Ivan Illich was born September 4th, 1926, and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, Dougald Hine and Anna Björkman put out a call for convivial gatherings around the world.
Illich has always been one of chief inspirations for the Fairhaven Program, and so we are joining in the anniversary celebration by hosting a discussion on September 7th of “Posthumous Longevity”, an open-letter about medicine and death he penned to a Benedictine abbess in 1989.
“Austerity,” Ivan Illich writes, “has acquired a bitter taste, while for Aristotle or Aquinas it marked the foundation of friendship… In the Summa Theologica, Thomas deals with disciplined and creative playfulness … [he defines] ‘austerity’ as a virtue which does not exclude all enjoyments, but only those which are distracting from or destructive of personal relatedness.”
When: September 7th, 2026 | 5 p.m.
Where: 1106 Harris Ave., Suite 307 | Bellingham, WA 98225
There is no cost to attend this seminar, and all are welcome. RSVP: donald@fairhavenprogram.org or 360-230-8012.