Establishments like The Bookstore, when at their best, are not exclusively or perhaps even primarily in the business of providing people with printed texts. They are places in which proprietors like Tannenbaum foster community in the context of a shared love of the written word. … | Continue reading

I hope pastors read this book. But more than that, I hope it finds its way into the hands of examining chaplains and board elders, of district superintendents and seminary principals. They can do much to shape a culture where pastor-readers become more common. | Continue reading

The 1619 Project states that its purpose is to remember the history of slavery and racism that American schools have sometimes tried to forget. But mostly it teaches students the wrong way to go about remembering. It abuses remembering to promote forgetting America’s history of r … | Continue reading

I interrupted his weed-pulling to gently rebuke him for perceived carelessness regarding his health, but like the mother of Christ, I was the one needing correction—for Pastor was simply “about his Father’s business.” As if to act out our philosophy, he was a “good shepherd,” and … | Continue reading

For many Americans, especially those on the coasts, in cities, and with advanced educations, life has improved in recent decades. Meanwhile, in many rural and interior parts of the country, economic growth has stagnated or declined, along with the population. While America has im … | Continue reading

To the tomb, all life hastens. But while death is ineluctable, the growing good of the world is not. There is an intrinsic vulnerability to civilization (and parenthood), in large part because the beings who comprise it have the capacity both to sustain and destroy it; to be “the … | Continue reading

This Realness, a touch of authentic mythology--much like Niggle who finally saw the Real Tree he had modeled his painting after throughout his life without knowing it--comes alive when the legends are approached the way they were intended to be: as if they were true. Here Myth be … | Continue reading

My infrequent episodes of bringing death to animals have always taken an emotional toll on me. Making a weekly trip to the slaughterhouse for over a decade, as Comis did, seems bound to leave a mark. Can such a wound be redeemed or is the purpose of this pain to dissuade us from … | Continue reading

I’ll be taking the month of June off email and, for the most part, the Internet. FPR will continue publishing essays while I’m away–we have some substantive essays on tap–but my weekly Water Dipper posts will be on hiatus until sometime in July. I’ll be enjoying some good books w … | Continue reading

A number of Werntz’s suggested practices—e.g., regular use of corporate and pre-written prayers, and identifying with a classic confession of faith rather than a mission statement—are already common in many, more traditional Protestant churches and in Roman Catholic churches. Ind … | Continue reading

Woods may be Californian by birth, and a Floridian by residence, but I believe there’s something in his latest comeback capable of stirring the soul of even the most reticent, celebrity-wary Middle American. I would never say that Tiger is us—he’s rich and famous and talented bey … | Continue reading

The old neighbourhoods are not coming back amid the glass and concrete of today’s Shanghai. Half of the Andean countryside is beginning to look less like villages and more like mining settlements whose denizens want to leave. And the last few years have shown that liberty and tru … | Continue reading

All of the biases, all of the bloodlessness, and all the banalities of Tractor Wars, I suggest, are the products of a whole way of thinking about technology, agriculture and the economy, one that values invention over implementation or use, innovation over maintenance or care, an … | Continue reading

We might not use the word “genius” in all these contexts, but the mystery is the same. Where did this exceptional ability come from? Is it just another trait like brown eyes or curly hair? We know only that this aptitude defies our disciplines and formulas and couldn’t have been … | Continue reading

Host:  John Murdock Guest:  Charles “Chuck” Marohn Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns and author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, discusses streets, roads, “stroads,” and the perils of the American traffic system.  A trained engineer himself, Marohn once imbibed th … | Continue reading

The status of NFTs in the world of 2027 depends, in large part, on how well we’re able to incorporate them into our positive vision of the good. We can, and should, step back and question them. But to stay removed from the craze is to abdicate our duty to shape the future in acco … | Continue reading

Stowe’s book is both timeless and timely. Our physical embodiment as human creatures is always essential, but it is especially so amid increasing digitality. The last two years of pandemic-related economic fluctuations and supply-chain instabilities have further driven home the i … | Continue reading

We should certainly turn our attention to making the credentials necessary for economic participation affordable. But so many of those losing the prime years of their life to debt and stress did nothing wrong. I don’t need any other argument to be in favor of student loan forgive … | Continue reading

“Christopher Beha Left the Catholic Church and then Came Back. Now He’s Writing a Book about Why..” Mary Grace Mangano talks with Chris Beha about his sickness, his return to Catholicism, and his love of fiction. “Detroiters Are Not Waiting to Be Saved.” Nate File describes the d … | Continue reading

There is a significant difference between staring at a computer screen and seeing the world through a porch screen. Hailey emphasizes the benefits of seeing from the “threshold between stability and precariousness,” which is nothing like viewing the world from the comfort of a co … | Continue reading

“Spring 2022.” The Berry Center’s spring newsletter has several good pieces, including Wendell Berry’s note of gratitude for the continued practice of local subsistence, in this case manifest during a hog butchering. “The Pandemic Gave Small Farmers an Upper Hand for Once. Now Wh … | Continue reading

If only I had the patience of trees; if only I let time inch me, push me, stretch me ever upward, defying gravity’s pull. My demand for instant responses mocks the good work of time. Trees chasten my fleeting desires that dart hither and thither by slowly pressing, intentionally … | Continue reading

Christians, then, have the proper perspective from which to read literature. We can see the profound truths of literature, be they ancient or modern, “pagan” or Christian. Furthermore, we can also rebut those scholars and interpreters who would rather praise the rage of Achilles … | Continue reading

“Repair and Remain.” Kurt Armstrong shares some wisdom about fidelity that he’s picked up along a winding life: “for twelve years now I’ve had a hybrid operation, juggling a one-man autodidact home-repair business and part-time lay ministry at a little Anglican church in Winnipeg … | Continue reading