Storing the nutrients. Yaaaaa. And the seeds! They don't go in the compost pile. They go somewhere else. Historically, monasteries (Christian and other religions) stored the seeds. SubStack is storing e-seeds of all kinds right now.
What a breath of fresh air. Most Christians (and many who see Christianity as simply part of their western heritage) are racing to resuscitate the west more broadly and the US specifically. Others are convinced that the final judgement is going to be triggered by this fall. Some fight to save the country while chastising Christians that Jesus isn’t going to save them from the long March into communism. I am trying to reevaluate what the role of a Christian is in a constitutional republic that is largely secular. Your article is honest and hopeful in a way I don’t see much these days. Sorry if I rambled a bit, I am very thankful you showed up in my feed here on Substack.
Thank you for the kind words, Gloria. I’m glad you found it hopeful rather than hopeless. I felt a certain sense of I don’t know what to call it...retreat? passivity?...in the other reflections that felt like it didn’t inspire much. It seems to me there are things we can actually DO, particularly things that God has equipped us especially for, so I wanted to try and capture that.
How it works out practically? It may read as a cop-out, but I genuinely believe that context determines that. There is no one-size-fits-all roadmap. But there is certainly SOMEthing for those that have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to work.
"Rather than wasting these uncookable soupçons by chucking them in the bin for someone else to deal with later"
- the sentiment expressed here is key - our wastes are our responsibility, and viewing them as someone else's (or the common concern of society) has been the cause of much environmental degradation and further acts of waste.
As you rightly point out, with a bit of care, attention and time, your kitchen "wastes" can become useful again as soil, thus adding life to the garden and preventing the externalities and pollutants from ill-considered, ill-disposed wastes.
Right! WE waste (verb); things are NOT waste (noun). Our actions do not affect their ontology, it only puts us in the position of denying them their existence. And then, based on this lie, we have all these systems and structures in place to handle our refuse for us. “Refuse” really begins to take on both of its meanings.
“End-of-Culture Doulas” - goodness, you’ve hit the nail right on the head, haven’t you? I think that’s exactly right. And at its best, I think that is what the Church OUGHT to be, COULD be, might yet be (please, God). And there are many outside Christianity that also serve in this role as well: we Christians certainly haven’t cornered the market on virtue! Of course, I doubt anyone needs me to say that. Should be obvious.
The practice of it is the trick. I didn’t get into practice this time around and I’m hesitant to say anything at all, but I think it goes back to my first essay focused more on the individual: confession of one’s sin (or reflection on personal failure, if you prefer), recognizing how it ripples out into one’s ecosystem and becomes complicit in and upholds other issues at larger scales and higher orders. Finding areas of my own failure, repenting, pursuing the Good for myself and willing that Good for others. But this will look so vastly different depending on context that a prescription seems unhelpful.
I thought about this a lot on my drive in this morning. I was thinking about what being an End-of-Life doula really entails, and how it could be applied to culture. Something I kept coming back to was how some of the deepest part of the work is as that of a faithful witness; someone who will not leave, or look away, no matter how bad things get - and who will be honest about how bad things actually are. And in that respect I think that you, and Kingsnorth and Leithart are already acting as end-of-culture doulas.
It’s interesting to widen my lens and look at culture with this hat on. It’s so like working with a family deep in the denial of the severity of a loved ones situation where, because they can’t imagine life after their loved one has died, they just double down on the pretence that they’re not going anywhere - business as usual. I’m hesitant to equate who might be the doctors, the ones that are overly keen to prescribe debilitating drugs to make the process more palatable for those present, in this metaphor… It's interesting, and unnerving, as I know well the repercussions of deep denial.
The only appropriate response is love, compassion, and (usually unwelcome, and painful) truth. So, I think we are thinking along the same lines, prescriptively… (if we dare!)
I definitely missed it. Your readings are likely deeper than mine, in fact, for the most part prior to coming to Substack I’d pretty much stopped.
I’m a bit skeptical of humanity at this point in my life. I know great thinkers have their place, but to what end these views?
“Nothing to salvage,” if that’s what I read, seems really harsh from any approach. I have children and grandchildren. I do hope it’s not quite that bad. The culture we once had is under assault and for the same reasons every culture has been assaulted, the quest for power. Another human failing.
If I read any part of your essay correctly, “dead or dying” comes across as very bleak, and tends to presuppose complete failure.
It’s the thinkers I quote that say it’s dead and dying. I’m suggesting that if this is true, and I think it is, that’s okay: things in nature are dying and do die all the time, and that enriches the soil for future growth! Our role isn’t to despair, but to help guide what is currently dying down so it can be “composted” for our children and grandchildren.
There is little more satisfying than tending your compost in the wee small hours of a chilly morning. Watching the steam meander into the first glimmer of sunlight is a mystical confirmation that you and your earth are in synch. It's a message, "You've tended this well and, by God's grace, are given new life Thanks for this reflection, Nathaniel.
My first real exposure to your stack. Likely I will pass from this life long before you, but I can’t agree with the assessments you’ve brought forward. So verdant is the life where I live that I have real trouble holding back the forest. So plentiful is the wildlife, I must feed the cats well within daylight because the wild creatures will come for what might be left, in the night. The deer clean up the apples from the June drop and chomp off my day lillies. Fireflies sparkle each night in my deliberately unmowed lawn and into the woods. Bears come and wreck my bird feeders; bins must be moved inside or the bears will empty them too.
My property is close to a large memorial park. I walk my dogs around it, the circumference is a full mile. Few are the days when new fresh graves don’t appear. We understand death, here.
But the certainty of death is a fear that abides among humans. The one cat I haven’t been able to trap and spay will likely have a third litter before summer is over.
I choose to see the human travail as fleeting. The woodchucks were here before those we refer to as native Americans, they will be here when our species either dies out or leaves this earth.
Life is here for as long as there is a supportive planet. I will continue to appreciate the place in it that I’ve been afforded.
I have to wonder if the difference is generational. My advice: Embrace life. It is a gift.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond, Ken.
I can’t help but feel we’ve missed each other somewhere. I think we arrive at the same point (“Embrace life. It is a gift.”) as I’m specifically referring to life and death as something to be received as a gift that we shepherd forward as our gift to the future.
I don’t know where you live, but most densely populated metropolitan cities know nothing of what you’ve described. Many suburbs don’t either. I certainly didn’t growing up in Southern California, although I do now living in north Georgia. And ultimately, I’m not talking about nature and it’s vitality (I saw some ivy swallowing a grocery cart just yesterday!), but rather the Christian’s role as the corpse of Christendom -- the West, broadly -- decomposes. Based on nature’s vitality, I’m proposing a lens for viewing these societal and social realities as a (hopefully) instructive way forward.
Nate, this is a beautiful piece. Each day, I check to see if you've posted something new. And when in you're in between pieces, I get the treat of peeking into your archives. Thank you.
So glad to come back to this with time to savor and let it sink in. Beautifully written, with your signature touches of humor. We have composted for years, even tho we belong to a CSA and now live in a shady place where we don’t grow much (to eat). It just feels wrong to throw organic matter “away.” (As we greenies say, “there is no ‘away’.”)
As for city-dwellers with limited access to composting, I remember being very jazzed by San Francisco’s municipal composting program as far back as the oughts. My city now has a private composting service people can sign up for. I have a friend who started a company 15+ years ago called Waste Neutral. He hauls organics from institutional clients like universities and schools and restaurants, then delivers to a big industrial-scale composter. For the school kids, he brings back bags of soil for them to garden with - thereby hooking them on nature’s magic at an early age.
I love Thich Nhat Hanh’s poetic / metaphorical take on composting. Totally agree with you that it’s a wonderful practice to get over our aversion and fear of death. Natural cycles are a wonder.
Storing the nutrients. Yaaaaa. And the seeds! They don't go in the compost pile. They go somewhere else. Historically, monasteries (Christian and other religions) stored the seeds. SubStack is storing e-seeds of all kinds right now.
What a breath of fresh air. Most Christians (and many who see Christianity as simply part of their western heritage) are racing to resuscitate the west more broadly and the US specifically. Others are convinced that the final judgement is going to be triggered by this fall. Some fight to save the country while chastising Christians that Jesus isn’t going to save them from the long March into communism. I am trying to reevaluate what the role of a Christian is in a constitutional republic that is largely secular. Your article is honest and hopeful in a way I don’t see much these days. Sorry if I rambled a bit, I am very thankful you showed up in my feed here on Substack.
Thank you for the kind words, Gloria. I’m glad you found it hopeful rather than hopeless. I felt a certain sense of I don’t know what to call it...retreat? passivity?...in the other reflections that felt like it didn’t inspire much. It seems to me there are things we can actually DO, particularly things that God has equipped us especially for, so I wanted to try and capture that.
How it works out practically? It may read as a cop-out, but I genuinely believe that context determines that. There is no one-size-fits-all roadmap. But there is certainly SOMEthing for those that have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to work.
Great essay Nate.
A quick reflection on this:
"Rather than wasting these uncookable soupçons by chucking them in the bin for someone else to deal with later"
- the sentiment expressed here is key - our wastes are our responsibility, and viewing them as someone else's (or the common concern of society) has been the cause of much environmental degradation and further acts of waste.
As you rightly point out, with a bit of care, attention and time, your kitchen "wastes" can become useful again as soil, thus adding life to the garden and preventing the externalities and pollutants from ill-considered, ill-disposed wastes.
Thank you, Hadden.
Right! WE waste (verb); things are NOT waste (noun). Our actions do not affect their ontology, it only puts us in the position of denying them their existence. And then, based on this lie, we have all these systems and structures in place to handle our refuse for us. “Refuse” really begins to take on both of its meanings.
So beautifully, and succinctly, put. Thank you, Nathaniel. It seems as though we have an urgent need for End-of-Culture Doulas...
I'm sitting with the question of what that might look like, practically. I appreciate the contemplation.
“End-of-Culture Doulas” - goodness, you’ve hit the nail right on the head, haven’t you? I think that’s exactly right. And at its best, I think that is what the Church OUGHT to be, COULD be, might yet be (please, God). And there are many outside Christianity that also serve in this role as well: we Christians certainly haven’t cornered the market on virtue! Of course, I doubt anyone needs me to say that. Should be obvious.
The practice of it is the trick. I didn’t get into practice this time around and I’m hesitant to say anything at all, but I think it goes back to my first essay focused more on the individual: confession of one’s sin (or reflection on personal failure, if you prefer), recognizing how it ripples out into one’s ecosystem and becomes complicit in and upholds other issues at larger scales and higher orders. Finding areas of my own failure, repenting, pursuing the Good for myself and willing that Good for others. But this will look so vastly different depending on context that a prescription seems unhelpful.
Anyway. End of culture doula. Hmmmm.
I thought about this a lot on my drive in this morning. I was thinking about what being an End-of-Life doula really entails, and how it could be applied to culture. Something I kept coming back to was how some of the deepest part of the work is as that of a faithful witness; someone who will not leave, or look away, no matter how bad things get - and who will be honest about how bad things actually are. And in that respect I think that you, and Kingsnorth and Leithart are already acting as end-of-culture doulas.
It’s interesting to widen my lens and look at culture with this hat on. It’s so like working with a family deep in the denial of the severity of a loved ones situation where, because they can’t imagine life after their loved one has died, they just double down on the pretence that they’re not going anywhere - business as usual. I’m hesitant to equate who might be the doctors, the ones that are overly keen to prescribe debilitating drugs to make the process more palatable for those present, in this metaphor… It's interesting, and unnerving, as I know well the repercussions of deep denial.
The only appropriate response is love, compassion, and (usually unwelcome, and painful) truth. So, I think we are thinking along the same lines, prescriptively… (if we dare!)
I definitely missed it. Your readings are likely deeper than mine, in fact, for the most part prior to coming to Substack I’d pretty much stopped.
I’m a bit skeptical of humanity at this point in my life. I know great thinkers have their place, but to what end these views?
“Nothing to salvage,” if that’s what I read, seems really harsh from any approach. I have children and grandchildren. I do hope it’s not quite that bad. The culture we once had is under assault and for the same reasons every culture has been assaulted, the quest for power. Another human failing.
If I read any part of your essay correctly, “dead or dying” comes across as very bleak, and tends to presuppose complete failure.
Didn’t mean to overlook the reference to Christendom, but I’d still miss the point, I guess.
It’s the thinkers I quote that say it’s dead and dying. I’m suggesting that if this is true, and I think it is, that’s okay: things in nature are dying and do die all the time, and that enriches the soil for future growth! Our role isn’t to despair, but to help guide what is currently dying down so it can be “composted” for our children and grandchildren.
There is little more satisfying than tending your compost in the wee small hours of a chilly morning. Watching the steam meander into the first glimmer of sunlight is a mystical confirmation that you and your earth are in synch. It's a message, "You've tended this well and, by God's grace, are given new life Thanks for this reflection, Nathaniel.
I'm sort of surprised that you didn't use the Quote from Hamlet when you discussed the skull.
"Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him well Horatio."
I haven’t read any Shakespeare 😅
We’ve separated ourselves too much from death and decay (and excrement), all necessary to bring forth life again. The soil tells all.
It’s very true. The ground is a mirror we rarely dare to gaze in.
Nathaniel this was incredible. Thank you.
Thank you for saying so. I’m glad you found it worth your time.
You had me at Kingsnorth. Need to run atm, but will come back and dive in soon. (Not literally, though - ewww.) Great topic!
Take your time! I hope your run is/was a good one 💪🏼
My first real exposure to your stack. Likely I will pass from this life long before you, but I can’t agree with the assessments you’ve brought forward. So verdant is the life where I live that I have real trouble holding back the forest. So plentiful is the wildlife, I must feed the cats well within daylight because the wild creatures will come for what might be left, in the night. The deer clean up the apples from the June drop and chomp off my day lillies. Fireflies sparkle each night in my deliberately unmowed lawn and into the woods. Bears come and wreck my bird feeders; bins must be moved inside or the bears will empty them too.
My property is close to a large memorial park. I walk my dogs around it, the circumference is a full mile. Few are the days when new fresh graves don’t appear. We understand death, here.
But the certainty of death is a fear that abides among humans. The one cat I haven’t been able to trap and spay will likely have a third litter before summer is over.
I choose to see the human travail as fleeting. The woodchucks were here before those we refer to as native Americans, they will be here when our species either dies out or leaves this earth.
Life is here for as long as there is a supportive planet. I will continue to appreciate the place in it that I’ve been afforded.
I have to wonder if the difference is generational. My advice: Embrace life. It is a gift.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond, Ken.
I can’t help but feel we’ve missed each other somewhere. I think we arrive at the same point (“Embrace life. It is a gift.”) as I’m specifically referring to life and death as something to be received as a gift that we shepherd forward as our gift to the future.
I don’t know where you live, but most densely populated metropolitan cities know nothing of what you’ve described. Many suburbs don’t either. I certainly didn’t growing up in Southern California, although I do now living in north Georgia. And ultimately, I’m not talking about nature and it’s vitality (I saw some ivy swallowing a grocery cart just yesterday!), but rather the Christian’s role as the corpse of Christendom -- the West, broadly -- decomposes. Based on nature’s vitality, I’m proposing a lens for viewing these societal and social realities as a (hopefully) instructive way forward.
Nate, this is a beautiful piece. Each day, I check to see if you've posted something new. And when in you're in between pieces, I get the treat of peeking into your archives. Thank you.
So glad to come back to this with time to savor and let it sink in. Beautifully written, with your signature touches of humor. We have composted for years, even tho we belong to a CSA and now live in a shady place where we don’t grow much (to eat). It just feels wrong to throw organic matter “away.” (As we greenies say, “there is no ‘away’.”)
As for city-dwellers with limited access to composting, I remember being very jazzed by San Francisco’s municipal composting program as far back as the oughts. My city now has a private composting service people can sign up for. I have a friend who started a company 15+ years ago called Waste Neutral. He hauls organics from institutional clients like universities and schools and restaurants, then delivers to a big industrial-scale composter. For the school kids, he brings back bags of soil for them to garden with - thereby hooking them on nature’s magic at an early age.
I love Thich Nhat Hanh’s poetic / metaphorical take on composting. Totally agree with you that it’s a wonderful practice to get over our aversion and fear of death. Natural cycles are a wonder.