The Nightstand 450
Local Stories, National Character
We always have been an unruly people, from the very beginning. It is a fact that gives us hope that our current disagreements and fights are not signs of our…
What Passes and What Remains: A Review of Pappyland
While we can’t forever capture in amber all that passes through time, what we can do is hope for the Resurrection and leave mementos of ourselves for those that follow.
When Work Disappears: A Review of The Other Side of Prospect
Certainly there is a need for a national conversation and national solutions... But reading The Other Side of Prospect, one is left with the sense that the ultimate authors of…
Ripples of Grace in Works of Mercy
Thomas’s novel suggests that those who would answer these difficult vocations well must learn to look through the pain and see the light shining through.
Who is America For? A Review of Cheap Land Colorado
eading Cheap Land Colorado makes you wonder how we can make more space for human flourishing among the poor and on the edges of society? Conover’s approach to the San…
After the Second Cheer: A Review of Two Cheers for Politics
Purdy has a palpable affection for what he calls “the preservative work of being together.” Beginning again from that affection might allow Purdy and his readers to find a fuller…
Dana Gioia’s Bright Twilight
Out on the wrinkled sea, the high notes come shimmering over the cold waves, and 72-year-old Dana Gioia says, “Meet me at the Lighthouse.”
Awkward Family Dinner: A Review of Reforming Classical Education
Any reformation requires a standard. How else could you measure progress? The standard of reviving classical learning should plainly include those revered authors who inspired and contributed to that tradition.
Restoring the Shire: A Review of The Wonders of Creation
How else does their work inspire you to think differently about your own relationship to your own places? Take action in your own property, if you have it, and in…
Phantom Menace: America’s Enduring Fixation with Fascism
The reader may be none the wiser regarding the definition of fascism, but this book affords a wisdom and moderation of sorts all the same, one that stems from the…
Après Nous, Le Déluge
What keeps me on one side rather than the other is my belief that if we had been living more fully in that real world, a lot of what we…
Samson-Oak: A Review of The Common Misfortunes of Everyday Plants
Nature is never pure in these poems; it is always responding to human care or lack-of-care, commodified, and, indeed, turned into a symbol by the poet herself. Emerson doesn't hide…
True Myth in Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi
We taste myth when we read Piranesi, because in the story, like in Barfield’s exploration of how the meaning of words changes over time, we are taken out of our…
The Power of Place: Huckberry’s Dirt
Huckberry’s success speaks to a desire for adventure and relationship with the land within the American public. People want to go backpacking and hiking and ride their motorcycles across the…
Wyrd Winter Wondered Worlds
Parker’s Winters in the World is an education fit for the Humanities and lay person who wishes to expand upon what it means to exist as humans in a world…
Cancel War Stories
People often want to ignore the complexity of that process, downplay how often interests conflict, and avoid confrontation. In this essay, I suggest we throw ourselves into the mess and…
Community Greening in The Lord of the Rings: Samwise Gamgee and the Power of Local Care
J. R. R. Tolkien imagined a society characterized by people who care for one another and their natural spaces, cultivating human and ecological flourishing in their communities.
Rummaging the Word Hord
In order to reconcile competing and hostile cultures in our current, chaotic milieu, it is necessary to forge a politics of honesty and integrity. As hinted by The Wordhord’s emphasis…
Monson, Maine’s Fascinating Story: A Review of Here & Everywhere Else
Manchester, NH. The prospect of moving from our little cottage in New Hampshire causes me great pain. Why? Because I am a creature of place and my surroundings, the people,…
A Christian Critique and the Neoliberal Future: A Review of Naming Neoliberalism
Clapp’s ambitious study attempts a great deal within a comparatively brief compass. Unfortunately, some topics suffer as a result...How can one best understand the tension between individual moral responsibility (rooted…
Cormac McCarthy’s Sorrow of Creatures
Are dreams only dreams? Or are they God’s gifts of the unconscious which we still fail to know? McCarthy lets these questions remain, and no argument or worldview can answer…
Paterson and Poetic Fidelity
Creative fidelity is attuned to, and draws out, the richness in people and things. It calls for awareness and attentive seeing. In the end, Paterson is a film about such…
The Joyful Christian Nationalist: How Stephen Leacock Loved His Home by Resisting the World
Undergirding Leacock's work was not a desire to restore a previous version of Canada, but to preserve the gifts God had given: the best traditions of the past, the communities…
Stories of Healing and Wholeness: An Appreciative Engagement with Wendell Berry’s The Need to be Whole
Brecon, Wales. Stories are a necessary part of healing and wholeness. I don’t just mean a story we may like or we tell ourselves (though they include that), nor do…