News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
We've had days this week where the high temp was in the low 20s and days when it was in the mid 50s. So I'm not sure if winter has really arrived yet or not, but I'm holding out hope for a good snow soon.
- In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays about stagnation, war, and tyranny.
- Natasha Burge considers how C.S. Lewis's Narnian fiction might help us imagine how to evade the strictures of the Machine: "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 the loss of what was so hastily displaced and soon forgotten. The medieval worldview that Lewis cherished was replaced by an ideology that breeds nihilism and despair."
- Joshua Pauling reviews a new book on the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship and reflects on building lasting furniture and lasting institutions: "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, so that it outlasts its founders. Such lessons have applicability far beyond the world of furniture."
- Brian Miller wonders why so many new books get published each year when fewer and fewer people actually read them: "The data on readership is dire for those who value books in a culture, especially the numbers for young boys on their bikes. More than half of adults in the U.S. did not read a book to its end in the past year, and an astonishing 10 percent have not read a book in more than ten years."
- Jordan Sillars and Nicholas Ziegenhagen defend the practice of hunting as a way of enjoying food in a theologically and communally responsible fashion: "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 East Texas area, and past menus have included crab, venison, wild pig, crappie, and, of course, squirrel. We tell stories about the harvest of each, and each family explains how the dish was prepared—from start to finish."
This week I read the slim but profound book Foundations of Our Faith and Calling published by the Bruderhof to lay out their way of faith and life. (You can access the book online here.) I've long valued Plough, the magazine the Bruderhof publishes, and this book gives a good overview of their life together in community. I was particularly struck by the understanding of work they articulate:
Work must be indivisible from prayer, prayer indivisible from work. Our work is thus a form of worship, since our faith and daily life are inseparable, forming a single whole. Even the most mundane task, if done as for Christ in a spirit of love and dedication, can be consecrated to God as an act of prayer. To pray in words but not in deeds is hypocrisy.
Work is a command of God and has intrinsic worth. He gave the earth to humankind to enjoy, cultivate, and care for in reverence as good stewards in his stead. Therefore, we honor work on the land. We honor physical work – the exertion of muscle and hand – and the craftsman’s creativity and precision. We honor the activity of the mind and soul too: the inspired work of the artist, the scholar’s exploration of nature and history, the enterprise of the inventor, the skill of the professional. Whatever form our work takes, we are called to do it to the best of our ability in service to the kingdom of God.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro