Uncategorized 890

Why is it that we can all say that this building works, that this room is just right, that this town is good and pleasing? Why is it that we…

Yet our little sister does not play the victim. She presses on, a sufferer who labors as best she can while shadows and thorns press in against her. And she…

It’s not perhaps that the world doesn’t need change, but that as anti-Machine author Paul Kingsnorth put it in these pages, “the first work is changing yourself.” We have to…

Not only did the worst consequences of lockdowns occur in the Global South, but lockdowns were pushed on the South from the North, through well-known strongarm tactics of neocolonialism that…

Although it may seem counterintuitive, freedom is actually enhanced, not curtailed, when states have the right to experiment, subject to important federal constitutional limitations, with social and economic polices till…

Tabletop games put something in our twitchy, swipe-hungry fingers other than a digital device—a hand of cards, a pair of dice, a plastic Zeus. And since others have put down…

David Heddendorf’s novel, The Terra Cotta Camel, is, as the subtitle accurately puts it, about “hope, new beginnings, and Des Moines.” It is about the small, the local, and the…

If I’m honest, I am skeptical that the localist approach I advocate will bring about a quasi-utopian future of widespread flourishing, at least within my lifetime. But at least localism…

He does not conflate attendance with salvation or sanctification. But empty pews can neither be saved nor sanctified. They never serve in the nursery or children’s services. They never teach…

Out-of-sight, out-of-mind is the quintessential modern American problem-solving strategy, and it sure does have a lot going for it, when it comes to dealing with our problem of stuff—that other…

Witnessing the ascendancy of the Machine, Lewis understood what was at stake. He watched this ideology sweep across his society and take hold in its schools, and he keenly felt…

What struck me most in reading the book was the role of risk-taking and personal leadership in an organization’s founding phase, and the necessity of consolidating and institutionalizing its vision,…

I’ve also been struck by the number of people in the book-producing-and-selling business who are uninterested in their product. On the retail end, there was the manager of a bookstore…

We’ve recently started the annual tradition (three years going strong!) of holding a wild game dinner with our friends and church community. Each family brings a dish harvested from the…

We live in fractured days, lacking in harmony, civility, and comity. “Comity,” an old word for courtesy and kindness, is related etymologically to the Sanskrit word for “smile.” As it…

Why does my third child, my little son whom I mention above, need me to be in physical contact with him while he reads? Because it helps him feel warm…

I did some research with the help of a “dumb phone finder” which told me the functions, network compatibilities, and reviews of the available flip phones and other simplicity-oriented devices.…

County Highway is not county-specific. It’s for all of America outside major cities. Well, outside of New York and Los Angeles, for sure. In the second issue, there’s a piece…

Gatsby’s character yearns for the infinite; he sparkles with something unusual in the midst of the lavish wealth and chaotic parties of Long Island’s frivolities. Gatsby has “one of those…

Like Bob Dylan, Hamer’s life was marked by protest and songs of protest. Her protests, however, grew from her personal experience on the ground in Mississippi. Kate Clifford Larson’s Walk…

The children’s pastor made his point about who was serious or not when it came to serving God. He could have closed the service, and I would have been out…

Lauck is unambiguous that he is engaged in a project of “civic retrieval,” to “remind us of our ideals and how many battles we have already won” and promote the…

The overall message is: here, readers, we have discovered a whole new mysterious island filled with these strange savages, previously unexplored. You wouldn’t believe what they’re doing out there! So…

Modernity has become permanently liquid; it no longer seeks solid replacements to the pre-modern world but finds greater value in transience, not just of institutions and things, but of human…