Hey, Tim Jones, here.
For those who like their Catholic Culture full and neatly brushed, The League of Bearded Catholics is here to provide a convenient excuse constructive outlet for testosterone-infused merry making.
A hearty and hirsute celebration of the literary tradition of Tolkien, Lewis, Belloc and Chesterton.
"Break the conventions. Keep the commandments."
– G.K. Chesterton
Hey! Tim Jones here.
Saint Gilbert?
Bereft of any terribly original or helpful thoughts of my own, I would like to draw your attention to recent posts by Sean Dailey at the Blue Boar, and Eric Scheske at The Daily Eudemon, as well as this news story at Catholic Online, all highlighting a small but solid and growing movement for the sainthood of G.K. Chesterton.
It seems clear to me, and to many of Chesterton's readers, that of course
he was a saint, but it is not clear to all. Old stereotypes die hard,
and for some the picture of a rotund, hearty, jocular, wine-bibbing
Englsih journalist does not fit their idea of sainthood – never mind
the luminous spirituality underlying his prose and poetry, and the many
people (like C.S. Lewis) he inspired to see afresh the truths of the
ancient creed.
He was not a missionary or a cloistered religious.
He was not a priest, a theologian or a martyr. He was enthusiastic
about books, beer and bacon. He was no slayer of infidels, but a slayer
of heresies… he slew them with his pen. We hardly need to look around
for definitive arguments against the modern heresies that most plague
the people of the West… G.K.C. dealt them the death blow a century
ago, though many of them continue to walk around like zombies. For the
most part, in all seriousness, we need not invent new arguments against
these varied insanities, we need only to blow the dust off of
Chesterton's eloquent defense of reason and common sense.
I
remember well the moment at last year's Chesterton conference when the
audience was rather stunned to hear from speaker William Oddie that not
only was there no "cause" being championed for G.K.C.'s sainthood in
his home country, but that the idea was pretty well dismissed with a
kind of condescending chuckle by church officials in his home diocese.
It seems they, too, were influenced by stereotypes, or perhaps were too
close to Chesterton's roots to consider the idea… "Only in his
hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.".
For
my part, I find myself more often, now, calling on G.K.C. for prayer
and intercession, along with other favorite patron saints (Fra
Angelico, Catherine of Bologna, Luke the Evangelist, Augustine…). I
think I might also add J.R.R. Tolkien to that list, if I am going to
teach. I am pretty confident that he, too, is in a position to hear and
to help.
(Cross-posted on Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine, for double your blogging pleasure)
Speaking of American Papist…
In addition to the fact that he would still like your vote to support him in a blogging scholarship competition (worth $10,000 bucks)… he reports that;
The man was stopped by a couple of parishioners, aged 66 and 82. Yeah! Go old Catholic dudes!
This is exactly what I plan to do if confronted with the same
situation in my parish; to use the minimum amount of force necessary to
prevent it happening, and let the lawyers worry about sorting it out
later.
Sorry for the delay in blogging of late.
The last few weeks have been incredibly hectic, in large part because I’ve been getting ready for Catholic Answers’ cruise, which starts this Wednesday. This will be a big one, and getting ready for it has taken up a huge amount of time, on top of my usual activities. So . . . that’s why things have been slow from me of late. I’m hoping to get back to regular blogging on the other side of the event.
In the meantime, I hope to send along some mystery photos from my travels. Have fun with them! (But don’t go looking on the itinerary for the event. That’d be cheating!)
I’d also like to say a very heartfelt thank you to Tim J and SDG for their efforts of late, as well as whatever they may be able to contribute to the blog in my absence.
See y’all when I get back.
As Mark Shea says before going on a trip: Beans. Noses. You know the drill.
Later!
Okay, so I really, *really* meant to blog tonight!
I know, my life has been crazy hectic of late (the fires being only one of the reasons for that), but tonight I had a night off and I wanted to blog and then . . .
And then . . .
Just after 7 p.m. my lights flickered . . . and went out.
Then they flickered again . . . and went out again.
Blackout!
Power failure!
It’s the first time in a year or two, but tonight my area of El Cajon went dark. Not even the nearby streetlights were working.
And I’ve spent the last three hours killing time by candlelight, bored out of my gourd.
(It’s not like a hundred years ago when there were no blogs and everyone was used to candlelight and it would have been business as usual.)
I was just starting to blog this fact from my iPhone when the power suddenly came back on, and I decided to switch over to my computer (while it lasts).
Anyway, just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten y’all, and I hope to be back to blogging full strength soon.
Later!
Jimmy
Tonight, and increasingly in recent days, I’ve had trouble or found it impossible to blog due to computer problems.
At present it appears that my hard drive may be dying, and this has been interfering with my ability to blog without untimely freezes and crashes.
Tonight I’m initiating a full-HD backup, and I anticipate that I’ll be blogging from new hardware in the next couple of days.
Wanted to let y’all know, and talk with you soon!
In his appeal, Christ’s attorney argued that Phillips had changed his name to Jesus Christ 15 years earlier, and “has been using the name since then without incident.”
LINK:
Jesus Christ in legal battle for driver’s license
I’m changing my LEGAL NAME to “Santa Claus”.
Makes for a great tax break — especially with all the FREE GIFTS I give out during Christmas!
Have been added to Da Rulz:
23. The following terms are pejorative and their use as actual
descriptors (as opposed, for example, to quoting someone else’s use of
them for purposes of critique) constitutes rudeness: "Romanist,"
"Romish," "Roman" (when used to mean or as a substitute for
"Catholic"), "Roman Church" (when used to mean the entire Catholic
Church, as opposed to the Roman church sui iuris that exists
within the Catholic Church), "Papist," Papistic," "Papistical,"
"Popish," and any cognate terms based on the terms "Roman" or "Pope."The term to be used on this blog is Catholic, without scare quotes.
This is a Catholic blog, and Catholics are to be called Catholics on it.
24. It constitutes rudeness to make inflammatory assertions that one
is not prepared to back up by anything more than hearsay (e.g., "Mother
Theresa prayed to Hindu idols. I know because my friend said so.").Inflammatory claims are those likely to inflame passions. An inflammatory claim can be true. But because of its emotion-stirring character, it requires concrete evidence (more than just hearsay) to back it up if the discourse is to be kept civil and not degenerate into an impassioned muddle.
(NOTE: I’ve added clarifiers to these rules based on issues that came up in the combox below. The corresponding changes have been made to Da Rulz page as well.)
Francis Beckwith has begun doing interviews on his reversion to the Catholic Church following an extended stay in Evangelicalism, which included a stint as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society.
He has yet to do an interview in a major radio or TV Catholic venue (though those are planned), but recently he granted an interview to Greg Koukl of the Evangelical radio program Stand to Reason.
GET THE INTERVIEW (MP3 DOWNLOAD).
I think Frank did very well under difficult conditions. It was mere weeks after his return to the Church, and the environment was more hostile that expected. In fact, he called Greg on the carpet for presenting a more confrontational interview than he understood would be the case, but the two men are friends and this very much showed through, with both seeking to be charitable and balanced with the other.
I thought Greg definitely engaged in "steamroller" tactics at various points (that is, he threw multiple verses at Frank without letting him have a proper chance to respond), but overall the interview was in the service of truth as the participants saw it.
Be sure to check it out.
More later.
H. P. Lovecraft’s fictional narrator begins the story The Call of Cthulhu, by writing:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of
the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in
its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the
piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying
vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall
either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace
and safety of a new dark age.
Well, that situation has just gone kablooey.
I mean, Google has been eating away at the fact that there are so many disparate bits of knowledge that no one person can piece them all together, but then there’s this:
From one perspective, this is wicked awesome–amazing!–but from another perspective it is really, really frightening (and like a good horror story, it starts normal–cool even–and gets scarier as it goes).
Somewhere, Lovecraft’s narrator is screaming.
(CHT to the readers who have e-mailed!)