Week 9 (2024)
walking the world, prayer runs & downtown flourishing, medical kenosis & givenness vs. control, Exogenesis, the (female) body & maternal feminism
(Click title to open in browser, on the Substack website)
to read: books
Glittering Vices — Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung — A valuable book.
(I’m quite sure Jen Pollock Michel has mentioned this one multiple times, influencing me to pick it up.)
Exogenesis — Peco Gaskovski — Brilliantly perceptive.
(Many of you may be familiar with the work of Peco and Ruth Gaskovski, but if you aren’t… pick up Peco’s book and subscribe to their needed voices and worthwhile writing.)
to read: essays, articles, newsletters
Undoing The Downtown Monoculture — Emma Durand-Wood, Strong Towns — “North American downtowns weren’t always this way—monocultures of offices that empty out at night and on weekends, or during pandemics. Relying on the disposable incomes of office workers, big festivals once or twice a year, or shiny new mega-projects to sustain and revitalize them hasn’t worked out well so far.”
So What Makes A City More Walkable? — Chris Arnade Walks The World — “Now that I’ve walked over fifty global cities, I think I’ve got a better handle of what walkability really means, or should mean, and given that I used to be a Physics guy, I’ve tried to quantify it, bureaucratic style.”
(related: his book Dignity, shared previously)
The Chapel Of The Road — Mary Grace Mangano, Plough — “On my evening runs, especially the wintry ones, as the light dies out and my steps quicken, as the blackness of night expunges my vision, I think about my death. In this body I live and in this body I will die. For now, he lets me run. And my run is an offering.”
Last Things — Michael T. Young, Ekstasis — “because it’s easier to tell someone
how morning light splices the first minutes
into thousands of tree-lined avenues,
or the smell of wet magnolia petals
revive our steps on the spring hillsides.”Resisting ‘The Machine’: An Interview With Peco Gaskovski — Jonathon Van Maren, The European Conservative — “But this is not a question for Christians alone. It matters to all of us, and I think we need to wrestle with it… We’ll come up with varying answers, but what matters is that we’re left with a robust moral awareness of the dark side of technology. Without that, the only thing left to wake us up will be suffering.”
Control Three Ways — Peter Blair, Comment — “It does not, that is, remove the burden of evaluating, on a case-by-case basis, with whatever mix of considerations is yours, the wisdom of adopting any particular technology, the advisability of any particular transformation of the environment, the compatibility of your actions with a studious orientation toward the world. It means to hold the world loosely, to see and love the gift precisely as gift—and to contemplate and love the giver who gave it all.”
The Dark Kenosis Of Medical Education — Kristen Collier, The Public Discourse — “In fact, those who come into medicine with a zeal for science while holding onto a proper, God-rooted anthropology of mankind should be championed as those who are best able to provide compassionate care that is loving and good for humanity.”
(related: What Is Medicine For?, Bring Back Hippocrates, euthanasia/assisted suicide here, here, here, here, and here, and Embryo Adoption And Our Moral Imaginations, shared previously)
Are You Asexual Or On Antidepressants? — Freya India, Girls — “We now live in a culture so desperate to immediately validate every expression of identity and soothe any sign of emotional distress that we stop caring about its causes.”
Our Bodies, Our Anger — Kerri Christopher, First Things — “Perhaps instead of telling women to get over their anger, we can talk with them about the difficult bodily realities they experience and the support they have every right to expect from their fellow (wo)man.”
(discussion at her post here — related: Natural Womanhood, FACTS, Verily’s reproductive health archives, NaPro Technology, Managing Your Fertility podcast, FAbM Base podcast, Woven Well podcast, Guiding Star Project, Earthen Vessels, This Is Your Brain On Birth Control, The Fifth Vital Sign, Taking Charge Of Your Fertility, The Genesis Of Gender, Cheap Sex, Harrington and Perry's books yet to read, this essay by Abigail Favale… I’ve been meaning to make a proper resource & reading list of previously shared links, because there’s too many relevant ones to note here!)
Did Having Kids Change Your Thinking On Feminism? — Mary Harrington, Reactionary Feminist — What a treasure trove of honest realizations and gritty realities about our interdependence.
(related: The Rights Of Women, shared previously)
to watch, listen to
The Seven Deadly Sins / Capital Vices — Rebecca DeYoung, No Small Endeavor — A great taste of the overarching importance of the vice and virtue framework of formation, as explained in her book.
Continuing On:
The Commonplace with Autumn Kern — How To Plan Your Summer As A Homeschool Mom and 7 Books To Understand How Classical Education Is Different Than Modern Ed
to glean from: tip, product, resource
2024 Total Eclipse — It’s not too early (or late?) to plan where you’ll be on Monday, April 8th! The last one was August 21, 2017 and though I didn’t experience the path of totality (as my husband did in central Missouri) it was still quite the experience to be among a massive amount of sweaty people in NYC’s garment district, many of us coming out from our office desks in massive old buildings… to look at the sky together. A grimy, huddled pack of strangers, a moment of awe-filled solidarity.
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.
I would love to see your reading list resource when you put it together. I've been bookmarking some of your links for my upcoming teen daughters' health class.
YES! I love so many of these pieces! I can't wait to read "Are you asexual or just on antidepressants?"
Also, DeYoung is so good. I loved that book in grad school and currently have her book Vainglory on my To Be Read shelf. Great choices!