A Drink With a Friend

We all know we’re supposed to care about the environment — but what does that look like with a sacramental posture? And what do we do about it besides tossing our plastic and cardboard in the recycling bin? Seth and Tsh admit their own challenges while recognizing the need to do more — sanely. After all, the other two Rs are more effective than the third.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Praise Be to You - Laudato Si’, by Pope FrancisWhy You Should Quit RecyclingWe Tried Going Zero Waste for a Month: Here’s What Happened, by WheezyWaiterSilence, by Shusaku Endo  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

After some tragic news a few weeks ago about a friend of Seth’s, he and Tsh unpack what it means to live in our current reality of isolation. So many people are lonely, hurting, or have lost their way, and the best and truest solution is community. Community is the conduit for hope. No one needs to be alone. Let’s fight for hope because it’s literal life or death for some of us. There is genuine sacramental beauty in reaching out to other people.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, by Alice MunroRest, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

Tsh was on a crazy-tight book deadline this week, so in this episode, Seth is talking to none other than his wife Amber! She shares her morning routine when the day’s going well: daily examen, prayer, poetry, and the things she does to get her creative juices flowing. If you need some inspiration for your own morning routine and you’re hankering for a good old-fashioned Southern drawl that makes you smile, you need this conversation.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteAmber: Instagram | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Selected Stories of Anton ChekovSurvival is a Style: Poems, by Christian WimanSara Billups on InstagramHeather KingOphelia, by Roo Panes This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

St. Benedict of Nursia created a rule of life for his monastic community, and over a thousand years later we still look to it for inspiration. In this episode, Tsh walks Seth through a method of creating his own personal rule, one that he can tweak and adjust for the rest of his life — and you, dear listener, can do the same. After all, a Rule of Life is simply “a commitment to live your life in a particular way,” which means it’s a stellar tool for helping you say yes and no to the right things. Tsh has been leaning into this practice since 2014.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Tsh’s Rule of Life workshopThe ChosenCourtney Dauwalter documentaries: The Source of the Will and An Almost Perfect Race This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

What could be said of Good Friday that hasn’t been said for thousands of years? Today is a day for listening more than talking, for hearing from God more than telling God all we know. Today is a day of mystery, and it’s good for us to sit in the mystery without constantly searching for answers. Seth & Tsh reflect on the goodness that Jesus is God and they are not.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George SaundersOrphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

We know what FOMO is — but what about FONO? We’ve all been going through the same collective experience with the pandemic, but as it hopefully winds down (🤞), we might all go through a somewhat surprising form of re-entry (similar to a cross-cultural experience). Seth and Tsh unpack what it means to be hesitant to return to normalcy, knowing full-well that there really is no going back to it. What does it mean to live in a post-pandemic world? And what good stuff can we take with us from our lockdown lives?Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Zero Waste Home, by Bea JohnsonChasing Excellence with Ben Bergeron This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

Why does good writing matter, and why does the motive behind the writing matter? Seth and Tsh unpack the previous episode’s topic with Seth’s editor, Stephanie Duncan Smith. The three of them talk about what makes for good reading and writing, why we need better (new) stories, and with Stephanie’s business perspective, the sacramental act of bleeding on paper. This chat’s not just for writers.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsiteStephanie Duncan Smith: Newsletter | Twitter | InstagramPick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!City on Fire, by Garth Risk HallbergStranger Planet, by Nathan W. PyleSara Billups on InstagramThe Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan DidionThe Goldfinch, by Donna TarttEscaping Into the Open, by Elizabeth BergA Burning in My Bones, by Winn Collier This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

Seth and Tsh are primarily writers; it’s the craft they know best and the work they love most. In this chat, they use the art of writing as a springboard to talk about the art of doing all sorts of creativity just for the sake of doing it, for the love of its beauty. Woodworking, music, gardening, even business and other forms of work… We all need to create beauty in our lives for its own sake. How do we balance the work necessary — and the need to earn a living — with the sheer beauty of why we love it in the first place?Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Leisure: The Basis of Culture, by Josef PieperChef’s Table - Season 3, Episode 1A Burning in My Bones, by Winn CollierHeather King’s blogMurder Among the MormonsThe Daily Poem podcast - Wendell Berry’s Sabbath Poem III episode This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

Tsh is joined by none other than her husband, Kyle! He’s the general contractor of their own fixer-upper renovation, so in this chat they talk about the hidden beauty found behind old walls and wires. What does it mean to live in your own 1935 renovation project that’s taking four years (and counting)? There are lessons everywhere about knowing your land, knowing your walls, and doing the dirty work so your family can live congruent with your values.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!GK Chesterton’s quoteGone podcast from ParcastGarden Answers on YouTube This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe

(Bonus points if you get this episode title’s reference…) We all have to do it, and even many of the super-wealthy still choose to do it — clearly, it’s not just about bringing home a paycheck. But why bother working well? How do we find meaning in the thing we spend a whole heckuva lot of our waking hours doing? It goes far beyond holding a title of significance or having some surface form of influence.Seth: Newsletter | WebsiteTsh: Newsletter | WebsitePick up a round of drinks & help keep the show goingCome to Italy with us!Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux, by Heather King"Against Decoration," by Mary Karr (reprinted in Viper Rum)WandaVision on Disney+ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecommon.place/subscribe