From the Lamb & Flag Pub: Weekend Whimsy

& Resources to Process the Election

A few friends and I spent the eve of election night at the Lamb & Flag, the pub where the Inkling writers allegedly moved their gatherings in their later years. Opinionated Americans cycled through, sharing their predictions over pints. Since the election results, I’ve felt the vast range of the political spectrum that the people in my life inhabit: from the mourning and panic of ‘women should leave America’ to the all-American bravado buzz of the ‘boys are back’. The whiplash has been intense, leaving me with a lot to process. But here are just a handful of concrete resources/ingredients I think are helpful for moving forward in a kind of contemplative action—rooted in the hope of cutting through the deep cynicism and also the unsettling and smug hubris amassing in America right now.

Reclaiming Quiet by Sarah Clarkson

This week, I had the joy of attending Sarah Clarkson’s book launch at Wycliffe Hall here in Oxford. This beautiful work, called Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention, was released on the same day as the US elections, an ironic twist which she addresses on her Substack linked below. At the event, Sarah’s tranquil demeanour and gentle voice encouraged us to embrace ‘a goodness that will outlast the apocalypse’ and to ‘root yourself in an ancient holy peace’ by ‘entering back into His reality’. I’ve written here about her concept of walking back to that quiet place inside ourselves. It is in that place where she believes we can finally listen to God, to ourselves, and learn to truly hear and love others. Enjoy this quote from her new book below:

“We are called to be a listening people. How can we be otherwise?

In the beginning, before the tumult and song of history, before the spattered centuries of grieved desire and pain, before all the cries for love and justice unsettled the air and the world tumbled and twisted in a cacophony of anguished, ecstatic words, there was one radiant Word so beautiful it shattered the ancient and unformed darkness. This Word of God named and narrated us alive, spoke our battered, beautiful cosmos into being, and when it began it was wholly good.

In the beginning, we listened, and our listening was life itself.”

Reclaiming Quiet on Election Day?

‘Making Peace’: A Poem by Denise Levertov

Caroline Liberatore’s words here about the sense of grief that accompanies the deep divides in our country resonated with me today. Click on the full note to see her understanding of the role of the poet in such a moment as this, who Denise Levertov declares, ‘must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense familiar imagination of disaster.’

Conversations Across Differences: The Sacred with Elizabeth Oldfield

I have plugged Elizabeth Oldfield, or ‘LizzO’, as my friends call her, on this Substack many times. She is taking up the profoundly needed labour of hosting conversations across lines of difference, all through the common ground of asking what we hold sacred as individuals and communities. It’s wonderful fuel to help you love thy neighbour and fight the aggressive rhetoric so endemic to online spaces right now. She wants to humanise the people behind the opinions you may be against, so you can understand their logic and grow in respect, love, and empathy. As the left and right spin into their algorithmic echo chambers, making it not only more difficult to comprehend other people’s political views but also their very internal realities or ontologies, this podcast is a beautiful table for all sorts of fascinating cross-pollinating conversations. Oldfield recently hosted two important conversations which I think are worth listening to for different reasons:

1. Converting to Islam and the Pursuit of Meaning with Dr Timothy Winter

One conviction I have developed over the last several years is how profoundly Muslim communities, their ethical systems, theology, and values can be misunderstood in the West. I am hoping to write more on this sometime, especially the surprising overlap in policy preference and sacred values between Evangelicals and Muslim communities. Hope this episode is good food for thought.

2. Scandals, Faith Crises & the Spiritual Realm with Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher has become a proactive and controversial voice, one which I disagree with on many fronts. Yet I think his ideas are worth listening to for an understanding of broader trends in Christian communities. This podcast was especially helpful to probe more thoroughly into the concept and outcomes of re-enchantment.

More Pub Trips: The Beer With Me App

We need watering holes—low-effort places to gather spontaneously and regularly with friends. I continue to be convinced that building robust, welcoming, local, and thoughtful in-person communities of care is paramount right now to oppose polarisation. The beauty of pub trips is their casual nature and low entry threshold, making it easy to invite and merge people from the various corners of your life. On election night, someone showed the table the ‘Beer With Me’ app. We decided this un-updated crusty app developed in 2013 is a hilarious little community-building tool. You simply press the beer glass in the middle of the screen, and it sends a notification to all your friends on the app, letting them know where you’re having a pint. They then have the option to respond with a ‘Cheers!’, a ‘Sit tight, I’m on my way’, an ‘Can I join?’ a ‘How about some beer later today?’. While pubs are an English national treasure, maybe breweries will have to do in America. Regardless, let Lewis persuade you:

“My happiest hours are spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs – or else sitting up till the small hours in someone’s college rooms talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes.’

That’s all for now.

Drinking in all the oddities and beauties around me.

Warmly,
Carolyn