Field Notes - April 2026
A Thought
Last Saturday night, I had the privilege of seeing Ben Rector perform with the Nashville Symphony. Rector, a strong songwriter in his own right, reaches his peak as an artist when an orchestra brings depth and grandeur beyond his typical guitar accompaniment.
Sitting in the audience and enjoying the beauty being created in front of us, made me reflect on the facsimiles of beauty all around us. We don’t encounter real art, but a curated Instagram post. We don’t experience storytelling, but a TikTok or YouTube short.
Much of our day to day existence takes things that are transcendent and expansive, and reduces them to miniscule versions presented on a 5” piece of glass.
A Quote
“We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
― C.S. Lewis
A book I’m reading
I’ll give you two
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Maybe you’ve seen the movie (which is excellent BTW), but if you haven’t yet - read the book first. It’s absolutely wonderful.
and
The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg―and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema. The behind the scenes story of how these three (and Martin Scorsese) made the modern cinematic world.