The Nightstand 450
A Book to Guide the Church: The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, International Edition
The IE is essentially the 1662 BCP of old, but unlike the Cambridge edition it is not just that and nothing more—it is the 1662 judiciously tweaked and supplemented in…
All Shall Be Well: A Review of Raft of Stars
Then I read a book like Raft of Stars, and I am again filled with wonder. Not just at nature–at rivers, forests, and fields–but at my children themselves.
Read Not the Times. Read the Eternities: A Review of Reading the Times
When our own churches are divided and bubbled up in their own media worlds, unable to agree on basic “facts” related to current events, you know its time to take…
Paul Kingsnorth and the Truer Path of Worship
A short review cannot do justice to the range of reasons visitors to the Porch should read Kingsnorth’s three novels, so I’ll begin simply by saying: Read them. These are…
I’m Over the American Homer
I’m not canceling Whitman. But my own enthusiasm for his poetry is waning. The poet whose daring versification and daring lifestyle were once seen as the epitome of counter-culture has…
The Paradox of American Places
Daniel Elazar was emphatic that a “renewed sense of localism” was essential to America’s future. For Americans, this means renewed intentionality about our local communities, not merely living in one…
Hemingway, All Too Human
The new things we learn about Ernest Hemingway in this documentary not only make him more interesting; they make his writing more remarkable.
A Testament to Friendship
Canadian author and broadcaster, David Cayley, who conducted two lengthy radio interviews-turned-books with Illich (in 1988 and 2000) and had a decades-long friendship with him, has written a gripping and…
Larry McMurtry: Myth Killer, Myth Keeper
Whether he takes us to the Texas frontier or to 1970s Houston, his prose never gets in the way of his story. He moves ahead with the precision and simplicity…
Larry McMurtry and Wendell Berry at the Dairy Queen
McMurtry couldn’t quite set the Bowie knife to the scalp of the Western like Cormac McCarthy did the same year, maybe because he knew those people weren’t grotesque caricatures; they…
Communitarianism, Left and Right
Populism can in fact be seen as being precisely a reassertion of democracy against the anti-democratic tendencies of managerial, technocratic elites.
When Innovation Runs Out: The Vindication of Maintenance
The Innovation Delusion goes a long way toward demystifying and destigmatizing the ordinary yet essential work of maintenance.
The Professor and the Madman: Cancel Culture, Consequences, and Restorative Justice
Our society may sometimes be divided on how to define right and wrong, but that has not dampened enthusiasm for identifying wrongdoing.
Atticus, Scout, and the Gift of Children: On Reading To Kill a Mockingbird with my Daughter in 2020
This is the humbling gift our children offer. If we seek to shape their character, at some point in the journey we’ll find ourselves backed into a corner, faced with…
The Seven Ranges
I go forth strangely heartened and even hopeful that I might succeed in my attempt to describe and perhaps even explain the hill country presently looming off our port bow.
Grace Olmstead’s Uprooted Idaho, and My Own
Uprooted is partly a memoir of her extended family, partly a paean to a way of life that is both dying and which she never really understood while she grew…
Tending the Soil of our Homes: Gracy Olmstead’s Paean to Roots
At the heart of Gracy Olmstead's book is the conviction that roots do not just serve the individual person or plant—they also are vital to the health of one’s soil,…
Pasolini’s Lutheran Letters and Our Times
Reading the Lutheran Letters today, I cannot help but think about woke capitalism. The fundamental economic and cultural and human issues are obscured by clashes regarding discourse and slight gestures.
The Storyteller and the Cop
It’s time to walk out of our artificially-lit caves and get as close as we possibly can to real presence and real powerlessness, wherever and however these things come into…
Hillbilly Grace on a Five-Acre Farm in Lincoln, Arkansas: A Review of Minari
Minari is haunted by O’Connor, as Chung explores the theme of misfits and “hard to find” good men (and women) that jolt our senses toward who we truly are, including…
Christian Platonism and the Eternal Good
Christian Platonism’s affirmation that we are spiritual beings who will outlive this current life, in one manner or another, lends us powerful impetus to reconsider what it means to spend…
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: A Review
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self draws on a deep reservoir of erudition rather than the shallow puddle of populism.
Men in the Field: The Farming Stories of Leo L. Ward, C.S.C.
The best stories in the volume offer Cather-esque explorations of the links between place and people. The stories are remarkable for their dense layers, for their social, psychological, and emotional…
A Pastoral Inheritance: James Rebanks and a Tribute to Our Late Cathedral Sacristan
There is much wisdom contained in English Pastoral for suffering churches. If the last fifty years have shown that innovation and modernization aren’t the solution to our ill-health, they have…