Easter in Ordinary

While perusing books in a library book sale, I found a copy of Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption . Having seen trailers for the film and heard good reviews, I appreciated the opportunity to read the book prior to an opportunity to see the film. While I expected the book to be good, it begins with certain challenges. As a work of history, a reader knows that the United States and its Allies will defeat the Japanese. Also, one can conclude, based on the the title alone, that our prisoner of war is going to survive the war. One might even imagine the former prisoner of war's challenges to readjust after the war. Nonetheless, in the end, the story told is unexpectedly good. Unbroken recounts the experiences of Louis Zamperini and the people closest to him. A rough youth, Zamperini developed into a world-class runner through the encouragement of his brother Pete, his natural gifts, and extraordinary effort. Zamperini, af...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. Today, the first two articles travel through Green Bay and pay indirect homage to the Packers of Titletown as they have their first home game of the NFL preseason. Next, we move to our life together, examining the decay of power. The fourth article looks at urban congestion and traffic. We'll close with poetry from a priest, Fr. John P. McNamee. 21st Century Mona Lis...

In my circles, an ardent buzz has been around Ta-Nahesi Coates' Between the World and Me . Jon Stewart , at the end of his run, interviewed him. President Obama is reading him on vacation . Friends have read him this summer and recommended him. Flying to Washington, D.C. recently, he came up in conversation with a stranger after discussing Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow , which the stranger was reading. The book has drawn its stream of praise (e.g., Michelle Alexander in The New York Times ) and criticism ( Rich Lowry in Politico.com ). The book arrived some time ago, but I finally took Monday afternoon and devoured it. Coates, inspired by rereading James Baldwin 's The Fire Next Time , structures his book, written to his son, in three segments. Coates' description of the body, especially the Black body, and the violence done to it was striking. Coates' description and dismissal of the Dream and the Dreamer appeals to me as bearing a weighty truth. The b...

Friends, I am gathering information on how particular parishes and local communities are responding to Black Lives Matter. Your input and your sharing this with others would be very valuable to me. I'd like to get a picture of what is happening on the ground in the area of preaching and what the congregation desires in preaching. I'd be grateful if you would give me a few minutes of your time, and, then, please, ask your friends for some of their input, too. Loading...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. This week, Stephen Colbert's interview with GQ was amazing. That is our first link. Since I drove to Mom and Dad's home in Kansas this week, I will share the work of a photographer documenting a changing Midwestern town. Whether we live in a big or small city, we can make choices about our community, our friends. the third article offers some reflections o...

A recent article from the Associated Press bears the headline: " Minority of US Catholics Know Pope's Climate Views ." Frankly, I am disturbed by the articles contents. After the initial tide of articles and comments and news reports, I am alarmed that so many Catholics, especially American Catholics, remain uninformed, unmoved, and uncommitted. Also alarming is how only 23% of Catholics said that they heard about it at mass. In other words, many of our priests are neither preaching about it nor lifting it up in one way or another. The Associated Press explains that the encyclical Laudato Si' "had a rollout unlike any other." Pope Francis has done the heavy lifting. The rollout was unprecedented. He speaks of the encyclical at home (at the Vatican) and abroad (his visit to Latin America and, no doubt, during his upcoming visit to the U.S.), but, so far, few hearts and minds have been changed. We need to do our part . It is not enough to leave it in th...

Mature, public conversation about issues that matter is foundational for democratic society. I am delighted that Mark Zuckerberg's " A Year of Books " offers such an opportunity. To contribute to that dialog, I will offer commentary on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. Let me begin with a confession: in the Spring of 1989, I took "Introduction to Biotechnology" as a first-year student at the University of Notre Dame. I vaguely recalled that I may have taken the course, but only examination of my transcript confirmed it for me. I recall none of the readings. My transcript also alerts me to the fact that I did not put the necessary effort into the class. My only consolation may be to see how far human knowledge has advanced from 1989 via Matt Ridley 's excellent 2000 book: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters , although I would love to see how Ridley might update the book to reflect our learnings in the past 15 years. Oxford e...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. This week, we will begin by looking at landscapes. We want to see the horizon. Then, with the faith story, I will share an unpreached funeral homily on the occasion of gun violence. Next, concerning how we live together, I share an article that names ways to reduce gun violence. The "technical" article compiles and interprets data around race and economic ...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem and some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. Tomorrow, August 9, is the 72nd anniversary of the death of Franz Jägerstätter , and it is the 70th anniversary of the bomb on Nagasaki . It is also the anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, MO. We would do well to pray for peace. U.S. Mayors Say Ferguson Could Happen To Us . According to Politico.com, nine out of ten mayors surveyed expressed concern about ...

A hallmark of a vital democracy is mature public conversation, often the antithesis to the coarseness of contemporary presidential campaigns. I offer the following list of worst Supreme Court decisions to introduce some context into the nearsightedness that often belies our judgment about our actual circumstance. We are nearsighted in that we often see recent events in a larger-than-life proportion compared to those further back.  Since its inception with the in 1789, only 112 persons have served on the nation’s highest court. One-hundred ten (98.2 percent) of those unelected jurists have been white, only two African-American. All men (96.4 percent), except four women. All Christian (93.6 percent), except eight Jews. In more than 225 years, from the first Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice John Jay, to the current court of Chief Justice John Roberts, the jurisprudence has ranged from inspired to banal. I am neither a lawyer nor have I played one on television, but I t...

After 16 years of hosting The Daily Show , tomorrow is Jon Stewart's final episode. For more than half of that time, I have been a faithful viewer. For more than four years, I lived outside the U.S. and had to overcome some technological barriers to see his show. I watched the clips the next day, sometimes occasionally using some workarounds to see the programming as it may be blocked in one country or another. Courtesy of JDH Rosewater on Flikr. Humorously and, occasionally, poignantly, Stewart has named and expressed the sentiment, national and personal. Most recently, his expression after horrific incidents of gun violence, sadly, captured those moments for me. He always seemed to have the better hand in his interactions with the news media, calling them to exercise their profession, indeed their vocation, with greater diligence. It's not surprising that he became the most trusted news person on television . Stewart is one of a handful of celebrities with whom I woul...

Alongside Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and john a. powell's Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society , another extraordinary book on race and the criminal justice system is Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. A public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor and the incarcerated, especially the condemned, Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative , an Alabama-based group that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent prisoners on death row, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. In an historic win for EJI, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida , 2010 , that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are uncon...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. Here are four articles followed by a poem that I recommend for your weekend reading: Federal budget and data woes . This article, written by Jonathan Schwabish of the Urban Institute, explains in very calm tones something that has me very worried. We woefully under invest in the technological infrastructure for our federal government. We should be grateful that China has voluntarily "backed up" our data . Underneath the l...