New Gilbert is Here

The new issue of Gilbert Magazine should be hitting mailboxes this week. It looks like a great issue. I especially liked the cover story by Dale Ahlquist: A Visit to Clear Creek Monastery. With the theme "Whenever monks come back, marriages will come back" (a GKC quote), Dale discusses the rise of a new monastery in the foothills of the Ozarks in eastern Oklahoma. It's one of those new-fangled monasteries: old fashioned in the best sense of the term. Families are now moving into the area to be near the holy men.

The thing I found most fascinating: These men are progeny of John Senior's humanities program at the University of Kansas back in the 1970s (and 1980s?). Senior advanced an intelligent, radical, and Catholic view of civilization. And he did so convincingly, so much so that his students starting converting and some entered convents and monasteries. I remember reading elsewhere that parents started complaining to the University of Kansas about the alleged brainwashing (read: "brain cleaning," cleaning off the ugliness that is pop modernity). The program was subsequently terminated. . . But not before Senior laid down some seeds. And the seeds have sprouted a strong plant in eastern Oklahoma.

If you want to read Senior's vision, get The Restoration of Christian Culture. In my opinion, it's a modern classic.