5 Quick Things #310

home libraries, grown-up kids, pro-natal commercials, & being weird

Hey there,

The sun is rising but it's still more dark than dawn as I type this. The lights are now festooned on our tree, but the ornaments remain in our attic (though Kyle will bring them down later today so we can slowly begin to hang them tonight). I'm sipping coffee from my 15-year-old holiday mug I bought on a whim in a grocery store back when we lived in Turkey, one in a set of four that remains our collective favorite. The first purple candle is significantly shorter than the rest and has dripped a few blobs of wax on the coffee table, and tonight we're watching Home Alone. This week and next also feel remarkably busy, with something on the calendar nearly every day.

It must be near the end of the first week of Advent! ‘Tis the season.

Tree In Town Square Drawing, by Stevan Dohanos (1948)

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. New episode of A Drink With a Friend! We have more options than possible during the holidays to read, watch, and listen to. Seth and I share what we’re currently imbibing in this department, along with what's in our queues for Christmas.

2. Earlier this week I published my next installment on the Four Cardinal Virtues, this time on the most misunderstood of the virtues. It's also fitting during a season of fasting when the whole world is feasting: “Pleasures aren’t bad. In fact, the entire need for the virtue of temperance is because rightly-ordered pleasures are good! It’s that ‘rightly-ordered’ that matters, and what’s also impossible to do without habit formation.”

3. Home libraries are important: they're more than just a collection of paperbacks you haven't yet taken to the thrift store or otherwise don't know what to do with—they're the heartbeat of a home and a family's legacy (which is why I'm so glad my mom never tossed my own childhood books). Nadya Williams beautifully states why this matters to kids: “Children who grow up in homes that are filled with books and a love of reading are likely to not be able to imagine another kind of life. Children who grow up in homes that do not delight in the written word, on the other hand, must discover such a love for themselves, on their own, perhaps later on.”

4. It's all well and good to want to step away from ‘the machine’ of the tech-riddled culture—but how? What are the concrete steps?

Ruth Gaskovski

and

Peco

give us two lists of great practicals for “how to be weird,” both in public and private. Does doing any of this matter? “The instinctive answer might be simply ‘no’, but when we consider that all meaningful change must start with small actions, even when they appear futile, it is a resounding ‘yes’!”

5. And finally,

Maile Silva

beautifully captures what becomes both the lament and praise of a good mother: a grown-up child who can care for herself: “But what I did recognize at that moment is that I am no longer the necessary cog that makes her life hum along.” …I know all too well right now the source of those happy tears.

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📻

My Advent in the Background playlist

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Quotable 💬

“I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”

-G.K. Chesterton

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Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

There's an obvious correct answer here, and I'm glad to see most of you are on the right side with this one.

• No: 66.3%

• Yes: 33.7%

Find this week’s poll here.

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Quick Links 🔗

• 📐Create your own Rule of Life

• 🎧 Listen to A Drink With a Friend

• 📔 Order First Light & Eventide

• 🇬🇷 Join Me in Greece: June 20-30, 2024

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Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

What item can you cross off your to-do list because you don’t actually need to do it?

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Have a great weekend,

- Tsh

p.s. This is still my all-time favorite commercial, but I'm glad to add this one to my (very short) list as well. Lovely.