The Stump

We have wrought a strange and fantastically complicated world for ourselves. But we can know how well we are interfacing with it by its fruits: a terrifyingly effective machinery, but spasms of pain in our arms and backs.

Fertility rates are low. After going through the pregnancy of our first child, I’m surprised they aren’t lower. Many young people lack the “why” to endure the cultural pessimism around childrearing.

The truth is, the Amish have had to adapt and innovate and negotiate the changing world. The truth is, the Amish are a people of imagination. Perhaps not “imagination” as popularly conceived but imagination nevertheless.

We do not need crusades for or against “wokeness”—we need people to read actual legislation and weigh in on it. We do not need centralized authorities to make sweeping, political decisions about classrooms and curriculum. We need engaged communities and parents and subject matter experts.

I guess that paradox is what intrigues me about Carry and Dale’s differing personal constitutions and methodologies. I see them appealing to all of us in different ways—whether we have many friends or few, whether our influence is recognized or not—to embark upon the truly influential gift of friendship.

By contrast, developing skill through direct contact with nature increases our confidence, efficacy, and even patience. Although fry cooks have a shorter learning curve than motorcycle mechanics or hockey players, all three experience the freedom of agency and causal influence on the outcome of their work.

Having experienced pregnancy and childbirth with both a traditionally trained OB/GYN and with midwives, the philosophical differences are abundantly clear.

Changing the phrase “field work” to “practicum” is, without more comprehensive action, a perfect illustration of cheap grace. It costs USC nothing more than some online eye-rolling to do.

To know a particular hometown, with its triumphs and tragedies, its gains and losses, its names and namesakes, its heroes and eccentrics, its myths and peculiarities, its landmarks and symbols, its deliberations and disputes, is to know a part of America and to deepen one’s commitment to it.

As populations and employments shift, the South reflects transitions affecting the nation as a whole. Wherever we are, the place around us is changing. Yet it also has a history of its own.