Topics: Agrarianism, creation stewardship, localism, and ecology.
Influences: Wendell Berry, Paul Kingsnorth, James Rebanks, Roger Scruton, James C. Scott, 20th C. English Agrarians.
My writing at 'Over the Field'.
overthefield.substack.com
Topics: Agrarianism, creation stewardship, localism, and ecology.
Influences: Wendell Berry, Paul Kingsnorth, James Rebanks, Roger Scruton, James C. Scott, 20th C. English Agrarians.
My writing at 'Over the Field'.
overthefield.substack.com
An essay written with university students in mind who are away from home for the first time.
Wherever you are, for however long, you can still be a blessing to your place.
#rooted
thedispatch.com/article/loca...
The tragedy of what happened at Sycamore Gap has never been far from my mind.
And finally, I have managed to write something which I think touches on the gravity of what happened - and why it should concern us all.
overthefield.substack.com/p/all-that-w...
Latest essay on Over the Field explores the theme of loss in the British countryside, especially those losses that we will never get back.
overthefield.substack.com/p/all-that-w...
I enjoyed looking round some spectacular half-timbered churches recently in the Staffordshire-Cheshire borderlands.
However, one little church among the three I visited, was engaged in a quite extraordinary form of deception…
thevillagegreen.substack.com/p/the-little...
“The future is always the heir of the past; the penalty for neglecting, at the right time, prepare it, is to live on the surface of things.” p.7
"That presupposes you come to the intellectual life with unselfish motives, not through ambition or foolish vanity. The jingling bells of publicity tempt only frivolous minds." p.6
“All roads but one are bad roads for you, since they diverge from the direction in which your action is expected and required.” p.5
"Love truth and its fruits of life, for yourself and for others; devote to study and to the profitable use of study the best part of your time and your heart." p.5
"The athletes of the mind, like those of the playing field, must be prepared for privations, long training, a sometimes superhuman tenacity. We must give ourselves from the heart, if truth is to give itself to us." p.4
“A vocation is not fulfilled by vague reading and a few scattered writings. It requires penetration and continuity and methodical effort so as to attain a fulness of development which will correspond to the call of the Spirit, and to the resources that it has pleased Him to bestow on us” p.3
On the Cultivate Course I am doing at Crosslands Seminary, we are going to read this little book over the next few months. It is densely packed with life-giving wisdom for the writer and the intellectual.
This thread will be an ongoing repository of the wisdom I mine from its pages.
What are the best books on agrarianism, techno-scepticism, creation care, and rurality?
I give my opinions here:
overthefield.substack.com/p/books-from...
Latest essay is on the broken economics of our food system, based on a quote from H.J. Massingham
overthefield.substack.com/p/where-do-f...
A few more noteworthy mentions. This time with more of an ecological focus. For my writing at thevillagegreen.substack.com
The top 11 books that define my writing at Over the Field
The best (in my opinion) books on agrarianism, creation care, and rural philosophy.
overthefield.substack.com
Intergenerational transfer of precious knowledge is vitally important. And with each passing day, and each passing death of a 'living library', we are running out of time.
overthefield.substack.com/p/the-living...
In a world of sometimes overwhelming scale, agrarianism offers a refuge for humanity, where our limits can be embraced and affections realised.
This is what I argued in a recent reflection with some help from Wendell Berry
overthefield.substack.com/p/unfathomab...
Spent a few hours yesterday sitting in the presence of a pair of Pied Wagtails. Their ability to catch flying insects mid air (including when they already have a mouthful) is quite extraordinary.
An essay on what I believe Wendell Berry would say about the whole Martian Manifest Destiny nonsense that was doing the rounds earlier in the year.
#mars #soilhealth
overthefield.substack.com/p/our-manife...
Ultimately, the risk of making the problem (or other problems) worse through our simplistic and overly abstract solutions rises.
Once you become aware of this dynamic in modern society you begin to see it everywhere - especially on social media.
The ‘popular problem’ (such as water/sewage pollution) is communicated in bitesized chunks and simple facts and figures, and becomes in people’s minds, easy to fix. Nuance and complexity is stripped away, so too are competing/confounding problems and values...
In his essay, The Total Economy, Wendell Berry notes that though the awareness and publicity of problems is a good and necessary thing, as problems rise in the public consciousness and become ‘popular problems’, this can lead to a new problem - that of oversimplification...
“Power deals efficiently with numbers that affection cannot recognise” - Wendell Berry
However, as this piece shows, power can also deal 'destructively' with numbers affection cannot recognise - as happened when 18,000 cows exploded on a factory farm.
overthefield.substack.com/p/a-grim-par...
I imagine if principle was applied, that we would get much wiser, saner, and more appropriate laws and projects - and that politicians and businesses would invest more time providing what the community actually needs and also resolving the externalities that result from their actions.
"The deciders should have to live with the results of their decisions."
Wendell Berry arguing in 'The Whole Horse' that local decision making should be made by those invested in and rooted to their local places.
Beautiful understory in Oxenber wood, North Yorkshire.
So many primroses in amongst the bluebells.
Friends of Friendless Churches featured an article on Church Kneelers in their journal. Ever since, I have been hooked on documenting these important pieces of localist art.
This post documents some of my findings and advocates for their preservation
thevillagegreen.substack.com/p/preserving...
