Visit to New York & Washington, DC

As we are continuing to put other tools in place which we hope will make our work more readily available to those interested in it, let me remind you that one such tool is our weblog. As I said in the last newsletter, the easiest way to check the blog is to subscribe to it using what's known as a "reader" or aggregator. The way to subscribe is to visit our weblog, here, and click on the little icon to the right that looks like this:

 
Once you're subscribed, all you have to do is bookmark your reader and check it occasionally to see which of your favorite blogs and websites have posted new items. You can leave comments on our blog when something interests you or when you want to agree or disagree with something I have posted.

Speaking of agreeing or disagreeing: to be concerned, as we are, with significant cultural, religious and moral issues, is to neither expect nor particularly desire  "unanimous consent." The issues facing us today are often enough complex. We may broadly agree -- I hope we do -- but we may not, and in any case we may see things from at least slightly different perspectives. Moreover, the nature of a weblog is less formal and more spontaneous than other forms of intellectual interchange. I often post a blog entry in a matter of seconds, and occasionally more as an act of moral or intellectual provocation than as a considered argument or clearly defined opinion. For these and other reasons, I welcome a lively exchange on any of the matters I address on the weblog.

The web in general and weblogs specifically can be a bit like the wild west, but they can also help us reignite the kind of intellectual and moral discussion on which both our faith and our democracy depend.

I have recently posted, for example, some materials on the cultural crisis in Europe (and not just in Europe) related to the growing influence of Islam. It is virtually impossible to speak of these matters intelligently without being controversial, and, in any case, the determination to be uncontroversial is a sure recipe for irrelevance. The purpose of our weblog is the urge us to think about hard questions, like the growing  assertion of Islam in Europe, the staggering moral problem of abortion and embryonic cannibalization, and many other issues. I hope you will visit our blog and wade as you see fit.

The Angelus Bell

Finally: Thank you for your many kindnesses and for your support. Even in the midst of a very difficult economic times, we have been blessed by a number of new monthly donors, and we are both gratified and grateful for their donations. If you can join them with even a small monthly donation, it will be a great help to us. If you can help us, please click on the image to the right and you will be directed to the donations page of our website. If you would like to speak with Randy about supporting our work, email him or call 866-506-5451.

With a heart full of gratitude,

From the Executive Director
Materials from the Archives

As many of our long time supporters know, Gil has a large cassette tape archive of materials he produced over the past 25 years. Only a small part of these treasures have made the transition to digital audio. Over the course of this year we will be making some of these materials available in CD format. The latest to be brought out is the 1993 14 CD set Reflections on the Gospel of John which is now in our webstore and on the home page of our website. In the coming months we hope to have Gil's series on Virgil's  Aneid, the Gospel of Luke, and the Dionysian Revival - on Golding's Lord of the Flies & Euripides' Bacchae.

 

On a semi-personal note, and following up on what I said at the top of this newsletter, it's time that our reports to our friends include reference to perhaps the most invisible dimension of our work, namely: research, reading, and the effort to understand our world and the many ways in which it is being impacted by the Christian revelation.

Ren� Girard's recent books, for instance, have thrown fascinating new light on his overall work, challenging those like myself who have long used his extraordinary insights to understand the challenges facing the Christian vocation in our time.  As I regularly do, I will be meeting with Ren� in the weeks ahead to discuss these matters.

At the same time I have recently undertaken an extended review of the extraordinarily complex work of Philip Rieff', which I have come to believe may be very useful in bringing out implications of Girard's work that might otherwise remain latent. In my view, of course, Girard offers a more sweeping anthropological panorama, but Rieff's sociological work corroborates Girard in many significant  ways, and I think Rieff's work will be useful in mining the riches Girard has stored up for us. Those who know the work of either of these gifted thinkers will appreciate how daunting is the task of bringing them into fruitful dialogue. So, if you don't hear from me for a while, don't think I'm on vacation. I stop now and then to do the homework that supplies the content for the roadwork.

Speaking of my regular visits with Ren� Girard, my move to New England in 2004 made those visits less frequent. But that is about to change. In the months immediately ahead, I will pull up such roots as I have put down here in New England and return to California where my children and growing grandchildren live.  I will finally be leaving a home filled with memories of my late wife Liz and the Trappist Abbey on which my spiritual life has been daily nourished for six years.

But the move west is nevertheless an exceedingly happy one, and on that I will have more to say in the next newsletter. I hope the move will be completed sometime this summer. Thereafter my east coast to west coast travels will continue as needed, but they will largely be replaced by trips back and forth from northern California to southern California. Again, more on that in due course.

I look forward with great anticipation to the next phase of a life journey which remains an amazing mystery to me and for which I am unspeakably grateful.

Affectionately,

Gil