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Bethlehem
Community facilitates the work of the Virgil Michel Center.
Click
Here to see pictures of Bethlehem Community at "work"
The following is a article about the Community.
FINDING STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS
by Daria Sockey
This is truly the age of
the laity There are so many ways laymen can serve the Church
and evangelize others. Apostolic-minded individuals can take
part in CCD, adult education, pro-life work, apologetics,
parish outreach, publishing good fiction for children ...
What? Children's fiction? What has that got to do with the
work of the Church?
Plenty according to a unique community of lay Catholics who
live in Bathgate, N.D. Before exploring the connection between
Catholicism and children's stories, let's learn a little about
the remarkable faith-journey of this assembly of families
and single adults - 22 people in total - who call themselves
the Bethlehem Community. During the 1970s, many Christians
experimented with living as a community as a way to emulate
the early Christians. Evangelical Protestants and Catholic
charisma tics, with little more than passages from Acts 2
and 4 to guide them, pooled their resources, purchased adjoining
homes or apartment buildings, and attempted a mix of common
and family life.
But, for the most part, members of these communities found
them no easier to sustain than did the early Christians. Some
communities fell too much under a leader's sway and broke
apart. Others slowly evaporated as the stress of sharing resources
among growing families caused members' enthusiasm to wear
thin.
But one little Baptist community from Portland, Ore., persisted.
Originally founded in 1971, the Bethlehem Community rode the
waves of fluctuating membership, trials and tribulations,
that often destroyed other communities. The Portland community
evolved in order to survive.
One of the most important things community members did was
to follow Saint Paul's mandate to depend on God's weakness,"
instead of man's strength.
"Weakness - a funny biblical term we spent decades applying
and building up with our own coloration," explains founding
member Lydia Reynolds. "We give it a positive meaning
because Saint Paul does: "The weakness of God is stronger
than the strength of men.'... While we know God, the master
worker, is ultimately bringing us to perfection, we ourselves
cannot offer perfection, just the opposite. All I can offer
is my own shortcomings. Out of this crooked stick, he can
draw straight lines unimaginable to me."
As the years passed, God called the Bethlehem Community to
an increasingly radical commitment to the Gospel and, by 1993,
into full communion with the Catholic Church.
The community's children's book ministry, however, stems from
a decision made nine years earlier.
In 1984, community members opted to go beyond pooling their
separate incomes and operate a business together.
Their first venture was a Scandinavian bakery. Although it
proved viable, community members weren't entirely pleased
with the business.
"It was very labor intensive," remembers member
Jean Ann Sharpe. "And completely unattractive to our
young people."
In 1993, the year they became Catholics, the priest who received
them into the Church offered the Community an old printing
press. This ultimately led formation of Bethlehem Books.
Longtime home-schoolers, the community parents had noticed
a disturbing trend in children's literature as they perused
public libraries and used bookstores.
"Our lack of TV and emphasis on reading acquainted us
with the wealth of good children's literature published during
the first 70 years of [of the 20th] century," says Lydia
Reynolds. "In recent times, the rising strength of anti-Christian
values has been pushing by the wayside many of the best of
these works. It was not until we became Catholic that we gained
the perspective to understand that the books we had liked
owed their spiritual realism and joyful moral affirmation,
ultimately, to the Catholic faith. A Catholic viewpoint enables
us to see the continuity of human experience under the universal
providence of God."
Not that all these wonderful books were written by Catholics
or were about specifically Catholic topics.
"But most of them rest on the solid moral and spiritual
values of a Christian culture, values that are underlaid by
centuries of Catholic practice," Reynolds explains.
As these books began to go out of print, the Bethlehem Community
believed the time had come to begin a rescue operation.
The community's first effort in saving such literature was
a quarterly journal called In Review. First published in early
1994, each issue reviewed and categorized by topic and age
group classic children's books, both in and out of print.
It was an invaluable aid to parents who were seeking to build
a home library or who simply wanted to know what to look for
at the local public library
In Review was published for two and a half years. Back issues
are still available.
Next, the community turned its energies to re-print-ing lost
classics. The first literary work it offered, in 1994, was
Rolf and the Viking Bow by Alien French, a tale of medieval
Iceland. Next came a children's version of the Beowulf saga,
written by lan Seraillier.
Today, Bethlehem's book catalogue features 40 titles. Approximately
six new tides are scheduled to be added each year. These classics
range from picture books for pre-schoolers to adventure and
romance stories suitable for high-schoolers. The catalogue
even offers a few original works.
"Although most of our titles were written decades ago,
they each possess a timelessness of their own, whether in
making a period of history come vividly to life, or in showing
the beauty and resiliency of the human person in relation
to one another," explains Jean Ann Sharpe, one of Bethlehem
Books'three editors. "We drink there is a healing that
can happen through the truth, beauty and goodness that comes
through a good story"
As its publishing business grew, the community had to negotiate
several difficulties, including a move to North Dakota and
financial problems.
In 1995, Bishop James Sullivan of Fargo, N.D., invited the
community to live in his diocese and offered members a former
convent as their new home. The Bethlehem Community worked
hard to renovate the building, fashioning a work area and
living quarters for each family
It also became apparent that Bethlehem Books was far more
a ministry than a business - with red ink to prove it.
In 1994, Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, the head of San Francisco's
Ignatius Press, offered the community some financial help.
He saw the value in what Bethlehem Books was doing, and furnished
the community with a reliable income as managers of Ignatius'
product-ordering system. After the community moved to North
Dakota, Father Fessio invested some of Ignatius Press' capital
in Bethlehem Books.
Lydia Reynolds says the community is happy with the arrangement.
"Ignatius Press' investment has made it possible for
us to steadily publish a number of books each year, be advertised
in their catalogue as well as our own, and be free to make
our own editorial decisions with virtually no interference,"
she says. "Our relationship has been one of friendship
and mutual trust in the zeal of two publishing apostolates
with complementary objects."
In the last few years, a resurgence of interest in vintage
books has given Bethlehem Books a big boost. At home-schooling
conferences, mothers flock to their tables and old customers
enthusiastically point out favorites to newcomers. Children
edge up to the tables and soon become absorbed in reading
sample copies.
Authors and educators have echoed Bethlehem Community's conviction
diat quality children's literature is good for the soul.
Authors and educators have echoed Bethlehem Community's conviction
that quality children's literature is good for the soul.
"Good literature contributes to the formation of the
intellect and the imagination," says Laura Berquist,
author of Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum (Ignatius).
"When these faculties are well-formed, we are better
able to perceive and accept truths about God. Bethlehem Books
has done an amazingly good job in choosing books that are
interesting, informative and truly reflect reality If anything
is good or true or beautiful it prepares the soul for God.
It's like planting seeds in good soil. But it is so hard to
find good stories for children that are consistent with the
incarnational world view."
Vivian Dudro, writer and home-schooling mother, says: "There's
so little belief in objective truth nowadays and far too much
of What's true for you may not be true for me' and 'You make
your own reality' But the authors that Bethlehem publishes
are rooted in the Christian tradition, so their stories are
shaped by that truth. The children in these stories continually
face the conflict between good and evil, the same struggle
that forms us all. They sometimes fall, but come through triumphant
in the end. Children read these stories and say 'these are
people just like me".
Regina Doman is one of the few new authors that Bethlehem
has published.
I was glad to have found Bethlehem Books when I did,"
she says. "I had written a manuscript for teens that
was not explicitly Catholic enough to be published by a typical
religious publishing house, but was probably too Catholic
to be published anywhere else. It was at this puzzling intersection
that I met the people at Bethlehem. They are quietly working
one of the little-noticed fronts in building up the culture
of life - recapturing the Christian imagination and passing
on that legacy from the past."
Although the Bethlehem Community enjoys this kind of recognition
and growing success, community leaders are self-effacing about
their abilities.
"It would be impossible to do what we do without the
vision we've developed over the last nearly 30 years - everything
we do is 'out of our weakness,'" says Jean Sharpe. "Given
our individual and corporate histories, we really shouldn't
be succeeding at anything, much less sharing a common life
or doing a publishing work. But God's grace is a real thing,
as we prove daily."
Bethlehem Books' increasing success has forced the community
to look for larger quarters. Last year, it relocated to a
former school for the blind situated on 40 acres.
Future plans include study guides to accompany several teen
books aimed at helping readers consider the deeper themes
presented in the works. Spanish-language editions of some
books and a Catholic vacation Bible school program are also
being planned.
Bethlehem Community members readily admit that they're long
on great ideas and short on time and resources to implement
them. But whatever happens, members will continue to offer
God their weakness.
For more information about Bethlehem Books and its catalogues,
call 1-800-757-6831 or go to www.bethlehembooks.com.
Catholic Faith
and Family June 18, 2000
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