Nun gets The Thrill

""While I am on the subject of books, women might be interested in reading a book by author Dawn Eden entitled The Thrill of the Chaste.

"I would recommend this book for late teens/adults and it's a memoir by the author of her search for true chastity in her life. Ms. Eden shares with the reader about her life that was filled with men and worldly things, yet it didn't bring her what her heart truly sought. She was looking for something far deeper than what society had to offer.

"Ms. Eden is open and honest about her experiences and she has a great wisdom and sense of humor and a desire to be everything that God wants her to be. I found it refreshing and insightful."

— Sister Miriam James of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, who read my book while preparing for her Perpetual Vows in Bosque, N.M.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Grill of the chaste

Reading my two latest interviews promoting The Thrill of the Chaste, in MercatorNet and the July issue of NewsMax magazine, it struck me that I really must think of some new answers.

Admittedly, my situation is unusual. First-time authors don't normally do very many interviews, and when they do, the interviews are usually for radio, where one can say the same things each time and get away with it. I'm thankful to still be giving interviews about my book six months after its publication.

I had little experience giving interviews before The Thrill came out last December. If one interviewer asked me the same question that another had, and if I could still remember what I had said before, I felt more confident repeating my earlier words than trying to come up with a new answer. Also, to be fair, there are only so many ways that one can restate the same facts.

But now it's gotten to the point that I'm annoyed with myself. I need to find new ways to answer the questions that keep coming up again and again — ""What made you decide to write the book?" How did you go from being a rock journalist living a, uh, free lifestyle to being chaste?" "What is the thrill of the chaste?"

On the other hand, there are a number of questions I haven't been asked, to which I could answer something I haven't said before. I'd like to be asked some devil's-advocate questions, like:

"You say in your book that one thrill of the chaste is wonder. What about someone who's lonely, who has been chaste for some time and not by choice — how can she find that wonder?"

"You have much to say about the unfulfilling experience of casual sex, but most women only have sex in a committed relationship. How can you say chastity is a better way of life for them?"

"You suggest that shared values are important. I know Christian women who are in happy marriages to nonbelievers. Is it really wise to warn young women against dating men who do not share their faith?"

"You've criticized the idea of stressing female chastity over male chastity — yet your book is targeted at women. Explain."

Brian's songs

Going through my belongs in preparation for my move, I discovered that I own an autographed copy of the songbook for the Beach Boys' Love You album. Brian Wilson signed it for me when I interviewed him in August 1988.

As you can see in this blurry cell-phone snap, Wilson signed the book in pen "TO DAWN," in the shaky, overmedicated hand of his Eugene Landy years.

It is in about the same condition as the one going for $45, sans autograph, from a used bookstore — some wear around the edges, but overall in good shape. It has a small stain on the edge of the upper-right-hand corner.

I also have an autographed copy of Wilson's autobiography, Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story, first-edition hardback. It's likewise signed "To Dawn," only in Sharpie. It still has the original dust jacket and is in very good condition, though I haven't checked every single page for Cheez Doodle fingerprints. (I used to eat those orange snacks while reading.)

I'd like to give away either of these items to anyone who will make a $100 donation ($200 if you want both) to Bridge to Life, a pregnancy resource center that does great and important work in Queens, N.Y. If you're interested, write me first to let me know which of the books you want — use the e-mail address at left or my contact form. Then, after I write back to you, you'll make the donation to Bridge via PayPal and e-mail me the receipt. As soon as I have the receipt, I'll send out the book or books via Priority Mail, insured, at my expense.

As a bonus, if you get back to me before I move tomorrow morning, I'll throw in some surprise rock-history books and/or vintage music magazines from my collection.

'Red-hot' lovers

Dr. Thursday offers a must-read take on the love song of G.K. Chesterton.

The Thrill Down Under

"I wrote it because when I first started practicing chastity I looked for books on the subjects and all I could find was Evangelical-type books with titles like "Lady In Waiting", which were written by virgins-'til-marriage for virgins-'til-marriage. I've nothing against such books but these were from a culture where people are completely cocooned and not tainted by the outside world. So when I became chaste I wanted to write a book for the rest of us, for the people who actually need to learn to be chaste."

— Me, speaking to the Australian online magazine MercatorNet, on The Thrill of the Chaste

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Between rock and a hard place

"Grunge is what happens when children of divorce get their hands on guitars."

— Newsweek writer Jeff Giles on Kurt Cobain. Via Child of Divorce/Child of God.

Rolf club

Over 30 years before the Cardinal Newman Society began doing battle against the V-Monolgues, Catholic campuses faced the threat of openly untied kangaroos:



From "Hootenanny," February 22, 1964 — less than two weeks after the Beatles' Ed Sullivan debut. Anybody know what movie poster is standing in for Rolf Harris's didgeridoo wobble board?

Thanks to Kevin Walsh for the tip.

Parting shots

Went to a burger joint with my dear friend Matt Alderman of Shrine of the Holy Whapping and other pals a couple nights back and gave Matt some parting gifts in advance of my move to the Washington, D.C. area. He let out a joyous exclamation when he saw the legend on the baseball cap from Belmont Abbey College: "got monks?"

Yesterday I said goodbye to my favorite local statue — this gorgeously wistful icon of Mary.

Chastity on the (No. 7) line

Just a reminder that I'll be speaking tomorrow night, 7:30 p.m., at Theology on Tap, at the Saints and Sinners pub in Woodside, Queens. Check the Appearances page of thrillofthechaste.com for details of my next appearance after that — in Chicago.

Plaque attack

American Chesterton Society president Dale Ahlquist, host of EWTN's "Apostle of Common Sense," surprised me when I finished my talk at the Chesterton conference earlier this month — giving me the society's prestigious Outline of Sanity award.

Dale just sent me the above photo of the occasion, along with an explanation of the honor: "Past winners include Joseph Pearce, Prof. Ralph McInerny of Notre Dame, Hon. Race Mathews (former Australian MP and cabinet minister), Robert Royal (director of the Faith and Reason Institute), and the late Heywood Cirker (chairman of Dover Publications). I hope you feel you're in good company. What they all have in common is that they've done something important to make Chesterton better known and therefore have promoted sanity in an insane world."

Good company indeed! Many thanks to Dale and all the American Chesterton Society. The award, which I believe is for my Chesterton references in The Thrill of the Chaste as well as the mentions I've been making of the author in interviews, means more to me than I can say.

"In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on which side we fought." — G.K. Chesterton

My talk at the Chesterton conference is available for purchase on the American Chesterton Society's Web site. All proceeds go to the society.

Why porcine pitchmen are not kosher

Blogger Jill Stanek has harsh words for about the rejected men-as-pigs condom commercial.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site's synopsis of the commercial (video of which is on Jill's site), it "features women at a bar surrounded by pigs. When one pig goes to the restroom and returns with a condom purchased at a vending machine, he is transformed into an attractive man. The end of the commercial carries the message: 'Evolve: Use a condom every time.'"

The refusal of Fox and CBS to run the commercial was seen by abortion advocates such as Kaiser as reflecting the networks' pro-family biases against contraception. Stanek disagrees (and so, I might add, might anyone who's seen the numerous pro-contraception shows on those networks).

"The ad is simply in poor taste," Stanek writes. "A man exploiting a woman in a bar to be his unpaid hooker is a pig with or without a condom in his pocket."

One could take her "unpaid hooker" line as Ann Coulter-style hyperbole. Certainly, it's meant to shock. But it raises a point that I've wondered about ever since I first heard the definition of prostitution.

What, exactly, distinguishes a man or woman who has casual sex with someone for recreation, from one who does so for money?

It's an important question because, taken from the ultra-liberal or libertarian side, it could be taken as an argument in favor of legalizing prostitution. After all, if casual sex is transactional in every aspect save for actual money changing hands, why penalize those who do it for money?

Personally, I have a hard time distinguishing between the concept of having sex with someone because he will give one the boost one wants, and having sex with someone because he will give one's wallet the boost one wants. Both involve exploitation by mutual consent.

I believe that sex can be nonexploitational only when it is not the foundation of the relationship. Otherwise, in the wisdom of my grandparents, pigs is pigs.

Shill of the chaste

Check out the newly redesigned Press page at thrillofthechaste.com. It's now easier than ever to plow through the links to the dozens of online reviews, interviews, and other mentions of the book. Many thanks to webmaster Saint Kansas.

From Woodside to the North Side

The Thrill of the Chaste tour continues!

June 28

Talk and signing, "Theology on Tap," Saints and Sinners Pub,
Woodside (Queens), N.Y., 7:30 p.m.

July 10

Talk and signing, "Views from the Veranda," St. Alphonsus Church,
Chicago, Ill., 7 p.m.

Get hammered

Nothing like a little harpsichord to end your day. Pierre Hantai performs the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Word up

The radio interview I gave to Dr. Albert Mohler is a "unique conversation" that "brings elements of vocabulary out of oblivion," says communications professor Don R. Vaughan in today's Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger. I assume the plug has nothing to do with the first word in his vocabulary quiz: "faux pas."

Gift for grads

If you or someone you know is a new college graduate with a conservative bent, talk-radio host and author Kevin McCullough (Musclehead Revolution) is offering a free gift and public kudos.

VA-va-voom

Many thanks to everyone who offered suggestions as I sought a place to stay in the Washington, D.C., area. I found a wonderful place in northern Virginia that will hold me 'til I can buy a permanent home. Moving day is July 1!

Darkest before Dawn

After I spoke at the G.K. Chesterton conference last Friday, I was touched that several people came up to thank me for my frankness in discussing the cyclical depression that plagued me from my late teens until I received my faith at age 31.

My depression was what's known as unipolar. I would go from static periods of relative normalcy to black holes of despair and back, with no manic highs. In fact, I was quite jealous of manic-depressives; at least they got to run around public streets in their underwear and do other exciting things. All I got to do during my mood swings was lock the door and put on a CD of Beethoven's late quartets or harpsichordist Seymour Hayden's recording of the Goldberg Variations. (Other great I Hate Myself and Want to Die recordings are Big Star's Third, Phil Ochs' Rehearsals for Retirement, Nico's Chelsea Girl, and the Bee Gees' Cucumber Castle.)

In my conference talk, I described the darkness that I went through, including how I went through a baker's dozen therapists until I found one with whom I clicked, and then was prescribed various medications. My psychiatrist switched my antidepressants several times because my depression was so virulent. It resisted the mood elevators as though they were hostile invaders. Which, I suppose, in a sense, they were.

While I benefited from the stabilizing effects of lithium (which is a buffer but not an upper), the antidepressants were more like helium. They lifted me up without giving me any emotional foundation to fall back on. When the boost that I got from starting a new antidepressant wore off, I was left like Wile E. Coyote after he's inadvertently walked off a cliff; I'd suddenly realize I was standing on thin air, and the only way to go was straight down.

I told the Chesterton crowd about the healing I received upon receiving faith:* Within six months of my conversion to Christianity in October 1999, I was able to go off the antidepressants entirely. My psychiatric diagnosis changed from "Major Depression" to ... wait for it ... "Major Depression in Remission."

A "remission" for nearly eight years and counting, thank God.

In my talk, which is available on CD from the American Chesterton Society's Web site, I described how Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday let into my darkness some cracks of light that, over time, prepared me to receive healing.

Starting from the book's first chapter, Chesterton contrasts false rebellion — which is nihilism — with true rebellion. The true kind is the rebellion of truth and beauty against the forces of chaos and destruction.

"The most poetical thing in the world," Chesterton writes through the voice of the book's hero, "is not being sick."

I told the conferencegoers what it meant to me to discover the poetry of not being sick. It was a personal odyssey that required me to give up some of the behaviors that my "do your own thing" therapist had told me would assuage my depression, but which in fact had made it worse. (In my book The Thrill of the Chaste, I describe this vicious cycle, where "single women feel lonely because they are not loved, so they have casual sex with men who do not love them.")

What struck me most deeply about The Man Who Was Thursday, I said, and what I tried to put across in my own book, was Chesterton's gratitude for the seemingly insignificant aspects of daily life. Reflecting upon how he had led me to a greater appreciation of the gift of existence, I quoted a line that I remembered from Jewish worship, Psalm 72:18: "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things!"


*Sorry to say I've yet to detail this in my autobiographical "Wuz" series (see drop-down menu at left), though I will continue the series someday. In the meantime, the CD of my talk has the story.

Altar call

Listening to an audience member's question at the Legion of Mary youth conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 9. Photo by Fiona Hodge.
The nicest comment I heard about my talk at the Chesterton conference — indeed, the highest compliment I've ever received after a speech — came via the blogger who calls himself Unknown Poet. Although he missed my talk, he was standing outside the auditorium afterwards, when the crowd was exiting. One of those leaving, he said, was a Catholic priest who exclaimed, "I could marry her!"

RELATED: More on my Chesterton talk (and a photo of me in a familiar-looking top) is on But I Digress.

Classical gas

The Curt Jester offers a satirical take on the Pontifical Council for Migrants issued a “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” aka The Ten Commandments of Driving.
I'm surprised that, amidst his puns, he didn't suggest a catchier title for the guidelines, e.g.:

"Axle and You Shall Receive"
"Wheel and Grace"
"The Gospel on Speed"
"Fuel for Christ"
"Wreck-ta Ratio"
"Signal Graces"

Bloomy's bad faith

Opinion Journal's James Taranto describes how Michael Bloomberg insulted the religious beliefs of 60% of Americans:

Sunday will never be the same

My P.O. box recently spat forth a package containing copies of my article that appeared in London's Mail on Sunday's You magazine at the end of April. Click the image above to read the piece. The editor took some liberties, mostly in Brit-ifying the language. (Did you know that an "out" in Britain, as in, "You have an 'out' of this contract," is called a "get-out"? I didn't.) Even so, I'm very happy with the way it came out overall. Apparently my February outfit used up the fabric quota for the entire magazine; the pages following my piece featured the usual impossibly long-limbed, poreless models in teeny bikinis.

Appropriately enough, the photo was taken by a male on Sunday. Getty Images photographer Shaul Schwarz wanted to photograph me in a church, but settled for Grand Central Terminal when I explained that it would be disrespectful (if not downright crass) to do so. He used no lighting save for a flash, which explains why my blue eyes look strangely dark.

My smile is for my then-boyfriend; I asked him to come along to the shoot as inspiration. He did his job beautifully. When Schwarz photographed me outside, having me remove my bulky leather coat in 30-degree weather, my sweetheart kept me smiling by telling me to "offer it up."

The last paragraph of the article is poignant in light of the relationship's end. It really was a "highway to heartbreak." Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from it was that there didn't have to be a moral to the story. What I carried away from the experience was not as important as how I dealt with it. Once again, offering it up has proven to be the best route to a smile — though it's taken a little longer to achieve the desired result this time around.

(P.S. to souls in purgatory: You can thank me later ...)

Good morning! Check out my op-ed in yesterday's L.A. Daily News!

Your aria of expertise

Opera fans: What's the best version of Gounod's "Faust" available on CD? I've never heard the opera in its entirety, but watching this startlingly intense clip of the church scene makes me think that I need to get to know it.

Phantom appearance

The cathedral at Glendalough, Ireland, June 11, 2007, photographed by me.
I'm home ... and exhausted.

Must get sleep for phone interview tomorrow at 9:15 a.m. Eastern/2:15 p.m. GMT on Dublin's Phantom 105.2 FM (listen online).

A mystery man using the e-mail handle "ideasmithy," who apparently attended the G.K. Chesterton conference where I spoke last Friday, e-mailed me his unsuccessful entry in the conference's clerihew contest. It is very sweet:

Headlines speak for Miss Dawn Eden.
Morning became Eve and her knowledge was the fruit of readin'.

When finding Mr. Chesterton, she chased him back to Rome.
Innocence found is a gift not lost, her thrill was coming home.

Hippie hippie shakedown

"When it comes to inappropriate names, 'Summer of Love' has to be right up there with 'Joy Division,' the name the Nazis reportedly gave to the sections of concentration camps that housed the guards' sex slaves. ...

"Thanks to the Pill and a counterculture that defined rebellion as annoying one's parents, thousands of youths became guinea pigs in a kind of mass experiment propagated by prurient Beat Generation relics such as [Chet] Helms, Allen Ginsberg (died at 70, hepatitis and liver cancer) and Ken Kesey (died at 66, liver cancer). They were told that they would overcome the superficial consumerism in which they had been raised, reaching a higher spiritual level by uniting their minds to drugs and their bodies to willing takers. Instead, they themselves became products to be consumed - victimized by pushers, treated as sexual objects to be disposed of, or corrupted into predators. ...

"Supporters of the hippies' objectives argue that they and future generations benefited from the dismantling of repressive Eisenhower-era values that restricted sex to marriage. Well, say what you will about a culture that presumed women found their highest fulfillment in motherhood, but one doesn't see many repressed housewives panhandling on modern-day Haight Street. One does see lost geriatric flower children with stringy hair and rotten teeth who contracepted or aborted the children who could have taken care of them in their old age."

—  Excerpts from "Hippie Hippie Shakedown," my op-ed (and headline) on the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love in today's Los Angeles Daily News. The paper published my piece alongside an opposing op-ed. It's interesting to contrast the pieces, considering that neither I nor opposing writer Larry Atkins got to preview one another's articles.

THIS JUST IN: The folks at Democratic Underground have named my op-ed the "nutzoid column of the week" [warning: contains profanity].

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Leaving Eire

Today is the last day of my wonderful trip to Dublin. I've been unable to photoblog as I'd hoped because of lack of Net access, but plan to have some photos up after I arrive back home tomorrow night. In the meantime, you can hear Radio 1 host Ryan Tubridy's interview with me and read a bit about"The Tubridy Show." (Thanks to Dónal O'Sullivan of Ireland's Family Media Association for sending me the link to today's show.)

Today I enjoyed lunch with journalist David Quinn of the Iona Institute, who was a fellow speaker at the Legion of Mary's Catholic Youth Conference last weekend. It was only afterwards, when I got to check my e-mail, that I saw a note from Raving Atheist  reminding me that Quinn effectively defeated Richard Dawkins in a verbal matchup on "The Tubridy Show" last year. He is set to do a radio debate with Christopher Hitchens later this week.

He's Eire, there and everywhere

A quick note from a borrowed computer at All Hallows College, where the Legion of Mary conference at which I spoke went wonderfully: Attended a beautiful Tridentine Mass at St. Audoen's Church in Dublin today (note: all Tridentine Masses are beautiful) and discovered that apparently everyone and their brother know my good friend from New York City via Notre Dame, Matt Alderman of Holy Whapping fame. Will share more details when I find an Internet place in Dublin that has wireless ...

Also, I'm on Ireland's Radio 1 Tuesday morning between 9 and 10 a.m. — yay!

Eire I go

I'm off to Dublin! Bringing computer and camera, hope to photoblog, though probably not every day.

The next stops on my Thrill of the Chaste tour are:

June 9-10

Speak at "God Is Love," the annual Catholic Youth Conference for ages 18-40, sponsored by the Legion of Mary, All Hallows College, Dublin, Ireland.

June 15

Speak at 26th annual G.K. Chesterton Conference, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn., 7 p.m. (just before Joseph Pearce's talk). Topic: "“The Girl Who Was Thirsty: How G. K. Chesterton Opened the Door to My Conversion."

* * *

I had the honor of appearing on EWTN Radio's Catholic Answers Live! yesterday. The Curt Jester offers constructive criticism and a link to an MP3 of the show.

While I'd rather hear Gregorian chant ...

... the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal certainly deserve the positive attention they received for their "rock band" on WNBC-TV.

Urgent request to D.C.-area readers

Could you please help me find a place to stay in your area? I need an apartment or room from July 1 through Oct. 31 (by which time I hope to buy a condo). If it's a shared unit, I'd like to stay either in a married couple's spare room or with chaste single roommates who don't do drugs or drink to get drunk. (Impossible, you say — well, that's why God made corporate housing. However, I'd like to try every possible avenue before going that route.)

The location has to be on the Metro's Orange Line in Virginia — and by that, I mean on top of the Orange Line; no more than a 15-minute walk from the station. That's because I don't drive, I'll be taking a 40-minute bus ride from Vienna each day, and I don't want to do a three-vehicle commute.

If you have any leads, please e-mail me at the address at left or send a message through my contact form. Many thanks.

Halo, it's me

My old friend Bill McGarvey, a very fine singer and songwriter who knew me in my rock-historian days, has done a wide-ranging interview with me for Busted Halo, the online magazine he edits. Here's a highlight:

"I was looking for something deeper and looking in the wrong places, but at the same time, I would go through phases [where] I was particularly depressed, and if I really had a low self-image then I would seek to be found attractive by some guy, because I would think, well you know if this guy finds me attractive then there must be something good about me. It’s a terrible way to go through life.

"And the thing is a feminist can say, that it’s not good to have sex with someone because of low self-esteem. But the thing is, if you’re a feminist, you can never say that any reason to have sex is a bad reason, because women have a freedom of choice, so you can’t actually say that there are bad choices."

In case that's not clear, what I'm saying is that feminists contradict themselves — warning against acting out of poor self-esteem, while simultaneously claiming that no legal action a woman makes by her free choice should be subject to others' moral judgment.

I go on:

"What I discovered upon becoming chaste, it’s always wrong to treat people as though they are interchangeable. The thing is, any time you have sex with someone outside of marriage, you’re treating them as though they can be replaced. Because the only irreplaceable person is the person you marry."

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

Belly up

Remember what I wrote yesterday about the mainstream media being viewed by some Christians, conservatives, and pro-lifers as the belly of the beast?

The ultra-scatological gossip site Gawker, working overtime to be blasphemous, offers a tapeworm's-eye view of the beast's bilious innards with its profanity-laden* coverage of my announcement of my new job. (See my original post for the factually accurate, acid-free version.)

*As Gawker managing editor Choire Sicha notes in the comments to this post, Gawker's actual post contains blasphemies (taking God's name ironically) but not profanities. The comments to that post do contain profanities, however, in abundance. Be forewarned.

Debasement tapes

For those fans of Bob Dylan or Thrill of the Chaste who missed this the first time around, here's "Chastity Rome-Chick Blues," adapted from the Dylan tune, directed by the Raving Atheist and performed by Saint Kansas.

Buy The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On at Amazon.com.

'Legion of Mary routs drug dealers'

You just can't improve on a headline like that.

Researching the Legion of Mary online in advance of my talk at its youth conference this weekend, I found a May 27 news article on how the Legion is using spiritual weapons to drive drug dealers off a Dublin street:

A NEW force has come out to combat the scourge of drugs in inner city Dublin - Legion of Mary volunteers handing out holy medals and religious pamphlets.

Some traders in the famous Moore St in central Dublin are putting down a remarkable transformation of the area down to a flight of drugdealers before the religious zealots.

The Legion of Mary previously targeted Stringfellows Lap Dancing Club in Parnell St, at the top of Moore St, which eventually closed.

Since the Legion of Mary started handing out leaflets and medals on the street several months ago, the place has, according to some local traders undergone a remarkable transformation, and has now returned back to its once peaceful ambience.

Giving out Miraculous Medals to counter evil? That's my kind of activism!

The article goes on ("traders" apparently are street vendors):

Many of the traders had to work the street with drug dealers openly dealing within yards of their stalls there was also a 'crackhouse' operating on the street.

"There were dealers from Ireland as well, loads of them. I don't know if the Legion of Mary drove them all out, sure no one believes in anything anymore!" explained street trader Francie Turner.

That last line is gloriously Chestertonian.

The end of the article (which is worth reading in its entirety is also delightful.

The old-fashioned image of the Legion of Mary, of ladies of a certain age in brown sensible shoes and calico socks, has long been replaced by younger people in professions. In the city centre beat, they normally work the street in groups of three men, offering medals or a chat about the work of the Legion to anyone who cares to take an interest.

These people sound like the salt of the earth. I can't wait to meet them.

Watch this space for a major announcement later today. I can't say what it is just now, but it's very positive and is partly a result of the success of The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On.

Scissors-wielding saint

Pennsylvania Patriot-News reporter Jim Lewis tells a beautiful story about a devout barber who died last month at 76:

When a Pennsylvania governor needed a haircut, he engaged a state police escort, left his office in the Capitol and traveled just up the street to Antonio "Tony" Macri's barber shop.

There, he sat in Macri's chair, listened to the Italian music and opera playing on a radio and admired the religious artwork that hung on the wall: a re-creation of the Holy Spirit descending on the apostles that was seared into wood with hot metal tools by the barber himself in the back room.

Five governors wandered regularly into Macri's State Street shop, where Italy and Roman Catholicism were celebrated. The barber even attracted several Catholic bishops as regular customers, as well as countless state workers who were eager for a haircut on their lunch break.

Macri's apostolate reached well outside his shop. With his priest's permission, he brought the Eucharist to prisoners. Read the whole article.

Quote of the day

"Where is his certain knowledge of what is right and wrong supposed to have come from?"

 — Peter Hitchens on his brother Christopher, in a brilliant essay.

Today's pick to click

The next Friday was the night we called it a day. Or, rather, I finally broke down and said I could not go on. We had gone to see the Broadway show "Spamalot" and had dinner, had some laughs. We were in her room, lying on the bed, frustrated with each other; I was seldom in the mood anymore, feeling pressured and nervous all the time, feeling as if I were supposed to perform as a machine. Many of our fights were related to this.

I could no longer bear the unchastity I was engaging in, I needed God desperately, and I finally said so.

"I can't do this anymore," I said, "I'm spiritually dying."

It was an inelegant and hurtful truth.

— Fallen Sparrow, writing the true story of "L'Affaire B." It is a brilliant piece of writing, spread out over several entries, and is worth reading from the beginning (go to the bottom of the page and scroll up).

If I drove a car ...

... I would like it to be one like this:



I ran across this gorgeous, candy-apple-red Corvette Stingray in my neighborhood today. The seats were white, of course. What would be the year of manufacture — '65? Sorry the photos are in black and white; I'd been doing arty shots and forgot to reset the color.

Giving thanks

Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord; praise the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time on and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised.
The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high,
who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.
He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!

— Psalm 113 (NRSV)

Blogger helps ill pregnant women via CNN

Congratulations to fellow blogger Ashli Foshee McCall, who yesterday was the subject of a wonderful interview on Paula Zahn's show. Ashli is the author of Beyond Morning Sickness, a much-needed book about the pregnancy disease hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).