Miscellany: Anxious Kids, Supercommunicators, and French Cuisine
Plus, where have all the small books gone?
Welcome to Three Things.
We’re a monthly digest of three things to help you engage with God, neighbor, and culture. But this is our monthly Miscellany where we (Andy and Phillip) tell you what we’ve been reading, thinking about and working on.
Walking through town a few months ago, Phillip overheard an older woman complain about the size of hardback novels these days. Eager to read the new doorstop by her favourite mystery writer, the woman exclaimed to her friend, “But I have to wait for the paperback because it just hurts me’ wrists!” Since then, Phillip’s appreciation for small, hand-sized hardbacks has increased. Sadly, they don’t make them as they once did.
Reading: And yet, Phillip recently found a little 1946 printing of the Collected Papers of Evelyn Underhill, a twentieth-century spiritual writer whom he has never read before. Easy on the wrists and expansive for the spirit. Consider this bit from a 1931 address called “The Inside of Life”:
The real modern dilemma is how we are going to reconcile the sort of truth declared in The Mysterious Universe with the sort of truth declared in “Hark! the herald angels sing.” One series of truths belongs to life's outside—the other series belongs to life's inside. And to be a complete human being means to be in touch with both those worlds. The vast world of nature, stern and entrancing, where we are learning to spell out more and more of the poetry of God's creative thought: and the more vast, more stern, more entrancing world of spiritual experience, which alone gives meaning to that marvellous outer scene.
Harder on the wrists is The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, but his case that the tidal wave of mental illness visited upon Gen Z is rooted in a “Great Rewiring of Childhood” via safetyism, smartphones, and social media (rather than in racism, economic hardship, or the 2008 crash) seems watertight.
Watching: Phillip and Christa caught The Taste of Things at the cinema with a friend a few weeks ago. Food films are always a gamble, but the story of Dodin and Eugenie’s twenty-year relationship in the kitchen is a new favourite. Reviewers certainly have reasons for describing the film with silly phrases like “food porn”, but they miss what the movie evokes about the perpetual human longing for beauty. Beauty that is still worth pursuing even when the longing is never satisfied. It’s a mini “philosophy of pleasure” that is a pleasure in its own right. What a treat.
Reading: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg is required reading for those who want to communicate better. Duhigg studies people who seem to have a way of listening that makes others feel at ease and a way of communicating paves the way for understanding. Read it along with The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle and How To Know A Person by David Brooks.
The kids and I have had a great time reading Usborne’s 100 Things to Know About the Unknown. I’ve never read a book that makes me say, “No way… really?” as often. For instance, do you know about Graham’s Number? It is a number so big that if you wrote every digit no larger than a grain of rice, the universe still would not be big enough to write it. They don’t know much about it, but they do know it ends in 7. It is a crazy world out there, folks.
I’m a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic tale. Here are a few I’ve been reading lately: Seveneves, The Last Policeman, 2034, The Last, and the (that’s right) Shopocalpyse saga.
Teaching: Deconversion Part 2 at English L’Abri.
New from The Darkling Psalter (Andy’s poetry and Psalm project):