Lost on Planet XXX: How the early Church can solve the modern crisis of internet pornography by Jay Lampert is a rather interesting take on overcoming porn addiction.

Like many books of this type, there is the element of the personal story and his own struggles. He partly tells of his journey for Protestantism to the Catholic Church. One part involves advising a Protestant friend regarding this. He partially realizes that he doesn’t have all the tools necessary to inform him and glosses over his then-current struggle.

Often his advice is rooted in Christian discipleship and accountability. That often it is the case that that overcoming the viewing of porn is not easily set aside. That like any vice, it is only overcome with virtue. Still more that also this is not quickly done alone and takes help from others along the way.

It seems to me that the subtitle of the book is not as fully explored as what I expected. It is referenced but was not a dominant theme of the book as far as I could tell. Or more likely this rooted in his exploration into the subject. There is a lot of good advice here and given in the context of trying to live a life of holiness in the context of the Church.

I haven’t read any other books on the subject, although I have heard the topic discusses on Catholic radio and blogs. The author’s approach seemed to me to be a bit different, but a difference that I think might be helpful to others.

The rest of this review might be labeled as TMI (Too Much Information) as I partly address my overcoming this problem.

One thing that struck me was the emphasis regarding porn and not necessarily the effects of a sexual fantasy life. Masturbation is not referenced in this book or the Church’s teaching regarding this. Porn can make the problem much worse, but you can still have a significant problem even if you manage to avoid porn.

My own story is that at a young age dirty jokes as told by my father got me thinking about sex early on. He also had a Playboy subscription, and I was indeed not discouraged from reading it. He considered masturbation perfectly acceptable and not something that you should be ashamed of. It is always hard to tell the extent of influence of the environment and what your proclivities might have lead to. Still, I know my attitude towards porn and masturbation was an evil influence on my life that led to an untold number of problems. I can hardly think of a worse impact on my life.

The casual acceptance of masturbation and that it is mostly a topic to be laughed about is a severe tragedy. An issue never brought up with any seriousness.

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”138 “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.”139

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action; one must take into account the affective immaturity, a force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

I struggled with this most of my life. God had mercy on me. On my way into the Church before I became Catholic, I happened to be reading John A. Hardon, S.J.’s “The Catholic Catechism”. When I came to the part on masturbation, I was struck by it. I just knew that this was true. Looking back at this, I consider it a miracle of grace. That not only was I entirely open to what I thought of as truth I did not want to be true, but that I fully accepted this truth. Even more amazing that since reading that passage I was never tempted to masturbate again. Like I said I consider this a supernatural grace. I am not someone with some hardened-will who can achieve what I will. I was weak and without God’s intervention would quickly have fallen into this sin again and again. I don’t think I could ever have achieved this on my own merits.

Not that I am cured of the objectification of women. I still struggle with this, especially now as a widower. I usually find that when my mind wanders this way, that I do not approve of it or let it manifest as lust. I realize that it is a temptation and that God’s grace help’s me to overcome it.

One of my many annoying habits is that I am a bit of a “quote nazi”, that is I look for opportunities to point out that something quoted was never actually said by the person cited. I keep pages full of not only quotes, but also misattributions.

Social media is especially bad at passing on misattributed quotes or just plain fake quoted. Meme are really bad concerning this. I have found it to be almost a certainty that any time something is quoted and placed on a picture background and then posted – that it is wrong. Quite annoying when I find I like a quote and then try to get the source. I am almost always disappointed to find the quote was not valid.

So when I found that Trent Horn of Catholic answers had released What the Saints Never Said: Pious Misquotes and the Subtle Heresies They Teach You, this was an instant buy. Although that it pretty much the case regardless of topic when it comes to Trent Horn.

This book goes farther than just to point out that a quote from a saint is actually not one. His methodology has multiple facets in identification. Making distinctions between quotes we have no citations of, ones that were almost certainly never said, or ones that came from a different source. In doubtful, but popular quotes, he delves into the substance of the quote and why they fail theologically or logically. I really enjoyed this analysis. Especially considering quotes that at first blush seem to portray some truth in a winsome way. That on further analysis fail at doing this and are in fact misleading.

So besides adding to my collection of quotes that are misattributed, it was the analysis that I enjoyed the most.

Back in 2011 I reviewed “Toward the Gleam” by T.M. Doran. I enjoyed it a lot, but sometimes it takes further thought to determine how good a book is. This is one that stayed with me as I remember substantial parts of the plot and thinking back on it returns that enjoyment. A nice mix of fantastic elements in the plot along with a protagonist finding himself unraveling the mystery involved while facing increasing danger.

There is now a sequel to this book called The Lucifer Ego. If you had read and enjoyed Toward the Gleam than I believe you would enjoy the sequel. This book has some of the same elements but set in the years after the first book.

Frodo Lyle Stuart is looking forward to his sabbatical, hoping to unearth evidence that will add new lustre to his reputation as a first-rate archaeologist. But Lyle’s Uncle Henry, abbot of a nearby monastery, has other plans, recruiting him to track down a stolen artifact—a manuscript of unimaginable antiquity his uncle believes is the source for the greatest work of literary imagination in the 20th century.

There is a bit of an Indian Jones quality as the skeptical Lyle gets in over his head trying to retrieve the artifact. Plenty of twists and turns along the way with some very interesting ideas involved. Certainly enough complexities to keep you on your toes. Recommended, and now I want to go back and re-read the first novel.

So when I was at the American Chesterton Society Conference, I picked up Kevin O’Brien’s book An Actor Bows: Show Biz, God and the Meaning of Life which was officially released that same day.

I quickly read through it and enjoyed it immensely. It is one of those improbable biographies that can only be true. Life is often incredible. Kevin starts off his story regarding his childhood, and I believe at the age of nine already considered himself an atheist. Most of the book relates the lows and highs of his acting career and his coming into faith. I love conversion stories since they are each unique. His is very different.

This book is often hilarious as he talks about his career. Starting with him doing singing telegrams and all the detours his career takes after that. So many great stories involving how “The show must go on.” The insanity of dealing with other actors, venues, etc. All the false starts and the ebbs and flows of pursuing his career as an actor. The times he just wanted to chuck it and do something “respectable.” For just this aspect and the related stories, I would have enjoyed this book. Even just for the stories related to his traveling mystery dinner theater.

This book goes beyond his day to day career into the moral dimensions of these challenges. Do you deal with some misgivings and quandaries and accept them as part of doing business and making a buck? What if you are just barely scraping by as it is. He brings these obstacles into view as he deals with figuratively selling his soul doing what is not comfortable form him. Just like the rest of us, he does not always succeed. The way he details these stories puts it all into context and brings you into the situation.

Mixed in this is his grappling with his atheism and moving beyond it. Like many people, he and his wife ran through a series of churches. Having to move on again when the squishiness of doctrine once more became unacceptable to endure. Still lots of great stories involved in dealing with this. Especially as he tried to teach other doctrines without stepping on all the restrictions placed on him as to what he could say.

After a murderous attack after one of his performances in his recovery time, he discovered first C.S. Lewis, which then led him to G.K. Chesterton. Ultimately this led him into the Catholic Church. You should read the book to get the details. Just loved so much of what he had to say on the subject of art at a deeper level. Kevin O’Brien later went on to work with EWTN and Dale Ahlquist of the American Chesterton Society. I so love his range of playing multiple roles of zany characters and being also being able to play it straight.

So this is probably too much of a summary, it is just that I enjoyed it so much. Partly it was from the points of contact I experienced through Kevin’s story. Through my formative years, I grew up in the theater. My father was an actor in an improvisational children’s theater. He was involved in pretty much every aspect. Actor, a puppeteer, set designer and builder, costume design and creation, writing, painting, etc. So I always spent my summers in this atmosphere with the adult actors. In High School, I was involved in every play onstage and offstage. Loved performing along with building sets and the other aspects of the theater. Considered a career in some part of the theater. Probably for the better that I didn’t pursue this since I am somewhat doubtful of my skills as an actor. I was probably best at imitation such as playing W.C. Fields and doing comedy. So much of what this book talked about I could relate to, especially seeing things through my Father’s eyes and his career in theater and the just making do aspects. The other point was that I was also the young atheist declaring his atheism around the same age as he.

Just so many things I loved about this book because it is not merely about one thing, or maybe that it is about the one thing that matters. If you have never seen Kevin O’Brien perform check out his YouTube Channel for plays, skits, lectures, etc. His skill extends to writing as I testified in this post regarding a Tolkien/C.S. Lewis play he wrote and performed.