Week 46 (2024)
children of Cambodia & the telos of creatures, prayer & the words we keep, Christian marriage & objectification, personhood & transhumanism in artificial reproduction
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to read: books
Les Misérables — Victor Hugo — “You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it.”
Jesus And The Jewish Roots Of Mary — Brant Pitre — A lot here.
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
- Walks The World — “Phnom Penh is a young city chock full of kids. They are everywhere, and they bring a positive energy, warmth, and joy that no amount of adult diversions—no amount of bars, casinos, exceptional cuisine, and museums—can replicate, because nothing warms the heart like a big smile from a tiny face. I don’t care how silly and maudlin that sounds, because it’s simply true, at an innate and an intellectual level… societies with low birth rates feel empty, vapid, and lost, like there is a giant void lurking beneath, waiting to consume everyone and everything.”
(related: The Age Of Depopulation, Past Future And Breeding Out Of Captivity, his book Dignity and this interview, shared previously)
What Do You Keep? — Dorothy Fortenberry, Commonweal — “I thought of my mom when I read Rothfeld’s All Things Are Too Small, because she similarly lived in a state of abundance. My mom loved a party, an argument, an extra glass of wine, an additional cookie, “just one more thing”—whether an actual object or a way to avoid ending a phone call… I chose to leave behind objects, even beloved objects, things she had specifically told me to give to my children, and I still wake up in the middle of the night feeling guilty about it sometimes. But I took her words with me.”
Please Wear Me Down To Smooth, Don't Stop Midway — Nathaniel Brown, Ekstasis — “My love for you is now no more a choice.
I made it and then set myself to work
with joy but also suffering, which smooths”The Natural History Of A Prayer — Clare Coffey, Plough — “Whenever I wandered, as I grew up, and however badly I erred, this belief was the invisible string tethering me and bringing me back, the long line upon which the Fisher of Men who makes fishers of men slowly, steadily, reeled me back in.”
Seeing AI, Seeing Ourselves — Jeffrey Bilbro, Comment — “Without understanding humans as creatures of a particular sort, creatures whose origin and telos are defined by their relationship with a Creator, she struggles to name the moral threats that AI poses to individual human development and our broader society… Any clarifying analysis of AI must build on a coherent anthropology, a robust understanding of who humans are and what our telos is. If Vallor assumes that humans are themselves machines, it’s hard to see what the problem might be with offloading difficult or unpleasant tasks to other machines.”
The next few essays have been added to the list:
- , Themelios — “…it says something about how disempowered she felt, how little information she had been given, and how few questions she had asked, trusting that doctors knew what they were doing. And I believe doctors thought they knew what they were doing, but simply didn’t envision the long-term consequences it might have, both on a medical and on a social level, to alienate entire generations of women from their own bodies.”
Part 1: Birth Control And The Purpose Of Marriage (Part 2 + Part Final) —
, The Bookshop Barista — “At the time, however, neither my mother nor I had considered the theological ramifications of birth control.”(related: Evangelical Sex vs. Catholic Sex, Seeking Control, On Saying “We’re Done”, The Rest Of The Story, How Many Do You Want?, So, Are You Done?, Surrendering Your Fertility And Family Size To God, shared previously)
For a dignified, health-oriented, root-cause approach to care: See ’s Infertility Checklist and discussion of the benefits of Restorative Reproductive Medicine or Naomi Whittaker’s Facts about Natural Procreative Technology for those Struggling With Infertility:
Reclaiming Personhood In The Public Debate Over IVF — Alexandra DeSanctis, Public Discourse — “If we can have sex without any connection to children, why not bear children without any connection to sex? The same logic that justified detaching sex from marriage and childbearing has ended up justifying the commodification of children in service of accommodating adult desires… Whether we are using our technological prowess to avoid children or to bring them into being, at bottom what we’ve done is turn vulnerable human beings into objects.”
The Tragedy Of IVF — Carl R. Trueman, First Things — “And what of the children who make it to term but do not meet the specifications of the parents who paid good money for a particular outcome? Do parents have any natural obligations toward them? Or are those obligations defined by legal contracts such that, perhaps, they can simply return them to the manufacturer under warranty for a refund? It might seem tasteless to ask such questions, but they are unavoidable. We cannot pretend otherwise.”
Machine Antihumanism And The Inversion Of Family Law — Jeff Shafer, The Upheaval — “We might say that what this means is that the initiating condition of human arrival in the world is as orphans. But that would be wrong. It’s much worse than that. An orphan, by that very classification, is reminded that he lost something vital, and he (and we) are allowed to lament that loss. But in terms of the new techno-anthropology, there is no recognition that the child ever had anything to lose, and so there is no reason or permission for lament—or even for the category of orphan.”
(related: ’s novel Exogenesis, shared previously)
to watch, listen to
Continuing On:
Genealogies Of Modernity — Season 2, Episode 1 — Climbing The Mountains Of Modernity
The Natural Womanhood Podcast with
& Cassondra Moriarty — Episode 5 — The exciting history of fertility awareness methods (FAM), and why modern FAMs are NOT your great-grandmother’s rhythm method — “It’s really powerful that you can constantly be in the driver’s seat…” “The thing that gives me hope is that there’s actually an interest in doing this research and continuing the research that’s started… building upon it in a way that’s going to benefit women, even in ways we can’t comprehend yet.”Woven Well Podcast with
— Episodes 10-11 — Endometriosis 101 and Ikea's Story: Endometriosis — Don’t let medical providers downplay and dismiss real pain or problems. In the words of Leah Libresco, “people in distress rely on our expectations of illness to find a way of being recognized.”
(more resources on female embodiment in the Big Ol' Compilation)
to glean from: tip, product, resource
What Comes Next? 2025, Taxes, and Pro-Family Policy (Webinar) — Ethics and Public Policy Center — With
, , , and others on Tuesday, November 19th at 2pm EST.This “will feature a conversation with long-time Capitol Hill reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig on the players, prospects, and pitfalls of tax policy in 2025. It will be followed by a conversation among leading pro-life, pro-family voices offering different perspectives on what sort of measures might be most likely to be on Congress’ plate next year.” (Thanks to Patrick for sharing.)
2024-2025 Liturgical Wall Calendar — All The Household — This arrived a few days ago (and even came with a sweet note thanking me for sharing it in the newsletter last year). Our boys were obsessed with studying the depiction of the crucifixion on the front. To them it’s always hardcore, yet odd.
They sold out in their first ordering window. However, “If you are looking for a second ordering window this fall, want the calendar to arrive closer to Christmas, or don’t need a calendar until the start of the 2025 New Year, we will be offering a second pre-order window opening the second week of November.”
I think you’re going to *love* our next episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast (airing this coming Monday). It’s one of my favorites I’ve ever done! Thanks again for sharing ❤️
Honored to have made it on the big compilation!!