Scott Stilson

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I’m not sure I enjoy any sociospatial context more than free-spirited, small-group conversation at a table at Webster’s Bookstore Café, surrounded by the sight and smell of used books, the taste of good tea, and the sound of vintage hipster music that isn’t even trying to be cool. (I just wish they stayed open past 7 PM!)

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Carolina wren outside my office window definitely just got “The Dreidel Song” stuck in my head.

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Commemorative design celebrating College Township's 150th anniversary, featuring balloons, the years 1875-2025, and a central emblem.

Carla, a middle schooler, and I collaboratively created the above design for our local municipality. KB Offset printed it, and it now stands as an 8' × 4' banner posted along PA-26 outside the township administration building.

Here’s the municipal webpage on the subject of College Township’s sesquicentennial.

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There is a man from Klinger Heights
Who keeps the good of man in sight
Always wants to please the Lord
And as a result, is never bored
His birthday today, we won’t say which
«cough 46!» Oop! That was a glitch.

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Inspired by part of this interview with Lisa Silvestri, the author of Peace by Peace: Risking Public Action, Creating Social Change, which I may read soonish with my friend Neill—after I finish:

here is a list of what bothers me:

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I miss the white pages ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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I hereby plead with governments, universities, and commercial real estate developers: If you’re going to erect a public clock, please make sure it keeps time. Otherwise, you’re just littering our built environment with noble-looking embarrassments whose only effect is to remind us that everything is broken and most of us don’t care.

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headlamp + summertime + living next to a large park → reading a book while meandering outdoors at night 🔦📚

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We measure distance more frequently in units of time than in units of length. Why? What does that say about our culture?

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Resolved: One creative goal at a time. Current goal: Legalize backyard hens in College Township.

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Things I learned today:

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Inverted triangle diagram illustrating a progression of constraint upon local people governing themselves the way they want to

I don’t usually like what Katherine Watt writes. But this illustration is dynamite good.

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Perhaps the joy is lost from listening to and making music largely because it feels desultory: There’s no goal. At least, that’s what it seems like the Spirit may be saying as I possibly discerned on my walk to and from Gary Abdullah’s house to drop off an apology note written by Sullivan for his having tripped over an electrical cord and unplugged Inflatable Christmas Countdown Santa. So, here’s a goal in the absence of a relish for musical theatre, anthem gigs at college basketball games, Puddintown Roots, and the Choral Society: Build your repertoire book.

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Today, I am grateful for:

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What I learned form hunting this past weekend:

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A logo written in marker on a section of white T-shirt features the stylized letters PWD encircled by dots and the words Professional Whimsical Dabbler.

Today, I I called myself a “whimsical dabbler” as a way of celebrating and embracing my quick decision to stand on our stoop and cheer the Nittany Valley Half-Marathoners on as they passed by about midday today. (We’re at about mile eleven of their route.) It thereby also a way to encourage myself to make more decisions of what to do out of loving whim, and to accept my identity as a dilettante, and not just in the arts. Indecision about hunting this past week had me down this morning after an unsuccessful hunt yesterday.

I did decide I would become a suburban bowhunter after finding out how much red meat meant to Carla.

Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. Let all that you do be done in love, that is, in self-donation for the benefit of others, whom you view as more important than yourself and unsurpassably wonderful.

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Smattering of recollections from venison roast dinner this evening with Sauders at their house: I got to share my Alan Jacobs story. They were delighted at God’s activity. They remarked that we’re funny—like, make-you-laugh funny—something they don’t have enough of among their friends at University Mennonite Church. I surmised that social justice warriors have a hard time smiling. Ruth insisted that people ought to grow more idiosyncratic as they age, as long it’s not grumpily idiosyncratic. As such, in reply to Carla’s question about whether the Sauders think I’m weird, her answer was a very positive affirmative. I picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son as my next book. The kids made Ed the Rabbit some things to chew on. It was a delightful evening.

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“Let the seasons begin,” sings Beirut in my head as I wake up. A fair enough piece of advice for a time when I’m upset that I’m not doing anything with my life after Dylan and Noah leave.

For posterity, I’d better explain: Fostering Dylan and Noah lent me noble purpose. Sending them back their parents removes that purpose, which sends me reeling. It doesn’t help that my friend comes over last night with a young man who is determined to build physical environments conducive to the formation of Christian community, after spending the last few days touring the town talking to community-minded folks like Christian Baum of co.space, Joel Martin, and the staff of the College Township government administration, so as to pick my brain about Christian community, something about which I don’t know much. I leave that conversation and go to bed angry that I’m not doing anything “kingdom-minded” or noble.

You, God, or my subconscious mind tells me as I wake up, “Let the seasons begin.” For goodness’ sake, it’s only been two days since the boys have gone home. Give it a break. Let the seasons, the natural turn of time and the changes it brings, begin. Plus, you know you want to focus on the family these days anyhow.

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I am grateful for the opportunity to help Janet in her time of need. But I want need not to be! Carla has visited a few times over the past several days because Janet has been loopy because of some medication she is one in connection with her perma-asthma that set in this winter like last. Apparently, MRIs at the hospital today may have revealed lymphoma.

I am grateful for the resilience and emotional maturity Éa displayed upon getting her ears pierced at Ikonic Ink downtown today. It hurt, but she displayed (and was multiply congratulated by onlookers for) stoicism while Miranda the “piercing artist” was doing her work. When it was done, she cried honest, quite-but-unashamed tears in Mommy’s arms. May all my children know what to do with their sadness and pain.

And may more families make family outings at tattoo and piercing parlors?

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I am grateful for a Father in heaven who doesn’t blink an eye when I return to attending to Him in prayer after almost completely ignoring Him over the holiday period.

I am grateful that last night just after midnight, Josh and Sarah tossed red table grapes into each other’s mouths unbidden after we had agreed that we didn’t need to do it because Carla and Josh were both feeling sick. I feel loved when people enact tradition with me—especially traditions I create. Also included: an energetic indoor snowball fight that revived us for the eleven-o’clock hour. Funny part: We turned on the radio just as the announcer was starting the ten-second countdown to midnight.

I am grateful that Ethan feels comfortable enough in his friendship with us that he walked his two daughters and Andy and Robbie all the way to our house in the cold unannounced. We enjoyed impromptu conversation, crackers, lingonberry jelly, herring, gjetost, and Ethan’s new quadcopter.

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Since I have decided to concentrate my life so locally, my locality matters. It’s Houserville for now, but I can envision wanting to live in a neighborhood that isn’t in a place that’s already called ‘Happy Valley.’

I got chills thinking that while driving to Giant this evening on my way to buying a pink hedgehog Beanie Baby for Éa and a big-eyed monkey Beanie Baby for James.

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I am grateful for our good friends the Potters, with whom we shared a dinner and an evening today. (I told Josh about my pollo-pesce-venatarian tonight.) I am grateful for our good friends the Rookes, the Matt of which I raced and competed on pull-ups with today. I am grateful for the rest of our good friends at church, with whom we shared a park walk today. I am grateful for our good friends the Wendles, who gave us two deer worth of meat today after we butchered them.

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I am grateful for the loving effort Carla is putting forth these past few days into making Christmas cheery for us all by overcoming her distaste for shopping and spending the better part of today and yesterday shopping. We had decided after last Christmas that we would do 100% of our Christmas shopping locally. We probably won’t end up doing 100%, but the decision does mean Carla has been all over town: Jo-Ann Fabrics, Goodwill, Ross, and Target, to name a few.

I am grateful for our tenant Apoo’s eagerness to share Indian dishes with us. We had her, her husband Vijay, and her father Raju up for dinner this evening so we could meet her father. We shared garden vegetable quiche; she shared chicken biryani. Carla and I overate because everything was so tasty.

I am grateful for the culturally show of fatherly tenderness Raju made by touching Éa’s face when she caught her hand in the globe while fighting Sullivan over it. Perhaps it is purely cultural and doesn’t carry the same meaning in Telegu India as it does in Pennsylvania. But his willingness to touch a child he had just met simply because she was a child who was in pain was touching. At the same time, I wonder if it babies children too much. Nevertheless, I think there is something to learn there.

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Calvin and Hobbes discuss how conversations often focus on TV and movies rather than real-life interactions, leading to Calvin lamenting about not having a TV in his room.

This is how I feel.

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Here is a list of things from today that were gratifying, and which, therefore, because by some strange extension You are the giver of all good things, I thank You, God: