Hello all, and Happy Thursday,
One thing I have loved about having older kids is that their semesters are shorter. This is the last week of school for everyone in my house! Amazing.
In celebration, I have dusted off my summer Spotify playlist a little early (I am usually a Memorial-Day-only legalist). It is over eleven hours long. Ridiculous. You may adopt it if you’d like:
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Institutions Versus Influencers
Recently a list went around on Instagram, highlighting female teachers who were seen as beneficial people to follow. I recognized most of them. I follow a handful of them, and I benefit from their thoughts. But the fervency with which the list circulated gave me pause.
I suspect that the enthusiasm that accompanied the list was largely from a place of promoting female scholarship, something that has been sorely lacking in evangelical circles. But the inherent weirdness of social media makes these lists feel a bit like middle school. Who made the list? Who didn’t? Why didn’t they? Are you following the right people? Are you in or out?
At the end of the day, I’m going to come down in the boring spot again: the institution of the local church is given for your good. This means it’s your place, no, your privilege, to seek wisdom from and promote community with the human beings who are your neighbors and fellow church members.
A few months ago I had coffee with a few young women who were catching up on their lives with one another and with me. One of them mentioned that they had just had an older couple over for dinner. “It was so weird!” she said. “It was like having our parents over.” I’m thrilled that she and her new husband did this, because we all ought to be having “weird” people into our homes and lives. We should do it so much, in fact, that it shouldn’t be weird.
If the only people we share our lives with are our age, our stage, our place in life, then we’re not benefitting fully from the diversity of people God has placed around us. This young couple benefited from the older couple’s wisdom, humor, and compassion as they shared their lives. We all have blind spots, brought on by our limited experience and situations. These blind spots are addressed in part by living in and amongst people who are different from us.
This is part of what Alan Noble gets at in his recent article, Friendship and Belonging in Middle Age.
Communities demand commitment. It’s how they work. When everyone on your street commits to maintaining their lawn, you’re more likely to mow every weekend. When no one greets you warmly at church, invites you over for a meal, or asks your name, it’s easy to give up on the idea of friendship entirely.
And when institutions and members of a community defect, everyone else is incentivized to defect. Soon you’re left with a profoundly detached and uncommitted city.
Being members of one another -- being members of a local church, for instance -- means we are part of an institution. And as unglamorous as the word “institution” is, they are what establishes the stability and routine necessary for human flourishing. Part of this flourishing is brought on by investing time and energy into one another, whether it be people who are just like us, or people who are wildly different.
This kind of investment will pay dividends far beyond any investment in instagram influencers. Instagram teachers can lend wisdom and humor, but they cannot bring you a meal when you have a baby. They cannot advise you and pray for you when you’re considering a move. They cannot counsel you through a breakup.
Something is lost when you sacrifice embodied community and advice from older saints around you in favor of seeking the opinion of someone on the internet. Much more is gained by seeking wisdom and accountability from those around you.
For the Anglophiles
Premier League soccer is winding down for the year, with only two weeks left in the season. The race for first is pretty tight, but the intriguing thing about soccer is that the race to “stay up” adds some interest at the bottom of the standings. Three teams get “demoted” — the proper term is relegated — every year, and three get to come up from the next league level down. This year, there is an American coach at the helm of one of the teams (Leeds United) that might go down, and I’m hoping like crazy that he doesn’t. His name is Jesse Marsch, he’s from Wisconsin, and you may meet him in the following clip:
Reads & Listens of the Week
David and I got a surprise chance to see Hamilton again last week, and I am happy to report that it’s still one of the best things ever. If you’re up for a couple deep dives into the genius of the show, here’s an article about somebody I watched extra closely this time: The Bullet. We also enjoyed the episode of Song Exploder in which Lin-Manuel Miranda discusses the process of writing the song “Wait for It.”
Right now I’m reading Russ Ramsey’s new book Rembrandt is in the Wind. If you’re interested in how fine art can speak to your faith, it would be a nice place to start. Here’s an interview with Russ about the book.
I loved this conversation about city planning, stewardship, and culture. “I never worked on a project that wasn't an improvement. It was always the Fifth Street improvement, the intersection improvements. The, you know, and, and oftentimes, when you got done, like, it was a horrible outcome for a lot of people.”
And one more personal note for the locals: last week, one of our favorite bookshops let us ram around inside and get some senior photos done. If you’re near Charlotte, plan to head up to Goldberry Books in Concord, NC. It’s worth the trip. You can tell them I sent you.
Hope is like yeast, you know, rising under warmth. ― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River