Week 52 (2023)
silent revival & atheists in space, Middlemarch & mending jeans, holiday grief & unreasonable Advent, wombs & the natural laws of motherhood
(click title to open in browser)
reading: books
Middlemarch, George Elliot — audio — Masterful.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
Middlemarch Marriages — Sarah Clarkson, Plough — “In order to truly understand the value Eliot gives to the actions of these unobtrusive friends, we must return to the larger story of Middlemarch, to its questions about sainthood, and to the girl whose passionate desire for meaning was not utterly lost in the disaster of her marriage but transformed by loneliness and grief into a new and quiet power.”
The Irrational Season — Renée D. Roden, Church Life Journal — “What enabled Mary to create space inside her for God to take root? Madeleine L’Engle’s line, “Had Mary been filled with reason / there’d have been no room for the child,” sets up a striking—and at first, puzzling—opposition between “reason” and the logos Himself. Why would “reason” prevent Mary from holding the Son of God?”
Free The Womb, Free The Home, Free The Family — Emily Hancock, Women’s Work — “All of this to say- true freedom for the womb means that natural laws are the only ones a woman must abide by, not the will or authority of industry, government or the market. When this is attained, the woman, the home, and the family are protected and venerated.”
The Gift That Keeps On Giving — Mary Harrington, Reactionary Feminist — “What such high-achieving women sometimes miss, though, is that theirs is a minority view. Lots of people, of both sexes, don’t have careers; they have jobs…
If that’s you, or even if you just aren’t very sociable, needing to be home with the kids doesn’t look like an unjustly asymmetrical obstacle to professional development. It looks like a blessed excuse to duck out of an evening of dull chit-chat, and professional opportunities be damned.”
The Joy Of Mending Jeans — Leah Libresco Sargeant, Plough (audio version available) — “In our garments, in our gardens, and in our moral choices, we draw the seams of our life together.”
(related: her post with questions here)
When Grief Like Sea Billows Roll Through Your Holidays — Daniel Darling, Christianity Today — “I’m comforted repeatedly by the humanity of Jesus as he looked in on the decaying corpse of his friend Lazarus. John 11 seems to indicate that Jesus was both full of sorrow and full of rage.”
The Silent Revival — Aryana Petrosky, Comment — “Predicting the effect our industries of distraction would have on our spiritual lives, Fr. Thomas Merton in 1966 reflected on the Holy Family being told there was “no room.” He writes that we live in a time of “no room,” where life is crowded out because of the “anguish” technology has caused by dominating time and space…”
Athiests In Space — Paul Kingsnorth, The Abbey Of Misrule — “What happens, then, if you feast without fasting? What happens if your culture encourages you to feast every day, because your economy is predicated on endless, consumer-driven growth? …we are now beginning to see a resurgence in genuine religion. Personally, and anecdotally, I am noticing this everywhere. In American Orthodox churches bursting with young families. In atheists or neo-pagans suddenly becoming Christians (I plead guilty).”
watching/listening
Discerning God's Will (and a table chat here) — Kerri Christopher — That first talk especially was absolutely worth the half hour. Clear, wise, and practical. She has a gift for reframing ideas about decision-making in a new light, and from many helpful vantage points. I plan to revisit again in the future!
Continuing On:
Verity with Phylicia Masonheimer — Episode 124 — You Were Born Into A Story (Church History Series Intro)
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — 7 Novels For The Bleak Midwinter
etc: product, tip, resource
The Wisdom Pyramid — Brett McCracken — This post has since been expanded into a book. Not having read the book, I’m not sure if this is one that could just as have well have stayed a blog post. Regardless, I printed this image out a couple years back, to serve as a visual reminder of a rich and rooted way of being to continually reorient towards.
remembering
One Year Ago:
Two Years Ago:
This Week:
Thanks for sharing! So many good links here. I loved that piece by Mary Harrington- the more we say this stuff out loud, the better!
And thanks for sharing my talk(s) too. Can you imagine if we all discerned our lives well and lived our creative gifts? I just feel like the world would be such an amazing place. Helping people find clarity is my little contribution to the cause :)
All great stuff here, but I especially loved the Mary Harrington piece. There's so much pressure to frame work as the primary source of self-worth — even as so many people are fed up with their jobs. Leaning into relationships (family) seems like an obvious alternative in my mind to the career-above-all ethos that is everywhere.