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Great Books, Gardening,
and Community
A Quiet Revolution
"A Quiet Revolution in How We Think, Learn, and Live."
"On a farm in the Catskills, the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life gathers people from diverse walks of life to study timeless books, share meaningful conversation, and cultivate presence in a distracted world.
We envision a sanctuary where people turn off digital noise and come together to study great works, not for prestige or performance, but for meaning.
You will leave not only renewed in yourself, but ready to carry wisdom, empathy, and presence back into the world."
- from the Matthew Strother Center Website
“The straight river of my narrative has opened onto the wide deltas of the present, and looking out to sea there's nowhere to go but anywhere.”
Matthew Strother
More from the Website
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"We support independent thinkers of all ages and backgrounds by providing fully subsidized intellectual retreats in a farm in upstate New York. After a careful selection process, five to seven students come ready to engage with a text from the humanistic tradition - works of philosophy, literature, or poetry – which is only revealed to them upon arrival. The students are required to: • attend daily three-hour seminars, • carry out two hours of manual labor each day, and • take part in all communal meals. They are asked to turn off their phones and all technologies of information for the duration of the retreat."
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“Each day will begin with an hour of alone time to meditate, journal, or go for a mindful walk. This will be followed by a self-serve breakfast. After breakfast, you will do two hours of manual labor on the farm. This manual work will focus mainly around food production and gardening. After lunch, you will attend a three-hour seminar, which will be led by a faculty member. You will be required to lead the seminar discussion for at least one session out of the seven. After the seminar, you are free until dinner time. Dinner will be the main communal meal of the day. All participants will be encouraged to share and discuss their experiences from the day.”
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“We believe in the transformative power of cultivating attentional capacities in relation to nature, books, and peers. To help you do that, you will be asked to put away your phone, laptop, and other devices upon arrival. You are able to access them during your stay, but we ask that you minimize their use. Devices should not be used outside of the housing accommodation.”
- The Matthew Strother Center
The Quiet Good and
the Common Good
The quiet good is complementary to the common good. The common good unfolds as people live in community with one another in ways that are creative, compassionate, participatory, humane toward animals, and good for the earth—with no one left behind. This is the ideal that inspires people who want to help build ecological civilizations. They want to nurture local communities, in urban and rural settings, where people live with respect and care for the community of life.
The quiet good unfolds when, at a personal level, people grow in capacities for wisdom, empathy, depth, and presence. It arises as people turn down the noise of distraction and listen for meaning, in silence and in conversation. They have presence: an awareness of what is happening in the here and now, the ability to listen to others in undistracted and caring ways, and the openness to hear the calling of the moment. Their listening is the source of their action.
The two need one another. Without the common good, the quiet good can become self-absorbed; without the quiet good, the common good can become shallow and frantic. Together they form the fullness of human flourishing.
The value of process-relational philosophy is that it offers an outlook on life that affirms the importance of both. It reminds us that reality itself is relational and that meaning arises both in community and in our relationships with ourselves and the heavens.
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How might such a philosophy be put into action? One approach is to develop contexts in which, for a time, the quiet good and the common good come together in an intentional way. This is the vision the Matthew Strother center, where attention is directed to the rhythm of manual labor, reconnection with the Earth—gardening, farming, caring for animals—balanced with time for reading great books and shared reflection. The combination of physical work and intellectual engagement cultivates a holistic sense of the common good, uniting head, heart, and hands in the service of life. Here is how the Center describes itself:
“The Matthew Strother Center is a low-technology environment. We offer a refuge from the worlds of commerce and social media, fostering presence and deeper connection to self, community, and the planet.”
If you are selected as a participant, you will make your way to the Center and spend nine days there with a cohort of others. Here, according to the website, is what participation looks like:
“Each day will begin with an hour of alone time to meditate, journal, or go for a mindful walk. This will be followed by a self-serve breakfast. After breakfast, you will do two hours of manual labor on the farm. This manual work will focus mainly around food production and gardening. After lunch, you will attend a three-hour seminar, which will be led by a faculty member. You will be required to lead the seminar discussion for at least one session out of the seven. After the seminar, you are free until dinner time. Dinner will be the main communal meal of the day. All participants will be encouraged to share and discuss their experiences from the day.”
The quiet good unfolds when, at a personal level, people grow in capacities for wisdom, empathy, depth, and presence. It arises as people turn down the noise of distraction and listen for meaning, in silence and in conversation. They have presence: an awareness of what is happening in the here and now, the ability to listen to others in undistracted and caring ways, and the openness to hear the calling of the moment. Their listening is the source of their action.
The two need one another. Without the common good, the quiet good can become self-absorbed; without the quiet good, the common good can become shallow and frantic. Together they form the fullness of human flourishing.
The value of process-relational philosophy is that it offers an outlook on life that affirms the importance of both. It reminds us that reality itself is relational and that meaning arises both in community and in our relationships with ourselves and the heavens.
*
How might such a philosophy be put into action? One approach is to develop contexts in which, for a time, the quiet good and the common good come together in an intentional way. This is the vision the Matthew Strother center, where attention is directed to the rhythm of manual labor, reconnection with the Earth—gardening, farming, caring for animals—balanced with time for reading great books and shared reflection. The combination of physical work and intellectual engagement cultivates a holistic sense of the common good, uniting head, heart, and hands in the service of life. Here is how the Center describes itself:
“The Matthew Strother Center is a low-technology environment. We offer a refuge from the worlds of commerce and social media, fostering presence and deeper connection to self, community, and the planet.”
If you are selected as a participant, you will make your way to the Center and spend nine days there with a cohort of others. Here, according to the website, is what participation looks like:
“Each day will begin with an hour of alone time to meditate, journal, or go for a mindful walk. This will be followed by a self-serve breakfast. After breakfast, you will do two hours of manual labor on the farm. This manual work will focus mainly around food production and gardening. After lunch, you will attend a three-hour seminar, which will be led by a faculty member. You will be required to lead the seminar discussion for at least one session out of the seven. After the seminar, you are free until dinner time. Dinner will be the main communal meal of the day. All participants will be encouraged to share and discuss their experiences from the day.”