Poplars in the Sun (1891) by Claude Monet:
The Four Trees (1891) by Claude Monet:
Matthew Crawford (in a comment on Substack):
Apprenticeship is dismissed as being too narrow an education; what is wanted is workers who are flexible and ready to reinvent themselves at any time. But when you go deep into some art or skill, it trains your powers of perception. One becomes more discerning about this particular class of objects or problems. If all goes well, you get initiated into an ethic of caring about what you are doing, usually by the example of some mentor who exemplifies that spirit of craftsmanship. You hear the disgust in his voice as he surveys something done shoddy, or quiet admiration. What I mean to say is that technical education, though narrow in its immediate application, can be understood as part of education in the broadest sense: intellectual and moral formation. And…it offers a crucial counterpoint to the virtual.
Finished reading: Managing Leadership Anxiety by Steve Cuss 📚
“We’re making forts for the ants.”
This Mockingbird interview with Aaron Zimmerman is brimming with wisdom (and grace!). Any aspiring minister would do well to take these words to heart.
currently listening: Thank God We Left the Garden by Jeffrey Martin
I don’t remember the last time an album captivated my imagination the way this one has. The songs are beautifully subdued; Martin’s voice takes center stage, accompanied only by acoustic (and occasionally classical) guitar. The lyrics are poetic, earnest, and existentially-charged. The title means precisely what you’d think it means, and it offers a thematic through line that binds the entire 11-track album together. In my judgment, Thank God We Left the Garden is a masterpiece.
Currently reading: Terrible Beauty: A Story of Calling, Breaking, and the Unmaking that Made Me by Bryan Halferty 📚
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Oliver O’Donovan, on the challenges of actually reckoning with the end of World War II and its complicated legacy:
To remember the end of World War II with historical perspective is to remember the serious initiatives of international law it gave rise to, and to face the painful questions of what has become of them, and what is to become of them. Staged exercises in “remembering” beloved of the ceremonial classes – the journalists, the statesmen and the clergy – may serve only to help us forget the real point. I fear we shall hear a great deal of triumphant reflection on the decisions of 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Germany and (further West) 1941 when the U.S. entered the conflict, while that of August 6th 1945, with all the solemn control that it continues to exercise over our lives, may slip past unnoticed.