Do You Simply Stand Against What you Oppose, or Do You Witness For What You Believe?

I have just returned from a 12 day road trip with a friend who needed a companion along for the ride to Texas where she had the task of preparing her parent’s home to be sold.  It was also her goal to retrieve some precious treasures still in the house which were too large to be carried on a plane.  One such jewel was a cradle her father had made for his own children, including my friend, and which has now been slept in by most of his grandchildren.  

As we drove along, I read aloud from a tote bag full of books I had selected for the purpose of sharing specific chapters with my friend, a like minded Catholic, thoughtful, very smart, and leaps and bounds ahead of me, a convert, in knowledge of Church history and doctrine. 

Our trip each way took three days in the car so we had a LOT of time to read and discuss and read and discuss.  It was a kind of “retreat from the world” which whizzed by us, as we rolled along from one state to the next, and an opportunity to step outside our daily routines and spend the kind of time you generally only WISH you had with a good friend. 

Have You Ever Met the Devil?

Cover of Life Magazine Feb. 2, 1948

Many of you have no doubt read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  Not being a Lewis fan, I avoided this book for a while, but had it thrust on me by a friend whom I've encouraged to read some of my own favorites.  Having to swallow a dose of my own medicine and read one of her suggestions, I found it was surprisingly good for me to linger a while over a work of fiction.  The clever recognition and scrutiny of human nature was very amusing and sadly all too true.  And having allowed to be created in my mind this fictional dialogue between minions and the devil himself, it was with interest I read something online not long ago about an article Whitaker Chambers wrote in 1948 that was published in Life Magazine on February 2.  (The issue then cost 15 cents.  Today you can buy it for $19.95.) 

 The title of Chamber's article was The Devil.  I have recently discovered a copy of it in a book titled Ghosts on the Roof, Selected Journalism of Whittaker Chambers 1931-1959.