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Paris Landing
2008-06-10 00:50:00
I landed in Memphis a week ago Sunday. The very next day, two Paulists and I hopped into a car and drove three hours to? a resort hotel along the Tennessee River. During my first week of my summer apostolate, the Diocese of Memphis scheduled their annual retreat for all of the diocesan priests at the state park in Paris Landing . I don?t THINK the Bishop scheduled the region-wide getaway to coincide with my arrival, but I have not heard anything to the contrary.The week is really designed by the bishop to be a nice break for the priests of the diocese; there are some lectures in the morning with morning prayer and Mass everyday, but the rest of the week is intended to be golf, hiking, swimming, etc. I have to confess that it feels a little weird to be tagging along at this juncture. I have just gotten off of a two week vacation with a week long retreat before that. After having traveled to Berkeley, Rome, New York City, Las Vegas, and Lake George over the course of the past year...

Coffee Freeze
2008-06-07 23:40:00
It's Saturday in Memphis, my first Saturday, and I am in a coffee shop because just as there was no room at the inn for"Mary and Joseph, there is no Wi-Fi at the house for seminarian Tom.I have not been to a real coffee house in years. Of course, there are plenty of Starbucks on the East Coast, but they stopped being coffee houses a long time ago. Coffee houses are places where people can hang out for hours reading a book, doing homework, listen to crunchy chicks sing about the evils of the world... live, and spend time with friends. Starbucks are places where you can quickly read the paper before someone asking when you're leaving, PAY for Wi-Fi (bastards), buy CDs of people singing about the evils of the world, and say "hey" to people you might vaguely know as you run out the door to finish your commute. Coffee houses are about gathering together as a community; Starbucks are about selling the illusion so busy professionals can check "community" off of their to-do lists....
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Yes.
2008-06-04 03:06:00
I am sitting in a hotel bed in Paris Tennessee on a retreat for the diocese of Memphis. The hotel is in a state park on the Tennessee river, and I only bring this up because earlier today Chris Matthews opened the MSNBC program saying that we usually have a sesne of where we were for bad events in our collective American lives: 9-11, Challenger, the RFK assassination, the MLK assassination. But we never take time out to remember the positive events and where we were then.Chris Matthews has been a little off tonight, that we are the first western country to elect an African-American for the nominee of a presidential election (uhh... they don't have African-Americans in France, they have African-French). But still, he is right - this is a moment.In Memphis, I will be working at one mixed parish and one African-American parish. One of the parishes was involved in the sanitation worker strike, both parishes are in the same city where Martin Luther King gave his final speech and sp...

Song Titles
2008-06-03 02:08:00
I am sitting in an airport bar in Atlanta on a layover. The women here are definitely attractive, but it is also apparent that a lot of work and engineering has gone into some of the beauty I see around me. The theme of the airport bar is auto racing, which is ironic because the NASCAR brand has been built on the concept of speed... and yet I have been sitting here for 20 minutes waiting for someone, anyone, to take my order.My final destination today is Memphis, where I will be spending two months on my summer apostolate. During the novitiate (first year), people are typically sent away during Lent on an assignment, as I was last year at Berkeley; because students have school during the spring our assignments are during the summer between semesters.The truth is that I have not thought that much about my upcoming summer ? between school, finishing that video project for the Paulist 150th Anniversary, and doing my bi-annual tour of the East Coast to see as many friends and family...
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Memorial Day
2008-05-27 03:13:00
As I drove back from my retreat a few weeks ago, I stopped into a Best Buy to check my e-mail. I had not logged on for five days and I could not longer could take being SO electronically disconnected. When I did, it was then that I found out that my Great Uncle Ed had passed away - it had happened the night before and Mom had left me a message on my cell (which I had also left at home).I have written about my uncle before; his wife had passed two years ago after 63 years of marriage and his already frail health took a turn for the worse. I went to visit him last August and I had the feeling that that would be the last time, and as it turned out it was. I was able to participate in the funeral Mass as an altar server and was able to deliver one of the two eulogies during the service.Because of a video project (parts of which I hope to be able to show publicly within the month) and school work, I have not had the opportunity to do much writing. Now that summer is here I am planni...
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Away on Retreat
2008-05-05 16:24:00
My finals are done! Very exciting - unfortunately between school and because I have been busy working on the video project for the Paulists' 150th Anniversary I have not been able to keep up with the blog. I am looking to do some more writing within the next couple of weeks and definitely over the summer. I am going to be away on a private retreat this week - it will largely be a silent retreat with some guidance by a Jesuit at the Retreat Center. I just wanted to wish everyone well - I will keep you in my prayers and any prayers/happy thoughts/well wishes would be definitely appreciated as well!

Two Worlds Collide
2008-04-22 16:34:00
A few years ago, my roommate would come home every night from a long day at work. He was employed as a social worker, so he didn't get home until a little bit before 9. Upon walking through the door, he would take off his tie and make a bee-line for the TV in the back room.At first, I used to make fun of him - WWE... C'Mon... I would snicker in the background but he did not pay me any mind. My regular TV date usually was Meet the Press on Sunday mornings, but as our TV schedules did not collide with anything, I stayed to support my roommate. Slowly but surely, I began to find myself tangled into the dramas of Triple-H, Batista, Evolution, Rick Flair "The Nature Boy"... two years later, the heroes I spent my time focusing on are Paul and Moses. Yes, they are entertaining in their own way, but every once and a while I find myself wishing that the Apostle Andrew would smack James over the head with a folding chair, just to keep things exciting. Yes, WWE was just a phase, like ...
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Awesome!
2008-04-17 23:06:00
"Awesome speech your holiness." It's not audible, but his Holiness responded, "Dude."

Papal Parlaying Paulists
2008-04-17 04:09:00
I just wanted to take a moment to toot the horn of a Paulist brother that you might see on TV over the next couple of days. Fr. Dave Dwyer, who used to work at MTV and Comedy Central back in the day, hosts a radio show on Sirius radio called "Busted Halo" and has been making the rounds on the news channels in the midst of the coverage of the Papal visit. I have had the privilege of being interviewed on his show a couple of times so I thought that I would just send a shout out to Dave and for people to keep on the look out for him.Click here to see Dave's interview on CNN.Here is Dave with two random, unidentified people on the White House lawn.

A Very Important Endorsement
2008-04-17 03:59:00
I am knee-deep in finals, so sorry I have been off-line for a while. I will be adding some more posts concerning the Papal Visit as well as finishing some posts from my trip in Rome once exams are done in a few weeks. BUT, if there there are any Pennsylvanians out there, I have one vital endorsement that I thought might be of value:Dear Friends and Fans: Like most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest. He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone." At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senat...
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We can do that.
2008-03-19 02:23:00
Okay, I haven't gotten my "Russert" on in quite some time, so forgive me for a moment... There's a stereotype of the "gushing" Obama supporter. And as an aspiring theologian, I too raise my eyebrow a bit at some of the messianic folowing the Senator from Illinois has been generating. Still.Most politicians would have thrown any threat to their campaign under the bus. Most would have given platitudes, sang "God Bless America," and moved with trying to be "inspiring." Usually when a candidate reaches for "inspiring," they try to channel JFK... they usually end up channeling Mayor Quinby. Often in the campaign, his opponents tried to paint him as just a guy with a pretty speech about "hope" - it hasn't stuck. The reason it hasn't stuck is because any politician can raise platitudes, few back it up with intelligence and sincerity. It hasn't stuck because he actually means it - it's the only explanation for the course of action of putting all of those things we are afraid to ...

FINALLY finished with mid-terms!
2008-03-18 06:58:00
It's been a crazy few weeks. I was slammed the week before going to Rome, vowed not to do any work while I was in Rome, and then I was slammed the week after Rome. But I have just submitted my last mid-term so I have some (academic) freedom for a while. I'm excited because I have been anxious to get back to that Paulist "Ken Burns Effect" project I have been working on. I am also hoping to do some more writing on my Rome trip.The last final was on the Philosophical Foundations of Theology... which sounds crazy (and it is) but I kind of like it. It's just that when you write a paper on this stuff, it can get a little heady. Someone made this analogy - you know when Frodo gets stuck in the gigantic spider-web in Lord of the Rings? Writing a philosophy paper is like that... you start asking yourself "Can I substitute the word 'transcendental' for 'universal'? Is that saying the same thing or am I opening up new ground?" So for St. Patrick's Day, having the competing re...
More About: Terms , Finally

Class Prayer
2008-03-13 14:10:00
Not in every class, but in most classes at the Theological school I am atending we say a prayer before class. Long-term readers of this blog might that that I have a problem with this, but that is not the case. Last summer, while attending a different institution, I protested starting off our Philosophy of God class with an "Our Father" - needless to say, most of the priests back at the dinner table did not understand where I was coming from. For me, it was about me trying to keep my educationabove board; if we students in the class were going to be opening ourselves up to the different thoughts on God, wouldn't it be somewhat intellectually dishonest by starting each day praying to a Jewish carpenter? Wouldn't that be like taking an economics class to evaluate different economic theories, yet starting each day by saluting a bust of Ronald Reagan? It's an imperfect example, but one of my own personal goals as I go through my Catholic formation is to make sure that ideas present...
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Turabian Style
2008-03-10 02:43:00
Working on a paper that is due tomorrow and, not surprsingly, I have to footnote everything, including the Bible. But it gets complicated, because there are all of these editors and publishers of the Bible... and what about the author? Plus you have to underline some sections, italicize others... it's a real pain.It's late, and I am thinking that I don't have time for all of this sophistication in accreditation. I may change my mind in the morning but right now this is what my Bibliography is looking like:God, The Bible. (Published date - unknown).
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Rome 3, EPCOT 1
2008-03-08 21:49:00
Spring Break In Rome (Continued)The Church History class I took last semester focused largely on ancient Rome, and one thing my professor told us really stuck me. He said that the roads that were built for ancient Rome still exist, and that often times when there is construction on one of the more modern bridges, the detour usually re-routes traffic over the ancient bridges because the engineers know those bridges are sturdy.Things here are built to last. On our ride from the airport on our first day we are passing edifices that are thousands of years old ? in America something is old is it over a hundred. Buildings now are erected out of glass and steel with basic geometric shapes; the olden days featured an intricacy and grandeur not seen in ages. Recently I remarked to a friend about the sense of awe I experienced when visiting Hoover Dam; he remarked that he didn?t think that we had that kind of greatness in us anymore ? that if something like that needed to be commissioned ...
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Back in DC
2008-03-08 01:46:00
We landed a couple of hours ago and now we are back in DC. The past few days were so busy with events that I have not had the chance to update, but I have been jotting down thoughts along the way so I hope to have some new posts about the trip up soon.Needless to say, when we landed the passengers did not shout a joyous "Dulles!" as they did for the destination city when landing in Rome last week, but it is good to be back. I have a take-home mid-term due on Monday, so there is no rest for the weary. I will get some pictures and some more stories up soon.
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United 966
2008-03-04 21:42:00
Spring Break In Rome, Part WhateverI have an Exegesis paper on Exodus (again, for those of you who suffer through life with a stutter, this is no joke) due on the Monday I get back, so I had these grand ideas of beginning work on the paper on the flight across the pond. Alas, there was no electrical outlet for my laptop in my seating area, so I HAD to watch movies during most of the flight. I had a strong suspicion from the two previous times I had flow red-eyes that I would get no sleep on the plane. I was not disappointed. It did give me the opportunity to view some of the in-flight movies. Ironically, the first movie I saw en route to a pilgrimage of the center of the Catholic Church was ?Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen? ? a film about how the English monarch beat back the evil Spanish Catholic invaders (with fanatical Jesuits and members of the Inquisition in tow). It?s funny - I find it hard at times not to cast a longing eye at the Anglican Church when I reflect on the stru...
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The Inquisition
2008-03-01 12:20:00
"The Inquisition... Let's Begin! The Inquisition... Look out sin!" - Mel Brooks, History of the World Part 1 Spring Break in Rome , Part 4It says "Part 4" even though I am in the midst of writing parts 2 and 3 right now, but I am in need of prayers.A few weeks ago in my Church History class, we got around to talking about the Inquisition. My only previous awareness of the Inquisition was from the Mel Brooks film "History of the World, Part 1," so I was anxious to find out specifically how effective musical numbers were in its implementation.A few weeks ago in my Church History class, we got around to talking about the Inquisition. My only previous awareness of the Inquisition was from the Mel Brooks film "History of the World, Part 1," so I was anxious to find out specifically how effective musical numbers were in its implementation.Originally started by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, it was designed to maintain the central tenets of Catholic belief within Spanish borders in o...

I Ate
2008-02-29 21:34:00
Spring Break in Rome , Part 1I was really treading water last year until a friend of mine lent me a book. It wasn't a religion book per say, but it did help me out a lot with my spirituality. It's the book "Eat, Pray, Love." It is about a woman who, after a terribly painful divorce, lives in Italy for 4 months to learn the language sample Italian cuisine in order to strengthen the secular side of her life, then studies in an Ashram in India for four months in order to strengthen the spiritual part of her life, and then lives in Indonesia with a Medicine Man in order to lean how to balance both the secular and the spiritual.The book was placed in my hands at just the right time last year - a TOTAL chick book, I know, but I was desparately needing some sort of guide through this rather unique phase in my life that related both to the secular and the spiritual and this book hit the spot. And as it turns out there was even an overlay in the early part of the book that had an overlay wi...

Just a lot of homework
2008-01-31 17:08:00
Sorry I have not had the opportunity to post - I have had a lot of school work going on and have been doing a lot of scanning work for the Paulist rememberance project I am working on. I found some more good pictures that I hope to put up soon.Also been geeking out on all of the primary news. (Please forgive this moment of indulgence)McCain is now the nominee for the GOP - I know Romney and Huckubee are still in the race, but after winning Florida it's official. As one of the few members of the GOP who have not been trying to throw Latino voters under the bus in order to get upper-middle class white votes, McCain will easily carry California, Arizona (his home state), and Texas. He is also the only Republican who has ANY shot of winning in November, and I think on some level Republicans are staring to realize that. I supported McCain in 2000 - even wrote him in on election day - but after the past eight years it'll be a long time I vote Republican. That being said, I still th...
More About: Homework

Election
2008-01-25 14:01:00
Okay, for the record, although I am an Obama man, I am not anti-Hillary. My reasons for supporting Obama are two-fold. One, while I know nobody's perfect I do see a lot of greatness in the man, and after the past eight years I think we need some honest-to-God greatness. My second reason is that I have serious questions as to whether Hillary will ever be able to win 51% of the vote.That being said, this video clip form the movie Election is brilliant. If you ever get a chance to see the full movie, I think it reflects both the psychology of Hillary Clinton as well as the insanity some people drive themselves towards in relation to her amazingly well. Enjoy!

Glossary
2008-01-23 20:24:00
I am taking a break right now form my paper, the topic of which is "Exegetical Exodus." That's right, Exegesis on Exodus... the funny thing is that if I were to say that to a person outside of religious life, they would wonder if I was making that up. Talking to a theology student, and there is not blinking of the eye, not acknowledgment of irony that adding the word "extremely" would make the topic of the paper a tongue-twister. There is a whole new universe of words in this life, which in some cases does make sense because I don't know of a simple word to replace it with... like exegesis. Exegesis is a word you hear A LOT in theology circles. For most of last year I had not idea what anyone was talking about because I thought it sounded like the process by which amoeba reproduce. The short definition: a critical interpretation of the Bible. But that's nothing. At my school, the planners for services were talking about the need to purchase "liturgical aids" - I wondered wh...
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Details
2008-01-22 21:19:00
One thing about this life that I am noticing is that people who are of different ages than myself are now part of my life in a more immediate way than they were before. It actually gives me perspective for the long-term of this life, especially when I look at some of the older priests in the community. When I was in Berkeley, one of the priests was 84 and still active full time with a loving community around him... it often makes me think how in today's society there are fewer and fewer opportunities for people to fully participate past a certain age when I think about the life ahead of me.There is another priest in his eighties here in DC who is also still active in his work as a community historian. One day when I was scanning in some images for the video project I am working on, he came up to me with a question."Are you familiar with this magazine?"He was holding a copy of Details Magazine, so I responded "It's a magazine for single guys in their twenties. For male yuppies....

Lecture on Racial Reconciliation at St. Paul's College: Friday Jan 25
2008-01-22 21:02:00
Here is a shout out for the annual lecture being held at our house this Friday .The 2008 Hecker Lecture will be held Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul?s College ? North American Paulist Center in Washington, D.C. This year?s lecture features Father Clarence Williams, C.P.P.S, Ph.D., speaking on ?Leadership that Makes Real Reconciliation .? Father Williams is a member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood and is currently senior director of Racial Equality and Diversity Initiatives at Catholic Charities USA. He is the first black priest ordained in his hometown Diocese of Cleveland in 1978. He served in the Archdiocese of Detroit for 30 years, first as pastor of St. Anthony Church and then as director of the Office for Black Catholics. Father Williams holds a doctoral degree in global education and cultural communication and serves as the president of the Catholic African World Network. As an educator, Father Williams established the Institute for Recovery from Racisms located at...

State Quarters
2008-01-21 21:56:00
Two weeks before I had that experience which let me know that it was time to pack up and join the Paulists, my girlfriend and I broke up. Well, if I am going to be completely accurate, she broke up with me. The internet dating service had done a pretty good job of matching us the previous fall and we spent two magical months together? it was the following four months that were bumpy. For reasons I couldn?t explain at the time, a part of my soul started to check out of the relationship while the rest of me was grabbing onto it to try to prevent it from leaving the room. So in late March, after suffering through an emotional confusion I thought I was doing an okay job of containing, Marie decided to call it quits so I could go and figure myself out. Although it went unspoken, we both had the sense that it was going to be a temporary break. Because I had the sense that we were simply on a ?break,? I refrained from running off and sleeping with the girl at the copy center like Ross d...
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Paulist Vocation Retreat : Feb 2-3
2008-01-11 04:43:00
If anyone (and by "anyone," I really mean single males over twenty) is interested in learning more about the Paulist Fathers and would like to come to D.C. for the weekend, we are having a vocation retreat here at the house on the weekend of Feb 2nd and 3rd. It's a no-pressure weekend for anyone who is thinking about religious life and just wants to ask some questions, or if you are looking at different religious communities and interested in seeing what we're about. We often cover travel expenses for those coming a long distance; if you're interested in getting more information, e-mail me at ks_intention@yahoo.com. We have a couple of big screen TVs, a pretty bitchin' movie collection, and an indoor gym, so it's definitely worth checking it out. And for the women, I do keep arguing that we need to start letting chicks come... when I make more headway on that, I will let you know.
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Video of the Paulists
2008-01-07 03:48:00
It's on Google Video (not YouTube yet) but here is the link to a new video that's been produced about the Paulist Fathers. It's been made for the vocations office, but it provides a great overview of what the community is about in addition to that. I even make a small cameo, listening intently to the wisdom imparted to me by a fellow Paulist. I don't blink or nothin'! It's a great video: CLICK HERE to check it out.

The Ken Burns Effect
2008-01-07 02:55:00
I haven't always wanted to be a priest, but I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. I know, that does not make me a whole hell of a lot different than a lot of Gen Xers, but it's something that's never quite left me. In fact, before I decided to join the Paulists, I had been taking some classes in film... in fact, the very next morning that sleepless "Field of Dreams" night, I had a visit scheduled to American University to look at their documentary film program.When I told people that I was going to be entering seminary, people were mostly supportive but one or two people asked me if I was still going to do film. The funny thing about entering religious life is that it has made me more able to pursue film and multimedia work, especially with the Paulists because of their focus on communications. While it's far from being the only reason I am here, it is a big part of it, and opportunities to pursue that are coming sooner than expected. This year we will be celebrating the ...
More About: Effect , Burns , Ken Burns , Burn

Downbound Train
2008-01-02 03:49:00
I had two tickets to the Springsteen concert about a month ago, an experience of Sonic Coitus not to be missed. A few nights before, Jersey-bred Jon Stewart did a Daily Show after the New York show and asked the audience, ?Are you a fan of joy?? I know that I am coming off like ?one of those people,? but I assure you that Stewart was low-balling it.I bought two tickets to the show the minute they went on sale (if I had waited two minutes, the show would have been sold out) and just assumed it would be easy to find another buyer for the ticket. But a decided inconvenience of religious life is that most everyone is old (?He plays his music too loud!?) or broke. Or if they are not broke, have severely misguided sense of priority as to where limited funds should be allocated; trust me, if it was a David Haas concert (the composer of every song you?ve heard in church since 1981), they would have coughed up double the ticket price in an instant.Thankfully, someone in our finance offic...
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Slow healing in the Catholic church
2008-01-02 01:00:00
An op-ed piece in the Boston Globe was recently written by our Paulist Center in Boston. Here is the intro to the article with a link to the full article on the bottom.AS THE CATHOLIC community continues the difficult process of healing and reconciliation in the wake of abuse scandals, church closings, and critical social issues, the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to avoid Boston on his US visit next spring is a missed opportunity. A face-to-face meeting with Catholic s in Boston would have signaled a desire to begin honest and open dialogue on the hurt, anger, separation, and alienation many still feel.If history teaches us anything, it is that avoidance of conflict rarely leads to reconciliation or healing. Failing to face those on the opposite side of the breach tends to breed more resentment, bitterness, and misunderstanding. The resulting alienation poisons people's hearts, stunting generosity and feeding cynicism that leads to hopelessness.Years after the revelation of clergy ...
More About: Church , Healing , Catholic Church , Slow