I liked this comment by Mark Shea about the paranormal...

One is the approach of the so-called rationalist, who simply rejects it all because it doesn't fit into his philosophical system. This is called, in our culture, "the open-minded pursuit of truth wherever the facts may lead" and is the great stick with which to beat ignorant obscurantist theists who fear science and inquiry.

The other approach is that of the Catholic who says, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" and who, accordingly, admit the possibility that there may be something in such stories. He does not instantly credit them as true, but is open to investigation and, if the facts point to the reality of such tales, to accepting them as factual. This is called "superstitious fear of science". This is how we know Christians are fools whose best days are behind them and atheistic materialists are the wave of the future and Where History is Going.

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I was reading Mark Shea's blog today and he said:

"If I knew about programming, I could set up the Mark Shea Evilness Diagnostic Generator so people could save trouble and time by just cranking out the ideological invective automatically."

You know how it is with us fearful minions of the mighty Shea, I couldn't help think to myself... I know about programming, I could do that sort of thing in about eight seconds (it's really very simple). So I did.

Then I realised that I didn't have any data. You know... lists of insults, compliments, that sort of thing. Until I realised that Julie Andrews did.

Behold!

The Julie Andrews Inspired Mark Shea Evilness Diagnostic Generator

I wonder if this is what he had in mind.

I don't know where we would be without Philip Pullman (and Mark Shea, who has essentially written this blog entry for me)...

You May Want to Sit Down For This

Phillip Pullman is about to startle the world with an absolutely brilliant and original new thesis that nobody has ever ever ever thought of before!

It turns out that Jesus was just a nice man but his followers (and especially Paul) transformed him into "the Son of God". In fact, Paul was apparently *so* persuasive that he single-handedly managed to persuade people who had seen Jesus die in one of the most horrible ways possible that their old friend was not just a misunderstood rabbi who said a few things about love and peace, but that he was actually The Word of God incarnate.

A natural enough mistake. I had a high school history teacher I liked and after he died, I met a total stranger who had never met the man. The stranger, who had hitherto despised history, told me all about this experience he had (something involve 'shrooms) where he suddenly realized he understood all of History and that my old high school teacher was, in fact, the living embodiment of God at work in the History of the world.

Boy! I can sure tell you my face was red when it dawned on me that this guy completely understood my old history teacher better than I did. I immediately started telling all my old classmates and they, naturally, totally believed the stranger as well (as who *wouldn't*?) Pretty soon we were all on board with acclaiming my old history teacher as the Son of God and the Key to Salvation History and, oh, you know... Everything! And to think none of us who actually knew him when he was here on earth understood a word he said and need some total stranger to explain it all to us! I feel so *silly*!

More....

Hooray!

For "Protestant" read "Sausage" or "Liberal Catholic"...

1. If a thing is condemned by the Church, but permitted by the Protestant (say, gay marriage) the demand is for an explicit text forbidding it ("Show me where Jesus said one word about not allowing gay marriage! That’s just the Church imposing its purely human ideas on what Jesus came to say.").

2. Conversely, if a thing is allowed by the Church but condemned by the Protestant, the demand is for an explicit text commanding it. So, for instance, we get demands like, “Where in the Bible do you find anyone asking us to pray to dead people? That’s just the Church imposing it’s purely human ideas on what Jesus came to say.”

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Mark wanted, most sensibly, to arrive at the place where he was to give his talk 45 minutes early. To give him time to lay out his books, limber up and get ready. We got him there about 30 seconds late. Welcome to the world of the Preece family. Fr Massie made the unprecedented move of allowing somebody to sell books in the place where he usually sells Faith Magazine. Nobody tell Fr Hugh.

Mark kicked off with his 101 reasons not to be Catholic which is really entertaining, you can get some of the gist of it here. He then went on to talk about "Who do you say I am?" and the various (limited) options for explaining Jesus Christ of which only one really makes any sense. I didn't hear too much myself because I had Phil Cunnah sat to my left laughing rediculously. Although I've pretty much heard the whole talk before in Mark's Sheavings, Blog and Books (as well as Chesterton and Lewis books) it was still great fun and he does it really well.

After the talk we all headed to the Old Grey Mare pub (as is the tradition) and had beer and guiness while we caught up with Phil. We got home late and went to bed later after a long discussion about the price of flying heavy cases of books to Ireland (Ryanair are swines). Tomorrow we are leaving Mark in Michelle's capable hands while we head off to a funeral. It's been great having him around. I hope it all goes well for hin in Ireland and he has a safe journey there and eventually back home to Seattle.

You might expect a day trip to York takes a full day. Not so. Kathleen Lundquist and husband Gary met us at 2pm and we went through till 6pm. Mark Shea decided to try and beat the record by getting there for 2.30pm and leaving at 5pm. Lightening visits to York are becoming our speciality. Being jetlagged and having stayed up until 2am the night before Mark was understandably tired and had a bit of a lie in. At 8am Ella woke me up and told me it was unfair to keep our guest waiting downstairs while we slept and insisted that I get up. I got up and went downstairs to find (as I expected) that Mark was decidedly not up. I went back to Ella who told me "he is probably in his room reading while he waits for us to get up". Nonsense, thouht I. Still, a nagging wife can acheive many things and on this particular occasion she acheived getting me to go downstairs and make her a cup of tea.

When Mark did awake several hours later it turned out he had indeed been reading a book, briefly, at 8am. He had gone back to sleep. If only I had shared that fate... Leona had other ideas. Ella and I played some Zelda four swords and watched Friends (to brush up on our American) and when Mark got up we headed on over to York.

We parked by the River and Mark told us about William Cowper who drowned himself because of Calvinism. Apparently he thought he was damned so he decided to get damned quicker by killing himself... no I don't get it either. Anyway it's supposed to be Ella and I showing him York and there he is telling us about it. We walked around past Clifford's Tower and then on past Fairfax House which somebody told me once has some kind of Catholic link. I haven't time to look in to it now but this page seems to back up the idea.

Next stop, The Shambles. The Shambles are a very old street dating from the time of Maragret Clithrow which is lucky because that is where she lived. You may recall the controvery about the Shambles (where did Margaret Clitherow live?) so as well as going in to the shrine we also went in to the other house and I bravely asked if we could see the alleged priesthole which the nice man in Past Images kindly allowed us to go and look at the hole behind the fireplace which certainly could be a priesthole but to be honest it could also just be a hole. The controversy continues.

After The Shambles we headed towards the Minster. York Minster is not my least Minster/Cathedral (I still think it's bloody good) and today I liked it a little more because the sun was just right in the sky to light the stained glass beautifully.

Working as usual from the west end we spotted the Cathedral in the shrine of St. Cuthbert. You can see how we might have missed it. Font-tastic it is not.

When you think about the font in Durham (photos here and here) this is shocking. Also, in the background you can see another modern incursion...

Apparently named the "Semaphore Saints" these sculptures state that "Christ is here" which he was before the reformation but now you have to go down the road to St. Wilfrid's where he's been relegated to a sidechapel. Oops. Did I say that out loud? We wandered through the Nave and along the North Transept past some more lovely windows to the chapter house which is stunning but, I maintain, pointless. In the entrance to the chapter house is a statue of Mary which I think is really lovely but I can never get a good photo (it's just too dark). After the chapter house we worked our way around to the east end and looked at the choir.

When we arrived the choir were in the choir so we could hear the choir but we couldn't see the choir because the choir were there. After the choir left the choir we could go in and we could see the choir but we couldn't hear the choir.

The Choir was destroyed by fire in the 1800's and what we see today is a Victorian replacement. It lacks the medieval crazyness of the Choir at Exeter Cathedral or Beverley Minster but I really like wooden things so I still like it. Leona made some unhappy baby noises and an involved looking man looked around so Mark Shea said "future chorister" and he said (in a stern unimpressed voice) with just a little practise. On the way out we caught sight of Leona's two favourite animals the Lion and the Giraffe stitched on to kneelers...

We headed out of the Minster and made our way past St. Wilfrid's and Gray's Solicitors (they visited my blog once you know...) and on through York back to the car. We got there at 5pm. On target. York visited in 2.5 hours. We never walked any walls but you see plenty of those from the car which is still good. We had to get back to Hull because Mark wanted to be at the place where he was to give his talk 45 minutes in advance. Hah. We got to Hull with scarcely time for some fish and chips. We introduced Mark to American Chip Spice. Apparently they don't have American Chip Spice in America. Ludicrous. He must just not get out much.

When I went to university I was a half-hearted cradle Catholic with a vague sense that maybe God existed and maybe I should be going to Church maybe. I met a bunch of people called the Christian Union who had a very strong sense that God existed and in that first year at university patiently formed me in the basics of the Christian faith, something you might have thought my Catholic school would have done for me. They were also very definitely of the opinion that I should be going to a different Church to the Catholic one.

A difficult situation. The people who awoke me from my rediculous primary school "if you are good you go to heaven" theology and explained so much about who Jesus Christ is and what He came to do were now suggesting I drop the Catholic Church and become "Free Church". I was sufficiently deficient in my formation in the Catholic faith that they had to explain terms like transubstantiation to me before they could then explain why I should not believe them.

I looked for help in the Catholic Church but sadly found, as I sadly do today, that many priests are more keen on enlisting you in their own personal battle to change the Church than on defending it. Who then, would help? Google was my friend. Actually, in those days, Inference Find was my friend. I found folks like Dave Armstrong and Karl Keating. It wasn't long before I found a chap called Mark Shea. Mark, his sheavings and blog offered something no other Catholic apologist had offered before. Humour. He spoke my language. He had a huge influence on my decision to go with the Catholic option and to take it seriously but he also did something else, in introduced me to GK Chesterton.

He also inspired me to begin my own blog. Without Mark Shea Catholic and Loving it! would be Catholic and not blogging it! Some of you might have preferred things that way. I even got a mention (at my old blog address).

Anyway, when I heard that Mark might be coming to England to make a film (there's stardom for you) I jumped at the chance to have him over to speak in Hull. His film was cancelled (disaster) but he heroically volunteered to come anyway on some air miles he had lying around. On Saturday morning at 2am we awoke to pick him up. We went to bed. His flight had been cancelled. We stayed up on Saturday until 10.30pm cutting and sticking for Fr Massie and got four measly hours of sleep before getting up 2am Sunday morning and heading out towards Stanstead Airport to pick him up from his 7am flight. Stanstead at 7am is cuh-hold. We wrapped Leona up.

Mark is, of course, an American. This is obvious and I have known it all along but after five years of reading his blog with my own accent it was a little startling to hear an American voice. We began by taking him to Cambridge. As we drove to Cambridge he was remarklably chirpy for one so recently jarred 8 hours in to the future and remarked "Do you guy's realise you live in England? It's really really far away". We went to Cambridge and met up with our friend Ryan Day. Ryan took us to look at King's College which is really cool.

We went to mass at Fisher House where it was all in latin with gregorian chant. Really cool. Why do they have it in such an ugly room though? After mass we passed some morris men and then went for breakfast in the only place Ryan could find in Cambridge that does breakfasts. It wasn't the greasy cafe I was hoping for but it fed me up a treat and they provided Leona with a really cool high chair from which she had an interesting conversation with Mark's and his camera.

After breakfast we used Ryan's on suite bathroom (posh git) and then got on our way and drove the length of the country past Lincoln and over the Humber Bridge. The Humber Bridge was stunning with the Humber River looking blue and glistening in the setting sun while the sky was pale blue with pink clouds overhead and the concrete of the bridge gleamed gold. Mark Shea slept right through it. Bloody Americans. We let him fall in to bed when we got home and then got him up at 7ish to take him to Ella's parent's for dinner. "Okay" he said, "as long as we don't stay too late." More than four hours later as we drove home at 1.30am Mark remarked that Ella's has "a fun family". The next morning Ella's mum complained to Ella that Ella's Dad and Mark had consumed an entire bottle of Whiskey. This is not true. Ella had some too.

We went to bed at 2ish and left Mark checking his emails on my laptop. Who knows when he went to bed but his ability to function without sleep is remarkable.

Tomorrow... we go to York (if we get up)