I returned home on Sunday night after a veritable feast of Chesterton in Upstate New York.

On Friday I spoke at a Chesterton Conference in Buffalo to a gathering of more than a hundred enthusiastic Chestertonians at Blessed Sacrament church. My topic was “the humour and humlitity of Chesterton”. Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, spoke on “the bold and noble honour of fighting for the Faith”, or something along those lines; and Kevin O’Brien, director of Theatre of the Word Incorporated and StAR columnist and blogger, gave a talk on his own work, interspersed with video clips, including a comedy skit starring the hilariously absurd Catholic modernist, Standford Nutting, and a scene from the new fim adaptation of Chesterton’s novel, Manalive.  

On Saturday I was among the speakers at the ninth annual Rochester Chesterton Society conference. I spoke on “the history of true England”; Dale Ahlquist spoke on “Chesterton and King Arthur”; Christopher Check gave a rousing talk on the Battle of Lepanto, culminating in an even more rousing rendition of Chesterton’s famous poem about the battle; and David Higbee spoke on the Marian apparitions at Fatima. As always, this annual event was a true joy and I think the numbers attending were larger than ever.

This weekend I head back to the North-east, this time to New England, to give my conversion story on Saturday night at a Catholic parish in New London, NH, and to lead a discussion on C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce to a book discussion group in the same area.