Reading Catholic

Reading Catholic and catholic

Nancy Piccione

A Book of Plane Prayers

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I noticed in this week’s print edition that someone in our diocesan family has a new book out.  It’s called “A Book of Plane Prayers” by Sister Agnes Cunningham, SSCM, of Champaign.

Jennifer Willems writes about the book here.

I had the chance to pick up this slim volume when I was at Lagron-Miller the other day picking up a Catechism of the Catholic Church for a book group (surprise! another book group for me).

It’s a really nice book of prayers, and since we like traveling in our family, some more than others, I’m sure we’ll be getting some use out of it.

Check it out!

Meet a Reader: Sebastian Von Zerneck

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Here is my interview with Sebastian Von Zerneck, a high school student and the featured “reader” in this month’s “What Are You Reading?” column.  A shorter version of this will appear in today’s print Catholic Post.  I’m grateful to Sebastian for his willingness to participate here, as well as his remarkable work with Project Bright Bookcases.
 
 
Who: Sebastian VonZerneck, a 17-year-old rising senior at Peoria Notre Dame. 

Last summer I started Project Bright Bookcases to provide good books to kids in places where kids might not encounter books.   I was at the Peoria courthouse and noticed a room where children go when their parents are in court. My mother was with me, and we had a conversation about how essential quality reading material is at a young age. We also talked about how a lot of teenagers, as they grow up, have no use for the children’s books they’ve accumulated over the years.  I solicited and got donations of more than 2,000 books and several bookcases.  I fixed up the bookcases, and organized the books.  Finally last spring, I sent out letters to various locations organizations in the Peoria area who I heard could use the bookcases. We still have donations coming in and bookcases going out. 

Why I Love Reading:. Until I was 11, I lived in Brooklyn, New York, very close to what I consider the best public library in the world: Brooklyn Public Library. A lot of homeless people hung out or lived nearby, and I remember thinking that it wasn’t a terrible place to be homeless. 

I guess you could say I’ve been surrounded by literature since birth. We’ve always had a lot of books at our house, including several hundred stacked in shelves in the room my brother and I shared.  My grandfather Tom Klise wrote The Last Western; my aunts Kate and SarahKlise are children’s book authors. 

 I love reading because it allows me to experience times, locations, and situations that I otherwise couldn’t. I’ve also learned a lot from reading, probably more than I’ve learned in school. In fiction, what happens is shown to you, rather than told to you. This makes the information much more engaging than that presented in a textbook or class lecture. A teacher can talk all day about a certain time period, say, the Stalin era, but by reading Animal Farm I can honestly say that I have a solid understanding of all the various motives and ideologies that are crucial to knowing why things happened the way they did. Reading is, to me, a way to gain first-hand insight into a situation, which is difficult to gain just from hearing about it through an outside source. 

What I’m Reading Now: The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, follows a young French nobleman and his three friends in the King’s musketeers trying to protect their King and Queen from the sinister machinations of Cardinal Richelieu. This book is incredible. It’s one thing to hear about the harshness of this time period, the far-reaching influence of certain key political figures, and the chess game that they played across Europe. But to read this book is to experience 17th century France first-hand. The characters are hilarious and memorable, the plot is fast and entertaining, and the politics are totally intriguing. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a good adventure, or is interested in French history. 

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, was written in the 6th century BC China. It’s hard to believe this work was written so long ago because the strategies it presents are still very applicable to modern thinking. Ideas on how to divide your army and how to use spies may seem of no practical use to someone who is not in the military, but if you think about it the tactics that Sun Tzu discusses are universal. A good example is card games. I know a lot of people who buy books about how to win at poker, or whatever. This book trumps all, no pun intended. Things like getting into the mind of your enemy by bluffing or underplaying are masterfully dissected in The Art of War. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has need to think strategically:  In other words, everyone. 

My Favorite Books: Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, is a dark, dystopian novel about a totalitarian government that watches people even to the point of thought surveillance. Two civil servants become fed up with the regime and rebel in secret. To me, the politics were not even the most interesting part of the story. What really made an impact on me was the effect of the government’s mind-washing techniques on the protagonists. I won’t give anything away, but the conclusion was haunting. I thought about this book for a long time after I finished it, and that’s why I count it as one of my favorites. 

Shogun, by James Clavell, is an epic story about Tokugawa’s rise to power in 17th century Japan.  Japan was isolated from Europe for many centuries, and, because of that, Japanese ideas on philosophy and religion bore almost no resemblance to those of the first European visitors. After reading this almost 1200-page book, however, I really began to understand what motivated Japanese society during that era. Excuse the cliché, but it’s one of those stories that I literally could not put down once I became engrossed in the complex plot. The characters become so sympathetic that many of the events in the story become almost as emotional as those of real life. For those reasons, I recommend this book to anyone who can read. 

The Loser Letters {My column @TheCatholicPost}

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Following is my book review column that will appear in this week’s print issue of The Catholic Post.

Never underestimate the potential and power of humor.  Those who can make us laugh can change hearts and minds. Unfortunately, too much modern humor is at the service of sarcasm or flippancy or denigrating the good.   We might laugh at what we see or read, but it isn’t necessarily ennobling or good for us.

That’s why it’s so refreshing to discover The Loser Letters, Mary Eberstadt’s darkly funny book of fictional letters from an “atheist convert” to the spokesmen of the New Atheism.

I first read The Loser Letters while ensconced on our back porch one Saturday, laughing out loud almost every page, startling neighbors and passersby, and shooing away children and husband when they came outside and tried to interrupt me.

Some weeks later, I was on a run, listening to a podcast news program that happened to feature spokesperson for an atheist group.  I confess here my usual reactions to these kind of interviews would have gone one of two unhelpful ways: either eye-rolling annoyance (not exactly charitable), or a profound sadness for the person and the state of the world—does anyone believe anything anymore?

But that day, I laughed, so hard I had to stop running.  And it wasn’t mocking laughter, but a laugh at our human foibles.  I felt for the person as I did for the fictional protagonist of The Loser Letters: a protective kindness and hope for the future.  Thank you, Mary Eberstadt.

The Loser Letters is written in the satirical style of The Screwtape Letters–imaginary letters from an elder demon to his demon-in-training on ways to tempt a human.  Screwtape is one of my favorite C.S. Lewis works, one I re-read every couple of years. I’ve eagerly read and enjoyed in recent years any number of books inspired by Screwtape, such as The Snakebite Letters by Peter Kreeft and The Wormwood File:  Emails from Hell by Jim Forest.  Still, Lewis is such a master of this mini-genre he created that those who have attempted a direct retelling haven’t been able to capture “it.”

What sets The Loser Letters apart is taking the genre and truly updating it for the 21st century.  The letters’ “author” is an unnamed 20something woman, an enthusiastic convert to atheism, who writes letters to leading atheist apologists like Christopher Hitchens and “alpha Atheist” Richard Dawkins to point out weak areas so they can correct them and get more converts.

The “Loser” is God, and believers become Loserholics and Loserphiles.  Atheists are Brights, and believers are Dulls. Understand the twisted logic?

Some of my favorite parts:

*the humor, which is dark, even edgy—necessarily so because of the context– but hilarious, and not mean.  That is a hard balance, but one skilled writer Eberstadt makes easy.

*the frequent reference to why all the leading atheist evangelists are male (why is that?), and why the effects of the sexual revolution actually support the “Loser” side:

“I’ll confess a terrible weakness here and say that even now, after I’ve evolved so far, I still want to reach for the Xanax just thinking about an Atheist like any of you dating my hypothetical daughter—as opposed to say, a nice, antiabortion, save-sex-for-marriage Christian.  I know it’s terribly unfit; but is that just me?”

*the mini-education in not only modern atheism and atheists, and their more outrageous statements, but also in famous converts away from Atheism to belief.

*the letter that points out how so much of the world’s art, architecture and beauty is because of religious belief:

“The obvious fact that we Atheists have yet to wrap our heads around is that most of the world’s greatest buildings, and I mean  ‘greatest’ aesthetically, not literally, have been dedicated in one way or another to Loser, by whatever name he’s called in any given spot.

“Don’t get me wrong, guys—I’m not saying Frank Gehry and Le Corbusier and downtown Pyongyang aren’t all that!  But still.”

*the human story.  The genius of Screwtape is that while the letters instruct in the spiritual life (in reverse, from the perspective of the demons), it is over all a story of one man and his struggles to live as a believer.  The Loser Letters, is the story of a young woman and what her journey to atheism really means.

The Loser Letters is by turns laugh-out-loud funny, touching and extremely well done.  This book is absolutely an instant classic, in so many ways, and should be required reading, especially for college-bound students and young adults.

"Hell Burns" on Humor

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On Tuesdays this month, I want to share blogs that are either Catholic humor blogs, or reflect on the nature of humor to help us live out our faith.


Today, I want to feature Sister Helena Burns, a Daughter of St. Paul nun who writes the blog “Hell Burns” (get it?).  Her blog is more about one of my big passions–media literacy–than humor per se.  Still, if you’ve ever had the good fortune to meet her in person, you’ll know immediately how funny she is and how she radiates joy.  And how could a person who named her blog “Hell Burns” not be funny?


Recently, she wrote a commentary on the television show “The Family Guy” that really became an essay on the value and importance of humor in the world.  In fact, I borrowed concepts from her conclusion to really focus on humor this month:  


“Never underestimate the bewitching potential and power of humor. He/she who gets you to laugh last, laughs best. All the way to the zeitgeist bank. And what do you and your children get?”


Please consider reading Sister Helena Burns’ essay here. 


 And do visit her blog–Sister Helena does write the occasional laugh-out-loud post, like this account of her first and last ski trip.


Also, Sister Helena is a great source of detailed and skilled movie reviews in the context of our Catholic faith.  Her review of Toy Story 3 shows, for example, touches on both John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Lotso’s nihilism.  You must read her reviews to fully experience these kind of great connections.



Do You Have a Good Sense of Humor?

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 I consider a good sense of humor as indispensable as dark chocolate.  If you know me at all, that is saying a lot, because seldom does a day go by outside of Lent or Advent that I don’t eat some dark chocolate, whether my mainstay dark chocolate M&Ms or some wonderful single-origin dark chocolate from Trader Joe’s.  Many is the time when a good sense of humor has defused a tense situation in our house, distracting young ones from their evil deeds or helping spouses see the love instead of the frustration of a disagreement.  Of course, many of those things can be accomplished through dark chocolate, but that’s a topic for another day.

I personally am not very good at telling a joke, as my husband and friends can well attest.  I would fail miserably as a stand-up comic.  But I find that the older I get, the more I need to laugh, and, paradoxically, the more discerning I am about what makes me laugh.  There is a lot of sadness in life–death, brokenness in ourselves and others, the state of the world–that it’s easy to get and stay down.  So lots of laughter–and the right sort of it– becomes even more important.

That’s one of the reasons why I love Mary Eberstadt’s The Loser Letters, July’s book selection here at the Catholic Post Book Group.  You’ll see in my review on Thursday that one of my favorite things about the book is that it makes me laugh in the right way.

But what do I mean by the “right kind” of laughter?  I don’t mean that I’m a snob about it, like I can only laugh at intellectually high-brow jokes.  I’m a big fan of silly puns and slapstick humor.   For instance, we love Charlie Chaplin films at our house.  And we laughed through Toy Story 3 recently (when this mom wasn’t weeping openly at the poignant parts).  

C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters  in preparation for  has an entire letter on the “danger” of humor to lead people closer to God.  For those who have not read The Screwtape Letters, let me fill you in because we’ll be talking a lot this month about the mini-genre Lewis created with the book.

C.S. Lewis wrote the book as a series of fictional letters from a demon, Screwtape, to his apprentice nephew demon Wormwood.  Everything is twisted in the book, so “the Enemy” is God and the advice is all backwards from what would make people happy.

C.S. Lewis’ tempter in The Screwtape Letters divides the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun the Joke Proper and Flippancy.

“You will see (joy) among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday.  Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause.  What the real cause is we do not know… Laughter of this kind does us no good and should always be discouraged.  Besides, the phenomenon is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity and austerity of Hell.”

I know many people can relate to this exact description.  I was a younger sibling in a family of six kids, and when my older brother and sisters would return from college for a holiday, the kitchen table was always full of laughter as we sat and caught up with each other.   But were we telling jokes?  Not exactly; there was that kind of gentle ribbing that goes on in families, but we were laughing and smiling so much out of proportion to the jokes that it was clearly Joy.

What concerns me when I say the “right kind of laughter” is there is an awful lot of humor recently that really has nothing to do with Joy or Fun is being promoted as humorous.

I can think of certain modern authors, television shows and movies that really do nothing but sneer and ridicule the good, all under the pretext of “humor.”  And if someone accuses them of that very thing, that person is ridiculed (more with an attitude than exact words) of “I’m just joking.  Can’t you take a joke? Don’t you have a sense of humor?”

Yes, I do have a sense of humor.  A good sense of humor.

Lewis writes about this very thing beautifully in Screwtape’s letter on humor:

“But flippancy is the best of all.  In the first place it is very economical.  Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny.  Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made.  No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.  If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter.  It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excited no affection between those who practise it.”

What do you think is meant by a “good sense of humor”?   Do you think humor is important in living out a faith-filled life?

Great Catholic Humor Blog: The Ironic Catholic

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As promised, I hope to share through the month lots of Catholic humor websites.

One of my favorites is The Ironic Catholic, written by