Walker Percy = Bad Catholic

Dear Misfits,

We are about to begin our 12th year of reading the great books of our shared Catholic literary tradition.  What a journey it has been.  We have read so many great books together.  It is exciting to realize that there are so many more to be read!

When we took our annual summer break we hadn't decided the book we would read next.  So I've chosen one I've long wanted to read...and I hope you will all agree that it is a good choice; lets read Walker Percy's classic,  Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book.  To quote: "Walker Percy's mordantly funny and wholly original contribution to the self-help book craze deals with the Western mind's tendency toward heavy abstraction. This favorite of Percy fans continues to charm and beguile readers of all tastes and backgrounds. Lost in the Cosmos invites us to think about how we communicate with our world....Walker Percy (1916-1990) was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he was the oldest of three brothers in an established Southern family that contained both a Civil War hero and a U.S. senator. Acclaimed for his poetic style and moving depictions of the alienation of modern American culture, Percy was the bestselling author of six fiction titles--including the classic novel The Moviegoer (1961), winner of the National Book Award--and fifteen works of nonfiction. In 2005, Time magazine named The Moviegoer one of the best English-language books published since 1923."  (The Misfits read The Moviegoer in May, 2003)

. . . 

Shown below is a short interview  given by Walker Percy on his Faith as a Catholic.  (I think he perhaps speaks for all of us Misfits!)

. . .

With warmest regards,

Misfit Buzz

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Walker Percy on his Faith (From Magnificat Magazine)

Q: What kind of Catholic are you?

 A. Bad.

 Q: Are you a dogmatic Catholic or an open-minded Catholic?

 A: I don’t know what that means . . . . Do you mean do I believe the dogma that the Catholic Church proposes for belief?

 Q: Yes.

 A: Yes.

 Q: How is such a belief possible in this day and age?

 A: What else is there?

 Q: What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism, atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Muhammadanism, Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.

 A: That’s what I mean.

 Q: I don’t understand. Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?

 A: Yes.

 Q: Why?

 A: It’s not good enough.

 Q: Why not?

 A: This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him.

 Q: Grabbed aholt?

 A: A Louisiana expression.

 Q: But isn’t the Catholic Church in a mess these days, badly split, its liturgy barbarized, vocations declining?

 A: Sure. That’s a sign of its divine origins, that it survives these periodic disasters.

 Q: You don’t act or talk like a Christian. Aren’t they supposed to love one another and do good works?

 A: Yes.

 Q: You don’t seem to have much use for your fellowman or do many good works.

 A: That’s true. I haven’t done a good work in years.

 Q: In fact, if I may be frank, you strike me as being rather negative in your attitude, cold-blooded, aloof, derisive, self-indulgent, more fond of the beautiful things of this world than of God.

 A: That’s true.

 Q: You even seem to take certain satisfaction in the disasters of the twentieth-century and to savor the imminence of world catastrophe rather than world peace, which all religions seek.

 A: That’s true.

 Q: You don’t seem to have much use for your fellow Christians, to say nothing of Ku Kluxers, ACLU’ers, northerners, southerners, fem-libbers, anti-fem-libbers, homosexuals, anti-homosexuals, Republicans, Democrats, hippies, anti-hippies, senior citizens.

 A: That’s true – though taken as individuals they turn out to be more or less like oneself, i.e., sinners, and we get along fine.

 Q: Even Ku Kluxers?

 A: Sure.

 Q: How do you account for your belief?

 A: I can only account for it as a gift from God.

 Q: Why would God make you such a gift when there are others who seem more deserving, that is, serve their fellowman?

 A: I don’t know. God does strange things. . . .

 Q: But shouldn’t one’s faith bear some relation to the truth, facts?

 A: Yes. That’s what attracted me, Christianity’s rather insolent claim to be true, with the implication that other religions are more or less false.

 Q: You believe that?

 A: Of course.

Taylor Caldwell Gets the Job Done

Dear Misfits,

On last Wednesday evening, we had a very good discussion of Taylor Caldwell's novel, Dear And Glorious Physician, her epic story of St. Luke. The novel was an instant best seller and hugely popular when first published in 1958. It has since sold millions of copies in multiple editions and was recently reissued by Ignatius Press.

Caldwell begins her epic novel two thousand years ago when St. Luke was Lucanus, a Greek man who loved, knew the emptiness of bereavement, and later traveled through the hills and wastes of Judea asking, "What manner of man was my Lord?" Lucanus is portrayed first as a man struggling with his faith who defies God, a God who does not stop suffering and allows the horrors of disease and the painful death of seemingly innocent people. Caldwell gives a very moving account of Luke's struggle to find meaning in the midst of suffering.  He eventually comes to terms with his struggle to understand man's condition and becomes one of Christianity’s earliest converts. He then sets out to write the story of Jesus laying out what has come to be known as The Gospel of St. Luke.

Not all of the Misfits at the meeting were equally taken with the novel. Some cited the language which often borders on the florid. Another criticism were the exaggerated coincidences Caldwell frequently used to develop the plot of the story. There is also the sense that she plays fast and loose with many of the facts of Luke's early life.  Much of what she relates is obviously made up and fictional. That said, the final chapters are strongly biblical and completely based on the Gospel of St. Luke. The Canticle of Zachariah and the Canticle of Mary are both very moving and set in the context of their relation to Luke's Gospel. Caldwell's regard for the Virgin Mary is obvious and her story is very well told, particularly as it relates to the strong Marian character of St. Luke's Gospel.

So, if you are looking for a fast-paced "Christian" novel with strong and interesting characters, this is an exciting book to read. It is not great or timeless literature. However, it gets the job done and is a good read for Catholics and people of faith.

Our final book before our summer break is Hilaire Belloc's The Path to Rome which was first published in 1902.  Belloc, a prolific author, considered this his best book, an opinion shared by most critics. It is a delightful story of the pilgrimage Belloc made on foot to Rome in order to fulfill a vow he had made to "...see all Europe which the Christian Faith has saved…” In The Life of Hilaire Belloc, Robert Speaight states: “More than any other book he ever wrote, The Path to Rome made Belloc’s name; more than any other, it has been lovingly thumbed and pondered…. The book is a classic, born of something far deeper than the physical experience it records.”

I think we are really going to like this book.

Yours in Christ,

Misfist Buzz

The Blood of the English Martyrs

Dear Misfits,

We've just finished reading and discussing the remarkable autobiography of Fr. John Gerard, a Jesuit priest in Elizabethan England at the time of “the stripping of the Altars”. We may never know how many Catholics were condemned for their faith during the persecution of the Catholics who remained faithful to the Church. We do know that the standard penalty for all those convicted of “Catholic treason” was execution by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Estimates of the number of executions carried out by Henry VIII range from 57,000 to the 72,000 claimed in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (the mass murder following the Catholic rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace accounted for many of them). The troops of his son Edward VI massacred more than 5,500 Cornish Catholics in the wake of the Prayer Book Rebellion. Elizabeth I was more sparing of formal executions, though St Margaret Clitheroe was pressed to death at York and Mary Queen of Scots beheaded; but the butchery of Catholics in Ireland was particularly appalling. There, Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene, supported a policy of extermination by artificial famine on a scale that was not exceeded until Stalin in the 1930s.

Father Gerard's autobiography presents a detailed account of the part he played in keeping the Faith alive during this troubled period of our Catholic history. One can only marvel at the incredible bravery of the men and women who supported Catholic priests by sheltering and hiding them in their homes. To be discovered with a priest in your home was to invite immediate imprisonment and often, execution by being hanged, drawn, and quartered.

This book is a "must read" for any young man now considering the priest hood. It describes what it is like to be on the “front lines” of the struggle for the Faith.  Father James V. Schall of Georgetown University notes in his introduction to the present edition that he did not believe that the persecution of Catholics during this period of English history could happen here in America when he first read the book as a young seminarian.  He then opines, " One is no longer quite so sure. It may, in fact, be a very up-to-date book in its own way." Michael Cohen, a Canadian author and TV personality notes, " Attacks on marriage, disdain for the Church, distortions of morality, lying for power and prestige, abusing the dead. Good Lord, it feels like the sixteenth-century all over again!" Perhaps, Perhaps!

. . .

The Risen Christ is with us always!

Misfit Buzz

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Farm Piety and a 100 year old Church of England Liturgical Rarity

Today’s bibliosite is a hand written prayer out of a 100 year old Church of England liturgical text:


“O Almighty & most loving Father, who in Thy Holy Word art declared to be willing to save both man & beast we beseech Thee to look upon our present distress & grievous loss through disease among the cattle. We pray that the measures taken to limit its diffusion & to free us from its deadly effects may bring a blessed deliverance so that what remains unto us may be spared & we may recover the fruits of our toil in farm & in market. We ask it for Thy tender mercies’ sake in Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
Amen.

The simple piety of the farmer who composed this prayer stands as a witness to faith in the face of natural adversity.  May his words speak to all those who suffer today from tornadoes and the other destructive forces of nature.


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Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - One of Loome's Top 5 Novels

Dear Misfits,

I am pleased to report, we have another winner!  Gilead by Marilynne Robinson was warmly praised by all who read it.  I personally found it to be one of the most moving books I have ever read.  Misfit Loome places it in the top five novels he has read.  We all want to thank Misfit Gatschet for recommending the book.

Why the high praise?  Simply because Robinson's prose is completely captivating--the woman can tell a story!  And the story is told in a letter the Reverend John Ames, a 77 year old Congressionalist preacher, is writing to his 6 year-old son.  It is his attempt to give an account of himself to his son as he tells him of his forebears, all men of the cloth.  It is also a story of the sacred bonds formed by fathers and sons and the manner in which they are tested by the challenges imposed by these bonds.

As you begin to read the letter Reverend Ames is composing for his son, you learn that he is physically ailing even though he is still mentally sharp.  His letter reveals him as a deeply pious man who considers the Bible an incontrovertible source of moral authority. He describes life as “the great bright dream of procreating and perishing.” and speaks of the “courage and loneliness” of every human face. 

I am tempted to draw a comparison between Flannery O'Conner and Marilynne Robinson in what I think are two areas of distinct similarity.  First, both novelists depict a God-haunted existence in the lives of their main characters.  God is a presence in their lives and redemptive grace always a possibility.  Secondly, Robinson like O'Conner, tells her story largely through a male protagonist.  This is especially the case with Gilead where women and the feminine are sparingly portrayed.  In fact, women seldom speak or intersect with the largely masculine story line as related through the voice of Reverend Ames.

Some might ask, "Yes, but is this a Catholic novel?  I thought the Misfits was a Catholic Men's Reading Group."   I would argue that if you are a Catholic with a strong fundamentalist bent (me!), you will read this novel as a deeply Christian expression of faith.  Hence, it is a Catholic novel!

Yours in Christ,

Misfit Buzz

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TOWN REWRITES CODE TO KEEP ONE SMALL BUSINESS REACHING A GLOBAL CLIENTELE

Relocating the Largest Theological Bookstore in the World to a nearby Family Farm Required Negotiations with Town Officials, and More Than 100 Minivan and Trailer Loads

In early 2012 when Christopher Hagen, proprietor of Loome Theological Booksellers of Stillwater, MN, decided to relocate the bookstore, he had no conception of the obstacles he would face in accomplishing the move.  After finding the perfect new location on a farm in West Lakeland Township, Hagen soon discovered that the town code prohibited operating a business of the scale of Loome Booksellers from the farm site.  In addition, Hagen faced the seemly insurmountable task of moving the largest theological bookstore in the world, consisting of nearly 100,000 books, while keeping the doors open and filling internet orders.  Undaunted, Hagen plunged into negotiations with town officials to get the code changed, while his employees began to dismantle and pack up the bookstore from its original location in a vertically challenging 100-year-old church building.  From September through December Hagen attended meetings with town officials regarding the change in town code while supervising the bookstore move.  Finally, Hagen got a green light from the town officials and an approved revision to the town code shortly before Thanksgiving, just in time to open for business on the farm.  Now he is putting the finishing touches on the new Loome Theological Booksellers farm location just in time for the Grand Opening Celebration on April 26 and 27.

Christopher and his wife, Christelle, dreamed for 15 years of running a bookstore together and living on a farm with their 5 children.  In the winter of 2012 they decided to fulfill that dream by aiming for something they’d never heard of before: a bookstore combined with a family farm.  However, there were two obstacles to fulfilling their dream; they didn’t have a farm and Christopher owned a bookstore with nearly 100,000 volumes, a daunting amount to consider moving.  Since the early 1980s the bookstore was in the landmark 100 year old Swedish Covenant church building near downtown Stillwater, MN.  Packed with books and bookcases lining the walls, stairwells, and balconies, the store was a destination for spiritual bibliophiles from all over the world, many making annual “pilgrimages” to buy books.  How could Christopher move out of that location with only a handful of employees while keeping the internet orders, the primary revenue stream, open and working efficiently?  “When first deciding to move the bookstore,” Christopher says “I didn’t have a clue as to how we would actually move it.  I just decided it had to be done”.  First, however, they needed a farm to move the bookstore to.

“Thanks be to God,” Christopher says “my wife, Christelle, loves to comb craigslist for houses!  We had set a deadline of June 30^th, 2012 for finding a farm.  On June 30^th my wife spotted a craigslist ad for the farm we now live on.”  The farm location was better than the Hagens thought possible.  Not only did it have a beautiful restored farm house, but it also had a shed large enough to hold all the books with an already finished portion as ideal retail bookstore space.  Also on the property was a separate building suitable for hosting speaking events and reading groups, a long term desire for the bookstore.  To top it off there was enough field acreage to begin their adventures in family farming.  There was only one significant catch.  The property was in West Lakeland Township, MN which had a home occupation code that allowed a home based business to have only one employee on-site.  There were 3 full-time and 3 part-time employees at the bookstore.

“I decided to appeal to the town board to allow all my employees to work from the farm location since they are what make this business great and the farm was big enough that I couldn’t use it effectively without them,” Christopher says.  During the first meeting with the town board, the board indicated that they were willing to try and make changes so that the bookstore could continue at the farm with all the employees.  It took three more monthly meetings before the revisions to the town code became law, just in time for Hagen to open for business at the farm Thanksgiving 2012.  “I was so pleased to see local government do what it could to help my family live and work on a farm together and also keep all my employees together,” says Chris “I’m very grateful”.

Moving the bookstore was physically daunting, somewhat dangerous, and very long.  For four months, sawing and pulling apart bookcases, packing thousands of books, loading the moving minivan and trailer in rain, snow, and ice was routine for the bookstore.  “I couldn’t have done it without my ingenious, efficient, and dedicated employees,” said Hagen, “many volunteers helped as well.  There was great goodwill from unexpected places during the move.  I can’t believe we did it”.

The last load from the old location arrived at the farm the Friday before Christmas.  During the winter the bookstore has continued to build bookcases and unpack books at its new location at 2270 Neal Ave. N.  Now, to celebrate the relocation and successful move, Loome Theological Booksellers is holding a two-day Grand Opening celebration on Friday and Saturday April 26 and 27.  All books will be on sale at 20% off.  On Friday evening customers may attend a talk entitled “The Family Farm and the Restoration of Society” and on Saturday morning attend a talk on England’s famous convert, John Henry Newman, entitled “Newman’s Quest for a Real Spiritual Life”.  Visit www.LoomeBooks.com for more information.  There will also be refreshments and tours.

Loome Theological Booksellers was founded in 1981 to provide discerning readers with good hard-to-find or out-of-print books in the Christian theological and intellectual tradition.  Visitors come from all over North America and Europe to browse the largest selection of theological books found in one place.  Thousands of books are purchasable online through www.LoomeBooks.com

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LOOME THEOLOGICAL BOOKSELLERS COMBINES BOOKS AND A FAMILY FARM FOR THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

Inspired by the Writings of John Paul II, Peter Maurin, and St. Anthony Marie Claret Loome Theological Bookstore relocates to Claret Farm in Stillwater

As Peter Maurin, one of the founders, along with Dorothy Day, of the Catholic Worker movement, wrote it is time “to blow the dynamite of the church”. The dynamite to which Maruin referred was the Catholic Church’s counter-cultural social teaching.  After 10 years of studying the writings of John Paull II on work and the new evangelization, Peter Maurin on the restoration of society, and St. Anthony Marie Claret on sustainable family farm life, Christopher Hagen, proprietor of Loome Theological Booksellers of Stillwater, MN, decided to blow the dynamite of the church by relocating the bookstore  to a nearby family farm.  In August of 2012 he moved his family to the farm which they christened Claret Farm, and then soon commenced moving the largest theological bookstore in the world, consisting of nearly 100,000 books.  From September through December the move continued while his family began the adventure of farm life.  This Spring, Hagen is putting the finishing touches on the new Loome Theological Booksellers farm location just in time for the Grand Opening Celebration on  Friday and Saturday April 26 and 27.

Christopher and his wife, Christelle, dreamed for 15 years of running a bookstore together and living on a farm with their 5 children.  Along the way, primarily under the influence of the Stillwater Catholic Worker community, they encountered and studied the writings of John Paul II and Peter Maurin.  John Paull II taught them that “work is for family” and therefore the parents’ careers should serve the family and conform to the family’s needs, not the other way around.  Maurin often wrote in pithy energizing phrases like “eat what you raise, and raise what you eat”.  Maurin also advocated the "agronomic university", a place where he envisioned that workers could become scholars and scholars could become workers.  Maurin taught that the house of hospitality for the poor was necessary, but should be considered as Phase One in a broader plan to renew a dying society.  For Maurin, who had grown up in an agricultural region in France, the house of hospitality necessarily must be followed by a Phase Two, during which individuals and families would learn to provide for themselves, instead of relying on the generosity of others or being dependent on the government.  This process of learning and training was to be carried out in the “agronomic university”.

While preparing a lesson for her homeschooled children, Christelle studied St. Anthony Marie Claret, a nineteenth-century priest, apostle and missionary, who was archbishop of Santiago, Cuba.  While archbishop, Claret wrote a book on farming, originally published in Spanish, that encouraged families to work small farms and own small businesses, because he believed that this provided stability for families and for society.  He encouraged small family farmers to grow a diversity of crops, so that they would be less dependent on the large sugar farms of the day.  He even tried to open a school much like Maurin’s vision of an “agronomic university”!

Challenged and set on fire by these ideas, in the winter of 2012 Christopher and Christelle decided to do what they could to fulfill John Paul II’s call for the new evangelization by aiming for something they’d never heard of before: a bookstore combined with a family farm.  However, they had little hope of finding a location for this farm/bookstore idea to put down roots.  “Thanks be to God,” Christopher says “my wife, Christelle, loves to comb craigslist for houses!  We had set a deadline of June 30^th, 2012 for finding a farm.  On June 30^th my wife spotted a craigslist ad for the farm we now live on.”  The farm location was better than the Hagens thought possible.  Not only did it have a beautiful restored farm house, but it also had a shed large enough to hold all Loome Theological Bookseller’s  books with an already finished portion as ideal retail bookstore space.  Also on the property was a separate building suitable for hosting speaking events and reading groups, a long term desire for the bookstore and classroom space for an “agronomic university”.  To top it off there was enough field acreage to begin their neophyte adventures in family farming.

Hagen finished moving Loome Theological Booksellers the Friday before Christmas.  During the winter the bookstore has continued to build bookcases and unpack books at its new location at 2270 Neal Ave. N.  Now, to celebrate the relocation and successful move, Loome Theological Booksellers is holding a two-day Grand Opening celebration on Friday and Saturday April 26 and 27.  All books will be on sale at 20% off for customers who browse in-store.  On Friday evening customers may attend a talk entitled “The Family Farm and the Restoration of Society” and on Saturday morning they may attend a talk on England’s famous convert, John Henry Newman, entitled “Newman’s Quest for a Real Spiritual Life”.  Visit www.LoomeBooks.com for more information.  There will also be refreshments and tours.  Visit www.LoomeBooks.com for more information.

Loome Theological Booksellers was founded in 1981 to provide discerning readers with good hard-to-find or out-of-print books in the Christian theological and intellectual tradition.  Visitors come from all over North America and Europe to browse the largest selection of theological books found in one place.  Thousands of books are purchasable online through www.LoomeBooks.com.

Claret Farm put down roots in the fall of 2012.  Read more about Claret Farm at www.ClaretFarm.com.

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