We read this book this fall and loved it. I am from Kentucky and want my children to learn about the independence, bravery and creativity of the people of the Kentucky wilderness. When I was in RCIA, back in 1999-2000, a dear man, who is now a Deacon, gave me Kentucky Spring, the biography of Catherine Spalding. I want to research Daniel Boone and other frontiersmen and women. (Here is a good link to learn more about Catherine Spalding.)The 1800's was, in Europe, often a complex and spoiled time. Meanwhile, in this country, there was much simplicity and purity. We had no blue bloods; we also had no landed gentry, but soon, settlers would create good farms and estates in a very short period of time. In the early colonial period, there was misunderstanding and violence on this continent as well, as this book, about St. Isaac Jogues, which we also read this fall, attests. It was during our studies this fall that I realized the close parallel of tyranny and repression among the Jesuit fathers in Great Britain and the pioneering Jesuits who came to bring Christ to the New World. The pioneer spirit is captivating. St. Edmund Campion and St. John Fisher were every bit the brave pioneers, as was Isaac Jogues. I think many of the pilgrim fathers and mothers sensed the corruption that the Church of England had brought to those trying to live a life in accordance with the Gospels. One day the Church will be united. I believe this. What is needed is for more individuals to really peruse the history books. We cannot be satisfied with televised histories. As much as I like film, especially documentary film, as a means to educate, I think we need more scholarship. Scholars dig and read and write and speak about that which they are reading and writing. Some of the best scholarship has and will go on outside of formal institutions. Good scholarship stimulates the mind and enflames the heart for truth. A film can provoke, that is true. I worry, at times, that we are overly visual, which can lead to intellectual and spiritual laziness. Well, I hope for peace. I yearn for Charity. I think we are not loving when we let lies parade as truth. Whether physical or metaphysical, violence is a distortion of the truth. The power of the Holy Spirit is -- beyond words -- more powerful than any physical or spiritual violence. To keep this country from repeating history and turning to tyranny, we must ask the Holy Spirit to intervene. Come, Holy Spirit, come! Fill the hearts of the faithful...
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