Good stuff: Monks & Catholic agrarianism in these times

I've been back to reading a ton lately, and this is one of the most fascinating reads I've tackled in some time.

Last weekend, Bob Waldrop of the Catholic Worker house in Oklahoma City gave a talk at Our Lady of the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek (a monastery that Suzanne and I have been proud to support in the past, and about which I've written before.) It is "a congregation of traditional Benedictines who are building a monastic community in rural Oklahoma, and who have attracted around them a small but growing community of Catholic agrarian families who have taken the Benedict Option."

Rod posts some wonderful excerpts, followed by the entire text of the talk with Mr. Waldrop's permission. Check it out.

Here's a very brief clip to whet your appetite (note that it includes a quote from my favorite author: Chesterton, and a clip from my favorite book of the Bible: Sirach):

I was asked to perhaps give some idea as to where I think that the present situation is going. That of course is an invitation fraught with peril. I have had, in some circles, something of a reputation as a "doom-sayer", although I actually prefer to think of this as "hope-bringing". And certainly, there is much that can be said about the doom of the present world situation, but frankly, the situation is running fast and far ahead of what I might be able to prognosticate...

Chesterton wrote, I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event. That is a prudent course of action, so as I look back over the events of this past year, it seems to me that they are running past any ability to prognosticate. The list of "this will never happen" is long and getting longer all the time.

For many people right now, they have already met a punctuated equilibrium, a serious break in their normality. They have lost their houses, their jobs, their 401ks have become 200.5ks, and their lives aren't turning around soon...

I think I am safe in predicting that if the government does do something to help the financial crisis, it will an accident. It's clear to me that the government hasn't a clue as to what is happening, and the reason for that is mostly ideological. They believe their own rhetoric - the false doctrine of American Exceptionalism - and they can't even begin to conceptualize the dead end the United States is staring at right now. Our entire economy is built on exploiting the seven deadly sins - on penalizing the ants on Main Street and rewarding the parasitic grasshoppers on Wall Street, on taking from the poor and working and middle classes and giving to the idle rich, on rewarding corruption and destroying honesty. We think we can maintain a worldwide military empire, go anywhere and kill anyone we want, and never suffer any consequences. It is as Chesterton said, From the standpoint of any sane person, the present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a question of law, but of criminal law, not to mention criminal lunacy."

In the real world, we reap what we sow, and it is also as the book of Sirach says, "Sow not in furrows of injustice lest you reap a seven-fold harvest." I have tried to contemplate what that might look like, and I always recoil from the vision.

Invest 5 minutes in the whole thing.

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