Hello!

I’m writing to you from my neighborhood coffee shop, essential boundary-making for me as I wrap up any final work to-dos before today’s start of my internet break. When I get home I’ll toss in a load of laundry, make next week’s list of reminders for the kiddos of what to do while I’m gone, and spend a good chunk of my afternoon packing as lightly as possible (this is my philosophy). Tomorrow I leave for Italy! And after a week, I return for one day (hopefully to do another load of laundry), and then return back to the airport with my family for ten days in Costa Rica. Yes, I am sure I’ll experience metaphorical whiplash. But I’m psyched to live out of a backpack for an extended time again, one of my favorite things to do.

As I mentioned already, I may or may not post photos while traveling — we’ll see. If I do, it may be on Instagram (I have many, many feelings about the platform and I’m fairly certain my days on there are numbered), but I’ll almost certainly post at least a few photos here*.

This edition of 5QT is unofficially my “Gone Fishin’” post for the next four weeks of The Commonplace… Feel free to enjoy the archives, but I definitely recommend spending more time offline if you can! I’ll be here again with you soon.

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. I’m super grateful for the kind feedback many of you shared regarding why I think you should take an internet break, too. If you want to nerd out more on this topic, you might appreciate this, this, this, this, and this.

2.  If you adore Wendell Berry as much as me (and I know many of you do), you’ll enjoy this lengthy interview. Pour a cup of something and settle in for this one.

3. To pair with my recent thoughts on embodiment and really living where you live, I appreciated John Pattinson’s reasons why he started reading his local paper this year. You could also add in this perspective of remembering the spheres (“These are political tomatoes. This is political tomato sauce”), as well as this indie series on American suburbia — though you’ll want to chase that last one with something hopeful, like this.

4. “Dumbledore once said that the people who are best suited to power are the ones who have never sought it, and I kind of think Jesus Jobs are the same way.” Yes, yes, yes. Claire says the quiet part out loud, and I’m here for it.

5. And finally, a few of you have emailed me asking to elaborate more on the traditional transcendentals — the true, good, and beautiful — and what’s meant by them. A great question, and it’s something I hope to unpack more in the second half of the year. In the meantime, you might appreciate Fr. Mike’s distilled explanation, and why they’re the essentials for human flourishing.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

• Uprooted, by Grace Olmstead

Quotable 💬

“Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.”

— D.H. Lawrence #

What do you consider yourself? 🤔

I thought this was a more interesting way to query the general age demographics of the readership here than simply asking for your age. I’m not very surprised by these results, but the diversity of ages still makes me smile! (…And if you’re curious, I’d put myself if the largest demographic represented.)

Find this week’s poll here.

Quick Links 🔗

• Create your own Rule of Life

• Subscribe to A Drink With a Friend

Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

On the first day of fall this year (September 22 for those of us in the northern hemisphere), what do you hope to say you accomplished during this summer? What can you do today to make that more likely?

Have a good month! I’ll be back here soon,

Tsh

p.s. I’m woefully terrible at correspondence with readers. Truly. This is why I appreciate this analog responder more than I wish I did.

*I’m very, very new to micro.blog but I’m enjoying the space so far—it rather feels like it was made for well-intentioned curmudgeons like me.