From Rap to Opera

An angel.

A Great Pro-Life Rap Video

This is really beautiful. And hits home to an entirely different population than most pro-life efforts. Thanks, Lisa!

Quote of the Day

"Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, [and] each of us is necessary." Pope Benedict XVI (as quoted by Pres Bush at the 5th annual Catholic Prayer Breakfast)

Again, thank you Lord.

Sex abuse victims who met with Pope Benedict speak on CNN. A more complete, but heart wrenching video version on CNN's website (if it doesn't pop up, click on each of the red links). From Amy Wellborn:

"he is, very pointedly, teaching the bishops how to be pastors. You cannot watch these people speak of their past suffering and what the Pope listening to them today accomplished without hoping and praying that in humility, those of his fellow pastors who have refused to listen and instead dedicated inestimable resources to re-victimizing victims are watching and learning from him.

And perhaps feeling something. A word Benedict has used time and time again these past days.

Shame

Friends from Steubenville might remember another very pastoral, loving man of God who worked tirelessly to bring some semblance of justice to a similar, yet less devastated group of Catholics.

A Snippet for Mary Margaret

This is a beautiful story for all, but especially for my sweetie Mary...

"A priest once asked her not how she does it, but why -- for 23 years, when she could have been elsewhere, when much of her flock cannot pray, or dance or sing. Where else, she asked him, could she walk each day among saints?"

Make sure to check out the video.

Thank you, Lord...

"Pope Benedict XVI held an unscheduled meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, shortly after pledging the church’s continued efforts to help heal the wounds caused by such acts.

The Vatican said the pope met privately in a chapel at the apostolic nunciature with “a small group of persons who were sexually abused by members of the clergy.” The group was accompanied by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, the epicenter of the abuse scandal.

“They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterward listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope,” a Vatican statement said.

“His Holiness assured them of his prayers for their intentions, for their families and for all victims of sexual abuse,” it said."

G. K.

I pretty much can't publish an entry without a picture anymore. So here's one of a man who is going to be a favorite author of mine once I read many of his 100 books. Chris and I went to a lecture at TU presented by the President of the Chesterton Society called, "The Intoxication of Existence: G.K. Chesterton and the Purpose of Existence." Chris had recently read his first Chesterton book and was speaking so highly of him, we both wanted to learn more. The lecture was fascinating and I think I'm in love. Chesterton was filled with joy and had a beautiful outlook on life. I wrote down some (not 100% accurate) quotes, so I'll share them with you:

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

"I'm not absent minded, just present-minded about something else."

"The things that make us most human are divine things, including imagination."

"Giving thanks is the highest form of thought."

"We should feel the intoxication of existence; it's a miracle that we are here at all because we could have easily not been."

"When we are close to God our art is full of eternity, with universal and everlasting appeal."

"The incarnation is the essence of all art; the love of God expressed perfectly."

"Good imagination restores, bad imagination destroys."

"There are times in Church history when the Church was wedded to the world, but she was always widowed... At times the Church has been dead, but it has a God who knows His way out of the grave."

Theresa's House

Chris and I are in Oakland at Theresa's home. We'll be joined by Mary later tonight. We're all here to celebrate Theresa's confirmation at the Easter Vigil :)
Right now T is at work and we're waiting for our oatmeal to cool. I love her apartment, it's very peaceful, warm, and...Theresa. Tonight one of Theresa's good friends will be hosting a passover meal as a Noble tradition. We brought our seder prayer books, and our Holy Thursday cup and plate (garage sale finds - both with the Last Supper on them, each at a different sale). Later today Chris and I are going to take a walk to T's church to see if it's open for prayer and then for a walk by the lake.
Love you all! Have a Blessed Holy Week!

A Wonderful Day

What a wonderful day. Actually even work was great. Then after work I met Chris and Sarah at Mass. Afterwards the three of us met our dear friends Skip and Frances Whitehurst for dinner (at Caz's Chowhouse - only in OK!). Intellectual stimulation for the whole evening. Beginning with dinner and talk about grammar, kids, education, and, well, um, TV shows . Then Sarah left for work and the four of us went to the Tulsa Gridiron. I had never gone before and neither had the Whitehursts, but we decided then and there to meet every year at the same place (but go to a better place for dinner!). It was absolutely hilarious, as good or better than the best Saturday Night Live skits. It consisted of musical mostly political parodies set to popular songs.
Some of my favorites...five people walking out onto a dark stage wrapped in blankets with flashlights lighting their faces and then singing to the tune of California's dreamin, "All the limbs are down, and the candles glow. I've been in the dark thanks to PSO. I'd be safe and warm if I weren't in OK. Power's for the dreamin' on such a wintry day."
Another favorite sung to the tune of "It's Not Easy Being Green - Kermit's song", called Ode to Obama. "It's not easy being green. Having to spend each day the resident rookie. When I think it could be so much nicer being white, a woman, or old, or something much more electable like that."
Then I came home to find that Sarah had cleaned the downstairs and had beautiful spiritual instrumentals playing. And I have most of tomorrow off. Sigh.

Pink Bikes!

Sarah is home for Spring Break. When she comes home activity begins. We usually exercise by "dancing like no one's watching" in the living room. That's fun. But yesterday she had another idea. Let's go bicycling at Riverside Park with the Free Pink Bikes. So cool and unlike Tulsa (I love Tulsa but I swear they can be frustrating when it comes to being...well, anything like Denver!).
We just used our credit card to release the bikes and there was no charge. There were plenty to choose from and they're well maintained so the bikes were a breeze (literally!) to ride. It was close to 70 degrees yesterday and sunny. We rode FOUR MILES! What a beautiful way to end the day!!! Thank you, Sar Bear!!

What should the Pope say?

Halleluia! The question I've been waiting for was asked by a Catholic publication - America. What should the Pope say when he visits America? Here is the answer I submitted:

I would find it difficult to accept if the Pope did not speak DIRECTLY about the sex abuse crisis. As a faithful Catholic I need to hear him say, on behalf of the Church,

"To those Catholics who have been devastated by the sins of those who claimed to represent Christ, an apology from me as your Shepherd is required by justice and charity, but seems to be wholly inadequate. Nothing I say will remove the grievous harm that was caused to those of you who trusted in your priests and whose innocence was ravaged. I pray, though, that my profound mourning and heart felt sorrow on behalf of Mother Church, by the grace of God will settle upon each of you as a soothing balm for your grieving souls."

No Country for Old Men

Well, we did actually see No Country for Old Men after all. Very interesting. As I expected from the Coen Brothers - extremely well crafted. But if I had it to do over again I wouldn't go see it.

The Coens and Javier Bardem, who played the serial killer, portrayed evil in such a masterful way it was unsettling. And the message was that evil is powerful and unstoppable. Also unsettling. Despairing, too, but for the very last sequence where Tommy Lee Jones recounts a dream. That's where the hope was - but only hope in a heavenly way. Earth was left to evil.

So. Needless to say, you wouldn't want to bring the kiddos, but it wasn't as bad as Gone Baby Gone - Chris and I were trying to figure out if that movie was more or less depressing than Deer Hunter!

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.