Things that make me smile

This past August we had the opportunity to attend the GK Chesterton conference at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  Wow!  That's the best way to describe it.  It was a most amazing experience.  I was all prepared to feel inadequate and unprepared as I listened to the different lectures.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The speakers were brilliant but down to earth.  They were accessible.  So many times when you attend something like this the person comes in, gives their talk, maybe shakes a few hands afterwards, and then is wisked out, never to be seen again.  Not so here.  The speakers stayed around to hear others speak.   We sat with a couple of them in the audience and chatted before and after other speakers.  We drank beer with them at the Friday evening social.  One of the speakers was our suite-mate in the dorms.  I can't count the number of times we ran into Dale Ahlquist walking to or from the dorms to the lecture hall.  What a great man - brilliant, as nice as can be, with the funniest sense of humor.

And we took their pictures.  Or at least in the case of Fr. Peter Milward, the back of his head.  He was sitting in front of us during Chuck Chalberg's presentation as Chesterton.   Yesterday we got an early Christmas present.  The cover of the latest issue of Gilbert Magazine was published on their website.  They used DH's picture!  He's now a published photographer.  Yeah!  I am so, so proud of him.

“When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them.” – The Chesterton Review, February, 1984