Editorials
CONTENTS Volume CXVIII, Number 2 Correspondence 34 Editorials 35 Habitats of the heart: William Aiken 38 The politics of an exhibit: llan Stavans 39 'Do you know Jesus?': John...
...Presumably Christians share at least a minimum of creedal consensus (but was Christ born of a virgin...
...This was truly a grassroots organization, with no direction from the mountaintop, just a bunch of consenting adults who were, in the restruck coin of the day, quixotically active...
...After a while a "community service" volunteer arrived, a carpenter, doing time on drug charges...
...There is no two-second delay before the message from the light switch arrives at the light itself...
...Working for Habitat involves abilities that many of us were forced to acquire in bitter circumstances early in our lives--nail- ing down shingles and siding, putting up partitions and gutters, mixing concrete and paint...
...Display advertising correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...John C. Tully: "If you want to find the most efficient way of doing something, give the job to the laziest person in your orga- nization...
...Whatever the follies of modem art may be," he observed, "we have helped to produce them...
...Footnote 3: We don't think The Critic can sue us for stealing again what has been stolen so oft before...
...10038...
...In fact, my life had been one long confrontation with bursting pipes, rotting decks, and sagging floors...
...Their kitchen joists are not mere 2x6s which sag under appliances...
...Initially I was a little put out that no one was there at the building site to capitalize on my resourcefulness, but I saw the house needed housewrap, so I started in on that---during a snow squall with forty-mile-an-hour winds...
...If war comes, many of these uncertainties may disappear, but moral assessment must continue...
...And although Jimmy Carter has been associated with the organization for the last eight years, there are no civil service tests to pass, no forms to fill out, no curious delving into back- grounds...
...FRITZ EICHENBERG For more than halfa century, Fritz Eichenberg, the master wood engraver and graphics historian, would send an original illus- tration to friends, students, and associates at Christmas...
...We doubt he will...
...Chesterton: "It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better...
...He redefined the kind of strength and sacrifice asked of America, so that America has had to choose between that definition and seeming to appease Saddam Hussein...
...We do not doubt Bush's resolve and his interest in a short and limited war...
...God help him...
...There may be many people like me out there, veterans of their own private housing war, who have remodeled parts of their houses so many times they begin to have the air of ruins...
...H.L...
...He had to flee Germany in 1933 because of his anti-Hitler car- toons...
...Commonweal continues to believe that "the world has everything to gain, and Saddam Hussein much to lose, in giving the sanctions time" (editorial, January 11...
...ET CETERA BONS MOTS There are two classes of people, a philosopher once said: those who divide all people into two classes, and those who don't...
...42 All ecumenism is local: EdMarciniak 44 Defying gravity: John Ginger 44 Poetry: Mary Rudbeck Stanko 49 Marilee Richards, John Robert Quinn, Dixie Partridge 53 Screen: Richard Alleva 54 Stage: Gerald Weales 56 Media: Frank McConnell 57 Will Latin America become Protestant?: John A. Coleman 59 BOOKS Beyond Innocence and Redemption: Leonard Fein 63 Why Catholics Can't Sing: Rembert G. Weakland 65 Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Robert P. lmbelli 68 Possession: Fanny Howe 69 Under God: Dennis O'Brien 70 The Arrogance of Faith: Martin E. Marty 72 God, Country, Notre Dame: Edward S. Skillin 73 Religious booknotes: Lawrence S. Cunningham 74 STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Paul Baumann Production Editor: Patricia Mazzola Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal,[ISSN 0010-3330] A,Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas, New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...Despite the fact that it has over four hundred affiliates and has built over four thousand houses in the last fourteen years, there are no insiders, no charter members, no "ground floor" to the organization...
...Andy Warhol: "Fame is when you market your aura...
...In addition, there was a brittle fellowship that didn't especially appeal to me in certain group-volunteer projects...
...44-52) our two winners, John Ginger and Ed Marciniak, bring invigorating news about the nature and progress of interreligious collaboration...
...My children are gone away...
...We do have grave concerns about his ability to calculate and quickly adjust to the unpredictable con- sequences that may come...
...In general, I carry a lot of grievances toward building materials...
...Despite the universal scope, there was always but one elemental lesson: that in whatever any of us does, it is possible, indeed necessary, to draw light out of the hard, ink- like darkness...
...Ground floors just seemed to be going up all over the New River Valley of Virginia, where I live...
...In these latter, he demonstrated the radicalness of a believing artist, the flinty rebelliousness that he combined with an uncommon gentleman- liness of soul...
...But he did not limit himself to his medium...
...We may still occasionally joust with joists, but we do it on our own field...
...Habitat houses are better built than my house...
...This pluralism at-the-breaking-point came home to us with renewed poignancy as we read the sixty-five essays on ecumenism submitted for the Graymoor Prize...
...Having sent forces adequate to deter further aggression, he expanded the deployment and set a specific date...
...Footnote 1: John C. Tully founded the Thomas More Association and eventually put Dan Herr in charge of it...
...And to be honest, my relationship to pipe and sheetrock is caustic...
...You're allowed a folly in your fifties...
...IfI remember right, Don Quixote was in his .fifties when he set out to rescue damsels in distress, and on a lower level some of us still get excited by drains in disrepair...
...Our doubts about whether war has become truly the last resort and our grave uncertainty about the admittedly difficult assessment of pro- portionality between the good and harmful consequences leaves us on the side of persist and postpone...
...Doesn't this disunity prove that Christianity is just another human project gone awry...
...We disagree with those who believe that American will and coali- tion cohesiveness could not have been rallied for the long haul...
...That's the kind of thing I like to do...
...Having succeeded in imposing sanctions, he has lost faith in them...
...For this he bears responsibility for making war likely...
...of saints and great souls...
...Mencken: "The Latin church, which I find myself admiring more and more despite its frequent imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it that religion is not a syllogism but a poem...
...As time went by I met other people who were involved with Habitat, and I realized that no one was really in charge...
...But it often betrays a staggering ignorance of the edifying folly and scandal that St...
...Given the maddening range of views and practices that various Christians have adopted in their attempts to understand and live the gospel, that is not an unfair question...
...Ginger offers a more intimate portrait, tracing the arc of one man's passionate spiritual journey through faith's mysterious, perhaps circumstantial, manifestations...
...CONTENTS Volume CXVIII, Number 2 Correspondence 34 Editorials 35 Habitats of the heart: William Aiken 38 The politics of an exhibit: llan Stavans 39 'Do you know Jesus?': John Garvey 41 World cop or world bully?: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...as a lecturer at home and abroad...
...He imparted his unique, Quaker sacramentality not only in his images but as an instructor to generations of students at the New School, the Pratt Institute, and the University of Rhode Island...
...and how we are to discern virtue (individually, or under the guidance of the church...
...They want to know God and do the right thing...
...Perhaps as much as any other phenomenon, intermarriage has brought about a profound change in the practical relations between churches...
...And for half a century, his own work supported the efforts of various peace groups...
...12.95, 312 pp...
...and as a writer, notably in his history, The Art of the Print;, an autobiographical collection, The Art of the Graver...
...In the spirit of John Kennedy, who never said, "To edit is to choose," let us begin: Fred Allen: "Television is called a medium because it is rare that it is well done...
...I saw myself more as a knight errant, visiting buildings under siege, with screwdriver in hand rather than a sword...
...My grandchildren have no set ideas on the way a guest room should look...
...Robert Heinlein: "The acme of prose style is exemplified by that simple, graceful clause, 'Pay to the order of.'" Conor Cruise 25 January 1991:37 O'Brien: "An American Catholic is a Protestant who goes to Mass...
...as a visitor of prisoners...
...and those who raid the anthologies to spice up their speeches or fill space in periodicals...
...04106 (207) 799-4387, classified adver- lising correspondence to 15 Dutch St...
...The section that ignited larceny in our heart was a mini-anthology of items from "I Wish I'd Said That," a department presided over for many years by the late Dan Herr...
...COMMONWEAL I The sweep of God's grace I f the separation of the churches is a source of perplexity, even scandal, for many Christians, it is often taken as proof of Christianity's falsity and failure by the skeptical...
...His legacy will endure to challenge our lethargy and inspire our humanity...
...I soon came to think that Habitat must be one of the least proprietary organi- zations in existence...
...He reframed the issue as a test of will to use arms rather than a test of will to use patience...
...If war comes, we cannot abandon the demand that moral restraints be observed and that the proportionality of the entire endeavor remains subject to judgment...
...his jaunty children's books and contem- porary fables with a twist...
...Like the vast majority of essayists, Ginger and Marciniak strive to adumbrate the essential character of faith--that bedrock of spiritual yearning--that lies behind the external forms of religious institutions and practices...
...Since I had no par- ticular skills, my opportunities were limited, but I had always enjoyed putting houses together, either from scratch or the long way back from general decay...
...A tinkling cheeriness bothers me...
...Christopher Hampton: "Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs...
...We hereby join the third class, having been tempted by the publication of Just Good Reading, an anthology of material from The Critic, (Thomas More Press, Kris Tuberty, ed...
...Perversely, however, the multiplicity of Christian denominations gives a great variety of answers to the question of how we know God (in an unmediated way, or sacramentally...
...and ethical conviction (but is abortion a sin...
...As the poet says: Old houses were scaffolding once and workmen whistling...
...Fritz Eichenberg's life proved that could be done...
...Not long ago Catholics were forbidden to enter other churches or even read Protestant Bibles...
...Though their ultimate effectiveness was uncertain, the stakes are high enough to take that gamble...
...REPORT FROM THE ROOFTOP HABITATS OF THE HAVE NAILS, WILL HAMMER have never wanted to be a "volunteer...
...But, just in case, we'll mention that the whole of Just Good Reading is, indeed, ditto...
...He had other sides, as shown by, e.g, Thomas More: "A merry story exchanged with a friend refreshes us much and without harm lightens our minds and restores our courage and soothes our stomachs...
...Similarly, intermarriage, which was once strenuously discouraged, if not proscribed, is now more common...
...G.K...
...As Ginger and Marciniak remind us, modern ecumenism has fostered many positive developments...
...10038...
...Paul preached...
...and several Pendle Hill pamphlets: Art and Faith and Artist on the Witness Stand...
...Eichenberg worked unrelentingly, gave of his craftsmanship generously, and never failed to challenge the earthly powers...
...of Christ in the poor and of the modem quest for self- destruction, all conceived by an Erasmian mind and executed by a D•rer's hand--will endure...
...James Thurber: "He who hesitates is sometimes saved...
...Although I still nail my Christmas tree to the living room floor, I am now generally free of remodeling necessities...
...We have to mend our ways and try to bring order into chaos, piece the fragments together, become whole again, holy again...
...Although the vote of Congress has apparently made war legal, it has not necessarily made it moral---or sustainable...
...Actually there are three: those who coin maxims and epigrams...
...Let's face it...
...On a Habitat site one day an ex-professional baseball player, recovering from a stroke and stomach ulcers, lifted one end of a 4x 12-foot piece 38: Commonweal...
...To some it might appear that I have always been interested in low-cost housing, so when I heard that Habitat for Humanity, a low-cost housing organization, was looking for volunteers, it was only natural for me to grab my hammer and set out for the nearest building site, hoping to find a director of activities...
...You just show up and see what materials are on hand to build with...
...This year and from now on there will be no such cards from Fritz Eichenberg...
...But his images--particularly his classic illustrations of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, the BrontEs, the Bible...
...I built and rebuilt my house until there was no room for further error...
...New York, N.Y...
...When Commonweal asked him to do a drawing com- memorating his friend Dorothy Day (November 29, 1985), he did so almost reflexively, picturing her as a young rebel...
...Gone are the fear and suspicion that used to characterize the rela- tionships among Christian denominations...
...Marciniak describes a wide variety of religious activities in which people of all faiths, impatient with bureaucratic restrictions, are coming together to share a set of values and hopes...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...How is this possible if Christians are indeed the beneficiaries of God's true revelation...
...What I needed was an organization that could capture the quixotic element in me, some group that could accommodate young women who want hammers in their hands and old men who want to solder just one pipe before they pay up for past gaieties...
...To me there was something about the word that suggested energy without objective, or willingness without much wit...
...Dan Jenkins: "God invented football so grown boys would have something to do between wars...
...those who spot these gems, steal them, and put them into anthologies...
...Such an organization was ideal for my eccentricities, providing a ramshackle structure out of which decent houses might emerge...
...Then he disappeared...
...In our fight against war and violence," he wrote to artists, "the arts should take their rightful place...
...Portland, Me...
...These spontaneous gestures often appear distant from the stately minuets of eccle- siastical bodies, but official ecumenical endeavors have borne their own kind of fruit...
...After so long an apprenticeship, we now have the leisure to aspire to artistry...
...He died November 30 at the age of eighty- nine...
...Christians profess love of neighbor and the unity of the church, and practice mutual suspicion and separation...
...But not long after I retired from teaching school, I began look- ing around for something to keep me busy...
...For over four decades, his woodblock prints graced the Catholic Worker, gratis, castigating injustice and war while nourishing the spirit...
...Footnote 2: The selections above reflect the acerbic side of Dan Herr's wit [see "Curmudgeon, with Heart," Commonweal, October 26, 1990...
...The regathering of splintered groups of Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians 25 January 1991:35 magnanimity while giving sanctions time to be decisively tested...
...They don't tilt four inches to the southwest the way my foundation tilts...
...Whatever the official rubrics or posture of a church, people in the pews seem to be working out ad hoc answers to questions of affiliation, participation, and practice...
...Franqois de Rochefoucauld: "Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person...
...In this issue (pp...
...Indeed, the spectrum of views often seems as great within denominations as across them...
...As my family grew I moved the kitchen, put in a new bathroom, finished off the basement, enlarged and then demolished bed- rooms...
...Joe E. Lewis: "A friend in need is a pest...
...I preferred not to be called a "volunteer...
...And I saw room for nostalgia in my future, when I could look back on my building days...
...We worked together for two weeks, putting up siding and exterior trim...
...The subjects ranged from ancient to self-created fables, from Lao- Tsu to Isaiah's peaceable kingdom, from St...
...Francis to a madonna of the boat people...
Vol. 118 • January 1991 • No. 2
