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This post, I promise, will be interesting. If I play my cards right, it may end up being beautiful, too — beauty is a subset of interestingness. Perhaps I will manage to make it elegant, or cool, or cute, or sexy. Well, we’ll see about sexy. What is the relationship between all these words? I’ve given a lot of thoughts on what beauty is and why it exists (e.g. here, here, and also here).

When I saw this new book by Thomas McCall, Caleb Friedemann, and Matt Friedemann (=MFF), The Doctrine of Good Works: Reclaiming a Neglected Protestant Teaching, one of my first responses was whether or not they’d line up with me on tov. After all tov is the “good” in “good works.” In A Church called Tov I outlined a theology of tov with the following themes: (1) God alone is tov, (2) God’s design is tov in the power of the Spirit, (3) Tov is active, (4) Tov resists evil, (5) Tov is God’s ultimate and final approval, (6) the Gospel is tov (good news), (7) Jesus is the one true human of tov, and (8) we are called to participate in God forming a tov church in this world.

My mom has stage four lung cancer. She was diagnosed four and a half years ago when the doctors said she had six months to live, if we were lucky. It’s her story not mine but she has had some rough patches, some good luck, some great doctors. She has defied the odds for which I am grateful, every single day. Her general attitude is that the cancer is really none of her business; the disease is going to do what it is going to do and she is going to live her life as long as she can.

When I was 11 years old, my mum took me with her to the hairdresser. She’s a pretty low maintenance lady, but like many women, hair has always been her chosen indulgence. Back then, she used to visit an upmarket place in West London for her routine cut and colour. To tweenage me, it all seemed impossibly glamorous, the scent of luxurious mousses, creams and gels floating through the salon on a cloud of warm hairdryer air.

I was originally going to post a reflection piece on this Substack for analyzing what went wrong on Tuesday’s election. I was going to go through the exit poll and vote total data (and because I’m in graduate school, believe me when I say, I do love my data sets). I was going to give you, dear reader and beloved fan, a meticulous breakdown of what the Republican Party can do if it wants to be serious about taking back the House of Representatives, Senate, and Presidency in 2024, and a series of policy and media suggestions to accomplish this task.

Home + small spaces, style + vintage things, and essays from the founder/former editor of Refinery29...welcome🥤. By Christene Barberich · Over 12,000 subscribersNo thanks, maybe later?“Big Magic from a Tiny Apartment. ✨” “A brilliant newsletter from Christene Barberich detailing all things thrifted mixed with candid memoir. I read it religiously! ” ncG1vNJzZmiZpJ67uq3PmqmtpZWjwW%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xo

Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark invites John Ellis and me to talk about really important stuff like Taylor Swift…and minor stuff like Gaza, the Texas Secession and how the Bad Guys may hack the 2024 election. Sanity Clause is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. ncG1vNJzZmiin6iysbTKpZyipl6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6aZK2noqeyr8CMqJ1mq6Sqvaqw

Hi there, readers!  Welcome to our group read of Betty Smith’s American classic, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Here’s our reading schedule, if you haven’t seen it yet:  You can also access it with this Google Sheets link.  Keep in mind that this schedule is very flexible. You’re an adult; read at whatever pace you want. All you need to know is that my weekly recaps will follow this schedule. 

Hard to imagine it was already years ago that I had the pleasure of interviewing Dana Omari, the founder of Noy Skincare. Dana was well respected around the world as an aesthetician and beautiful soul inside and out. For those of you that knew her, knew of her, or didn’t know of her at all — I am lucky enough to be able to share her story. ncG1vNJzZmiimpi1or%2FEZ6qumqOprqS3jZympmegZK5uwNGima6slWLBsHnDmqWaZZ%2BirrO1jKemsmWjoLavr8CrnA%3D%3D