Here are Four Great Things from the week of 05/24/2024.

Bible Reading Challenge

This is one rhythm that has not suffered many gaps. Here is what I will use this summer, provided by Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho: Same Page Summer 2024.

No one has to sit under the table of a pastor and gather the crumbs for sustenance, for God has provided a hard-earned way to sit at the table and feast for yourself! And in the same way that skipping breakfast doesn't mean you have to go back and eat that before you can eat lunch, you can jump back in if you miss a day or two.



English Teacher Weekly

I taught high school English for a number of years before homeschooling my girls, so perusing the English Teacher Weekly Substack is nostalgic and keeps me fresh.

This edition covers ideas of the Horror Genre and summer movie reccomendations. The end features a "Hyperlink Garden" where valuable resources amass.



The Stuff of a Well-Lived Life

Another great Substack, The Convivial Society, has commented on their takeaways from Apple's new commercial featuring their newest iPad. There is a machine that flattens all sorts of art an artistic mediums, resulting in the new iPad with its myriad creative capabilities.

To anyone who cares about the ratios of production and consumption, it's cringey.

"The point, to be clear, is not that you and I must cook every meal from scratch or listen only to music we make for ourselves or never use a device that may facilitate the completion of certain tasks. The point is that we ought to resist any vision of the good life in which we are reduced to mere consumers of readily accessible digitally simulated goods or in which human flourishing is indexed solely to the sheer quantity of our techno-economic system’s outputs without reference to their kind and quality."

Skilled Practices as Therapy

This was composed by a genuine favorite of mine: The Blue Collar Scholar. I don't know if it is because Nate Marshall reminds me so much of my brother or what, but I follow his work with deep admiration.

He's philosophical with calluses on his hands, resulting in more common sense and grace than most PhDs.

"Skilled practices as therapy: learn to do something with your hands to

1) build a sense of confidence through competent execution of a skill, and

2) become increasingly dependable to your community and neighbors.

In this way you get outside of your own head to connect with both the material world and the humans around you, and reduce the loneliness that kills."

What I'm working on:

• I just got edits back from a new friend on a blog I've been working on: "Why So Many Bracelets?" I need to find an image for it, so I hope to upload it by Saturday morning!
• I will be taking the month of June off for Great Things—so next week is the last for a month!

Quotable:

“A thing can be true and still be desperate folly."
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

(I was grumpy about reading this one alongside my 6th grader, but it has been the biggest delight!)

Worth the Memory

An Apology

By Anne Bradstreet

To finish what's begun, was my intent,
My thoughts and my endeavours thereto bent;
Essays I many made but still gave out,
The more I mus'd, the more I was in doubt:
The subject large my mind and body weak,
With many more discouragements did speak.
All thoughts of further progress laid aside,
Though oft persuaded, I as oft deny'd,
At length resolv'd, when many years had past,
To prosecute my story to the last;
And for the same, I hours not few did spend,
And weary lines (though lanke) I many pen'd:
But 'fore I could accomplish my desire,
My papers fell a prey to th'raging fire.
And thus my pains (with better things) I lost,
Which none had cause to wail, nor I to boast.
No more I'le do sith I have suffer'd wrack,
Although my Monarchies their legs do lack:
Nor matter is't this last, the world now sees,
Hath many Ages been upon his knees.

What are your great things from the week?