Late Summer Reading
Calling Squares
I used to read or skim First Things' "On the Square" every day, but for some reason, I got out of the habit. I stopped by yesterday on a whim and greatly enjoyed a post about August reading. Captures my sentiments:
I love the long languid days of late summer. The lawns roasted light brown, the much longed for arrival of local tomatoes (may the good Lord deliver us from the commercially produced monstrosities), sweet corn, baseball on the radio, vacations, sighs of regret that Labor Day is close at hand–yes, there is something about August that lends itself to indulgent repose.
And reading. By the time August rolls around I've usually given up on my ambitious summer plans. No, the big project will not be completed. The carefully planned schedule of writing has gone completely off the rails. So I abandon myself to the wanton desire, giving myself over to lush stacks of books accumulated from random visits to used bookstores. Are there greater joys for an academic than entirely unnecessary reading?
I liked his (her?) assortment of books, even if I'm not acquainted with half of them. I may have to pick up a few recommendations. For now, my late summer reading consists of The Line Through the Heart and Basic Economics. Something tells me that I can read these books in tandem and come up with some insight into the natural law as it applies to economics. Natural law economists aren't too plentiful (Lew Rockwell is one, as was Rothbard), so I'm thinking there might be some bountiful plowing in that area. Of course, I'll have to pick up B16's newest encyclical. Maybe he plowed that ground so thoroughly that I won't need to read those other tomes.
More Seasonal Cogitations
There's something about Fall that feels like birth and something about Spring that feels like death. I know I have that backwards, but it's true. I can't pinpoint the source of the feeling, but I think it comes from the school-year cycle.
This year, my niece leaves for college. I've lived next to her for 17 years. I was sad when her older brothers left for school and I'm sad at her pending departure. I can't imagine what it'll be like when my own children leave. In that, it feels like death. The myth of Persephone stands strong.
But the new school year makes things feel new. The college kids leave, younger kids enter new grades, the summer play time is over, the weather is getting delightfully crisp (I love autumn weather), leaves are preparing to turn: things are different, things are new. In that, it feels like birth.
Birth and death intertwined. Odd feeling, that. But maybe it's not so odd after all. Death is life, just as birth is the first passage to death. If they get intertwined in my head sometimes, maybe it's because my wires are naturally intertwined that way. And if they're naturally intertwined that way, maybe it's because they sense existential truths that are easier felt than articulated.
Vianney
Another good thing about late Summer: The saint days. The next six weeks are chock full of goodens: Cajetan, Dominic, Lawrence, Clare, Maximilian Kolbe, Bernard, Pius X.
And St. John Vianney, whose feast day is today. Some of my earlier thoughts about the great simple saint. It's an excerpt from an abandoned book idea.
