So maybe some of you haven't had time even to glance at our web-site.
​Please do to see great graphics concerning a new project many of you are involved in.

It was a challenging little visit because contrary to my siege mentality dreams of enclaves of true blue Catholics, Alex is very into how we have to avoid that in favor of evangelizing even in the public schools.  He trains his own kids to do that!

 Editors Note:
Ronda has intimated that she is cognizant of the impediments to publication her fellow philosopher-bloggers are forced to face during the summer months.
Be assured of her empathy and prayers.

First, I am editing a booklet series that I wrote to each of you about called Why I am Still a Catholic. Not all of you agreed to write for it, but most did.  I am eager to get your booklets whenever possible.

Second, our member, Steve Bujno, is working on a book for High School Students and other young people based on my Spiritual Marathon in Way of Love. 

I teach it in my on campus and on-line classes on philosophy of love. Steve Bujno uses the Marathon with Catholic High School students.

A new thing is starting a group of Catholic adults here near Holy Apostles who are working on the book and coming together once a week for sharings and discussion.  They absolutely love the book!
​One of them mentioned how he wished my approach was out there for high school age young Catholics!  

It would be a dream of mine that one of you would re-write parts of Way of Love or the whole in a format that would be best for High School students, college students, and young adults in parishes.  It could have an even more user friendly format and graphics. 

The new cover could be
The Way of Love:
The Battle for Inner Transformation
by
Ronda Chervin and ________________ ____________________________________.
Some of you already have this idea on your back burners, but maybe you want to put them on the front burner. 

This was the end of finals week at the high school where I teach Moral Theology. Under the umbrella of Catholic Morality lies many topics, but as the students were given the opportunity to ‘choose’ which modules would be covered after the foundational concepts were addressed, it’s apparent that sexuality occupies their curiosity. They chose ‘The Sexual Revolution’, ‘Marriage and Sexuality’, ‘The Homosexual Person’ and ‘Love and Intimacy’…in that order.

I wouldn’t conclude that they had a salacious interest in those topics, but rather saw an opportunity to cover a topic that fills the minds of young (and old), yet remains to be breached with any genuine love, consideration and dare I say, a sacred humility. But here's the point; our culture is the water we swim in.

Two things are typically taken for granted on that point. One, the present beliefs and values have always been this way, and the second is that people (not just the young) believe that they chose their present values. With the second thought, if their values simply line up with the present culture, they presume it is because a movement is afoot. But one can be a champion of change without every defining what one is changing from or what one is changing into. It is thought that to change is to think for one’s self.

Never would they consider that ‘thinking for themselves’ is precisely what they are not doing…they don’t take notice of the cloudy water they’re swimming in, and for that matter, don’t really know what clear water looks like.

That’s an analogous symptom to the present concepts on sexuality. Without any unique thinking for one’s self, too many students (young and old) are mere copies of their culture. The tragedy is that it’s unbeknownst to them. Each is thought to be an original, but is merely a copy. With Any Warhol, at least there was no self-deception.

The goal was not as apologetics purports, to show them what clear water is really like, but to offer them an ‘ah-ha’ moment where they realize how the cultural water they’re swimming in really is indeed cloudy.

Alex Gotay  
​ I am  a National Speaker and full time Youth Minister who has  been there and is now living it REAL for Christ! My intense  approach and real style captures audiences. My passion for Christ  and my experiences in life allow me to address the culture’s many  ailments with answers found in Christ! My childhood consisted of sexual abuse, drugs, gangs, jailed and killed  friends, family etc. Growing up the way I did led me to despair.  At  around the age of 22 I met a Youth Minister who helped me form  my relationship with Christ. I became heavily involved in a  Protestant youth ministry for years until I read my way into  become Catholic years later.  My powerful messages combined with my life stories, sprinkled with Biblical stories and the lives of the Saints help connect with teens and young adults because my electric discussions of faith and culture are in a language that they understand and are made relevant!
​http://www.thecatholicyouthminister.com/_

Jeremie Solak  I am a returned prodigal-son who has seven children.
My wife and I homeschool as a way to "work out their salvation", and Catholic philosophy and perennial philosophy are a central part of our children's curriculum.
I am a  professor-teacher who has lived and studied in Spain and Poland. I love stories of transformation, pilgrimage, and homecoming, and see Transformational Catholic Philosophy as a way of life that leads to the habits of joy, mirth, gratitude, humility, grace, and to relationship with Him.
This is my working thesis for my writings for the Transformational Catholic Philosophy community: Truth is for freedom; freedom is for goodness; goodness is for community in love--in which authentic happiness is found. And if I were to write a fortune cookie message for the group, it would read like this: Good philosophy is to the intellect what a good chiropractor is to the spine; therefore, good philosophy feels right.

Sean & Jenny Hurt
Sean:
​I grew up in a vehemently anti-religious household. Although I was an atheist and materialist I never ceased looking for the source of truth, beauty and goodness. In college, I met and married my future wife, Jennifer, a philosopher at heart who had fallen away from the Catholic faith.  After college we joined the Peace Corps and set off for Malawi, a small country in southern Africa.  During my service I met a devout Malawian Christian whose love, friendship and persistence battered down the walls of atheism! The Gospels were the most beautiful thing I had ever read. Here, finally, was the source of truth, beauty and goodness I’d so long sought! It was not an ideology but the living word made flesh, Jesus Christ!  After Peace Corps, I joined the Catholic Church. By God’s grace Jen also returned to the Church and she is blessed with a living faith. Not long after our dramatic conversions, we had our first child together, Teresa. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in Geology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and I hope one day to become a science professor (perhaps at a Catholic institution) and raise a big family.
​Jenny:
After hiding from God my whole life, I finally got it together and returned to the Church shortly after the birth of my daughter, Teresa. I spend most of my time trying to be a good mother, going to Mass, visiting with family and friends, thinking, and reading good books. I am  currently studying Philosophy with the online program at Holy Apostles College and Seminary.  I got my B.A. in philosophy at UCLA.

Steve Bujno​
 Growing up in a lower-middle class Italian neighborhood provided a  wonderful exposure to extensive family relations and simple material  contentment. Hardly idyllic but nonetheless stable, I am now trying to  provide the same to my wonderful wife, and three daughters who are  now young women, in addition to my two granddaughters. I have  been a professional artist for my entire adult life and for the last  decade, a high school moral theology teacher where I have witnessed  the effect both affluence and sexualization has on the forming minds  and hearts of young urban students. This entire life experience has  set me off to identify the shifts in Western culture on two fronts that  are simple to identity yet difficult to culturally counter. One  addresses the lure of wealth, notoriety and power over truth, beauty and goodness, particularly in education. The second is to recapture an intimacy unmoored from sexualization in order that on all levels we may grow in empathy and experience loving Christian relationships that nurture both familial fulfillment and material contentedness, which are otherwise thwarted by narcissistic tendencies. 
 

   

​  Navigating
​ – about steering by means of logic, experience,intuition
and/or  faith.

​The Sun, Stars and Lighthouses
- about God, wisdom-figures and great insights.

​A Utopian Island
-  about ethics and social philosophy.

​Besides the sea voyage imagery, every chapter had room for the reader to write his/her own responses.

Wanting the book to be not only for my classes but for seekers, I persuaded a friend who was an educational psychologists and not a Catholic to co-author it.

Happily, this book, used for decades, after having first been published by a small press called Chiaro-Oscuro, has now be re-published by Enroute Books and Media. They have added even more graphics, especially pictures of the thinkers being quoted. In case you want to use Voyage to Insight for students or seekers sometime, you can find it at
enroutebooksandmedia.com.
The publisher might even send you a free review copy if tell him that you are a transformative Catholic philosopher!