""While I am on the subject of books, women might be interested in reading a book by author Dawn Eden entitled The Thrill of the Chaste.
"I would recommend this book for late teens/adults and it's a memoir by the author of her search for true chastity in her life. Ms. Eden shares with the reader about her life that was filled with men and worldly things, yet it didn't bring her what her heart truly sought. She was looking for something far deeper than what society had to offer.
"Ms. Eden is open and honest about her experiences and she has a great wisdom and sense of humor and a desire to be everything that God wants her to be. I found it refreshing and insightful."
— Sister Miriam James of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, who read my book while preparing for her Perpetual Vows in Bosque, N.M.
Reading my two latest interviews promoting The Thrill of the Chaste, in MercatorNet and the July issue of NewsMax magazine, it struck me that I really must think of some new answers.
Admittedly, my situation is unusual. First-time authors don't normally do very many interviews, and when they do, the interviews are usually for radio, where one can say the same things each time and get away with it. I'm thankful to still be giving interviews about my book six months after its publication.
I had little experience giving interviews before The Thrill came out last December. If one interviewer asked me the same question that another had, and if I could still remember what I had said before, I felt more confident repeating my earlier words than trying to come up with a new answer. Also, to be fair, there are only so many ways that one can restate the same facts.
But now it's gotten to the point that I'm annoyed with myself. I need to find new ways to answer the questions that keep coming up again and again — ""What made you decide to write the book?" How did you go from being a rock journalist living a, uh, free lifestyle to being chaste?" "What is the thrill of the chaste?"
On the other hand, there are a number of questions I haven't been asked, to which I could answer something I haven't said before. I'd like to be asked some devil's-advocate questions, like:
"You say in your book that one thrill of the chaste is wonder. What about someone who's lonely, who has been chaste for some time and not by choice — how can she find that wonder?"
"You have much to say about the unfulfilling experience of casual sex, but most women only have sex in a committed relationship. How can you say chastity is a better way of life for them?"
"You suggest that shared values are important. I know Christian women who are in happy marriages to nonbelievers. Is it really wise to warn young women against dating men who do not share their faith?"
"You've criticized the idea of stressing female chastity over male chastity — yet your book is targeted at women. Explain."
Brian's songs Going through my belongs in preparation for my move, I discovered that I own an autographed copy of the songbook for the Beach Boys' Love You album. Brian Wilson signed it for me when I interviewed him in August 1988.
As you can see in this blurry cell-phone snap, Wilson signed the book in pen "TO DAWN," in the shaky, overmedicated hand of his Eugene Landy years.
It is in about the same condition as the one going for $45, sans autograph, from a used bookstore — some wear around the edges, but overall in good shape. It has a small stain on the edge of the upper-right-hand corner.
I also have an autographed copy of Wilson's autobiography, Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story, first-edition hardback. It's likewise signed "To Dawn," only in Sharpie. It still has the original dust jacket and is in very good condition, though I haven't checked every single page for Cheez Doodle fingerprints. (I used to eat those orange snacks while reading.)
I'd like to give away either of these items to anyone who will make a $100 donation ($200 if you want both) to Bridge to Life, a pregnancy resource center that does great and important work in Queens, N.Y. If you're interested, write me first to let me know which of the books you want — use the e-mail address at left or my contact form. Then, after I write back to you, you'll make the donation to Bridge via PayPal and e-mail me the receipt. As soon as I have the receipt, I'll send out the book or books via Priority Mail, insured, at my expense.
As a bonus, if you get back to me before I move tomorrow morning, I'll throw in some surprise rock-history books and/or vintage music magazines from my collection.
11:51 PM |
"I wrote it because when I first started practicing chastity I looked for books on the subjects and all I could find was Evangelical-type books with titles like "Lady In Waiting", which were written by virgins-'til-marriage for virgins-'til-marriage. I've nothing against such books but these were from a culture where people are completely cocooned and not tainted by the outside world. So when I became chaste I wanted to write a book for the rest of us, for the people who actually need to learn to be chaste."
From "Hootenanny," February 22, 1964 — less than two weeks after the Beatles' Ed Sullivan debut. Anybody know what movie poster is standing in for Rolf Harris's didgeridoo wobble board?
Went to a burger joint with my dear friend Matt Alderman of Shrine of the Holy Whapping and other pals a couple nights back and gave Matt some parting gifts in advance of my move to the Washington, D.C. area. He let out a joyous exclamation when he saw the legend on the baseball cap from Belmont Abbey College: "got monks?"
Yesterday I said goodbye to my favorite local statue — this gorgeously wistful icon of Mary.
Just a reminder that I'll be speaking tomorrow night, 7:30 p.m., at Theology on Tap, at the Saints and Sinners pub in Woodside, Queens. Check the Appearances page of thrillofthechaste.com for details of my next appearance after that — in Chicago.
Dale just sent me the above photo of the occasion, along with an explanation of the honor: "Past winners include Joseph Pearce, Prof. Ralph McInerny of Notre Dame, Hon. Race Mathews (former Australian MP and cabinet minister), Robert Royal (director of the Faith and Reason Institute), and the late Heywood Cirker (chairman of Dover Publications). I hope you feel you're in good company. What they all have in common is that they've done something important to make Chesterton better known and therefore have promoted sanity in an insane world."
Good company indeed! Many thanks to Dale and all the American Chesterton Society. The award, which I believe is for my Chesterton references in The Thrill of the Chaste as well as the mentions I've been making of the author in interviews, means more to me than I can say.
"In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on which side we fought." — G.K. Chesterton
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site's synopsis of the commercial (video of which is on Jill's site), it "features women at a bar surrounded by pigs. When one pig goes to the restroom and returns with a condom purchased at a vending machine, he is transformed into an attractive man. The end of the commercial carries the message: 'Evolve: Use a condom every time.'"
The refusal of Fox and CBS to run the commercial was seen by abortion advocates such as Kaiser as reflecting the networks' pro-family biases against contraception. Stanek disagrees (and so, I might add, might anyone who's seen the numerous pro-contraception shows on those networks).
"The ad is simply in poor taste," Stanek writes. "A man exploiting a woman in a bar to be his unpaid hooker is a pig with or without a condom in his pocket."
One could take her "unpaid hooker" line as Ann Coulter-style hyperbole. Certainly, it's meant to shock. But it raises a point that I've wondered about ever since I first heard the definition of prostitution.
What, exactly, distinguishes a man or woman who has casual sex with someone for recreation, from one who does so for money?
It's an important question because, taken from the ultra-liberal or libertarian side, it could be taken as an argument in favor of legalizing prostitution. After all, if casual sex is transactional in every aspect save for actual money changing hands, why penalize those who do it for money?
Personally, I have a hard time distinguishing between the concept of having sex with someone because he will give one the boost one wants, and having sex with someone because he will give one's wallet the boost one wants. Both involve exploitation by mutual consent.
I believe that sex can be nonexploitational only when it is not the foundation of the relationship. Otherwise, in the wisdom of my grandparents, pigs is pigs.
Before Dawn Father Peter Pilsner introduces my talk
Last Saturday, I had the honor of addressing a group of recent alumni of Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. The group was assembled by Father Peter Pilsner, a religion teacher and department co-chair at the school and moderator of its Pro-Life Club.
Here, with permission, is the introduction Father Pilsner gave before my talk (incidentally, the reference to Tokens singer Hank Medress's death was a surprise to me; I didn't even know he was sick):
Last week I went to a book signing by Immaculée Illibagiza, a woman who survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994. She told a story that she had written in her book, along with a follow-up. After the genocide she went to a prison to see the man who had killed her brother and mother. The prison guard brought the man in and in essence told her that she could abuse him in whatever way she wanted, and he would look the other way. To his surprise, Immaculée looked at the man, and said, "I forgive you." The prison guard was irate. "How could you do that? Why did you forgive him?" She said, "Forgiveness is all I have to offer."
A long time after that she had a chance meeting with this same prison guard on the street. He told her that she had changed his life by her example of forgiveness. He said it made him realize, for the first time, that is was possible in Rwanda to rise above the hate.
This is one way of expressing the message of the Gospel, especially as rendered in the Sermon On The Mount. When Christ is in your life, you can rise above the negative and sinful tendencies by which humanity is seems trapped. Forgiveness can rise above anger and hate. Love can rise above revenge. Sincerity and truth can rise above deception. Trust in God can rise above worry. Detachment from earthly things can rise above greed. And finally, true love and respect can rise above lust.
Dawn's book The Thrill of the Chaste is not simply lessons learned from leaving behind an unchaste lifestyle. It is a new vision of life, a door opened by conversion. Though Dawn did not detail her conversion in her book, I think it safe to say that her experience, like any conversion, is an echo of St. Paul's. St. Paul writes, "But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." This is the experience of anyone who has a conversion. To our surprise, Christ does not wait for us to get our act together before deciding to take an interest in us. No, strangely, when we feel least loveable, or most ashamed - it is at that very moment Christ makes us understand that he loves us with the infinite love of his Sacred Heart.
That is not to say her book is without lessons. When Christ entered Dawn's life, and she began to respond to his call to chastity, she learned some very important lessons, and best among them this - that the way of chastity also makes a lot of sense, for relationships and for happiness. This is counter cultural to say the least. The common wisdom is that while it may make sense to tell teenagers not to have sex, because they tend to go out of control, not thinking about relationships and consequences, "consenting adults" are in a different category. For them, sex is a way for a man and woman who love each other to take their relationship to a deeper level. Sadly, what many fail to understand is that God created and designed sex for a different purpose - not just to take a man and woman to a deeper level in the relationship, but to take them to the deepest level, the level that says "I love you totally and for a lifetime." Therefore when a couple who are not married have sex, they are uniting in a way that God designed for the deepest level, at a time in their relationship when that that deepest level does not yet exist. When this happens, the distance between the built-in meaning of sex as God designed it and the state of their relationship at this point in time, creates a tension which does more to hurt the relationship, than to enhance it.
Dawn, who explains this a whole lot better in her book than I just did, is a former rock historian, and has written for Mojo, Salon, New York Press, and Billboard. Until very recently, she has been a deputy news editor at the New York Daily News. Soon she will be traveling down to Washington D.C. to lead the Love and Responsibility Project of the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that tries to strengthen Catholic identity on Catholic college campuses. Since the publication of her book, she has been sought eagerly as a speaker on the subject of chastity, and has recently returned from a speaking engagement in Ireland. To be here with us today, she has left a picnic with friends, traveled the express bus carrying copies of her book, and looks quite happy to be here, even in the face of the recent death of Hank Medress. Please welcome Dawn Eden.
The radio interview I gave to Dr. Albert Mohler is a "unique conversation" that "brings elements of vocabulary out of oblivion," says communications professor Don R. Vaughan in today's Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger. I assume the plug has nothing to do with the first word in his vocabulary quiz: "faux pas."
It was the most perfectly gorgeous afternoon that I could imagine for a picnic yesterday afternoon — and, as it happened, a picnic was exactly what some friends of mine had in store in Central Park's Sheep Meadow (above).
Forgotten NY's Kevin Walsh was there with a camera and snapped these shots, including a couple of me with some friends who, like Kevin, I'll miss very much when I move to the Washington, D.C., area one week from today. (Click any photo for a larger version.)
Janet Rosen, all covered up against the summer sun, has been a dear friend since she came to hear me give a talk about rock journalism at a Hoboken, N.J., Barnes & Noble back around late '94. She's a comedian, bar-trivia quizmistress, and my agent for The Thrill of the Chaste.
That's Todd Seavey, aka "Tom," the atheist in The Thrill.(He doesn't object to the world's knowing his literary identity; in fact, he announced it on his blog.) It is always a treat to see him. Pray for his conversion!
I had the urge to hear the criminally catchy "Kleinzach" song, a barroom number from Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann," so I checked out YouTube — and discovered the glorious Richard Troxell, here with the Minnesota Opera:
Troxell, as the poet Hoffmann, is asked to regale his fellow drinkers with the tale of a dwarf named Kleinzach, or "Little Zach." In the midst of it, he gets distracted with thoughts of the woman he loves, and has to be jarred from his reverie to finish the anthem.
YouTube also has Troxell shiniing once again in the same role in a Houston Grand Opera production:
The mannish woman in both clips is Hoffmann's Muse, disguised as his male best friend, Nicklausse. Father Bryce Sibley, who was my guest when I first saw "Tales of Hoffmann" at the Met, noted to me the David Lynchian freakshow aspects of the opera; it's got a transvestite, a dwarf, the Devil, a mechanical girl, etc.
What's so thrilling about chastity? Not much, says Astrid Storm, an Episcopal priest who once wrote in Salon about her "desire to reap the benefits of social change" should her church ever allow unmarried priests other than Bishop Gene Robinson to have nonmarital sex.
As she writes for the online magazine Soma in "Not Your Father's Chastity. Or Is It?" Storm attended my Manhattan Theology on Tap talk undercover and was put off by my discussing chastity in terms of "gift."
Att the moment I uttered the G-word, Storm's sense of hearing took a holiday. She writes, "It’s one thing to observe that there might be some differences between the way men and women approach sex and romance; it’s quite another to say that women should keep themselves as 'gifts' for their future husbands."
If the Rev. can tell me where I said that in my talk or my book, I'll make her a gift of a '62 Corvair and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax. Clearly, her antenna is tuned to some Radical Wingnut Radio station playing in her head; she even quotes some "Christian" book I never heard of that offers wacky tips on how to keep one's husband happy. Something involving wax paper, I think.
What I actually said (in a talk that I later adapted for another lecture and put online) was that "the message popular culture gives to young and old is that sex is simply one more item on the consumption menu of life. We are taught to think of sex as something we deserve, and our sex partners are simply giving us what we deserve.
"No human being ever deserves to use or be used by another human being for physical pleasure. The only way to experience another person’s presence without devaluing that person or yourself is to experience him or her as a gift. That philosophy of the human being as gift has been expressed by major world religions – most notably by Pope John Paul II with his Theology of the Body – but it’s not something you’re going to find in Cosmo or Maxim."
Later, describing my journey to chastity, I observed, "Gradually, I stopped looking at my life through the lenses of entitlement and started to look at it — and especially other people — as a gift."
I realize I could complain to Soma about Storm's mischaracterization of my words, as well as her inaccurate description of my "somewhat unfashionable" red velvet blouse (it was resolutely unfashionable satin, thank you very much). But on reflection, I'd rather not, because that might call into question all her other observations — including that the venue was "packed to the rafters."
I was failing my second year as a music-business major at NYU, as I was not good at music or business, but I was great at anything proactive that did not have to do with school. When I heard that Tipper was doing a book signing, I looked up the folks in the tiny New York office of the Coalition Against Censorship and suggested a protest against the author, who was urging a government crackdown on song lyrics containing graphic references to sex, violence, or drugs.
Back then, as a rubber-stamp liberal feminist, I didn't really keep up with what was going on in the world, but any hint of music censorship got me onto the streets.
Two young women from the coalition agreed to join me. They brought flyers, while I brought hand-drawn posters with slogans like "JUST SAY NO TO TIPPER GORE." I don't think I even knew she was a Democrat; all those "conservative" politicians were the same to me in those days.
Nearly all of the Manhattanites passing by on their lunch break ignored us. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that hardly anyone was going in to meet Tipper either.
A Southern-accented gent who said he was from Tipper's publisher asked me and my cohorts if we would like to meet Mrs. Gore, so we went inside and nervously confronted her, surrounded by ominous-looking men in suits. It was interesting to see her unflappable hair up close.
As soon as a member of the coalition opened her mouth, Tipper interrupted to say that the PMRC did not advocate censorship.
"B-but ..." I sputtered as the coalition women at my left looked on, "You said that record labels should 'reevaluate the contracts' of offensive artists ..."
It was no good. Tipper held firm.
My cohorts and I left, all of us bearing, I think, that familar activist's feeling of Not Having Made a Difference. I never saw them again.
It is not without irony that I note that nearly 20 years later, I began doing signings at chain bookstores in midtown Manhattan and elsewhere for my own book about living a PG life in an X-rated world.
If you'd like to see more flashbacks into my past, let me know; there are way more where this came from. ... 1:53 AM |
Gift for grads
If you or someone you know is a new college graduate with a conservative bent, talk-radio host and author Kevin McCullough (Musclehead Revolution) is offering a free gift and public kudos.
Many thanks to everyone who offered suggestions as I sought a place to stay in the Washington, D.C., area. I found a wonderful place in northern Virginia that will hold me 'til I can buy a permanent home. Moving day is July 1!
After I spoke at the G.K. Chesterton conference last Friday, I was touched that several people came up to thank me for my frankness in discussing the cyclical depression that plagued me from my late teens until I received my faith at age 31.
My depression was what's known as unipolar. I would go from static periods of relative normalcy to black holes of despair and back, with no manic highs. In fact, I was quite jealous of manic-depressives; at least they got to run around public streets in their underwear and do other exciting things. All I got to do during my mood swings was lock the door and put on a CD of Beethoven's late quartets or harpsichordist Seymour Hayden's recording of the Goldberg Variations. (Other great I Hate Myself and Want to Die recordings are Big Star's Third, Phil Ochs' Rehearsals for Retirement, Nico's Chelsea Girl, and the Bee Gees' Cucumber Castle.)
In my conference talk, I described the darkness that I went through, including how I went through a baker's dozen therapists until I found one with whom I clicked, and then was prescribed various medications. My psychiatrist switched my antidepressants several times because my depression was so virulent. It resisted the mood elevators as though they were hostile invaders. Which, I suppose, in a sense, they were.
While I benefited from the stabilizing effects of lithium (which is a buffer but not an upper), the antidepressants were more like helium. They lifted me up without giving me any emotional foundation to fall back on. When the boost that I got from starting a new antidepressant wore off, I was left like Wile E. Coyote after he's inadvertently walked off a cliff; I'd suddenly realize I was standing on thin air, and the only way to go was straight down.
I told the Chesterton crowd about the healing I received upon receiving faith:* Within six months of my conversion to Christianity in October 1999, I was able to go off the antidepressants entirely. My psychiatric diagnosis changed from "Major Depression" to ... wait for it ... "Major Depression in Remission."
A "remission" for nearly eight years and counting, thank God.
Starting from the book's first chapter, Chesterton contrasts false rebellion — which is nihilism — with true rebellion. The true kind is the rebellion of truth and beauty against the forces of chaos and destruction.
"The most poetical thing in the world," Chesterton writes through the voice of the book's hero, "is not being sick."
I told the conferencegoers what it meant to me to discover the poetry of not being sick. It was a personal odyssey that required me to give up some of the behaviors that my "do your own thing" therapist had told me would assuage my depression, but which in fact had made it worse. (In my book The Thrill of the Chaste, I describe this vicious cycle, where "single women feel lonely because they are not loved, so they have casual sex with men who do not love them.")
What struck me most deeply about The Man Who Was Thursday, I said, and what I tried to put across in my own book, was Chesterton's gratitude for the seemingly insignificant aspects of daily life. Reflecting upon how he had led me to a greater appreciation of the gift of existence, I quoted a line that I remembered from Jewish worship, Psalm 72:18: "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things!"
*Sorry to say I've yet to detail this in my autobiographical "Wuz" series (see drop-down menu at left), though I will continue the series someday. In the meantime, the CD of my talk has the story.
Listening to an audience member's question at the Legion of Mary youth conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 9. Photo by Fiona Hodge.
The nicest comment I heard about my talk at the Chesterton conference — indeed, the highest compliment I've ever received after a speech — came via the blogger who calls himself Unknown Poet. Although he missed my talk, he was standing outside the auditorium afterwards, when the crowd was exiting. One of those leaving, he said, was a Catholic priest who exclaimed, "I could marry her!"
RELATED: More on my Chesterton talk (and a photo of me in a familiar-looking top) is on But I Digress.
4:47 PM |
Classical gas
The Curt Jester offers a satirical take on the Pontifical Council for Migrants issued a “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” aka The Ten Commandments of Driving. I'm surprised that, amidst his puns, he didn't suggest a catchier title for the guidelines, e.g.:
My P.O. box recently spat forth a package containing copies of my article that appeared in London's Mail on Sunday's You magazine at the end of April. Click the image above to read the piece. The editor took some liberties, mostly in Brit-ifying the language. (Did you know that an "out" in Britain, as in, "You have an 'out' of this contract," is called a "get-out"? I didn't.) Even so, I'm very happy with the way it came out overall. Apparently my February outfit used up the fabric quota for the entire magazine; the pages following my piece featured the usual impossibly long-limbed, poreless models in teeny bikinis.
Appropriately enough, the photo was taken by a male on Sunday. Getty Images photographer Shaul Schwarz wanted to photograph me in a church, but settled for Grand Central Terminal when I explained that it would be disrespectful (if not downright crass) to do so. He used no lighting save for a flash, which explains why my blue eyes look strangely dark.
My smile is for my then-boyfriend; I asked him to come along to the shoot as inspiration. He did his job beautifully. When Schwarz photographed me outside, having me remove my bulky leather coat in 30-degree weather, my sweetheart kept me smiling by telling me to "offer it up."
The last paragraph of the article is poignant in light of the relationship's end. It really was a "highway to heartbreak." Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from it was that there didn't have to be a moral to the story. What I carried away from the experience was not as important as how I dealt with it. Once again, offering it up has proven to be the best route to a smile — though it's taken a little longer to achieve the desired result this time around.
(P.S. to souls in purgatory: You can thank me later ...)
Opera fans: What's the best version of Gounod's "Faust" available on CD? I've never heard the opera in its entirety, but watching this startlingly intense clip of the church scene makes me think that I need to get to know it.
The cathedral at Glendalough, Ireland, June 11, 2007, photographed by me.
I'm home ... and exhausted.
Must get sleep for phone interview tomorrow at 9:15 a.m. Eastern/2:15 p.m. GMT on Dublin's Phantom 105.2 FM (listen online).
A mystery man using the e-mail handle "ideasmithy," who apparently attended the G.K. Chesterton conference where I spoke last Friday, e-mailed me his unsuccessful entry in the conference's clerihew contest. It is very sweet:
Headlines speak for Miss Dawn Eden. Morning became Eve and her knowledge was the fruit of readin'.
When finding Mr. Chesterton, she chased him back to Rome. Innocence found is a gift not lost, her thrill was coming home. 10:05 PM |
"When it comes to inappropriate names, 'Summer of Love' has to be right up there with 'Joy Division,' the name the Nazis reportedly gave to the sections of concentration camps that housed the guards' sex slaves. ...
"Thanks to the Pill and a counterculture that defined rebellion as annoying one's parents, thousands of youths became guinea pigs in a kind of mass experiment propagated by prurient Beat Generation relics such as [Chet] Helms, Allen Ginsberg (died at 70, hepatitis and liver cancer) and Ken Kesey (died at 66, liver cancer). They were told that they would overcome the superficial consumerism in which they had been raised, reaching a higher spiritual level by uniting their minds to drugs and their bodies to willing takers. Instead, they themselves became products to be consumed - victimized by pushers, treated as sexual objects to be disposed of, or corrupted into predators. ...
"Supporters of the hippies' objectives argue that they and future generations benefited from the dismantling of repressive Eisenhower-era values that restricted sex to marriage. Well, say what you will about a culture that presumed women found their highest fulfillment in motherhood, but one doesn't see many repressed housewives panhandling on modern-day Haight Street. One does see lost geriatric flower children with stringy hair and rotten teeth who contracepted or aborted the children who could have taken care of them in their old age."
— Excerpts from "Hippie Hippie Shakedown," my op-ed (and headline) on the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love in today's Los Angeles Daily News. The paper published my piece alongside an opposing op-ed. It's interesting to contrast the pieces, considering that neither I nor opposing writer Larry Atkins got to preview one another's articles.
THIS JUST IN: The folks at Democratic Underground have named my op-ed the "nutzoid column of the week" [warning: contains profanity].
Wearing stripes in Glendalough, Ireland, last week with Fiona (behind me), Lucy, and Bernardo of the Legion of Mary
Between my trip to Dublin to speak at the Legion of Mary's youth conference and my current trip to St. Paul, Minn., for the Chesterton conference, life these days seems, in the words of John Lennon, like "a room and a car and a room and a room and a car." Even so, it is all a delight, as I love speaking and meeting people in different parts of the world on the never-ending book tour for The Thrill of the Chaste. At this moment, I am in a St. Paul cafe that not only has wi-fi but, wonder of wonders, serves bubble tea. Here are some of the latest Thrill-related developments:
The Unknown Poet missed my talk, but says "everyone is raving about it." He does have a wonderful, Norwegian-accented conversion story to share.
Joey of Pheistyblog has yet to read my book (she just read about it at La Shawn Barber's site), but from the sound of it she could have written it. She posts her own excellent insights about growing into chastity, many of which (like the respect she gained for men) are remarkably similar to those in The Thrill. I guess chaste minds think alike.
Also, check out tomorrow's Daily News — that's the Los Angeles Daily News — for my op-ed on the anniversary of the Summer of Love.
12:54 PM |
UPDATE: Click "this groovy take" above to see the video. I removed the embedded clip because, after I finished watching it via this blog just now, YouTube offered a selection of p*rn clips to watch next. This is an ongoing problem with YouTube. Can anyone suggest a solution — or is anyone already petitioning YouTube to ask them to put an end to its unsolicited p*rn?
Brother Martin of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs) and I discuss the Eucharist and confession at the Legion of Mary's Catholic Youth Conference in Dublin last Saturday. The CFRs are known for being joyful, and Brother Martin was no exception. Photo by Fiona Hodge.
Got in very early this morning from Dublin, 10 hours late — and now have 16 hours 'til I fly to St. Paul, Minn., to speak at the 26th annual G.K. Chesterton Conference. It'll be unusual for me to speak primarily about Chesterton instead of chastity, and I'm eagerly looking forward to hearing the other speakers as well.
I have lots of photos from Ireland and a few stories to tell, but most of them will have to wait until I get back from St. Paul on Sunday night, though I reserve the right to sneak in a blog entry or two from the road.
There is one piece of advice I have to offer travelers to Ireland's capital:
Wear walking shoes. I made the mistake of walking from Merrion Square to Smithfield while being all dressed up — and detouring to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. My Aerosoles heels were sheer torture on Trinity's cobblestones.
Looking out at the vast expanse of cobblestone that I had to cross, all I could think of was "Christina's World." It was all I could do to keep from dropping down to my knees and giving up.
On the bright side, I got to the Book of Kells just five minutes before closing, so the guard let me in without having to pay the steep admission fee. It was perfect; five minutes was all I needed to see the two pages of the book that were on display. Worth the rocky road.
3:36 AM |
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
With Ryan Tubridy after he interviewed me for Ireland's Radio 1 yesterday morning. Photo by Fiona Hodge of the Legion of Mary, who arranged the interview.
I'm at Dublin airport now, set to fly back home. Will post later tonight with some details of my trip and more pics. I've had the greatest time, The one luxury Ireland's prosperity has yet to bring to the country, as far as I can see, is bubble tea. 6:15 AM |
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Leaving Eire
Today is the last day of my wonderful trip to Dublin. I've been unable to photoblog as I'd hoped because of lack of Net access, but plan to have some photos up after I arrive back home tomorrow night. In the meantime, you can hear Radio 1 host Ryan Tubridy's interview with me and read a bit about"The Tubridy Show." (Thanks to Dónal O'Sullivan of Ireland's Family Media Association for sending me the link to today's show.)
Today I enjoyed lunch with journalist David Quinn of the Iona Institute, who was a fellow speaker at the Legion of Mary's Catholic Youth Conference last weekend. It was only afterwards, when I got to check my e-mail, that I saw a note from Raving Atheist reminding me that Quinn effectively defeated Richard Dawkins in a verbal matchup on "The Tubridy Show" last year. He is set to do a radio debate with Christopher Hitchens later this week.
A quick note from a borrowed computer at All Hallows College, where the Legion of Mary conference at which I spoke went wonderfully: Attended a beautiful Tridentine Mass at St. Audoen's Church in Dublin today (note: all Tridentine Masses are beautiful) and discovered that apparently everyone and their brother know my good friend from New York City via Notre Dame, Matt Alderman of Holy Whapping fame. Will share more details when I find an Internet place in Dublin that has wireless ...
Also, I'm on Ireland's Radio 1 Tuesday morning between 9 and 10 a.m. — yay!
let into my darkness some cracks of light that, over time, prepared me to receive healing. 
