with the Brandenburgs, and bringing Ezra with me to Aldi (what’s new?)
This Week...
Ezra got a replacement stuffed puppy at Goodwill. The pumpkin I ordered from my sister-in-law (elo creative) arrived, and it looks cozy. Finally starting the process of putting prints and frames up on these Wisconsin walls. Bummed that fall is going to start slipping away into the cold. Went to the DMV with two kids under two, and it was actually a somewhat pleasant experience — snacks and kind people being the graces they are. It seems we’ve decided on a church to be a part of. Thankful for welcoming people and opportunities to get to know them better in the coming days, weeks, months. Found a simple monthly habit tracker I started to use for daily reading goals — but it would be helpful for any number of habits you want to form.
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
James 3:17-18