Talking Tuesday: Take a Deep Breath

I don't know how things are in your neck of the post-election woods, but we've had choppers overhead every night and early morning for the last two weeks and it doesn't look to let up any time soon.  Frankly, I'm weary of it all.  The whole thing.  This election cycle broke Facebook for me, possibly permanently.  The ugliness that I saw from both sides makes me feel sad and lonely.  I will say for the record that I didn't have a dog in this fight; I voted third party for my conscience.

I try to refrain from discussing politics on this blog, but I think today is a good day to share this wonderful reflection by Brian Kaller of Restoring Mayberry, in the hopes that it will provide some ballast to the current mood of the nation.  Please read the whole thing--he makes a lot of good points and has the advantage of being somewhat removed from the fray.

From the article:

"I don’t know what kind of president Mr. Trump will be– by all means, keep a watchful eye on his administration. Clinton supporters can stop, however, going on as though they’ve been robbed of the glorious future they were supposed to have, if only their candidate had been elected, and that we are now sliding into an age of evil and darkness. No political figure will fix or destroy everything. There is no bomb counting down to Too Late, no point at which it is Game Over, nor any point where our story ends Happily Ever After. The nation is not a ship that can sink or a train that was speeding towards Progressistan; it was not derailed, and will not get Back on Track.

You won’t defeat the Moonbats, Wingnuts, Useful Idiots or Forces of Hatred, because those are imaginary concepts from a web site – the people on the other side are named Molly and Amy and Adam, and they are trying to do the right thing just like you are. The odds of they, and you, dying is 100% in the long run, but the odds of dying in the next few years in a Zombie Apocalypse, Nuclear Armageddon or Nazi Death Camp are quite low. Remember, we’ve been through this many times before, and we’re still here.

No matter what happens, no matter what your politics, there is one thing that’s bound to help your country in the years ahead. You could help rebuild the social institutions around you -- churches, fraternal organizations, town halls, unions, markets, and webs of mutual obligation – that have so deeply deteriorated. They are what democracy used to be, before it became images on a screen. They are what our dreams used to be made of. They are what kept towns and neighbourhoods functioning fifty or a hundred or two hundred years ago, back before we looked to a candidate to fix everything for us."

~Brian Kaller, "Backing Away from Hyperbole," Restoring Mayberry Blog, November 20, 2016

Put not your trust in princes or in sons of men.

Talking Tuesday: The World Beyond Your Head

At last we come to a discussion of Matthew B. Crawford's excellent book, The World Beyond Your Head.  I've talked previously about the broad strokes of the book, so I'll just dive into the nitty gritty and hope for the best.  I keep poking away at this, and I think I just need to post it and move on--I'm reading so much these days that dovetails with Crawford, that I'm never going to be able to incorporate it all.

Let us begin then, with the shape of things.  The premodern Western world thought about time and space as intertwined three-dimensional space.  I wrote my master's thesis on these ideas, and you can find an abstract of them here.  Basically, the idea is that all time is contained within a sphere, and everything that was, that is, or that will be is contained within that sphere.  We do experience time in a more or less linear (but not progressive) fashion, with one event following another, from birth to death, but the linear experience is still encapsulated in the larger sphere.  God exists outside that sphere in what best be termed the Eternal NOW.  For God, all time is happening all at once.  He is Eternally Present for all of humanity's existence.

If we start from this premise, and proceed to the idea that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever whilst pursuing theosis (or complete communion with God by purifying oneself of passions and coming back to a Christ-like mindset and habitation), then the world is an objective, knowable truth.  It is something to be discovered outside one's self, as part of the salvation journey.  In the premodern world, everyone was a pilgrim on a journey to a concrete destination.  We learn from those who walked the Way before us, gain solace from their struggles, joy in their triumphs as we work through our own within the larger community.

In the premodern mind, the world is corporeal; Christ was resurrected bodily, not just in spirit.  The Resurrection is an historical event, anchored in a particular place in time, but is also continuing its work in the world, as part of the Eternal NOW.  The worship of the premodern Church was physical, involving prostrations, crossing oneself, smelling the incense, seeing the icons (and in the westernmost part of Europe, the statuary), all while dealing with the weaknesses and passions of the physical body.  There was a whole-hearted belief in the spiritual dimension--in the world we cannot necessarily see with our eyes or feel with our senses, but inhabits our world, and has a direct effect on it.  God made the world and everything in it, and remains actively at work in His ongoing Creation.

(If this sounds a lot like Orthodox Christianity, it is!  The Orthodox Church was largely unaffected by Enlightenment thought).

The ideal of the premodern world is sanctity through intimate knowledge of God, obtained through fasting, prayer, and the sacraments of the Church.  Sanctity is something to actively pursue because heaven and hell are real places, and one's place in the afterlife is of utmost importance.  This life is built on the foundation of centuries of lived experience, custom, and corporate wisdom (what some call Tradition)

The art of the premodern world invites one in, to discover the truth of what is out there; it is what Charles Taylor calls "memesis" (A Secular Age).  Icons in particular are called windows to the soul, as they depict reality beyond themselves, and invite the worshipper to enter into them.

Writes Crawford: "We live in a world that has already been named by our predecessors, and was saturated with meaning before we arrived.  We find ourselves "thrown" into this world midstream, and for the most part take over from others the meanings that things already have." (The World Beyond Your Head [hereafter referred to as WBYH], pg 145)

The premodern world, with its objective truth, layered reality, involved Creator, and rich historical foundation, produced robust people who created some of the most stunning architecture, discovered and developed new technology (cf. Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel, by Joseph and Frances Gies) and created art that remains unsurpassed.  Status derived from acquiring the skills and knowledge of the elders instead of from one's own "gumptions and mental capabilities" (WBYH, 162). They were able to attend to the world around them with sensitivity and purpose that was unhampered "by radical personal responsibility and instead rested secure in a knowledge and trust in the processes/wisdom that had come before.  There was no need for perform for the world" (WBYH, 162).  They were untroubled by questions of individual sovereignty or existential crisis.  Meaning and truth were all around them, waiting to be discovered.

We can now contrast the pre-modern world with the modern world--shaped by the so-called "Enlightenment."  I would rather call it The Great Flattening.  The round, multi-layered cosmos inhabited by premodern man has been made flat and one-dimensional in our modern age.

Let us move on to Decartes.  "Decartes began his inquiries by putting aside all supposed knowledge received from "example or custom" in order to "reform my own thoughts and to build upon a foundation which is completely my own." (WBYH, 130).  Basically, this is the sort of tabula rasa mentality that is so pervasive in education and modern culture today.  Rather than discovering the cosmos outside oneself, and to find the objective truth of God working in Creation, we moderns think of ourselves as existing in the vacuum of our minds, born blank and pure, with no connection to what has gone before or will come after, no sense of the fallen condition of mankind.  The ideal then becomes the proverbial brain in a jar.  As such, the modern self has no interest in learning about or from the outside world.  Indeed, the outside world becomes a threat to one's own autonomy.  We've become obsessed with "authenticity" as Charles Taylor notes in A Secular Age.  "To live authentically, Norman Mailer would write a century later, one has to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self" (WBYH, 130).

The ideal life that is presented to us by a pre-packaged medium is the solitary person, standing on a vista somewhere, existing without ties or bonds to keep him in place.  Any threat against individual autonomy ("identity" would perhaps be an appropriate stand-in for autonomy) must be rooted out and destroyed.  Anything that takes our attention outside ourselves and joins it to the physical world must be regarded with suspicion (WBYH, 131).

In short, the thinkers of the Great Flattening have given us our intellectual inheritance and cultural mandate:

• "We are enjoined to be free from authority--both the kind that is nakedly coercive and the kind that operates through claims of knowledge.  If we are to get free of the latter, we cannot rely on the testimony of others.

• The positive idea that emerges, by subtraction, is that freedom amounts to radical self-responsibility.  This is both a political principle and an epistemic one.  

• We achieve this, ultimately by relocating the standards for truth from outside to inside ourselves.  Reality is no self-revealing; we can know it only by constructing representations of it.

• Attention is thus demoted.  Attention is the faculty through which we encounter the world directly.  If such an encounter isn't possible, then attention has no role to play." (WBYH, 116)

Consider how these principles inform our sense of things: man's chief end is no longer to glorify God and to pursue theosis, which is something that naturally must occur in the embodied world, that is, in God's creation.  Man's chief end in modern terms is to glorify himself and seek knowledge and understanding only within himself, a disembodied being, apart from the corporeal world.  Worship becomes less corporeal and more of a spectator event, "mediated by representations" (WBYH, 170)

Crawford gives a  number of examples of how our attention and ability to attend to things in the embodied world has fractured and been given over to abstractions.  Modern cars are built to be incomprehensible to all but a computer expert; machines provide manufactured experiences, somethings to the point that we perceive them as "better" than the real thing.  (Taking a photograph of a magnificent sunrise, and adding a filter to "enhance" the image is a good example of this).  Images themselves become a kind of mediated reality--we're all quite familiar with the phenomenon of the social media constructed self.  (The recent Pokemon GO mania is another good example of mediated or constructed reality).  Crawford points out that we've ceded a lot of power and agency to the corporations who manufacture these experiences for us, and that the subsequent feelings of alienation and loneliness that are the hallmarks of our modern age are natural results of this loss of agency.  "For such a self-choosing from a menu of options replaces the kind of adult agency that grapples with things in an unfiltered way" (WBYH, 117).  

The irony of all this radical atomization and mediated reality is that individuality is actually in decline.  We are unable to attend to things that are less engaging than the menu of options presented to us, and "[w]hen we inhabit a highly engineered environment, the natural world begins to seem bland and tasteless,  like broccoli compared to Cheetos.  Stimulation begets a need for more stimulation; without it, one feels antsy, unsettled, hungry almost" (WBYH, 17).

Crawford notes that it takes Herculean effort to resist the cultural pressure to conform, to become the late modern consumer self, presented through layers of filters, abstract from the real world.  Who wants to eat broccoli when piles of cake are sitting there, calling your name?  "What sort of outlier would you have to be, what sort of freak of self-control, to resist those well-engineered cultural marshmallows?" (WBYH, 17)

So where does that leave us?  We can't very well shove Pandora back into her box and return to a premodern world.  Our world is thoroughly disenchanted, as Jamie K. Smith notes in How (Not) to be Secular.  In order to reclaim our attention and agency, Crawford suggests submission to authority, two words that seem antithetical to the whole Western ideal of the fully autonomous individual (WBYH, 24).  If, in our modern Western mindset, autonomy (self-rule) is good, and heteronomy (rule outside the self) is bad, because is threatens the autonomous self (WBYH, 24), then we have to consider that autonomy might be antithetical to true human flourishing.  "To emphasize this (heteronomy) is to put oneself at odds with some pervasive cultural reflexes.  Any quick perusal of this self-help section of a bookstore teaches that the central character in our contemporary drama is a being who must choose what he is to be, and bring about his transformation through an effort of will.  It is a heroic project of open-ended, ultimately groundless self-making.  If the attentive self is in a relation of fit to a world it has apprehended, the autonomous self is in a relation of a creative mastery to a world it has projected" (WBYH).  This is very much in keeping with the idea of liquid modernity.  We are no longer pilgrims on The Way, but rather tourists, flitting about from one place to another, no particular destination in mind.

How do we reclaim our ability to attend to the embodied world, to submit to authority outside ourselves, to seek God in Creation as the chief end of our lives, and seek heaven as the destination of our embodied souls?

We must first resist the temptation to mechanize human behavior--to understand people in purely mechanical or technological terms.  Humans are not machines.  People are often unpredictable and react in ways that can't be reduced to an algorithm or steam engine metaphor.  The ways we talks about ourselves and our minds must be informed by this fact.  We need to stop deferring to machines and bowing down to the anonymous masters who made them.  Yes, machines make our lives easier and more convenient in many ways, but once a machine starts constructing reality for large numbers of people, it is a problem.

Let us train our minds to attend.  This means reading real books, putting aside screens for a specific period of time--the mind will resist such mental exercise, but it is ultimately good to retrain the mind to attend to longer-form reading and to be able to ruminate on it in a quiet environment.  We will need to prepare for discomfort during this process, as we retrain ourselves away from constant stimulation and entertainment toward quiet contemplation in order to attend to the state of our souls and our journey of theosis.  This will be hard, as we live in a highly processed post modern environment that goes to great lengths to prevent silence and stillness without mediated reality.

Let us celebrate art that explores the object truth in reality--art that looks to reveal that which might not be obvious by inviting the viewer in.  Let us gravitate toward art as memesis--what Taylor describes as reflecting what is already out there rather than fetishizing art as creation: originality with whatever subjective connection the mind projects.  

Let us inhabit our bodies, with their frailties and strengths, in order to learn to tame the passions of body and mind.  Let us not be disgusted by the work of the Creator in making us, and instead embrace physical reality, from birth to death.  It will be messy, unsanitary, and real.  Let us be present at the deathbed, and relearn the ways of preparing the body for death.  Let us stop running from and fearing death.

Let us leave our atomized selves behind and become familiar with our history, the physical landscape, and our place in it.  Let us work with our hands, learning within a longer tradition of making.  Let us be humble and acknowledge the wisdom of our elders.  Let us be prepared for the general messiness of real human interaction, and be willing to walk with people through trials and triumphs, despite whatever personal discomfort or inconvenience that may bring.  

While we may not inhabit an enchanted world, we can work to re-enchant ourselves, our communities by acknowledging the ongoing work of the Creator in the world, of training the spiritual eye of our hearts to see what the eye does not see, to be sensitive to the spiritual dimension.  

Let us journey on as pilgrims, together.

References:

Juliana Bibas, "The Orthodox Clock and the Map of the World." Road to Emmaus Journal, Vol XII, No. 1 (#44).

Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2015.

Rod Dreher, "Pilgrims Vs. Tourists", American Conservative Blog, September 8, 2016

Jamie K. Smith, How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor.  Michigan: Eerdmans, 2014.

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.

Talking Tuesday: Building Community in Place

I find Gracy Olmstead to be a thoughtful, articulate writer, and I always find something interesting in her blog posts.  Last week, she posted a wonderful article about the ways in which community has broken down in America, and considers how communities are built and function together.  

She writes:

"It seems that oftentimes, we give up community out of a desire for greater space, greater financial stability, a better job situation. But, as Roberts puts it, “we are meant to have tribes, to be among people who know us and care about us.” As our jobs increasingly carry us away from the neighborhood, and our reliance upon the car grows steadily, it may be that a simple dedication to staying put can help community grow. Because while our rootlessness often results in greater space, it can also compromise or neglect our deeper need for place: for a sense of home, and community."

~Gracy Olmstead, Space or Place? American Conservative Blog, October 29, 2015

Any long time reader of this blog will know that I often struggle with the limitations of raising a large-ish family in a small Victorian row home in the middle of a large city.  How I sometimes long to be able to send the kids out the door into the back yard (we don't have one), or to be able to pull our car into the garage next to the house (we park on the street, often several blocks away from our home).  To have some distance between the general ick that is the city street.  These things would make our lives more comfortable, easier, but we would lose what Olmstead refers to as the "spontaneous encounter."  I can't count how often I run into a neighbor or a friend on the street and have a conversation.  Those encounters are very valuable, as they build up social capital, and strengthen the ties of our local community in largely intangible ways. 

We've been in this house for eight years now, and it is the longest I've ever lived anywhere, ever.  Rod Dreher has written at length about how difficult it is for us modern Americans to stay in place, to put our feet down and really plant into the ground where we are.  The transient nature of our lives is perhaps the defining characteristic of post modern society.  It doesn't make for easy community.

When I am tempted to see greener grass in the suburbs or the countryside, I am reminded that we have a good life here--one where I can walk the kids to school, and my husband can bike to work.  Our pediatrician is a seven minute walk from the house, and the children's hospital a 15 minute cab ride.  We have a good park less than three blocks away, and several more that are an easy walk.  We are walking distance to several grocery stores, and many other small bodegas in between.  We know almost all our neighbors, and relations on our block are generally cordial and helpful. For all that living in the city and raising a family is sometimes difficult, we are very blessed.  

There is a messiness to engaging with the seething masses of humanity, of building community amongst different sorts of people, but I think it is a good work in the end.  

Talking Tuesday: Community in Traditional Society

Brian Kaller is rapidly becoming one of my favorite non-sewing bloggers.  He writes about a wide range of topics and, in his position as an American living in Ireland, has a unique perspective on the world.  He's from the area around Ferguson, MO, and has posted a bit about that this week.  His latest contained a little nugget that I thought was worth re-posting here, as I think he captures what it is that I am missing in (post) modern life.

"Most of the economic relationships – their rudimentary means of getting food, shelter, warmth, water, security and so on – the basics of life – are vertical, to strangers in distant and possibly unaccountable institutions, rather than horizontal, to family or neighbours nearby, or singular, things that they can provide for themselves. We grow up warehoused in schools, and most young people are aware of it and don’t appreciate the squandering of their early years. But it prepares us for the life that many American children will live, as cubicle plankton in office jobs. We didn’t grow up with many real skills to provide for ourselves, and most of us didn’t know anyone else who had them either, so that kind of life was difficult to imagine.

When I talk with elderly people here, or people from any traditional society, who grew up before wealth or electronic media, I find their lives were fundamentally different. Most security was accomplished through social pressure and shame, rather than armed men wearing uniforms. Young men grew up occupied with chores and hard labour, rather than the opportunity for mischief. People were able to provide for their own needs in many ways, that we were not raised to be able to do.

People had deep relationships to other people around them, so that the person who runs the shop might have also helped dig your father’s grave, and might have helped you with your first communion. These many threads of relationship in every direction wove a quilt of community, which cushioned the weight of the world. So people might have been poor, but they were incapable of feeling poverty the way Americans do now, for their lives were not spent floating idly upon a sea of strangers."

~Brian Kaller, Ferguson: Just the Beginning, Restoring Mayberry blog, November 29, 2014

Odds and Ends, Vol. 12

Image

I think anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows that we struggle with whether or not the city is ultimately the best place for our family.  We love many aspects of city life, and there are many ways in which our family life would radically change were we to decamp to the country, not all of them good for our kids.  With that in mind, I found this article to be particularly thought-provoking.   It is an interesting book review on the changes wrought in Lancaster County and in rural life in general over time.  We recently spent a day in Lancaster, visiting some friends, and the place has its allure, and I completely understand why those fleeing the hardships of urban life would find it appealing.  It is tempting, however, to bring urban sensibilities to the farm, and it is not fair to do so.  We urban dwellers must consider ourselves outlanders when we leave the city, and to keep our own counsel, for just as we would bristle at a farmer telling an urbanite how to go about things, so the farmer has the right to feel put upon by city folk doing the same.  From the article:

"Although the problems facing rural communities like Lancaster have serious economic causes, I argue that their root is primary cultural. In the twentieth century, the city has replaced the country as the focus of American culture, and ruralites wanting growth and progress have looked to urban models. As American society has moved further from its agrarian roots, ruralness has come to be associated with the past, with a simpler time of peace and plenty when harmony prevailed.

This idea of the city-as-future and the country-as-past has aggravated the troubles of rural America since the Second World War. When urbanites see a rural community as an attractive lost Arcadia, their money can serve as a wedge for their ideas and force ruralites to accommodate their desire for peace, quiet, and recreation. Farmers and other rural residents needing to make a living are often forced to the opposite extreme, advocating progress at any cost; while ruralites who want to preserve farmland and other open space from development may be seen by their neighbors as catering to urban fantasies or as “living in the past.”

Americans’ failure to envision a model for rural progress—a present and a future that preserve the essential character of a rural place—has allowed the city to turn the country into a kind of economic and cultural colony."

Newly unearthed photos from the National Geographic archive.  Plus a few more.

10 Things No One Tells You About Marriage Beforehand (but they should!)  This is an excellent little exposition on how our culture's messages about marriage are thoroughly mixed up and also explains a better way to approach the marriage relationship.

Dwija talks about how hard it really is to be a stay-at-home mother, especially at the beginning.  Preach it, sista.

I'm not sure what I find most disturbing about this article: the fact that a two year old is asking Siri what an ear infection is instead of asking his father, or that the father is directing the pediatrician's questions about the child's malady to the child instead of being tuned in enough to the child's symptoms and illness to answer them himself.  The child is two.  In any case, a good reminder to leave the mobile device in the purse, on the counter, somewhere out of reach when spending time with kids.  Because, man.  Those dopamine receptors.  No respecter of persons.

Kara Tippetts is dying of cancer, but is making the most of the time she has left.  May we all face our ends with such serenity, such grace, such fortitude.

Brilliant entertainer Robin Williams is dead of apparent suicide; his demons got the best of him, and I'm sad for the suffering and mental illness he endured for most of his life.  I found this little response to the news timely and useful.

shorpy.com

Mat. Anna put me onto the Shorpy historical photo archive--so wonderful!!

shorpy.com

I'm only going to link a few articles here from this website, but please read the whole series (links at the bottom of the page).  It is a fascinating look at the garment industry from an insider, specifically addressing the problems of fitting and sizing, a topic that I think you'll agree affects all of us.  She talks about why vanity sizing is a myth (and I really do buy her argument), and why sizing is so frustrating to most people.  She offers some ideas to help, but we consumers also have a part to play--we need to be honest with ourselves about our measurements, and to have more realistic expectations from the garment industry as to what can be offered given demographics, economic reality, price issues, and so on. From one of the articles: 

"What it really boils down to is consumer expectation that they should be able to walk into any store, anywhere and pick out a medium and expect it to fit them but that’s just not reasonable. Particularly when many consumers are reluctant to pay the customary price points of that market. For example, it’s unreasonable for the average Wal-Mart customer -who only wants to pay Wal-Mart prices- to walk into Talbot’s and expect a Talbot’s medium to fit them and their pricing expectations so it’s unreasonable to expect every manufacturer to fit the full range of human size possibilities too. With companies free to fit “their” customer, you have more possibilities of locating a size that fits you than if sizes were standardized."

In short: not every retailer can or should serve everyone.  (For more information, please read this brief article on why J.Crew is offering XXXS clothing line)

I wrote earlier this week about modern retailing, and the problems of finding quality goods at a reasonable (note, I did not say "cheap") price.  I think for those of us who love vintage clothing or second hand furniture, shopping can become a bit of a problem.  With most other retailing, there is a sort of assembly line quality to it, and the almost sure knowledge that something similar (or possibly better) will come along if you don't buy it now. With vintage, the unique nature and rarity of it can inspire impulsive purchases, or even just ill-considered purchases.  I've been guilty, guilty, guilty of this, and I'm working to reexamine my shopping habits, particularly online, as I'm noticing that I've increasingly used it to self-soothe during times of stress.  At the end of the day, they are just things, and things are ephermeral.  We can't take them with us, so to speak.  Emileigh wrote an excellent post on the topic last week.

Image via

This is kind of cool: an artist's installation of a corner shop, all made of felt.

Putting on new perspecticles about the blessings in our lives (I go back and forth about Glennon Melton, but this one is worth a read; besides, she uses one of my favorite quotes: Beware of all enterprises which require new clothes.")

How to eat well on a food stamp diet. (includes a free full color downloadable cookbook).  I love projects like this--each meal is under $5, full of healthy nutritious ingredients, with easy substitutions for what is available, on sale, and reasonable to prepare.

Diligence, hard work, and a willingness to put up with hardship and scorn of the surrounding community are the ways out of poverty, but in the current cultural and political landscape, it is hard to effectively convey that message.

shorpy.com

The news from the Middle East is fairly horrific these days, especially for Christians.  I'm not always sure where to go with any of it--the wholesale slaughter of ancient Christian communities in Iraq and Syria has left me bewildered and fearful for the future.  Molly Sabourin provides a thoughtful response, as usual.

On a lighter note, Shana gives great tips for making a kid-friendly space in the back yard, and (most importantly, in my opinion) leaving them to it.

I've always said that crafting is as good as therapy (although probably not cheaper, once you factor in supplies). Turns out, it is true!

Image via

A history of working class gardens in England.  I find this brief overview to be quite fascinating, particularly in light of several documentaries I watched recently on some grand estates in England, including Hampton Court, Althorp and Chatsworth.

If you are J-type personality like me (on the Myers-Briggs scale, this means someone who likes routines, closure, plans, control, etc), then you might find your to-do list can sometimes feel overwhelming and stressful, particularly those sorts of items that never seem to be "finished" or recur regularly.  I'm still thinking about Tasha Miller Griffith's novel approach to the infinite to-do list.

I didn't realize this until recently, but pink peppercorns are related to tree nuts like cashews, so if you have a serious tree nut allergy (and I do!), please avoid them!  They show up in fancy peppercorn mixes, and chefs often use them in nicer restaurants.  I've often had "x-factor" reactions, where I reacted to something I ate but had no idea what the culprit could be, even when I'd made or vetted the food myself.  I'm now wondering how often it was something like a pink peppercorn.  

Interesting: Carlo's Law of Metaphysics.

I'm quite fascinated by Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, and a recent thread on Rod Dreher's blog prompted a comment by Haidt himself, which then led off into a series of questions about the arts.  I'm still thinking about it.

Does language shape how we view the world?  This post neatly ties together several of my interests, including time, cultures, language, and history.  I do think that language has a direct impact on our thinking, mostly in that when we have more words to express our complex inner lives, or to describe our world, we can make better sense both inwardly and outwardly.  I have several phrases I can only use in Russian, because they don't translate.  Ditto for a few Dutch phrases I grew up with.  Yes, I can more or less explain what they mean in English, but the words in the original have a richness, a savory character on the tongue that feeds something deep in me.

The future of modern Islam and American Laïcité  (this article is interesting because it is written by a second generation immigrant and follower of Islam, but really, you could insert almost any religion into the framework he describes).

In light of my recent fascination with all things related to the Great War, I was pleased to find this little gem in my newsfeed recently.  It is a photographic history of solider's kits from 1066 to the present.  The presentation is wonderful, and the progression fascinating.

  Solider's Kit from Battle of Somme.  Image via

And in related Great War remembrances, poppies to remember the fallen at the Tower of London.   (Incidentely, I highly recommend the documentary on the Secrets of the Tower).

Image via

Also: Was the Great War the last Crusade?  Philip Jenkins thinks so.  From the review:

"The Allied and Central powers depicted themselves as uniquely chosen by God to fulfill a civilizational and religious mission; demonized their enemies as Antichrist or Satan; portrayed the war as a Manichean struggle between good and evil; and promised world redemption if they and their allies triumphed, and nothing but human bondage and misery if their enemies prevailed.

Apocalypticism, encouraged by the war’s length, widening scope, and destructiveness, appeared in wartime novels and movies, animated radical political movements, and fueled end-time speculation made even more plausible among fervent premillennialists by the British army’s victory in Palestine—at biblical Armageddon, no less—and by the Balfour Declaration’s promise of a homeland for the Jews. This was a war of prophetic fulfillment."

Talking Tuesday: Communities Vs. Networks

Every once in a while, I run across an article that just encapsulates a lot of what is running through my head on a particular topic. Today's Talking Tuesday excerpt comes from such an article, forwarded to me yesterday by my husband. I talk a lot about community, and the ways in which post modern society is disconnected, isolated, and lacking in grounded community, but it is difficult to be prescriptive on this subject.  I've thought a lot about the topic of community, and living with my feet rooted to the ground a lot, especially since reading Rod Dreher's excellent book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming.  I think what I find difficult to work through is that we are not in a position to uproot ourselves and move nearer to either of our families.  So every couple of months we struggle through our choices all over again, wondering if we are making the right decision to stay in the city, to work within the fractured networks that make up urban living. So far we have always come up trumps on staying in the city and making the best of our situation now (and there are many reasons why our current situation works well for us at this stage).  But still.  I struggle with online life (as evidenced by my frequent hand-wringing on the subject), and the substitutionary community that it provides.  This article nails it:

"Oftentimes people lament that they want to be part of communities, but what they really mean is that they want to enjoy the benefits of communities without having to deal with any of their responsibilities and hassles. They want to get, but not give. Being part of a community means not only taking from the pot, but putting into it; if you’re not willing to help out fellow members when they’re in need, and deal with the annoyances inherent to any close-knit group, you’ll never move beyond existing in a network.

... 

In order to form a community, you need to live and interact with the same people for a long time — to go through a myriad of ups and downs together. People will never know your whole self if you trade them in for new friends every two years. Community requires being rooted in a single place for an extended period of time."

Brett and Kate Mckay, Communities Vs. Networks, The Art of Manliness Blog, 

Let Me Say Once More That I Love You...

In our current culture, (and I'm super guilty of this) we tend to use the word "love" for almost everything, from the extremely mundane to the supremely sublime.  It's not that the English language doesn't have gradations for words to indicate strength of feeling or simple preference, but most of us default to the simple love.

Lest you think I'm here to talk about how we shouldn't use it so much, or that we've devalued the word, or whathaveyou, that isn't my focus at all today.  In fact, I'm here to say that we don't say it nearly enough, especially when it really matters.  I think it is important to tell people that we love them, and not just on special occasions.  Everyone is struggling with something, and usually the people who need love the most are the ones who appear to need it the least.  I'm a fairly private person, and it is difficult for me to express myself emotionally, and I think sometimes that comes off as aloofness, or coldness.  The opposite is actually true--I feel so deeply, so strongly, that I can't articulate it adequately, and I'm afraid of being rejected.  But I know that when love is expressed to me, it lifts me up, pulls me out of myself, helps me to see others and love them too.  Sometimes hearing a simple "love you" or "sending love" or even reading a closing on an e-mail that is signed, "love" from a friend can make a huge difference to my day.  It can be the difference between hope and despair.  I'll be the first to admit that it is hard to do sometimes.  What will the other person think?  I feel uncomfortable sharing my feelings!  Push past the discomfort and do it anyway.  You just might save a life.  And perhaps that life might be your own.