POSTCARD: Where We've Been, Where We're Going
Recent podcasts, highlights, and upcoming hopes & dreams
To the recent arrivals: Welcome!
A few updates & recaps for all of us together:
1 » PODCASTS
I recently kicked back with
, co-founder & director of First Things Foundation and host of Why Are We Talking About Rabbits?We more or less successfully avoided the subject of rabbits, and instead talked about embodied human life, table fellowship, Hebrew root-words, people’s heads catching on fire, and how Earth is way, way, way better than outer space.
Click the embedded video above, if that sounds like the kind of tea you’d like to sip.
I also had a really enjoyable conversation with Rev.
, Episcopal priest in Arkansas, and author of Wendell Barry and the Given Life and Farming As a Spiritual Discipline, among other books.A reader who sounds like she lives deep in the forests of Sweden somewhere emailed me to tell me about how she listened to this podcast while restoring an old door outside, as the birds were singing all around—I thought that was perfect. Ragan is a pretty relaxed dude, I’m a pretty relaxed dude—just some low-key stuff to enjoy with the birds, if that’s your jam—click below to listen.
2 » OCTOBER PLANS
OK, well just one that’s relevant: I’m planning on attending Front Porch Republic’s Living As Humans In the Machine Age conference on October 21, in Madison, WI.
will be the keynote speaker. I will be one of the many keynote non-speakers there, simply listening to Paul the Pied Piper play his key note that leads us out of the Machine.If you’re planning on attending, too, let me know if you’re interested in meeting up in some capacity—could be fun. We could even just sit together at one of the talks and hold up our end of the keynote silence, that would be cool, too.
Also, any AirBnB connections / housing ideas / etc near(ish) campus in Madison, please do let me know.
3 » RECENT WRITING
A few pieces I want to highlight, that I really love, in case you haven’t seen them yet (one essay, one conversation, one poem):
ESSAY #6: The Lily Archipelago
...And so when we eat bread and drink wine together, we're eating and drinking sunlight and gravity, wind and rain—even the ebb and flow of tectonic plates, the carbon cycle, the rock cycle, and the star cycle; we're eating and drinking everything—the whole cosmos—revealed in the Cross to be an expression of the self-emptying love of Messiah: “This is my body, broken for you; this is my blood, shed for your life, and the life of all things”...
CONVERSATION #3: Over Here Where The Trees Are Taking Their Sweet Time Of Eons To Slowly Crash Through The Human Stone
...I converted to Orthodoxy twelve years ago in the sense of going through the catechumenate, undergoing chrismation, et cetera, but I'm still very, very early on in the process of going up the endless rainbow bridge of inner conversion to the infinite self-similar fractal-Orthodoxies of the heart: Rose Orthodoxy, Peach Orthodoxy, Canary Orthodoxy, Grass Orthodoxy, Bird Orthodoxy, Flower Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy of the stratospheric clouds drifting across infinite fields of blue Orthodoxy awakening into the supreme and ineffable non-Orthodoxy of the stars. (I'm making all these up, of course, no one talks like this, and perhaps no one should...
POEM #9: Yah Is My Shepherd
...Yah is my shepherd,
I shall not lack.
He lets me stretch out and rest
In lovely places of green shoots and green grass...
OK, that’s the update for now!
Quite a few people have come to Sabbath Empire and gone—no doubt imagining this Substack would be much less crazy, much less wild than it is (though the subtitle was there to warn you!). But if you’re one of the ones who gets what I’m trying to do here & you’re down with it, please support Sabbath Empire in any way you can—even just hitting like, posting comments, responding to other people’s comments—anything you can do to add a little bit of life in your own way is awesome & appreciated.
And if you’re able to, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber, if you haven’t yet, or if you have, maybe even sending out some gift subscriptions to people you know who might need or want this.
From the depths of my heart, THANK YOU.
love in Messiah,
graham
Hi Graham, I am one who stopped subscribing. After reading what you wrote here I just wanted to let you know I did that not because I don't love what you are doing but just because I want to spend less time on internet, and not spend money on subscriptions. I recently found this song that my mother used to play when I was a child and it reminded me of your poetry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg5CTemZJMg
A love song from our Father, so filled with plant-based imagery! I'm raising 5 girls and fretting about the cultural messages they absorb about their bodies and looks at the moment (in spite of my best efforts). The line, "Your beauty will be like the olive tree.... your fragrance like lebanon" is so perfect.
Thanks for your contributions to the good work of Wild Christianity and know that some of your most appreciative audience may be the least able to support you online, but still glad to know you are there in your place doing your best.
Clara
I'm happy to support your work any way I can, Graham! Life is busy but I try to keep up with your writing. It's always refreshing and grounding turning my back on the Machine for a bit, using one of its hallmark creations--the internet--spiting it while I take it for what it's worth. I'll get a bigger following myself so I can share your stuff;)