Friday Links
February 7, 2025
Christ Showing his Sacred Heart by Jean Baptiste Bethune
Rand Richards Cooper on The Shredder’s Trade
God’s Little Flowers by Lindsay Schlegel
Shemaiah Gonzalez on “Building a vibrant Catholic culture through artistic virtues”
Christianity as the True Psychology by James Matthew Wilson
The Dean Abbott Podcast with Jane Greer
Missed Connections: Jessica Swoboda on Rachel Cusk’s Parade
Rand Richard Cooper on The Shredder’s Trade
The history of adverse criticism extends back as far as Plato, who in The Republic rebuked Homer for disregarding truth while “roaming about rhapsodizing.” Today’s critics are a lot less polite. Maybe it’s the internet, with its rampant trollery, or our take-no-prisoners political culture, presided over by a Shredder-in-Chief given to tweeting out summary judgments—Terrible! The worst! A disaster!—that sound like Rex Reed on a particularly bilious day. We’ve come a long way from Matthew Arnold’s exalted vision, in Culture and Anarchy (1869), of critics “getting to know...the best which has been thought and said”—and doing so in “the noble aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it.” Better and happier? That won’t get you many “likes.” Buzz-seeking requires a buzz-saw kind of critic.
God’s Little Flowers by Lindsay Schlegel
It can be a challenge to find good, true, and beautiful children’s books, so here is some news you can use: Lindsay Schlegel has written the loveliest book for the little ones in your life. God’s Little Flowers was released on February 3 from OSV Books and is available on Amazon, OSV’s site, and Barnes and Noble.
Shemaiah Gonzalez on “Building a vibrant Catholic culture through artistic virtues”
In “How to Think Like a Poet,” Ryan Wilson presents a lens through which those in the Church who do not consider themselves creatives may view life. Wilson, whose poems often explore our fear of the unknown, proposes that we consider the Greek concept of xenia, hospitality. He reminds us that in the ancient world, hospitality “was of the utmost importance.” This is why, when three strangers, who were actually angels, appeared to Abraham, he stopped all his work to serve them (cf. Gn 18:1-8).
Christianity as the True Psychology by James Matthew Wilson
We would like to be happy; we would like to rest in happiness. But in fact we keep ourselves in constant “stir,” diverting ourselves from thought and deceiving ourselves with the belief that this or that activity – whether the hunting of hares, the new business venture, or our next bet at the casino – will at last allow us to rest content.
The Dean Abbott Podcast with Jane Greer
Dean Abbott and poet Jane Greer discuss “the nature of poetry, the poetic disposition and the human inclination to suppress The Mystical.”
Missed Connections: Jessica Swoboda on Rachel Cusk’s Parade
Reading a Rachel Cusk novel is like watching a recording of your everyday life, with all your subtly unflattering habits, traits, and actions. A conversation with your seatmate on a plane reveals that you manipulate your family like items on an Excel sheet. A lunch meeting about a potential business partnership discloses that people only matter to you if you profit from them. No one at your get-together of acquaintances reacts when a woman admits she abuses her dog.
