This is a gathering of material from previous posts on the saint.
We all love St. Francis, and most of us know a bit about him, too.
But as many have noted over the years, St. Francis is like Jesus in more ways than one. Like Jesus, he’s put to many uses by people with sometimes wildly varied agendas.
In general, though, we all agree that in essence, Francis of Assisi decided to follow Jesus by giving up material things and living with and for the poor, he really loved nature and he founded a religious order in order to spread his message.
There’s truth in that common portrait, but there are also distortions and gaps.
Francis didn’t have a plan. He did not set out to form a band of brothers – at all. His conversion was a personal one, and the life he lead for the first couple of years after it was the life of a penitent, pure and simple.
What was his conversion, exactly? This actually is a knottier problem than we assume. It wasn’t simply rejecting a life of relative wealth for a life lived in solidarity with the poor, through Christ. In fact, well, it doesn’t seem to be fundamentally about that at all.
Francis doesn’t say much about this at all himself. He refers to being “in his sins.” After his traumatic battle experiences, Christ drew him closer, he abandoned all for Christ, lived as a rather sketchy hermit-type penitent on the outskirts of Assisi, and then, in a crucial moment, encountered a leper.
As he describes it himself, lepers had been figures of particular horror to him when he was “in his sins.” But now, God intervened, converted him, and the leper became a person through whom Francis experienced peace and consolation.
Francis sought to do penance, live the Gospel and be a servant. He did not intend to draw followers, but did, and their initial way of life was simply living in this same way, only in community.
It wasn’t until their form of life was approved by Pope Innocent that preaching entered the picture – it was an element that the Pope threw into his approval. This was a surprise to Francis.
Okay, break time.
To me, this is most fascinating because, as I mentioned in the other blog post,when we read history, we often read it with the eyes of inevitability.
As in: everything unfolds according to intention and human plan. Just as it is with life in general, this is not the way history is, and it’s not the way the life of Francis was – well, not according to his plan. For he didn’t have one.
But this interesting turn of events shows how the Spirit shakes us up and turns us in a slightly different direction from where we thought we were going. It happened to Francis. He adapted, shakily and slowly. It happens to us.
Back to bullet points.
When you actually read Francis’ writings, you don’t see some things that you might expect. You don’t, for example, read a lot of directives about serving the poor. You don’t see any general condemnations of wealth. You don’t read a call for all people, everywhere, to live radically according to the evangelical counsels.
You do read these sorts of things – although not exactly – in the early guidelines for the friars and the few letters to fellow friars that have come down to us.
But surprisingly, it’s not what is emphasized by Francis himself. So what is?
Obedience.
When Francis wrote about Christ embracing poverty, what he speaks of is Christ descending from the glory of heaven and embracing mortal flesh – an act – the ultimate embrace of poverty – not just material poverty, but spiritual poverty – the ultimate act of obedience.
So, as Francis writes many times, his own call was to imitate Christ in this respect: to empty himself and become the lowly servant of all. To conquer everything that is the opposite: pride, self-regard, the desire for position or pleasure.
Francis wrote that the primary enemy in this battle is our “lower nature.” He wrote that the only thing we can claim for ourselves are our vices and all we have to boast about is Christ.
Francis also emphasized proper celebration and reception of the Eucharist – quite a bit. He had a lot to say about proper and worthy vessels and settings for the celebration of Mass. He was somewhat obsessed with respectful treatment of paper on which might be written the Divine Names or prayers. He prescribed how the friars were to pray the Office.
The early preaching of the Franciscans was in line with all of this, as well as other early medieval penitential preaching: the call to the laity to confess, receive the Eucharist worthily, and to turn from sin.
Praise God. Whatever the circumstances – and especially “bad” circumstances – praise God.
Accept persecution. It’s interesting that Francis routinely resisted church authorities affording his order any privileges or even writing them letters allowing them to preach in a certain vicinity. He felt that if they entered an area and were rejected, this was simply accepting the Cross of Christ, and should not be avoided.
Begging was not a core value for Francis, as we are often led to believe. He and his friars did manual labor. In the early days, begging was only allowed on behalf of sick and ailing brothers, and then only for things like food. No money, ever.
He really didn’t like telling people what to do. Well, my theory was that he actually did – what we know about his personality, pre-conversion, indicates that he was a born leader. Perhaps his post-conversion mode was not only an imitation of the Servant, but a recognition that his “lower nature” included a propensity to promote himself and direct others.
That said, Francis’ emphasis on servanthood meant that his writings don’t contain directions for others beyond what the Gospel says (repent/Eat the Bread of Life) unless he’s forced to – when composing a form of life and so on. This tension, along with ambiguities in the Franciscan life, made for a very interesting post-Francis history, along with problems during his own lifetime as well.
To me, Francis is a compelling spiritual figure not simply because he lived so radically, but, ironically, because the course of his life seems so normal.
Why?
Because he had a life. That life was disrupted, and the disruption changed him. Disoriented him. He found a re-orientation in Christ: he found the wellspring of forgiveness for his sins and the grace to conquer them (a lifetime struggle). His actions had consequences, most of which were totally unintended by him, and to which he had to adapt, as he sought to be obedient to God. His personality and gifts were well-equipped to deal with some of the new and changing circumstances in his life, and ill-equipped for others. He died, praising God.
Yes, Francis was all about poverty. All about it. He was about the poverty of Christ, who was obedient and emptied himself.
Hardly anyone does, unfortunately. It’s too bad because there’s no reason to avoid them. They aren’t lengthy or dense, and you don’t have to pay to read them. You could read – not deeply, but you could do it – his entire corpus in part of an evening.
The bulk of what he left was addressed to his brothers, but since most of us are not Franciscans, I’ll excerpt from his Letter to the Faithful:
Of whose Father such was the will, that His Son, blest and glorious, whom He gave to us and who was born for us, would offer his very self through His own Blood as a Sacrifice and Victim upon the altar, not for His own sake, through whom all things were made (cf. Jn 1:3), but for the sake of our sins, leaving us an example, so that we may follow in his footsteps (cf 1 Pet 2:21). And He willed that all might be saved through Him and that we might receive Him with a pure heart and our own chaste body. But there are few, who want to receive Him and be saved by Him, though His yoke is sweet and His burden light (cf. Mt: 11:30). Those who do not want to taste how sweet the Lord is (cf. Ps 33:9) and love shadows more than the Light (Jn 3:19) not wanting to fulfill the commands of God, are cursed; concerning whom it is said through the prophet: “Cursed are they who turn away from Thy commands.” (Ps 118:21). But, o how blessed and blest are those who love God and who do as the Lord himself says in the Gospel: “Love the Lord thy God with your whole heart and with your whole mind and your neighbor as your very self (Mt 22:37.39).
Let us therefore love God and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind, since He Himself seeking above all has said: “True adorers will adore the Father in spirit and truth.” (Jn 4:23) For it is proper that all, who adore Him, adore Him in the spirit of truth (cf. Jn 4:24). And let us offer (lit.”speak to”) Him praises and prayer day and night (Ps 31:4) saying: “Our Father who art in Heaven” (Mt 6:9), since it is proper that we always pray and not fail to do what we might (Lk 18:1).
If indeed we should confess all our sins to a priest, let us also receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ from him. He who does not eat His Flesh and does not drink His Blood (cf. Jn 6:55.57), cannot enter into the Kingdom of God (Jn 3:5). However let him eat and drink worthily, since he who receives unworthily eats and drinks judgement for himself, and he does not dejudicate the Body of the Lord (1 Cor 11:29), that is he does not discern it. In addition let us bring forth fruits worthy of penance (Lk 3:8). And let us love our neighbors as our very selves (cf. Mt 22:39). And if one does not want to love them as his very self, at least he does not charge them with wicked things, but does good (to them).
Moreover let those who have received the power of judging others exercise it with mercy, just as they themselves wish to obtain mercy from the Lord. For there will be judgment without mercy for those who have not shown mercy (James 2:13). And so let us have charity and humility; and let us give alms, since this washes souls from the filth of their sins (cf. Tob 4:11; 12:9). For men lose everything, which they leave in this world; however they carry with them the wages of charity and the alms, which they gave, for which they will have from the Lord a gift and worthy recompense.
We should also fast and abstain from vices and sins (cf Sir 3:32) and from a superfluity of food and drink and we should be Catholics. We should also frequently visit churches and venerate the clerics and revere them, not only for their own sake, if they be sinners, but for the sake of their office and administration of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which they sanctify upon the altar and receive and administer to others. And let us all know firmly, since no one can be saved, except through the words and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which the clerics speak, announce and minister. And only they should minister and not others. Moreover the religious especially, who have renounced the world, are bound to do more and greater things, but not to give up these (cf. Lk 11:42).
We should hold our bodies, with their vices and sins, in hatred, since the Lord says in the Gospel: “All wicked things, vices and sins, come forth from the heart.” (Mt 15:18-19) We should love our enemies and do good to them, who hold us in hatred (cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27). We should also deny ourselves (cf. Mt 16:24) and place our bodies under the yoke of servitude and holy obedience, just as each one has promised the Lord. And no man is bound out of obedience to obey anyone in that, where crime or sin is committed. However to him whom obedience has been committed and whom is held to be greater, let him be as the lesser (Lk 22:26) and the servant of the other friars. And let him show and have mercy for each one of his brothers, as he would want done to himself, if he were in a similar case. Nor let him grow angry with a brother on account of the crime of a brother, but with all patience and humility let him kindly admonish and support him.
We should not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but rather we should be simple, humble and pure. And let us hold our bodies in opprobrium and contempt, since on account of our own fault we are all wretched and putrid, fetid and worms, just as the Lord say through the prophet: “I am a worm and no man, the opprobium of men and the abject of the people.” (Ps 21:7) Let us never desire to be above others, but rather we should desire that upon all men and women, so long as they will have done these things and persevered even to the end, the Spirit of the Lord might rest (Is 11:2) and fashion in them His little dwelling and mansion (cf. Jn 14:23).
Why such a long excerpt? To give you a taste of what St. Francis was actually concerned about, which is perhaps not what we have been led to believe.
*****
SO…I decided to write a book trying to communicate this to kids. I worked, of course, with my friend Ann Engelhart, and the result is Adventures in Assisi, (link to Amazon, because it’s not on the Franciscan site, which means it’s out of print, but I don’t recall anyone ever telling us that. So…)
…. in which two contemporary children travel in Francis’ footsteps, confront their own need for greater charity and humility, and experience the fruit. It’s intended to be a discussion-starter, to get kids talking and thinking and praying about how they treat each other, and how they think about Christ in relationship to their own lives.
I mean..it’s not hard to get kids to get into animals or Christmas creches. But St. Francis of Assisi was fundamentally about imitating Christ in his poverty of spirit, and I thought that aspect of the saint’s life was woefully underrepresented in Francis Kid Lit.
Agnes was the daughter of a king and espoused to the Emperor Frederick, who remarked famously upon news of her refusal of marriage to him, “If she had left me for a mortal man, I would have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot take offence because in preference to me she has chosen the King of Heaven.”
She entered the Poor Clares, and what makes the letters from Clare so interesting to me is the way that Clare plays on Agnes’ noble origins, using language and allusions that draw upon Agnes’ experience, but take her beyond it, as in this one.
There are no photographs allowed inside the Basilica of S. Chiara in Assisi, which is where the original San Damiano cross is now kept. Here’s Ann Engelhart’s lovely painting of the San Damiano cross from Adventures in Assisi.
And….the first week almost done. Driving to and from school has happened several times. I am loathe to say too much about that because, I admit, I’m superstitious. Or, as I prefer to say it, I believe there is wisdom and truth in old adages like “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
So all I’ll say is that for me, my level of tension has decreased as the week as progressed. The fact that the new anti-texting-while-driving law took effect on 8/1 has helped. Not that I don’t see people still studying their phones on the road, but I’m hoping those numbers will, indeed, decrease and the risk to others decrease as well.
Speaking of Alabama….this is for you, in case you need to be amused. I guess it’s basically the same crew that does SEC Shorts – I don’t care a wit about football, but I find any kind of subculture – including fandom – fascinating, and always enjoy some precision satire and observation. These are hit and miss, but when they’re on, they’re really funny.
So they’re doing these. Some are weaker than others in both writing and acting, but my favorites are:
It’s just fun because they’re filmed in Birmingham, and the sights and sounds are familiar – there’s one about the challenge of eating healthy in the south that has a snip of the guy running in the park, distracted by an ice cream truck, which is very funny because he’s in Railroad Park where there’s always an ice cream song driving the world mad with its tunes….
Also – in one of the videos, “Things you never hear people saying in the South” – there’s reference to a wedding being scheduled on a football weekend. A few years ago, when I was living in the front-porch neighborhood (still missed – but we just needed a different space…), I was walking and overheard a woman talking on the phone on her front porch very loudly:
“Okay, I know the game will be on, but no, I am not putting a TV in the room during the reception. There’s sports bars down the street – you all can just leave and go down there if you want….”
This is a site to which I used to refer readers all the time: Aid to the Church in Need. It’s a good place to find projects to help and also provides helpful insight into the life of the Church around the world.
Edited – I miscopied the template and have been skipping #5 – thanks for noticing!!
Homeschooling is slowly getting rolling. We had a friend over on one day, and have had various other appointments, but next week looks clear. We’ve gotten going on math, and yesterday, he had his first good morning of “unschooling” – that is just reading and talking, and then recording what he’d read about. This won’t be a “comprehensive” education, but it will be…something.
The Jungle: It was my older son’s summer reading, so I joined in…the fun. Well.
On one level, it’s an “easy” read (for most of the book), because Sinclair was a journalist and tended to get right to the point and had great descriptive skills. It didn’t hurt that what he was describing was so vivid and visceral and the story of unrelenting misery so compelling, if…unrelenting.
For those of you who don’t know, The Jungle was the fruit of a couple of months Sinclair spent in Chicago in the early 20th century, examining the meatpacking industry and the lives of the immigrant workers in that industry. The focus of the story is an extended Lithuanian family and the young man who marries into that family, named Jurgis.
It’s all pretty devastating. The slaughterhouses and packing facilities are brutal and filthy. The workers’ lives are miserable and that misery is unrelenting. It’s all described quite vividly and, spoiler alert: No, things don’t get better. It’s just one thing after another.
Sinclair has a point in this, though. He was a strong socialist, and while most people associated The Jungle with the story told about the industry and the resultant formation of the FDA as a result of the outcry raised by the book, Sinclair’s main intention was to raise sympathy for the workers. He was always a little distressed that the social activism inspired by the book was focused on the industry rather than the fundamental equation of American capitalism of the time – as he saw it – that made workers nothing more than cogs in a machine (or pigs on a killing line) for the purpose of enriching a relatively few.
It’s a mostly interesting book – until the last sixth, or so, when Jurgis discovers socialism and does so mostly by listening to speeches. Speeches that we are privileged to share in, also. Page. After page. After page. Thousands of words of socialist uplift, Comrade.
It’s important and interesting to encounter even that part of the book, in my mind, because of the spiritual associations. Jurgis experiences no less than a spiritual conversion that gives his life a transcendent meaning and binds him to others.
But still….it’s very boring.
As a whole, though, a book worth reading, even for young people. I quibble with a lot of school assignments, but I think this was a good choice as an introduction to the study, this year, of the second half of American history and literature. It vividly brings you into another world and lays out issues that gather up the promises of the first half of history that you studied last year then sets them in this new situation and demands you answer the question, What now?
And, oh my heavens, speaking of immigration and American hopes and dreams – on a more positive note – if this article has passed your various newsfeeds by, take a look and catch up. And then, if you’re like me, make the decision (again!) to stop the griping, be grateful, and jump back into this life business full-tilt, creating and giving what you can:
In 1956, blood spilled as Hungarians revolted against Soviet control. Hideg and his wife, a pianist, risked execution as they fled Budapest under cover of darkness. They sneaked past Russian infantry and escaped first to Austria and then New York City in early 1957. Hideg got a job as a janitor, and after work he’d race to Birdland and other Manhattan jazz clubs to see his heroes.
In 1961, he and his wife loaded up their old DeSoto and headed west, flat broke, stopping at bars along the way to play for food and gas money, Hollywood or bust….
….“I did not come to this country to be a burden on the state,” says Hideg, who has resisted signing up for many entitlements available to seniors.
He chose the musician’s life, he says, and has no regrets. If he has a message for others, Hideg tells me, it’s that doing something you love will serve you well. And another thing: Don’t hesitate to ask friends for help if you need it.
“He’s not a shy guy, but it’s not easy for him” to accept money, says Hideg’s longtime buddy Laszlo Cser, a retired musician and L.A. City College professor. “Lately he’s more willing to go along.”
Louis Kabok, a local bass player who knew Hideg in Hungary, fled at about the same time. He says his friend’s high spirits in the face of hardship and advancing age don’t appear to be an act.
“To tell you the truth, I never met another person in my life who has his kind of attitude,” says Kabok. “He just has an idea of the way he wants to live his life, and he’s doing it.”
Indeed, for all his troubles, Hideg glows. His silver hair is as thick as his Hungarian accent. His grin is young, timeless and broad, the grin of a man who’s in on a secret.
Whatever day it is, the weekend is coming soon, and Hideg lives for Friday and Saturday.
He can’t bang the skins in the quiet environs of his apartment building, so every Saturday, he stays drummer fit with a two-hour workout at Stein on Vine in Hollywood, the legendary music shop where he jams with gray-bearded buddies and it’s the 1950s all over again.
In the video attached to the story – worth a few minutes of your time – Mr. Hideg says, “I live alone…and I don’t have a family. But I am not lonely because I have my friends, I have God, I have my drums….when I play, I concentrate on the music. I don’t care about anything else…”
May, of course, is Mary’s month. It’s a good time to read a free book on the Blessed Virgin – mine, originally published by Word Among Us, now out of print and available in a pdf version here.
Written by Donna Marie Cooper O’Boyle and published by Sophia, Ann was brought in to do the illustrations, so let’s give her due credit, shall we? Isn’t that a nice cover? I don’t have a copy of the book, nor can I access illustrated pages online, so I don’t know how the interior illustrations were actually used, but here are some samples Ann sent me:
Blurbs for the book have specifically mentioned the illustrations as worthy of note. So if this appears on your radar, remember that the very talented artist involved has other books:
Another recent work to which Ann contributed is this:
Ann and I aren’t working on anything specific at the moment, but we are tossing around ideas – it’s challenging to find a Catholic publisher willing to invest in quality illustrated children’s books, but we’re trying!
(If you would like a sneak peak at my newest, forthcoming book, check out Instagram Stories – you can only access the “stories” part via the app on a phone, by clicking on my photo.)
(I have most of these on hand, and you can purchase them through me. If it’s on the bookstore site, I have it. Or just go to your local Catholic bookstore or online portal).
Had a GREAT morning with the faculty of Montgomery Catholic schools yesterday. Thanks to Tom Riello for inviting me.
My topic was inspired partly by the occasion (teacher in-service), partly by some of my usual hobbyhorses and partly by Sunday’s Scripture readings. Basically: How to keep going and stay focused? Let Christ fill you and lead you. Well, how do we do that? By first starting with the prayer of the Church – the prayers and devotional life that have evolved over the Church’s history and the Eucharist. (Translation: Words We Pray).
The Scripture passages I highlighted were:
Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God. (2 Tim 1:8)
This was from the 2nd reading on Sunday, and was the over all theme of the talk. Life is hard. Teaching is hard. We are here with what we’ve been created with (nature) and know that God promises us strength to fulfill his will (grace). How do we do that? How do we bear our share of the hardship for the gospel and where do we find God’s grace?
Abram went as the LORD directed him. (Gn. 12:4)
From the first reading from Sunday. Called by God, Abram did as the Lord directed him. This is our paradigm, as well. But how do we know in what way the Lord is directing us? We first trust that he has not left us alone to figure that out – he has left us the Church, which we believe is the Body of Christ, and the prayers, practices, spirituality and theology of which is what Jesus promised, guided by the Holy Spirit.
So we begin with prayer. The prayer of the Church – both popular traditional prayers and, of course, the Liturgy of the Hours. Paul writes that we do not know how to pray as we ought. That means, in part, that we are like Job standing in the whirlwind, understanding at last how little we understand. When our prayer begins with the prayer of the Church, we are allowing ourselves to be led by the Spirit, and humbly entering into the space where we can be taught how to pray and what to pray for. We also find that we are not alone, as we join our prayers to millions who have joined their hearts to these words over the centuries.
Lord, it is good for us to be here.
Of course, from Sunday’s Gospel, the narrative of the Transfiguration.
This part of the talk focused on the Eucharist as the source of our strength and I really emphasized the nature of humility here, as well in the other talk. I spoke of St. Francis – on the anniversary of the election of Pope Francis – and the role of humility in his spirituality. Many associate St. Francis with poverty, and rightly, so, but the fundamental type of poverty he spoke of was the poverty of Christ, expressed in Philippians 2. Francis nowhere encouraged all people everywhere to embrace voluntary material poverty. Instead, he said, and more importantly, lived, the truth that the poverty of Christ is centered on the emptying of the will, and allowing one to be totally led by the Father’s will. Bringing that attitude to Mass makes a difference, and impacts how much grace can build on our nature, to help us bear the hardship of the Gospel.
I ended with my dependable 7th grade text, and with Flannery:
Thousands and thousands of people upon the stage of life are adjusting themselves to their roles in this drama — this drama which is real life. Old men are there and old women, youths and maidens, and even little children. From all parts of the world they come and from all walks of life — kings and queens, merchants and laborers, teachers and students, bankers and beggars, religious of all orders, cardinals, bishops and parish priests, and leading them all the Vicar of Christ on earth. All are quietly taking their places, for all re actors in the sublime mystery drama of our redemption.
We, too, have our own parts to play in this living drama. And there is no rehearsal. We begin now, on Septuagesima, following as faithfully as we can the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which comes to us particularly in the Mass and the sacraments.
Oh. I am sending you a rather garish looking book called A Short Breviary which I meant to get to you when you came into the Church but which has just come. I have a 1949 edition of it but this is a later one, supposed to be improved but I don’t think it is. Anyway, don’t think I am suggesting that you read the office every day. It’s just a good thing to know about, I say Prime in the morning and sometimes I say Compline at night but usually I don’t, But anyway I like parts of my prayers to stay the same and part to change. So many prayer books are so awful, but if you stick with the liturgy, you are safe.
Oh, I didn’t sell all the books I had taken, so if you want some..go to the bookstore. Start thinking Easter, First Communion, Confirmation and Mother’s Day!
The following will be rather mindless because I’ve just spend five hours at an academic competition (going on to nationals in June! Joy.) which stressed this introvert out, but I have work to finish up tomorrow morning, so I want to knock this out tonight….
Yes, I’ve been doing some work this week, and it’s kind of odd and refreshing because the work isn’t a Big Project. It’s a small project that I should be able to knock off in a few days, and I will, but one that still stretches me just a bit because it is, indeed, small.
It’s more challenging to write succinctly and meaningfully than you might think. But it’s my favorite kind of challenge.
The other project I’m working on involves seeing if a collection of talks from a conference can be shaped into a book. We’ll see….
Speaking of talks…I have one! Now that everyone is getting older, I’ve started accepting speaking invitations again..the next one will be an inservice/retreat thingy for Catholic school teachers a couple of hours away, and I’m looking forward to it. Also, Ann Engelhart and I will be speaking up on Long Island somewhere in early June…more on that when they finish up the PR materials.
Tuesday night, I read the novel The Risen by Ron Rash. It was the most interesting-looking book on the “fiction new releases” shelf at the library. It was short – really, probably novella-length, and it was a good way to spend a couple of hours. The plot involved two brothers, and an incident that had happened almost fifty years before with a teenaged girl. I kept thinking of Rectify as I read, since a long-ago crime involving a teenage female victim is at the heart of that, too.
The fundamental issue at hand was….how can we even try to compensate for the wrong that we have done? What is the relationship between the wrong things and the good that we do with our lives later? Does one cancel out the other – in either direction? A knotty problem, indeed. Artfully written, yes, and it certainly held my attention for a couple of hours and moved me a bit in the end, but at the same time there was a mannered aspect about it that ultimately left me cold. Well, not cold, but cooler than I feel I should have been left.
Drifting about at the library the other day, I picked up a book of Maugham stories. Took it home, and read On the Internet that the one with the most startling titles, “The Hairless Mexican,” was considered one of Maugham’s best. So I read it, could see the “twist” about 2/3 of the way through, and then felt that the “twist” could have been handled much more subtly. As in…the hammer wasn’t necessary. So that was enough of that.
This was on the “new releases” shelf, too, so I had to grab it. As of this writing, I’m only about 60 pages in, but am thoroughly enjoying it, and not just Because Rome. I read a lot of social history and history of pop culture, and so far, this is one of the best. One of the flaws of modern writing on these matters is the authorial voice is usually way too intrusive, presuming that the reason we’re reading this book is that we’re super interested in the author’s relationship to the subject matter, when honestly guys, we’re not. This is free of that narcissism, and is quite enjoyable and briskly, yet solidly written. Full report next week.
Miss McKenzie! She found love! So exciting. Okay, not exciting. But a very satisfying read, even though none of her suitors, even the one she eventually accepted, were worthy of her. I’ve decided to immerse myself in Trollope for a time. What I find interesting and instructive is the forthrightness of the issues at hand – namely the restrictions and limitations in which the characters live, mostly financial in nature. We like to think that in our day, we make our choices freely, constrained only by our own lack of self-worth or society’s failure to accept us as we are. None of this in Trollope: your choices are limited, clearly, by how much money and property you have and by your gender. This is your life, as it is. What will you make of it? Very thought-provoking.
In the chapter titled “The History of Septuagesima,” Dom Guéranger added, “The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.”
This post is part of a linkup – regular readers will be familiar with this material, but to new readers…it’s new!
This week’s #DiverseKidLit linkup coordinates nicely with the October 4 feastday of St. Francis of Assisi – the subject of my own book that I’m bringing into the linkup.
Adventures in Assisi, published in 2014, is the story of St. Francis told through the experiences of two contemporary children.
As the author of many books for children and young adults in the Catholic market, I have always been struck by the lack of diversity in the imagery in most books in this market, especially striking since most Catholic children are not of European descent are do, in fact live in or have ancestry from Latin American, Africa and Asia. My illustrator and I knew from the beginning that our book about St. Francis would feature children who reflected this diversity.
As it happens, Ann Engelhart, the water color artist with whom I work on my books, is part of a large family of German and Irish descent which, in her generation of siblings, reflects this even broader diversity as well – her sisters-in-law include women from Africa and India. The models she used for the children in our book are one of her nephews and a friend of his from school whose parents are African and Italian.
That would be today. It was pretty crazy, and I was tempted at points to be irritated that I was not “getting anything done.”
But of course I was getting it done. I was seeing new things, reflecting upon them, and encountering interesting people. All life, all fodder, all worth taking in.
It started with chickens.
I’m part of a small group that purchases free-range organic tuxedo-wearing, non-smoking, teetotling chickens from a farm about an hour north of here. We take turns with the once-a-month pickup. I was scheduled to go in October, but the September driver fell ill, so we switched. It’s all for the best. I’ll be starting the last stages of the next Big Project at that point, and I won’t want to take a day to drive to Hartselle, Alabama to get chickens at that stage in the process, I’m sure.
Last year when it was my turn, my homeschooler and I went up, but we got a late start and so didn’t have time to see anything else that might be in the neighborhood. This year, even though I’m sadly on my own, I decided to try to get away earlier and see the sights. What sights could there be, you ask?
Well, Hartselle has a cute little main street filled with antique shops and few cafes – I’m guessing it’s postioned itself as an afternoon antiquing destination for folks from Huntsville – or even those driving down to the Gulf Coast on 65.
The green storefront marks a pool hall. When I walked by the open door early afternoon on a Thursday, there were quite a few older fellows in there, shooting pool and sitting along the wall, watching.
What interested me most of all was Hartselle’s most well-known son, whom I’d just read about the night before – William Bradford Huie. Huie, born in Hartselle, returned to live there later in life and is buried there, and was a fairly well-known and sometimes controversial journalist and novelist of the mid-20th century. He graduated from the University of Alabama, and then went to write for magazines like Look and Colliers and served as editor of the American Mercury, H.L. Mencken’s magazine.
Huie had an infallible eye for an important story, and in 1955, this instinct led him to one of the most controversial pieces of his career. In August of that year, 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black youth from Chicago, was murdered in the Mississippi Delta in retaliation for his alleged sexual advances toward a white woman. His killers, two white half-brothers, were acquitted by an all-white jury. Shortly after their acquittal, Huie, with the financial backing of Look magazine, paid the two men for their story, in which they admitted to the murder, a controversial practice sometimes derided as “checkbook journalism.” The Till case set the tone for much of the remainder of Huie’s career, which gravitated to race-related crimes and some of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement, including the murders of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi during Freedom Summer (Three Lives for Mississippi), as well as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (He Slew the Dreamer). In both cases, Huie claimed to have paid sources, including Martin Luther King’s accused assassin, James Earl Ray, for their stories, a practice for which he was frequently criticized.
In 1957, Huie moved back to Alabama to live full-time and continued to work as a freelance writer for the rest of his life. Ruth Huie died in 1973, and in 1977 he married his second wife, Martha Hunt Robertson ofGuntersville. His work on race-related crimes and his frequent and outspoken criticism ofGovernorGeorge Wallace made him a continuing source of controversy, and although he was a commercial success, he was not always popular among his fellow Alabamians. In 1967, Huie’s public outspokenness led to a much-publicized
His most well-known books are, I’d say, the novel The Americanization of Emily (made into a film starring Julie Andrews and James Garner) and the nonfiction The Execution of Private Slovik – which tells the story of the only American WWII deserter to be executed, and which was made into a made-for-TV movie starting Martin Sheen.
From Hartselle, Alabama!
Appropriately enough, the library is named after him.
And it houses an exhibit on his life and work – the “archives.” The library is in a former bank building so these archives are…in the old vault. I want my life to be memorialized in a bank vault, for sure.
— 4 —
And then I got the chickens.
And then I saw the IronMan.
He’s probably over a hundred years old and was forged as an advertisement for VegeCal – an Alabama-produced liver tonic with 12% alcohol content.
Raced back to town, delivered chickens, got one kid, dropped him at piano, raced to another school to get two more, took them home, then back to piano to get the first one, back home..cooked dinner. Yes, cooked– I had prepared some bacon this morning and made Spaghetti Carbonara – once you do the bacon, it takes 15 minutes – and then it was back out to the Homewood Library to see…
Ben is the author illustrator of so many charming picture books and graphic novels. Zita the Space Girl has just been optioned for film. Ben’s on tour mostly promoting his new graphic novel Mighty Jack, and he also read his very fun picture book Nobody Likes a Goblin. He had spoken at a couple of schools today and was doing this library session before moving on to Wichita – go see him if you are there! It was great to meet him and have my 12-year old who carries around many stories in his head hear a different take on the creative process.
And…in my haste, I didn’t get any photos. Unbelievable. Well, here are the books I bought and that Ben signed…
I have three adult children. They live in different parts of the country and have very different lives and schedules. One is married with a child and does data analysis (I think). One is in law school. The oldest works in television. I don’t think they communicate on a daily basis.
But here’s what happens with intriguing frequency.
One of them calls me to talk. About 75% of the time, either another one will call right after I’m finished with the first one, or the call waiting from them will start beeping in the middle of the first call. And once that’s over, there’s another very high probability that the third one – whichever one is left – will call me within two or three hours.
I cannot tell you how many times that’s happened. It’s so strange.
This past week, the fruits of some past labors came to fruition all at once. That’s the way it is in writing, even in the age of so much instant publication. What you write today will come to light in a year or so, which means if you’re writing religious stuff, you’re often off, liturgical-year wise, writing about Christmas in May and Easter in November.
Last week, I mentioned that I received my copies of Praying with the Pivotal Players.Right now, you can get it as part of the entire study program and order it individually through the WOF website. It’s on Amazon, but I have no idea when it will actually be available.
Also …with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi coming up, remember that I have copies of Adventure in Assisi to sell – signed or not, your choice! Go here for information on that.
And now…time to get to work this Monday morning on things that will be published next fall…
Just a quick word about a project that’s just becoming available and that I’m proud to have been involved in.
Most of you are familiar with Bishop Robert Barron’s Catholicism series. The Word on Fire team is following up with another video series and study program called Pivotal Players. The first half of the program is just now being released. From the website:
CATHOLICISM: The Pivotal Players is a multi-part film series that illumines a handful of saints, artists, mystics, and scholars who not only shaped the life of the Church but changed the course of civilization.
Each figure gets five segments. Each segment begins with a quote from their writings, even Michelangelo who left many letters and wrote poetry. This is followed up with some reflections and then some prayer and reflection prompts. The sections are thematically aligned with whatever is emphasized in the episodes. I wrote the book last fall, and really enjoyed the process. It gave me an opportunity to immerse myself in the writings of these figures and I learned quite a bit. The table of contents is on the website.
The book is included as part of the parish program packet, but judging from what I see on Amazon, you should be able to purchase it by itself eventually.
The How to Book of the Mass
do we do that? By first starting with the prayer of the Church – the prayers and devotional life that have evolved over the Church’s history and the Eucharist. (Translation: 
his morning, I was all efficient and made some 
Charlotte was Both 