The Strangest Thing in the Cosmos: Walker Percy

Last updated on: December 11, 2013 at 10:15 am by Artur Rosman

The Strangest Thing in the Cosmos: Walker Percy 2013-12-11T10:15:42-07:00 Artur Rosman

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The founder of the CL movement, Fr. Giussani, wrote a book about the risk of education, but really, most of his work was concerned with risking our lives to trusting existence is meaningful with warts and all.

Communion and Liberation is a movement that’s been close to the heart of the last three popes. I’ve written about how the present pope has closely engaged the movement here.

CL, as it’s affectionately known to its members, tends to put a lot of stress upon the educative (from the the Latin educere, to lead out, that is lead out of yourself) value of engagement with culture. It does so through inviting its members to plumb the spiritual richness of contemporary arts.

These are people who don’t fall the carrion comfort of narratives of decline so inexplicably popular among many contemporary American Catholic writers (something I’ve written about here, here, here, and here).

CL holds an annual event called the New York Encounter. This year the featured speakers include the French philosopher and novelist Fabrice Hadjadj (His books haven’t been translated into English. Yet.), Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley (needs no introduction), and David Schindler (Cosmos favorite).

The events usually include exhibits about a significant creative personality. This year it is going to be the patron saint of Cosmos the in Lost, Walker Percy, author of Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book.

The exhibit, “The Strangest Thing in the Cosmos” takes its name from the following out of the twenty or so subtitles from the book Lost in the Cosmos: “Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos–novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes–you are beyond doubt the strangest?”

Read more about the exhibit here.

Consider going to the New York Encounter if you live in New York, or were planning to go anyway, or if this post piqued your attention and you’ll happen to be around the Big Apple January 17th-19th, 2014.

I would go if life and finances (please donate via the blog) permitted me. I’ll be there in spirit, which admittedly isn’t much without the body.

I’m compensating by consciously facilitating the Walker Percy effect by watching the Ingmar Bergman’s faith trilogy to help me ease existential tensions of my own making. Those of you who’ve read Lost in the Cosmos know why.

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