"Happy Catholic: Glimpses of God in Everyday Life" by Julie Davis. Book Review.

When you purchase your copy of Julie Davis' "Happy Catholic," be sure to buy multiple copies. This is a book you are going to want to distribute as gifts. "Happy Catholic" is accessible, likable, friendly, no-fuss, in places, surprisingly challenging, even prickly, laugh-out-loud funny, and thought-provoking.

"Happy Catholic" is a genuine reflection of what a real, live Catholic thinks and feels. It is the voice of a modern, American, Catholic woman. Julie Davis is very like people I know. She is a loving wife, mother, and businesswoman. She is steeped in modern American popular culture. I love Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day, a couple of rather rarified saints. Julie Davis is not a nun; she does not live in a place or a time distant from the average American reader. She is you and me and she is a church-going, Bible quoting, lives-of-the-saints reading Catholic.

I want to buy this book for several internet friends. I want to buy "Happy Catholic" for Sandy and David, two facebook friends who devote a heck of a lot of keystrokes to mocking Christians. I want to buy this book for Sue, a Jehovah's Witness who is convinced that Catholics must be converted. I want to buy this book for Oriana, who depicts Catholics as a cross between Torquemada and Gomer Pyle. I want to buy this book for the hiring committees at "Christian" universities who have told me that they don't hire Catholic professors.

I want to hold this book in front of their eyes and say, "This is what a Catholic is. A delightful dinner companion. An ethical and professional businesswoman. A good neighbor. A loving mother. Someone you'd want very much to get to know. Someone you'd benefit from knowing." In short, Julie Davis is very much like many Catholics I know, and she is nothing like the caricatures of Catholics the non-Catholics I know promulgate.

"Happy Catholic" is a book of very brief essays. Each essay covers, at most, a page and a half. Many are only half a page or so in length. Each essay offers reflections on a quote. She quotes a fair amount of sci fi, horror, and fantasy, such as Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Madeleine L'Engle, and Susanna Clarke. She also quotes TV sitcoms, Winston Churchill, and the Edward Bulwer Lytton bad writing contest.

"I am suddenly nostalgic for the good old days," Davis remarks, "when you could smoke a cigarette, have a burger, or sip a cocktail without fear of getting a dirty look." What's that got to do with Catholicism, you ask? Davis doesn't hammer her point home in this essay, or in any of the others. She sketches out the main points, and leaves it to the reader to fill in the blanks, to connect the dots. In this essay, she is commenting on British jockey and crime writer Dick Francis' observation that in America, people think that one can fend off death indefinitely by jogging or adopting other healthy habits.

Davis could have produced a thousand-word essay supporting her points with exacting details; she doesn't. Her comments are trenchant and brief, as if you were seated next to a very witty and provocative dinner companion. Americans worship health and equate death with guilt, she remarks. It's almost like we've turned healthy living into a secular religion. And then you realize, oh, that's right. I'm reading a book by a Catholic about being Catholic. You put two plus two together, and before you realize it, you are asking big questions and thinking profound thoughts. You didn't need the thousand-word essay. You just needed a few inspirational bon mots from this erudite, sophisticated, literate Catholic woman.

Julie Davis' parents were the "good, old-fashioned sort of atheists." She was not a believer. "Religion was silly superstition, so why argue about it?...Most of the 'proof' seemed like simple coincidence to me." Through a series of events, Davis came to accept God on faith. Everything changed. "Books I read, movies I watched, songs I heard were reflecting bits of the Truth that was God. I realized that this reality had been there all along. I just couldn't see it before. It made everyday things glow."

In "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," author Annie Dillard talks about the "tree with the lights in it" that newly sighted people saw. Davis is like the newly sighted, once she accepts God.

In "Happy Catholic," Davis explores big issues: why does God allow suffering? Why aren't believers' lives easier? What about church teaching on abortion and the death penalty? And she meditates on day-to-day matters, as well. Why are some families unhappy, while others are happy? She quotes Tolstoy and Pope John Paul II before offering her own answer. She comments in everyday speech about everyday matters, "I always try to remember that for every person driving me crazy, there may be two others that I am driving crazy." She points out that the phrase, "Wherever you go, there you are" is from Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ."

I must add that I love the design of this book. The cover is that bright yellow of the "smile" button. The word "Catholic" forms a smile, echoing the smile on the button. The words "Glimpses of God in everyday life" swim into focus from un-highlighted background text, in the same way that Davis' faith allows her to see God's hand in what would otherwise be the meaningless background static of day-to-day human existence. The intelligence and visual appeal of the cover's design is reflective of the quality of the text inside.

You can buy "Happy Catholic" at Amazon here.

Julie Davis' "Happy Catholic" blog is here.

Father Roy Bourgeois on Women Catholic Priests

Father Roy Bourgeois. Source: Wikipedia 

Father Roy Bourgeois was on NPR's The Takeaway on the morning of Friday, April 5, 2013. He spoke about women Catholic priests. 

Everything Father Roy said was so clear, so profound, and so crystalline, I immediately went to the Takeaway website in order to see about acquiring a transcript. 

I saw no transcript, but one can listen to the program here: 

Islam, Christianity, Gays, and Politically Correct Speech Codes at Salon.com

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The Politically Correct Thought Police at Salon.com have been busily reminding us that up is down, black is white, and hate is love.

On April 2, 2013, Salon.com published an article entitled "Stop Trying to Split Gays and Muslims." The article's author is Chris Stedman. He is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain and the Values in Action Coordinator for the Humanist Community at Harvard. He is an atheist. An atheist chaplain. At Harvard.

Pause.

Wouldn't you LOVE that job?

You get all the perqs of being a chaplain – you get to be the wise person in the room, worthy of respect, white collar work, no strained muscles or dirt under fingernails – without the heavy lifting – no need to believe in, or sacrifice for, a living God. Or a system of ethics. Or anything.

Just wet your finger, stick it in the wind, and see which way the prevailing winds are blowing, and spout some inanity.

In his Salon.com article, Stedman says that blogger Pamela Geller is trying to "split Muslims and Gays."

Now that's a whopper. It would be funny were it not so cruel.

"Gays should be killed in the worst way possible," declared his Eminence, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the supreme religious authority for Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq and worldwide

Human rights activists claim that the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed thousands of homosexuals.

Several Muslim nations prescribe and practice the death penalty for homosexuals.

In short, Chris Stedman and Salon.com's statement that blogger Pam Geller is responsible for any rift between Islam and homosexuals is doublespeak of grotesque proportions. Harvard employs this guy? Speaks volumes.

My beautiful facebook friend Patti inspired me to respond to Stedman's piece. My response is below:

Michelle Goldberg wrote one of the most hateful and false books I have ever read, "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism." Goldberg's book is a hate mongering screed against American Christians.

Michelle Goldberg is a former Salon writer.

Salon embraces hates against religion, as long as it is hate against the right religion: Christianity.

Pamela Geller is not a hater. She is a critic of Islam. She has her facts correct. Her opponents do not criticize Geller on the facts; rather, they criticize her hair, her makeup, and even her faith -- Geller is a Jew. In the context of Politically Correct protection of Islam from any critique, Anti-Semitism is okay.

Fact-based criticism of Islam, though, is demonized.

Intelligent people see this double standard. They see that Christianity and the Judeo-Christian tradition are denigrated by the Politically Correct, while Islam is inoculated against criticism.

Child marriage, clitoredectomy, honor killing, enforced hijab, acid attacks -- the whole horrific business of gender apartheid -- The Politically Correct forbid us to see these things, to speak of these things, or to hear others when they speak of these things.

Pamela Geller has spoken out against honor killing. She is a defender of human life and human rights.

Politically Correct, 1984-style speech codes insist that we must label Geller as a hater.

"Gays should be killed in the worst way possible." Google that phrase. It was not a Christian leader who stated, who advocates, or who carries out that course of action. It was a Muslim leader, and his statement is representational.

I do not have the honor of being Gay, but I have worked long and hard for Gay rights and women's rights.

Anyone who cares about Gay rights and women's rights and who has a brain and an ounce of personal integrity will find much to criticize, vocally, in Islamic writ, doctrine, and practice.

Anyone who cares about Gay rights and women's rights will jettison Politically Correct smokescreens and lies.

Anyone who cares about Gay rights and women's rights will find much to admire in Pamela Geller.

***

My Amazon review of Salon.com author Michelle Goldberg's "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism" is here.

Loving Food v. Being a Foodie; Black Truffle Moliterno for Sixteen Dollars a Pound

Shopping for greens in Africa.

I'll come in from a really tough day. Exhausted, drained, hopeless. I'll be thinking the bleakest thoughts imaginable, wondering how I'll make it to the dawn of the next day, or how humanity will survive its latest folly.

I'll open up a can of Hunts tomatoes with my Swiss Army Knife and take a sip of the tomato broth and it's like lightning shoots through me. My eyes snap open and I'll go "Mmmm" and squirm with delight. I have to laugh. No matter what is going on, I can wrench a mini-Mardi-Gras out of myself with one mouthful of tasty eating.

Shopping for food is one of the top ten things I've done with the hours of my life.

As a writer I spend a lot of time alone, which I hate. I like being around people, even while writing. Headphones give me all the privacy I need. But for the most part, I live, and write, alone.

When the day's writing is done, I bolt. More often than not, I am going to a supermarket, a farmer's market, or a produce store.

Just gazing at stacks of red, green, yellow, and orange peppers uplifts my soul. When I get news of cancer or the end of a relationship or another job application rejected I heal the wound by looking at Florida juice oranges stacked next to California navel oranges stacked next to pomelos stacked next to pink grapefruits stacked next to ugli fruit. Prickly pineapple skin, shiny, heavy ripe eggplant, beets as roughhewn as Yul Brynner's skull stubble, the slosh a good coconut voices, the scents of cilantro and anise that waft free of their filigree leaves and seduce you from several aisles away: these colors and textures, sights, scents and sensations are my gauze, my sutures, my mantra, my loving arms. 

Corrado's. Source

I go to Corrado's. Before or after a biopsy, after getting dumped by a love or a publisher: I go to Corrado's when others go to loving family members for a hug, or get into their cars and drive to the beach, or grab a drink, a telephone, a lighter, or a needle. Holding one in one hand and one in the other, moving my hands up and down, like the scales of justice, assessing color, sheen, and bruises: deciding between two eggplants soothes my soul.

Mind – I am not a foodie.

I didn't even know that foodies existed till I interacted with them on the web.

I was reading and posting on an internet discussion site and I "met" a woman who seemed to love food as much as I do.

The weird thing is that I realized we could never be friends. She struck me as a tightly wound career woman who didn't laugh or loosen up with strangers and maybe rarely with people she knew.

After a while of being around foodies in internet environments I realized that people like me, who love food, and foodies, have different DNA.

I almost never share recipes – I rarely use recipes. My mother taught me how to cook. Not a cookbook. I can't imagine watching a TV cooking show. I've never ordered a specialty food for myself from a catalogue. (Once sent a friend some cinnamon from Penzeys.) If I told you where I got my kitchen utensils, you might shrink back in horror. Hint – I've been low income for a long time. No sabatier knives in my kitchen. And I'm not above dumpster diving when a tenant moves out and tosses everything, including kitchenware.

I once made a German chocolate cake over an open mahogany wood fire in an African rain forest. It was someone's birthday. I put sand in the bottom of a metal drum and put the cake pan on top of that and covered it up. That sums up my approach to utensils. If it works, it works.

But this, I think, is what really separates someone like me, who loves food, and who is not a foodie, and a foodie:

The most delicious meal I ever ate was plain, boiled white rice served with a naked, low-rent hot dog.

My Uncle John (Jan Cerno) made it for me for lunch one day. We were in his cottage in Slovakia, on the land he worked as a subsistence farmer and beekeeper. He didn't speak English, I didn't speak Slovak, and we didn't converse while eating our rice and hot dog. I didn't even know it was coming. He gestured me to him, sat me down, and put the food in front of me: more or less how you feed a dog.

The meal of white rice and hot dog was delicious because I loved Uncle John so much.

That's what it means to love food and not be a foodie, I think. And if I got it wrong, I would love it if a foodie corrected me.

This is another difference between someone like me who loves food and a foodie.

I get the impression, from the way that they talk, that foodies assess food as valuable if it is expensive, rare, and if it takes a great deal of time and effort to prepare.

I think food is delicious and valuable if it is fresh and if it is real. Often, for food to be fresh, it has to be local, which makes it not so rare, not so expensive.

When I lived in Nepal, I used to pay so little for a fruit called nashpati that the price of one nashpati was not even one whole American cent. Biting into a nashpati offered you the sensation of biting into the essence of spring in the Himalaya: they were that fresh, fluid, firm, fragrant, alive. And they were so cheap and abundant they were almost free.

I found them in America. Here they are called "Asian pear." They can be really expensive, a thousand times what I used to pay for them in Nepal. And, that extra price doesn't make them more delicious. I don't buy them here. It's just not the same. 

Nashpati. Source

Which is all by way of saying that the other day, at Corrado's – where else – I paid sixteen dollars a pound – for cheese.

A former self would have spanked me for that expense. I think I allowed it to myself because of the bad news this year. It was a question of, If I don't taste this now, I may never taste it.

I was at Corrado's, picking through the cheeses, looking for something new and affordable. Sometimes you can find really good cheese at really affordable prices. In late summer, 2011, I found St. Agur at Corrado's for five dollars a pound. St. Agur is a double cream French blue cheese. Just thinking of how good it tastes I practically drop to my knees. My breathing deepens and evens out. My solar plexus relaxes. I could meditate for an hour or I could spend thirty seconds thinking about my tongue and palette making contact with one wad of St Agur cheese. Five dollars a pound! Back in late summer, 2011.

So, the other day I was seeking a comparable find and I came across Moliterno Pecorino infused with black truffle paste. Sixteen dollars a pound.

Mushrooms are real big for Eastern Europeans. My Polish-American dad used to bring home wild mushrooms. He would go for a walk on a highway margin, in a city park, and, where others saw just grass, just bare branches, he saw pounds of prize morels or puffballs or oysters or sheep's head.

I've heard of truffles. Given that I love mushrooms so much, I figured I'd really, really love truffles, the essence of mushroom-ness.

Could not wait to get home and taste it. The ultimate fungi experience!

Got home. Unpacked bags. Put everything away so there'd be no distraction. Changed into cheese tasting gear (not the street-dirt-stiffened clothes I'd been walking in.) Breathed deeply, psyched for my first taste of black truffles.

Report: A very fungi-taste. Sort of perfumey, clingy. A cloud of fungi essence. It was okay.

And that was it.

It wasn't my ultimate fungi experience.

I've eaten wild sulfur shelf I've found, picked, and prepared myself. I prefer that.

In Poland, I used to eat zapiekanki, baguettes sliced and covered with buttered mushrooms and cheese. I prefer that.

And, of course, I cherish the memories of eating the mushrooms my late dad brought home in big, leaf strewn bags, from highway margins and public parks.

And that's why I'm not a foodie.

But, again, if any foodie is reading and I've gotten your tribe all wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Uncle John (far left) cooked me one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten. 

"Happy Catholic" Names "Save Send Delete" One of the Ten Best Books of the Year!

"I'd like to thank the members of the Academy ... "
Been practicing this speech for a long time!

Julie Davis, author of "Happy Catholic: Glimpses of God in Everyday Life," has just called "Save Send Delete" one of the best books of the year. 

You can read Julie Davis' comments about "Save Send Delete" here. 

One of the GREAT Movie Scenes of All Time: "Lazarus, Arise!" George Stevens' Response to Dachau

George Stevens' 1965 "The Greatest Story Ever Told" contains one of THE great movie scenes of all time, "Lazarus, arise!"

The film itself is long, lavish, with a big, big cast. It was one of the most expensive films ever made, and it took forever to make. Because it is slow-moving, many people hate it.

I love "The Greatest Story Ever Told," and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for an art film treatment of the life of Christ.

Is it fast moving? No, it is not. If you want "Robocop," this isn't your movie.

The slowness of this movie provides thoughtful people ample time to think about the history-shaping words being said, to soak up the beauty of the film itself.

Does Stevens attempt to recreate the sense one gets from looking at beautiful religious paintings? Yes. If you are one of those people who freeze frames beautiful shots, this is your movie.

Do big name stars appear in small roles? Yes. The most notorious cameo: John Wayne plays the Roman centurion who states, "Truly this man was the son of God." Yes it is hard not to giggle when you hear the Duke's distinctive, macho, Western drawl pronounce those words. For me that nanosecond of comic relief is not a bad thing.

The big name stars here are making a meta statement. George Stevens was moved to make the ultimate cinematic life of Christ by his experience of being among the first to document what happened at Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp. Coincidentally, Dachau was where Nazis imprisoned many Polish and German Catholic priests. It was called the largest monastery in Germany. Stevens first made "Diary of Anne Frank." Then he made "The Greatest Story Ever Told." These films were his defiance of Nazism, of war, of death.

Big name stars, like John Wayne, wanted to appear in even the tiniest of roles, because they sensed that Stevens was doing something special. If you can appreciate the big name cameos for what they are – Hollywood, the world's most powerful storytelling community, coming together to tell a story that matters – they will enhance the movie for you, rather than lessen it.

Max von Sydow gives the best performance of Jesus ever committed to film. If he never did anything else, he could die proud because of the truth he embodied in this part.

Just the look on von Sydow's face in his first scene – when he is being baptized by John – a look that is caring, human, loving, confused, pained, as he begins to realize what his life holds in store for him – is in itself marvelous, jewel-like in its purity, and unlike anything else I've ever seen an actor be able to do.

Just the look on Max von Sydow's face when he is baptized by John is worth seeing the film for

David McCallum is a complex, agonized Judas. He makes you feel for him. His death, as a sacrifice, is brilliant.

Charlton Heston captured the "take no prisoners" approach of the Biblical John the Baptist.

Donald Pleasance is the best Satan ever put on film. He's just an average, sort of nice guy who wants you to eat some food when you are hungry ... that's all. Harmless, really.

There are many scenes I would never want to have missed: the "lilies of the field" scene, John baptizing Jesus, Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus calling Matthew.

There are many effects that work perfectly for me: the handling of sound when Jesus is carrying his cross on the Via Dolorosa, for example.

"The Greatest Story Ever Told" racks up a very low 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I think Christophobia plays a role. Had Stevens made a similar movie about Buddha, it would be considered a classic.

Pope Francis: A.) Submits to Muslims B.) Elevates Women C.) Blunders D.) Emulates Christ E.) Stoops to Conquer F.) Violates Canon Law G.) Horrifies Traditionalists H.) All of the Above I.) None of the Above

Jesus Washing Peter's Feet. Ford Madox Brown. Source

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."

On Thursday, March 28, 2013, Pope Francis washed the feet of twelve inmates at a juvenile detention center, ages 14-21. Included was a Serbian Muslim girl.

Previous popes have performed the ritual on Catholic priests. This is the first time a female, and a Muslim, was included in the ritual performed by a pope. According to Huffington Post, "Canon lawyer Edward Peters, who is an adviser to the Holy See's top court, noted in a blog that the Congregation for Divine Worship sent a letter to bishops in 1988 making clear that 'the washing of the feet of chosen men ... represents the service and charity of Christ, who came `not to be served, but to serve.'"

According to the International Business Times, "Chris Gillibrand, whose blog CathCon covers Catholic news, also disagreed with the pope's act. 'Given his active support for the charismatic movement in his Diocese, one can only be concerned that he could be prepared to ordain women," Gillibrand wrote. "How can the Pope maintain discipline in the Church if he himself does not conform himself to prevailing ecclesiastical legislation? [sic]'"

According to Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs, "this is stomach-churning dhimmitude. This isn't merely a lack of leadership; this is betrayal on an unimaginable level. Kill my people and I will wash and kiss your feet. For jihadists, this image could very well replace the burning twin towers as iconic of Islamic imperialism and conquest."

Eric Blake on Atlas Shrugs responded,

"You all are WRONG WRONG WRONG. Would an imam wash the feet of a woman? HELL NO! neither would Big Mo. She is being shown love, kindness and humility. This may be the one action that touches her heart and gets her thinking. This would never happen to her in her own religion. She is not a Devil, either, she is a human being who has been deceived by evil. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, especially if you are a Christian. P.S. I am not a Catholic, I am a Baptist"

Your thoughts?