We can never ossify the world because it is always moving and changing like the river. Yet we can open ourselves to this ever fluctuating movement. This is manifested in the moment when the angler, fly, and fish are suspended together, held as with the fragile tension of water molecules. This is that something.
“‘Living As Humans in A Machine Age’: Reflections on this Year’s Front Porch Republic Conference.” Dixie Dillon Lane reflects on last week’s conference and puts her finger on what unites the motley group of people who gather here on...
For Kaplan, when comparing two countries and asking why one has succeeded where the other has failed, what matters most is not national policies but “societal dynamics—the strength of the social glue, the nature of relationships across groups, and the role of social institutions.” These are things that manifest (or fail to manifest) at the local level.
Before we totally condemn the Athenians as selfish, entertainment-addicted bad citizens—which, to be fair, they sometimes (or often?) were, just like us—it is worth considering what such shared democratic spaces of entertainment facilitated. And a related question to consider: What might we, as a democracy, gain if we had something similar?
Caitlin Smith Gilson is a philosopher, theologian, poet, and novelist. I originally contacted her to invite her to come on the podcast to discuss the story and movie “Babette’s Feast.” As time went on that topic expanded to a...
I’ve been told that workers have had to step away from the register while checking out paying customers to chase away repeat shoplifters as they hurled all kinds of epithets at them…on top of one elderly worker having a milkshake hurled at her face. As much as middle management feels bad for the workers, there is little within their power to alleviate the situation, as most of the power is in the hands of distant (and indifferent) bureaucrats.
Paul Kingsnorth opened his Friday evening talk by remarking that he traveled 4,000 miles to talk with us about localism. The many talks and conversations that followed over the next day addressed more of the ironies and tensions endemic...
Criticizing the ministry-industrial complex does not mean professional resources have no place in ministry. It is not so much their use as their guiding role in congregational life that prevents churches from prioritizing deeper formation. Information and inspiration are good, but congregations must recognize their insufficiency to foster deep and sustained transformation—and must not confuse tools meant to inform and inspire with formation itself.
"Keep doing what you can to build strong towns": that's the motto of Strong Towns, a citizen-driven, localism-minded urbanist group now over 1,000 members nationwide and beyond.
But a recent article in Current Affairs by Allison Lirish Dean suggests that...
We need to love smaller, more energy-efficient houses and cars in order to love people more. We need to give up much of our casual oil consumption for leisure. We need to love being a little hungry now and then to avoid food waste. We need to create ways of leisure that are joyous and productive, instead of “drowning our troubles away,” as Anthony says.