By Michael Toscano, First Things, Jan. 26, 2024
Michael Toscano is executive director of the Institute for Family Studies.
Being executive director of a think tank that monitors the health of marriage and family in America requires me to be intimately familiar with grim news. To keep my spirits buoyed, I’ve made a habit of turning my mind away and allowing it to be absorbed into happier things. Time with my wife and children, prayer, and spiritual retreats have been respites in times of turmoil. But I also have a need for stories—the lighter the better. Wodehouse has done the trick, as have several of Ian Fleming’s evocative Bond books. Most recently, I was captivated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which I picked up on the second day of Christmas and finished on the third. I was completely swept away, like Jim Hawkins riding the tide in a coracle boat in pursuit of the Hispaniola. But, as I read, I could not help but be reminded that my mind is weaker than it used to be. …
