faith

Book Break: Three Little Books

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment
I’m playing catch-up on a few recently completed books, lest you think (aside from The Brothers Karamazov) I haven’t been reading in the past year. All of them are “little” books in one sense or another, but none are insubstantial; in fact, all three have Catholic or spiritual underpinnings and overtones. I shall write about them in the order that I completed them, though the last one I began reading even before Dostoevsky.

Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism by Douglas Brinkley & Julie Fenster is a short biography of the founder of the Knights of Columbus and an intriguing glimpse into the struggles of American Catholics in the nineteenth century. Fr. McGivney, like many priests of his day, died young, but nevertheless transformed the communities of which he was a part, and ultimately re-envisioned the role of Catholic men in America. The authors admit he left few personal papers or other items behind, and at times, it felt as though the material on Fr. McGivney was a bit thinner than the book. I was particularly struck by several points, however:

  • Fr. McGivney’s gifts as a parish priest, and his ideas behind the Knights of Columbus, first manifested themselves at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Conn. Interestingly (to me, at least), when I was at Yale, this was a church I walked by on a daily basis, and when I met my bride and began (occasionally) to attend mass, it was at St. Mary’s. As a result, the book was full of names and places I knew and could envision from my college days.
  • Catholics in America were subject to discrimination; however, New Haven’s sophisticated liberal leanings made the community quite tolerant of its Catholic immigrants. On the other hand, when I was at Yale, the community’s sophisticated liberal leanings caused the students to look sideways at the priests and parishioners at St. Mary’s.
  • Fr. McGivney’s desire to start the KCs stemmed from the problems he saw in his Irish Catholic community, including poor widows, fatherless children, and men who wanted something more than their workaday lives, but were seeking it in the bottle and secret societies that separated them from their faith and their families. As they say, the more things change…
The book was a quick read, and especially for Yale Catholics and my KC brothers, I recommend it.
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Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is a grown-up fable masquerading as a children’s book. It’s a book I’ve seen often and have often wanted to read based on the whimsical illustrations alone, but until I recently heard an interview about the book on the local Catholic radio station, I’m embarrassed to say I knew almost nothing about the book or the author. I found a like-new, soft-cover, second-hand copy at The Sixth Chamber in St. Paul, brought it home, and did something I certainly haven’t done since Trevvy learned to read for himself: I began to read to the kids after dinner.

It’s neither overtly Catholic nor overtly religious. It is beautiful. I won’t tell you a thing about the story; I knew very little, and I found my voice choking with emotion throughout as I discovered my kids, and especially myself, in the characters in the story.* I will say only that it is worth reading and worth sharing. Everyone, from six-year-old Trevor to Jodi and I, loved the book. Gabe says it may be his new favorite. Our teenager said, “Will you pick another book, Dad? I really like this!”

If you want just a taste, my good friend Fr. Tyler wrote about The Little Prince, as well, on his Prairie Father blog. The excerpt he used is one of my favorites, too. Read this book!
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Finally, the other night at Adoration I finished Introduction to a Devout Life, a Catholic spiritual classic written in the early 17th century by St. Francis de Sales. The copy I have is a pocket-sized hardcover; an undated old printing of an old translation, I suspect. The book is available for free in its entirety on several web sites; CatholiCity.com describes it this way:

Introduction to the Devout Life is the most popular Catholic “self-help” book of all time. First published in the early 17th century, it has proven its value as a daily spiritual guide and helpful reference for living an authentic Christian life. Written specifically for laymen, it began as letters from Saint Francis to a married woman who was seeking holiness amidst the distractions of her life of wealth and status. It contains treasures of wisdom for every reader, from eager beginner to lifelong Christian.

I came late to the Church and was confirmed as a young husband and father and an aspiring writer.** I picked St. Francis de Sales as my confirmation saint, primarily because he is the patron saint of writers. I read a bit about him and learned that he had a privileged education and upbringing, and he was looking for signs all the time…so it took him awhile to come to the decision to serve God. (That seemed appropriate.) Once he became a priest, he went into fairly hostile areas to convert people, and often used his writings to do so. These details, plus the fact that Francis is a family name on my father’s side, seemed like good reasons at the time. (I never even considered any of the numerous St. Jameses.)

It wasn’t until years later that I realized St. Francis de Sales was a doctor of the church and decided I should probably read my patron’s writings. I searched for a copy of the book and wound up with two (one in English, and one in French, which I don’t read or speak. I’ve been reading it a bit to a time each Monday night in the Adoration Chapel ever since. The sentences are often intricate, but the saint’s voice and genuine joy in serving God shines through. The book provides step-by-step guidance for increasing devotion and holiness in your life, and the saint’s suggestions, while intimidating taken in their entirety, are individually small, practical, and still relevant today. And every so often something strikes you as so profound that you incorporate it immediately into your prayer life. It is a challenge to anyone living in this world, but I suspect it rewards repeat readings.
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* Of course, I am an emotional guy…
** I’m still all of these things except young.

The Second Third, Week 19: A More Visible Faith

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment
Some of you might know that I have a peculiar love for ancient or seemingly outmoded codes of honor. It’s the reason I love Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog, in which Forest Whitaker waxes philosophical as a pigeon-keeping urban assassin who lives atop an abandoned building, listens to hip-hop, works for a mid-level mobster in a dysfunctional crime family on the verge of bankruptcy, and strictly follows the Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. Two old, impractical (and completely implacable) codes of conduct crash headlong, and the result is a weird, violent, foul-mouthed, and (to me, at least) strangely compelling movie.

Film critic Roger Ebert opened his review of the film with, “It helps to understand that the hero of ‘Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai’ is crazy. Well, of course he is.” I, unlike Ebert, am not so sure. Here’s a man who grew up alone on the streets, with nothing to believe in and no one to look up to; who is nearly killed as a boy and is saved by a generally cowardly criminal in a moment of sudden grace; who finds a way (or in this case, a Way) to survive, to rise above his weaknesses, to earn respect, and to pay back the man to whom he, in a very real sense, owes his life. The way of the samurai is not easy, but I don’t see it as irrational. Self-sacrifice is difficult, but it can be beautiful, can’t it? Perhaps his obedience to this ancient Way is what passes for beauty in his broken world.

When I launched my old blog, Yield and Overcome, I was actually reading books like Hagakure and The Art of War. I was doing a fair amount of “kung-fu writing” and adopted the web handle “werdfu” to underscore my freelance avocation. But in the years since, I’ve watched our government and economy go dark, even as my own family and faith have grown bright as a beacon in the black. “Yield and overcome” seems too soft and passive a philosophy for tough times, too gray for this cold twilight. So in my Second Third (as promised), I’m unveiling a new look and name for my blog: Archangel Stomp. Sound like a dance, and it is, in a way: imagine a mosh pit with the Devil lying prostrate at the bottom. Most of the old posts are there, and I’ll still be fighting the Good Fight as best I can. Only this time, I’ll be doing so more intentionally as a Catholic and a believer.

Perhaps obedience to this ancient Way still passes for beauty in this broken world.

A Wee Bit Irish?

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: The soundtrack to this post is above. You can about imagine a bare-knuckles brawl a la The Quiet Man, can’t you?

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, which in the U.S. means wearing o’ the green and drinkin’ o’ the beer. (Unfortunately, too many folks are drinking green beer tonight, instead of the real deal: thick, black, and pleasantly bitter.)

I’ll confess that I’m wearing green today. Am I Irish? Depends on how you count. I’m half Polish (my mother’s side: Galubenskis and Koczwaras), and the rest is a mix. According to my late grandfather, Duane Thorp, we Thorps are English, French, Dutch, maybe a little bit American Indian, and Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish, which, according to at least one account I’ve read, means I’m descended from some really ornery Scotsmen whom the English settled in Ireland to drive out the Irish Catholics in the 1800s. Even in the 1950s, when my father was a boy in the Thumb of Michigan, he recalls an older relative — a bare-knuckles brawler of some repute — having a few drinks and going looking for Catholics to fight.*

So am I even a wee bit Irish? Well, tonight I won’t be drinking green beer, or black stout, or golden Irish whiskey, because it’s Lent, and I’ve given them up until Easter. Instead I’ll be celebrating with the beautiful Lorica of St.Patrick. These Thorps are Catholic now — and more Irish than ever!

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*Of course, the Poles in the area — including the Galubenski family who lived next door to Dad, and their daughter, whom he married — were Catholic.

The Second Third, Week 17: Ashes

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

There is a paragraph from this year’s Holiday Letter that has returned to me again and again in the past few months:

“Ever wonder how God can know everything that will happen, even though we have free will and make our own decisions? St. Augustine talks about God as existing outside of time: He existed before time in any meaningful sense, so He can see all of time—past, present, and future—in an instant. But I think of life as a high sledding hill with God at the top, giving us a push. It’s left to us to steer, but like any good father, He knows our tendencies to close our eyes or overcorrect better than we do, and so He can see every curve we’ll negotiate, every bump that will bounce us airborne, every tree we’ll hit. He sees the trajectories of other sledders and knows their tendencies, as well—knows whose paths we’ll cross, for good or for ill, and when we’ll be blindsided by love. He alone has the long view, the Big Picture. We must persist with less—a glimpse of heaven through the treetops as we slip away, faster, faster…”

This seems particularly appropriate this Ash Wednesday, when we dwell a moment or two on the ephemeral nature of this life and this world: We are dust, and unto dust we shall return. In these Second Third posts, I’ve already written about being grateful for what we have and finding the sense to know when enough is enough. But today, the focus is on something a little different: In my Second Third, I hope to detach even from the “stuff” we choose to keep. I hope to turn my eyes toward heaven instead of where I am now, staring at the ground, watching my step. I hope to quit worrying about who’s in control of the sled, and enjoy the sting of snow on my cheeks, the gleam of stars passing overhead, the laughter of those I love weaving through the trees beside me, the white moon and the lonely miles. I hope to live, not hastily or extravagantly, but thoroughly — so that when I reach my third Third I have nothing left but joy to spend on anyone. Including you.

A man can dream, can’t he?

The Second Third, Week 14: Not Giving a Damn

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Blogger’s Note: Yes, yes…most of you know, but occasionally I get a new visitor. So in case you’re that guy or gal, the whole idea behind these “Second Third” posts can be found here.

My father’s machinist-mentor Chuck used to have a slogan hanging on the wall of his shop, and to this day, Dad continues to quote it: Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. As you might guess, not being particularly skillful, I spent most of my youth thoroughly overcome by the treacherous old fellow.

Dad genuinely has different abilities and interests than me — that’s part of it — not to mention vastly more experience. But as I’ve become a father myself and watched my own children gaze in wide wonder at my courage, skill, knowledge, and strength, I find things that used to be a struggle come easier to me. In this respect, life in my Second Third is vastly more enjoyable that the previous 35 years — and I believe I know why.

See, when I was a kid, I was worried about million different things: screwing up, failing, disappointing myself, letting others down, looking stupid, getting hurt, hurting someone else, you name it. As the young samurai says in The Last Samurai, “Too many mind.” I was so wound up about about everything, so lacking in self-confidence, that I couldn’t accomplish anything without a messing up. My worries were often self-fulfilling prophecies.

My friend Father Tyler made a similar observation when he turned 30 last month: “[T]he pride which so hobbled my willingness to try then has been tempered. At thirty (especially as a professed celibate) it is much easier to not give a damn about how foolish one appears.”

I am not a professed celibate, but I can relate. I’m still not graceful, not mechanically inclined, etc. — but I can do many things I never used to simply because I’m no longer so tightly wound about them. Because I’m more secure in myself than I used to be, I can work within my limitations, ask questions, and be more patient — and it pays off more often than not.* In my Second Third, many** of the things that used to stress me and hold me back simply don’t concern me anymore. And as Fr. Tyler so aptly concluded, “To not give a damn, I am coming to understand, is one of the richest graces of full-fledged adulthood.”
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*Of course, being 6’3″ and about 240 helps, too, at least in terms of striking fear in children, and intimidation, like treachery, goes a long way in overcoming youthful prowess. And if I force it — and I do from time to time — I still fall flat.

**Not quite all…but I’m working on it.