Swimming With Scapulars

  Now in paperback!   Swimming with Scapulars:  True Confessions of a Young Catholic by Matthew Lickona For a wine connoisseur and fan of Nine Inch Nails, thirtysomething Matthew Lickona lives an unusual inner life. He is a Catholic of a decidedly traditional bent ("I believe the same things as my pious old grandmother"). He wears a scapular, a medieval talisman believed to secure God's protection. He fasts during Lent. He and his wife shun modern birth control—they waited four nights after their wedding to consummate their marriage. But he is also a writer of prodigious talent, which is on full display in Swimming with Scapulars, a story of a premodern faith lived with a postmodern sensibility. Lickona's "true confessions" are his painfully honest chronicles of his fitful starts and ongoing efforts to live the faith he is so proud of. ("I believe my faith to be a gift, though the gift may sometimes feel like a cross to be borne.") Yet his life as a Catholic is one of great joy, particularly his joy in being intimately connected with God through the sacrament of the Eucharist. About the author:  Matthew Lickona is a staff writer and sometime cartoonist for the San Diego Reader, a weekly newspaper. Born and raised in upstate New York, he attended Thomas Aquinas College in California. He lives in La Mesa, California, with his wife Deirdre and their four children. Contents: Part I: Formation Tha Janitor Prophet Are You Still Having Sex? Too Much Kissing with Father Dave The Poisonous Tentacles of Anti-Abortion Zealots My Dad and The Plague Begging the Sun to Dance Et in Arcadia Ego Triddywackers, Tinkerers, and the Roar of the Crowd Lent and Its Discontents Swimming with Scapulars Part II: At Home Deirdre Do You Need to Be a Paterfamilias? Sex and the Outrageous Principle Why So Many? The Roach and the Woman Not Home Until We Die Boy Meets God Part III: WiseMatthew Lickona