Tag: community

Harrowing Times Call for Ordinary Measures

Ordinary practices may not seem to warrant the kind of energy and attention we devote to global and international affairs, especially given the present calamity. But they most certainly do. After all, even the biggest tasks—including the call to partner with God to rule, bless, and love the world—are accomplished one step at a time.

Actions Speak Louder than Words, or a Midwestern Accent

On return trips to Illinois, or when talking to relatives on the phone, I can tell the difference. Life is a little slower where I grew up, and the people are often more polite and considerate of others. I know from experience how considerate they can be.

Seeing the Midwest New: A Review of The Everlasting People

It is perhaps that personal search for contentment that makes this book a notable contribution to the literature on the American racial problem: Milliner’s “penitent Midwest regionalism” is first of all an attempt to heal within himself the disease and discontentment produced in those of us who have been told that what matters about us is that we are white.

A Good Party: A Review of Breaking Ground

A Good Party, Tara Isabella Burton suggests, is “a place where bonds of friendship, fostered in a spirit of both charity and joy, serve as the building blocks for communal life overall.” With 52 contributors filling almost 500 pages, we’re speaking of something close to a block party, one at which we run into some familiar faces, meet a number of wonderful new people, and even glimpse a few Almost Famous People.

Substitution and Exchange

If such substitution and exchange were genuinely possible, would we agree with Lewis that no gift was more gladly given? Would we too readily assume we could bear another’s burden and so sink ourselves under more than we could carry? Or, would our burdens be lightened by such sharing?

Livin’ la Vida Litúrgica

A final benefit of the liturgical lifestyle is its uniting force. Liturgical and sanctoral calendars vary among Christian confessions, echoing more divisive pieties and doctrines. But when the things Christians have in common include commoner things—walks and bonfires, buns and roses—we have one more point of connection.

Life Under Sycamores

Frank Mulder is preaching the same Gospel. Pictures of Frank Mulder make him look like he could be a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, on a bicycle, planting sycamores instead of apple trees, helping people, one by one, break free from the threefold madness of money, planning, and crowds.

The Road Taken

Sometimes an important change becomes evident only in retrospect - not while it’s happening across quiet broken days alone in a house while autumn succumbs to shadow and cold.

On Talking About the Weather

Nashville, TN. “If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather.” So says Mrs. Dashwood...

From Technological Nostalgia to Technological Faithfulness

I bought myself an iPad in August 2016, and to say that it changed my life would be only a slight overstatement. For several...