5 Quick Things #370 ⛱️

summer reading, youth group weirdos, larger families, & internet breaks

May 30, 2025

Hey there,

It’s wild to me that it’s almost June — I know it’s cliché to say, but 2025 really has flown by… It’s almost at the halfway point already! This past week has been full of coffee meet-ups with various folks, using up what’s left in the fridge, and running All the Errands because on Sunday, four (out of five of) us are headed to Amsterdam to lead our next pilgrimage! And I’m so stoked it’s finally here.

Because we’ll be gone for two whole weeks this time (!), there will be no typical 5QTs for the next two Fridays — instead, I’m going to lock-and-load a few short letters in hope that it’ll scratch the itch. And then I’ll share news about next year’s pilgrimage plans when I return before I take my usual quiet-on-the-internet break for July. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Onward with today’s letter!

*Summer evening. River.*, by Isaac Levitan (1894) #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. New episode of A Drink With a Friend! In this final one for the season, I give a short, ten-minute pitch for why you should do — in some way, before too long — what I do every summer: take a break from the internet. I explain why this break is so life-giving and necessary for me, my three reasons why I firmly believe EVERYONE needs to take regular breaks from the internet, as well as some encouragement that you, too, can do this. Yes, you! Really.
2.
Meredith Hinds
shares an interesting reflection on what it means to have a larger-than-typical family these days: “Many parents wish that they had had just one more baby, but no one wishes for ‘just one fewer’ child.” I like her perspective.
3.
Joel J Miller
’s book recommendations never disappoint, so I enjoyed reading his summer reading list (I hope to share mine once I’m back from our pilgrimage, if I have the time!).
4. To the 2025 Christian graduate: “You will go through a phase where you think you don’t need to go to church anymore. This phase could last 20-25 years. Then, you will wake up one day and realize that your teenagers do not have the same protective barrier of repressed youth group weirdos that you did. You will rush back to church and tell the pastor ‘we need to belong somewhere, for weddings and funerals,’ and he will say ‘ah yes, you just turned 41, come right this way.’” Of course you know this is
matthew pierce
.
5. And finally… As you know, I haven’t been on Instagram in years and have no plans to return. A few years ago I signed up for (and hand-coded) a micro-blog account in order to share photos in a simple, non-social sort of way, specifically for when I’m traveling. Well, as best-laid plans often happen, I’ve let it collect dust... But I hope to change that this time around — so if you’d like to follow along our journey down the Rhine River in semi-regular intervals, bookmark this and I’ll share some visuals of our time together. Lord-willing, of course! We’ll see how my data and/or wifi fares.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Lark Rise to Candleford, by Flora Thompson

Quotable 💬

“The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.”

― Josef Pieper

You're at an ice cream shop — what type of flavor are you most likely to get? 🍦

I mean, if I’m going to be pedantic, I’m getting nothing at an ice cream shop these days because I’ve been eating carnivore since September, which means store-bought sugary treats, even as delightful as locally-made ice cream, send me into an instant head-pounding dazed coma-like state (I do love me some homemade carnivore ice cream, though…).

But I won’t be pedantic because nobody likes that, and I do love ice cream overall — and in my case, I like trying out unusual things, especially if a place is known for it. So, I’m trying the unique, off-the-beat flavor.

Some sort of chocolate-themed flavor: 49.8%
A unique, off-the-beat flavor found solely at this shop, just to see what it's like: 31.8%
Some sort of fruit-themed flavor: 12%
Plain vanilla: 6.5%