Resources
C.S. Lewis once wrote about how important it is to read old books. This isn’t because the past necessarily held more wisdom than we do or that it was better but because our ancestors thought about different things and held different perspectives than we do.
…keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us.
Lewis’s advice, we believe, is also true for people in our own age who try to get us to think–to dream and imagine–beyond our normal categories. These people are like Lewis’s wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or the entrance into Diagon Ally in Harry Potter or even the doorway through the garden wall in the Secret Garden–they introduce us to a world that broadens our horizons and won’t ever allow us to think of the ‘normal’ world in the same way again.
This page contains a variety of resources–books, essays, websites, videos, and audio–that connect with one or more of the Convivium Principles. It’s by no means comprehensive and will undoubtedly grow in the coming weeks and months. Perhaps you have suggestions you’d like to share?
Have a browse and perhaps you, like us, will feel a the first tickle of clean sea breeze…
Videos
A long interview with Wendell Berry, who’s thought informs many of the Convivium Principles
This is a long (3 hours!) documentary by Andy Curtis about the development of marketing and Public Relations and how both shape us today.
An Interview with Rowan Williams, whose theology connects with many of the Convivium Principles.
A good introduction to the Climate Change and a reminder of how out of sync with creation humanity now is.
Books & Essays
Zygmunt Bauman
Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainity
Wendell Berry
Home Economics: Fourteen Essays
Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition
The World-ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry
Mark Clavier
Rescuing the Church from Consumerism
Reading Augustine: On Consumer Culture, Identity, The Church and the Rhetorics of Delight
Stewards of God’s Delight: Becoming Priests of the New Creation
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Stanley Hauerwas
A Community of Character: Toward a Christian Social Ethic
Paul Kingsnorth
Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist
C.S. Lewis
Robert MacFarlane
The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
Vincent J. Miller
Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture
Pope Francis
‘Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home’
David Orr
Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect
James K.A. Smith
You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
Cultural Liturgies (Desiring the Kingdom, Imagining the Kingdom, Awaiting the Kingdom)
Rowan Williams
Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons
Holy Living: The Christian Tradition for Today
Convivium 