I read this article and have enjoyed the pipe ever since — enjoy.

by Jeff Culbreath
http://christianpipesmokers.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtop
ic&p=118523

I've never been good with dates, but some few years ago I decided to
take up pipe smoking. This decision was not made lightly. No other
form of tobacco use has ever appealed to me, and in fact I had
developed quite an anti-tobacco prejudice due to years of effective
social indoctrination. Besides, cigarettes actually repulsed me,
cigars were loud and ostentatious, and chewing tobacco was
permanently wedded to an image of the adolescent rednecks I knew in
school. Yet I had always enjoyed the pleasant fragrance of pipe
tobacco. Often as a young man, while running some errand or another,
I would wander nervously into tobacco shops for no apparent reason,
compelled by some mystical attraction. It wasn't merely the
"forbidden fruit" syndrome or idle curiosity — I had no intention of
taking up the habit and no desire to learn of it — but was rather
invited by something almost ghostly, something I might have called
nostalgia if it had been more familiar.

Less mystically speaking, part of the attraction is certainly the

association of pipe smoking with a vanishing Old World civilization.
Pipe and tobacco shops, for instance, are the last bastion of the
old merchant class, now disappearing into a sea of dull and
impersonal corporate bigness. (The only thing like them today are
the used booksellers.) A good tobacco shop is a time warp. There is
no background music, no television. The courteous gentleman behind
the counter calls you "sir" and is eager to talk shop. He knows his
trade, and he probably knows your name. Gray-haired men look on
silently, tell corny jokes, laugh politely, argue about politics,
and reminisce about love and war. No one is in a hurry. This is
business with a human face, a thing worthy of preservation.

Pipe smoking ought to be recognized as a cultural asset, a

corrective for the many defects and dysfunctions of our modern age.
As a leisure activity, smoking a pipe takes a considerable amount of
time and trouble. There is the routine of packing, tapping,
lighting, and cleaning. There are the many tools and accessories. To
do anything else at all while simultaneously smoking a pipe requires
skill, experience, and a good deal of personal composure. In our
technological age of quick fixes and instant gratification, pipe
smoking teaches manual care and patience. In a world where newness
and sensationalism rule the day, pipe smoking provides ritual and
familiarity. In a capitalist economy where "efficiency" is exalted
above all things, pipe smoking glories in tradition and revels in
culture. In a work-a-day world where people are always on the go,
pipe smoking requires that you stop and smell the tobacco, so to
speak. Dare we say that puffing on a briar inculcates virtue? Yes,
we dare say!

Now we come to religion, sex, and politics -- everyone's favorite

subjects.

First, I am a Catholic by conviction and communion. This is most

fortunate, as pipe smoking is mainly the privilege of Anglicans,
Lutherans, and Roman Catholics, no doubt because they best
understand the liturgical and sacramental aspects of this venerable
pastime. Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and various other sects are
generally unfriendly to smoking, reflecting protestant gnostic
tendencies. Atheists who smoke a pipe are usually backslidden Roman
Catholics, and we may still hope for their redemption so long as
they continue faithfully in their piping. Furthermore, pipe smoking
puts the traditional churchman in the eminently good company of his
betters: C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkein, and other
luminaries of the briar.

With respect to sex, it cannot be denied that pipe smoking is

overwhelmingly a masculine enterprise. It would be imprudent to
speculate as to the reasons for this; some things are best left
undiscovered. Though certain confused people view this aspect of our
habit (the idea of "habit" needs to recover its positive
connotation) as a problem, I rather see it as a solution -- to the
point where pipe smoking can now be viewed as a defiant stand
against the boring and ill-considered androgyny of our time.
Understand that it is not an Archie Bunker male chauvinism, but a
humble appreciation for the mysteries of our God-given sex
differences that gives me delight in helping to preserve one of the
last remaining holdouts of gender-exclusive activity.

Finally, pipe smoking has all the right political enemies. It is

difficult to understand the liberal's rage against tobacco without
peering a little into political psychology. For the tormented
liberal baby-boomer, pipe smoking symbolizes the oppressive
generations of the past and their antiquated values; for the modern
utopian who disbelieves in the hereafter, smoking is a threat to the
earthly paradise he hopes to build; for the egalitarian and the
feminist, tobacco in its several forms is a detested symbol of class
and inequality; for the morally licentious, smoking serves as a
convenient scapegoat for the real problems that plague our
profoundly troubled culture, justifying a "moral" crusade that
deflects attention from more serious (and far more deadly) moral
failings. For these reasons and perhaps others, pipe smoking has
managed to earn the wrath of society's forces of darkness -- proof
enough of its inherent goodness!