Not long ago I wrote a post titled “This Was Supposed to Be a Cozy Newsletter: How Fear, Faith, and YouTube Collided Before Breakfast.” In it I admitted that some mornings the news can feel overwhelming. One headline leads to another, and before long you’re wondering what on earth is actually happening in the world. If you’ve ever fallen down that same rabbit hole, you’ll understand what happened next.
Instead of simply worrying about it over my morning coffee, those who know me will know that my instinct is to start reading. In truth, I had already been doing that for some time—history, politics, economics, and the strange patterns that seem to repeat themselves across time. Eventually I realized those questions needed a place of their own. And so… I started another Substack.
Now before anyone panics, Lessons in Life & Faith is not suddenly becoming a geopolitical analysis newsletter. This will remain the cozy corner where I write about life, faith, family, cancer recovery, knitting projects, and the occasional cat-related drama. But the bigger questions about our world—the politics, economics, and historical patterns shaping our time—kept tapping me on the shoulder. They didn’t quite belong here, but they clearly wanted somewhere to live.
Since I’m not working anymore, I did ask myself what exactly I’m going to do with all this time. The obvious answer, it turns out, is apparently more reading, more research, and more writing. So I gave those questions their own little corner of the internet called The Shape of Things. The first post is already up.
It will be a place where I can explore some of the larger questions that sit behind the daily headlines like: politics, economics, global tensions, and the historical patterns that often help explain why the world behaves as it does. I’m writing it under my former surname, K.J. Hartley, so if that name pops up somewhere on Substack, that’s still me.
I’ve always loved history, thanks to a creative teacher I had in high school. He used to share the most gory details about people and events in the past. We learned about Bloody Mary who burned religious dissenters at the stake and the two princes who disappeared from the Tower of London. I still remember him demonstrating how ancient Egyptians mummified bodies, complete with far more detail than most of us expected in a history class and using a doll to show us how they wrapped the body. At one point he even told us about a time he had used a dead animal for a demonstration and got into trouble for it a few years earlier. It was memorable, to say the least. I’ve loved history ever since and have always been interested in the stories behind the stories. It’s probably why I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History so much.
What I am hoping to do in this new publication is not to shout opinions into the void because there seems to be plenty of that already. I’d rather step back a little and ask better questions.
What forces are shaping events?
What patterns are repeating themselves?
What might we learn from the past that helps us understand the present a little more cleary?
This doesn’t mean I suddenly have all the answers. If anything, the more I read the more I realize how much there is still to understand. But sometimes the process of thinking things through slowly, carefully, and with a bit of historical perspective can help us feel less overwhelmed by the constant rush of news.
So, if you enjoy that kind of exploration, you are welcome to wander over and join me there. And if politics and world affairs are not your cup of tea, that’s perfectly fine too. I have friends who won’t watch the news because it’s far too stressful.
Either way, Lessons in Life & Faith will still be right here, doing what it always does, reflect on life, faith, family, creativity, and the everyday moments that shape us.
In many ways, this new project actually grows out of the same instincts that shaped Lessons in Life & Faith. I’ve always been curious about how people make sense of the world, our beliefs, our decisions, our fears, and our hopes. Sometimes those questions show up in the quiet places of life: family, faith, illness, creativity. Other times they show up in the headlines. Either way, I suppose I’m still doing the same thing I’ve always done, trying to understand the world a little better.
Apparently my curiosity just needed one more place to roam.
Here’s a great song from the past - Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield. It’s got a great beat. Enjoy 😊
Thank you for reading and for continuing to walk alongside me here. I’m always grateful for the thoughtful and generous community that gathers around Lessons in Life & Faith. I’m also grateful that so many of you are willing to explore life, faith, and the occasional rabbit hole with me.
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