Week 9 (2023)
libraries & warm eggs, beauty in cities & our children's mistakes, fasting & feasting, education & the liberal arts, churches responding to euthanasia
(click title to open in browser)
reading: books
All My Knotted-Up Life, Beth Moore — audio — Five stars, my friends.
reading: essays, articles, newsletters
No Ordinary Place — Clare Coffey, Hedgehog Review (audio version available) — “Access to libraries may or may not help a child on the economic margins move up to a more comfortable social class. It can, however, offer poor children one of the few opportunities to escape the grinding inequities of our late-capitalist economy and experience the rich and quiet life the wealthy can so easily buy.”
What Ever Happened To Beauty? — Tiffany Owens, Strong Towns — “It’s another thing to pursue these ideas because we see our city as more than a combination of buildings and architecture; we see it, in the words of Jane Jacobs, as ‘a container for human life.’”
Warming To It: Confessions Of A Former Suburbanite With A Nonsensical Fear Of Fresh Eggs — Gina Loehr, Hearth & Field — “How strange and irrational our internal reactions can sometimes be. My neural pathways regarding such matters were forged as a child, mapped to the topography of the dairy aisle at Kroger’s.”
Our One-Dimensional Schools — Douglas Yacek, The Point (audio version available) — “If we want to educate young people for something more than consumer life, then we will have to reverse the logic of the equipage mentality altogether. In a word, we will have to awaken their aspiration.”
Education As Pilgrimage — Alex Sosler, Front Porch Republic — “Every education carries different stories—stories of what success means, about who human persons are, about what we are made for… The story we tell ourselves is that we are behind, and the reason we work hard is to fulfill our dreams—upward mobility with nice cars in nice neighborhoods with nice schools. Christians can live this story even as they profess a belief in a very different story.”
(related: The Liberating Arts, which I learned about from this interview with Andy Crouch Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson shared a while back.)
Books As Toys — Alan Jacobs, The Homebound Symphony — As C.S. Lewis puts it, “I often wonder — considering how people enjoy themselves developing photos or making scrapbooks — why so few people make a hobby of their reading in this way.”
Where Are The Churches In Canada’s Euthanasia Experiment? — Benjamin Crosby, Plough — “For the Christian, if indeed Jesus Christ is our model of a fully human life and life in Christ is our goal, independence, freedom from suffering, and the proliferation of choices simply cannot be the necessary requirements for a good life.”
(related: Jen Pollock Michel on disagreeing well, Leah Libresco on vulnerable life, and this investigative piece, shared previously.)
Love: Making Generous Room For Our Children's Mistakes — Jen Pollock Michel, Risen Motherhood — “If God’s love can make such generous room for mistakes, even for sin, a mother’s love might make the same generous room. It might, in fact, be the generosity we find ourselves needing when they’ve grown tall and accusing: There’s never any room for error with you.”
Fasting And Feating And Not Making A Fuss — Joy Clarkson — “…I want to think about Lent as something which God, through the church, offers me, not as a punishment, but as something through which I can get to know God better.”
watching/listening
Good Faith Debates: Should Christians Send Their Kids to Public School? — Jen Wilkin & Jonathan Pennington — Leaving my commentary of the actual substance to within my home. BUT, one thing I appreciated from Phylicia Masonheimer on the ensuing discourse was: 1) While someone may ultimately disagree with a conclusion (and have the BEST case for, say, homeschooling), Christians need to do better about distinguishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier issues in Christianity and dying on hills accordingly (certainly not lower tier ones)! And 2) not being bullies in our disagreement. Who wants to take schooling advice from an abrasive, self-righteous meany? :’)
Continuing On:
Managing Your Fertility with Bridget Busacker — Episodes 42-43 — Hormonal contraceptives & its complicated history.
Verity with Phylicia Masonheimer — Bonus Episodes 44.5-45.5 — Brenna Blain on same-sex attraction & Charaia Calabrass on race.
using: product, tip, resource
Earthquake Response — East West Ministries — We support missionary friends through this organization. It’s one place to send donations toward relief funds.
Weekly Marriage Checkup — Phylicia Masonheimer — Jakob and I started this recently and see it being very useful on a weekly basis. (Phylicia’s new book also released this week!)
remembering
One Year Ago:
Two Years Ago:
This Week:
I know you didn’t mention it here, but I have to tell you that I am in the middle of The Genesis of Gender because of your praise and I am thoroughly enjoying it. What a triumph it is already, only halfway through.
I do love your photos!