Chillicothe Gazette Writes About the Chillicothe Chesterton Society

I met Jona Ison, a reporter for the Chillicothe Gazette, by accident when I was substitute teaching at Paint Valley High School last week. I invited her to our (then) upcoming Wednesday night Chesterton Society meeting at Schlegel's. She was unable to attend, but did call me and invite me in to the Gazette for an interview. I spoke with her last Tuesday. Today, Friday, Nov 27, an article about the Chillicothe Chesterton Society appeared on the front page of the Gazette. I certainly hope it generates a little more interest in Chesterton and we get one or two new folks to attend our December meeting.

Great News

I spoke with Fr. Hahn of St. Peter Catholic Church yesterday. He is willing to provide a venue for the Theater of The Word's presentation of Old Thunder: An Evening with Hiliare Belloc. The presentation is scheduled for March 23, next year, 2010. The exact time will be announced at a later date. Right now, we just want folks to get it on their calendar so we can have a good turn out for a great show!

Here is a preview of how Kevin O'Brien presents Hilaire Belloc. I'm not sure it's part of his Old Thunder presentation, but it gives you the flavor of it, I'm sure! The first man you see in the clip is Dale Ahlquist, the President of the American Chesterton Society. The guy (at minute 2:41) in the cape and holding the walking stick is actor/professor Chuck Chalberg. He portrays G.K. Chesterton on the EWTN series, G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense.

Selected Chesterton Books to Be Available at Chillicothe's Book World

Chillicothe's Book World, located at 16 W. Water Street (740) 772-5732, will be ordering several books about Chesterton and several books written by Chesterton. They should have them available within a couple of weeks. I'll put up a post on the blog when they arrive. We're hoping that having them available for review, on the shelf, will generate some interest. We'll see.

Books about Chesterton:

G.K. Chesterton - The Apostle of Common Sense
by Dale Ahlquist

Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy
By William Oddie

Books by Chesterton:

Orthodoxy

The Everlasting Man

Tremendous Trifles

Saint Thomas Aquinas / Saint Francis of Assisi

Father Brown of the Church of Rome

The Man Who Was Thursday

November 18th Meeting

Well, another successful meeting. It's always a success when someone joins me for the meeting! In the picture above, it's me, Jim Maimone, and Tim Binkley. Andrew Thurston was gracious enough to take the picture. While Andrew has to work during the meetings, he is a member of the Chillicothe Chesterton Society, so maybe I'll never attend a meeting by myself, at least as long as Andrew continues to work at Schlegel's.

Jim Maimone attended his first meeting last night. When I asked Jim how he found out about the meeting, he said he had read about it in St. Peter's church bulletin. The notice in the bulletin was quite old, but Jim had saved it and finally had the opportunity to join us. I'll be asking St. Peter's to run the notice again. I may get yet another member!

We talked about Distributism. All of us are new to the concept so we've decided it will also be the subject of our December meeting. We'd like to know more about it. We've got lots of reading to do.

Since both Jim and Tim are new to Chesterton, I showed them some links we have on this blog. Using one of those links (YouTube) we listened to one of the few recordings of Chesterton. We all enjoyed it. Chesterton's self deprecating humor is refreshing.

And, finally, the big announcement. See the post below. Hilare Belloc will be visiting Chillicothe, Ohio in March of 2010.

An Evening with "Old Thunder" aka Hilaire Belloc

Here's the announcement made last night at our monthly meeting. We're really excited about this!

While it's a way off at the moment, The Chillicothe Chesterton Society will be sponsoring Old Thunder: An Evening with Hilaire Belloc in 2010. Save the date. It will be Tuesday evening, March 23 at a venue which is yet to be determined. To learn a bit about Hilaire Belloc, just click his name.

Old Thunder: An Evening with Hilaire Belloc is a one man show presented by actor Kevin O'Brien, who is the founder of Theater of the Word, Incorporated.

Here's what G.K. Chesterton had to say about Belloc: [Belloc is] "the man who has made the greatest fight for good things of all the men of my time."

As the date approaches we'll make up flyers and provide some advertising for this event.

Exciting Announcement Due at Wednesday's Meeting

What is it? Come to the next meeting on Wednesday at 7 p.m., November 18th at Schlegel's and find out! As usual we'll be talking about everything and, eventually, Distributism. The discussion will not be too deep, because I'm just learning about Distributism. I'll have a copy of Chesterton's The Outline of Sanity, and Belloc's The Servile State available for review. These two books were recommended to me by the President of the Society for Distributism. I'll also have my laptop and we'll take advantage of Schlegel's Wi-Fi so we can check out the sites providing information on Distributism.

Here's something else we might discuss. It's a quote from Chesterton.

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - Broadcast talk 6-11-35

Hmm! Was my recent vote against casinos consistent with Chestertonian thinking? Based on the above quote, I guess it wasn't.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
“Who is this guy and why haven’t I heard of him?”

From the American Chesterton Society’s web site: Chesterton was equally
at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics,
philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by
humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as
timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared.



Come learn a bit more about Chesterton at the next meeting of the
Chillicothe Chesterton Society. It will be held on Nov 18th at 7:00 P.M.
in Schlegel’s Coffee House located at 80 N. Paint St. Chillicothe, OH.
For more information call Bob Cook at 740-703-5651.

Theater of The Word Incorporated Coming to Washington Court House

I recently received word from Kevin O'Brien that his theater company, The Theater of the Word Incorporated, has been booked for March 22, 2010 for St. Colman Parish in Washington Court House, Ohio. The company will be presenting Faith of Our Father: The Story of a Priest.

Written and produced for the Year of the Priest, this humorous and touching tale tells the story of Fr.Mike, a young priest recently appointed pastor at the suburban parish St. Somewhere. Thrust into the midst of parish politics, fundraising fiascoes, and the day-to-day challenge of caring for souls, Fr. Mike’s faith begins to falter . . . until a visit by an angel, as well as examples of great priests of the past, show him the true way of love and sacrifice. A funny, profound, and heartwarming story dedicated to those who dedicate themselves to us—our priests.

I'll blog more about this as the date grows nearer.

The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton

I've just pre-ordered a new book of Chesterton "Quotes, Quips and Cracks" edited by Dave Armstrong. Here's his blog and the associated press release. Per Dave:

I'm really excited about this. The title is, The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips and Cracks from the pen of G. K. Chesterton. I selected all the quotations, and they are all single sentences. The material is copiously categorized and indexed in various ways, for ease of access.

G.K. Chesterton to be brought to life at MVNU

I know this is a little early, but..... when you're a Chesterton fanatic like me, it's never too early to plan a trip to see something Chestertonian, especially if it's only a couple of hours away.

April 6, 2010

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – Educator and entertainer, Dr. John “Chuck” Chalberg will perform for MVNU’s Lecture/Artist Series on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 in the R.R. Hodges Chapel/Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Chalberg brings to life on stage several important historical figures and will portray G.K. Chesterton at Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU).

The event is free and open to the public.

Mount Vernon is about 100 miles northeast of Chillicothe. If I can generate some interest in the Chillicothe area we could possibly get Chuck to perform here.