The simplicity of what matters in life gets lost in the chaos we've created in life. The Harvard Study on Adult Development--the definitive long-range study--tells us scientifically what we already know in our hearts: that happiness in life comes from good relationships. With ourselves, with family and friends, with our co-workers and in the community--in the local as Paul says. We are not just spiritually or mentally wired for relationship: You are physically wired for relationship.
We know most of this deep down. We thrive in relationship. We die in loneliness. We feel deep fulfillment spending time with those we love; accomplishing some goal we set for ourself (relationship w/self); and relationship with the Transcendent via Beauty in nature, art, and religion.
Relationship permeates the very nature of Creation/the Universe. The laws of nature themselves are mathematical descriptions of... wait for it... relationships.
The chase for money or stuff or more technology or postmodern subjectivity or the tech-world of AI takes us out of the very relationships with ourselves and others that fulfill us. They isolate us. Make us lonely. And slowly kill us mentally, spiritually, and physically.
Part of what I think Mr. Kingsnorth is speaking about when he says, "It doesn’t remove the struggles from your life, but it means that they’re in the bigger context of you always being held and watched by something much bigger that’s happening. So yeah, Easter is a pretty wonderful time."
... is that we deepen in our understanding of what God has revealed about Himself. As we live life "in Christ," we encounter more and more reflections that others have had. Handel's Messiah is a big one for me, and a hymn known as "And can it be." Here's the first stanza. Look it up for the rest.
Heart-felt kudos to Bari for a gracious and fair presentation of an on-going conversion to a religion that has often been anything but gracious to those of her heritage!
I have been reading Paul Kingsnorth’s Substack for the past year - and this Honestly interview was really wonderful! Bari and The Free Press are also wonderful - I start most every day reading TFP right after I read my Bible (which puts my world into perspective). As a lifelong conservative and Christian, TFP demonstrates for me that we all can share our thoughts to the benefit of our communities if we are committed to speaking respectfully to our neighbors… And TFP is a clear example of how this honest, open minded sharing of perspectives, observations, and experiences SHOULD work in journalism!
I think that what Paul is, is what I call a "crunchy" (I'm one, too). So, I think, was J.R.R. Tolkien. It's less about the outward trappings of "hippie-dom" and more about the recognition that nature is a vital thing, a force that we meddle too much with at our peril, because it is so much more complex than science yet fully comprehends.
Great article. I also became a Christian through a process of intellectual pursuit and God chasing me down. However, I'm very much a part of the environmental community. I think it's an opportunity to nurture the world and connect with people at the same time. People within this environmental movement are concerned about nature, animals, bees, butterflies, and plants. They want the world to be a beautiful place. How do we get there? How do we prevent destruction and extinction? These are important questions and are worthy of discussion.
I'll leave this buried somewhere at the bottom. I'll just say I get this guy. Only an idiot would think that destroying nature, or removing our lives from it, is healthy. If you are not seeing trees often, or spending time in nature, something in you either fails to develop--if you are a kid--or withers, as you age.
Back in the 80's when I was young and more naive, I remember the great passions. They were kind of an echo of the 60's, but still sincere.
But somewhere along the way the counter-culture became the Man and seemingly didn't even notice. If you join the Left today you are joining a For-Profit enterprise that may as well be incorporated. The people making the money are happy to pull strings to push people first this way, then that way, but not a damn thing any of these kids are taught to chant, or to fight for or against, is organic. There is always an agenda, and that agenda is always improving the lives of a very, very few through more power and money, and that improvement is usually at the expense of the very people, or cause in the case of the environment, that was supposedly what it was all about.
Don't any of you be afraid to be different. That 's the only way to live anything even approaching an interesting life, and it's also the only to have a hope in hell of maintaining some form of personal integrity.
Kingsnorth reminds me a bit of the now-sober actors and rockers who prattle on to a fawning interviewer who lionizes their "courage" in finally getting clean (with the help of legions of highly paid caregivers), Altogether ignoring the carnage left in their wake in the ruined lives of their acolytes who swallowed wholesale what they once preached about the virtues of drugs and excess.
This transcribed peek sounds so fascinating and I look forward to listening!
“I was looking for turned out to be God, actually. Or maybe he was looking for me, which is more likely. I didn’t know, but there was always a void and it turned out to be God-shaped.”
As one who had never heard of Kingsnorth, thoroughly enjoyed the entire conversation this morning. The experience enhanced perhaps by several aspects of his journey that I found myself relating to, including once working for Greenpeace yet today wanting nothing to do with the carbon obsessed climate apoplectic puppets driving the agenda and narrative of their globalist political and economic pay masters. Similar with evolution in the spiritual realm, the quest, in response to the ‘God void’, leading ultimately to a coming-home.
Even if I couldn’t agree entirely with his views on capitalism or the suggested ‘Distributionism’ as feasible alternative, certainly very glad to have listened in and look forward to perusing some of his other works.
Thank you Paul for giving a voice to us nature lovers that can’t wrap our heads around the lack of rational thinking around green energy. Protecting wild places is what saves species, including us.
Everything that he found in Christianity, I looked for, for 19 yrs. and didn't find. I figured that was enough time to be able to believe. but the Church people wanted me to believe everything from Genesis to Revalation and, somehow, the 3 children in the fiery funance, who were unburnt, couldn't pass the credibility test. I don't have a problem with God, but the church isn't for me. I'm glad he found what he needed and can afford to live the life that he and his family want.
As John Prine said so eloquently,
"Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try an' find Jesus on your own"
The simplicity of what matters in life gets lost in the chaos we've created in life. The Harvard Study on Adult Development--the definitive long-range study--tells us scientifically what we already know in our hearts: that happiness in life comes from good relationships. With ourselves, with family and friends, with our co-workers and in the community--in the local as Paul says. We are not just spiritually or mentally wired for relationship: You are physically wired for relationship.
We know most of this deep down. We thrive in relationship. We die in loneliness. We feel deep fulfillment spending time with those we love; accomplishing some goal we set for ourself (relationship w/self); and relationship with the Transcendent via Beauty in nature, art, and religion.
Relationship permeates the very nature of Creation/the Universe. The laws of nature themselves are mathematical descriptions of... wait for it... relationships.
The chase for money or stuff or more technology or postmodern subjectivity or the tech-world of AI takes us out of the very relationships with ourselves and others that fulfill us. They isolate us. Make us lonely. And slowly kill us mentally, spiritually, and physically.
Part of what I think Mr. Kingsnorth is speaking about when he says, "It doesn’t remove the struggles from your life, but it means that they’re in the bigger context of you always being held and watched by something much bigger that’s happening. So yeah, Easter is a pretty wonderful time."
... is that we deepen in our understanding of what God has revealed about Himself. As we live life "in Christ," we encounter more and more reflections that others have had. Handel's Messiah is a big one for me, and a hymn known as "And can it be." Here's the first stanza. Look it up for the rest.
And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Heart-felt kudos to Bari for a gracious and fair presentation of an on-going conversion to a religion that has often been anything but gracious to those of her heritage!
I have been reading Paul Kingsnorth’s Substack for the past year - and this Honestly interview was really wonderful! Bari and The Free Press are also wonderful - I start most every day reading TFP right after I read my Bible (which puts my world into perspective). As a lifelong conservative and Christian, TFP demonstrates for me that we all can share our thoughts to the benefit of our communities if we are committed to speaking respectfully to our neighbors… And TFP is a clear example of how this honest, open minded sharing of perspectives, observations, and experiences SHOULD work in journalism!
I think that what Paul is, is what I call a "crunchy" (I'm one, too). So, I think, was J.R.R. Tolkien. It's less about the outward trappings of "hippie-dom" and more about the recognition that nature is a vital thing, a force that we meddle too much with at our peril, because it is so much more complex than science yet fully comprehends.
Great article. I also became a Christian through a process of intellectual pursuit and God chasing me down. However, I'm very much a part of the environmental community. I think it's an opportunity to nurture the world and connect with people at the same time. People within this environmental movement are concerned about nature, animals, bees, butterflies, and plants. They want the world to be a beautiful place. How do we get there? How do we prevent destruction and extinction? These are important questions and are worthy of discussion.
I'll leave this buried somewhere at the bottom. I'll just say I get this guy. Only an idiot would think that destroying nature, or removing our lives from it, is healthy. If you are not seeing trees often, or spending time in nature, something in you either fails to develop--if you are a kid--or withers, as you age.
Back in the 80's when I was young and more naive, I remember the great passions. They were kind of an echo of the 60's, but still sincere.
But somewhere along the way the counter-culture became the Man and seemingly didn't even notice. If you join the Left today you are joining a For-Profit enterprise that may as well be incorporated. The people making the money are happy to pull strings to push people first this way, then that way, but not a damn thing any of these kids are taught to chant, or to fight for or against, is organic. There is always an agenda, and that agenda is always improving the lives of a very, very few through more power and money, and that improvement is usually at the expense of the very people, or cause in the case of the environment, that was supposedly what it was all about.
Don't any of you be afraid to be different. That 's the only way to live anything even approaching an interesting life, and it's also the only to have a hope in hell of maintaining some form of personal integrity.
Kingsnorth reminds me a bit of the now-sober actors and rockers who prattle on to a fawning interviewer who lionizes their "courage" in finally getting clean (with the help of legions of highly paid caregivers), Altogether ignoring the carnage left in their wake in the ruined lives of their acolytes who swallowed wholesale what they once preached about the virtues of drugs and excess.
I love his Holy Wells travels each Sunday. They revive a tired American living in a cultural desert
This transcribed peek sounds so fascinating and I look forward to listening!
“I was looking for turned out to be God, actually. Or maybe he was looking for me, which is more likely. I didn’t know, but there was always a void and it turned out to be God-shaped.”
As one who had never heard of Kingsnorth, thoroughly enjoyed the entire conversation this morning. The experience enhanced perhaps by several aspects of his journey that I found myself relating to, including once working for Greenpeace yet today wanting nothing to do with the carbon obsessed climate apoplectic puppets driving the agenda and narrative of their globalist political and economic pay masters. Similar with evolution in the spiritual realm, the quest, in response to the ‘God void’, leading ultimately to a coming-home.
Even if I couldn’t agree entirely with his views on capitalism or the suggested ‘Distributionism’ as feasible alternative, certainly very glad to have listened in and look forward to perusing some of his other works.
Thank you TheFP, Honestly and BW !
Thank you Paul for giving a voice to us nature lovers that can’t wrap our heads around the lack of rational thinking around green energy. Protecting wild places is what saves species, including us.
Funny that the green movement now seems beholden to commercial interests, as this guy notes. But irony can be pretty funny.
Everything that he found in Christianity, I looked for, for 19 yrs. and didn't find. I figured that was enough time to be able to believe. but the Church people wanted me to believe everything from Genesis to Revalation and, somehow, the 3 children in the fiery funance, who were unburnt, couldn't pass the credibility test. I don't have a problem with God, but the church isn't for me. I'm glad he found what he needed and can afford to live the life that he and his family want.
Kalo Pascha kai Kali Anastasi, although Orthodox Christians have another month to go to celebrate Easter.