St. Paul's Cathedral Book Club

MAYFLOWER for Epiphany '07

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathanial Philbrick is our St. Paul's Cathedral Book Club entry for the season of Epiphany 2007. This award-winning non-fiction book chronicles the journey of the Mayflower and the years of the first English settlement in North America. The Washington Post Book World last year noted that, "Because Philbrick is in search of the more factually complex and morally ambiguous truth behind essentially self-serving popular mythology, it is important to emphasize that he is not out to denigrate that mythology or those who embrace it. He celebrates the courage, resourcefulness and determination of many of the settlers, most notably Bradford and the remarkable warrior Benjamin Church; he acknowledges and describes in detail the many ways in which Pilgrims and Indians cooperated, in some cases to their mutual advantage; he pays particular tribute to Mary Rowlandson, the settler who was kidnapped by Indians and endured much hardship and privation but ultimately helped broker peace between Indians and Puritans.... We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. But if Mayflower achieves the wide readership it deserves, perhaps a few Americans will be moved to reconsider all that."

While the book is available in mass market bookstores in the area, there are a few copies available in the Cathedral Book Store. The book will be discussed on Sunday, February 4th at Noon (following the 10:30 a.m. service), or you can post here/on line.

Enjoy MAYFLOWER! Our next book, ++Katherine Schiori's ON A WING AND A PRAYER, will carry us through Lent, and will also have many opportunities for meeting/discussion, after Wednesday Lenten Evensongs at 5:30 pm, following Friday Lenten Holy Eucharists at 12:10 pm, and, again, here on line. If you have specific questions, please contact Fr. Clerkin at shawn@cathedralofstpaul.org.

Let Christ's light shine in your lives!
Peace,
Fr. Shawn+