A New Podcast and a Plate of Pasta

Attention, literature nerds! I recently discovered a new-to-me literary podcast, and it’s as bookish as they come. It has over 200 episodes already, so I’ll never have to sit around waiting for a new one to drop.

I’m currently listening to their series on one of my favorite novels, C.S. Lewis’s Til We Have Faces, and I’m burning through it. It’s been so fun to listen to sharp minds talk about a book I’ve loved for years but haven’t heard much discussion about. And because there are so many episodes, I can have this experience again and again! Woohoo!

A Prodigious List

Are you dying to know what the podcast called? All right, I’ll tell you: it’s called The Literary Life Podcast, with Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, and Cindy Rollins. I was so excited to see that their list of discussed authors includes many that I know and love—and plenty more that I neither know nor love but hope to in the future.

They’ve discussed writers from George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis to Shakespeare, Euripides, Aristotle, and Plato. There’s also a handsome smattering of other works in between—George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, and so many more! Doesn’t it just make your mouth water to read the authors on that list? Or are you normal?

The Great Conversation

Another fun part of the podcast is their premise that great works of literature are all connected in a conversation across the ages. Stanford always says, “The books are talking to each other.” This idea isn’t unique to her; it’s actually a major premise of the Classical Conversations approach to education and other thinkers as well. But the more books you read, the more you realize how great minds in the distant past have influenced great minds in the more recent past who are, in turn, still influencing great minds today. It’s a long, beautiful, ongoing conversation.

So as the hosts are discussing one work of literature, they’re weaving in threads from countless other works. “This theme reminds me of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”  “Remember when we discussed this same idea in The Wind in the Willows?” “This character is facing the same struggle as the Greek goddess Aphrodite.” Some of their allusions are familiar to me, and many call up memories that are rusty, dusty, or nonexistent. It’s exciting and intimidating all at the same time. But, to misquote Hwin from The Horse and His Boy, “I’d sooner be intimidated by you than bored by anyone else.”

From Contentment to Envy in 2.6 Seconds

And now, for the downside of the podcast.

You know that feeling when you go out to eat with someone, and you each order a different meal? You read carefully through the menu. Your eyes linger long over the filet with a baked potato, but in the end you opt for creamy pasta with smoked chicken. It sounds great, and you know you’ll love it. When the food comes, you’re thrilled. You take several bites of your pasta, and it’s delicious. It’s exactly what you wanted. In fact, it’s perfect.

Until you look up and notice that your friend ordered the filet.

She’s cutting into that beautiful hunk of meat, the steak yielding like soft butter, its red center drawing your appetite like a bull toward the matador. You clench your teeth and swallow a lump of chicken. You look down at your plate. The linguini stares back at you, lounging insipidly in its sauce. Pasta? Pasta is for losers. Why didn’t you get the stake like a sensible person? You wanted it. You could have had it. But you blew it, and now you’ll be eating these blasted noodles for the rest of the week.

The Grass Is Always Greener

…What was I talking about? Oh, yes, the podcast. Well, in some ways, it feels like that to me. A decade ago, I was given a menu with two main choices: continue as a single teacher of literature who can use all her free time in the summer to read, write, and study to her heart’s content, or else get married and pour her heart into raising a beautiful family. They’re both great options. I had an appetite for both, but I could order only one. So I chose the family. And let me tell you, the pasta is really good.

But sometimes I glance over at other people’s plates and see them cutting into that filet. Then, for a brief moment of insanity, I wonder if the pasta is really as good as I’d expected it to be after all. I wonder how my meal would be going if I’d ordered the steak. Would it taste better? Would it be more satisfying? Did I make the right choice?

Trading Plates

Now, to be honest, I never actually want to trade meals. I don’t want to get rid of the pasta; I just want to add the steak. I want to pour myself into loving and serving my family with young children, and I also want to use my brain like I used to. And I’ll freely admit that I have more of these moments of envy when I’m surrounded by a toy tornado, drowning in housework, listening to one child scream from a minor injury while standing in a cloud of stench, wiping the dirty bottom of the other child. At times like that, the steak sounds pretty good.

But you know what? If I’d chosen to stay single, I bet I’d be looking at happy couples with beautiful kids just like mine and wondering if I’d missed out. Because that’s how humans are—we’re so quick to default to envy and doubt and so slow to choose gratitude and peace. Trust me, I’m the world’s leading expert on this problem.

Later Doesn’t Mean Never

But despite all this—the good, bad, and ugly—I haven’t lost hope. I can still enjoy the podcast, even if the green monster raises its ugly head in my heart once in a while. I can still rejoice that God has given me a wonderful family to spend these years with, even if my mental capacity tapers off to a trickle for a while. I can be thankful for this delicious pasta, trusting that I’ll be able to order steak later on.

And even better than that is the fact that Jesus looks at a life of selfless obedience and calls it beautiful. This is the big idea that I want to unpack with you next time. I’ve been so encouraged as I meditate on this truth, and I hope you will be, too. For now, I’m off to enjoy my new podcast with a big ol’ bowl of noodles. Until then, no matter what’s on your plate, bon appetit!