Peter Mullen’s Blog

  • Christmas House lit with lights in small town Novato, California USA–a visit…

    The Portuguese immigrant who lives with fame in his home town Novato, California (population 50,000), a city 25 miles north of San Francisco has the name Edmundo Rombeiro. His claim to fame is the way he says, Merry Christmas to all and peace to men of Good will each year. For 22 years this remarkable man, an American, decks his home and lights it like a Christmas tree for the joy of neighbors, visitors adult and children alike. Of course, not everyone is enamored of his style, his taste, his lighting his home to the tune of an electric bill costing $1,500 a month on Devonshire Drive in the more affluent community where homes are valued at $650,000.

    In a telephone conversation, the creator and owner of the Christmas House, Mr. Rombeiro told me, “I got the Christmas spirit in my heart. In the Azores I watched my mother and my father make the nativity scene and really enjoyed it…All the lights….When I came to the United States …and started decorating in 1980 and (just) a couple of years later started decorating. I decorated $4000 or $5000 (worth of work) …. Every year (we have been) adding new stuff.

    “Christmas is one of the best holidays for me. My daughter and I are the two main decorators. We give Christmas to the community. We give it to thousands of people in the whole community.

    “Last year we had 18 or 19 tour buses for the entire year (come from San Francisco’s Bay Area). This year we had about 10 tour buses for the year. We feel very happy to see people smiling.”

  • ‘Lives of Great Religious Books’ new series by Princeton University Press

    In this article about the Princeton University Press series “Lives of Great Religious Books,” this Religion Writer offers a two part introduction: (1) A kind of interview with Fred Appel of the press who talks a little about the ongoing program of the publishing project, and; (2) some notes and comments on one of the titles written by the distinguished professor and scholar Alan Jacobs titled, “The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography.” Interestingly, when I received the two of the books of the series, I noted their size and so inquired about that and was told:

    Regarding the format of the books, we decided to go with a slightly smaller format (most books are 6 x 9, these are because it is visually appealing and also a comfortable size for reading and slipping into a pocket or bag. It also makes the collection really stand out on a shelf as a cohesive group.

    Further, if the reader wishes to jump to an article describing the series, look to this link provided by the publisher who says on sending it:

    We have had a few articles about the series including this rather early one: http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/i-regret-that-i-have-but-one-life-to-give-for-my-author/28384

    But more as an introduction is this quotation as written in 2011 by the Editor of the project himself, found in the paragraph below as the best of introductions and explanation of the project itself. A far better one than this Religion writer could write and so well to the points of the project:

    April 26th, 2011 by Editor

    Fred Appel, editor of the new religious series, The Lives of Great Religious Books, wrote a piece for The Front Table this week:

    “Lives of Great Religious Books” was born in the faculty lounge of the NYU Law School in the early spring of 2005, in a conversation over tea with the eminent Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit. I had come to NYU to meet with Margalit, then a visiting scholar in the Law School, to ask him about his current research and writing, and talk more generally about trends in the humanities. This is one of the great privileges and joys of being an acquisitions editor at a distinguished scholarly publishing house: being able to engage smart and imaginative people in conversation on topics that preoccupy them. After talking about his own work – including a book he had begun that we eventually published in 2009 – the topic of conversation turned for some reason to memoirs. Margalit was of the opinion that too many were being published – or more precisely, that too few were worth reading. Then he tossed his head back and said dreamily, “you know what I’d like to read? A biography of an important book – the story of its reception across time. That’s the sort of memoir we need more of.”

    For more of this excellent piece about the story of this project written by the Editor, go to this link and finish his article. Copyright will not allow us to print the whole piece here.

    http://blog.semcoop.com/2011/04/26/fred-appel-on-lives-of-great-religious-books/

    During the course of looking into this series by Princeton University Press Editor Fred Appel agreed to take some time and jot some of his remarks on the series down in answer to some questions sent to him in writing. He responded in writing and herewith his answers as he sent them to this Religion Writer Peter Menkin.

    1. In a conversation with your writer Mark Larrimore I expressed my interest in learning of interest in his title by the public in general, a hard thing to pin down since his book hadn’t yet been released when he and I spoke in early October, 2013. So this question of you, who created the series of religious titles: What expectation did you have of readers and that audience for their appetite for the titles in the series, including both Mark Larrimore’s book a biography of Job and Alan Jacob’s a biography of The Book of Common Prayer. Please feel free to give a broad based answer to the question.

    When I think of who might be interested in reading books in the “Lives of Great Religious Books” series, I never think of “the public in general.” That seems like too vague a category. I see each book in the series having both a broad, interdisciplinary scholarly readership and a potential readership among educated and interested non-scholars. Just who these people are will vary from book to book. Alan Jacobs – a wonderful and experienced writer – has a following in Christian circles, and this fact combined with his particular assignment (the Book of Common Prayer) leads me to predict a strong market among (a) historians of Protestantism and the English Reformation & other scholars with interests in British Anglicanism and (b) non-scholars with involvement and/or strong interest in the history of the Anglican Church, and in Christian prayer and liturgy more generally. Mark Larrimore’s book on Job, by contrast, will likely attract a different scholarship readership – perhaps historians of philosophy and theology and other scholars interested in biblical reception histories – as well as a different general readership (more Jewish as well as Christian readers, say). A forthcoming book on the Yoga Sutra of Patangali – by David Gordon White – will attract readers interested in eastern religious traditions and the philosophical roots of yoga. And so on.

    2. I think it is a rarer day than not when one gets a chance to get to ask an Editor in Chief who has created a “full length series” of such imaginative and scholarly religious titles of the kind you’ve begun to edit questions on their making. How does the series grow, and what does it take to get them to go? Please give us an anecdotal response on one or two author-scholars you chose and the titles they’ve written or will write. Any struggles in their creation?

    Finding the right authors for books in this particular series has been a challenge. Ideally, authors for this series have some demonstrable scholarly expertise in the subject matter in question. That almost goes without saying. What is more, they must be able to tell the story of the book’s reception over time in a way that engages the interest of educated non-specialists. In other words, the authors must be comfortable writing for those who are not themselves specialists. Many of the authors in the “Lives” series have written books of this sort before, so the task is not so difficult for them. They’ve had practice. I’ve also chosen to work with scholars who have never written such a book before, and they require more guidance. Sometimes their first drafts are just too scholarly.

  • Interview: 90 year old poet of the Northwest USA William Matchett talks of his new work, ‘Airplants’

    Interview and article By Peter Menkin

    Quakers do not have a set of beliefs they adopt when they become Quakers. We have four testimonies we try to live out: Community, simplicity, equality, and peace. In poems you would find a number of things referring to (the testimony). We try to live for it. We believe in continuing revelation. Which means we feel there are new truths emerging in the Universe all the time and we need to use discernment and the help of each other to find these truths. To find if they are truly true.

    –Judy Brown, Quaker

    She introduced me to Poet Matchett and is an editor of poetry (Friends Journal)

    An interview with poet William H. Matchett, Quaker, done by phone, but mostly answers typed on his typewriter from the 90 year old’s home in the remote area of Seabeck, Washington in the United States’ great Northwest where he lives with his wife in the Summer (this done 2013 from September 12, 2013 through the end of October, 2013). Correspondence by U.S. Mail was our method of sending manuscripts. This took a few days as poet Matchett has neither computer nor internet for one. He retired as a teacher from The University of Washington in 1982 (Shakespeare).

    In this interview we focus somewhat on his new book described by W.S. Merwin as poems gathered over a lifetime and published by Antrim House in Simsbury, Connecticut, “Airplants: Selected Poems.” There is a short interview by Antrim House publisher Robert Rennie McQuilkin following the interview with poet William H. Matchett.

    An older statement by The University of Washington on the internet says of him, in part:

    William Matchett, professor emeritus of English and former longtime editor of the journal Modern Language Quarterly…Matchett retired from the UW in 1982 but continued teaching and writing after that. He is the author of two other books of poetry, Water Ouzel and Fireweed as well as the work Shakespeare and Forgiveness. He also has written stories, articles and other criticism, and his work has appeared in dozens of magazines, include The New Yorker, Saturday Review of Literature, Harper’s and The New Republic.

    Antrim House says this of the poet: “William Matchett was born in Chicago and educated in its public schools until his final two years of high school at Westtown, a Quaker boarding school, where his commencement essay was a long poem. During World War II he was assigned, as a conscientious objector, first to a Civilian Public Service camp and then, as a guinea pig, to the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass. After graduating from Swarthmore with highest honors in 1949, he married and returned to Cambridge to pursue a PhD at Harvard. While there, he had a teaching assistantship in Archibald MacLeish’s popular poetry course, and was one of the founders of the Poets’ Theatre, remaining active with it until 1954. Matchett’s entire teaching career since then has been at the University of Washington, where he is now an Emeritus Professor.”

    INTERVIEW WITH POET WILLIAM MATCHETT WITH RELIGION WRITER PETER MENKIN

    1.Of your poems, many give a taste of being close to the land. Which of those speak to you of God, if you will, and give an example of one that is special to you–if only a few lines. Has your Quaker faith influenced you in your appreciation of the land and its environment?

    I think it is true that the only time the word ‘God’ appears in these poems is in the third section of the Accademia poem where it clearly refers to the Old Testament God of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis as he appears in those glorious tapestries. I don’t use the word otherwise since it means so many different things to different people and would get in the way of the experiences I am trying to create. I don’t think of poems as sermons but as creating experiences for others to consider.

    After I completed “Water Ouzel,” I recognized that it was one-sided, only part of the story. The poem ends most dangerously with the word “sweet”—dangerous because, as Shakespeare makes clear in a scene in Troilus and Cressida, it easily cloys. I didn’t know Troilus and Cressida that well when I wrote it. I did realize that it was a poem expressing a very optimistic view of the world, and I knew there was another side to the picture. So I wrote “The Petrel” to indicate a darker side of the balance. Still, I let “Water Oruzel” have the last word in that volume.

    Many Quakers differ in the language they use to express their deepest convictions. But we are tolerant of each other and try to hear what the others are saying even though their words may not be ones we would use.

    I don’t think of myself as a “Quaker Poet.” Though I am a Quaker who writes poetry, I don’t speak for Quakers. Many of my earliest poems were about birds. I then consciously ruled them out as a subject, not wanting to be thought of as a Bird Poet, wanting to avoid such cataloguing. Only two poems in this collection are Quaker in subject matter, “Quaker Funeral” and “Jordans Meeting.” However, a friend did once say she thought of Antinightmare” as a quintessential Quaker poem since (mistakenly as it turned out) I gave George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt, seeing that of God in him.

    Yes, I think becoming aware of the incredible balances in the environment, and our need to protect them, has increased my Quaker faith, though I suppose it is circular and my Quaker faith has increased by sense of balances. I want to be on the side of protecting the land, yet I still drive a car. It is a Prius, but still uses gas. Our son will only use public transportation or his bicycle, but there is none of the former where we live and I am too old for the latter, so I remain inconsistent. Yet my Quaker faith is me. As you said, wherever I go, there I am.

    I wrote “Fjord Afternoon” some years ago.

    FJORD AFTERNOON

    Our weeks of sun have come to an end, all the colors subdued under a mat grey sky, the surface calm, the maples along the shore patches of dull orange among the yellowing alders, the mountains flat planes of dissolving blues, the still warm air already beginning to turn.

    No sound but the paddles stirring slow circles and the occasional loon laughing across the water, yet the fjord is restless with congregations of grebes and scoters extending into the mist; five cormorants crenellating a floating log take off one by one as we drift too close.

    What an autumn this has been! A seal, slipping beneath the canoe, comes up on the other side, trying to understand us, keeping its soft periscope aimed in our direction. Its paler-than-usual face magnifies its eyes, its round black eyes, looking through and beyond us.

    We face that fjord and the Olympic Mountains beyond it, as we have now for more than fifty years. But the fjord is dying. In winter there used to be rafts of many kinds of ducks. Not now. There are no longer the fish to support them. The ecological balance has gone awry. Even then I thought of the seal as looking through and beyond us.

    Numbers of poems in this book end with unresolved observations, like “Clearing the View”:

  • Special Report: Philanthropy & Inflation in USA congregations new Study by Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

    Report by Peter Menkin

    The Presbyterian Church Outlook publication arm, edited by John Haberer, is producing a series of Webinars and one played on the internet October, 2013 on philanthropy was of particular interest to this Religion Writer. Like many webinars produced by Outlook by the Presbyterian Church, says John Haberer, this one, characteristically, had fewer than 50 participants, it was a powerful and even elite course in a single subject of particular interest to its special group of internet viewers. The cost under $50, the webinar covered Philanthropy and the Church and included the long report about a Congregational Impact Study regarding inflation and the economy churches in the United States. This study of national character and excellent reputation encompassed more than 3000 Protestant churches, mostly.

    The webinar was worth the price of admission; it was a smooth running affair led by and organized by William Enright, PhD. This Religion Writer spoke with him prior to the internet broadcast. This from my notes:

    We survey over 3100 congregations: It [the 3100 congregations] represent the spectrums. We found congregations are recovering from the recession in 2007, and most are recovering and it is slow. Most are failing to keep pace with inflation. We figure 62% are not keeping pace. If you say you are giving the same in 2011, you are not keeping pace.

    We gathered anecdotal data. Many congregations with shrinking dollars cut internal programs, and maintenance, but did not cut mission and outreach to serving others.

    We use the data base from four organizations: Alban institute, weighted towards mainline Protestantism, with Jewish representation, Christianity Today, weighted towards evangelical spectrum, and national church business administrators, slightly weighted towards mainline with southern Baptist and evangelical.

    Lake is part of the Lily Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University Family School of Philanthropy. This is the second wave, study done five years ago of congregational giving. In our work at the Lake Institute we do the intersection of religion and philanthropy, or faith and giving. We provide practical training for religious organizations. Our seminal seminar which we have done for 3000 congregations across the United States is called creating congregational generosity. We also have created have a certificated in religious fundraising called, Executive Certificate in Religious Fundraising (ECRF). We do the program in conjunction with seven to eight theological institutions in the United States: St. Meirand Seminary (Catholic); also next year through Fuller on the West Cost, and through Louisville, and through Duke, and through McCormick in South Carolina, Shaw University.

    That is for clergy, lay business administrators, and for diocesan stewardship directors, or development officers in faith based institutions. Cost is about $1500 per person, and takes a project. The price will vary.

    One of the findings from the survey is we discovered is that the clergy, the pastor is involved in the finances, and they understand the giving patterns;, the congregation does better than those congregations than where the pastor is not involved. That is a very important part. The average congregation in our study is around 400 members. On the other hand, the median is going to be lower.

    Essentially, using an effective, organized address of an hour’s length with a half hour of questions afterward, William Enright worked from slides under the theme The Recession and Its Implication for Congregational Life in the United States (this the recession of 2007). 37% of the congregations in the study were established between 1801 and 1900 and just under half were suburban. Those with younger attendees did better than others. Though just better than a quarter of congregations had improved in their giving since the recession, a third had worsened.

    When it came to keeping pace with inflation, a little more than half did not keep pace with the rate of inflation. Just isn’t happening, apparently.

    In more than a quarter of churches, attendance is declining, whereas better than a third to almost 40% is staying the same. By the way the media reports Protestant church decline, this increase the study reports is almost good news. This writer wondered what had philanthropy to do with attendance, but on reflection there is a truth to this figure for in the greater sense churches play a major role in philanthropy. Though in the United States churches are not the major giver to aid people, for that is the United Way (number one USA) and they in step in size of giving with the Salvation Army which ranks at the top which for some reason is not counted as a church for the reasons Lilly holds–church attendance is part of this study.

    We are hitting the high points in this study, and the material is somewhat confidential in the report given in the webinar, but because this Religion Writer was invited to cover the webinar readers get an idea of some highlights. Also, this is not a full report on the entire event, suffice it to say.