“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.
“Simone Weil Against Distraction: The French thinker conceived of attention as akin to prayer” – April Owens in The Hedgehog Review: ““Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer,” wrote the philosopher, political activist, and quasi-Catholic mystic Simone Weil in Gravity and Grace, one of her posthumously published works. For Weil, to pay full attention was to pray, and to pray was to pay full attention. Each presupposed the other. More than a pragmatic cognitive tool, attention, in her view, was nothing less than a gateway to the highest forms of human expression. Why should we care about attention? To be awake and aware in this third decade of the twenty-first century is to have concerns about the decay of this human capacity. Abetted by algorithms designed to hijack our deep psychological craving for novel stimuli, our smartphones, those digital slot machines in our pockets, deliver us an unending stream of amusement. In doing so, they rescue us from boredom by flooding the mental space that could be used to cultivate attention.”
“Trump’s Refugee Policy ‘Is Slamming the Door on Persecuted Christians’” – Harvest Prude in Christianity Today: “Even when politics becomes a hot-button topic at Scott Venable’s nondenominational church outside Dallas, there’s one issue that brings members together: refugees. The Northwood Church pastor recalls two volunteers from his church, one a Black Democrat and the other a white Republican, joining forces to heft a couch up a flight of stairs for a newly resettled family. ‘They both vote opposite each other, but there they were,’ he said, ‘serving and loving.’ The Keller, Texas, congregation has a long history of supporting refugees, with church members signing up to join a Good Neighbor Team, a program that welcomes new arrivals, raises money for resettlement, and recruits volunteers to help. But fewer Christians and fellow persecuted minorities will be able to find welcome from churches like Northwood with the Trump administration calling the shots. Next year, the White House plans to admit the fewest refugees since the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. The reduced ceiling of 7,500 admittances lands at half the previous record low of 15,000 (proposed by the first Trump administration before President Donald Trump left office and temporarily continued by the Biden administration).”
“Seal Bearing Ancient Language Found in Jerusalem Confirms Bible Story in the Old Testament” – Stacy Liberatore in The Daily Mail: “Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient Assyrian inscription that may shed light on historical events described in the Old Testament. The discovery, a tiny 2.5-centimeter pottery shard inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform, the world’s oldest written Semitic language, was uncovered near the Temple Mount and dates back approximately 2,700 years. Researchers from Bar-Ilan University deciphered the inscription, revealing what appears to be a complaint from the Assyrian empire regarding a late payment expected from the kingdom of Judah. The text specifies the first of the month of Av, the 11th month of the Hebrew calendar, as the due date for the delayed tribute, suggesting a formal communication between the Assyrian empire and the kings of Judah. Scholars noted that this could correspond to events recorded in 2 Kings 18 and 19, during the reign of King Hezekiah. These biblical passages describe Hezekiah being required to pay 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold to King Sennacherib of Assyria, a tribute meant to secure Judah from Assyrian aggression.”
“The Institutions of Tomorrow: Leaning in to what this fragile moment invites” – Anne Snyder in Comment: “It begins with an assault on the familiar—a twisting of an institution’s character from the outside in. Then emergency meetings. A memo blitz. Creeping uncertainty about who has your back, and where this heightened vigilance is coming from. Funds once assumed secure—gone. Layoffs follow under the banner of prudence, chemo for a narrated malignancy within. New faces, fluent in a code that flattens and patronizes the old guild’s norms. Ultimatums descend from on high, only to stall midair—administrators left to decipher the ever-shifting rules without the authority to enforce them. As clarity dissolves, vigilance hardens into habit. The ordinary rituals of governance give way to something more exhausting: reading tone, parsing words, guarding what you share . . . and with whom. Self-censorship seeps in, redirecting energy from the shared task to reflexive self-protection. Across sectors, such is the convulsion that many who work at once-trusted institutions have felt with eerie uniformity this year—beginning in government agencies, leapfrogging through universities, and winding through the engines of science and medicine, the corporate sphere, the media, and yes, religious institutions as well. Flank by flank, the choreography—and, more crucially, the psychology—of dismantling has unfolded with the same grim pattern.”
“Four Indigenous Authors Reflect on Native American Heritage” – T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Terry Wildman, Randy Woodley, and H. Daniel Zacharias at InterVarsity Press Extra: “In this article, four authors share wisdom from their stories, cultures, and faith journeys. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Terry Wildman, Randy Woodley, and H. Daniel Zacharias offer reflections on what they treasure most about their heritage, what they wish others understood, and why Indigenous wisdom is vital for the future of the church and the world.”
“A group of us ditched our smartphones for a month. It changed us” – Brittany Shammas in The Washington Post: “On the day I would become reacquainted with T9 texting and the satisfying snap of a phone flipping open, I woke up in a frenzy. Just hours remained until I had to trade my iPhone for a flip phone, and navigating life in 2025 with technology from 2005 called for some preparation. I stocked up on pens and notebooks and disposable cameras. I studied D.C.’s new bus routes. I went on the hunt for a recorder, borrowing one my editor unearthed from her desk drawer but had long since forgotten how to use. And I started warning people in my life that to talk to me, they might have to actually call me.”
Music: Jeff Johnson, “Jesus Prayer,” from Lauds
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Matthew Erickson 