Yikes

On social media - a swamp I advise others to tread in cautiously - I've seen repeated debates over certain Catholic issues.

Usually, they are started by one side in the debates.

There are those who hate Pope Francis no matter what he says or does.

There are those who contend the only valid way to celebrate Mass is the Traditional Latin Mass.

There are those say only traditional hymns played on organ or sung by choirs are proper for Mass.

Tired of the endless stream of criticism - again, largely from one side - I posted:

All the squabbles over TLM vs. NO, contemporary (guitar) music vs. traditional organ hymns, Pope Francis vs. "Pope X" deemed more "orthodox," I think of The Screwtape Letters. C.S. Lewis uses Screwtape to point out that the devil uses such squabbles to help undermine faith.

I added two quotations from Screwtape:

“Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.” 

“Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that “suits” him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”

The response was as if I stepped on a wasp nest.

Oh, there were those who agreed with me - but even more who attacked not only me and my position, but Novus Ordo and Vatican II in general.

So many claimed that with NO the liturgical abuses are the norm, not the exception.

I pointed out that I regularly attend NO Masses that are reverent and liturgically correct.

One person suggested that I must attend a "magical unicorn parish."

Sigh.

I know that the TLM folks have a beef because of some recent statements and guidelines out of the Vatican. Though I think a few brought it on the whole because of the way they talk and act - as some of the responses to my postings show.

I know that most TLM folks - especially the ones I know - are faithful, devout people who don't run around pontificating with chips on their shoulders. 

As a musician, I know a lot of contemporary music is flawed. But there are also some wonderful new hymns out there - including some played on guitars. And I've been to churches where traditional hymns are played on an organ - and it sounds as if I'm at a circus. Musicianship is important!

I engage in debates with pro-choicers on a regular basis. To be honest, I find those debates less painful than these liturgical/Church ones. The pro-choicers are like the kid down the street who calls you a name. It may bother you - but not as much as when a relative or someone you considered a friend calls you the same thing.  

The Church is universal, and I think we need to accept that as long as people are following the rubrics, various forms are worship are equally valid, so we need to be careful how and when we criticize. If something is being done incorrectly, speak up. otherwise, we need to accept that we are not all the same.

There are more important spiritual issues that need our attention than what language one uses or what  musical instrument one plays.

As Screwtape notes, when we do this we play into his hands:

“The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat, which is already nearly gunwale under.”

Patriotism and Sport (and the Olympics)

 

The Beijing Olympics have begun. I’m not a big fan of the Winter Olympics in general, but I have in the past tuned in for some events.
 
There’s something about curling.
 
But this year I am boycotting the Olympics over China’s human rights abuses. Just to cite two of China’s many offenses, the treatment (genocide) of the Uyghurs and forced abortion, merit condemnation. I am saddened that the U.S. and other nations still sent athletes.
 
In 1908, Chesterton commented on nationalism and athletics – the kind of misplaced national pride we too often see with the Olympics.
 
Patriotism and Sport
 
I notice that some papers, especially papers that call themselves patriotic, have fallen into quite a panic over the fact that we have been twice beaten in the world of sport, that a Frenchman has beaten us at golf, and that Belgians have beaten us at rowing. I suppose that the incidents are important to any people who ever believed in the self-satisfied English legend on this subject. I suppose that there are men who vaguely believe that we could never be beaten by a Frenchman, despite the fact that we have often been beaten by Frenchmen, and once by a Frenchwoman. In the old pictures in Punch you will find a recurring piece of satire. The English caricaturists always assumed that a Frenchman could not ride to hounds or enjoy English hunting. It did not seem to occur to them that all the people who founded English hunting were Frenchmen. All the Kings and nobles who originally rode to hounds spoke French. Large numbers of those Englishmen who still ride to hounds have French names. I suppose that the thing is important to any one who is ignorant of such evident matters as these. I suppose that if a man has ever believed that we English have some sacred and separate right to be athletic, such reverses do appear quite enormous and shocking. They feel as if, while the proper sun was rising in the east, some other and unexpected sun had begun to rise in the north-north-west by north. For the benefit, the moral and intellectual benefit of such people, it may be worth while to point out that the Anglo-Saxon has in these cases been defeated precisely by those competitors whom he has always regarded as being out of the running; by Latins, and by Latins of the most easy and unstrenuous type; not only by Frenchman, but by Belgians. All this, I say, is worth telling to any intelligent person who believes in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon superiority. But, then, no intelligent person does believe in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon superiority. No quite genuine Englishman ever did believe in it. And the genuine Englishman these defeats will in no respect dismay.
 
The genuine English patriot will know that the strength of England has never depended upon any of these things; that the glory of England has never had anything to do with them, except in the opinion of a large section of the rich and a loose section of the poor which copies the idleness of the rich. These people will, of course, think too much of our failure, just as they thought too much of our success. The typical Jingoes who have admired their countrymen too much for being conquerors will, doubtless, despise their countrymen too much for being conquered. But the Englishman with any feeling for England will know that athletic failures do not prove that England is weak, any more than athletic successes proved that England was strong. The truth is that athletics, like all other things, especially modern, are insanely individualistic. The Englishmen who win sporting prizes are exceptional among Englishmen, for the simple reason that they are exceptional even among men. English athletes represent England just about as much as Mr. Barnum's freaks represent America. There are so few of such people in the whole world that it is almost a toss-up whether they are found in this or that country.
If any one wants a simple proof of this, it is easy to find. When the great English athletes are not exceptional Englishmen they are generally not Englishmen at all. Nay, they are often representatives of races of which the average tone is specially incompatible with athletics. For instance, the English are supposed to rule the natives of India in virtue of their superior hardiness, superior activity, superior health of body and mind. The Hindus are supposed to be our subjects because they are less fond of action, less fond of openness and the open air. In a word, less fond of cricket. And, substantially, this is probably true, that the Indians are less fond of cricket. All the same, if you ask among Englishmen for the very best cricket-player, you will find that he is an Indian. Or, to take another case: it is, broadly speaking, true that the Jews are, as a race, pacific, intellectual, indifferent to war, like the Indians, or, perhaps, contemptuous of war, like the Chinese: nevertheless, of the very good prize-fighters, one or two have been Jews.
 
This is one of the strongest instances of the particular kind of evil that arises from our English form of the worship of athletics. It concentrates too much upon the success of individuals. It began, quite naturally and rightly, with wanting England to win. The second stage was that it wanted some Englishmen to win. The third stage was (in the ecstasy and agony of some special competition) that it wanted one particular Englishman to win. And the fourth stage was that when he had won, it discovered that he was not even an Englishman.
 
This is one of the points, I think, on which something might really be said for Lord Roberts and his rather vague ideas which vary between rifle clubs and conscription. Whatever may be the advantages or disadvantages otherwise of the idea, it is at least an idea of procuring equality and a sort of average in the athletic capacity of the people; it might conceivably act as a corrective to our mere tendency to see ourselves in certain exceptional athletes. As it is, there are millions of Englishmen who really think that they are a muscular race because C.B. Fry is an Englishman. And there are many of them who think vaguely that athletics must belong to England because Ranjitsinhji is an Indian.
 
But the real historic strength of England, physical and moral, has never had anything to do with this athletic specialism; it has been rather hindered by it. Somebody said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on Eton playing-fields. It was a particularly unfortunate remark, for the English contribution to the victory of Waterloo depended very much more than is common in victories upon the steadiness of the rank and file in an almost desperate situation. The Battle of Waterloo was won by the stubbornness of the common soldier--that is to say, it was won by the man who had never been to Eton. It was absurd to say that Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields. But it might have been fairly said that Waterloo was won on the village green, where clumsy boys played a very clumsy cricket. In a word, it was the average of the nation that was strong, and athletic glories do not indicate much about the average of a nation. Waterloo was not won by good cricket-players. But Waterloo was won by bad cricket-players, by a mass of men who had some minimum of athletic instincts and habits.
 
It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on. Suppose that whenever we heard of walking in England it always meant walking forty-five miles a day without fatigue. We should be perfectly certain that only a few men were walking at all, and that all the other British subjects were being wheeled about in Bath-chairs. But if when we hear of walking it means slow walking, painful walking, and frequent fatigue, then we know that the mass of the nation still is walking. We know that England is still literally on its feet.
 
The difficulty is therefore that the actual raising of the standard of athletics has probably been bad for national athleticism. Instead of the tournament being a healthy melee into which any ordinary man would rush and take his chance, it has become a fenced and guarded tilting-yard for the collision of particular champions against whom no ordinary man would pit himself or even be permitted to pit himself. If Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields it was because Eton cricket was probably much more careless then than it is now. As long as the game was a game, everybody wanted to join in it. When it becomes an art, every one wants to look at it. When it was frivolous it may have won Waterloo: when it was serious and efficient it lost Magersfontein.
 
In the Waterloo period there was a general rough-and-tumble athleticism among average Englishmen. It cannot be re-created by cricket, or by conscription, or by any artificial means. It was a thing of the soul. It came out of laughter, religion, and the spirit of the place. But it was like the modern French duel in this--that it might happen to anybody. If I were a French journalist it might really happen that Monsieur Clemenceau might challenge me to meet him with pistols. But I do not think that it is at all likely that Mr. C. B. Fry will ever challenge me to meet him with cricket-bats.
 

Inklings and Dr. Who?

 

G.K. Chesterton and the Meaning of Education

Joseph Pearce is on a roll. 

G.K. Chesterton and the Meaning of Education| National Catholic Register: The tragedy of modern education is that it has left us perilously ignorant of who we are, where we are, where we have come from and where we are going.

“It is typical of our time,” Chesterton wrote, “that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to children. The smaller our faith in doctrine, the larger our faith in doctors ...”

Tolkien, and Father Christmas

 

Since I have Tolkien on my mind (having seen the movie now), I stopped by the library and picked up a copy of  The Father Christmas Letters (edited by Baillie Tolkien). I had read a few of them before, and wanted to read them all, in part because they are Tolkien, and in part because I'm writing my own "Santa" book and wanted to see how he dealt with Kris Kringle.

Tolkien had written (and illustrated) a letter a year to his children beginning in 1920. This particular collection has the letter from 1920, but then skps to 1925 -though there is a stamp for 1924 and an undated note. I wonder if there is a more complete collection?

I was amused to see we actually have a couple of common ideas - problems with goblins, caves beneath the North Pole, heavy snow, fireworks mishaps, and melting ice and snow. He has a polar bear who means well but causes problems; I have some goofy elves and a human friend who flies a mail plane.

Alas, I don't have his drawing abilities.

Overall, it's an enjoyable read.

Tolkien (the movie)

 

I finally got to see the 2019 movie Tolkien. 

At the time it came out it got mixed reviews, but some Catholic commentators noted that at least it did not attack his faith or distort his life with contemporary obsessions.

I agree that as a film it's, frankly, not that good. "Dull" is the word that comes to mind. 

It's not bad, but the pacing is slow, and the structure is flawed, making it kind of confusing. I also found the attempts to link his life with elements in his fiction clumsy.

It did not attack his faith, and one of the strong positive characters is a priest. But given how deep Tolkien's faith was the movie needed to address Catholicism in more detail. 

I'm glad I saw it. For fans of Tolkien it's worth watching, though the definitive movie about him is yet to be made. But for non-fans, it's probably not the best introduction to Tolkien. Watch The Lord of the Rings Trilogy instead!

Mass is Tiresome?

 

Eating, Drinking and Praying — G.K. Chesterton and Christmas

Joseph Pearce in the National Catholic Register -

Eating, Drinking and Praying — G.K. Chesterton and Christmas| National Catholic Register: Chesterton had the good sense to treat Christmas as if it were the very center of history

The author most associated with the joy and glow of Christmas is obviously Charles Dickens. Apart from the perennially popular A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote several other Christmas-themed novellas, most notably The Chimes and The Cricket and the Hearth. In his book on Dickens, in a chapter entitled “Dickens and Christmas,” G. K. Chesterton lauded “Dickens’s great defence of Christmas”: ...

The Man Who Love Christmas

(I have been writing a book called Santa's Diary. One of the entries deals with a familiar fellow.) 

The question I dealt with yesterday about retirement is often linked with another question (sometimes stated, often not): If I ever stopped being Santa Claus, who could take my place?

Mind you, I am Santa only by the will and grace of God. The Lord could just as easily choose someone else to play my role.

When I look back at history, I see so many people who could play the role. Francis of Assisi, for example. There was a man who had the Christmas spirit. (Though that dear little man would have a hard time fitting in my suit!) And, of course, Charles Dickens is often credited with helping to save Christmas. I fear he might have failed the "saint" test, though. 

But If I had to pick just one person, it would be Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

Ho! There’s a man who could fill my suit! In fact, they’d have to let it out!

But beyond his physical size, he was a man who truly loved Christmas.

He wrote essays about it. He cited the feast again and again in his works. He wrote poetry about it.

And he appreciated me. Rather, he appreciated what I represent.

In writing about the loss of a sense of faith in one essay he said, “Father Christmas was with us when the fairies departed; and please God he will still be with us when the gods return.”

Yes, in all modesty, I must admit that all the stories that have grown up around me help to keep alive the sense of wonder and magic, the belief in something that can’t be explained, even in a time when faith is treated as something embarrassing.

In one of his books he wrote, "Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that the snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold.”

Perhaps that is part of the magic. Not my magic, of course, but the magic of belief.

As for those who don’t believe, he wrote in one essay, “Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is a season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so.”

How like the man. That spirit was one reason why even the people he debated respected and loved him. That is part of what would have made him a good Santa.

We met a couple of time. In one essay he described one of our conversations, though, of course, he changed some things around to suit his purpose. He had us meet in a toy shop and had me lamenting the modern world. The conversation actually took place during a meal in a tavern. And I seem to recall some of the lamenting was on his part.

I remember fondly the first time I met him as an adult.

I was in his home delivering gifts (some items for his toy theater), when he walked into the room. I sank back into the shadows, and he did not see me. Even if I hadn’t sunk into the shadows, I’m not sure he would have seen me anyway. As usual, he was lost in thought.

He stopped in the middle of the room, and said loudly, questioningly, “Slipper.”

I looked at his feet. Sure enough, he had only one slipper on.

“Slipper,” he said again.

Then suddenly he walked over to a tall bookcase and reached up to the top.

He brought down a slipper, and a book that had been under it, propped open.

He looked at the book, reading a little from the open page. He chuckled, and then walked out of the room, slipper and book in hand.

I reminded him of the moment years later. He did not remember it.

But he did remember the toy theater items I brought.

Yes, Chesterton would have made a fine Santa.

Of course, given his absent-minded ways, who knows what gifts would have ended up where. Why, if he was bringing a book to someone, he might have just sat down to read it, and when the children rushed down to open their gifts on Christmas morning they might have found him still sitting there, reading, and laughing out loud.

Very Santa-like image, I’d say.

Rereading

C.S. Lewis observed in - Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories:

“An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. . . . We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness.”

When I was a teacher, there were indeed certain books/plays that I read again and again because I was teaching them. Among those books were To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, several of Shakespeare's plays (Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, MacBeth), Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. 

But outside of teaching, there are only a few works I have read more than one. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia come to mind. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man are works that I have also reread.

But now that I'm retired, I have more time to read, and I've begun to reread some of the works I read at some time in the past - sometimes as much as 50 years ago. I recently reread The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder, and a series of dystopian novels like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. There are a few others I have read in the last year and a half, but right now I'm more focused on some of the great works I would like to reread in the future. Among them are: 

The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

Utopia by St. Thomas More

The Republic by Plato 

The Confessions by St. Augustine

The Divine Comedy by Dante

I'm sure there will be more title that will occur to me. I will mix them in as I also read works i've never read before. I hoep to find among those new books more that I will want to reread.

After all, I don't want to be an "unliterary" man.

 

Chesterton: Advent waiting is a gift

Freelance writer Shemaiah Gonzalez has a wonderful take on Advent, using Chesterton as a focus ("Chesterton: Advent waiting is a gift"):   

Writer G.K. Chesterton appreciated how waiting could be a gift. To Chesterton, waiting opened possibility:

“Around every corner is another gift waiting to surprise us, and it will surprise us if we can achieve control over our natural tendencies to make comparisons (to things that are better rather than things that are worse), to take things for granted … and to feel entitled!”

To see her full essay, go to Chesterton: Advent waiting is a gift

Dr. Seuss Clerihew

Dr. Seuss

was fond of tippling fermented mulberry juice.
This helps to explain a thing or thing two,
such as that cat's hat and Horton's who.

Dostoevsky - Friend?

 Should Fyodor Dostoevsky be counted as one of the "Friends"?

In reviewing a book about Dostoevsky, Chesterton once wrote:

"The one thing this Russian (Dostoevsky) loves is Liberty. The one place where he finds it is in … no, not Christianity… Christ. Compared with that, he cares nothing for anything. He was one of the two or three greatest novelists of the nineteenth century. And he cared for nothing but Christ who had made him free. It is worth thinking about."

As a fan of both Chesterton and Dostoevsky, I'm certainly willing to admit a Russian to the circel fo friends.   

The Chronicles of Narnia Saved My Faith!

 

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. That tragedy naturally dominated the headlines, so it's no surprise that the death of C.S. Lewis the same day did not get as much attention.

I was alive then, though quite young. Still, I knew that Kennedy was our President. I remember the principal of my Catholic grade school coming on the P.A with the sad news and sending us home. 

I had at that time never heard of Lewis.

I did not really encounter Lewis until 11 years later. 

In the fall of 1974, I had taken a leave of absence from college as I dealt with various confusions in my life - including spiritual ones. Raised as Catholic, I had strayed from my faith - though it still played a role in my life. Indeed, that fall I somehow got hired as a "peer counselor" by a Catholic agency in New York City. My "salary" was a small stipend, and a rent-controlled apartment on the Lower East Side near the group home where I was to work.

The apartment had apparently been an office for the agency at some point. There were only a few items of furniture. But there were master keys to a number of other empty apartments in the building and the one next door that the agency controlled. Searching through those apartments I managed to scavenge  enough to furnish my apartment. 

One item of furniture that was in the apartment when I moved in was a small bookcase with a few books in it. I didn't pay much attention to specific titles at first.

Shortly after I began working the group home I got involved with a small theater group developing a musical (that was later produced off-Broadway!). There I met a young lady, and soon we were dating. The young lady introduced me to her circle of friends, and I began to socialize with them

They were all big fans of Ayn Rand, and my girlfriend and her friends repeatedly recommended that I read Rand. 

I read The Fountainhead and began Atlas Shrugged. The more I read, the more uneasy I felt. It was as if a sour, hollow place was growing in me.

One day as I headed off to work, I stuffed some dirty laundry into a bag; staff was allowed to do their laundry when the residents weren't using the washers. Thinking I might have a chance to read over lunch, I threw Atlas Shrugged into the back as well. When I got to the home, I hurriedly emptied bag into the washer forgetting the book was in there, turned on the machine, and went off to do some house duties. 

When I returned later, Atlas Shrugged had become Atlas Pulped.

The pulp was mixed all through the clothes, and it took a long time to get all of it out. I interpreted it as a metaphor for what reading Rand was doing to my mind and my soul. 

I stopped reading Rand.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

At Christmas, by careful scheduling, I managed to get more than a week off from work. I decided to spend Christmas with my parents, but, not having a car, I had to take the bus to where they lived in Western New York. I knew I needed something to read on the bus, and now free from Rand, I wondered what I should bring. It's then that I scanned that bookcase in the apartment and discovered the complete set of The Chronicles of Narnia. 

I had heard of them - friends in youth groups had mentioned them - and looking for something lighter than the sludge that had been Rand, I figured some children's books would do just fine.

Over the next week - on the trip upstate, at my parents', and on the way back - I finished all seven of the books. I couldn't put them down.

Those books fanned the embers of my almost dead faith. 

When I got back to New York. I quickly realized I had to stop seeing the girlfriend and her friends because of the negative influence they had on me. I also realized I needed to read works that nourished my soul.

That's when I read in quick succession The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, The Confessions by St. Augustine, and Saint Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton.

Those three books led me back to my Catholic faith. I even later entered the seminary, though I did not get ordained, and eventually became a Secular Franciscan.

Since then, I have also been an avid reader of both Lewis and Chesterton. 

So today I remember and honor C.S. Lewis, whose little "children's books" saved my faith. 

C.S.Lewis and Fairy Tales

“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” - C.S. Lewis

Belloc on Political and Economic Freedom

 

Progress?

 

“Never perhaps since the beginning of the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word “progress” than we.”  - G. K. Chesterton

We could use a man like Chesterton today ...

 

"One of the most important cultural figures in the last century was G.K. Chesterton; an astonishingly prolific writer, speaker and defender of Christianity. ..."

So begins "The courage, creativity and charm of GK Chesterton" in The Christian Post.

It's not an in-depth op-ed - just a general but positive overview by Canon J. John.

"We could certainly benefit from having men and women like Chesterton today, who can defend the Christian faith with courage, creativity, and charm." 

Indeed.

Worth a read.

An Amateur Blogger

 At the most recent Rochester Chesterton Conference I bought a copy of  Chesterton In Black and White. The book is a collection of early (1903-04) Chesterton essays from the magazines Black and White and The Bystander.

Many of the essays foreshadow topics he would address in his later writings such as humor, fairy tales, and, of course, paradox.

For Black and White he wrote a series of essays on "The Decline of Amateur Professions."

In one of the essays he defines an amateur "as a man who does a thing because he enjoys doing it."

He had individual essays on the following "amateur professions:" Dancer, Critic, Actor, Politician, Educator, and Soldier.

I suggest another profession to include: Blogger.

Blogs were once quite popular - including this blog. In addition to contributing to this blog, I've had personal blogs - on one of which I still post to on a regular basis. Our local newspaper also had community blogs for various town and groups. I was the blogger for my suburban town, and also contributed to a "men's" blog. 

Alas, social media has moved on, and so most blogs became passe. I quit my newspaper blog gig, and a few years later the newspaper shut down all its community blogs.

I joined this blog in 2006. At the time there were a number of other contributors - I was responsible at that point for posting on Thursdays. I liked the idea that I was the man who was Thursday!

Gradually, as blogging faded away, so did the other contributors. (Being talented individuals, they have likely gone on to better things.) Since 2014, I've been the only person to continue to contribute to this blog. and for a long time I was irregular about doing so. Indeed, in 2019 there was just one single post concerning the Rochester Chesterton conference that year. 

I also noted that many of the other blogs listed on this blog as "Chestertonian Blogs" have suffered a similar fate. Most have not had posts in years. some no longer exist. Only one in the list has had a post this year - just one post.

Despite all that, I decided in August that I would try to keep this blog active. This is the 14th post since.

Why?

Because while they are an older form of social media, blogs still exist and still serve a need. Some blogs - ones hosted by well-known individuals, or devoted to a particular niche market, or focused on such topics as fashion or pop culture, and so on - remain popular. Some of those blogs even generate income in various ways.

This blog might be a "niche market" one in that it focuses on particular writers like Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Hilaire Belloc, and writers with ties to them. Not a big market, to be sure, but still one with a loyal following, and one that deserves greater attention.

In addition, a blog, being an "old-fashioned" kind of social media, fits right in with a Chestertonian embracing of traditional literary - or social media - forms. 

Besides, I enjoy doing it. 

I enjoy writing. I enjoy reading and writing about Chesterton and Lewis and their friends. I enjoy classical literature and education and matters of faith. I enjoy clerihews and paradoxes and fairy tales.

I am an amateur blogger - a noble and honorable profession. 

Books about Distributism

On social media earlier this day, I came across a post asking for advice about books that explained distributism, especially ones that might help to simplify the concept for those who are not economists or are not familiar with what distributism really is. A number of people had suggestions

I had to get off to Mass, so I did not read it in the depth it merited. And, of course, later when I tried going back to find it I could not.

Still, I do remember some of the titles. And naturally, there are some familiar authors cited.

Among the works mentioned:

Rerum Novarum: On The Condition Of Working Classes by Pope Leo XIII

What's Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton

The Outline of Sanity by G.K. Chesterton

Utopia of Usurers by G.K. Chesterton

The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc

Economics for Helen by Hilaire Belloc

Small is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered by Joseph Pearce

I've read the Chesterton books. I'm currently reading Rerum Novarum. Pearce's book is on my shelf of books to read. 

I'm sure there were other books cited, some by other authors, but I don't recall them. I suspect
The Hound of Distributism by Richard Aleman and Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by Ernst F. Schumacher got mentioned.