Despite appearances, I have been reading this past week…

Elizabeth Scalia’s Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols of Everyday Life invites readers to consider those things which get between them and God. I heard sermons on this topic in my youth and was not expecting much, but Scalia proved surprising; she doesn’t settle for something trite like asking the reader to compare how much time they spend praying compared to how much time they spend watching television, but instead offers a reflection that points out how thoroughly most of us trapped in “the dungeon of ourselves”. At the beginning, she writes that many of our woes come from the need to be loved, the difficulty of finding that in a broken world, and a subsequent tendency to go the easy route — to pursue an audience instead of relationship. What an apt description for the rising generations, lost in social media apps and neuroticism — but she was writing this over ten years ago. Scalia’s work goes deep into mindfulness as she explores the way our reactions to what people do and say is often less about them, and more us; how we delight in raging self-righteous! I will be sharing excerpts from this a little later, possibly on Sunday.

Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community takes a look at three communities in 1950s Chicago: a working-class Catholic neighborhood centered around St. Nicks’s; a then-new suburban development erupting out of a pre-existing neighborhood, with tensions between the old residents and all the new up-and-comers; and Bronzeville, a black neighborhood that was much-dismembered in the name of slum clearing. Much of society has been dismembered since the 1950s, chiefly in the name of self-interest — both on the part of individuals and of corporations, the ties between having been gleefully severed. This book was of great interest to me, in part because because it’s illustrating the richness that Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone documented our losing, and in part because it’s encounter an author who is capable of writing about the 1950s as were, instead of how they’re idolized or demonized. I was most interested in the section on St. Nick’s, because it so thoroughly demonstrates how multi-layered and reinforcing society used to be: teachers, clergy, and members of the community worked together to keep an eye on and discipline children, so that the nuns of St. Nicks would discipline boys in-class if they’d misbehaved on the street, parents kept an eye on each other’s children as they played together in the lane between houses; and the cathedral’s monsignor patrolled the neighborhood, offering admonition and mentorship at the same time. The author points out that some of the tension between old and young came from the fact that men like Father Lynch had grown up in the Depression and fought in World War 2, and were now having to deal with insolence from the children of peace, ease, and prosperity. Not done chewing on this one yet — I think re-reading it in tandem with a re-read of Bowling Alone, joined by another book I have my eye on, would be an interesting experience.

Next up, The Teammates: The Story of a Friendship. This is a brief mix of history and biography, taking a look at the friendship between four Red Sox players (Ted Williams, Joe Pesky, Dominic DiMaggio, and Bobby Doerr), framed around the latter three members’ final visit to Ted, dying of cancer. It’s short, sweet, and informative, at least if you (like me) don’t know much about these guys. I didn’t even know Joe DiMaggio had one brother playing baseball, let alone two. These four men were fortunate enough to spend years playing together on the same team, and maintained friendships long after they’d left the ball club. In the age of free agency when members float between teams at whim, I imagine that’s much rarer — especially since other bonds, like DiMaggio and Pesky both being the sons of immigrants who did not understand how their boys could mistake a game for a career — are less salient.