Week 7 (2024)
medieval enchantment & Lewis' mind, kingfishers & sacred art, philosopher-mothers & a homemaker GI bill, humble work & a meandering Lord's Prayer
(Click title to open in browser, on the Substack website)
to read: books
The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis, Jason M. Baxter — audio — Brief thoughts.
A Preface To Paradise Lost, C.S. Lewis — audio — Man, he got to talking.
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
AI Can Create Religious Images In Seconds. But Is It Really Sacred Art? — Joseph Pronechen, National Catholic Register — “AI images should never be put in a church since a computer-generated image is not participating in the co-creative effort of a human. The work cannot be blessed by fasting and prayer by the artists, and it will always lack the beauty of something handmade.”
(related: the full response of one artist-interviewee)
Narnia Against The Machine: Deep Magic For The Modern Age — Natasha Burge, Front Porch Republic — “The medieval worldview that Lewis cherished was replaced by an ideology that breeds nihilism and despair, one that is all the more insidious because it denies being an ideology at all, insisting instead that it is simply a recognition of fact. In this way the dogma of the Machine has become undetectable to modern people who drift through a desacralized landscape unaware of what has been stolen from them.”
(related: Becoming Boethius, shared previously)
The Love Of Learning — Ryan Linkous, Fare Forward (we went to undergrad together - hi Ryan) — “The longer one spends in the academy, the more difficult popular communication is likely to become. But rubbing shoulders and conversing with people from all walks of life—at the store, at church, at the car shop—will help us understand the cares and burdens of people beyond the campus library. You’ll come to discover that your neighbor who has never even heard of Walt Whitman also contains multitudes.”
Hard Frost — Marianne Jones, Ekstasis — “I mourn the limberness of my youth
the abundance of time
the careless luxury of beautyyet as I approach that city clothed in stars
its music grows clearer and sweeter than what I’ve known”The Humiliation Of Momhood Has Been Good For Me — Amelia Rasmusen Buzzard, Writer’s Blog(ck) — “The rhythms of childrearing ebb and flow as new babies arrive and then babies are babies no more. When I reach the next stage in my life, and my gaze begins to turn outside of the home, I hope that this season of love will have trained me to take satisfaction in other work, not because the work is glamorous, but because the work is good.”
The Paradox Of Stay-At-Home Parents — Elliot Haspel, The Atlantic — “The solution to the stay-at-home-parent paradox lies in addressing both sides of it: Creating policies and programs that give stay-at-home parents dignity and agency without using them as a reason to deny working parents the same.”
Protecting The Home Front: Why We Need A “G.I. Bill” For Homemakers — Ivana Greco, Fairer Disputations — “…making the link between homemakers and veterans reinforces that the former are not victims to be protected, but rather people who deserve to be rewarded for their valuable service. In a time of declining fertility, soaring youth mental illness, and the “Loneliness Epidemic,” the women and men who devote themselves to caring for family, home and community perform a needed and essential service.”
(discussion at her post here, and the book The Rights Of Women by Bachiochi, quoted in the piece)
Finding Their Voices: Women In Medieval Byzantine And Latin Christian Philosophy — Peter Adamson, Church Life Journal — “And if, as the affective mystics seem to be suggesting, the divine is immanent in the most despised and lowly aspects of our physical experience, then the supposedly humble roles allowed to women in medieval culture, like the preparation of food or the birthing and nursing of children, can be reconceived as exalted activities that bring women into contact with God. It makes perfect sense that the most ambitious, and most philosophically challenging, achievements of medieval women authors would take this form.”
(related: Tethered Still by Kirsten Sanders, shared previously)
Consider The Kingfisher — Jack Bell, Comment — “To put it more plainly: when the sunlight hits kingfishers and dragonflies, both absorb, reflect, and do interesting things with that light. But the way each creature does this is different. For Hopkins, every creature belongs to this language of being… All creation thrums with this language. It is being spoken back to God whether we hear it or not.”
A Writer's Catechism For The Lord's Prayer — Angela Townsend, Dappled Things — “It is a fitting juncture – Jesus is good at those – to hit daily bread, the toasty, yeasty bridge across the dewy lawn. I like asking for daily bread because I am always hungry. I like asking for daily bread, because I know it’s shorthand for the entire shopping list, including the entries I didn’t write.”
to watch, listen to
The Medieval Mind Of C.S. Lewis — Jason M. Baxter on The Literary Life — An enjoyable, illuminating chat with the author.
Continuing On:
Verity with Phylicia Masonheimer — Episode 130 — Enemy Of The State: Missions In The Early Church (Church History Series) — This series has been a fun primer to have alongside my first proper church-history-overview book (this one by Justo L. González… recommended by multiple people and included in her Ultimate Church History Book List.)
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — Are Smartphones Making Us Modern Gnostics? — Y’ALL.
(See also: this interview with Tessa Carman)
to glean from: tip, product, resource
Might pick up this book on Saint Valentine people have been recommending.
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.
Thank you very much for the share—and for rounding up these other materials to share with us. It's so cozy to get curated rec lists from real people instead of mindlessly following algorithms.
I am late to comment I here but have arrived because you liked a comment on Hayden Turner's 'Over the Field', and because I have an interest in CS Lewis writing on the Mediaeval Period. I have referred elsewhere to his book 'The Discarded Image', which is a collection from his lectures on Mediaeval Literature to his students. He does not spare them the work they will need to do, but he provides us all with access to ways of looking and thinking that are foreign to our modern consciousness, despite their reappearing constantly in our poetry and folk memory, wisdom traditions and other legacies, even if this consciousness is a bit of a mystery now to our modern 'religions'. The Mediaevel time was not a sink of ignorance, a pit from which we have ascended. If you are interested in the Cosmic Model, (and the 'Longlaevi' for that matter), and profound sources of philosophy, Lewis found much of this beautiful. It is not a huge read and might be complementary to the commentary on Lewis' mind you recommend.
I first read 'The Discarded Image' some years back (h/t JM Greer) and returned to think some more about consciousness when reviewing a later author. I put my review of The Prehistory of the Computer and the Evolution of Consciousness, J. Naydler, 2018. to start my own substack last October. I recommend Naydler's book as well as Lewis! The review is a bit too much 'me' and not enough of useful Naydler (or Lewis). Smile