The Lectio Letter - Issue #92 - 40 Pieces of Advice at 40
“Advice; It’s more fun to give than receive “
— Malcolm Forbes
“The Godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.”
— Proverbs 12:26
Welcome to Issue #91 of the Lectio Letter. This members-only newsletter is filled with music, film and food suggestions, links, and an article written by yours truly.
On the 9th of this month, I arrived at my 4th decade. Despite not carrying a great deal of anxiety about this ‘turn of the page’ combined with my tendency to construe any unexamined cultural significance as an empty construct, I was pushed and pulled into some level of self-reflection. The article below is a mixture of pithy practical advice alongside some of the things that sit deep within my ‘bones’ as it were. Hopefully, they will be equally interesting, amusing, bemusing, and inspiring.
As I reflected on my life so far in the days that surrounded the 9th of March and found that as I ‘dropped’ into some deeper reflection, the primary feeling was that of gratitude for relationships.
As with most lives, mine has the muchness and manyness of good and difficult threads and yet what sits deepest when I contemplate, is a deep and resounding gratitude. Like most people, there are many things that I wanted that I don't have at 40, many things I wanted to happen that haven't. Yet these are eclipsed by a whole series of things that I would describe as pure grace, unasked-for gifts.
Recently, I read Stanley Hauerwas’ memoir, as he constantly witnessed to friendships that, as he put it, "made his life possible". Similarly, Henri Nouwen’s collection of letters that I've been working through points to the irreducible necessity of relationships which constitute his being, wellness and identity.
C.S. Lewis once remarked when asked to advise young people about where to live;
“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949
C.S. Lewis’ quote may seem strange rather than resonant to the outsider who looks in on our lives: In a period of deep and meaningful relationships in my late teenage years, I left the context of Cornwall to move to Scotland… Pretty much as far away as anyone could expect someone to travel within the admittedly small British Isles.
But in that move, I was serendipitously placed to be with Rachel who is surely the deepest and best friend and Wife anyone could've asked for. Exactly a year after Rachel and I were married we moved our lives to South Africa, tearing ourselves once again from the daily overlap of people we loved dearly.
But somehow in choosing Jesus first as friend, these friendships although deferred by distance have become transfigured; all the more precious. It also has put us in sincere need of friends and neighbours that we have found and have graciously found us, here in South Africa.
Looking across the tapestry of relationships that make my life possible I have the deep sense that I am extremely rich, not in any way in material terms compared to peers, but certainly in relationships which stretch across almost inconceivable cultural breadth and also authentic depth.
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Status Board
Reading
I’ve returned to a few books I’ve read before in these last few days; “Biblical Critical Theory” by Christopher Watkins, “The Congregation in a Secular Age" by Andrew Root and “Alienation and Acceleration” by Hartmut Rosa.
I’ve come back to them for a forthcoming series with my friend Matt Lewis on his “Follower” Podcast. I’ll include a link when they come out, but our first interaction didn’t lead us very far into the contents of the books, but instead led me to unpack why I think paying attention to how the world is naming its pain, without capitulating to all it’s interpretative categories is a worthwhile Christian endeavour.
“As Chesterton says, “the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad” because they are “isolated from each other and wandering alone.”
― Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture
I’ve also been enjoying “Supper of the Lamb” by Robert Farrar Capon, which has been on a ‘to read’ list for a number of years after person after person told me I would love it, and I do.
“Why do we marry, why take friends and lovers? Why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry or cooking? Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course; but out of more than that, too. Half earth's gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection
It presents itself as a cookbook, but in actuality, it is 1/3rd cookbook, 1/3rd Theology of Food and 1/3rd humorous pontification of how and how not to cook and what tools to use. It’s a primer of the goodness of creation and an anti-gnostic treatise. I’ve struggled to not just keep reading sections of it aloud!
Eating
Recently we re-made this Nduja Chicken and Potatoes dish from the Trullo Cookbook. It’s actually quite simple but the potatoes were fantastic and the chicken delicious. A good meal for a larger group (below quantities are for a group of 6). The benefit of this kind of classic meal is that you can have everything in the oven for 20 minutes before guests arrive and reserve that all-important first 10 minutes of hosting for serving drinks and not stressing about doing something with the food your cooking everyone.
Ingredients
2-4 tbsp nduja, whipped into paste
8 Maris Piper potatoes, cut into wedges
4 sprigs of rosemary
6 garlic cloves, smashed
Olive oil (plenty of it)
18 chicken thighs (3 per person)
salt and pepper
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. Put the nduja in a bowl, add a splash of hot water and blend/mix to loosen into a paste.
3. Chop the potatoes into wedges and put them with rosemary and a sprinkle of salt in a pan and cover with room temp water.
4. Bring up to the boil then drain immediately. Let the potatoes completely steam dry in a colander then coat generously with olive oil and mix together.
5. Heat an empty roasting tray (large enough to hold the potato wedges in a single layer) in the oven for 5 minutes, then take it out and add olive oil so that it is about 2-3cm deep.
6. Add the potatoes, rosemary and garlic from the boiling water and season with salt and pepper.
7. Roast the potatoes on the top shelf of the oven for 45 minutes-1 hour or until crispy, stirring from time to time.
8. While your potatoes are roasting, heat a large heaby bottomed frying pan on a medium heat. Add a small amount of olive oil.
9. Pat the chicken thighs dry with paper towl and season with salt and pepper and, working in batches, colour the skins in the pan and then flip them over until golden then transfer to the roasting tray.
10. Put the chicken on the lower shelf of the oven and roast for the remaining time of the potatoes (roughly 30 minutes).
11. Spread the nduja paste on the skins for the last 15 minutes of cooking and muddle it all around.
12. Serve the chicken and potatoes on platters in the middle of the table with a green salad.
Listening
Something about the production of this popular track has kept it on one track repeat these last weeks.
Modern take on throwback soul vibes from Curtis Harding;
This is a short-form jazz delight that is worth some good speakers by Vega Trails;
For a slightly longer piece of modern jazz that has been in the background for me, listen to the latest release from 44th move;
Watching
Despite not being hardcore Formula 1 fans, we joined the crowd of people who have been captivated by the Netflix series “Drive to Survive”. The human drama in any sport is the most intriguing, but also seeing lives who are fully given over to such an intoxicating mix of pride, money and fulfilment is a worthwhile lesson in how making ‘winning’ an ultimate goal can be uniquely corrupting.
40 Pieces of Advice at 40
It’s a little bit amusing to me that despite stating numerous times on this lectio letter that I don’t like giving practical advice in such an impersonal form this is, by my count, the third time I’ve sent a Lectio letter centred around ‘advice’.
Take personal responsibility for things you can control: Your actions, your failure, your passivity, your pain.
Patience is not easy to grow, but if you don't your life will be miserable.
Set your hope in eternity. Everything else here is just a preview of the coming attractions and can't fulfil the delight we were made for.
Find small simple ways to give up control every day. There will be a day when you don't have a choice and working this muscle will make that day easier.
Collect something. It's quirky, gives you a hobby and makes you a resource for others.
Find a place, time and habit of turning off from the world. We need more people who have guarded their peace.
Beware noise, hurry and crowds, they are all focused on distraction and the world is saved by attention to presence.
Develop a heart that values humility to the extent that you can thank people who confront you. It takes courage for them to do it and no one does it perfectly.
Develop a habit of sitting with the love of God for you. There are lots of ways to do it, but you'll either live out a life that flows from this reality, or not.
Find a way to interrupt the tendency to judgment with curiosity and empathy. Even if you can't muster it, imagine how an empathetic person might feel and emulate that.
Reframe failure in a very practical way into a learning opportunity and never let it touch the conviction that you are deeply precious and beloved of God.
Remind the people closest to you that you are willing for them to point out to you the things they think you can't see about yourself.
You can grow old without growing up. Learning and new experiences can help you not to fossilise.
What you do every day is a pretty good sign of what you'll become good at. Make sure it's the thing you want to be good at.
Getting stuck in comparison with other people is the quickest way for all peace and happiness to exit your life. Celebrate others and cultivate gratitude for what you have.
Be able to spontaneously laugh at yourself around others. If you can't, figure out why you can’t and try to work on that.
A Scarcity mentality is essentially the original sin, decide that what you have today is enough for you and learn to cultivate trust for tomorrow.
Learn to recognise when you are hungry or tired and make sure you stay away from important conversations or big decisions.
Make sure you have people in your life that if you make a huge mistake you are confident you could knock on their door and find compassion, rebuke and truthfulness in good proportion.
Make lists for the small stuff... you're wasting energy trying to keep it in your brain.
Time is the most precious resource you have. Make sure you spend as much of it on what is most precious to you.
Before you go into a conversation about something you expect to disagree on, decide what would make you willing to change your mind.
Struggling to keep working at something? Use a Pomodoro timer, work for 20, walk for 5, go back to it,.
Pay attention to your group number on boarding passes and only stand up and queue when it’s called. It's assigned seating for goodness sake.
In the morning while brushing your teeth, use the time to pray for someone else. In the evening while brushing your teeth, use it to ask God what he thought about the different things you did that day.
Watch out for the tyranny of the urgent. When someone is consistently insistent try to slow things down so you don't catch the disease.
In arguments make the words "always" and "never" out of bounds. You are always going to be overstating things and never get to a state of mind where you can reconcile ;)
Being willing to change your mind is a strength, not a weakness.
If you are unsure what skills you have to offer in a specialised environment, your emotional intelligence can still make you indispensable.
Unforgiveness is, as has been said “taking the poison yourself and hoping the other person dies”
When packing for travel, remember you can buy almost anything you forget and Yes, you are packing more than you need.
You will become like the people you spend most of your time with.
If you are part of a group that isn't doing or living in a way that you think is important, don't start by pointing it out, start by making sure your life is an attractive alternative to what is missing.
Everyone is a little bit insecure. So develop enough confidence and self-assurance to put others at ease without being domineering.
Develop a secret service of generosity to others and let it be a secret only you and God share. It will deepen your intimacy with God and guard you against pride.
If it costs you less than 20% of the cost of a flight ticket, pick a reasonable time to catch a flight. 6am take-offs are miserable nights and start your trip with more fatigue than necessary.
Try to cultivate a wilderness into a garden. It might just be some house plants, patch of grass, or a vegetable plot but it will teach you alot about the pace of life and your own life. Hint: There is a reason Jesus used so many agricultural parables.
Grow your understanding of where each book of the bible exists in the greater narrative of the bible. It will help you discern misuse of individual verses.
Read difficult books in a group, you increase your understanding by the factor of brains included until you reach about 10.
Many aspects of life, maybe especially religious ones, require some kind of public self’. This is not necessarily bad, just make sure the gap between your public self and private self doesn’t get big enough to tear your soul.
When I started this list, I set out to write 40, but in the end I couldn’t stop. I’ve reserved 26 more for paying subscribers below this line. But if you don’t have a membership and want to read it, then you can still hit the free trial button below to see the rest.
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