Monthly Roundup
Book recommendations and noble unrest.
I’ve decided to start a monthly newsletter-style post featuring a few different components that I hope you’ll find interesting.
First, a commonplace quote. If you’re unfamiliar, a commonplace book is a space to collect favorite quotes from any books you might be reading. I’ll be sharing some of mine here.
Second, book and movie recommendations. Since I’m always talking about the power of stories, I figured it would be helpful to highlight some of the ones that have truly stuck with me and share them with you.
Third, a selection of links to shorter posts I’ve shared on Substack’s Notes—kind of like their version of social media—within the previous month. I won’t include everything (since I post multiple times a week), but I’ll highlight two or three of the more substantial ones.
Commonplace Quote:
“For repose is not the end of education; its end is a noble unrest, an ever-renewed awaking from the dead, a ceaseless questioning of the past for the interpretation of the future, an urging on of the motions of life, which had better far be accelerated into fever, than retarded into lethargy” (Italics mine).
—George Macdonald
Book Recommendations:
I plan to organize my recommendations by genre. In honor of Austen, one of my literary heroes, I’ll begin with my favorite book that she wrote and two that are similar to her style:
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
The Grand Sophie, by Georgette Heyer
Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope
If you have any Austen-inspired book recommendations, please comment below!
Scattershot Thoughts:
1. Against Originality
Many artists experience a crippling sense of fear at the moment of creation. We often oscillate between feeling inspired and energized one day, only to find ourselves paralyzed, facing a blank page on a Tuesday morning.
This paralysis stems from two prevailing ideas about artists in modern society:
First, that we must be entirely original inventors,
Second, artists are individualistic and celebrity-like.
2. Holistic Truths
Much of the fragmentation and anxiety we moderns feel stems from failing to see life as a unified story. The machine metaphor has replaced the story metaphor as the dominant way we perceive ultimate reality.
We need to reclaim the perspective of life as a story—our lives as stories, history as one continuous story, and the Bible as a single, complete story.
Unfortunately, we often fragment the Bible as well. Modern evangelicals, in particular, tend to prioritize the New Testament over the Old Testament. But this approach is like reading only the second half of Pride and Prejudice while ignoring the first half.
The Bible is a cohesive, interconnected narrative.
3. Jesus the Storyteller
Modern audiences often fail to grasp the profound relationship ancient cultures had with stories and storytelling. This disconnect leads us to miscategorize Jesus’ parables as little more than helpful public speaking tools, inspirational anecdotes, or fireside chats. We see them as an optional appendix to the “real work” of Christian ministry rather than as integral to his message.
This misunderstanding causes us to overlook key aspects of Jesus’ storytelling.
Till next time!
It’s wonderful how all your thematic material just pools together, it helps to see it unified in this way
Great ideas! Looking forward to this.