The Top 5: From the American death penalty to hanging laundry
Welcome to the latest edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. We read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy these articles, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation!
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The Top 5 articles for your week:
“Inside America’s Death Chambers” (The Atlantic)
Because Liz Bruenig meditates on the virtues of mercy and forgiveness.
To default to mercy is to impose limitations on one’s own power to retaliate, and to acknowledge our flawed nature. To a Christian, mercy derives from charity. And in the liminal space where families of murder victims are recruited into the judicial process—to either bless or condemn a prosecutor’s intentions—showing mercy is an especially heroic decision. To think this way is to understand that the moral dimension of capital punishment is not just about what we do to others. It’s also about what we do to ourselves.
“The Unseen” (Aeon Magazine)
Because Allison J Pugh writes about how the loneliness crisis is actually a “depersonalization” crisis. “Depersonalisation has come for us all.”
“How to Fight Online Like a Christian” (CT)
Because the Center for Christianity and Public Life’s Chris Butler provides sage guidance for sifting through Christian disagreement.
“Helicopter Parenting” (Commonplace)
Because Nic Rowan turns the term “helicopter parent” on its head.
“Finding Beauty in Midair” (NYT)
Because this is a wonderful photo essay from Megan Craig and photographer Camillo Pasquarelli about the poetry, communal intimacy and pleasing nature of hanging laundry in small-town Italy.