The December 9th Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society
Advent Greetings WPA Chestertonians and Friends!
This coming Friday, December 9th will be the next gathering of the Western PA Chesterton Society. This will be our traditional December meeting… which means a seasonally appropriate extra dose of conviviality and festivity, with a Chesterton-sized dose of reflection on one of Gilbert's favorite subjects... the Incarnation.
This year we will be re-enacting the verbal portions* of a presentation that took place in 2009 at Fordham University. The event was paradoxically called "Chesterton and Christmas: A Serious Affair", and was described as " ...an homage to Chesterton's love for Christmas through conversations, poetry, and choral music."
Here is an excerpt from a promotion for the original event:
Among the many ways in which one can prepare for Christmas, an especially beautiful one is by spending some time with the poems of G.K. Chesterton. Like him, we also live in a time of ideologies in which, as Chesterton says, "the darkness is noisy with systems." Here "systems" could be paraphrased as "abstractions." Our age, like Chesterton's, tries to dominate and shape reality according to a sticky web of prejudices, but stubbornly refuses to experience reality as it is given to us. For this reason, it is always refreshing to go back to Chesterton, who has been perhaps the greatest defender of simple human experience in the English-speaking world. All his work expresses a deeply realistic attitude, a passion for life as it is, not as we we would like to imagine it. This was certainly also at the root of his faith because Chesterton clearly recognized that only the Christian proposal fully values and rescues concrete humanity, with both its great desires and also its deep shortcomings. Chesterton's realistic and intelligent religiosity is well-displayed in his poems, which we have the great fortune of presenting in this unique Christmas celebration.
*(We will definitely have a reading of the poetry and conversation portions of the event, but I must admit that the originally excellent choir will not be in attendance. We'll do our best to make do in their absence!)
The "script" for the evening is available HERE on the internet as a pdf. document . Please print it and bring with you to the meeting. You do not need to do the reading before the meeting...just bring it along. We will read it together Friday evening.
We will meet at the Community Center in the Village of Middle Lancaster for after-dinner refreshments and beverages along with the readings, and poetry.
The doors will open at 7:30 pm for a potluck of festive treats, with the discussion beginning shortly thereafter. Please note the adjusted start time... for the December meeting only. This will allow plenty of time for each of us to have had dinner before coming to the meeting.
Please bring a contribution to the festivities. Any desserts, fruits, cheeses or beverage contributions will be appreciated. Coffee, teas and paper products will be provided. Please email me early this week to let me know if you will attend, and what you plan to bring to the meeting. This will allow me to keep in communication with you in the event of a need for further details.
The meeting will wrap up sometime around 10:00 pm.
As usual...Our meetings are held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is off of Rt. 19 approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, and just north of the Zion Lutheran Church and just south of East Lancaster Road. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.)
...and as always, feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.
