Wednesday, after about ten days of cough and chest
congestion, I went to the doctors. I should have gone earlier but…
I’ve got bronchitis! Rest, medication, and boredom.
I really miss being out in the countryside, but it’s been
out of the question.
Thursday and Friday I did have to sit in on a workshop at
Caritas, but I didn’t do anything much.
This is rather boring and so I’ve been reading a lot – and
now writing this rather vapid blog entry.
I did finish two books I had started but never got around to
finishing.
Jeffrey T. Jackson’s
The Globalizers: Development Workers in Action is an interesting look at
develop workers in Honduras and a critique of development, a type of power, as
benefiting the donor countries. The chapters on the El Cajon Dam are damning.
Francis of Assisi and
the Future of Faith: Exploring Franciscan Spirituality and Theology in the
Modern World Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith: Exploring Franciscan
Spirituality and Theology in the Modern World by the Franciscan friar Dan
Horan is a series of essays, some of which I found very helpful, including “From
Stewardship to Kinship: A Franciscan Understanding of Creation.”
I like to rad suspense novels every once in a while as
“light” reading and so I read two novels by the late Andrew Greeley. They are
somewhat predictable but fun, with interesting twists and turns. The
protagonist, Bishop Blackie Ryan, is a real Chicago Irish character.
Unfortunately I read the two novels in the wrong order and knew the conclusion
of the one novel almost before I finished the first chapter. If you read them
read them in this order: first, The
Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain; then, The Bishop Goes to the University: A Blackie Ryan Story.
I also read two other books.
I had read the first, Lawrence Cunningham’s Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel
Life. This year I have been reading a lot of Francis. I find this little
book rather good, since it reveals Francis as one who took the incarnation to heart.
I heartily recommend it as an introduction to Francis (even though there are a
few minor errors.)
The other, which I just finished tonight, is John Thavis’s The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes
Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic
Church. Thavis was a Vatican
correspondent for Catholic News Services for years, but his account is not in
any way a “cover-up.” Rather it’s an open-up the Vatican, with a special focus
on the actors within the walls. It was published before Benedict XVI resigned.
I finished it thinking how providential that Francis was chosen pope. The Holy
Spirit may well be working overtime.
What will I read now?
I’ve got a list, but some of them require a little more
attention than I think I can give while recuperating. I’ve been wanting to read
Leonardo Boff’s Francis of Assisi: A
Model for Human Liberation. I read a few pages but I think it needs a more
attentive mind and body.
I also need to finish Donal Dorr’s Option for the Poor and for the Earth: Catholic Social Teaching.
The list includes José Antonio Pagoli’s Jesús: Aproximación histórica as well as Dorothy Day’s Diaries, The Duty of Delight.
In the meantime I’ll have to see if I can find something just
to pass the time.
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