Who Wants to Move to Denver?

I just spent a day in Denver with 4 co-workers. We were all here for a meeting and our boss let us take an extra day for "team building" (we decided it was our version of the executive golf outing).
We rode the Ski Train up to Winter Park and spent the day shopping, eating and generally having a great time. We laughed so hard my cheeks hurt!
I was also able to go to Mass during the week at the most beautiful church - The Church of the Holy Ghost in downtown Denver. Here is a picture of it, which doesn't begin to do it justice. I gasped when I walked in because it's so beautiful - rich, dark wood throughout - especially behind the altar.
Downtown Denver is amazing. People walking around at all hours, a free trolley that goes up and down the main street, which is an enormous outdoor mall. And here's something I saw this trip for the first time.

It's the Denver Convention Center. Sure beats our Tulsa Driller!

Flamingos on their Heads

This is a picture of the wonderful guy who lives in the Tulsa area who was rumored to show up at our 100 year celebration party for my employer Williams. And. Well. It was a rumor.

He tends to do cool things like that so the rumor wasn't a crazy one. What was sad was the really wonderful party that was put on, but some of us were disappointed who had heard the rumor! They had it on the first two floors of our building...
which I wasn't really thrilled about until they started setting up for it and everyone started buzzing (that's probably where the rumor started). Then we got there and the number 100 was lit up with window lights on the building, there were search lights, and the two floors were transformed into a lovely entertainment area with food and drink stations throughout, a karaoke game, live non-Garth music, people walking around with flamingos on their heads (you had to be there). We had a great time. And because people were walking around the whole time rather than sitting together at large tables, Chris ended up meeting everyone I work with.

Yesterday we spent part of the day at the Holland Hall book fair - wow was that a good time! 1000's of books. Then we came home and read in front of the fire :) Last night we tried to go see No Country for Old Men but the projector was broken at the theater so we came home instead and we're going this afternoon. I want to see it before the Oscars tonight so I know more about it. I love the Oscars. I think the only time I've missed it in over 35 years is when The Passion was snubbed and I boycotted (I bet they missed me too!).

Carolina Moon Keeps Shining

I found out last night that my sweet, wonderful goddaughter / niece is engaged to a wonderful man - the love of her life.

CONGRATULATIONS CAROLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holiness - A Quite Unmerited Gift

Excuse the loooonnnngggg post, but yesterday one of my kids was telling me about how difficult it was to hear about the sins of the Catholic Church. We talked about it for awhile, with me offering my inadequate response that the church is like a person who has sinned, who has a sad history, just like all of us. Well, today I heard Fr. Groeschel mention that Benedict XVI (when he was Joseph Ratzinger) addressed just this point in "An Introduction to Christianity". When I asked Chris if we had a copy tonight he said, "Yes, it's in Liz's car." Well, here it is - so timely considering the sex scandals, but written before they came to light. It's long, but well worth it... (love you, kiddo!)

The Second Vatican Council itself ventured to the point of speaking no longer of merely the holy Church, but of the sinful Church, and the only reproach it incurred was that of still being far too timorous; so deeply aware are we all of the sinfulness of the Church...The centuries of the Church's history are so filled with human failure that we can quite understand Dante's ghastly vision of the Babylonian whore sitting in the Church's chariot; and the dreadful words of William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris in the 13th century... that the barbarism of the Church must make everyone who saw it go rigid with horror: "Bride is she no more, but a monster of frightful ugliness and ferocity."

There is no theory in existence which could refute such ideas by mere reason, just as conversely these ideas themselves do not proceed from mere reason but from the bitterness of a heart which may perhaps have been disappointed in its high hopes and now, in the pain of wronged love, can see only the destruction of its hopes. How, then, are we to reply? In the last analysis one can only confess why one can still love this Church in faith, why one still dares to recognize in the distorted features the countenance of the holy Church. Nevertheless, let us start from the objective elements. ..the word "holy" does not apply in the first place to the holiness of human persons but refers to the divine gift which bestows holiness in the midst of human unholiness. The church is not called "holy" in the Creed because its members, collectively and individually, are holy, sinless men - this dream, which appears afresh in each century, has no place in the waking world of our text, however movingly it may express a human longing which man will never abandon until a new heaven and a new earth really grant him what this age will never give him.

Even at this point we can say that the sharpest critics of the Church in our time secretly live on this dream and, when they find it disappointed, bang the door of the house shut again and denounce it as a deceit. But to return to our argument, the holiness of the Church consists in that power of sanctification which God exerts in it in spite of human sinfulness...grace which abides even in face of man's unfaithfulness.

...But it is really and truly the holiness of the Lord that becomes present in it and that chooses again and again as the vessel of its presence - with a paradoxical love - the dirty hands of men. It is holiness that radiates as the holiness of Christ from the midst of the Church's sin...The existing interplay of God's loyalty and man's disloyalty which characterizes the structure of the Church is grace in dramatic form...

Let us go a step further. In the human dream of a perfect world, a holiness is always visualized as untouchability by sin and evil, as something unmixed with the latter... the aspect of Christ's holiness that upset his contemporaries was the complete absence of (a) condemnatory note - fire did not fall on the unworthy... On the contrary, this holiness expressed itself precisely as mingling with the sinners whom Jesus drew into his vicinity; as mingling to the point where he himself was made "to be sin" and bore the curse of the law in execution as a criminal - complete community of fate with the lost. He has drawn sin to himself, made it his lot and so revealed what true "holiness" is - not separation but union, not judgment, but redeeming love. Is the church not simply the continuation of God's deliberate plunge into human wretchedness; is it not simply the continuation of Jesus' habit of sitting at table with sinners, of his mingling with the misery of sin to the point where he actually seems to sink under its weight?

Only he who has experienced how, regardless of changes in her ministers and forms, the church raises men up, gives them a home and a hope, a home that is hope - the path to eternal life - only he who has experienced this knows what the Church is, both in days gone by and now...A slammed door can, it is true, become a sign that shakes up those inside. But the idea that one can do more in isolation than in fellowship with others is just as much of an illusion as the notion of a church of "holy people", instead of a "holy Church" that is holy because the Lord bestows holiness on her as a quite unmerited gift.

The First Week of Lent

On Theresa's blog she mentioned that Sarah called to wish me a "Happy Ash Wednesday". I love that. I think she's the one who, when a friend asked her what her favorite holiday was answered "Good Friday".

I know why. It's the richness, the depth, the beauty of the liturgy. Again, as Theresa said, this year she "entering into the liturgical rhythm of the church" as Lent begins.

Already it's been such a blessing for me. It's there for us all - a deeper connection to God, a richer understanding of our mortality, a humility that comes from his gentle conviction (when we expected harsh condemnation) - all we have to do is enter into the quieter, more relective "rhythm".

This is so cool...

Now, first you have to watch the Super Bowl commercial below. OK, done? Now watch this one - it must be the result of a flash mob.

My Favorite Super Bowl Commercial

So Cute!

Super Saturday and counting...

Chris and I went to dinner last night with Tim and Leslie Wells. We left the restaurant thinking 2 hours had gone by when it was really 3 1/2. We had so much fun and laughed so hard the time just flew. Leslie and I talked about how returning to work while kids are still at home is a major adjustment. And what usually ends up getting affected are friendships. I suppose that's better than the kids getting neglected, but I don't want that to happen any longer now that I have more time.

I read a really interesting article in the Tulsa World today that gave me such hope. Booker T black male students have begun a group called Men of Power and they're speaking at KIPP and mentoring students. THAT should be broadly publicized. KIPP schools are another hopeful thing. I had the privilege of working with the staff a couple of years ago - they have an amazing vision.

And another interesting article on the Clintons vs. Obama. This Tuesday will be fun, especially since OK is one of the Super Tuesday states.