Matisse and the Sea at the SLAM


Quite nice to receive this spring newsletter from @devontechnologies@devontechnologies.com featuring a Hopkins verse.

Screenshot of the April 2024 DEVONTechnologies Newsletter, featuring a poetic verse: Nothing is so beautiful as spring, when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush. β€” Gerard Manley Hopkins


Finished reading: All the Kingdoms of the World by Kevin Vallier πŸ“š

In this critique of anti-liberal ideologies - primarily Catholic integralism - Vallier presents arguments for (history, symmetry) and against (transition, justice).

I love the note on which he ends.

This is what it means to be a liberal: to pursue the ever-present possibility of peace.

Amen.


🚨MS Outlook just notified me that I have no new notifications. 😐


Something You Play

Catholicism is not an exercise in saying the same thing over and over and over again. There are changes, every time, in every person encountered, in every situation that demands charity, and being able to notice those changes in what feels like an endless sea of droning repetitive noise requires constant practice and eventual virtuosity. It requires listening. It requires treating music as something you play.

In his usual irreverent, yet spot-on style, Ginocchio uses improv comedy and the music of Philip Glass to make important points about practical theology.


Finished reading: The Highest Poverty by Giorgio Agamben πŸ“š

Thinking about the project begun by Francis of Assisi: That minor friar has left quite a mark on this world.


Finished reading: Bizarre Bioethics by Henk A.M.J. ten Have πŸ“š

This book contains a welcome call to bioethicists: pivot focus from the individual to society as a whole. The common good must be reclaimed.


Fort Collins bookstore pays people to sit down and read quietly

The reader-in-residence doesn’t have to write an essay. They don’t have to host a book club or moderate a panel discussion. They don’t have to contribute to a blog or create sponsored content. They don’t have to do anything, except show up to the bookstore a couple of times per week and read.

This is my dream job. πŸ€“


Finished reading: Syllabus by William Germano πŸ“š

As I continue working my “side hustle” as an adjunct in a few schools, I found this book to be reinvigorating and inspiring.


Finished reading: Dynamic Lecturing by Christine Harrington πŸ“š