I find I really can't assume any of your posts are simply light, casual takes on...your cat or whatever. They're all fairly dense and rewarding confections.
Along with the introduction here to your feline, this one offers reflections on Baudelaire, Benjamin, your membership in a church the world thinks of as "the peripheries," and an example of what I call in my little book "a hard thing," referring to some family troubles.
You are a chef whose recipes can't be copied! Delicious!
Sorry to hear you've been grounded, and hope it's as fleeting as the reason for it. Thanks for another thoughtful and wide-ranging post. So they're persecuting Christian Copts? What's next?
Thanks, Beth! The bright side: I hate driving, and my neighbors are generous with rides. (The car is necessary here, as you might imagine.) And "What's next?" indeed.
Oh my brother, Bryce! Sorry you are facing down this TGA with earlier memories of hope in Biden’s administration come to your current reality. Thank you for taking the opportunity to relax with Cat Cat and quasi-engage your walk by neighbors, as you are at home in your black church and your Columbia place. The Lord is With You. And the whole of the world.
I love the clarity and personableness of Bryce’s writing. This humane, self-questioning post holds together what Roger Scruton and Simone Weil sometimes pull in different directions: attachment to home and obligation beyond it. Scruton helps explain the claims of neighborhood, tradition, and belonging. Weil explains why rootedness becomes corrupt when it excludes the stranger. What emerges is a cosmopolitanism rooted in fidelity, reaching from mulch and Cat-Cat to Nineveh and New Jerusalem.
Thanks, Bryce. What a pleasure to read and respond to.
What a thoughtful, generous, and beautiful response! William, thank you. You meet and advance the tension with which I had hoped to "resolve" this post--something like the tension one feels in the canvas, pulled by stakes and poles from all over, of a properly erected tent. Maybe this tension is at work in Montesquieu's and Madison's differing understandings of the relationship between a republic and its local civic life, something I'd love to take a fresh look at. Thank you also for introducing me to the thought of Roger Scruton. Thank you, finally, for making this essay, and many others I've written, the recipient of the patient and keen work of your close reads!
I find I really can't assume any of your posts are simply light, casual takes on...your cat or whatever. They're all fairly dense and rewarding confections.
Along with the introduction here to your feline, this one offers reflections on Baudelaire, Benjamin, your membership in a church the world thinks of as "the peripheries," and an example of what I call in my little book "a hard thing," referring to some family troubles.
You are a chef whose recipes can't be copied! Delicious!
Thanks, Elias! And if I may plug your book "Confessions of a Street Catholic," just out yesterday, here: https://solidarityhall.substack.com/p/just-out-confessions-of-a-street-443?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web I can't wait to dive in!
Sorry to hear you've been grounded, and hope it's as fleeting as the reason for it. Thanks for another thoughtful and wide-ranging post. So they're persecuting Christian Copts? What's next?
Thanks, Beth! The bright side: I hate driving, and my neighbors are generous with rides. (The car is necessary here, as you might imagine.) And "What's next?" indeed.
Oh my brother, Bryce! Sorry you are facing down this TGA with earlier memories of hope in Biden’s administration come to your current reality. Thank you for taking the opportunity to relax with Cat Cat and quasi-engage your walk by neighbors, as you are at home in your black church and your Columbia place. The Lord is With You. And the whole of the world.
Such a blessing from my dearest John! Relaxing and rejoicing are keys. I take it all to heart.
I love the clarity and personableness of Bryce’s writing. This humane, self-questioning post holds together what Roger Scruton and Simone Weil sometimes pull in different directions: attachment to home and obligation beyond it. Scruton helps explain the claims of neighborhood, tradition, and belonging. Weil explains why rootedness becomes corrupt when it excludes the stranger. What emerges is a cosmopolitanism rooted in fidelity, reaching from mulch and Cat-Cat to Nineveh and New Jerusalem.
Thanks, Bryce. What a pleasure to read and respond to.
What a thoughtful, generous, and beautiful response! William, thank you. You meet and advance the tension with which I had hoped to "resolve" this post--something like the tension one feels in the canvas, pulled by stakes and poles from all over, of a properly erected tent. Maybe this tension is at work in Montesquieu's and Madison's differing understandings of the relationship between a republic and its local civic life, something I'd love to take a fresh look at. Thank you also for introducing me to the thought of Roger Scruton. Thank you, finally, for making this essay, and many others I've written, the recipient of the patient and keen work of your close reads!