Welcome to this month’s installment of Wrapped.
If you are new here, this is basically like virtually grabbing a cup of coffee with me and I share with you about everything I am reading, watching and thinking about. Rather than avoiding anything touched by the world, here at Jenna’s Column, we seek to find glimpses of the good in all things.
Guys. I am free! Seminary year one is complete. Praise be to God—for real. I am so relieved to be on summer break. Should I —technically— be taking summer classes…yes. But I am choosing the health of my soul over optimization! Ruthlessly Eliminating Hurry™ or whatever.
This summer is about cultivating sloth rest. Stretching my legs by the pool. Going on long walks. Sipping lattes slowly (because there is no rush!). Reading books I normally don’t have time for. Staring at the horizon for a few minutes to calm my nervous system. That vibe! Less panic reading and falling asleep with Notability still open on my iPad.
I am writing this on the heels of a 95 degree lovely weekend spent in Palm Desert, celebrating one of my dear friends who is getting married this fall. It was full of margaritas, themed nights and lounging by the pool. Tears of joy were a regular occurrence. I am grateful to have folks in my life who are so easy to cheer on. Yay for love! Yay for friendship!
I hit 8k followers on Instagram last week! Wild! I am having fun on there (mostly because I Brick my phone every day except for one hour on Tuesdays). You can follow me on there if you are interested in seeing more glimpses of my life.
Ok time to gab...
Articles, Substack Posts/Notes & Poems that I want to show you!
What I wrote this month:
My thoughts on “the cure” by Olivia Rodrigo (spoiler: I love it!)
Gore content—depictions of violence, bloodshed, traumatic injury, and death—and how it is finding its way into teenagers’ (and children’s) pockets.
“Runfluencers,” or influencers who create content about running, and Gen Z’s urge to gamify everything.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Gen Z’s thoughts on depictions of social media/AI/phones in movies.
If you are not already subscribed to The Culture Translator, this is your sign. It’s a weekly (free!!!) newsletter put together by Christians who are passionate about using culture as a way to connect with people—specifically, teens. If you want to be “in the know” but have your social media (mostly) deleted (aka most of Substack users), this is the thang for you. If you did not already know, I am a writer at Axis for my full-time job!
Cool things other people wrote:
Saved by bad art: As AI continues to proliferate, I’ve been inviting my students to create something—anything by Brian Bantum
AI is forming us spiritually. Duh. Everything in our culture and our lives makes us a more hellish or heavenly creature, according to C.S. Lewis. And in our day and age, it seems like the most hellish thing we can be is cringe.
We are too afraid to pick up the guitar because we have seen endless videos of childhood prodigies, God-given talents, and awe-inspiring performances. We think about how long it would take to be good at something and weigh the options before we even try. That’s because we have been shaped to think more about performance than process. Perfection instead of play.
It does not feel like our measly attempts at art are needed. But they are—they might save you. And the world.
Recognize and embrace the image of God in yourself. You are creatures who can imagine and create new possibilities for yourselves and those in your world. But you can’t grow if you don’t try. You can’t make anything beautiful without first making something terrible. You came here to learn and to grow (I hope), don’t rob yourself of that possibility.
Treasure Your Attention: My commencement address to the NYU Class of 2026 by Jonathan Haidt
If you just graduated or are in any transitional season in life, this would be a great read for you! Or if your attention is fragmented and the thought of reading an article without popping open another app or clicking on a notification makes you feel itchy.
So treasure your attention more than the people who want to take it from you. Never forget what it’s worth. For Meta, it’s a trillion dollars. For you and your life, it is priceless.
Books I recently read or am reading (sometimes a review) and a recommendation from my library. Let’s be friends on GoodReads!
Read
Non-Fiction
The Dark Night by St. John of The Cross
5 stars
I am not a classics girlie. I am not the type to read a book that is over a hundred years old (except for the Bible). I wish I were, but my husband is much more well-read than I am. Anyway, I would recommend this book to anybody trying to understand spiritual development. And I think you should read it with a spouse, friend or community group. It gives you a lot to process and I would not want to set you up to do that alone. A lovely read!
Fiction
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
4.5 stars
Omg. This book shattered my heart into a million pieces. It follows a dysfunctional family from three different perspectives over the years. If you have wounding in your past related to alcoholism, I would not recommend this book.
While that is not my story, I have my share of family junk and this story made me feel a mixture of grief and joy about that. How light manages to break through despite a lot of hurt and pain. I will be thinking about these characters for a very long time!
Currently Reading
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth — only a few chapters left!!!!
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi — this book is simultaneously shattering and healing my heart. omg.
Making Sense of Your Story by Adam Young — can’t wait to write about this next month.
Mostly music and movies. Let’s be friends on LetterBoxd.
Music
Playlists I keep going back to:
PCH — I am in the process of curating this, still. But I am putting together a PERFECT vibe for driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in my Jeep with the top down. Comment any recs!
MAY 26 — everything I am listening to this month.
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time — this is by the Rolling Stones. I have just had it on shuffle this week. Fun way to broaden my taste!
Top 3 Songs:
the cure by Olivia Rodrigo — read my thoughts about it more in depth here. F bomb = clean version = problem solved
the van by Bleachers — my husband showed me this song and I have been obsessed with it. Windows down, cruising, vibing (despite the fact that I have literally no idea what Jack Antonoff is going on about)
Cry by HAIM — I have cried a lot this month and this song has been my vibe.
Movies
The Devil Wears Prada 2
4 stars
This movie was fun, but it was nothing revolutionary. That seems to be the consensus of most of the reviews I have read and TikToks I have watched. I loved it more than your average movie-goer because the original film is MY BREAD AND BUTTER.
I love a rom-com girlie who writes for a magazine or fashion or advertising or WHATEVER in an early 2000s movie. It’s just elite — I’m sorry!
This movie’s strength was its vibe. The plot, low-key, has already left my brain, but the cool shots, outfits and music have not. But that is ok. I don’t think anybody was expecting a feature film. It’s fanfare, and I love it!
The Sheep Detectives
5 stars
I laughed, I cried. I believe life will be split between Jenna before she saw The Sheep Detectives and after Jenna saw The Sheep Detectives.
This movie is PG and perfect to me. It surprisingly deals with death, memory and grief in a way that brought me to tears a few times. But it also would quickly pivot to a sheep doing something silly and I was laughing again. Whiplash but in the best way?
I think that I loved it so much because I went into it with such low expectations (CGI sheep?), but left the theatre with such a full heart. We really are all the winter lamb </3 ugh
TV Shows
Mandolorian
I am probably the last person on earth to watch this show. I saw the movie (which I did not include above since I thought I’d just throw it in here) and when my husband realized I had no idea who this diva was, he said we should start watching it together.
I <3 Star Wars (I am obviously a newer fan). I have no fancy analysis here, just my thoughts. Sometimes I have to close my eyes when the fighting gets too intense, and I think Grogu is a perfect little angel! I think space is so cool, but it freaks me out if I think about it too much, so space shows (and Dr. Who) help me be curious about it without actually imagining actual space travel (I have traveled to space in many nightmares).
I am only a few episodes into the show, so I do not have a ton of exciting thoughts yet, but, soon!!!!
The section where I tap the shoulder of writers and thinkers I love, so you can get a taste of writing that is good, true and beautiful! When I don’t have time to edit somebody’s work, I simply pop some pondering of my own here.
Even if it hurts, I must insist that you live.
by Kate Watson
When my grandfather was just a boy, he found a woman dead.
Not just any woman— the lady was a neighbor, and the beloved teacher from the community schoolhouse. He told me he found her on the floor of her house, facedown, the red wig she always wore strewn all about around her body.
He wasn’t yet ten when he saw it, he told me, sitting one-eyed in a chair he could no longer leave and not quite flinching at the memory. We all end up understanding that when death comes calling, flat and cold, it leaves a real mess for whoever’s left.
My pop pop, as I called him, was full of myths— but not of magic. He was military clean, but carried the scent of tar, earth, and pine. He was broad, but walked lanky, as if the trouble, and the truth, of all real things were laced together between his shoulder blades, challenging his balance.
He would say the wildest things, matter of factly, and none of it was ever made up. Things like: his name was not his name. He was originally named after a horse that a neighbor gave his father in a deal for some other livestock. The horse turned out to be lame and the friendship went sour, so they started calling my grandfather something else.
He taught me that everything that happened in life was emblematic of life. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened. His blood is the blood I think of, when I look at my own veins.
Once, when I was a girl, I stripped a seedling of all its leaves for no reason other than my own entertainment, as part of a potion making game, almost killing it. I remember thinking it unremarkable, this plant peeking up out from a crack in the garden path. My grandfather was never so angry at me. I apologized and apologized, but his disgust was unrelenting. “I don’t know if it will make it,” he said, and took the seedling and replanted it. But by his careful tending, that seedling I had abused grew into a tree. I was the worst thing that ever happened to that tree, but it survived me—and will probably still be there after I’m gone.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be human. We have all these people insisting that powerful pattern prediction machines are mimicking our intelligence. But even all the handwringing over that feels like it’s missing something about the big picture. Some are worried the robots will beat us at our own game, but I’m more worried that many of us don’t know what our own game is anymore. We aren’t even playing it. We can’t have a human experience unless we are regularly bearing witness to life, and also, to loss of life, and everything in between.
I fear that if we aren’t living life, we’ll care less about it. We’ll grow naive to it. Like how I stripped that tree of leaves to play pretend, for just a moment.
Sylvia Plath has this poem called “Mirror,” that strikes me exactly as a meditation on AI:
“I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.”
My grandfather lived to be 93, and in our last lucid conversation, we talked about the light from dead stars that had yet to even reach us—light that was still on its way. Death was near to him, the way it had been that night he first encountered it. Because he’d seen so much of it, he wasn’t afraid.
We’re about to enter a time period where we aren’t just humans, because we are humans, by default. We can choose to be deeply, darkly, pathetically human, and also glorious and a riot. A life where we are held, as Frank O’Hara wrote, “precariously, in the seeing hands of others.” Perhaps, by choosing a more intentional humanity, we can more deeply be affected by its poignancy, and less afraid of its limitations. As O’Hara wondered in that same poem, “Is this love / now that the first love has finally died, where there were no impossibilities?”
Kate Watson is a writer, reporter, and essayist. Sometimes, she publishes reflections on motherhood in the age of technological reproduction on her Substack, Off the Vine. She probably owes you an email.
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Your friend,
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christian theologian pop girlies who love the cure >>>
I have only a few chapters left in Against the Machine as well! Such a thought-provoking book