Fr. Joe
A couple of nights ago, I finished Father Joe: the Man who Saved my Soul by Tony Hendra. I was almost sad to be finished, because the storytelling was so wonderful. It's about Tony Hendra, who played Ian Faith, the manager in Spinal Tap, and his relationship with a Benedictine priest, who counsels him, but more importantly loves him and is his friend throughout his tumultuous life.
As a young teenager, Hendra experiences a crisis and is introduced to Dom Joseph Warrilow, usually known as Fr. Joe. Fr. Joe is supposed to "straighten Tony out," but instead of lowering the boom, he responds to the deeply confused young man with love and understanding and helps Tony to see the other people in the crisis in that way as well.
This is the pattern of Hendra's relationship with Fr. Joe. Expecting to find judgment when he loses his faith at university and knocks up his girlfriend, Fr. Joe instead counsels him about being unselfish toward his wife, to embrace his vocation as a husband and father. And so it goes throughout his life, through career twists and turns, shotgun wedding, births of children, a divorce, remarriage, stillbirth, more children born and eventual rediscovery of a cranky faith.
You don't have to like Spinal Tap or even be a Christian to like the book. At its core, it is about friendship, love and how you discover your own humanity through the love & friendship with another human being.
As a young teenager, Hendra experiences a crisis and is introduced to Dom Joseph Warrilow, usually known as Fr. Joe. Fr. Joe is supposed to "straighten Tony out," but instead of lowering the boom, he responds to the deeply confused young man with love and understanding and helps Tony to see the other people in the crisis in that way as well.
This is the pattern of Hendra's relationship with Fr. Joe. Expecting to find judgment when he loses his faith at university and knocks up his girlfriend, Fr. Joe instead counsels him about being unselfish toward his wife, to embrace his vocation as a husband and father. And so it goes throughout his life, through career twists and turns, shotgun wedding, births of children, a divorce, remarriage, stillbirth, more children born and eventual rediscovery of a cranky faith.
You don't have to like Spinal Tap or even be a Christian to like the book. At its core, it is about friendship, love and how you discover your own humanity through the love & friendship with another human being.
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