Reading over the syllabus for my Old Testament Prophets class, which starts in a week, I came across the following:

"Take note of things that threaten to change your life, the way you see the world and your place in it, and the way you think about God. If you don’t notice anything like that, read the biblical text again."

This is going to be a ( Read more... )

 I'm home in Florida for the last time until August. I need to clean a little, finish packing, load up my car and drive up to Tiger, Georgia tomorrow. I'll be there for a week with my Middle School Youth Group at summer camp, then I'll drive to Indianapolis and stay there a couple of nights. On the 15th I'll drive to Notre Dame and be there for ( Read more... )

 
( Music Appreciation and Theology: My Two Loves! )

 Take this cup away, for I don't want to taste its poison.

It's amazing how far I've come since last December here in Florida. Do I have a permanent home here? I don't think so. Do I have a temporary home and a way in which to engage myself in my work? Yes.

All Echo students are required to write an end-of-year report. I wrote mine yesterday, thinking I would have to temper the negativity I've felt ( Read more... )

Somehow, I got permission, airfare and a scholarship to leave Florida and work for a whole week to go to a conference in Detroit. I'm leaving in a few hours. I'm very excited. I'll get to attend some workshops and see many of my friends from Echo who live in other cities. I'll have a full week of living with other men (4 in our hotel room ( Read more... )

"Have I spoken something, have I uttered something, worthy of God? No, I feel that all I have done is to wish to speak; if I did say something, it is not what I wanted to say. How do I know this? Simply because God is unspeakable." - St. Augustine, On Christian Teaching ( Read more... )

 I love that as soon as it's okay to start saying Alleluia again, the choir starts singing hymns whose lyrics are only "Alleluia" ... over and over and over again.

At first it's a little stomach-turning. It's like watching someone who just quit the Atkins diet eat 6 donuts, simply gratuitous. But, somehow it leaves me settled and happy; I want to ( Read more... )

"From Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, the daily liturgies contain wildly different emotional focal points. Good Friday is the saddest day of the year for a Catholic; Easter is the happiest." - from an article about working for a Cathedral during Holy Week.

It's true; as Catholics we embrace in our holiest week of the year a nearly bi-polar ( Read more... )

 This morning I woke up and the whole world looked... different. More beautiful and foreign and new. I gazed out over the intercoastal waterway and was struck by how much this place looks like Venice.  Maybe it's just that spring in Western Florida is lovely.

Even my silverware drawer is different. That doesn't make sense.

It's nice to feel hope ( Read more... )