Another week has come and gone, so it’s time to ask what’s been lighting me up this week.
Further to my lament last week about how I missed the days when it didn’t feel like every election was a matter of life-and-death, I had a lot of fun last Saturday following the results and commentary of the Australian federal election. It was a fascinating window into the different issues, voter coalitions, and political phenomena of a country similar but also quite different from my own.
Also, with the rest of the world, I was fascinated by the developments in the Vatican this week, as the Roman Catholic Church elected a new pope, who ended up being the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV. It was an interesting synchronism as I’ve recently returned to the book study of Wilkie Au & Noreen Cannon Au’s The Discerning Heart with a family member, which was disrupted for a couple months by a death in the family. The chapter for this week is all about discernment, so I guess discernment and carving new paths forward was in the aether!
I’m pleased to note that the new eating, exercising, and home organization habits I’ve mentioned recently survived and proved their benefits in their second full week. Three cheers for reducing food waste!
It was a solid reading week, with two notable five-star readers: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025), and The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (2018). The latter is a retelling of the end of the Trojan war from the perspective of Briseis (the woman whose theft by Agamemnon is what sets off Achilles’ refusal to fight that is at the heart of The Iliad). Such feminist myth retellings have been hugely popular over the past decade or so, and they’re definitely a mixed bag. But this is absolutely among the best. For me their success lies in the POV of the main character, and this absolutely works on that front.
Aside from the the new album by Lights (A6) last week’s new music releases didn’t do much for me, so I was mostly revisiting old favourites this past week, and curating a new high-energy playlist to help me keep the tempo up while exercising. It’s been fun!
These are a few of the things that have been keeping me going and brightening up my way this week. So what’s lighting you up?
Matthew Root 