day no. 16,631: culture is the liturgy of livelihood

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love."  — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.