The Weekly October 23, 2023
Hi all,
This week was a quicker turnaround on the newsletter than will be typical—last week's was late and this week I'm trying to get back to having these out on Monday.
We spent the weekend in Storm Lake with some dear friends that we met almost ten years ago while Joie did an apprenticeship at an organic farm in northwestern Iowa near Ida Grove, IA. I actually have written about the place we were staying before. It was one of the first essays I published as editor-in-chief at Mere O, in fact.
After we got back last night and were unpacking, Joie set the following on our kitchen table as the bounty we returned home with from our visit:
So that's kale, butternut squash, onions, and watermelon from Heidi's garden. It's also three handmade wooden swords that James made for our boys. The knife looking thing on the left is what we hacked together after a mishap with that piece that cut off the original handle. That piece and the short sword both came from a dead ash tree on their property. The katana at bottom came from a walnut tree, also on their property.
On Saturday morning, we started with pancakes made on a small outdoor stove they have and homemade elderberry jam. Then I wandered around a little bit and a little while later I saw James, Wendell, and Austin walking back from the edge of the property, James carrying a chainsaw and Wendell and Austin carrying slabs of ash. We took those into James's workshop and then with a tablesaw, belt sander, and some small hand tools he had they started putting the swords together. Here's Wendell smoothing out the handle on one of the swords:
One of the losses we experience in a society of heightened loneliness and diminished trust is that often our young people grow up with extremely few trusted, stable adults in their lives, and so the experiences they get to have and especially the skills they can learn end up being quite limited.
One of the ways this family has blessed us is through the competencies they have that we lack. I don't have a tablesaw or a belt sander, though after watching James work this weekend I think I'd enjoy having both. At one point he said he never regrets spending time working with wood. I think I understand that a bit more now. In any case, friends like these and weekends like the one we just enjoyed have been a blessing because they allow our kids to see other safe, trusted adults that aren't their parents or other family members and get to learn from being around them. Wendell didn't just use the chisel to shape the handle; he also got to use the torch to burn the wood to give it that darkened appearance. I don't have those tools or skills. But we have friends who do. And so our kids get to grow up knowing not just what we know, but what our friends know, which is a delight.
Books
I picked up Benedict XVI's book on the church fathers while at the Touchstone conference. It is, unsurprisingly, excellent. What is especially nice about the volume is that it is only 200 pages but covers around 25 of the fathers. So if you're looking for something in-depth and extensive on, say, Origen, this isn't it. But if you want rich, brief reflections that also introduce you to the fathers, this volume is fantastic.
Another great book I'm reading: John Andrew Bryant's A Quiet Mind to Suffer With. Bryant has struggled with OCD at times in the past and rights of it in a riveting, wrenching way that is nonetheless pervaded throughout by an awareness of the Gospel. This passage is representative of the book:
And I mean this seriously. No one should walk back in the Past naively. The Past, in conjunction with such annihilating forces as shame, fear, Affliction, and our dependence on ourselves has a very real power to cross out, swallow up, snuff out.
I have only been able to go back into What Happened, and with it the active threat of annihilation and being swallowed up, because such things as Scripture, prayer, friends, therapy, time, and writing have secured for me a surefootedness and generosity with What Happened that was not available to me when it was my shrieking and vivid present tense. I've only been able to go into the Past with the understanding that Mercy has been offered. I have only been able to go back into What Happened with the patient, quiet understanding of who Christ is and who I am, where I'm going and what I'm supposed to be doing.
Memory offers such a profound threat to the self that the only safe way back into What Happened is with understanding won for me by hearing what someone else has done. I can only go back into the unmentionable with a patient, quiet under- standing that has been
My honor in shame,
My courage in fear,
My obedience in dread, My endurance in Affliction,
My withstanding of History,
My composure in distress,
My shield in accusation,
My deliverance from the hardness of my own heart.
Articles
I love this story about a woman who bought her local small-town Nebraska newspaper so much.
Is It Wrong to Cure Blindness? by Francesca Block in The Free Press
Apple's Mother Nature Ad: It's Protestant Paganism by Glen Scrivener at The Keller Center
Church community is a school for old and young in the discipleship of Christ. True education is a matter of awakening the soul, of quickening the inner life so that the whole person is attuned to Christ and his cause. All members must learn to do concentrated work with mind and spirit to the full extent of their capabilities. If we love Christ, we will take an interest in the work of God throughout history and will have concern for the social, political, and cultural movements of our time.
Bruderhof schools seek to provide each child with a happy and constructive childhood and to educate the whole child: this includes rigorous academic instruction; craftsmanship and practical skills; singing and the arts; unstructured play and sportsmanship; and the experience of nature. Beyond this, history and literature are taught in a way that traces connections across centuries and cultures.
Our schools emphasize respect, self-discipline, and a strong work ethic. But what matters most is that children develop their capacity to love by caring for and serving others.
Are You a Fictosexual? by Katherine Dee in Unherd
On Artificialism by Tara Ann Thieke on Substack
Elsewhere
Nothing new to report here—the weekend was full, last week was also quite full, and we're now gearing up for EOY stuff with Mere O and I have a book to write for IVP. So life is full. Prayers are appreciated.
In Christ,
~Jake