Here's a suggestion on how to get started in supporting the idea of Distributism. It's from The Distributist Review.
The Honor of Israel Gow: The death of a nobleman is investigated by Father Brown and the now private investigator Flambeau. The piles of snuff, candles with no sticks, and the manuscripts with the name of God removed are not dark evil, but merely Israel Gow, who was promised all the gold in the house taking only and exactly what he was given.
There were four of us at this month's meeting. As advertised, we listened to Christopher Check's "Lepanto: The Battle and the Poem." The talk is almost 75 minutes long, ending with a stirring recitation of Chesterton's poem Lepanto. Some of the folks took notes during what could easily be called a Mediterranean Catholic history lesson. 
Here are the Chesterton books (top 2 shelves) currently in The Holy Family Library of St. Peter Parish. The collection of Chesterton works is just getting started. Eventually, the Library will have a full collection of Chesterton's Collected Works.
The books on the bottom 2 shelves are on loan for display purposes to The Holy Family Library from my library.
Well, we had our first meeting in the St. Peter Parish library, The Holy Family Library. Several folks attended, which was a nice change from the last couple of meetings which were held in our previous venue. We read a couple of essays aloud from What's Wrong With The World and then commented on them. I fielded a question on Distributism and felt fairly comfortable with my answer.
The Chillicothe Chesterton Society will now meet in the new Holy Family Library of St. Peter’s Parish Hall. While the previous meetings of the Society have been held at Schlegel’s Coffee House, all future meetings, beginning on September 15th, will be held in the new Library. Meetings are held on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at 7 p.m. The meetings are scheduled for an hour.
The Chillicothe Chesterton Society is a group of people who are interested in the writings of British author Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936). Here is some information on Chesterton which is taken from the web site of the American Chesterton Society. This was written by the President of the Society, Dale Ahlquist.
Chesterton argued eloquently against all the trends that eventually took over the 20th century: materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism, and spineless agnosticism. He also argued against both socialism and capitalism and showed why they have both been the enemies of freedom and justice in modern Society.
And what did he argue for? What was it he defended? He defended "the common man" and common sense. He defended the poor. He defended the family. He defended beauty. And he defended Christianity and the Catholic Faith. These don’t play well in the classroom, in the media, or in the public arena. And that is probably why he is neglected. The modern world prefers writers who are snobs, who have exotic and bizarre ideas, who glorify decadence, who scoff at Christianity, who deny the dignity of the poor, and who think freedom means no responsibility.
The Chillicothe Chesterton Society was formed a couple of years ago as a local Society of the American Chesterton Society. The goals of the national society and the local societies are the same: to reintroduce people to the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Last year, as part of that effort, St. Peter’s and the Society sponsored presentations by Dr. John C. Chalberg in “An Evening With G.K. Chesterton” and “Old Thunder: An Evening With Hilaire Belloc.” Fans of EWTN recognized Dr. Chalberg as portraying G.K. Chesterton on “The Apostle of Common Sense” and Kevin O’Brien, President and Artistic Director of The Theater of The Word, as having portrayed just about everybody: Belloc, Father Brown, Stanford Nutting, etc.
For more information on the Chillicothe Chesterton Society check out our blog at chillicothe-chestertonian.blogspot.com or find us on Facebook at Chillicothe Chesterton Society. There are links on those sites to the American Chesterton Society.
The about-to-be-formed Barbershop Quartet, The ChesterTones, will perform at the ChesterTen Banquet. Members of the quartet are: Kevin O'Brien (Lead), Bob Cook (Bass), Joe Grabowski (Tenor), and Don Brady (Baritone). All, of course, are Chestertonians. We've all been working on the music independently (Kevin, just since the first of this week). Our first time singing together will be a a yet-to-be-determined practice at the Conference. It should be exciting.
Lord KitchenerThe other matter is much more important. Though the reverse of vivacious, Kitchener was very vital; and he had one unique mark of vitality—that he had not stopped growing. “An oak should not be transplanted at sixty,” said the great orator Grattan when he was transferred from the Parliament of Dublin to the Parliament of Westminster. Kitchener was sixty-four when he turned his face westward to the problem of his own country. There clung to him already all the traditional attributes of the oak—its toughness, its angularity, its closeness of grain and ruggedness of outline—when he was uprooted from the Arabian sands and replanted in the remote western island. Yet the oak not only grew green again and put forth new leaves; it was almost as if, as in a legend, it could put forth a new kind of leaves. Kitchener, with all his taciturnity, really began to put forth a new order of ideas. If a change of opinions is unusual in an elderly man, it is almost unknown in an elderly military man. If the hardening of time was felt even by the poetic and emotional Grattan, it would not have been strange if the hardening had been quite hopeless in the rigid and reticent Kitchener. Yet it was not hopeless; and the fact became the spring of much of the national hope. The grizzled martinet from India and Egypt showed a certain power which is in nearly all great men, but of which St. Paul has become the traditional type—the power of being a great convert as well as a great crusader. It is the real power of re-forming an opinion, which is the very opposite of that mere formlessness which we call fickleness. Nor is the comparison to such an example as St. Paul altogether historically disproportionate; for the point upon which this very typical Englishman changed his mind was a point which is now the pivot of the whole future and perhaps of the very existence of Christendom. For many such Englishmen it might almost be called the discovery of Christendom. It can be called with greater precision, and indeed with almost complete precision, the discovery of Russia.
I guess I consider myself "an elderly military man." I joined the Air Force when I was 17, right out of high school. I served for 20 years. I've been "retired" for 28 years. That is, I retired from the Air Force in 1982. While I've held quite a few jobs since 1962, I think of myself as "retired Air Force", not retired from Battelle, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, or NewPage, my last place of full time employment. No doubt that is because whatever I am today was pretty much formed by my 20 years immersion in the culture of the Air Force.
What's the point? Well, I guess there are several. First, I think the quote (in red above) is quite true, certainly it is for me. Next, every time I've seen this quotation it is referenced back to Utopia of Usurers. I recently read Utopia of Usurers; it's not in there. As the picture at the top of this post implies, the quotation is from Chesterton's book Lord Kitchener. My best guess on how this happened is that whoever made the first reference might have been using Volume V of the Collected Works. The standard reference says pg. 396, of Volume V, CW. And the quotation does, in fact, appear on page 396, but it's in Lord Kitchener. Utopia of Usurers starts on page 399. Who cares? Probably no one, unless you're reading Utopia of Usurers waiting to read the quote!
Finally, Chesterton says a change of opinion is almost unknown in an elderly military man. I don't think I've changed my opinions about much in the last 28 years, but I have about laissez-faire Capitalism. And that change of opinions was caused by the writings of Chesterton, Belloc and all the other Distributists I've been introduced to by the members of the American Chesterton Society.
New personal project, inspired by a line from The Everlasting Man by GK Chesterton. "The dark alien woman staring from her high lattice and hearing like the babble of a brook over a stoney street, the singing of little St Hugh" He was referring to the Medieval child martyr little Hugh, and the alien woman would've been a witch. Did a few character studies from Brian Froud and Alan Lee's book Faeries, just to have something to go from.So, you just never know who your actions might affect.
Summer is here and most folks are taking their vacations. In light of that, we'll be taking a summer hiatus. Meetings will resume on September 15, 2010. If you've got the time and inclination, you might consider attending the upcoming Chesterton Conference. Here's an info card I received in the mail yesterday. It should be a great Conference. (Click on the agenda to enlarge it.)
