A couple of interviews with me went online recently—both in Polish, I'm afraid:
The biggest challenge of my tour promoting the Polish edition of The Thrill of the Chaste was learning how to give a speech via an interpreter.
The Soli Deo club, a Catholic college-student group, just posted four videos comprising the first 40 minutes of the hourlong talk I gave to its members at the Warsaw School of Economics on the morning of Saturday, April 18. It was my first public lecture in that country (as opposed to the "talk show" format of my appearance at the previous evening's Master Academy of Love). You can see in the videos that I was just getting the hang of the unique requirements that using an interpreter entails, such as speaking in short sentences.
My talks are mostly ad libbed, so it was a real challenge to learn how to keep my train of thought throughout the interruptions. It took me a few talks before I began to lose the habit of staring at the interpreter to see when it was my cue to resume speaking. I also did not realize at first why my usual talk, which is about 30 minutes long, was turning into an hour. Of course, it was because the interpreting doubled its length.
I hope Soli Deo posts the end of my talk, if only to show the audience and their questions and answers. About 100 students were there, a wonderful group who, as with other audiences I encountered in Poland, inspired me with their desire to live out their faith.
You are very much forgiven if you don't watch all 40 minutes of the videos in the playlist embedded below. But if you do watch it and are frustrated by the cliffhanger, the rest of the story is captured in "The wallflower and the carpenter" and in my interview for Air Maria.
UPDATED: Wow, the time must have just flown by as I spoke to the students. The video clips now total 110 minutes, and that doesn't even cover the entire Q&A session. Of course, my part of that was only 55 minutes or so, given the interpreter.
A highlight of my Poland tour last month (promoting the Polish-language edition of my book The Thrill of the Chaste) was getting to appear at Warsaw's Master Academy of Love.
Known by its Polish acronym, MAM, the organization puts on monthly panels in a talk-show format, punctuated by video clips and a sketch with live actors, all on the subject of romantic love, marriage, and family. The events have a Catholic perspective, but are centered upon advice for practical living, rather than religious instruction. They are enormously popular. The one I attended, at a college theater, was sold out, and I have never seen any religion-tinted event hold a packed audience's attention so well for so long— three and a half hours, to be exact.
A montage of the April 17 MAM event is now online—click here or click the image below and the video will open in a new page. I come in at about 1:18 and towards the end. The woman seated to my right (your left) was my interpreter.
One of the interviews I did in Poland is available online now—in Polish, of course, but with a fun photo.
If English is more your style, check out Southern Baptist Seminary Prof. Mary Kassian's recent review of my book The Thrill of the Chaste.
P.S. If you are unable to get the above-referenced Irving Berlin song out of your head, here's Fred Astaire's version.
Just found this on YouTube: a promo video made by Soli Deo, an organization of Catholic college students in Warsaw, for their upcoming series of talks, including the one I will be giving this Saturday during my tour to promote the Polish edition of my book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. (That link will take you to an order page for the English-language edition, which is currently nearly sold out from Amazon; more copies are on order.)
Interesting to see that they chose a clip of a talk I gave in Cleveland two years ago. There are more recent clips of me on YouTube, but this one apparenty raised a point they wanted to accentuate. It helps me get a better idea of what to discuss in my talk to Soli Deo, which they are billing under the title "Sex in the City."
Following is the latest itinerary for my first-ever tour of Poland, where I will be promoting Dreszcz czystości (left), the Polish-language translation of my book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. It sounds like it will be exhausting and absolutely wonderful:
April 17
6-8 a.m. (approx.): Interview for live national morning TV show “Tea or Coffee.”
11 a.m. : Interview for Warsaw Radio.
7 p.m.: Speak at Warsaw's Master Academy of Love.
April 18
11 a.m.: Speak to the student club "Soli Deo" at the Warsaw School of Economics. The talk is billed under the title "Sex in a Big City."
3 p.m.: Interview for Polish TV network TVN.
4 p.m.: Speak at the Warsaw Catholic Book Fair. The talk is billed under the title "Chaste Sex."
5:15 p.m.: Interview for the Catholic weekly Gościa Niedzielnego, circulation 180,000.
April 19 (Divine Mercy Sunday)
5 p.m.: Speak at the old refectory of the Dominican priory in Wroclaw. The talk is billed under the title "Chaste Sex."
8:15 p.m.: Speak to the students at Maciejówka, the main Catholic student center at Wroclaw.
April 20
5:30 p.m.: (In Krakow:) Interview with the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, circulation 42,000. Interviewers will be Artur Sporniak and Father Jacek Prusak S.J.
7 p.m.: Speak to college students at the capitulary of the Dominican priory in Kraków. The talk is billed under the title "Chaste Sex."
April 21
Sightsee in and around Kraków. Depending on time and transportation, I am hoping to visit Auschwitz and the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy. Back to Warsaw in the evening, and return home the following day.
Just received an updated itinerary for my Polish tour, which I will post later tonight. In the meantime, thought I would share this beautifully designed poster for my Krakow talk, which I found online. It includes the cover of the Polish edition of my book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On.
The blog of the Polish Catholic newsweekly Tygodnik Powszechny currently features a review by journalist and author Artur Sporniak about the Polish edition of my book The Thrill of the Chaste.
Although Google's automatic English translation of the review is choppy, it looks like Sporniak was prepared to find my book lame because (1) the cover made it look as though it were for teenagers, (2) he assumed it was a product of the American abstinence-ed movement, and (3) I dedicated it to the Virgin Mary and St. Maximilian Kolbe. (Actually, since I didn't want to ruffle feathers at my Protestant U.S. publisher, I left out the "Saint" prefixes in the hope that it would look like I was simply dedicating the book to friends. It says, "To Mary and Maximilian, with gratitude for your inspiring examples and prayers.")
Thankfully, Sporniak seems to have gotten a pleasant surprise—or, rather, a shock. "Actually, it is difficult to write about this book—its authenticity shocks," he writes. "You have to read it."
UPDATE: Polish reader Mary F. has sent me her own translation of parts of Sporniak's review, which is clearer than Google's translation. Here are a couple of choice quotes:
Do you remember when I wrote about Nouwen? In the book 'Intimacy' he presents conversion as a transition from the phobic reflex of capturing of and gaining power over another person to[wards] spiritual intimacy that makes us helpless before God and the other person. Only in the area of this intimate vulnerability/ helplessness and sincerity might happen great things : love, forgiveness, death and resurrection. D. E. relates/ describes exactly such 'transition', thus becoming completely vulnerable/ helpless before ... the reader. This is hard to compare with anything. Only "Confessions" [of St. Augustine] comes to mind.I would not say that negative experiences in and of themselves produce wisdom; rather, in the words of Mark Shea, "Sin makes you stupid." But if Sporniak is saying that one can sense the sacredness of a human faculty by how badly it goes wrong when it is misused, he is right on the money. Corruptio optimi pessima; the corruption of the best things are the worst things.
... I was once writing that sex addicts, when they are genuinely becoming healthy, through their own suffering and negative experiences, have insight into the pure essence of sexuality. "Thrill of the Chaste deals exactly with this [issue\. It not only describes [the process of] healing, but the very essence of sexuality.
Today I received the preliminary itinerary for my first-ever tour of Poland. The April trip is to promote Dreszcz czystości, the Polish-language translation of my self-help book for grown-ups who missed the memo on abstinence, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On.
I am terrifically excited at the prospect of seeing Poland for the first time, speaking there, and visiting the holy sites. As an added bonus, since my Polish publisher, W Drodze, is owned and operated by the Polish Dominican order, I will get to stay in historic Dominican priories. And how wonderful to be in Poland for Divine Mercy Sunday! Here is the tentative schedule:
April 16: Arrive in Warsaw in the evening, stay at Dominican priory in Sluzew (one of the newer priories, established 1934)
April 17: Appear on live national morning television show “Tea or Coffee”; give an interview to Warsaw Radio; speak at Warsaw's Master Academy of Love.
April 18: Speak to students of the "Soli Deo" club at University of Warsaw; meet book readers at the Warsaw Catholic Book fair.
April 19 (Divine Mercy Sunday): Speak at Dominican priory in Wroclaw (established 1226); speak to students from the Wroclaw University Catholic chaplaincy; stay at the St. Elisabeth sisters' priory.
April 20: Speak to students at Dominican priory in Kraków, the oldest Dominican house in Poland (established 1222).
April 21: Sightseeing in and around Kraków. Depending on time and transportation, I am hoping to visit Auschwitz and the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy. Back to Warsaw in the evening, and return home the following day.
Many thanks to Niall Mor for suggesting the phenomenal headline.
This just in from Warsaw: Dreszcz czystości—that would be the Polish edition of my book The Thrill of the Chaste—has received the endorsement of the Master Academy of Love. The academy is associated with Warsaw's diocesan radio station, Radio Józef.
MAL's Web site features a review of my book and also an excerpt from the Polish edition. Those links will take you to Google's computerized Polish-to-English translations of both. The translation of the review jumbles the critic's prose, but it's clearly a rave: "Topic close the book to anyone who is not ashamed to admit that sex is terribly compelling sphere of life, energy and the bomb that can not easily over her reign. On my nose will bestseller!"