A Guide to FURTHER UP
One of the downsides of Substack as a writing platform is that it’s not maximally easy to access its archives. I was reminded of this the other day when my friend Ben Sixsmith put out a little guide to his own Substack, THE ZONE (which is very good by the way—check it out here), so that readers old and new could discover some buried treasure, or revisit things that had slipped out of memory. Although I like to keep up with the Discourse, I also take pride in producing (or trying to produce) an awful lot of content that’s going to last beyond the current news cycle. I hope this is appreciated by my thoughtful subscriber base. Since I’ve had an influx of new people, now seemed like a nice moment to follow Ben’s example and put together my own selection of favorites, sorted by category. Articles marked with a (*) are for paid-tier subscribers only (I put a lot of them here, to be maximally tempting!) Whether you’ve been with FURTHER UP from day one or you’re just testing the waters, I hope you find something of interest here. Thank you all for your readership, which I never take for granted.
America
“The Rainbow in the Basement”* On my neighborhood
“The Universe in the Dealership”* On getting my oil changed
Personal
“Gram” For my grandmother
“The Mother’s Mother’s Tale” For my other grandmother
“Coming Out as Me” For myself
“The Softly Spoken Magic”* On time and death and Pink Floyd
“Say Not the Day is Done”* On suicide
Christianity
“God’s Firebrand: An Interview With Hatun Tash” Meeting a modern saint
“What Will Become of Atheism?” On the state of the religion wars
“The Memory of What is Missing” On the death of Queen Elizabeth
“What We Can’t Not Know” On ethics and the natural light
“Objective Morality: A Tom Holland Tweebate” A micro-debate on faith and ethics
“Jesus Loves You” On Matthew Parris and the awkward street evangelist
“The Hustler, the Cop, and the Sparrow”* A Chicago story
“Something to Really Believe”* On visiting the Church of St. Thomas
“The Bitter Hour”* On Maundy Thursday
“A Sword Shall Pierce” On Good Friday
“Make No Mistake”* On Easter
“The Sum of All Fears”* On demons
Politics
“Morning in America” On the fall of Roe
“American Tragedy” On police shootings
“There Are No Solutions” On school shootings
“Death of a Conservative” For a friend
“The Parable of the Two Pandemics” On COVID and AIDS
“Trans Formation”* On free speech and my adventures in Twitter suspension
Social Criticism
“Dopesick” On Twitter
“It’s a Sin (Part III)” On sin and AIDS
“Found In the Nude” On Marilyn Monroe
“For Sale: One Body”* On prostitution
“No Continuing City”* On the homeless crisis
History
“Poem: Chalice” On Pearl Harbor
“The Veteran Who Made Me a Journalist” For my old neighbor
“War of Truths, Truth of War”* On war and war writing
“Sophie Scholl and the Gift of Attention”* On the diary of Sophie Scholl
“The Queen’s Steed” On the young Queen Elizabeth and a white stallion of Lipizza
“But Ye Are Justified (Part I)”* On Whittaker Chambers—yes, I never got around to Part II, but I will, I promise!
“Bloody Witness” On Bloody Sunday
“The Way the Lights Went Out” On 9/11
“Postcards From Scotland: Laurie of Old St. Paul’s” On my current research project
The Arts
“Frail as Summer’s Flower” On stories about death and losing oneself
“The Song of the Saints” On Shusaku Endo’s Silence
“Take Me Home”* On To Kill a Mockingbird
“The Miracle Under the Mountain”* On prayer and the Thai cave rescue in movies
“Christmas, For the Time Being”* On Auden
“Stronger Than Fear”* On a neglected war novel
“God-Haunted in Grand Rapids”* On Marc Cohn
Other
I just love these. I’m not sure where to put them. They all cluster around the theme of heroism.
“We Were Soldiers” On the fall of Afghanistan
“The Life You Save” A trial by fire
“The World Entire”* A trial by water
“Only the Trying”* On heroism and the problem of evil