Podcast
The Intentional Household
If you’re wondering if you really can be friends with your spouse, and raise children into responsible adults, and do what it takes to make a homestead, reconnecting with your body and the land, wherever you live; or, if you just want to think more about how to make a truly happy home in these challenging times, then TUNE IN to THE INTENTIONAL HOUSEHOLD PODCAST for thought-provoking interviews and practical discussions on how to craft a vibrant life in our homes today.
Articles
John’s Blog
If you want to reflect on timeless truths and how they can be applied to life today, then Follow John’s Blog for brief weekly reflections on LifeCraft’s original pillars of household, stewardship, friendship, and meaningful work – diving deeper into principles and applications in crafting an intentional life.
Making Stability in the Home
Our lives today are marked by changeability. Where we live, where we work, and the cast of people with whom we share a life—even if we stay in the same place—change at an unprecedented rate. Other key things also change regularly, such as the basic tools of our work,...
Free Courses
A Philosophy of Household
If you want a resource that will deepen your understanding of what it is to be a man or a woman, and the concrete difference this gift makes every day; if you are a husband or wife, a mother or father, seeking principles to strengthen your marriage and parenting, then take our Man of the Household and Woman of the Household courses. Through clearly explained but seldom considered principles and step by step resolutions, these courses will change your life, beginning with your most important relationships.
Resources
Sofia’s Corner
If you want accessible and concrete resources for building your home culture, if you would you appreciate some tips and encouragement in crafting a vibrant life in your household, then head over to Sofia’s Corner. You will find singing lessons, book lists, read-alouds, seasonal traditions, lectures, homeschooling inspiration, kitchen know-hows, DIY’s, liturgical living ideas, and family celebration ideas, all rooted in the LifeCraft principles.
Meet John and Sofia Cuddeback
John and Sofia Cuddeback have 30 years of experience in the adventures of marriage,
homesteading, and raising 6 children.
John is a philosophy professor, a student of great thinkers, and a man on a search. In 2013
he started the blog Bacon from Acorns to share the common-sense, down-home
philosophical wisdom he seeks. The blog Bacon from Acorns grew into LifeCraft, a project
dedicated to giving principles and concrete direction, and hope, to empower people to renew
life in their home. Read more about John HERE.
Sofia is a home-maker. She has a passion for making her home a place of vibrant life, and
she loves to share what she has learned with others.
LifeCraft Courses.
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Man of the Household
Be a true man in your household
Cultural pressures, coupled with accusations of toxic masculinity, make us uncertain of how to be a man, so we feel frustrated and paralyzed. Join Man of the Household in seeking the reality of true manhood, and find the confidence to live out the gift of your manhood.
The Manliness Behind the Martial
“Yi was a skillful archer, and Ao was a powerful naval commander, and yet neither of them met a natural death. Yu and Hou Ji, on other hand, did nothing but personally tend to the land, and yet they both ended up with possession of the world.” Confucius, Analects As...
A Man’s Fear about Being a Man
If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage. Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well There is often fear in marriage, and it can be of several kinds. I think Shakespeare’s object here is perhaps the primary fear attending...
Cherishing Your Spouse in Your Children
“Goodbye Aeneas. Cherish our love in the son it gave us.” Virgil, The Aeneid This stunningly powerful goodbye between spouses says so much. A son, it says, was ‘given’ to a couple by the love they bore one another. Love between spouses is already itself a gift. That...
True Friendship
Form the kind of friendships that make life worth living.
In a culture that puts connectedness over presence, and success over relationship, the true friendships we crave seem out of reach. Turn to the time-tested wisdom about the reality of true friendships and a plan for forging them today.
Having No Real Friends
“Those who have a host of friends and are on familiar terms with everybody seem to be real friends of no one.” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics It is our worst nightmare. Everyone else has real friends. But somehow I don’t, because I’m just not up to it, or people just...
Our Pressing Need for Friendship
“Besides, friendship is especially necessary for living...” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics There are two reasons we might not give true friendship the priority it deserves. For some, it seems to us that we already have it. Or in any case, it is not evident to us that...
Certain Things in Uncertain Times
“First house and wife and an ox for the plough.” Hesiod, Works and Days I think I am not alone in feeling unsettled these days. I experience a subtle, low-grade but constant stress, a sense of foreboding that tends toward fear. Where are things going in our nation and...
Good Work
Become capable of deep, meaningful work.
Economic realities along with supposedly work-enhancing or work-reducing technologies often strangle and maim good work, both in our workplace and at home. Turn to time-tested strategies for life-giving, soul-enhancing and relationship-deepening work.
Crafting the Human by Slaughtering a Pig
"let this day begin again the change of hogs into people, not the other way around, for today we celebrate again our lives’ wedding with the world, for by our hunger, by this provisioning, we renew the bond." Wendell Berry, 'For the Hog Killing' It’s about being...
Choosing Toil this Summer
“The Father himself Willed that the path of tillage be not smooth, And first ordained that skill should cultivate The land, by care sharpening the wits of mortals...” Virgil, The Georgics Summer has begun. As a kind of new beginning, every season offers a natural...
The Economics of Splitting Wood by Hand
*This is a reposting of the first piece I ever posted online, almost exactly eight years ago, at Front Porch Republic. It has remained one of the most popular I’ve posted. Also, here is short video sharing my joy in splitting wood. Hilaire Belloc once wrote that he...
Natural Steward
Find your unique place in the order of nature.
A world of pre-packaged food, disposable products of every kind, and scenic overlooks (for those inside vehicles) systematically detaches us from our place in nature, to the detriment of animals, vegetables and minerals, as well as human persons. NaturalSteward invites the disconnected to find the way back to where we belong, as an integral and active part of the natural order.
A Great Reason to Maintain Our Home with Care
“Now to cultivate something is to devote one’s attention to it. And we can cultivate something in two ways: either to make what is cultivated better, as we cultivate a field... or to make ourselves better by the cultivating, and in this way we cultivate wisdom.”...
Knowing Where Our Food Comes From
“A significant part of the pleasure of eating is one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world form which food comes.” Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating” in What are People For? There are very good reasons to consider where our food comes from. Let us...
A Stewardship Plan for Everyone: Conserve, Beautify, Fructify
Stewardship is using the natural world carefully so that it thrives and thus serves human life well. The natural world provides food, cloths, and shelter, each with its proper delight and beauty. It can also form our mind and character, teaching us basic lessons of...
As seen on:
John Cuddeback
Husband and father, a philosophy professor, and a man on a search.
In my quarter century as a philosophy professor I’ve been exposed to much wisdom. I try to assimilate it, and I want to share what I have found.
