5 Quick Things #249 🍻
Inklings, baking, should-have-reads, & drinks with friends
Hello!
It’s good to be back with you, writing this little letter for your Friday inbox… I’m on my second cup of coffee, I’m being interrupted every ten seconds by a 12-year-old who wants to practice his spelling words with me, and I’m pretending like it feels like autumn outside my window even though we all know what it really feels like*. Things are just as they should be.
We’re on our second week of the school year around here, and as always, it’s been a whirlwind rush of ordering books, last-minute realizations that shoes are too small, and a general theme of who’s-taking-who-where-at-what-time-now?. It’s good to be back to a semblance of a routine, but it’ll still take a few weeks until it’s settled into our bones. You know how it is.
*a humid summer-still-lingering morning that feels more sauna than shivery, dangitall
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. 📻 ADWAF: We Missed You in Italy 📻 A Drink With a Friend is back! Seth and I recap Italy, but don't worry, it's NOT done in a way that bores you if you weren't there... We reflect on why it's always true that ordinary conversations with new friends over gelato are more meaningful than touring even the most jaw-dropping cathedrals and monasteries (though that's great, too). We're ALL made for in-person connection, and this is why having a drink with a friend at your neighborhood cafe matters so much.
2. Did you know that a lot of us pretend to have read books we, in fact, have not? Not surprisingly, this is mostly true of classics, those “should have already read by now” best-of lists. Ring true with you?
3. My friend Erin doesn’t publish anymore much these days, but when she does, it’s a banger. This gem from March about why we’re not monarchs might be just the thing you need to read today: “And so, this season has been hard. I’m reminded that hard does not mean wrong, or bad, or futile. Just hard.”
4. Those of us bookworms well-versed in Inklings lore already know how Lewis and Tolkien influenced each other — but it’s still lovely to remember the significance of their gatherings with fellow like-minded lovers of stories and simple pleasures, like the earthbound Narnian hobbits they were.
5. And finally, I loved this winsomely-told story of her “excruciatingly slow journey into baking.”
Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📺
Endeavour (I’m only on season 2, but I love British shows where each episode feels like a feature-length film…)
Quotable 💬
“Saints cannot exist without a community, as they require, like all of us, nurturance by a people who, while often unfaithful, preserve the habits necessary to learn the story of God.”
— Stanley Hauerwas #
How do you spend two free hours? 🤔
In late July (in the most recent 5QT before my break) I asked you how you’d spend an afternoon with an unexpected two free hours. I knew you were my people.
Find this week’s poll here.
Quick Links 🔗
Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔
Who could you call, write, or connect in person with this weekend?
Have a good weekend,
Tsh
p.s. Sigh… Gen-X ASMR. Enjoy.
Thanks, Tsh, for the Link to the Lu article. For me a new writer. I've already sent her piece about the Inklings to the men in my reading group -- we've been meeting now for 41 years.
God is evermore gracious than I had expected.
Chris
Welcome back! I look forward to listening to your episode about Italy. Love Endeavour, currently reading the original Morse series (really, not just pretending). And that video was awesome and would absolutely make no sense to my children, or possibly even my youngest sibling. Good luck with the back-to-school rhythm -- we’re 5 weeks in with our 3 kids and it’s finally setting in.