A Generous Orthodoxy - Post II

(Pg. 34 in the book, from the opening chapter titled "A Generous Refund")

McLaren writes: Scandalously, the generous orthodoxy you will explore (if you proceed) goes too far, many will say, in the direction of identifying orthodoxy with a consistent practice of humility, charity, courage, and diligence.

In the following paragraphs he talks about how many Christian denominations equate orthodoxy with right thinking while leaving out the orthopraxis of right living. He goes on to say that orthopraxis should be the end result of orthodoxy - there should never be a separation between what we believe and how we act. In my own words, we should be congruent - always trying to live out what we believe in every situation life puts us in.

It's hard (as evidenced by religious leaders in many Christian denominations, as well as by practicing members of all world faiths) to always and everywhere live out our beliefs; we need orthodoxy to help show us the way to take. We need wise and knowledgeable people to help light the way into God's presence here on earth and in the hereafter.

But if we ourselves don't start to take that light and use it ourselves, at some point we'll grow tired of following and either just sit and stay where we're at, or worse still we'll take a different path altogether, one where we try not to think about the absence of light and instead focus on just surviving in the dark. Without practice, the knowledge in and of itself is useless.

Case in point: I play the trumpet. I can read music, I know my scales, I have a good grasp of the theory behind taking a long piece of tubing and making music come out it of. However, I my ability to make good sounding music come out of my glorified copper pipe has lessened as I get further and further away from my high school days. Back then my music theory may have been weaker, but I practiced my trumpet every day, sometimes a total of 4 or 5 hours a day (marching practice before school, during band, during lunch, during private lessons, marching practice after school, then finally at home). No I'm lucky if I put in 30 minutes once or twice a week. My orthodoxy is sound - I know how my lips should be just so, how my air flow should be aimed just so, how my body should be just so, how my fingers should move just so, etc. But if I never actually take out the trumpet and play . . . well, my orthopraxis is shot - I can no longer wail as once I did.

So I like this opening to the book - it meshes well with my own struggle to live out my beliefs and test my actions against the teachings of Jesus and the church. May we all come to the point where there will be no distinction - either personally or corporately as church - between word and deed.

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

Finding A Job - Poverty Project

Your last step is finding a job! You should look for a job that you think you would like to do. The following sites will help you find normal jobs (teacher, lawyer, architect, contractor, doctor, research scientist, etc.) - if you want an exotic job (rock star, professional athlete, world-famous diamond king, etc.) you'll have to do the research on your own!

Once you find a job you like, I'll need a printout that shows me the job title and your annual salary. If your job cannot support your desired lifestyle budget, you'll also need to find a job that can pay as much as you want to spend per year. You will have to print the information for that job as well.

CareerInfoNet - has a list of the highest paying jobs

Salary Wizard - will give you low, medium and high pay for different jobs

Jobs.com - let's you generally search for jobs; not all have a listed salary

O-Net Online - you can seach by keyword; salary is listed at the very bottom of the page

US Dept. Of Labor - you can search by name or browse a list of many occupations

Enjoy! :-)

Blessings & Peace,

D

What Happens At YO?

Want to catch a glimpse of what you'll do next year at YO? Head over to Ms. Cindy's web page and see a few pictures and read about their adventures!

But . . . do your work first! (Remember - it's due Friday and it is your final!)

Blessings & Peace,
D

What Would Jesus Take?

So I had an interesting thought earlier today as I was . . . using the facilities here at school: would Jesus have gotten constipated or had to deal with diarrhea? I wonder about this because we affirm that he was truly human and truly divine. There have been times when we've celebrated his divinity so much that his humanity has been eclipsed, and there have been times when we've done the opposite. If we affirm that he was truly human, then the occasional bout with irregularity must have happened. If we affirm that he was truly God, then it would seem that he should never have to suffer the indignity of either of those scenarios (especially before the advent of all the wonderful drugs we use to treat the symptoms of both of those conditions).

Now, another way to approach this is to wonder about Adam & Eve and the Fall. Would Adam & Eve ever have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome before eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? If we affirm that suffering entered into this world because of our sin, then it would seem that if humanity had stayed sin-free we would also have trouble-free bowels. However, since committing that first sin our bowels have been paying the wages of sin long before our death. :-) Bringing it back to Jesus in a more concrete fashion - if he gorged on grapes, dates and olives as a young boy, he would have to live with the natural consequences of his actions - loose bowels.

Why wonder about this? I favor an approach to my faith that tries to apply universal truths universally - to the time before creation, to our earliest ancestors, to us now, and, if God wills it, to the people that will be alive 200,000 years from now. I think God created us as is - we were no different then than we are now. At some point in our evolutionary journey we learned how to commit sin. Every person, at one point or another, lies for the first time and feels shame when caught. Every person, at one time or another, thrills to the first consciously used bad word that issues from a previously curse-free tongue. At some point, I think, humanity as a whole learned how to commit various hurtful actions that we now call sin. But that jump into sin didn't, I believe, somehow usher in a time of suffering through death and disease.

I take the stories of creation in Genesis as religious myth - stories meant to engage us and teach us universal truths about God, ourselves, and the relationships between Creator and created and between all created beings. So I don't think that, for example, our earliest ancestors gave birth without any birthing pains, or that at some point our earliest ancestors would not have died if they would not have sinned. We are now as we have been - fallible beings created by an infallible Creator, housed in bodies that tend to break down (like everything else in our universe subject to the force of entropy). We suffer, not as a result of original sin, but as an original blessing offered to us by God.

So going back to Jesus, my own response would be that Jesus could have suffered from the same maladies we can suffer now, some due to choice (eating way too much fruit, for example) and some due to chance (catching a cold because you were around someone else who had one). In this way, he was truly like you and me in everything except the willful choice to take actions that would run contrary to the will of God.

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

My Actual Sunday Blog (A Generous Orthodoxy)

I posted earlier about missing a post on Saturday - so technically (in my mind, anyway!) that was yesterday's post - this is today's post.

I've read and re-read Brian D. McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy. Upon my second reading I went through and highlighted the paragraphs, links and thoughts and struck me as true (which pretty much means "I think like that") or questionable (which pretty much means "hmmm . . . he could be going to hell for this"). :-)

On pg. 20 (in the introduction to the book; and I'm reading the softcover with "new epilogue & discussion guide included," just in case you're following along), writing to those who are not yet Christian but thinking about it, McLaren states: You wonder if there's any way to follow Jesus without becoming a Christian. In the footnote to that sentence he further writes: If you need permission, YES, you can follow Jesus without identifying yourself as a Christian. See Chapter 17. Of course, as a follower of Jesus, you will learn to love and draw near to everyone, whatever their religion of lack thereof, including Christians. In so doing, you will exemplify what a Christian should be.

So I find myself of two minds right at the edge of this book.

1. I think of Gandhi, who valued the teaching of Jesus as found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew so much that he read and meditated on them and honored the Jew who uttered them. He never identified himself as a formal follower of Jesus, but he tried to live out the teachings that fit in with his already determined path. This is, for me, a perfect example of what McLaren's talking about - living the lifestyle espoused by Jesus even though there's no declaration of faith, no baptism, no formal Church attendance, etc.

2. McLaren seems to be making a case here that to follow Jesus means acting a certain way, this acting having been precipitated by learning more about Jesus and trying to act as he would act (that's a convoluted sentence, by the way, but I'm not sure how to fix it, so it stays as is - hopefully y'all can make sense of the sense I'm trying to get across!). I think I agree with this, too - at the core of Jesus' teaching seems to be the tripartite commandment to love God and love others as self. If we can manage that, then it would make sense that our lives would be so ordered as to live a Jesus-like lifestyle, whether or not we ever attended any religious service or received formal religious instruction.

3. On the other hand, the New Testament is also filled with stories of people living out their faith in communities of faith. Our history as fractured Church shows that even in times of persecution and schism people tried their best to live faith in the midst of other struggling Christians. If, as I believe, Christianity is best lived out in community, then becoming a follower of Jesus all by your lonesome is not really an option. It smacks of a solitary practitioner of Wicca picking and choosing from among many varied and often contradictory sources to create a personalized path of rituals, chants, spells, beliefs and gods. It reminds me of gnostics and early orthodox Christians, East and West, Protestant and Catholic, etc. - each person living out their own vision of what it means to follow Jesus. The New Testament shows arguments, conflicts and disagreements over doctrine and practice, yes, but it also shows eventual compromise based on the prompting of the Spirit and the prayer and conversation of early leaders. I find it hard to realistically tell someone that they can follow Jesus without entering into the messy arena of the Church.

4. On the other hand, I think McLaren may be saying that you can follow the teachings of Jesus without having to make a formal declaration of churchiness. This is what Gandhi did - he treated all religious teaching as ethically true, without ascribing to any one religion eminence over the other. He followed the teaching of Jesus, but did not enter into the complex world of Church politics, limited atonement, number of sacraments, divinity of Jesus, or any of the other things Christians fought (and continue to fight) over.

5. On one last hand, the New Testament again seems to argue that following Jesus mandates both an ethical change of lifestyle (love God, love neighbor) and an additional assent of faith in the incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus; not just an affinity for his teachings, but an essential worship of the Logos made flesh. In light of this, I find it hard to unflinchingly assert that anyone can be Christian just by saying it's so. However, I can say that anyone can follow the teachings of Jesus so long as they read for themselves and put it into practice. And really, wouldn't the whole world be a slightly better place if everyone - Gentile or Jew, woman or man, servant or free - followed this?

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

Already Missed A Day

Due to the fact that yesterday was very packed with stuff to do. Had to wake up early because my son had a birthday party to attend. He was being picked up here at our house, so I had to clean the kitchen, living room & dining room all while getting our clothes ready and me showered. Once he left it was time to take my wife out for her Mother's day meal (since we were alone - it's not often we get to eat out by ourselves!). Then it was shopping time for her gift (she ended up finally getting the digital camera she's been asking for!). We picked up our son after that, rushed home, and I showered and changed again (I was playing trumpet at a wedding). I got home at about 10 last night, and now I'm posting quickly because I have to get to Mass then do two more Mother's Day meals today (mom & mom-in-law).

Here's to long weekends! :-)

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

It Starts

So this is Day One of my Daily Post-A-Thon (or would it be day 2 . . . I actually posted yesterday and mused about trying to post every day . . . and since I'm posting today that means I've posted two days in a row . . . but technically yesterday I was only *thinking* about posting every day . . . and today I've started . . . hmmm . . . we'll call it Day Two - that means I've done it twice!)

But I digress . . .

I'm thinking about the Mass we had earlier this morning. It's our 8th grade student's last all-school Mass. We sit our youngest students closer to the front (1st and 2nd grade), with 7th & 8th students in the balcony at the back of the Church. Since today was the last Mass for 8th grade they were moved to the very front of the Church. Right before Mass was finished all of our 8th grade students were invited to come up around the altar for a special blessing from Fr. Ray. He prayed for them and blessed them with holy water, then they sat down again. Once the closing blessing was given the 8th grade students processed out before anyone else. It was a very symbolic way of letting all of us gathered know that they were ready to move on to High School next year. It was also symbolic in that there was now an open space for the next grades to fill.

It was also a moving gesture for me personally:

1. Since I work closely with Jr. High students (I teach 7th grade religion and 7th & 8th grade study hall, and I work with a team of Middle school students to do ministry around the school), every year is another exercise in letting go. Some years its harder, some easier, but this year some of the 8th grade boys were, well . . . 8th grade boys :-) - which, of course, made me love them even more. I'm going to miss seeing them in the hallways and in class.
2. My son is in 4th grade this year - in a few years I'll be watching him and his friends graduate from school and moving on - it really hit home this morning that I don't have too much time left in this phase of his life - this pre-adolescent, energetic, still-wanting-to-spend-lots-of-time-with-his-dad phase. It forced me to re-evaluate - once again - my time and leisure commitments. This also spurred me to think about my other relationships (God, wife, mother, siblings, in-laws, friends) and how best to cherish and celebrate them in the midst of our changing lives.

So it was an awakening moment for me. I pray that I'll stay true to the kind of person I want to be (spending time with people important to me) instead of slipping into the kind of person I can all too often be (putting stuff and my comfort ahead of my relationships). May you be true to your best self as well.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Blog-A-Day?

I read somewhere that by committing yourself to blog once a day - every day, no matter what - you force yourself to see it as another daily commitment (like showering, or eating, or other important stuff). So it got me wondering - given my less-than-stellar track record for blogging, would I be able to commit to blogging (writing) every day?

I like to think of myself as a good writer, and looking back over my posts, I 'd also like to think that some of them were pretty good. :-) So with summer fast approaching, I thought I'd try The Great Daily Blogging Experiment. Starting today. :-)

Some of the posts won't be

1. very long
2. very deep
3. very coherent
4. some or all of the above

but at least I'll be writing/posting, especially during the time when I can let my brain athrophy with too much TV / bumming around. So stick around - you'll get to read some of the strange thoughts that have been germinating in the compost heap of my head. :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Movies Part II

A quick update from a previous post: I've seen 590 movies over the course of my lifetime (according to the movies I've rated at Blockbuster.com). Again . . . not sure if I should be proud or worried (especially after my previous post topic!).

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Online Grocery Stores - for Poverty Project

Instructions for Today's Class (05/08/07):

1. You're buying groceries to make meals for one (1) week for you and your two children (ages 7 and 3). That's seven breakfasts for 3 people, seven dinners for 3 people, 2 lunches for 3 people, and 5 lunches just for you. You may also include snacks (after school, after dinner, etc.).
2. You do not need to feed your kids lunch (they will eat at school or at their day care for free).
3. On a separate sheet of paper (or on the paper I gave you, or typed in a Word or Excel document) write down the food for each meal and the cost.
4. Add up all the costs for the week - that's your total food expenses for the week.
5. Multiply by four (4) to get your monthly total.

You can click on the following links to help you with your grocery shopping:

Albertson's
Amazon.com Grocery
The Hard to Find Grocer
AULSuperStore.com
NetGrocer
MyBrands

Enjoy!

Blessings & Peace,
Mr. De La Rosa

Will I Make It To Heaven?

I'm working through reading the Bible in one year (using this excellent resource from Discipleship Journal), and I've just finished the Gospel of Matthew. I'm using Eugene Peterson's The Message Remix as my text for this endeavor, for three reasons:

• It's a translation I'm not very familiar with, so it's harder for me to just skip over passages thinking "Oh yeah - I've read this before." It forces me to pay attention to the nuances of his translation.
• It's written in a contemporary style that lends itself to prolonged reading.
• It has no footnotes, liner notes, references, maps - nothing but the text - that helps keep me focused as well.

Anyways, one of my favorite verses in the gospels had a chance to jump out at me again, so I wanted to share some thoughts on it.

Here's the verse from The Message Remix: Jesus said,"Yes, and I tell you that crooks and whores are going to proceed you into God's kingdom." (Matthew 21:31-32).

The brief quote reminds me that as much as I like to think that I'll get to heaven, the only arbiter of that judgment is God. If I have not lived my conversion to Christ through my actions, I can not claim to be an active and acting child of God. Sometimes, it will be those who we think of as less-than-desirable who will enter heaven because of their humility and their understanding of their brokennesss.

I did a retreat for a parish close to my home where both students (juniors and seniors) and adults were present (they were getting ready for their confirmation). The adults were going to celebrate the sacrament of penance and reconciliation for the first time. In talking with them (while the kids were confessing) they asked very pointed questions about what they should confess. They brought up issues that "good" Christians would not voice aloud for fear of being labeled as back-sliders or hypocrites. But these adults were cognizant of the fact that they had lead broken lives - they were honest with themselves and with each other about their need to confess. They gave me hope that their final initiation into the Catholic Church would provide us with strong witnesses about the saving power of God's grace.

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

Peace is Not the Norm

I'm blessed that I have several magazine subscriptions through my job at OLS. One of the magazines I subscribe to is The Journal of Student Ministries, a recent addition to my yearly budget. I want to lift three paragraphs from an article in the most recent issue titled Is Jesus Magic? Healing and the Cross by Andrew Root. Andrew writes:

When we pray for healing, we ask not for magic but for a glimpse, a hint, a limited experience of the eschatos. We acknowledge that even our healing is only a taste, that even a child cured will one day be an adult buried. We recognize that in this world (which is not the end) healing, safety, and peace are not constants, nor are they the norm.

What is normal and inevitable? Sickness, atrophy, danger and violence. And because this is our norm, we need a God who bears it. Because this is the world in which we must live, we need a God who enters it. Because death cannot be escaped, we need a Jesus who experienced death himself. We need a Jesus who's not magic, bur rather is present, bearing the suffering normality of a dangerous world in his own body. We need a Jesus who pleads for healing and hears only silence.

The beaten and crucified Jesus has entered and made himself known in a world where the norm is suffering and death; therefore, we can never assume or declare that healing and health are solely the signs of God's presence and that suffering means God's absence . . . . God's presence is found first not in acts of healing, but in suffering and feelings of abandonment.

I really like the article, but these three paragraphs were the ones I resonated with the most. It seems to be a truism that most people walk around acting as if every thing's great (at home, at work, with family, with finances, etc.) when they're really just trying to hold everything together. We find comfort in projecting a false sense of contentment, because we don't want people thinking we're weak, or ineffectual, or frail, or any other adjective or adverb along those lines.

But in reality all of us have moments of weakness, moments when we're not fully ourselves, moments when we fall short of who and what we are. The Bible calls this aspect of ourselves sin, and we're constantly reminded that everyone - unequivocally - sins.

The article reminds me that as much as I'd like for this to be heaven on earth . . . it isn't. It also reminds me that my life doesn't have to be perfect to be pleasing to God - God is pleased with my half-hearted and half-successful attempts at holiness. It reminds me that I will never be perfect - that job description is left to God alone. And finally, it reminds me that in my practice of my faith I don't have to be a super-happy, got-it-all-together Christian - I can marinate in the messiness of my life and faith and still know that I am fully known and fully loved by my God.

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

Holy Week Services

Here are the Holy Week services for Our Lady of Sorrows School. If you would like to find information on other parishes, you may download information for your parish here (as a pdf file) or, if not listed, find your parish on our diocesan web site.

OLS Holy Week Services

Holy Thursday

• 8:00 am - Liturgy of the Hours
• 11:30 am - Liturgy of the Word, Benediction, distribution of Blessed Bread
• 7:00 pm - Mass of the Lord's Supper (Washing of the Feet); Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament starts immediately after Mass and finishes at midnight
• 11:45 pm - Liturgy of the Hours

Good Friday

• 8:00 am - Liturgy of the Hours
• 12:00 noon - Stations of the Cross (with Bishop Pena)
• 3:00 pm - Passion of Our Lord, Adoration of the Cross, Communion Service

Holy Saturday

• 8:00 am - Liturgy of the Hours
• 9:00 am - Condolences to Mary
• 9:00 pm - Easter Vigil

My prayer is that you will enter most fully into the celebration of the Paschal Triduum by celebrating as many of these prayerful events as possible with your family.

May you have a blessed Holy Week, a blessed Paschal Triduum, and a wonder-filled Easter celebration.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo De La Rosa III
Campus Minister

I'm either a heretic or a saint . . .

So the blog title doesn't actually have anything to do with the blog itself (well . . . maybe tangentially, but not directly), but it's a comment I cherish. :-) It came from a student in a catechist certification course I gave a few years ago . . . ahh, fond memories . . .

But I digress . . .

I signed up for a trial of Blockbuster's online movie rentals. The site gives you the option of rating movies you've already seen so that it can recommend movies you might like to see (and so it can filter out movies it doesn't think you'd like to see when you click on "recommend"). Well, I've been going through and rating movies I've seen . . . and so far I've rated over 400 movies . . . (443 to be exact). Update: 503 movies - Update Again: 583 movies :-)

And I know there's more movies out there I've seen and just haven't gotten around to rating yet. Which brings me to my tangential blog title: I don't know whether to be proud of the movies I've consumed or to be worried about the time spent on them.

To be sure, much of that movie watching came from my high school and college days - it just seemed that there were so many movies to watch! However, I'm also a big fan of renting, with this foray into online renting being a nice change of pace (3 movies out at a time, with unlimited movies every month) from driving down to Blockbuster, Hastings or Hollywood Video and having to physically rent movies (I'm getting lazier all the time!)

However, as we're currently in the season of Lent, I have to wonder as to this proclivity - that's a lot of time spent watching TV, computer screen or big screen. If each movie averages about an hour and a half, that means I've spent 650 hours (27 days - almost 1 full month!) engrossed in media.

Hmm . . . though 1 month isn't all that much time . . . but that could just be my inherent rationalization mechanism kicking in . . .

So an interesting thing for me to discover . . . I think once I've rated everything I've seen I'll post a complete number, and we'll see how high up I get. But in the meantime, Jesus' words are discomforting: for where your heart lies, there your treasure lies too.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

SAT Testing

This week of SAT testing has gone well. 7-1 has worked quite well on their tests, with most students finishing well ahead of the allotted time for each test. The tests themselves are un-timed, meaning that students have as much time as they need to finish each test; the listed times are guidelines to help us plan breaks for everyone. Religion class has been on "pause" this week as the SAT tests fall squarely in the time for religion; we'll get back on track next week with Holy Week preparation for Easter.

Our Holy Week schedule is as follows:

Tuesday Evening: Prayer/PTO Meeting

Wednesday Morning: Washing of the Feet Morning Prayer

Thursday Morning: Live Stations of the Cross / Veneration of the Cross

Thursday: 1/2 day of school

Friday - Monday: Easter Break

Tuesday (April 10): Back in school (God's Own Making Section II)

May you all have a wonder-filled Holy Week and Easter Celebration!

Blessings & Peace,

Mr. Hugo De La Rosa III

Who Am I?

For a while, I was posting several quizzes I had found that I enjoyed. The quizzes were mostly funny / satirical /entertaining / time wasting fluff, but I think that part of the reason I may not have posted recently is that I was trying to only post about religius / spiritual topics . . . and that's only part of who I am.

A large part, granted, but only a part - not the whole. So I think I may expand the offerings on my blog. I'll probably still post lots of religous stuff - it's my line of work, I read a lot about it, I talk about it with others, and I'm constantly fascinated by the variety of religious experience that's out there.

But I also like many other things: family time, extended family time, spouse time, goofing off time, alone time, music, reading, role-playing, watching TV, watching movies, doing yard work, computers, software, collectable card games, cooking, eating, sleeping, etc. and etc. :-)

So my posts may be philosophically deep or refreshingly shallow; universally applicable or historically contingent and idiosyncratic; loved by most or ignored by most . . . but I think (I hope!) the freedom will push me to write more.

Having said that, if you'd like to find me on other parts of the web, here's where to look:

> My current D&D Campaign wiki
> My obligatory MySpace page
> My Campus Ministry school site

And that's about it - there's a few others, but these are my main ones. Let's see what happens now!

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Mono White Deck

I'm moving this post over from another blog of mine (of which I only had three posts) - feel free to disregard if you don't play Magic: The Gathering. :-)

My current personal favorite deck breaks down like this:

Creatures
1 Savannah Lions
2 Soul Warden
3 Soltari Foot Soldier
2 Lantern Kami
3 Mourning Thrull
2 Silver Knight
2 White Knight
1 Soltari Champion
1 Windborn Muse
1 Dawn Elemental
2 Serra Angel
1 Radiant, Archangel
1 Serra Avatar
1 Blazing Archon

Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
1 Serra's Blessing
2 Contemplate
2 Faith's Fetters
4 Glorious Anthem
3 Congregate
1 Catastrophe

Artifacts
2 Angel's Feather
1 Loxodon Warhammer

Land
21 Plains

Sideboard
2 Drought
2 Karma
1 Light of Day
2 CoP: Blue
1 CoP: Green
1 RoP: Green
1 Conversion
1 Justice
2 RoP: Red
1 RoP: White
1 Sphere of Truth


The deck has several thursts: gaining life (congregate, soul warden, angel feather, contemplate, faith's fetters, mourning thrull, warhammer), fast creatures out early in the game, and some nice larger creatures for later on in the game. I've got a few minor ways to deal with nuisances (catastrophe, swords to plowshares and disenchant), and the sideboard is geared towards each color (with black and red getting more cards in the sideboard than the other three colors).

Any comments and/or suggestions are welcome!

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

The Jesus Movie

Students will spend the next two weeks watching the Jesus movie that aired on TV in 1999. The film itself is about 3 shours long, but we pause and discuss many aspects of the film throughout the course of the two weeks. Students will have two reflection papers to write on the movie; the papers are due on the Monday following the viewing of the film. The first set of reflection questions can be downloaded here.

Blessins & Peace,
Mr. De La Rosa

A Post About Nothing

Several pointless questions (no offense!) have prompted me to write as I sit here at my desk, waiting for a blood-stained white shirt to go through the soak cycle so that my son can properly dress for Mass tomorrow @ school. So here we go . . .

The Mayan calendar predicts that on December 12, 2012 we'll begin a new cycle in the life of our world. Some interpreters claim that we'll be in for a rude awakening as all of our technological gadgets come to life and attempt to kill us. Some say it's the end of the world. And some say that it'll be the beginning of a spiritual awakening of sorts for humanity. I read a blurb for a book that ties in all of the weird weather the world's been seeing to 12/12/2012 - it's a meteorological intimation of the physical/spiritual shift the world will experience on that day. (So goes my hurricane season answer!)

Regarding quantum physics, we're told that the act of observing a quantum action is actually an act of interaction - by merely looking we're actually subtly manipulating our results. It seems that nothing really happens until someone looks to see what the outcome is. Some people have taken this bit of quantum mechanics, run with it, and said that by going macro we can see God as the observer of the whole universe (or multiverse), and thus we exist and act only due to God's act of observant interaction. As God is the ontological ground of our being, the being that sustains us and in which we live and move and have our being, I tend to like that quantum leap. (So goes my quantum answer!)

I was actually involved in a conversation about romantic love with my 7th graders last week, and I reminded them that romantic love, far from being a "traditional" value, is actually a pretty late addition to our human mating rituals. As far as I can tell (from my limited reading in this area and related areas) the notion of romantic love is only about 500 years old. Before that time most marriages were arranged affairs between parents or between fathers and soon-to-be husbands, mostly based on wealth and desire. Some indigenous cultures still practice polygamy, we in the civilized Western world tend to practice serial monogamy, and our royalty (stars of all kinds) tend to take the notion of romantic love to the extreme: they marry the object of their desire, but when their ardor cools off (as it most certainly will - you can't stay in a perpetual state of infatuation!) they run off to the next person they've "fallen in love with" because the current person is now someone with whom they've fallen "out of love." Many adults treat marriage less as a commitment and more as a type of extended dating with benefits and mortgages. So much the worse for us (So goes my answer to the romantic love/arranged marriage question).

And I think that most churches/denominations don't fall apart because of theological considerations. Many people don't give a rat's tush about the subtler points of theology. For most people, I think, religion is about how/what they feel, what it offers, and how much it agrees with what they already believe. We're become such a consumer-oriented society that even our religions must compete for adherents. To a certain extent, that's a good thing - churches, mosques, temples, etc. have to make sure that they stay true to the teachings of their founders, constantly purifying themselves of accumulated dross so that their truth can shine forth. However, once people start to notice a certain lacking quality (the music is bad, people talk too much, look at the clothes those teenagers are wearing, why don't we have food before Mass, why do we have food before Mass, why do we have Mass, etc.) they shop around for something more suited to their temperaments. Hence many of us never make the commitment (there's that word again!) to a local community that's necessary to really live out a servant-oriented love towards our fellow humans. And seeing as I would probably fall towards the "hippie" end of the spectrum, I'd also like to say that fundamentalism of any sort tends to make people more close-minded . . . and I'm all for open minds! (So goes my religion response)

Finally, without further ado and with no more gilding of the lily, we come to the all important cat question. My response? Get rid of the cat. I read an article where researchers determined that some cat's carry a certain something in or on themselves (yeah, I read it fast and can't remember the details - sorry!) that does two things:

• it makes human males dumber - there's a measurable loss of brain cells when these certain cats with that certain geno se qua are around males for extended periods of time
• it makes human females more promiscuous - I guess if you're a single male this is a good thing (what's a few brain cells when you've got steady female companionship!), but for a married man, and especially a married man with daughters, you probably want to keep the feline population of your house to zero, zip, nada, zilch

So that's it - a stream of consciousness post about nothing (I just finished watching Seinfeld Season 4 - please tell me you catch the reference!), which will hopefully lead to a stream of consciousness post about something!

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Thanks and Great Job!

Thanks so much to all of the 7th grade parents who volunteered time, energy and/or food and snacks to our YouthServe retreat. The students had a wonderful time learning about the social justice teaching of our Catholic church, and an equally good time serving the citizens of the RGV by their service time at the Food Bank.

Congratulations go out to our boy's BB team and for all of the dad's who played in Tuesday nights' game. IT was an exciting and fun filled night that helped build community in our school and greater bonds of love between family members.

Blessings and peace to all!

Mr. De La Rosa

The Well Has Run Dry

So it could be that I'm lazy, that I procrastinate, that I just did a two day overnight retreat with 30 7th graders, or that I have perpetual writer's block, but I can't seem to come up with a blogging topic that excites me. Quesitions, comments, prompts and/or ideas are asked for - thanks! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Not Really a Post . . .

. . . but my 7th graders are studying the New Testament this semester, and I found a web site that has some of the information they're studying. The web page is a nice synopsis of some of the non-Christian evidence we have for the existence of Jesus and the early Christian movement. You can read it here - enjoy! :-)

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

A Long Lost Friend

So I have a MySpace page that's popluated with family members, friends, and current & former students. I got a message on MySpace from a college friend I hadn't talked to in years - gotta love the internet!

Since she's got a blog and since she's gonna read this blog I figured it was time for a resurrection. So here's notice - I will begin blogging . . . now. :-)

Blessings & Peace,

Hugo

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to another semester at OLSS, and a brand new year as well! This quarter students will begin working with a new text: The New Testament - A Course on Jesus Christ and His Disciples (http://www.sadlier.com/faithandwitness/index.cfm). We will also focus on hunger, poverty and homelessness during Lent, as well as watch the movie Jesus in class. Students will continue to memorize (or refresh theie memory of) prayers from our Catholic tradition, incuding the Anima Christi, The Divine Praises, the Prayer before a crucifix, and more. Parents are encouraged to contact me for any reason. Enjoy this brand new year!

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo De La Rosa III
Campus Minister