CRAIG A. PHILLIPS, PH.D.
Snowbound! Check out this post on my free Substack page.
A Nor’easter is tracking up the Eastern Seaboard this morning, and the snow-covered birch trees outside my window in New Hampshire sent me back to John Greenleaf Whittier’s great 1866 poem ‘Snow-Bound’, and to the question of what we lose when no storm can truly cut us off anymore. Modern life is specifically engineered to prevent the conditions that produced some of the best writing in American literature.
This week my reading moved from a 1677 woodcut map of New England to a 1606 copper engraved map of the religions of the world, to a seventeenth-century catalogue of world religions and Christian heresies, to a sprawling space opera set across the solar system. A rare book arrived in the mail, a public talk prompted uncomfortable questions, and the common thread running through all of it turned out to be the same: people trying to draw the world as they wished it to be, and the significant silences their clean lines depend on.
Check out the new post on my free Substack page!
https://craigphillips.substack.com/p/maps-space-battles-and-old-heresies
Check out my new free Substack post!
Watching my Cavapoo Rosie explode into the first snowfall of the year reminded me of something we’ve all forgotten. The ability to feel unbridled joy doesn’t disappear as we grow up—it just gets buried.
In my newest free Substack post I explain why my posts seem to “jump all over the place” — from fountain pens and making sourdough to learning ancient languages — by revealing how all these diverse interests connect through a central question: “what does it mean to flourish?” I explore how seemingly unrelated passions can form an “architecture of wonder” where each pursuit informs the other, suggesting that lifelong learning isn’t about accumulating separate skills but about recognizing the hidden patterns that connect different aspects of a meaningful life. My hope is that you will examine your own scattered interests and discover what flourishing might mean in your everyday life.
I hope you will enjoy this post on my free Substack page:
“Taking the time to experience our internal desert—to sit with our fears, contradictions, and longings without trying to fix or flee from them—is essential for authentic growth. It’s in these stripped-down moments that we discover not just our limitations, but our capacity for change, for compassion, and for becoming more fully ourselves.”
Everyday Life: Flourishing in These Times
I recently posted a meditation on my free Substack Page based on my experiences of mowing of ten acres of field every summer in the Adirondacks. It’s about how we avoid solitude and why the most uncomfortable spaces sometimes offer the most essential encounters with who we really are. “When you can’t escape the heat, the noise, or the monotony, you eventually stop trying to escape yourself.”
You will find it at:
https://craigphillips.substack.com
I hope you will enjoy reading it.
I hope you will enjoy my new post, “The Art of Aimless Exploration,” on my free Substack page.
An aimless twelve-mile ride on an e-bike reminded me that some of life’s best discoveries happen when we’re not actively seeking them. They happen when we’re open to surprise, willing to explore the dead ends, curious about what lies beyond our well-traveled paths. Sometimes we need to get lost to find who we are.
https://craigphillips.substack.com/p/the-art-of-aimless-exploration
The non-profit, A Faith that Does Justice, has published my essay on Tom Petty’s song, “Crawling Back to You,” that first appeared in a shorter version on my Substack page, https://craigphillips.substack.com, as “The Weekly Word.”
This revised contribution adds additional content relating the song to the Collect for the 8th Sunday after the Epiphany from the Book of Common Prayer.
I hope you enjoy reading this. If you are already subscribed to this blog site, “In These Times,” please consider also subscribing to my new free Substack page:
IN THESE TIMES 