Bishop Barron on Great Spiritual Classics (including Orthodoxy)

Chesterton made the list!









Pax et bonum

Just wondering ...

Given the climate
would Chesterton have declared,
"White Chalk Matters"?

Ajax clerihew

Ajax
was a stalwart warrior during attacks,
but when it came to Achilles' armor he was completely undone
when Odysseus won.

A Bishop Explains Why You Should Read C.S. Lewis' Masterpiece "The Great Divorce" | ChurchPOP

Advice from Bishop Barron -



A Bishop Explains Why You Should Read C.S. Lewis' Masterpiece "The Great Divorce" | ChurchPOP

Pax et bonum

Moses Toeses Clerihew

If Moses
really supposes his toeses are roses,
then I'd be inclined to think
he's had too much to drink!

(With a nod to Singing in the Rain.)

Happy Birthday E. C. Bentley

Edmund Clerihew Bentley was born July 10, 1875. A schoolmate of Chesterton, he created while still in school the humorous verse form that bears his name, the clerihew. Chesterton wrote some clerihews, too, but his main connection with clerihews consists of his illustrations for some of Bentley's.

 

In honor of Bentley, a clerihew:

E. C. Bentley
evidently
knew just what to do
with a clerihew.

Chesterton sighting!

In a recent opinion piece about sex, The War on Chastity, Russell Shaw cites G. K. Chesterton:

G.K. Chesterton got a lot of things right. Here's one: "The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant." Evidence for the destructive consequences of tyrannical sex abounds in wrecked relationships, wrecked families, and wrecked lives.

Good piece, well worth reading.

Pax et bonum

Chesterton before God ( a cinquain)

 

G. K.
Chesterton stood
before the throne of God
telling a rollicking tale, and
God laughed.

Chesterton Scholar, Fr. Leo Hetzler, Passes Away

Father Leo Hetzler, C.S.B., a noted Chesterton scholar who helped launch the annual Rochester Chesterton Conference, died May 18, 2017, after a short illness. He was 91.

St. John Fisher College in Rochester, where he taught for many years, has a write up.

The article notes: "Fr. Hetzler then spent several years teaching in Canada in the 1960s, where he began what would become his lifelong interest in the Chesterton Society.  In 2002, he inaugurated the annual Chesterton Conference at Fisher, and in 2007, he became the first recipient of the Life Achievement Award presented by the American Chesterton Society."

I also quoted him in an article I wrote about Chesterton for the newspaper I used to work for.

May he rest in peace

Gilbert in transition; spat over

I just got the latest Gilbert.

In it, Dale Ahlquist announced some changes in the magazine, prompted in part by financial necessity, though I wonder if there some other factors in play.

Whatever the case, there have already been some changes, and there are apparently more in the works.

I wait to find out what Gilbert will become. It's been an important part of my life for a number of years now - one of the few print magazines I still receive, and the only one I read cover to cover.

One change that has occurred (on my part) is the end of a mini feud.

Last fall I noted in a snarky post that for some reason none of my clerihews had been published in more than five years - despite the fact that they had been appearing regularly for several years prior to that. I had submitted a number of them during those black hole years, but none of them surfaced. I wrote to ask what as going on, and even spoke to Dale.

Then, suddenly, after almost six years, one of mine appeared in the last issue. I wondered if it was a fluke. But this new issue contained another one.

Maybe they had all been buried under a slush pile and with all the rains this year the slush finally washed away to reveal them.

Whatever the case, thank you editors.

Why, I may even start submitting some more recent ones!

Chesterton, the poet

Over at Social Matter, there was a brief look at Chesterton as a poet:  "Poets: G. K. Chesterton"

Interesting read - praise for his poetry from a non-Chestertonian.

Peter Maurin - Chesterton and Belloc did not have blinkers!

 

A Few Englishmen

R. H. Tawney said
that the Englishmen wear blinkers.
Because they wear blinkers
the Englishmen
lack vision.
Because they lack vision
the Englishmen
are very strong
for supervision.
And supervision
is not a substitute
for vision.
A few Englishmen
got rid of their blinkers.
Among the Englishmen
who got rid of their blinkers
one can name:
William Cobbett,
John Ruskin,
William Morris,
Arthur Penty,
Hilaire Belloc,
G. K. Chesterton,
Eric Gill.
The best of all
is Eric Gill.

(This is one of  Peter Maurin's Easy Essay printed in the New York Catholic Worker. Maurin, along with Dorothy Day, created the Catholic Worker movement.)

Peter Maurin - Christianity Untried (Chesterton)

Chesterton says:
“The Christian ideal
has not been tried
and found wanting.
It has been found difficult
and left untried.”
Christianity has not been tried
because people thought
it was impractical.
And men have tried everything
except Christianity.
And everything
that men have tried
has failed.

(Peter Maurin, along with Dorothy Day, created the Catholic Worker movement. Maurin, originally from France, wrote "Easy Essays" summarizing his beliefs and those of other thinkers and writers and philosophers.)

They taught us to believe in dragons

"And a few encounters with living legends didn't hurt: I studied at the University of Oxford, and the English syllabus stopped at 1832, because there were two gentlemen named Tolkien and C.S. Lewis who had resisted taking it any further — they were both teaching there and we went to their lectures. So we encountered, thanks to those two, things like Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and above all, Shakespeare. A friend of mine once said, 'They taught us to believe in dragons.'" - The Lost Land of Susan Cooper

Susan Cooper is an award-winning writer of young adult and fantasy fiction, including the The Dark is Rising sequence. She also co-wrote the play Foxfire.

For all the snowflakes (clerihew)

President Donald Trump
blazes away as if still on the stump.
Many a fragile snowflake
finds the heat hard to take.

A St. Jerome clerihew

Irascible St. Jerome
was justly noted for his biblical tome,
but he was upset that no one would look
at his vegetarian cook book.

A Torricelli clerihew

Evangelista Torricelli
was fond of refried beans and jalapeno jelly.
One of his lesser-known achievements was a way to measure
frequent bouts of abdominal pressure.

Tolkien's rediscovered "Noel"

NOEL by J.R.R. Tolkien

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains' teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.


The lord of the snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o'er hill and dale.
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cl oud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.


The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star dame shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.


Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O'er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise, 
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven's towers to ring
When t he voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven's King.


Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.


Originally published in the 1936 Annual of Our Lady's School, Abingdon, Tolkien's "Noel" was unknown and unrecorded until scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull discovered it while searching for another poem in June 2013.  In May 2015, Our Lady's School, Abingdon, discovered their copy of the Annual and in Feb 2016, news of the discovery was widely reported.

- from the Yahoo Group Spareoom

Paladino Clerhiew

Carl Paladino
perhaps had too much vino.
But even intoxication can't
excuse his offensive First Couple rant.

(Context: Buffalo School Board member and former GOP NY gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, in a survey by Artvoice newspaper in which people were asked what they wished for in 2017, said, "Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to [senior White House advisor] Valerie [Jarrett], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her. "
.
And asked what he would most like to see go in 2017, he said, "Michelle Obama. I'd like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."

He refused to apologize. The Trump transition team - Paladino had been one of the honorary chairmen of Trump's NY presidential campaign - condemned Paladino's comments.)

Gilbert clerihew blackballing continues?

Another issue of Gilbert arrived.

None of my clerihews got in.

Again.

It used to be Gilbert regularly published some of my clerihews.

That stopped five and a half years ago.

I've sent a number in over the last few years, but they seemingly disappeared into a black hole.

I resent some in case they got lost.

Still missing in action.

I've even mentioned this to Dale a couple of times at Chesterton gatherings. He said he has seen some of mine floating about, and expressed surprise and doubt that it has been that long since any got published.

But it has been that long.

I'm not sure why they are not getting in. Some are decent enough, and certainly of comparable quality to some that have gotten in from others.

Maybe they just keep getting bumped as newer writers submit? Maybe they just keep getting misplaced? Maybe my occasional on-line sparring with the editor-in-chief has put me on some kind of blacklist?

So it goes.

As I told Dale, I've given up submitting. Seems to be little point. And writing this will likely not help.

Still, maybe some of the old ones will finally break through.

But as for new ones, I'll keep posting them here. At least then Chesterton and clerihew fans might see them.