Worth a Thousand Words: Taking a Cup of Coffee in Leipzig

Taking cup of coffee while sitting in front of a coffee tree
Detail above door of Leipzig coffee house "Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum"

I Join Jenny on the Reading Envy podcast to discuss: Slowing Down and Rereading

I join Jenny Colvin at the Reading Envy pub, where we talk about rereading, slowing down to appreciate an author's craft, and the best spy adventure the Vatican has ever seen! We also talk about good books we've read lately.

Check it out.

Worth a Thousand Words: La Laveuse

La Laveuse, Sir John Lavery, R.A. - 1883
via The Athenaeum

Worth a Thousand Words: Summertime

Summertime, Edward Hopper
via WikiArt, Fair Use

Lagniappe: A highly professional cat

Hamoudi explains soothingly that all will soon be well. The holes in the bedroom are being stopped up with plaster. More whitewash will be applied. Moreover, a cat is coming; it has been loaned out. It is a super-cat—a highly professional cat. ...

Our cat arrives at dinner-time. I shall never forget that at! It is, as Hamoudi has announced, a highly professional cat. It knows the job for which it has been engaged, and proceeds to get on with it in a truly specialized manner.

Whilst we dine, it crouches in ambush behind a packing case. When we talk, or move, or make too much noise, it gives us an impatient look.

"I must request of you," the look says, "to be quiet. How can I get on with the job without co-operation?"

So fierce is the cat's expression that we obey at once, speak in whispers, and eat with as little clinking of plates and glasses as possible.

Five times during the meal a mouse emerges and runs across the floor, and five times our cat springs. The sequel is immediate. There is no Western dallying, no playing with the victim. The cat simply bites off the mouse's head, crunches it up, and proceeds to the rest of the body! It is rather horrible and completely businesslike.

The cat stays with us five days. After those five days no mice appear. The cat then leaves us, and th emice never come back. I have never known before or since such a professional cat. It had no interest in us, it never demanded milk or a share of our food. It was cold, scientific, and impersonal. A very accomplished cat!

Agatha Christie, Come Tell Me How You Live

My New Book — Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life

COMING IN EARLY APRIL!

Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life

Prayers and Reflections for Getting Closer

This book is for the beginner and for those beginning again —
to bring us closer to Jesus, which is every Christian’s greatest desire.

Each page gently leads the reader to open up and encounter Christ in their own way —
using scripture and inspirational quotes, reflection, brief commentary, and prayer.

Foster a daily habit of prayer and reflection that will continue
long after you come to the end of this book.

Advance Praise

I’m getting a copy for every member of my RCIA class. 

— William H. Duquette —

If you want to be a happy Catholic, you need to encounter Jesus.
And if you want to encounter Jesus, read this book.

— Brandon Vogt —

This book is a joyful pilgrimage to the Father,
made with the most amazing companions, from Ambrose of Milan
to Marshall McLuhan. Highly recommended.

— Mike Aquilina —

Lagniappe: "A little extra money is always welcome"

Soundings must be made at all three mounds. We make a start with Tell Mozan. There is a village there, and with Hamoudi as ambassador we try and obtain workmen. The men are doubtful and suspicious.

"We do not need money," they say. "It has been a good harvest."

For this is a simple, and, I think, consequently a happy part of the world. Food is the only consideration. If the harvest is good, you are rich. For the rest of the year there is leisure and plenty, until the time comes to plough and sow once more.

"A little extra money," says Hamoudi, like the serpent of Eden, "is always welcome."

They answer simply: "But what can we buy with it? We have enough food until the harvest comes again."

And here, alas! the eternal Eve plays her part. Astute Hamoudi baits his hook. They can buy ornaments for their wives.

The wives nod their heads. This digging, they say, is a good thing!

Reluctantly the men consider the idea. ...

Agatha Christie, Come Tell Me How You Live

Worth a Thousand Words: Satan of the Sea

Via Pulp Covers

Worth a Thousand Words: Gladioli in a Vase

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gladioli in a Vase, c. 1875
via Arts Everyday Living

Well Said: There is no entering in ...

The next morning we reach the Cilician Gates, and look out over one of the most beautiful views I know. It is like standing on the rim of the world and looking down on the promised land, and one feels much as Moses must have felt. For here, too, there is no entering in. ... The soft, hazy dark blue loveliness is a land one will never reach; the actual towns and villages when one gets there will be only the ordinary everyday world—not this enchanted beauty that beckons you down. ...

Agatha Christie, Come Tell Me How You Live

There is a lot of wisdom in that short observation. It's a lesson I always need to remember to apply to my own life. From far away, plans, dreams, desires, always look perfect. But it is close up, in the nitty gritty, where we live.

Genesis Notes: Hagar's Resume

I never thought of Hagar as a perpetual avoider, a run away, but there you go. And yet she also was thrust into a situation which most of us would find challenging, to say the least, when Sarah gave her to Abraham as a surrogate. We might also get in the habit of running away under those circumstances.

Matthias Stom, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham

Escape of some kind is usually the most tempting solution to our problems. In fact, it can become a habit. Hagar was a person who used that approach. When the going got tough, she usually got going -- in the other direction.

However, it is worthwhile to note that the biggest challenges Hagar faced were brought on by other people's choices.

Strengths and accomplishments:

• Mother of Abraham's first child, Ishmael, who became the founder of the Arab nations

Weaknesses and mistakes:

• When faced with problems, she tended to run away
• Her pregnancy brought out strong feelings of pride and arrogance

Lessons from her life:

• God is faithful to his plan and promises, even when humans complicate the process
• God shows himself as one who knows us and wants to be known by us
• The New Testament uses Hagar as a symbol of those who would pursue favor with God by their own efforts, rather than by trusting in his mercy and forgiveness
  

Vital statistics:

• Where: Canaan and Egypt
• Occupation: Servant, mother
• Relatives: Son - Ishmael

Key verse:
"Then the angel of the Lord told her, 'Go back to your mistress and submit to her.'" (Genesis 16:9)

Hagar's story is told in Genesis 16-21. She also is mentioned in Galatians 4:24, 25.

All quotes from Life Application Study Bible. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Worth a Thousand Words: Entrance to the Underground

Entrance to the Underground
by Edward B. Gordon

Well Said: One does not set a Force in motion lightly.

“... But if I go with the Host ... then I go as an agent of the Holy Catholic Church, prepared to execute what I would consider the most spiritual rites of my office. Then I go as Christ’s representative on earth.” He was now looking at Matt seriously, solemnly. “I may be a poor excuse for a priest—at times I’ve thought so—a bit jaded, a bit cynical, and just lately suffering a crisis of ... what? faith? identity? ... but I still believe enough in the awesome, mystical, and apotheotic power of the church which stands behind me to tremble a bit at the thought of accepting your request lightly. The church is more than a bunch of ideals, as these younger fellows seem to believe. It’s more than a spiritual Boy Scout troop. The church is a Force ... and one does not set a Force in motion lightly.”

Stephen King, Salem’s Lot

Well Said: The worst form of inequality

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Aristotle

And thousands of years later, here we are ... still in the same place.

Worth a Thousand Words: Lady with a Bouquet

Lady with a Bouquet. The artist's wife with flowers from the Viburnum 'Snowball' bush, Charles Courtney Curran

Well Said: God made the world beautiful because he loves us.

One July evening, cloudless, moonless, with just a hint of a humid breeze, her father took her out into the back yard in the dark and told her to look up at the sky.

From one horizon to the other, all across the black carpet of the night, were the stars — thousands of them, tens of thousands, in clusters and rivers of light. And in the quiet, her father said, “God made the world beautiful because he loves us.”

That was more than sixty years ago. … still, when she closes her eyes, she can see that carpet of stars and hear her father’s voice: God made the world beautiful because he loves us. Creation is more than an accident of dead matter. It’s a romance. It has purpose. It sings of the Living God. It bears his signature. And it's our home.

Charles J. Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land

Worth a Thousand Words: Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Strangers in a Strange Land by Charles J. Chaput

Strangers in a Strange Land: 
Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World
by Charles J. Chaput

We've spoken frankly so far about the American landscape as we now know it. Some of the words have been difficult. But candor is not an enemy of love. And real hope begins in honesty.

The current spirit of our country inclines us to be troubled. It's a sensible temptation. How can any one person or small group of people make a difference? How can we change and renew things so that our children grow up in a better world? We come back to a question suggested at the start of this book: How can we live in joy, and serve the common good as leaven, in a culture that no longer shares what we believe?

As we might expect from the author of Render Unto Caesar, this is a book which focuses on how we can live both an authentically Catholic life and an American life in changing, chaotic times.

The first half of the book examines our nation's history, especially as it is tied to religion; how our society became "post Christian;" and why it will not return to the way it was. That last truth hit me hard. I'm not someone who thinks restoring a few laws is going to change the national psyche but I think I felt as if everything would settle back into old norms at some point. Absorbing Chaput's explanation was tough. But if we don't know the truth, then we aren't on firm ground for future decisions. So I'm grateful.

The second half looks at where we go from here, as Catholics, as Americans. I found it realistic and hope-filled and inspiring. What is hope and how do we maintain it? How do Jesus' promises in the Beatitudes apply to our lives and times? What does it mean to be the "people of God" in a distracted and unbelieving age?

Chaput's answer is one that I have always felt is a basic truth, perhaps because I myself came from a completely secular life before my conversion. We begin by reforming our own hearts, being authentic Christian witnesses by living our own lives with conviction. We have to be in love with our faith and with God. That is what spills over as we go into the world for work, school, and all the things that make up a normal life.

It may not always be easy, but, let's face it, we've been spoiled. All you have to do is look at the way Christians are persecuted around the world to see that.

In different ways, with varying directness, Chaput repeatedly points out that people living a fully Christian life make a difference in the world.

Jesus uses three images to describe using our gifts for God's kingdom: salt, light, and leaven, or yeast. ...

Note the logic at work here. Yeast mixes with flour and makes dough rise. We sprinkle salt on our food, and the meal tastes better. We turn on the lights of a dark room so we can see. The yeast, salt, and light aren't the focus of our attention. Rather, they impart their qualities to something else to make it better. And so it should be with the work of the Church in the world.

Chaput directly addresses why withdrawing from the world won't work. I found his first reason the most compelling: "The world will come after us" because reminders of an abandoned past will be increasingly irritating. In his discussion of forming a Catholic identity, Chaput acknowledges the Benedict Option idea, albeit without naming it specifically, adding:

This is wisdom, so long as we don't give up on the good present in American society. We need to create places where Catholic culture can flourish and be handed down to the next generation. ...

I'm not a fan of the Benedict Option, at least as I've read about it to date, but I do think it has begun a much needed discussion. Catholics and, indeed, all Christians need to be mindful of the uneasy ground beneath our feet as our society goes through a watershed moment. Strangers in a Strange Land is a clear-sighted road map to where we've been and where we need to head now.

Well Said: Our place of holiness

We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, this world, where God has placed us, is our place of holiness.

Madeleine Delbrêl

Saint Junipero Serra's Camino by Stephen J. Binz

Saint Junipero Serra's Camino

A Pilgrimage Guide to the California Missions
by Stephen J. Binz

For each of the 21 missions, this guide offers you the street address for your GPS, the mission’s website, a brief history of the place, the story of the mission’s patron or namesake, and information about the mission bells. You’ll be given a tour of the mission church, as well as a prayer service for your visit.

But this book is much more than a simple travel guide. You’ll learn more about the life of Saint Junípero Serra, whose vision is responsible for this holy Camino. You’ll be enriched by two interwoven traditions: the Spanish Franciscan and the American Indian.

I've always been drawn to the idea of walking the Camino de Santiago, that ancient pilgrimage which treks over mountains and takes weeks to complete. I've also always known in the depths of my sensible heart that time and money will never allow that pilgrimage.

However, it never occurred to me that there is a camino of sorts in the United States. California has a well known string of twenty-one missions stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. On foot, on bike, or by car, that is within my reach. Stephen J. Binz has written an eminently usable guidebook which has all the usual practical travel guide info, ranging from GPS to area history to mission bell names.

I learned a lot about California's early history that I never knew before, including details about problems between native people, colonists, and soldiers. Binz also includes that the unintended consequences of Spanish evangelization which didn't always work out for either the missionaries or the natives. I really respected Binz's acknowledgement that history is never simple as we like to paint it, while he sorted through each mission's story.

What makes this more than a travel guide, however, is that Binz takes care to feed the traveler's spiritual side. He explores each mission's patron with the lessons they have for us in our times. Each entry includes a litany and spiritual readings from scripture or missionary letters. These are designed to make each mission visit into a visit with Our Lord.

The only thing I'd change would be to include more photos of each location and to print them in color. But if you want to make a camino pilgrimage, this is the most complete resource I can imagine.