Week 8 (2022)
good parties & tending small growth, The Banjo Lesson painting, assessing your city & incentivizing marriage, Dostoevsky's Holy Fool & our mutual obligations
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reading: books
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky — audio — My second time through. Last time I listened on audio while going back and forth from San Antonio to the Gulf Coast…. visiting this guy Jakob I was dating. Will definitely be reading more Dostoevsky this year, because Jessica Hooten Wilson thinks it’s good for us.
Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport — audio — Because I’m following Seth’s lead in reading through 4 books to consider our online lives. Here’s my review.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
Witness Of The Holy Fool — Renée D. Roden, Church Life Journal — “Haunted by his sin and gnawed by his beleaguered conscience, Raskolnikov resists Sonya the entire novel. He pushes away her simplicity, scorning her visits to him in prison, ignoring her, feigning indifference, and insulting her until, finally, her constant love, single-minded and uncomplicated in its intention, yet anything but simple, awakens a response. Sonya’s foolish faith, pellucid and shining, cuts through the dark complexity of Raskolnikov’s degenerated mind.”
Hope For A Hobbit (plus a little Feminist Theory) — Kirsten Sanders, To The Shire — “But it also suggests that mutual dependence is a good… Americans now feel lonely at a higher rate than ever before documented. Perhaps it is because they have been told that they alone and their desires and success and aspirations are the point of the story that they are living out.”
Kids Have No Place In A Liberal Democracy — Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic — “And so in liberalism, as in life, children throw things into chaos and uproar… They are people both public and private, dependent and necessary, creatures whose very nature places demands—beautiful ones—upon others…”
On Good Parties — Tara Isabella Burton, Breaking Ground — “Not all parties, of course, are Good Parties. There are parties that exist primarily to offer us what MacIntyre might call external goods (fine booze, promising career or social-climbing opportunities, a set of flattering Instagram photos)…
I have come to think with more reservations about the difference between Good Parties and Bad ones, about the ones that point to the promise of the new Jerusalem and the ones that simply reproduce the worst of what the world already is, about the ones we go to to be photographed at, and the ones we go to so that other people might transform us…”
Grow Deep, Not Wide — Joy Ike, Comment — “It’s certainly an interesting mind game to juxtapose performing for an audience of three hundred (or the rare three thousand) people with showing up for three girls every week. No photo ops, no masses to validate my platform, no lyrics thrown out into the wind that hopefully land on the right ears. Painting on the porch is just an opportunity to live what I’ve been singing about my whole life…
This is the challenge. Tend the garden.”
City Mindfulness: Seeing Your City Through Travelers’ (and Urbanists’) Eyes — Tiffany Owens, Verily — “How does the built environment make me feel? Safe, curious, isolated . . . ? How does the design of the city affect my relationship to other people? What values are embodied by the design of this city? Who is served/not served well by the design of this city?”
The Surprisingly Simple Ways To Incentivize Marriage — Brad Wilcox & Erik Randolph, Deseret News — “While Congress tackled many of the marriage penalties hitting upper-income families in 2017, they have left penalties hitting lower-income families in means-tested programs like Medicaid and child care.”
The Tender, Deeper Story — Jamie Lapeyrolerie, Ekstasis — “Tanner sought to portray his people in a more honest, humane, and loving way, fighting against the many demeaning and stereotypical minstrel depictions that ran rampant during the Jim Crow era.”
watching/listening
Related to Crime And Punishment:
Related to Digital Minimalism:
Ditching My Smartphone — Simple Farmhouse Life / Getting Rid Of Our Smartphones — Now That We’re A Family / A Pruned Life — Andy Crouch (I’ve shared it before, but couldn’t help thinking that Crouch’s framework of “low friction” vs. “high friction” sums up the overall aim of Digital Minimalism. Low Friction activities are the ubiquitous default… unless we pave the way for richer, long-lasting, and relationally satisfying High Friction ones.)
Moms & Work (Episode 3): Should I Take That Job? — Risen Motherhoood — With a downloadable series of questions, which would be valuable for assessment and reflection.
using: product, tip, resource
remembering
A Year Ago:
Valentine’s Day started a multiple-day-long labor (as with Ezra), until Lukas was born!
This Week:
Jakob and I finished The Hobbit movie series. Made a lemon raspberry bundt cake (been baking with gluten-free flour mixes for multiple years, because my body says so). Enjoyed warmer, sunnier outings. Started wearing my new black turtleneck shirt, so I look sophisticated like Joy Clarkson, whose new book came in the mail. Received adorable, handmade animals for the boys from my sister-in-law. Got to let my uncle hear Lukas’ squeaky voice over the phone. Always keeping my love of snail mail alive. Always practicing those low-stakes, meandering conversations involving “unfinished thoughts” that marriage has provided, that everyone needs space for (and that the internet is terrible for). Visited another church, saw last week’s pastor and wife out on a walk (I love a small city). Celebrated Lukas’ first birthday, which is now entangled with Valentine’s Day.