Reading ...

I haven't quite finished James Herriott's "All Creatures" but am in the home stretch. And I am in the middle of a couple other books, but I picked up Beyond Capitalism & Socialism: A New Statement of an Old Ideal (IHS Press) this weekend.

I have met the editor Dr. Tobias Lanz several times as we used to attend the same parish in Columbia, SC. I have not kept in good contact with him in recent years. In any event, I had been waiting for an opportunity to purchase this book. A few days ago I needed to buy a reference book for raising pigs (our renewals at the library having expired) and saw a chance to get free shipping if I only added a certain amount to the bill. The price of this book fit neatly...

I am not reading the book in order, which is a series of twelve essays. The first I stumbled upon was by Dr. William Fahey (formerly of Christendom College in VA and now of Thomas More in NH). He describes the slaughter of a pig-but not in the usual manner. And he describes perfectly my great affection towards my pigs-about 40 days out from our 'event':

Faintly, modern men still know some of the ancient affection that a farmer might hold for his animals. The love of a city dweller has for his Siamese is overly sentimental and a result of the displacement of children, but felt truly enough. Rarely, though, do his feelings have that depth which can only come for something that lives side by side with you, that has required considerable time and sacrifice to raise, that shares the regular cycle of the day, that lives under the power of the elements, and that brings some material blessing to the entire family. The story of the Good Shepard is increasingly inaccessible ....

Or this from Fr. Lawrence Smith:

The key to transforming the world is to transform the individual soul and then the family. It is the father within the family who must decide the direction of such a transformation. There is no coincidence that the destruction of the family began not with forcing women into the workplace or putting children in compulsory public schools or taxing income and non-productive real estate, but in removing the father from the family farm or the family trade. Much of the cure to what ails us is dependent on returning the father to his proper place a the head of the family and in the home. (emphasis in the original-jc)

The last essay in the book (by Dr. Lanz) is particularly good-but I will clip some of that later.

Now to work ... Oremus pro invicem!