1. Here’s an aphorism that is trustworthy and true which comes from the pen of James Joyce: “In the particular is constrained the universal.” It summarizes the author’s gift for writing incredibly rich works of literature that focus on very specific people in very specific circumstances, which nonetheless transcend their settings. The human condition is universal enough that, in a distinct and fully incarnate portrait of another human being, we can end up seeing ourselves.
Take that insight and apply it to environmental literature, and you have Alan Jacobs’ insights at the Hedgehog Review on green activism: If you would save the planet, forget The Planet. His point is simple: environmental literature and activism have shifted. The old, great works that drew people toward nature focused on a specific love of a specific location. The technical term is topophilia, which means the love of place, e.g., Thoreau’s feelings about Walden Pond or John Muir’s love of the Yosemite Valley. Most environmental literature and activism now talk about larger, abstract concepts: “Saving the planet” or “helping the Earth,” which, Jacobs points out, do not seem to be winning messages. He taps the writings of social reformer John Stuart Mill for insight:
Mill, in his depression, did not disagree with this idea, but he thought his “teachers had occupied themselves but superficially with the means of forming and keeping up these salutary associations.” The problem was that these “associations” depended wholly on what in the twentieth century we would learn to call operant conditioning: “praise and blame, reward and punishment.” It is right to reform the world, or save the Earth or Nature; it is wrong to neglect such work. Reward and punishment should be dispensed accordingly.
But, Mill continues, the “pains and pleasures thus forcibly associated with things, are not connected with them by any natural tie” (emphasis mine); and such a natural tie arises from direct experience and affection, not from analytical correctness. “I now saw … that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives.” It was only through the contemplative reading of poetry, and the building up of his capacity for affection and feeling such reading encouraged, that Mill was gradually restored to health.
This, I think, is an object lesson for those who wish to save the planet. If you would save the planet, forget The Planet; if you would sustain and repair nature, forget Nature. Think only of the sensual properties of one dear place. If you learn to love a pond or a creek or a valley, then what you love others will love — and will perhaps also come to find some element of their own local environment dear to them, dear enough to conserve and protect. Our obligations arise from our deepest affections. You just have to show them how.
Jacobs offers four implications. By leaving the peculiar behind and moving toward the universal, environmentalist literature and activism 1) framed its activism as a problem too big for a single person to tackle; 2) leveraged the law to bring condemnation to the person unable to tackle the big problem; 3) left people in an unwinnable moral paradox that served to catalyze anxiety, à la J. S. Mill; and 4) prevented people from falling in love with their own ponds, valleys, trails, etc., and developing their own nature-based affections. Preachers, teachers, theologians, and church leaders of all types: take note, lest the same pattern apply to your ministry!
2. Keeping with the theme of topophilia, author and mountaineer Jon Krakauer reflected this week on the 30th anniversary of his 1996 work Into Thin Air. The book is an autobiographical account of his 1996 climb up Mount Everest and the storm that killed eight climbers across the mountain. It’s not an exaggeration to say that, ironically, the book inspired a new crush of mountain climbers and helped develop the “Everest Economy” of climbing services that’s so famous today. All those influencers waiting in line to take selfies at the Everest summit? Blame Krakauer’s book.
What’s changed in 30 years? Thankfully, the local Nepalese are much better treated and respected than in the past, but beyond that, the crush of mountain tourists seeking status for climbing the mountain breaks Krakauer’s heart:
When the first edition of Into Thin Air was published … I assumed that the disturbing events I described in my book would convince amateur climbers that paying a lot of money to be guided up the highest mountain on Earth was a bad idea. I was wrong. The deadly hazards I wrote about attracted novice climbers to Everest like gamblers to a slot machine. The owner of one of the prominent guiding companies told me that Into Thin Air was better advertising for his business than anything he could have imagined. […]
Developments over the past 30 years have wrought a different kind of degradation as well. Climbing to the highest point on Earth is still an adventure that entails considerable risk and typically requires weeks of immense effort. But the commodification of the mountain has stripped away much of what once made climbing Everest such a uniquely profound experience. As the journalist Carl Hoffman mused in a review of a recent book about the Everest guiding industry, these companies perform an admirable service by providing expertise and assistance that now enables almost anyone to climb Everest. Nevertheless, he writes, “it’s hard not to look at those pictures of clients stacked on the side of the mountain in long lines, clutching their handrails and not think: Gross. That something fundamental to exploration and adventure and the human experience of it has been lost, is lost; that the thing they’ve purchased is a thing so vastly different from its very idea as to render it meaningless.” […]
Most of the multitudes who attempt Everest these days simply want to reach the summit with as little effort and risk as possible, by whatever means offer the greatest probability of success. After what I experienced in 1996, I’m not inclined to fault them.
I’m a little surprised that a book about the horrors of climbing Mt. Everest inspired a new generation of status seekers to flock to Nepal, but I am not surprised to hear that the status one receives from scaling the summit has led to its commodification. Here’s another trustworthy thought: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” That’s Goodhart’s Law, and while it’s meant to apply to statistical analysis and organizational structures, it applies here as well. Climbing Everest was once the, er, peak measure of a person’s dominance over nature. That measure became a target for the status-seeking world and has now ceased to be the measure that it was.
3. The topophilia is different, as is the status, but Amelia Tait’s exploration of the Disney Adult phenomenon hits some of the same notes. Surely you’ve seen them on your social feeds, that adult whose whole personality seems invested in the Disney entertainment ecosystem and frequent trips to central Florida or Anaheim, California. Tait asks: “Are Disney Adults the Happiest Debtors on Earth?”
Racking up debt on vacation isn’t a totally new concept. According to a 2025 survey, nearly thirty per cent of American travellers expected to go into debt to fund their travel plans. But AJ Wolfe, the author of “Disney Adults: Exploring (and Falling in Love with) a Magical Subculture,” argues that Disney debt is distinct: for some of the most loyal parkgoers, there’s an addictive, almost competitive aspect to it … She believes that there is a “hierarchy” of both collectors and visitors, so that people feel compelled to return to the parks to impress others and earn their “elder” status. “I compare it a lot to church,” she said.
Ouch — it’s never good to hear the church described as a hierarchy where people compete to impress others for status. The brand isn’t good, y’all. But viewing the phenomenon through the lens of status, we see some overlap with our Everest climbers: an economy that encourages massive financial investment with self-justification as the reward:
On TikTok and Instagram, Dale’s account handle is @ionlyworktopayfordisney. In one post — viewed almost two hundred thousand times — she jokes about not having enough money for a Disney trip, overlaid with a man singing, “We’re gonna do it anyway.” Memes like this have gone viral among Disney fans on social media, and they arguably normalize the idea of going into debt to visit the parks. They might also offer a new way to ascend the Disney hierarchy that Wolfe spoke about, with fans proving their loyalty to the company by posting about how much skin they have in the game. One individual who posted a meme on Instagram saying “People think I’m rich because of how often I go to Disney but I’m actually just irresponsible” clarified, when I approached them for an interview, that they didn’t actually go into debt for Disney. The post nonetheless read … “my retirement plan is just vibes and pixie dust.” It went on, “Honestly bestie if you are going to be irresponsible about ANYTHING, Disney is the most magical and worthwhile way to do it!”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many adults who have accumulated Disney debt seem to be chasing a feeling from their childhoods. Davidson said that visiting the parks takes her back to a time when she had fewer worries: “It’s the nostalgic feeling of what brought you joy when you were little and you didn’t have the stressors of adult life,” she said. (Never mind that Disney debt ends up adding to those stressors.) Mike Woodside, meanwhile, a forty-one-year-old subcontract manager in Texas, who owes more than ten thousand dollars after booking two Disney vacations, attributed his motivations to childhood experiences he missed out on. “From my experience being the poor kid that couldn’t go, it was a real bummer not being able to go,” he told me. When he had his own son, thirteen years ago, he decided to take him to the park regularly — even if it meant going into debt. “Deep down, I want him to experience some of the stuff that I didn’t really get a chance to,” Woodside said.
“I think I accumulate more debt every time we go,” he added, the silver cross on his necklace resting just above the WALL-E printed on his T-shirt. “Disney is debt.”
The whole article is a throwback to our #seculosity days: while we may not agree that Disney adults are part of a recognizable church, they do seem to be driven by some religious impulse. There’s the desire to escape the world, the desire for safety, the desire to be a good parent, the desire to have a childhood healed … and all these can be had if we make a deal with the financial devil. The fact that Tait says many of these indebted Disney adults don’t regret their decisions only solidifies the cultic dynamic at play.
4. For better church PR, Will Rahn announces “Baseball Saved Me” in the Free Press. After sharing how the constant disappointments of his beleaguered Mets helped him during a season of depression, Rahn talks glowingly about what baseball has in common with church: not in a #seculosity way like Disney but by touching a deep human need without judgment or shame:
Here lies the missing part of the story of baseball’s comeback. It’s hard not to read into trends like the resurgent popularity of the national pastime, what with all its respect for tradition, and the spike in conversions to Roman Catholicism. Let’s say Americans are seeking a certain solace in these enduring institutions, these man-made structures that offer us a glimpse of something sublime when we get together and believe. We live in dangerous times, an era of profound anxiety set to consume us if we don’t look away from it for a moment and mitigate our fears. This is where religious faith and baseball, our most meditative sport, provide an antidote.
The pews of a church, the stands of a baseball stadium — these are approved places to feel deeply alongside other people without having to talk to them. We all face in the same direction, every last man a boy reaching out for his father. We bring our own children with us even though they won’t know what’s going on. We want them to know the cadence of the liturgy and the crack of the bat. We want them to begin to feel the presence of the spirit, a sense of something that will always be there, that always has been. Every believer knows even a toddler can touch the eternal. It’s more of a miracle when his wrung-out dishrag of a dad still can too.
After googling the Mets this morning, I threw on a baseball cap, lit a cigarette, and shuffled out for a walk. I looked depressed because I am depressed, hangdog Charlie Brown expression and all …
But the Mets were there when I needed them. They break my heart in a way I can handle. And I’ll be watching them tonight.
My only rejoinder is this: the Pirates playing above .500 this late into the season buttresses my belief in miracles. And speaking of miracles:
5. It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday. The New Yorker is here to help you celebrate with “Mother’s Day Gifts That Say, ‘Sorry for Everything I Did to You as a Teen.'” Some highlights:
Turkish-Cotton Bath Towel
This stylish striped towel is a great way to say, “Sorry I stole your towel. Honestly, you weren’t asking for much when you said that you just wanted one single thing in the house that was yours. I shouldn’t have used it, and I definitely shouldn’t have gotten self-tanner all over it. My bad.” […]
Ten-Thousand-Dollar Diamond Necklace
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can absolve some amount of guilt. This gorgeous diamond necklace is perhaps the only object exorbitant enough to say, “Sorry I totalled the family Camry when I crashed it into a fake rock outside Panda Express. And sorry I yelled, ‘I hate you!’ when you forbid me from driving for the rest of the year. You were right — playing ‘Thrift Shop’ by Macklemore at max volume certainly hindered my driving abilities. And I don’t hate you. I love you.”
Elsewhere in humor this week, there’s “Everything You Need to Plan the Perfect Aesthetic First Birthday Party for Your Sad, Beige Baby” and “Miranda Priestly Roasts My Nirvana T-Shirt.” The humor section also seems to be the appropriate place to discuss Gabi the robot Buddhist monk, who was ordained this week at a Buddhist temple in South Korea. And I thought the pastor writing his sermon with AI was bad.
6. At Christianity Today, Kyle Wells works through questions of sin, culpability, and slavery. If the sinner is under the sway of cosmic powers of darkness, enslaved and powerless to free themselves, can we truly hold them accountable for their misdeeds? And how can the prevenient and active grace of God coexist with human freedom of choice? Tapping our own Simeon Zahl for insight, Wells finds his answer in the world of addiction, where questions of compulsion and freedom find a worthy case study:
What feels to us like a paradox — that humans are both captive and culpable — was for Paul simply assumed … We are accountable — but within a world already charged with forces we did not choose. This is the category we have largely lost: Yes, sin is something we do but it’s also a power that acts upon us. Only by holding both these aspects of sin together can we make sense of our experience.
As Simeon Zahl has argued, modern Christianity often reduces sin to moral choices, while contemporary therapeutic culture tends to explain human behavior in terms of psychological wounds. Scripture refuses both reductions. It speaks of humans as responsible for their actions and yet bound by evil forces they cannot will away.
Addiction can help us think through being both responsible and culpable. We call alcoholism a disease, acknowledging something larger than the will is at play. Yet alcoholics remain responsible for their actions. The same is true with mental illness, which causes an immense amount of unchosen suffering. Yet as Zahl points out, there are “very real consequences of our psychological problems on those around us. … Saying my brain is broken doesn’t change the fact that the children get hurt, feel unnoticed and unloved, and wonder if it is their fault.” In both examples, there is real constraint and devastation. […]
People don’t just need punishment or pardon; they need rescue and healing. And they need Christians who will not reduce their deep struggles to a single cause, whether lack of discipline, personality clashes, chemical imbalance, or unjust policies. Above all, they need people who can point them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the cross, Christ breaks the forces that enslave us (Rom. 6:6; Rev. 1:5) and judges our wrongdoings (Rom. 3:24–25). Here and only here, Christ ultimately resolves the dilemma our offenses raise.
7. The last word this week goes to Trygve Johnson and his reflection on the grammar of grace. After a longer discussion on church challenges in the future — closing churches, declining memberships, aging pastors, and the like — he suggests that the greater loss is actually the exchange of the gospel of grace for lesser gospels of pragmatism, social good, moral seriousness, or self-improvement. Grammar, he explains, is the invisible structure that make language possible. Grace, then, is the grammar of the gospel, the invisible structure that makes the Christian life possible:
The grammar of grace is the structure underneath a life that has been addressed by the gospel. It gives you a way to speak about failure that does not end in shame. A way to speak about suffering that does not dissolve into either rage or despair. A way to speak about death that is something more than a polite agreement to change the subject. A framework for forgiveness — between neighbors, between races, between fathers and sons, between the person you are and the person you meant to be — that has actual ground beneath it. Ground deeper than because it would be nice if we could get along.
Without that grammar, we are left with the only alternative: the closed system of our own effort and our own judgment and our own capacity to hold it together. Which is, as anyone who has tried it for long enough can tell you, exhausting. And finally, impossible.
Without that grammar we all fall into something smaller and angrier — a culture of suspicion, of divisions that feel righteous because we have forgotten what righteousness actually costs. Justice shrinks to a yell. And without grace to offer an alternative, all that remains is the performance of outrage: scapegoating, virtue signaling, cancellation.
I have sat with people in the hardest moments of their lives. In hospitals, at gravesides, in the wreckage of marriages and careers and self-images they had built their entire existence upon, board by board, year by year, and which came down faster than they went up. And I can tell you that in those moments — when the performance is over and the coping strategies have run out — what people need is not better advice.
They need a word spoken from outside the closed system of their own failure. Someone who can say, with authority and with love and with the weight of something larger than a therapeutic framework behind them: there is a word spoken over your life that is not the last word you spoke about yourself.
Strays:
- A fun write-up about The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, OH. It’s a fun extension of the topophilia theme that any neo-Luddites and Paul Kingsnorth readers might appreciate.
- Freya India’s anticipated book GirlsⓇ is out in the USA now. Here’s the review from Christianity Today. This, and the buzz around the new book Yesteryear about a time-traveling tradwife sent back to the 1800s, makes me think that someone better placed will soon have a lot to write about the new pitfalls modern women are experiencing.
- A point of personal privilege: after John Van Deusen played at Mockingbird’s NYC conference, he made his way over to my neck of the woods and put on an excellent show in Johnstown, PA. But the opening act — Thomas Austin — floored me with his excellent lyrics and songwriting. Can I commend to you some of the tracks above, especially if you like JVD, Andy Squyres, or Jon Guerra?
- Over at the Inkwell, Mbird contributor Grace Leuenberger posits that “The Church Is for Freaks.”
