Region & Place 427
The Alpine Heart
Liechtenstein is the 6th smallest country in the world, larger than San Marino but smaller than the Marshall Islands, and is roughly twice the size of the island of Manhattan.…
Agrarian Fireworks
If you’re like me, holidays leave you feeling unusually contemplative, I suppose because the everyone-is-doing-it mentality awakens in us the long-slumbering cultural anthropologist. Holidays cause me to wonder why, exactly, we do what we do…
Who Are Public Monuments For?
History is a lie. Or, rather, a complex galaxy of truths, half-truths, exaggerations, and downplayings that together form a narrative. We don’t write histories because we want to record what…
Gene Logsdon, RIP
The Porch lost a part of its patrimony yesterday with the passing of Gene Logsdon. News of his death can be found here, and his obituary here. An appreciation of…
Evangelicals and Monasteries
Jake Meador has a nice piece over at Mere Orthodoxy discussing the value of monasteries to any well-ordered community, and what evangelicals might learn from this. https://mereorthodoxy.com/the-joy-of-indifference/#more-127454
The Dirt on Your Shoes
Today, I needed to get my shoes shined. I usually shine them myself, but I forgot this morning. Luckily, in my building in downtown Indianapolis, there is a shoe shine…
Abernathy, TX before the Self-driving Car
A month ago I flew out to Lubbock, Texas, to give a couple of talks at Lubbock Christian University. Several times over the course of two days the topic of…
The Seer: Seeing Through Wendell Berry’s Eyes
Laura Dunn’s The Seer: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (later retitled Look & See) begins with the blurred lights of cars speeding along freeways and the barren wasteland left by mountaintop removal…
Ashes Along the Edisto
Last summer, on a typically hot South Carolina day, my family gathered at my grandparent’s farm to scatter the ashes of my grandfather. Aside from family, my grandfather loved three…
Thoughts on Localism and Resilience
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to the "Resilience Group," an informal gathering of environmentalists, activists, and interested others that meet regularly at the…
Soil and Sacrament in Certain Kinds of Cities
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] This past weekend here in Wichita, I participated in the Eighth Day Institute's symposium, Soil and Sacrament: The World as Gift; Rod Dreher has a…
In the Pilsen Snow
My wife and I were married at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, on the near west side of South Bend, Indiana. I’ve written about her before, that Church, fashioned nearly two…
A Meditation on My Porch
I heard someone say recently, “Porches are back. They’re on all the new houses.” And I thought, “No, no they’re not.” Porches on newer houses are hardly more than…
Branding Disaster
Earlier this year, after the Charlie Hebdo shootings, I reflected on the conversations that may or may not ensue from the changing of a facebook profile picture. As my facebook…
FPR Update
Dear Readers, When FPR launched in 2009, we weren't sure what to expect. We knew our culture, economy, and politics were broken, and believed that we would have some repairs in…
Finding ‘Boston Strong’ In Oklahoma
I’d been through this movie before. Streets closed to traffic, a procession of elite athletes before tens of thousands of spectators. And then the cheers turned into screams. Abandoned strollers…
Saving Trees Across The Ocean
The view from above was one of devastation, even if it was the pregnant devastation of a construction site that is not what it will finally become. The leafy green…
A Better Place to Watch a Game
Only an idiot would really miss the old Durham Athletic Park - or, if not an idiot, then only someone who hadn’t actually spent much time there and didn’t know…
An Ordinary Life and the Pitfalls of Greatness
I will confess that when J. Arthur Bloom announced he was joining Front Porch Republic’s editorial team, I had not heard of it. So I went and took a look,…
The Holy Earth and Liberty Hyde Bailey’s Front Porch Cred
He wrote sixty-five books and had a hand in another hundred and thirty-five.
Monastic Stability: In One Place with God and Others
Some time ago I was asked if I would be willing to participate in a forum on localism. I hesitated. I did not even know what localism specifically was about…
Seeing Like A Traffic App
A year ago I started exploring my traffic navigation app, wondering what advice it would give about the various routes I took to work in southern California. I found the…
Christopher Lasch and the Lasting Dilemma of Localism
[Cross-posted to In Media Res] This past weekend, at the annual Front Porch Republic gathering (this year held at SUNY-Geneseo), three scholars reflected upon the writings of the historian and…