….each venture..is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating…
And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
– T. S. Eliot East Coker
Notes in the Margin
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in one of his rare flashes of insight, declared that institutions are the lengthened shadow of one man. This is definitely true of the little institution we lovingly call The Cornerstone Forum. Contrary to what some might suppose, the man who cast that shadow was Randy Coleman-Riese. Randy took one look at me several decades ago and realized that somebody needed to step in if anything yours truly had to say would ever be heard by more than a few dozen people. But Randy has not only been the man of practicality without whom our little enterprise would not exist, he exemplified the way of life commensurate with the principles we proclaimed. I have ever been his student in this preeminent matter, even as he professed admiration for the words I spoke and committed to paper. Our collaboration has been a constant source of inspiration for me, and Randy will remain my spiritual elder brother, notwithstanding my slightly more advanced age.
Both Randy and I share an enthusiasm for the two younger and wiser men into whose hands the Cornerstone Forum will now gradually be handed over. By gradually, I mean that I will remain as active as ever, and Randy will be on the Cornerstone Forum speed-dial for the foreseeable future. As it has been in recent years, my contribution will continue to be made, rather ploddingly, at the writing desk. The future course of the Cornerstone Forum will be in the hands of two men of enormous intelligence, erudition, integrity, and Christian faith: Alex Lessard and Rico McCahon. The motto by which I have always lived – that God provides – was once again proven sound when these two men agreed to take the helm at the Cornerstone Forum. But Rico and Alex will be relying, as Randy and I always have, on the prayers, suggestions, and support of the extended Cornerstone Forum family.
I have often used our annual funding appeal as an opportunity to report on my writing projects and to share a paragraph or two with our friends and donors. As many know, for some time I have been working on a book entitled: The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self: Recovering the Christian Mystery of Personhood. Below are a couple of paragraphs from the introductory chapter entitled “The Triumph of the Will and the Twilight of Resolve.”
This is not a storybook, but it is a collection of stories–fictional and factual–and a running commentary on them. Both the factual stories and the literary ones will be read in an allegorical key, as a clue to the overall spiritual and existential predicament we will be exploring. Taken together, these stories limn the outlines of two more elusive stories: that of the autonomous self and that of the person, whose Christian origins and Christian connotations have too often been overlooked. The tragically mistaken idea that the incalculable moral and cultural blessings of Christianity will survive the attenuation of the faith that gave birth to these blessings is the predicate for much that happened in the Christian West over the last few hundred years. The cultural and confessional evisceration of Christianity will prove the validity of Christ’s warning: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). For these words were spoken by Christ to his own followers, and they now apply not only to Christians but even to those whose exposure to Christ has been merely cultural, and who may think the civilization shaped by Christian faith will survive the renunciation of that faith. As we shall see below, the most salient manifestation of the nothing of which Christ spoke is the nihilism that is ever more clearly becoming the distinguishing characteristic of the post-Christian world.
It might be said that there are two prominent forms of nihilism: the one exhibited by Pilate when he shruggingly asked Jesus: What is truth? and the one exhibited by the mob when it shouted in unison: crucify him. The proximity to one another of these two forms of nihilism in the Passion story is quite illuminating. Pilate’s shrugging and dismissive remark sanctions a moral chaos, to the terrible consequences of which the mob spontaneously responds by regressing to the most primitive of moral certainties: the guilt of the unanimously accused victim. Neither the Roman prefect nor the crowd he would soon be obliged to appease exhibited that openness to truth of which the Old and New Testaments speak: a humble and contrite heart. It was just such a heart that made Augustine aware of the link between the ideological and moral forms of nihilism. He renounced the philosophers whom he had earlier studied with such diligence, saying that they kept the truth imprisoned by their wickedness.
With affection and gratitude,
From the cluttered desk of the Executive Director, Randy Coleman-Riese,
Where to begin? We have undertaken new projects, brought in new hands to guide the work, and made changes to our online efforts:
- Gil Bailie’s latest book, Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self, will be published by Angelico Press next year, likely in the Spring/Summer. And he is already sketching the outlines for his next manuscript project.
- We completed the recording of Gil Bailie’s 2016 God’s Gamble – The Gravitational Power of Crucified Love. This audiobook will be available on Audible later this year. You may listen to an excerpt here.
- Our website has been completely renovated and re-christened with a ‘new’ URL – cornerstoneforum.org – we removed the hyphen in the old site’s web address. Anyone going to the old site will be automatically redirected to the new one.
- Our old website’s store for distribution of Gil Bailie’s audio catalog has been transformed into a free online audio library via our new podcast provider, Podbean. René Girard’s audio library is also available on the new site as well. Those who wish to purchase CDs of a selection of Gil’s presentations will be able to do so in the Amazon marketplace.
- We moved our donor management and credit card processing software from an in-house database to Network for Good, which relieves us of much of the bureaucratic overhead that had become a burden for our small operation.
- After more than twenty years assisting Gil Bailie in the work of bringing a whole-hearted faith to a half-hearted world, I will be retiring from the executive directorship of The Cornerstone Forum. Taking my place in January will be two very capable supporters of our efforts, Rico McCahon and Alex Lessard. I encourage you to watch a short video introducing Rico and Alex, below. I will remain on The Cornerstone Forum advisory board and continue to lend a hand.
I have always hoped our efforts could be of use in the educational arena, specifically in providing opportunities for Christian school teachers and Church catechists to become familiar with the horizon broadening interpretive lens of René Girard’s mimetic hypothesis. Early in my work with Gil we were contacted by the founder of a prestigious private school who saw the potential of this work and provided both the vision and funding for the first iteration of the Emmaus Road Initiative. With the assistance of our new executive staff beginning next year we will seek opportunities to partner with Catholic/Christian Liberal Education programs to extend this vision.
As we look ahead, we will need the help and support of all those who find our work of value to realize this vision. We hope you will join us in this venture by making a donation in support of our efforts. In previous years we offered newly available audio materials from Gil Bailie’s archival catalog and/or the text from one of Gil’s recent presentations as a bonus for those who have helped us with their material support. This year, having brought the entire catalog online and freely accessible to all, we would like to offer as a gift to those making a donation of at least $25/mo ($300/yr) a complimentary copy of the Audible audiobook of God’s Gamble when it becomes available later this year. But no matter the amount you give, we will work to make every dollar serve our mission as effectively as possible. We are all facing instability in the world around us, but it is faith in the certainty of God’s provision for our good that enables us to take confident steps to offer a whole-hearted faith to a half-hearted world.
With thanksgiving and blessings,
