The Young Man's Guide to Building a House

"This is a book about building a house. Plato and Homer and even the Bible may seem too high-minded for that. But I don’t think you can build a house that will stand for long without them. And without a house I don’t see how you could possibly survive in the years ahead. And so this is how I imagine the high and the low meet: what is true, good, and beautiful and what is useful for survival mutually reinforce each other in a well-built house. It is because Aristotle and the Apostle Paul tell us the truth that they are useful. And if MacIntyre is correct and night is falling on the Western World, then our shelters should be filled with light, good and beautiful, like a homely house at the end of the day with windows all aglow." C. R. Wiley, The Young Man's Guide to Building a House: Notes to the Reader

C. R. Wiley, a Presbyterian minister, but more importantly a father who is looking for ways to prepare his children for the future, is writing a book for young men on how to build their own house.  Writing it in installments, it will appear on The Imaginative Conservative in rough draft form before being sent to a publisher.  Wiley expects the book to run 16-24 chapters.

I think this is such a marvelous idea.   We have grown so disconnected from living a real life.  My dad always admonished my sisters and me to know where our food comes from, and he grew a huge garden for many years to make sure we got his point.  Building your own house, your own shelter, that fits right in there too.  Writing the book to young men is perfect.  It is a concrete way of letting them re-claim their God-given roles as providers and helping them to form firm bonds with the home they will establish there.

I can't wait to read it and pass it on to my son.