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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Thoughts on Localism and Resilience
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to the "Resilience Group," an informal gathering of environmentalists, activists, and interested others that meet regularly at...
Soil and Sacrament in Certain Kinds of Cities
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...