Status Updates: November
Welcome to Status Updates, my once a month update on the things I am taking in and that are influencing my thinking at this time.
What I am reading in books
At the urging of Thomas Merton (whose The Seven Storey Mountain and The Monastic Life I finished in the recent weeks), I am reading (and reflecting on) Thomas A Kempis’ medieval masterpiece The Imitation of Christ. When reading theology, I have a habit of marking pages with ideas and lines I want to revisit, but that is proving difficult in Kempis; I am marking nearly every page! It is such a rich text, and lives up to the translator’s claim of it being the most important book in Christianity after Scripture.
One of my most cherished habits in reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings every fall. I love all things Tolkien, and the dive into Middle Earth on a yearly basis is an important grounding activity for me. Usually, I start that process after Thanksgiving, but this year, inspired by the quite wonderful Rings of Power television series, I decided to start early by reading some of the more obscure Tolkien texts. So, I am reading The Silmarillion, which I haven’t picked up in three or four years. Up next will be The Hobbit, then the trilogy itself.
Finally, I am making consistent progress through Chernow’s Washington, in anticipation of a new stack of history I picked up at a bookstore recently. And also, the latest issue Plough Quarterly showed up this week.
What I am reading online
Thank goodness, Alan Jacobs has returned to some limited blogging at his newly renamed space, The Homebound Symphony, and so of course his voice is echoing loudly in my ears again. He shared this short bit of verse from Auden recently, which really captured well for me an attitude I’ve long held about a Christian duty towards politics and leaders:
Whoever rules, our duty to the City
is loyal opposition, never greening
for the big money, never neighing after
a public image.
I’ve added David French’s The French Press to my regular reading list. I don’t agree with David on many things, but goodness is he an important, serious voice right now for a right that is missing his brand of faith-based, sober and consistent commentary. Any serious person of the left should be reading him and Andrew Sullivan regularly.
What I am watching
Andor is still on-going, and my goodness is it just fantastic. Check my blog posts below for more thoughts on it. I was also on my favorite podcast, The Cantina Cast, last week to talk about my three favorite moments from the first half of this season. Give it a listen! Additionally, Tale of the Jedi, a series of animated shorts focused on Ahsoka and Dooku, aired a couple of weeks ago, and really made me want to rewatch The Clone Wars again soon.
I’m on slow rewatch of Game of Thrones now that House of the Dragon has wrapped. Its enjoyable to rewatch this series in light of HotD.
But also, its basketball season, which means the NBA is on our tv more evenings than not around here.
What I’m listening to
I don’t know if I’ve recommended Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast before, but it just wrapped the final season, and man is it good. I have spent the last few months listening to all ten seasons, and just started the final, long season on the Russian Revolution. Being a sucker for Russian history, its an understatement to say I am excited. If you are a history fan, you should give it a listen!
I’ve been on a folk/country/southern rock kick recently, partly inspired by a visit to Nashville a few weeks ago. Highlights have included The Oh Hellos (probably my favorite band right now), Bob Dylan in his Nashville Skyline/John Wesley Harding/Blood on the Tracks phase, and The Black Keys. I’m on the search for more introspective and intelligent folk music in the vein of the Oh Hellos and Josh Garrels; if you know of any, please pass the recommendations on!
Blog Posts this month
“We become just by the practice of just actions”
times change and things stay the same
a cultural norm of free speech
What to watch for here
I have big plans for this newsletter over the next year. I’ve made it known here before my admiration for the long running project of Paul Kingsnorth at his own Substack, The Abbey of Misrule. I am hoping to imitate him a bit, by shifting my work here to a long-running series of interconnected essays, arranged around a variety of topics. “The Politics of Jesus”, which has 3-4 installments left, will be the opening salvo in this project. Look for more to come soon as I flesh this idea out.