As I’m working on scholarships for Oxford, I need all the inspiration to feel academic that I can muster! Many students are returning to school right now, and so I hope that this short list will inspire you in your pursuit and love of learning unto the glory of God. It’s not truly autumn yet, but I can already feel the winds begin to change into a crispness that seems to be heralding a coming death. I’ll quote ’s recent note that said “September is the golden hour of the year.” This month is like those last golden sun beams of summer’s jollity declaring farewell to us and the flowers.

1. Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy is C.S. Lewis’ charming autobiography of his early life and his quest to understand true Joy. In this, he recounts much of his academic career as a young man, telling of the books he read and stories he dreamt up. Every time I read it I find a lovely new book or poem recommendation and a contentment in academic pursuits.

2. Surprised by Oxford by Caroline Weber

This book really pushed me to go headlong into my pursuit of Oxford. Caroline’s autobiographical story of how she came to Christ and a knowledge of the truth at Oxford is truly lovely, and her prose is simply enchanting. I felt smarter after reading it and also inspired to pursue academics with far more enthusiasm and nerdiness than I normally let myself.

3. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

Any C.S. Lewis admirer who hasn’t read this is in for a treat. I’ve heard a lot of my male friends say this isn’t a “guy book,” which may be true because it focuses heavily on relationship and how that moves and guides our loves. This book really impressed upon the profoundness of God’s providence in our lives and the verity of Romans 8:28. Additionally, it always seems to encourage me in the fact that academics isn’t a vein pursuit and that many a life can be turned to Christ through pursuing education and scholarship.

4. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

While I haven’t officially finished this book, because it’s very academic and I’m reading it this September it feels like a very fitting addition. Crossing to Safety tells the story of two couples from very academic backgrounds and their friendship and life together through the Great Depression and onward. The writing is first-person and feels almost like a diary of an incredibly intelligent professor and how he views the ups and downs that follow him in his life. I can’t say if it ends or wraps up well though, since I’m still making my way through it.

5. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

This is a bit of an odd-ball in the bunch but it’s one of my favorite books of all time and it takes place in a very academic setting. Save this one towards the end of September because you’ll want to cozy up with a candle and a cup of tea. This book is both fantasy and mystery and academia thrown together by the brilliant and fantastical mind of Susanna Clarke. She is a master of language but also a master of mythology and pulling in references from the entire corpus of Western Lit. I won’t say more because it would probably spoil the whole thing.

I promise I’m working on my Hildegard series pt.2 (researching hard rn!) but I can’t let that stop me from recounting some of my favorite “petits habitudes” for this month. A side encouragement, consider purchasing one of these books from a local bookstore to fight against the Machine.

Excelsior!

CG

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A fourteen-year-old version of me shoves her fingers into the soil of tiny seed-starting trays. Rows of herbs and flower seeds lay nestled under the surface, promising to my imagination a garden overflowing with tall delphiniums, low-growing chamomile, and the tendril vines of nasturtiums. In reality, my garden consisted of nothing beyond a few large pots sitting in what a local had called “potato soil.” I had a vision for this track-home backyard, but I certainly did not have the patience. Now I sit here writing, seven years later, having lived through the ebb and flow of many garden-stemmed disappointments. Pests and disease and scorching Southern California sunshine. But from those seven years came more fruit than my impatient mind could ever imagine, and it came in the form of a tiny, round sage seed.

My love for the natural world has always led me to a love for plant and holistic medicine. My father is a still practicing Chiropractor and so natural medicine runs deep in my blood. When I had a cold, I choked down oregano extract, and olive leaf tinctures drowned in a glass of orange juice. (mostly my own fault because of my refusal to swallow capsules) Usually, as a family, we sought solutions to headaches like drinking water instead of reaching for an ibuprofen. The older I’ve gotten, the more this conviction has grown, and in many ways, it feels like I’m standing on the shoulders of my parents. While functional medicine is, without a doubt, trending at the moment, I find myself being drawn to older and, unsurprisingly, Medieval sources. For one, as a Christian, it seems impossible to deny the intersection of spiritual health with physical. For another, I’m pulled to and relate to the way the Medieval saw the world with a symbolic eye—everything was tinged with a bit of the mystical.

One thing you’ll find about me is that I’m consistent to a fault. People ask what I was like when I was younger, and I’m compelled to quote Sabrina (1995) and simply reply, “shorter.” I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t let my love of this beautiful world God created also touch the way I see the human body and health and the products we use and the food we consume as all being interrelated and important. Thus, when I heard that the Medieval church musician Hildegard of Bingen also had a robust philosophy and practice of healing plants, I swiftly jumped onto AbeBooks. I ended up purchasing a book called “Hildegard of Bingen’s Medicine,” which was written by a pair of German doctors. (Just yesterday I purchased her Physica for Part 2 of this series, which will get into more of the historical aspects of Hildegard.)

It really is a wonderful work. Not only do the authors actively practice a modern form of this medicine at what is called a Hildegard Practice or “Hildegard-Medezin” in Germany, but they also took the time to translate Hildegard’s writings and break them down in modern medical terminology. The authors describe how Hildegard’s methods and language are still incredibly accurate to our modern understanding of the body. They remark at one point that there is no way she could have known this much about the human body without simply having been directed and inspired by the Holy Spirit. One thing that really sticks out in her writing is her insistence that harmony is the foundation for all health. It called to mind the way Plato speaks of philosophy as bringing our souls into harmony with the cosmos—to know the Forms in their true state. In many ways, Hildegard is saying we must do the same thing with our body as we do with our soul; we must live moderately.

To put it gently, we Post-Moderns live in extremes. We go from doomscrolling for hours to binge-eating candy, sitting on the couch for hours to drinking five cups of coffee a day. One dopamine hit followed by another dopamine crash, leading to one poor decision after another. I’m not a naturally addictive person, and yet even without having Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, BeReal, Locket, Twitter, or whatever other apps you can think of, I still find myself watching YouTube shorts (of all things! gosh). We are affronted on every side; I must agree with the Psalmist when he wrote: “They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: But in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.” Psalm 118:11. And yet, the vice of immoderation is nothing new—and an abbess of the 12th century understood human nature well enough to be entirely applicable to the 21st century, almost exactly 1000 years later.

I hope you haven’t forgotten the sage seed, because he’s still important.

I now sit on my garden bench, and the sound of leaves fluttering in the wind fills my ears. A tall rose arch of Cecile Brunner’s graces the entrance, flanked by the guardian boxwoods. Most of my garden beds still remain empty, save this year’s crop of half sun-scorched tomato plants and a few straggling dahlias from one-season’s attempt at a cut flower garden. However, one bearer of hope still remains. An overbearing sage plant sits at the center of my garden, often flowering and woody with its age—all from just one of those little seeds I planted seven years back. All the herbs in my garden behave similarly. The rosemary is large and toppling from weight. The thyme seeded itself in one of the beds and has already multiplied itself within months. Lavender sprouts up from underneath the gently trickling bird bath. It all seems to be sending a sign which, paired with my reading of Hildegard of Bingen, was shouting in my ears: PLANT HERBS! In a tiny garden, vegetables and flowers can hardly yield a bountiful harvest to provide for family and friends—but herbs? You can shove them just about anywhere, and rain or shine they’ll just keep growing in sunny Southern California.

So at last I say, okay.

The question in the title was primarily directed at myself: so you want to practice 12th-century medicine? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to just buy herb tinctures from the store, maybe even homeopathic tablets? Yes, it would, but in an age of convenience I stubbornly crave inconvenience. I want to be able to touch my herbs, to control what goes into the soil, and honestly, to go through the trial and error, the love and loss of growing plants.

This is the backdrop of this miniature project. If you like outlines and lists, here’s a sort of structure for how the rest of my articles will proceed.

1. Introduction (what you’re reading right now!)

2. All things Hildegard (a summary of her life and a deep dive into her herbal medicine)

3. How I’m translating a Medieval methodology into my modern Christian worldview

4. How I’m planning out my garden based on all this

5. Bonus: a special post for my paid subscribers (to be announced)

I must warn you all in advance: I’m no expert on Hildegard, and I’m an amateur gardener at best, but I’m incredibly passionate about these things, and I hope to share the insights that stuck out to me. I intend to merely scratch the surface and hopefully pique your interest enough that you’ll seek out her writings on your own and find how the Lord speaks to you uniquely through St. Hildegard.

I can’t wait to get into this, excelsior!

CG

P.S. Thank you to all who subscribed to come along for this series; it was very encouraging to see how many people are interested in learning about Hildegard and medieval medicine! I was seriously so touched to see each one of you pop up in my inbox as a “new subscriber,” and I was not expecting to go from 20 subs to nearly 2,000 in just a week.

If you don’t feel like committing to a subscription, I’ve set up a “buy me a coffee” account where you can feel free to leave me a tip of any amount if you especially enjoyed or were blessed by my Substack. Thanks, you readers are awesome! :)

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Resource List:

Strehlow, Wighard, and Gottfried Hertzka. Hildegard of Bingen's Medicine. Santa Fe: Bear & Company, 1988

Hildegard of Bingen. (2002). Hildegard’s Healing Plants: From Her Medieval Classic Physica (Bruce W. Hozeski, Trans.). Beacon Press.

Original Latin Text of Hildegard’s Physica (for the truest nerds among us): https://bestiary.ca/etexts/migne-hildegard-physica.pdf

I’m sitting with my back pressed against the tall and weathered wooden seats of Exeter College’s dining hall. The table burgeons with lively academic discourse as I eat through the courses of an admittedly mediocre Oxford banquet. I stare up at the centuries old stained glass and wooden eaves feeling moved by both a sense of the past and a sense of the future.

“What was your GPA from NSA?” I ask my golden-haired Canadian friend I’d come to visit. We’d been roommates my freshman year at college and thus shared an Alma Mater.

“Ah not too crazy, it was 3.93, I think.”

I adjust my green velvet cocktail dress I’d saved for the occasion, feeling suddenly insecure that I’d even suggested applying to Oxford with my meagre 3.8 GPA.1 At the time, of this trip I had had no intention of applying to this famed and prestigious college. Of course, nearly every academic and lover of Lewis and Tolkien has Oxford as a wonderful dream in their mind but my mind was elsewhere. I was actively working on submitting a proposal for a senior thesis on a Christian theology of agriculture and sustainability in our modern scene. My advisor, Dr. Gordon Wilson, had already agreed and everything was set. Or so it thought. (alas, this tends to be a theme of my life)

Then something sparked as soon as I stepped out of the bus and onto the cobbled streets of a quaint Headington neighborhood. Something that was very academic and very Medieval. A little part of me has always been fascinated with the Medieval world—whether Arthurian legend, the seemingly blurred lines between natural and supernatural, drop waist earth-toned gowns, or stone castles—it all seemed to capture what Lewis calls sehnsucht. The older I grow, the more this childhood dream of being rescued by a knight has morphed into a fascination with a forgotten world that was both Christian and so before people even dreamt up Materialism. I could go on a rant here about how Descartes destroyed Aristotle’s Final Cause and how the physical world has lost now all intrinsic meaning, but I digress.

Needless to say, I felt a tug back towards my deep seated love of England, and particularly Medieval England. Simultaneously, I had a crisis. What did I actually want from this life? What did I want to pour my efforts into when time is so short on this earth and our knowledge so finite? You might be thinking—Cosette, your thesis doesn’t shape the rest of your life—and you’re right, but I hate being flaky more than almost anything and I knew that if I was going to pour a semester into a project, I wanted it to be something I could build a lifelong pursuit onto. Thus as soon as I returned to the Wild West (i.e. Idaho) I emailed my Old English prof, Dr. Orton, and asked for a meeting. As I sat in his mostly empty office (save two large surfing movie posters), I presented my crisis to him.

“So, if I were to want to study Old English for a Masters…say at Oxford, should I do my thesis in that field?”

I think he stared at me in disbelief for quite some time. He was in shock I would ask such a stupidly obvious question. At the time, it really felt legitimate. He threw his feet on the footrest, shoes off, as an Australian turned Oxford scholar does, and donning his sushi socks, most likely.

“yeh, yeh I think that would be a wise decision.”

“Sooo what should I write on? I really like magic and Anglo-Saxon England.”

“I dunno, maybe try Ælfric? He’s gotta lot of material to pull from.”

(At some point later, I think he said something like—you gotta have some sort of angle for academia like “hey! i’m the american aelfric girl;” alas, I am that girl)

At some point, I’ll write an article explaining what exactly about Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham I wrote my thesis on and what I intend to research at Oxford, but I’ll spare you the gritty details for now.

So now, I skip ahead.

—

Here I am, a year and a half later, furiously working to fill out Oxford scholarship applications. Applications that ask infuriating questions like: “how has your whole life led up to this very field of study?” and, “how will you change the world by your academic papers?” [this is only very slightly exaggerated]

Anyone who knows immediately how to answer these—I bow at your feet.

Even with knowing exactly what I want to research and why Oxford is the very best place to do that, I’m still struggling to write up personal statements that make me seem like the ambitious scholar that I think I am. The secret is, I just want to coop myself up in the Bodleian Library with a bunch of original Ælfric manuscripts and probably spend my life’s savings at Blackwell’s. (probably on Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Classics and some Loeb’s as well) But unfortunately, this is not the most compelling argument to a committee trying to decide whether to provide you with nearly $200,000 in scholarship funding.

I’m exhausted with thinking about myself and honestly, claustrophobic when I try to remember what things I liked when I was growing up. Yet, at the same time, (and now I get to the article title, at last) the amount I’ve been thinking about my life has caused me to realize that it really is cohesive and by no merit of my own. The more you look back, the more you realize that you are not at the wheel: I am being led. By a gracious and loving Hand nonetheless; and it shows. I’m too busy looking forward to seeing it most of the time, but He is there. That love of fantasy and knights from my childhood is the same that leads me to love Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft and charms and monastic life and homilists, like Ælfric. My love for hospitality also feels like it has roots stretching back to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. My love for gardening and herbal medicine; for Celtic and Germanic languages; for illuminated manuscripts and medieval tapestries. All of these things seem to join in this one pursuit of studying Medieval English Prose.

I would never have realized this if it wasn’t for these futile feeling scholarship applications. And while I still struggle to articulate all these things, I’m coming to appreciate the importance of recalling the deeds of old. As the Psalmist writes:

“I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.” Psalm 77: 11-12, KJV

As Christians, introspection does not have to be selfish. The Psalmist exhorts us to reflect on our lives and recount how the Lord has worked in our favor and led us and sustained us. The Lord has given us all vocations and sometimes it takes reflection on the past to see where He is calling us in the future. Sometimes it takes a trip to a beautiful, Medieval city to reawaken those desires He has already placed in our heart.

Introspection just means to look inward. So do look inward. Look at the memories and loves that the Maker has given you in this life to shape you into who you are today and where you are going tomorrow, unto His glory.

Excelsior!

CG

I would rather rely on the mercy of God

Than his wrath

To trust so wholeheartedly on lovingkindness

And know I merit none

I’d rather be drowned in longsuffering

Than sprinkled with hate

To trust that God is faithful

When man is faithless

To see a gracious hand

When the world sees malignant strikes

To love like the depths of the seas

And judge not lest.

The judgements of God are enough

The salvation of Christ is sufficient

The peace of the Spirit is entire

You justly shall judge not

lest the just Judge judge you.

Eric Rohmer was a French New Wave film director who sought to capture the beauty of every day moments—and particularly, conversations. The characters often seem to be in a permanent state of holiday, on which they are confronted with existential issues—turning points in their life. These issues are often resolved through meeting strangers and having a meaningful connection with them.

Some of his films accomplish this in more satisfying ways than others. The Four Adventures of Mirabelle and Reinette for example, tells the story of two girls (one from the city and one from the country) meeting over a flat tire and deciding to spend the weekend together. They discuss beauty, and silence, and simply live slow and thoughtful moments together. The film takes place in the 80s and therefore isn’t infiltrated with the busyness of technology. There is a stillness. There are telephones, and car, and computers but they’re in the background and unimportant to daily life.

While I haven’t lived in Europe, or even traveled there extensively, I’ve observed enough of the culture to see that this posture towards living can still be true even in the 2020s. I can vividly remember hiding out in a small Oxford coffee shop one March morning and being amazed to see people my age simply sitting, sipping a capp, and journaling. Yes, they certainly owned phones, but it was as if they saw the phone for what it really was: a tool.

I’m not a utilitarian when it comes to moral philosophy, but when it comes to human happiness, we have to be realistic about what is a tool and what is a source of pleasure. When the two get mixed then our world suddenly becomes a place where work and leisure have no boundaries—they are allowed to meld, and as a result, we are allowed to wilt and weary.

Now, the route that many people go here is escapism.

I’ve been on Substack long enough to see the many accounts dedicated to “how moving to Europe changed my life,” or the notes with quaint European pictures complaining about how lame and ugly America is. Too many people recognize the same problem I’m pointing out and simply want to escape from America, thinking that will surely solve their problems. But I’m a firm believer in two all-important principles of the world:

1. If you can’t be virtuous here, you won’t be there.

2. Physical place (i.e. rootedness) is important. Where God has placed you cannot be ignored.

Both these principles put together remind me that we are called to be faithful with what we are given, just like Jesus instructed us in the Parable of the Talents. We have been given relationships, and place, and belonging and we can choose to disdain them for being different from what we want, or choose to joyfully embrace them.

To return to my article title, my hope is that our admiration for how Europeans see technology for what it is and choose to embrace fellowship, and food, and beauty over it, should inspire us to do the same in America. In America as it is in Europe.

Christians are called to change the culture around them, not escape to where the culture is already favorable to their morals and ideals. In Eric Rohmer’s films, the characters are often on the brink of decision-making, often trying to reconcile their perception of the real world versus the ideal world. Rohmer frequently presents the solution by his characters embracing the real and as a result, receiving the ideal almost as their divine reward for faithfulness. It often seems that as soon as we find true contentment with what we’ve been given, God blesses this by giving us “the desires of our hearts” as well. But, it takes accepting what we thinks sucks first.

Rohmer sees the human experience as a series of relationships and conversations—a slow progression of change, not an immediate, magical transformation like the American culture (and the movie industry, in particular) preaches. So too, we must slowly chip away at our lives to build that separation between true work and true leisure.

The “European mentality” is not about being more analog or escaping the consumerist machine, it’s about understanding boundaries and it’s about understanding what it means to be human. Humans are finite. We have a limited capacity for information. We cannot thrive under the constant bombardment of news, communication, bright lights, colorful movies, and busy schedules. Through his slow and patient films, Rohmer exhorts the viewer that daily conversations are more eternally significant than you give them credit for. The time you take to invest in your present friendships, and work, and tasks, is what will heal you from your dopamine addiction.

So my conclusion is this: Be faithful with what God has placed before you. Love your life: journal about it, share your gratefulness with friends and family, and most vitally, thank God. This is what your life is missing, not moving to Europe.

CG

Now this is the important part: my aunt, who happens to work for United Airlines, felt bad for me, and signed me up to be her airline buddy for the year—meaning cheap standby flights to anywhere in the world.

When graduation had passed and I was in that bored interim that passes after college, my desire to travel revived again.

Whenever I decide to travel, my primary guiding principle is: where can I go without having to pay for lodging? Through some random connections, the answer to that ended up being Germany, and huzzah, United Airlines happens to have a hub in Frankfurt, right near where the accommodations were. The only hiccup was my parents lack of enthusiasm towards me traveling alone—so along came my 18 yo cousin and said she’d be willing to tag along.

So the trip was settled. Or was it?

The funny thing about flying standby is that more often than not you don’t know whether you’re getting on the flight until 10 minutes before takeoff. So…not exactly the most leisurely way to travel. I told my mom after the trip was over (spoiler, we did make it on both flights to and from Frankfurt) that I felt like I was flying the real Spirit Airlines. Both times we seriously made it on the flight by nothing less than a sheer miracle. We learned very fast that even the longest airport customs line in the world can be a God-send, because it means that half the passengers didn’t make it on time for their flight.

However, this post is mainly about lovely little film photos taken in tiny little German towns, so the rest will be brief. I’m skipping Day 1 because we just rested and explored the small town surrounding where we were staying—not too much to note.

Day 2: Heidelberg

We ventured out into the train system for the first time and everything went swimmingly. The Deustchland Ticket paired with the Deustche-Bahn app made for smooth sailing, even for us Americans who had never ridden on a train in our lives. In just under 3 hours we arrived at the city and began our trek through the blazing sun. I got coffee fuel and we both found handheld fans that became our constant companions for the rest of the trip. After trekking up to the castle, we walked around the museum, wine cellar, and gardens then headed back into town for smoothies and cold cuts from the grocery store.

The perfect day ended in a very German way as we waited at the Frankfurt train station for our connection. Suddenly a robust German man yelled “Der Zug kommt nicht. Fällt-aus!” My German is limited, but thankfully Duolingo had taught me this much—the train was cancelled. Four hours later we learned that every train going North was cancelled. Blessings be upon our hosts' heads because they drove out at 10pm to pick us up and ensure we didn’t get stranded in a frankly very sketchy town.

Day 3: Marburg

We were a little scarred from the day before and decided to play it safe on Day 3 by just taking the bus to a nearby college town. There we got to walk up a very steep hill and visit St. Marian’s church, a beautiful old castle on the hill, and Elisabethkirche. My favorite part of the day was eating Döner kebab (after ordering in German because alas, he spoke no English) and finding a thrift store with some very cute clothes. 10/10 recommend this town, I think it was my favorite.

Day 4: Weilburg

Weilburg was a tiny town and very free from tourists. This town boasted of a lovely 18th century palace that was still very preserved to its original design. The gardens were beautifully maintained and we ate some delicious ice cream. We also got so desperately hot that we bought Spezi (Orange Coca Cola essentially) from the train station vending machine and man, it hit the spot.

Day 5: the Leica Museum and Wetzlar

This day was probably the biggest let down. I was desperate to find good souvenirs to bring home and just continually was striking out. The Leica Museum was spectacular and was home to the first A/C we’d experienced since arriving so that sweetened the deal. Old Town Wetzlar had a lovely, quiet, and cold church and some cute streets to walk down but nothing of note (and apparently was the home of Goethe).

Day 6: Braunfels

This was the final day and the day that reached 103 degrees and broke Germany’s temperature records. After visiting this very fairy-tale like castle and taking a entirely German tour, instead of finding a lunch we decided to eat ice cream at two different locations. Nothing beats the German 1.60 euro ice cream cones (and they don’t charge for waffle cones either!) We ended the day in our hosts’ parents’ swimming pool and plenty of warm (or cool I guess) thanksgivings from my heart.

The pictures don’t present the heat and for that, I’m thankful because I’m sure I’ll forget that I was dripping with sweat throughout the entire trip.

God’s hand was on the entire trip and I’m so thankful for every hilariously problematic part of it—I’ll never forget it and it was sure better than a canceled trip to Portugal.

Until Next Adventure,

CG

I graduated a few weeks ago and moved away from my lovely little cottage of 3 years. I wrote a short story for my first college house, but my second was much more fairytale-esque and thus deserves a short poem to memorialize some of the funny moments had.

“Neath splintered light, sat cottage white

with dappled trees, perhaps diseased

yet sunlight poured, through all the doors

Debussy sheets, and falling sleet

much earl grey, and sometimes fay

mid kitchen singing, piano ringing

though spiders crawled, amid the walls

and mold in corners, and mice performers

yet light is sweet, mid fields of wheat

and dust in air, danced as in Faire

and Springtime laughed, through all the shafts

of screenless windows, and hymn crescendos

a hallelujah, of glory summa

found in the cracks, and things that lack

of bursting fridges, and piling dishes

and late night laughs, and tear-filled baths

such blessings open, such splendor spoken

in simple home, where memories roamed

of college past, and loves that last

through coffee spills, and power bills

and dandelions, and sounds of sirens,

such things we knew, on Public Avenue.”

"What we do is just create sympathy. We create admirers. We don't create followers. Christ's life is a demand. You don't want to be reminded of it. So we don't have to see what happens to the truth. A darker time is coming — when men will be more clever. They won't fight the truth, they'll just ignore it. I paint their comfortable Christ, with a halo over his head." - Ohlendorf, A Hidden Life

Christ’s life is a demand. This simple phrase that the church painter in A Hidden Life speaks has always stood out to me as a simple yet profound truth. Christ’s resurrection meant victory over sin and death, but Christ’s death means we are also called to sacrifice, and that we will not that beautiful picture of wholeness on this side of eternity. We are granted glimpses only; brushstrokes but never the completed picture. We are called to death just as much as we are called to the life.

WWII stories remind us of this viscerally. In 21st century America, it is difficult to wrap our minds around how horrific our fallen race can be. Yes, perhaps we’re exposed to the worlds horrors in a new way through our 24/7 access to the news but we’re also more numb than ever to it.

The 1985 Russian film Come and See follows a child through the horrors of the German occupation of Belorussia during World War II. It begins with a bright, light-hearted boy eager to join the fight and ends with that same boy, only a few months older, scarred with the horrors of human hatred and depravity. Yet, he is alive. He has gone through the grave and come out the other side. The question that lingered in my mind is: was it really a grace to survive? After seeing what he saw, living what he lived, could he ever live fully again?

It seems that the child, like Job, had two options: curse God and die (literally or metaphorically) OR bless the Lord for the days given to live, to be spared one’s life and given the honour of continuing on the earth.

Gratefulness or hate. These are the only options.

Theodicy is the philosophical term we give to the belief that God is sovereign over all suffering—that “all things work together for good,” as Romans 8 reminds us. Some ever take this so far as to say “felix culpa—fortunate fall,” that even the Fall of humanity was a grace because God blessed humanity by becoming flesh that we might be saved.

Do you see the blessing or do you see the curse? The paradox of this earth and that both are interwoven and it takes putting on the mind of Christ to see the brokenness and know that we have been promised a victory both now and not yet. Acedia is the sin of disdaining your calling in life, falling in to spiritual apathy, just surviving and not living. This too is hate. This too is saying that God is not sovereign—He is not writing a magnificent tale with my life.

We are not called to be admired, we are called to be beacons of truth. We are called to burn with the Holy Fire of the Spirit as at Pentecost and cleanse the world with the water of the Word. We are called to choose gratefulness. When our fridge breaks, when there’s traffic, when loved ones fail us, when there is death, and sickness, and strife. The darkness reminds us that every seed must fall alone to the earth and die in order to bring forth fruit.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” John 12:24, KJV

CG

I bought my first streaming service subscription this past week and no, it wasn’t Netflix; it was to the Criterion Channel. Criterion collects the most influential and notable films from all of cinema history, restores them, and provides commentary and interviews with directors, film critics, etc. The streaming service is more than fast entertainment—it’s immersion in the art of cinematic storytelling from across the globe.

Last night I finally sat down to watch Tarkovsky’s most famous film: Stalker. I roped a fellow russian-lover in to watch it with me with the only caveat that it was 3 hours long. Turns out it was totally worth it—and strangely connected to this morning’s sermon on daily faithfulness.

Like in Stalker, we’re all trying to get to the same place—the good life—for varying reasons. For the film characters, this goal was to reach The Room that grants all your desires. As Christians, we view life as a race; with Christ and eternal life with Him as the finish line. But reaching that finish line requires us to be faithful to the moments directly in front of us. Not getting caught up in the spirit of the times, but seeing Christ as the example of how we ought to live every moment to the fullest until the very end.

In his sermon, Pastor Toby Sumpter said that “perseverance aims to benefit future generations.” We are called to endure and finish strong; not just for us, but to prepare for the generations ahead to be faithful too.

In Tarkovsky’s film, the stalker is the guardian of The Room, so to speak. His whole purpose to bring those who want to through the Zone and to The Room; he is both a prophet and a spiritual mentor. His wife calls him one of “God’s fools,” and that he is a “marked man.” The stalker is set apart, and his faithfulness to the task—within a prison-like reality—marks him as uniquely virtuous.

One thing that sets the stalker apart from the other characters is his connection and appreciation for nature. He seizes every moment to lie in the grass of the Zone, to let the bugs crawl on him, to feel the moss, the cool water. The other characters are distracted by their passion for reaching the Room and having their most desired dream come true. But the stalker is as one who knows the truth—he knows what the Room is like, he knows what his task is, and so he takes in every moment to absorb the world around him.

Faithfulness requires attentiveness. We cannot run the race well if we are not thinking about our stride, the power channeled into the legs, the angle that your spikes are hitting the track. Everything must be contemplated if perseverance is the goal. This attentiveness is not just spiritual either, it must flow out into every moment of every day. It’s not just our attitude, its what comes out—it’s the actions and decision we make. They all matter. We are material creatures—our physical state is a reflection of our spiritual one.

In our material age, we tend to overemphasize the physical and simultaneously neglect it entirely. We forget they are connected—that mind and body are equally a part of reality—and thus we forget that the food we eat and the clothes we wear really do reflect on what we do and do not value. We are tempted in ways that no other time period has had to deal with. We are tempted to choose to easy option; to peter out as the days go faster and we get more and more tired. But we must choose faithfulness in all things—and faithfulness often means the slow and attentive route.

I eat meals at home because cooking a meal builds patience, builds habits of hospitality. I brew coffee from fresh, expensive beans because I want to learn to sit quietly and taste the notes of fig and cinnamon that is specific to a small African region. I fill my house with fresh plants because it reminds me that life does not come from my own hands and growth is an enduring process that requires attention. And I watch long Russian movies to remind me that the world itself is filled with symbolism just waiting to be unpacked.

These are small things, and one could even argue they are selfish and insular, but they are tools to train myself in the art of attentiveness. They are slow habits that exercise your spiritual muscle memory to notice and mostly importantly, to not grow weary of doing good.

CG

Spring has arrived again in all its grandeur. I sit watching the willow branches sway in front of my window—a mixture of fresh tiny green leaves and the puffs of their seedpods. The backdrop is a grey sky, threatening of rain, but somehow I’m unbothered. In the winter, the rain brings forth dreariness. The setting is lifeless trees and plants covering the earth. The hills are blanketed in brown, dry crops. But in the spring, life is promised through the small green peeking out from every corner. The rain is nourishment, not oppression. Indeed, it is the same in the winter—but we are so affected by what we can see. We are physical creatures and as much as our spirit tries to cheer us, nothing will be sufficient until we watch the first snowdrops peek out from the dirt: “good, the flowers are assured of the spring and so will I be.”

With Easter just having past, incarnation is on my mind. The ultimate physical reality and paradox: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. His salvation assures us of the final Springtide, the final birth of the world. Every spring, every marraige, every birth, gives us a smart droplet of the sweet succor to come.

I just finished listening to the “Princess and the Goblin” by George Macdonald for the second time and it reminded me of the importance of Christian optimism. As a natural pessimist, both Irene and Curdie embody what it means to live with optimism unguarded. Spring is the reward for optimism—or the reprieve for pessimism. We can look at it from either direction but the first carries a piece of Spring with them through the entire year. The latter will find fault even in the Spring. It will sigh with distress when the weather fluctuates back to cold and rain again for a time and quickly move on to a desperate wish for the summer.

I’m preaching to the choir. I lack the contentment that optimism brings. The soul that is at peace in saying this day is sufficient for it’s own troubles.

I graduate college in only a few weeks—this is also a kind of spring. The last weeks of school seem to drag on, like the cold winter months. If I could only reach the end, then perhaps I would finally be happy and free. “If I only had the next thing” could be repeated in saecula saeculorum. The winter is not pointless. As many have said, the deeper the winter, the warmer the spring. True freedom is only found by walking on the right path within the bounds of the road. True freedom is not endless spring; it is loving the rhythms of time and place and community. It is letting your affections be trained to love the here and now. To love the people God has seen fit to give you and to love to tasks that He has placed in your hand.

Hand to the plow, let the sowing begin.

CG

One thing I’ve intended to do for the last few years is to start journaling. However, every time I go to do it, I just…don’t. Something that sticks in my brain everytime I read old books, or even biographies of famous men and women, is that they are always journaling. We’ve learned so much about the past through journals, but that reason seems utterly obsolete now with the existence of the internet. So then, is there some personal virtue to journaling your thoughts and interests and activities?

I’m of the opinion that most anything that causes you to slow down in this day and age is a good thing. Sometimes we really do need to embrace the day before us and not spend so much time lingering on the future of what might or could happen. Social media sucks away your now by giving you unhealthy aspirations for what your future could look like. How often does it make you look backward? On your day, your week, your month? How often do we get so caught up in moving forwards that we don’t breathe grateful air and consciously remember who we are, how we’ve changed, and who we are called to be?

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matt 6:34, KJV

While I’m the last person to recommend excessive introspection, something I’ve been learning from a Jane Austen course I’m currently enrolled in is we must be able to read the story we’re in. If we do not contemplate our lives, and simply rush from one moment to the next, then we will have failed to see the cosmic dance that we uniquely participate in.

Just as reading fiction trains are affections to love the good and hate the evil, so too, perhaps, journaling teaches us to read our own lives as a story. And we can learn to love the characters surrounding us better as well as identify our own shortcomings when it comes to charity, love, and consistency of character. But even above all this, to see the hand of God at work in each individual life. To see the tapestry being woven together with more intricacies of detail than we can imagine. All this, perhaps can be gained through wielding a tool that has been much out of use.

And so I sit down to this Substack to simply record this.

CG