OK, I don't have a smart phone or a tablet or a laptop. I have a dumb phone and a desk computer (way out of date--dare not download Window's 10, couldn't have enough memory to hold it.)
So, tomorrow I'm flying to DC to help lead a workshop and won't have a blog until Thursday. I'll miss doing it and hope you'll miss reading it. But I have 1700 or so posts, find one you like.
See you Thursday, sitting here where I sit and type.
Thanks for reading. I'll write more in a few days.....
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Run, don't walk...or better, drive
OK, if you are a movie goer at all, you have to get to "Martian" as fast as you can.
I haven't figured which place if takes up but it one of my top five favorite movies.
Think of Tom Hanks in "Marooned" and double it and you'll get Matt Damon in "Martian".
It is a movie to make you believe in the human spirit and in human beings. At a time when things are so violent and frightening in the world, we need a movie like this. Really.
All the acting is amazing and the vistas of Mars are remarkable. But the huge cast is what makes it all work. It'll even make you love the Chinese....
Can you give 6 stars? I would.
Go see it.
I haven't figured which place if takes up but it one of my top five favorite movies.
Think of Tom Hanks in "Marooned" and double it and you'll get Matt Damon in "Martian".
It is a movie to make you believe in the human spirit and in human beings. At a time when things are so violent and frightening in the world, we need a movie like this. Really.
All the acting is amazing and the vistas of Mars are remarkable. But the huge cast is what makes it all work. It'll even make you love the Chinese....
Can you give 6 stars? I would.
Go see it.
Friday, October 9, 2015
teaching
I'm teaching a course at the Lifelong Learning Institute at U.Conn. in Waterbury on the Gnostic Christian writings.
It meets from 12:30-2, which means people are eating during class, but that doesn't matter. It's an awful time to teach and learn, but it works.
Whenever I teach a short (5 class) version of Mary Magdalene or a 5 or 10 session of The Gospel of John or 'reading the Gospels side by side', I know I'll have the same number of students at the last class as at the first.
When I do Gnostic Christian writing, I fully expect to loose half the class at some point. They just don't know how jarring it's going to be.
But we're half way through and haven't lost anyone.
This material is challenging. The 'so called' Gnostic Christians were ran out of the church in the 4th and 5th centuries and their writings destroyed.
But in 1947 a bunch of them were found in Egypt.
That's what I teach. Christianity was a lot more diverse than we ever knew. I tell those hardy folks that we are living in a new Pre-Nicene era--a time before things in Christianity got 'nailed down' and Christianity wasn't the cultural norm it was for so many centuries in the west.
What on earth do Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists and Southern Baptists and Greek Orthadox Christians and Methodists and Episcopalians and Roman Catholics have in common besides calling themselves "Christians"? Apparently that was true for the first 3 or 4 centuries of the common era, we now know because of the literature from the Nag Hammadi discovery.
Lordy, Lordy, I love to teach. And, in spite of my doubts, I'm good at it. And people stick around, in spite of how weird the material is....
It meets from 12:30-2, which means people are eating during class, but that doesn't matter. It's an awful time to teach and learn, but it works.
Whenever I teach a short (5 class) version of Mary Magdalene or a 5 or 10 session of The Gospel of John or 'reading the Gospels side by side', I know I'll have the same number of students at the last class as at the first.
When I do Gnostic Christian writing, I fully expect to loose half the class at some point. They just don't know how jarring it's going to be.
But we're half way through and haven't lost anyone.
This material is challenging. The 'so called' Gnostic Christians were ran out of the church in the 4th and 5th centuries and their writings destroyed.
But in 1947 a bunch of them were found in Egypt.
That's what I teach. Christianity was a lot more diverse than we ever knew. I tell those hardy folks that we are living in a new Pre-Nicene era--a time before things in Christianity got 'nailed down' and Christianity wasn't the cultural norm it was for so many centuries in the west.
What on earth do Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists and Southern Baptists and Greek Orthadox Christians and Methodists and Episcopalians and Roman Catholics have in common besides calling themselves "Christians"? Apparently that was true for the first 3 or 4 centuries of the common era, we now know because of the literature from the Nag Hammadi discovery.
Lordy, Lordy, I love to teach. And, in spite of my doubts, I'm good at it. And people stick around, in spite of how weird the material is....
Monday, October 5, 2015
An apology
OK, I'm getting older--which is better than 'not'--but it affects my memory.
After I posted the "I love crickets" post, it stuck me I might have written about them before. I searched my blogs and found I wrote about tinnitus in April and August and now in October.
I shouldn't be telling you the same thing multiple times (like Bern tells me I do to her....)
I'll get off crickets, promise.
And sorry (which I always tell Bern too....)
After I posted the "I love crickets" post, it stuck me I might have written about them before. I searched my blogs and found I wrote about tinnitus in April and August and now in October.
I shouldn't be telling you the same thing multiple times (like Bern tells me I do to her....)
I'll get off crickets, promise.
And sorry (which I always tell Bern too....)
I love crickets
Cheshire is full of the songs of crickets tonight. And I love cricket song.
One thing the crickets do is make my tinnitus, which I've had for a decade or so, go away. "Ringing in the ears" doesn't do my particular version justice. Neither does "buzzing in the ears", the other definition for 'tinnitus' the on-line dictionary gives.
In fact, my tinnitus sounds exactly like cricket song. So, all in all, I'm lucky to have a sound in my head that sounds like a sound I love.
When I was diagnosed, there was a med-student working with my primary care physician. He was the one who told me what it was, gave it a name. Then he said, "it drives some people crazy. I've heard of cases when people killed themselves to get rid of it."
When Dr. Olsen came in, I told him, "you need to give some bed side manners training for this guy."
I'm not suggestible at all much, but planting the idea of suicide in someone who is a little off kilter wouldn't be a good idea.
There is also some key on an organ that turns off my internal crickets. I used to go listen to Bob Havery practice when I was at St. John's, Waterbury and every time my crickets would be gone for a few hours. And today, in the middle of a hymn, the crickets shut up.
I should find out what key it is. That would be helpful...but only if I were around a pipe organ....
Not bad to have cricket song as a constant companion. Not bad at all....
One thing the crickets do is make my tinnitus, which I've had for a decade or so, go away. "Ringing in the ears" doesn't do my particular version justice. Neither does "buzzing in the ears", the other definition for 'tinnitus' the on-line dictionary gives.
In fact, my tinnitus sounds exactly like cricket song. So, all in all, I'm lucky to have a sound in my head that sounds like a sound I love.
When I was diagnosed, there was a med-student working with my primary care physician. He was the one who told me what it was, gave it a name. Then he said, "it drives some people crazy. I've heard of cases when people killed themselves to get rid of it."
When Dr. Olsen came in, I told him, "you need to give some bed side manners training for this guy."
I'm not suggestible at all much, but planting the idea of suicide in someone who is a little off kilter wouldn't be a good idea.
There is also some key on an organ that turns off my internal crickets. I used to go listen to Bob Havery practice when I was at St. John's, Waterbury and every time my crickets would be gone for a few hours. And today, in the middle of a hymn, the crickets shut up.
I should find out what key it is. That would be helpful...but only if I were around a pipe organ....
Not bad to have cricket song as a constant companion. Not bad at all....
Sunday, October 4, 2015
fried apples and grits
Dean brought apples from his orchard to church today and offered them to anyone. I got a bag full and told him I thought I'd fry them.
He looked confused.
"Have you ever had fried apples?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said, "sometime".
This is the same guy who, when he was vice-chair of the Cluster Council, would have breakfast with me and Dick, the chair, the week before the cluster council meeting.
We met at a great restaurant in Durham that is now--sadly--a Fitness Center. Better food than weights and Zumba I say.
Anyhow, I found out in the 12 pages of the restaurant's menu, that they had grits. So I'd order them every time with my eggs and bacon.
Dick and Dean were confused. Both of them are too New England to believe in grits.
They asked me what grits were and I told them it came from hominy. Which was another question about what hominy was.
Finally I told them, "listen grits are a salt and butter delivery system."
That I thought they got.
I grew up with fried apples for breakfast and couldn't imagine everyone hadn't.
Well, except for Dean, I guess.
Fried apples, grits, sausage and bacon, home-fries, biscuits, eggs--the breakfast we'll have in heaven every day...with a little sausage gravy and some country ham on the side with blueberry jam.
Ah, that's the eternity I hope for....
He looked confused.
"Have you ever had fried apples?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said, "sometime".
This is the same guy who, when he was vice-chair of the Cluster Council, would have breakfast with me and Dick, the chair, the week before the cluster council meeting.
We met at a great restaurant in Durham that is now--sadly--a Fitness Center. Better food than weights and Zumba I say.
Anyhow, I found out in the 12 pages of the restaurant's menu, that they had grits. So I'd order them every time with my eggs and bacon.
Dick and Dean were confused. Both of them are too New England to believe in grits.
They asked me what grits were and I told them it came from hominy. Which was another question about what hominy was.
Finally I told them, "listen grits are a salt and butter delivery system."
That I thought they got.
I grew up with fried apples for breakfast and couldn't imagine everyone hadn't.
Well, except for Dean, I guess.
Fried apples, grits, sausage and bacon, home-fries, biscuits, eggs--the breakfast we'll have in heaven every day...with a little sausage gravy and some country ham on the side with blueberry jam.
Ah, that's the eternity I hope for....
Saturday, October 3, 2015
"Workshop mode"
In 1987 I was a participant in the Making a Difference workshop and got my priesthood back all new and possible. I owed the Mastery Foundation and have, by now, helped lead going on 50 of the workshops.
We have one in Washington, DC, starting a week from Monday.
I made my plane reservations today. I'm officially in 'workshop mode'.
What 'workshop mode' means is that my commitment and integrity and energy is leaning that way. In a sense, I'm already in DC at the retreat center at Catholic U. I'm already in the 'distinctions' that comprise the workshop. I'm already with Shane and Maggie and Bertram, the other leaders for this WS.
Once my travel plans are made, I'm in 'workshop mode'. I'm there and engaged and ready and can't wait.
This workshop gave me back my priesthood, all new and shining and it has never stopped being that since then. I am astonished that I have the opportunity to share that kind of transformation with others. And humbled beyond belief.
And, I'm ready and willing and able and excited beyond belief. In just a week and a day I'll be up in front of the room offering 'transformation' to a whole room full of people.
Doesn't get much better than that, far as I can see.....
We have one in Washington, DC, starting a week from Monday.
I made my plane reservations today. I'm officially in 'workshop mode'.
What 'workshop mode' means is that my commitment and integrity and energy is leaning that way. In a sense, I'm already in DC at the retreat center at Catholic U. I'm already in the 'distinctions' that comprise the workshop. I'm already with Shane and Maggie and Bertram, the other leaders for this WS.
Once my travel plans are made, I'm in 'workshop mode'. I'm there and engaged and ready and can't wait.
This workshop gave me back my priesthood, all new and shining and it has never stopped being that since then. I am astonished that I have the opportunity to share that kind of transformation with others. And humbled beyond belief.
And, I'm ready and willing and able and excited beyond belief. In just a week and a day I'll be up in front of the room offering 'transformation' to a whole room full of people.
Doesn't get much better than that, far as I can see.....
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