Greenville-Ephrathah 8: New Evangelization

In the Grey Building on the Left

One of the themes that I draw out of the New Evangelization thing is that ya can't sit around whinin' about why Faddah a Sistah ain't takin' care a dis a dat. That is, lay Catholics have to take responsibility on their own initiative, without the hierarchy having to pre-plan and hand-hold. Here's a nice recent example of what I'm talking about:

For a few years, there have been informal lunch circles among Catholic men [both lay and clergy] here. But last week one of my KofC brothers sent out an email to all the Catholic men he knew who did that sort of thing to come to one place for lunch on a given day. Here's the edited text of the email:

"Once a month Catholic men from around Greenville, especially the ones that work close or can make it for lunch downtown will be meeting for some lunch and fellowship. No sharing of feelings needed just come and shoot the breeze, meet some fellow Catholic men and practice being Catholic. This will be a great time to meet some new guys and foster some old friendships.

There are no rules, just a couple of suggestions. Keep the talk charitable and business (work related, business schemes, money making ventures) should be conducted at other times.

Please, I hope you guys can support this. The following bulletin column should be in all the local Parish bulletins soon.

"Friends,

We are starting a monthly Catholic Men's Fellowship Lunch for the Greenville area. The hope is that it will bring Catholic men together and help build up and strengthen our local Catholic community. Our hope is to foster some small groups to meet at lunch in between our monthly lunch that will study scripture and our deep and rich faith. This is not a replacement to any of the current groups already meeting in your parish but a broader outreach to all the Catholic men in our community as one Church. We will send an invite to all respondents the Monday before the lunch as a reminder. Our plan is to rotate the restaurant to other downtown Catholic-owned establishments based on our turnout and who is willing to host. We appreciate any help and most importantly all the prayers you can provide. Hopefully, we will see you there."

28 showed up that first time. Not bad.

BTW this ties in with Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell, which I expect to be reviewing presently.

Γένεσης 2:20+

"The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22 and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

  "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed."

I remember when this shot was on the cover of Rolling Stone; never really understood why John was so bonkers over Yoko. But then I got married, and now I understand these images perfectly. Because this is how Marc Chagall and I feel about our wives too.

both photos by Annie Leibovitz

Book Review 2

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Another review of my book, this one from fellow Palmetto-Stater Jennifer Fitz: Christian LeBlanc’s The Bible Tells Me So

Greenville-Ephrathah 7

Check out a new gracious & civilized magazine, the brainchild of Daughters of Ephrathah.

Birthday Present

My birthday was this month (I don't care either). If you've read my book, instead of buying me a used wargame on ebay, leave a review at my Amazon page.

Brazilian Stoats

A few times a year for as long as I care to remember, I think about stoats. If you're American you may not know what a stoat is...maybe a kind of cigar, like a stogie or a cheroot? Good guess, but no: a stoat is a short-tailed weasel. In winter, the stoat's fur becomes white, and is called ermine. It's still associated with European royalty.

That's a good-looking Queen. By the way, the black bits are the tails- they don't change color.

So yesterday during a discussion of playing trivia in pubs, an English friend said he clinched a recent round "through identifying a weasel, stoat, otter and ferret." That being the first time I've ever heard stoats mentioned in conversation, I said I think about them regularly. To which he replied "...what?" I explained that decades ago I read a story based on Orwell's 1984. Couldn't remember its name, but in the story the political apparatus was so dilapidated that there were no rats available for Room 101. The interrogators asked Winston if he might be afraid of stoats, they had one of those. He said he didn't much like them, so they brought in the stoat. But it was an old stoat and not very scary.

A few minutes' online searching turned it up. Was it 1985 by Gyorgy Dalos? No! Was it 1985 by Anthony Burgess? No! It was "Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained" by Alan Coren. Here's the critical bit:

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 "Ah, Smith, Winston," cried the white-coated man at the door of Room 101. "Won't you come in? Rats, I believe, are what you, ha-ha-ha, fear most of all. Big brown rats. Big brown pink-eyed rats..."

"NO," screamed Smith, "NOT RATS, ANYTHING BUT RATS, NO, NO, NO."

"...rats with long slithery tails, Smith, fat, hungry rats, rats with sharp little..."

"Oh, do shut up, Esmond," interrupted his assistant wearily. "You know we haven't got any rats. We haven't seen a rat since last December's delivery."

"No rats?" gasped Smith.

Esmond sighed, and shook his head. Then he suddenly brightened.

"We've got mice though," he cried. "Big, fat, hungry, pink-eyed..."

"I don't mind mice," said Smith.

They looked at him.

"You're not making our job any easier, you know," muttered Esmond.

"Try him on toads," said Esmond's assistant. "Can't move in the stockroom for toads."

"That's it!" exclaimed Esmond. "Toads, big, fat, slimy..."

"I quite like toads," said Smith.

There was a long pause.

"Spiders?"

"Lovely little things," said Smith. "If it's any help, I can't stand moths."

"Moths," cried Esmond. "Where do you think you are, bloody Harrod's? We can't get moths for love nor money."

"Comes in here, big as you please, asking for moths," said Esmond's assistant.

Smith thought for a while.

"I'm not all that keen on stoats," he said at last.

"At last," said Esmond. "I thought we'd be here all night. Give him a stoat, Dennis."

So they put Winston Smith in Room 101 with a stoat. It was an old stoat, and it just sat on the floor, wheezing, and as far as Smith was concerned, things could have been, all things considered, a lot worse.

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But that's not why I think of stoats. I think of stoats because I think of Brazil:

 

 

No, not Brazil; Brazil:

 

You know, the movie:

Brazil (1985) is a satirical take on George Orwell's 1984. Being the brainchild of Terry Gilliam, who did all the whimsical graphics on Monty Python's Flying Circus, it's a visual spectacle. And there are no stoats in Brazil in case you were wondering. But it still reminds of stoats, because in Brazil, the government is buffoonish, bumbling, intrusive, and incompetent. For all that silliness though, it's no less dangerous to its citizens than 1984's Big Brother. So Brazil has always reminded me of Alan Coren's shortstory, and by extension, stoats. I've always assumed that the story was the inspiration for the movie. That would make sense beyond the similar concepts: "Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained" was first published in Punch magazine in 1974. It's no stretch to imagine Terry Gilliam reading Punch.

But I haven't been able to find any connection between the story and the movie.

Thank You Note

Lisa Mladnich's link to this post reminded me of my favorite Catechism Class Thank You Note. Homemade, it simply reads "God loves a cheerful giver," which was first said by that famous grump St. Paul, of all people; and which by coincidence is my favorite exhortation to my brother Knights of Columbus.

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It makes my day. Every day.