“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.
“Reaching the West with Wonder” – James Wood in Mere Orthodoxy: “Tim Keller could have chosen to finish his life by resting from his missiological labors. Instead, ever-evangelist that he was, he continued to explore what a missional encounter with contemporary culture should look like. To this end he produced one of his final publications, How to Reach the West Again, in which he sought to offer his final programmatic word to guide the church in North America in the days ahead. I came to this work somewhat late. It was published during COVID, and I had other things on my mind at the time. And at that point I had largely turned elsewhere for guidance for our cultural moment. However, when I finally gave it a read, there was one key point that struck me: Keller’s acknowledgment of the realities to which many have come to refer with the label ‘negative world.’ Keller argues that we have entered a ‘new era’ in many places in the West….I was reminded of Keller’s book recently while reading Rod Dreher’s latest book, Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, which offers an alternative diagnosis and set of proposals for how to reach the contemporary West with the Christian faith. Dreher makes the case that we are not going to argue people into the faith today. Interestingly, both Keller and Dreher invite us to turn to the witness of the early church for inspiration; but what they draw from that era reveals the fundamental differences in their respective proposals.”
“The Waters of Lethe Flow From Our Digital Streams” – L. M. Sacasas at The Convivial Society: “Consider two related experiences. The first is the experience of setting out to accomplish a specific task on your digital device of choice, and then finding, after several minutes of aimless wandering from app to app or tab to tab, that you no longer remember what it was that you set out to accomplish in the first place. The second is the experience that starts with sitting down in the late evening, maybe to catch your breath after a day of work. You have other things you need or desire to do, but you decide to check your phone while you give yourself this short break. An hour goes by, maybe two or maybe three. You never get to that thing you wanted to do. You don’t quite feel like you got much of a break either. At various points you thought about pulling away from the feed, but you couldn’t quite manage it. Your will power could not achieve escape velocity from the inertial pull of the infinite scroll. I presume most if not all of you will readily recognize these experiences. What they have in common are the qualities of aimlessness and forgetfulness. And I wonder whether they do not present us with an important clue into the nature of our digital condition. A condition that might be characterized by various words—burnout, exhaustion, alienation, and outrage among them. To these, I would also add lethargy, personal and perhaps also cultural. Might we not, for example, characterize the doom scrolling state as fundamentally a state of lethargy in which we are unable to rouse ourselves to action? But if so, why? What induces this state of lethargy?”
“Echoing Gospel account, traces of ancient garden found under Church of Holy Sepulchre” – Rosella Tercatin in The Times of Israel: “Some 2,000 years ago, olive trees and grapevines likely grew on the land where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem stands today, new archaeological excavations at the site have revealed. The findings mirror a description of the area included in the Gospel of John. ‘Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus,’ reads John 19:19-20. The presence of olive trees and grapevines was identified through archaeobotanical and pollen analysis on samples retrieved from the excavations under the floor of the ancient basilica. From the archaeological context and strata, it belongs to the pre-Christian era, however, radiocarbon testing has not yet been carried out. ‘We know that the area was already part of the city at the time of Emperor Hadrian when the Romans built Aelia Capitolina,’ said Prof. Francesca Romana Stasolla of the Sapienza University of Rome, referring to the Roman city erected on the ruins of Jerusalem in the first half of the 2nd century CE. ‘However, at the time of Jesus, the area was not part of the city yet.'”
“Tiny Edens: What Grew in a Medieval Monastery’s Garden” – Danièle Cybulskie at Medievalists.net: “Spring is finally here, and with it that deep, human urge to dig in the dirt. In the Middle Ages, gardening was an essential part of life—especially if you lived in a monastic community. Some monasteries, like Benedictine ones, were encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible, which meant extensive gardens to satisfy all of the community’s needs (both internal and often external). Here are five garden elements you’d regularly find on a monastery’s grounds.”
“Attending to Plants, People, and Place” – Alex Sosler in Front Porch Republic: “I’m not very good at paying attention. My wife would say you either are paying attention or you aren’t. ‘Not very good’ isn’t a category for attention. At least I think that’s what she says. I’m usually not listening. ‘Paying’ is an interesting word to describe attention. It’s a costly language—like love. It takes discipline and work, comes with costs and obligations. The French philosopher Simone Weil once wrote, ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ I’m not very good at prayer, either, if you are wondering. Same reason. I have mixed attention. Part of me wants to defend myself. I tend to see in black and white. But I think in color. My thought life is vivid—imagining, scheming, dreaming, planning. ‘This is who I am!’ I want to exclaim. I’m cerebral, academic, imaginative. But I’m also smart enough to know God made a colorful world, full of life and wonder. I often miss it. I know the world is worthy of all the attention we can afford to give it.”
“Why Christian Men Need Friendship, Not Just ‘Accountability'” – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies: “‘Would you like to meet together once a week for some accountability?’ To quote The Godfather, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. This older gentleman had listened in our men’s small group as I’d shared some of my struggles. He was godly, compassionate, and proactive. Even though we didn’t know each other that well, he was eager to help me in the war against sin and temptation. We met. I wish I could say I remember more about our time together, but mostly I remember the feeling of dread that would set in roughly 24 hours before our scheduled time. Had it been a good week? Had I ‘slipped’? How much detail would he ask for? Did this or that moment in the past week count as something I needed to confess? Even as I knew this accountability was for my good, it felt more like an annual dentist appointment than a meeting of friends. We didn’t end up meeting that often. Life rhythms changed, and eventually zip codes did too. I wish I could say those coffees were the beginning of a rich mentorship that continues to this day. But they weren’t. And frankly, I’m not sure that was really ever the point. The point was accountability, not necessarily friendship. Did God use these few meetings to help me? Probably! But there was always something missing from this season. And I suspect many other men can relate.”
Music: Jeff Johnson, “The Jesus Prayer,” from Lauds
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Matthew Erickson 