Kevin Williamson was spot-on this morning.

As of this writing, Springfield’s schools had been closed for two days in a row—bomb threats. City hall was evacuated—bomb threat. Other municipal buildings—bomb threats. An elementary school—bomb threat. Two medical centers—bomb threats. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is on Truth Social posting images of kittens holding a sign reading: “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump!”

Do you know the most important word in that sentence? Them.

I’ve been particularly annoyed at the last week’s endless equivocation over our two bad choices. (“But Harris had the audicity to dodge questions! I wanted substance! She maybe-sort-of misquoted Trump and the moderators said nothing!”) Trump and Vance are regularly, shamelessly “bearing false witness against 15,000 poor and vulnerable people” (and, many, many more). And they do so with an astonishingly large endorsement — explicitly and silently — from a group of people who claim to be commanded, by none other than the Maker of the Universe, to bear no false witness against anyone. (“Thou shalt not revel in hateful bullshit” is my rough summary of Question 144 of the Westminster Larger Catechism.”)

Williamson actually traveled to Springfield for this one, and while he holds no punches for the two biggest assholes ever to seek office, he more importantly offers briefly, and smartly, both a narrow and wide context on the Haitian immigrants who live there. (Spoiler alert: they are good for Springfield — a fact which shouldn’t be surprising to the aforementioned group, whose Commander also “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the immigrant, giving him food and clothing.” Oh, and you know those “therefores” that folks love to hear “exposited” from the pulpit on Sunday. Here’s one for the ages: “Therefore, love the immigrant.”)

The whole thing is very, very much worth your time.

Our theory of change takes its cues from the garden, less the machine. We are personalists, not ideologues. We follow the logic of Jesus’s mustard seed, of yeast transforming a whole pile of dough, of the principle of contagiousness and change happening over generations. We believe in the value of slow thought. We are skeptical of the language of scale in growing spiritual goods. While we wish to be savvy in unmasking the either/or reactivity of our age and will always call out dehumanizing trendlines, we are fundamentally animated by the creative impulse, by a philosophy of natality expressed through hospitality.

A splendid manifesto from the new issue of Comment magazine that is worth your time and your energy. And as always, the editorial intro from Anne Snyder is as pitch-perfect as it is wise.

Oliver Burkeman:

It’s not that systems for getting things done are bad, exactly. It’s just that they’re not the main point. The main point – though it took me years to realise it – is to develop the willingness to just do something, here and now, as a one-off, regardless of whether it’s part of any system or habit or routine. If you don’t prioritise the skill of just doing something, you risk falling into an exceedingly sneaky trap, which is that you end up embarking instead on the unnecessary and, worse, counterproductive project of becoming the kind of person who does that sort of thing.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson on this fine morning:

Nice timing from Alan Jacobs on “the specificity of your enchantment” for a couple reasons:

1. I just got Reynolds Price’s Three Gospels in the mail not three weeks ago.
2. I read a fitting line in William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed just tonight: “Postmodernism also trumpets the vacuity of signs, such that the signifier refers only to other signifiers, not to the signified.”

I have to admit, though, that I have mixed feelings…

Hammock skepticism

Taking a walk at Clark Cove Farm

The happier the dog, the stinkier the breath

Finished reading: The Best of It by Kay Ryan 📚

I’ve been reading this without an ounce of haste for two years. Not once did I feel the need to hurry up and finish it.

Leah Libresco Sargeant:

If parents are increasingly relying on professionals to guide them in shaping their chil-dren, it may be because the parents are not confident they have a normative vision of human life to pass on. The rise of parenting influencers who offer scripts for talking to your child is a response to parents who don’t want to raise their children as they themselves were raised, but don’t possess a positive vision of their own. […]

In my own life as a parent, l already practice some of what Abigail Shrier recommends. I don’t run toward my children when they fall, and I wait for them to tell me if they’re hurt, rather than coaching them into anticipating distress. But resiliency is always an intermediate good, a virtue I want them to have so that they can rush on in pursuit of higher virtues. Parents aren’t called to simply make their children strong, but also to make them sensitive to the right things—to beauty, to sorrow over evil, to wonder. Taking a step back from the present therapeutic culture requires parents and children to take up philosophy instead.