Martin Shaw, in the intro to his new book:

When it comes time for the Eucharist—communion—I find myself compelled to take it. There seems to be no choice in the matter. I watch my body walk me up to the priest without delay. I’ve been waiting fifty years, I can’t wait any longer. It was a little hasty, and rather against protocol, but it just sort of happened.

I have plans for the rest of the afternoon but have to cancel them. I drive through a red light on the way home, shouting to hooting drivers that I’ve been to church and have no idea what is happening! I lie in my darkened bedroom and let all I’ve described to you move through me. I feel different, and the feeling doesn’t pass. It was like wildness and discipline dancing with each other.

I was already liking the first part of the intro to the book, but these two grafs… dang.

Take Robert Capon, remove his upper class Episcopalian-ness, replace it with a kind of druidical Wendell Berry sensibility, and you’ve got what I’m reading in Shaw’s book so far. If the rest of the book lives up to the intro… well, I’ll be a happy reader. Don’t remember the last time a book got its hooks into me this deeply and this quickly.

Link for the book: bookshop.org/p/books/li…