Five books for being thoughtfully stuck at home
I’ve spent way too much time guessing what the next few weeks will look like. Knowing most of us are stuck firmly in ‘distancing’ mode, I find myself striving to turn my mind from worrying to learning. And, I read yesterday that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet during the Black Plague (he most certainly didn’t have young kids). Nonetheless, can we find our own ways to use these weeks reflecting, evaluating, even broadening, ourselves and others?
Here are five recommendations for our current affair:
1) The Hidden Art of Homemaking
Wife to theologian Francis Schaeffer, and mother to four children, Edith Schaeffer writes about ‘creative ideas for enriching everyday life.’ She notes we should all have a growing ‘sensitivity to beauty’, and each chapter discusses a category of ‘everyday life’: music, painting, cooking, gardening, interior design & clothing. What better way to spend our time at home than learning how to find ‘vividly expressed creativity in daily life.’
Sociologist Marc Dunkelman argues that technology has devalued ‘middle-ring’ relationships: those we see, but never know. If you’re interested in how ‘neighborliness’ has changed, this is a captivating read .Nearly a quarter of Americans have no on to confide in, and a third of us have “never socialized” with a neighbor. As we’re all at home, we must find (spatially-appropriate) ways to seek and lean into our community, and to make sure our neighbors are okay. Let’s not forget to check-in on those near us, as neighbors may be facing needs we can easily meet.
Neighborliness is not the same as hospitality. Many cultures have traditions of generous hospitality to strangers and guests. But widespread voluntary assistance among unrelated people who happen to live alongside one another has been rare. In the U.S. however, it has (previously) been ubiquitous.
Tish Harrison Warren is an Anglican priest and writer. Her work here teaches us to narrow in on often overlooked moments and routines, and ‘embrace the sacred in the ordinary’. Each chapter highlights a regular, ‘ordinary’ behavior, many central to the home — making the bed, brushing teeth, eating leftovers, even fighting with your spouse. I suspect we’ll all be overwhelmed by the household redundancy these next few weeks, so we may need a reminder to point us toward deeper meaning.
Our bodies, our pleasures, our fears, our fatigue, our friendships, our fights — these are in fact the stuff of our formation and transformation into the frail but infinitely dignified creatures we were meant to be and shall become.
Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure or power but a quest for meaning.
Victor Frankl’s small, iconic book should be read once a year. An Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Frankl writes on his Auschwitz experience, and that the quest for meaning is what sustained those who survived. We live in an affluent, narcissistic society that is being turned upside down by this pandemic. I read that part of society’s panic is that death has replaced sex as the new unmentionable — maybe part of our panic is coming to terms with our mortality. Let’s instead pause to examine what our lives may mean.
5) Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Disclosure: I haven’t deleted all my social accounts. But, I know my state of mind after a night of cooking & wine with my wife is far, far healthier than scrolling for an hour on Twitter. The feedback loop for ‘breaking news’ has gone to zero, and we’re just inundated (especially now) with intentionally horrific snippets. Most often, I need to put it down and spend quality time with someone I love, and then, I feel great. Some of Lanier’s chapters that seem particularly notable today, are Social Media is Destroying Your Capacity for Empathy and Social Media is Undermining Truth.
We hope you’ll buy these from the bookshop, but as long as you’re reading, that’s enough for us.
Please stay safe out there, everyone. Read > watch!
Jonathan
