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No date set yet; look for some time in August or September.

Great news!

That is good news.

Now how about GK Chesterton?

He's not from my diocese.

I recall, when a child, very occasionally, on an old B&W TV, seeing this strangely dressed guy speaking in an affected manner. But he was interesting.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 10, 2026 10:17 am He's not from my diocese.

I legitimately laughed aloud.

Riverboat wrote: ↑Tue Feb 10, 2026 9:50 am Now how about GK Chesterton?

No

Why not?

Why?

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 13, 2026 11:08 amWhy?

Exactly. Even Chesterton's apologists can't really come up with good reasons why his cause should be considered. He wrote some good books. That's really it.

Did he demonstrate heroic virtue? If so, how?

I know, or know of, hundreds of parents looking after disabled children who have a greater virtue than Chesterton and other authors.

Don't want to enter the Chesterton debate, but your point about caregivers is well made.

aussie_aussie_oi_oi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 13, 2026 5:03 pm I know, or know of, hundreds of parents looking after disabled children who have a greater virtue than Chesterton and other authors.

How could you possibly know something like that?

I offer Gray:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

One doesn't have to know to know.

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Feb 15, 2026 1:07 pm I offer Gray:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

One doesn't have to know to know.

I love this poem.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:—
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

In days of yore, in a small, rural, high school in Arkansas, one English teacher, still hopeful that a jot of beauty could be pounded into the sons and daughters of farmers and mechanics and shopkeepers, used a valuable technique long discredited in progressive faculties of education -- memorization. She required that every member of the Senior English class memorize and recite the following:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

...and...

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

I recall one rustic rising and wrestling with the first stanza. The first line was a struggle as : "The Corfu tolls the kneel of parting day." The next line is burned in memory as the lowing heard winded slowly ore the lee ... pronounced as the movement of gasses and not a serpentine route. I can still see our teacher rolling her eyes as she imagined the bovine flatulence. I was a transplant into that school and might as well have been in Zanzibar' the poor bard might as well been in Xanadu. I recall our teacher meeting my eyes for an instant, sighing, but carrying on with her impossible dream. I got it. My classmates were, some of them, bound to be the Gray's gems and flow'rs.

So, Gray's Elegy, from that day, is a favorite. Years later, standing under the lych gate at the entrance to the churchyard of St Giles' Church in Stoke Poges, I could only thing of the lowing herd farting its way o'er the lea.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 13, 2026 3:12 pm Did he demonstrate heroic virtue? If so, how?

He wore a cape, and everybody knows only heroes wear capes.