Saturday Good Reads

This week, attention was riveted on the shooting of a gorilla in Cincinnati. Tens of thousands were outraged, and took to the streets of Twitter and Facebook with pitchforks and torches. I hate to see an animal destroyed, but this was about a young child’s life, which our fellow citizens at PETA completely discount. Such is the state of America.

Most of us do well to be able to plan for a week ahead. Doug McKelvey at The Rabbit Room suggests something else for the church – a 100-year vision. I’m beginning to find thoughts and writings on similar topics all over the internet. There seems to be a sense – admittedly, many of us have felt it – of the culture turning, and quickly, into something unrecognizable. Perhaps something hostile. And perhaps something that will only get worse.

Like at Yale University. Undergraduates there have started a petition to abolish an English Department requirement for English majors that they take two courses in the major poets – Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot, etc. – and replace them with something “more inclusive.” Who wants to bet what the English Department at Yale will do?

Rod Dreher, who’s working on a book about what’s called the Benedict Option, has posted some thoughts on patience from one of his readers. Carl Trueman at First Things talks about how he moved from hostility toward the Benedict Option to a growing acceptance – once he understood what it actually was (it is not a call for Christians to retreat behind monastery walls). 

Good poetry. Good photography. Interesting events and findings, like at an archaeological dig in London. And perhaps we can all join Alison Kraus and go down in the river to pray.

Poetry

Silvering the Noir – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

About Love (Micropoems) – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

From the Garden, with the Mushroom – Ian McMillan at The Guardian.

Yale English students call for end of focus on white male writers – Alison Flood at The Guardian.

Life and Culture

100-Year Vision – Doug McKelvey at The Rabbit Room.

Salman Rushdie: Make children learn literature by rote – Patrick Foster at The Telegraph.

A Short Essay on Graduating and Remembering – Jon Mertz at Thin Difference.

After 30 years, it’s good to be married – John Kass at Chicago Tribune.

Art and Photography

Compass Plant – Tim Good at Pixels.

The Failure of Van Gogh’s ‘The StarryNight’ – Russ Ramsey at The Rabbit Room.

Writing

How to Break Your Writing Block Forever - For Good – Mick Silva.

Faith

Lines of Thought: Communicating Faith – Cambridge University Exhibition.

The Life-Saving Virtue of Patience – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

Eating Locusts Will Be (Benedict) Optional – Carl Trueman at First Things.

Questions for the critics of the Benedict Option – Alan Jacobs at Snakes and Ladders.

For the Glory (Eric Liddell) – Tim Challies at Informing the Reforming.

Retirement Rexamined – James Clark at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

British Stuff

U.K.’s oldest hand-written document ‘at Roman London dig’ – BBC.

Down in the River to Pray – Alison Kraus

Painting: At the Breakfast Table with the Morning Newspaper, oil on canvas by L.A. Ring (1898).