omahamercury

Yes I know it has been a while since I have posted... I was super busy running the summer camp and the day after our program ended I went up to BCH camp in New Hampshire for a week, and the day after I got back from New Hampshire I left for the mission trip to El Salvador. I just got home from El Salvador very late on Wednesday night... so this is my first LJ post of the summer (and the summer is almost over...) I should also say that I know have a Facebook and I am using that a lot more recently because many of the people who used to use LJ are now using Facebook instead. This saddens me greatly. I think LJ is vastly superior to Facebook because FB does not allow for this kind of journaling, but alas most of my friends seem to not agree with me on this. I held out against joining FB for years but it has now become necessary to keep up with friends who I do not see as much as I wish I could...

So the trip to El Salvador was extraordinary. Although we did work hard on the school (which will open in January - its pretty much done now) this was almost more of a pilgrimage than a work trip. We visited the church where Oscar Romero was assassinated (while he was saying mass) and his tomb in the cathedral, and many other historically significant sites in El Sal. We learned a lot about the causes and the impact of the civil war and we met some really amazing people and we learned a great deal. I am still processing all of that. I hope to write more about this someday, but today I have to write about last night. Last night I saw the Crows with Live and Collective Soul in Pawtucket RI. This was my 17th Crows show and it was extraordinary. Live was also better than I have ever seen them before. (I saw them a couple of times when the toured with the Crows back in 2001 and they were great then, but they are MUCH better now.) I am going to write a review of the show for AnnaBegins.com but those reviews have to be short, so I hope to come back here later and write a more comprehensive review of last night's experience...
For now I just wanted to post an update as to why I have been missing here in LJ land for so long... Its good to be back...

Ok so I know I have not posted here in a couple of months... I have been super busy... But I now must post because I am Uberexcited... I got back from leading a youth retreat on Sunday afternoon and I had waiting for me in my inbox what is quite possibly the greatest press release of all time... I am not exaggerating at all either... This is so historically significant that I have changed my summer plans (and the dates of my trip to Honduras) because of this press release. I was going to go straight from the El Salvador mission trip to Honduras to go to language school in Copan for the last 2 weeks of August, but now I will be returning to Boston from El Salvador with the rest of the group. Why you might ask? Well its all because of this... before I share this legendary press release with you however I must first let you know that my 3 favorite bands of the 90's were (in order) Counting Crows (of course you already knew this), Live, and Collective Soul. I saw the Crows tour with Live in a couple of cities back in 2001 and I have seen Collective Soul several times, but I have never seen Collective Soul perform with the Crows (because they haven't except for a couple of festivals.) So now you know what you need to know...
Check this out... make sure to note the dates at the bottom...

http://countingcrows.com/news/news.php?uid=2375

I really love this time of year!
Although it is snowing today here in Foxboro (they are calling for 4 - 6 inches up in Boston today and we will probably get about the same down here) we have not had as much snow this year as we usually get and it sure in beautiful. Spring is almost here and best of all the NCAA tournament has finally arrived. I have been really looking forward to March Madness this year. My 2 favorite teams (Pitt and Georgetown) have had very good years and I am confident they will both go deep in the tournament (I actually have them both in the final 4 and Georgetown winning it all.) Yesterday on the first day of the tournament all of my picks except for Duke, Gonzaga, and George Washington won. I just can't believe Duke lost in the first round?!? That has not happened in a decade...
13 out of 16 is the best I have done with my first day NCAA picks in a long time and best of all - all of my sweet 16 picks are still alive. Life is good... and I have this morning off work... nothing better than a morning off during the early rounds of March Madness!

So it has been about a month since I have posted here. I have thought about posting often, but I have been super busy lately and much of my free time in recent days has been spent getting ready for the Sr. High retreat and now for the 3 Pre-Confirmation retreats in March. I am really looking forward to the pre-confirmation retreats this year and I am very glad they are about to begin...
This past week I also moved to a new office (which is just a block down the street from my old office) but it is a block further from the church and the whole process of moving and unpacking just makes a busy week that much busier...
I didn't realize until a couple of days after Ash Wednesday how much I really needed Lent this year. I have been going flat out since January and I just got exhausted. Lent will provide me (I hope) with some time to stop and rest and reflect on what matters most and what holds me back from becoming who I am called to be...
I have been doing a lot of thinking about Lent this past week and I think I am experiencing Lent in a new way. Having experienced the journey through Lent many times before, this year I am finally starting to really experience the function of the seasonal aspect of Christianity. There is a reason that from its very earliest days the church created the church year to be seasonal. After coming through the season of Epiphany, I really need to experience this season of clearing out all of the weight and the junk that clutters my heart and soul before I can fully experience the rebirth and redemption of Easter. I am very much looking forward to Easter, but I need to do the work of Lent first if Easter is going to have the meaning and the power that it is intended to...

The day we have eagerly anticipated is finally here! Although we would prefer to be hosting the AFC Championship here in Foxboro, Payton Manning has NEVER beaten the Patriots in the playoffs and that will not change today. Although most of the analysts on ESPN and the NFL Network are picking the Colts, the faithful here in Foxboro have complete faith that coach Belichick will have his team ready to once again defeat the Colts and return to the Superbowl. Coach defeated the Colts in the playoffs in both 2003 and 2004 (here in Foxboro) on the road to the Superbowl and now the Patriots get a chance to do it in the Colt's Dome. It doesn't get any better than this!
I really love living here during the playoffs!!

So it is a beautiful Sunday morning in early January in Foxboro and as has become the tradition here the past several years, this means the good town of Foxboro once again has the privilege of hosting a home Patriots playoff game. This morning I went to Stop & Shop to get a few things and the atmosphere was electric. It felt like homecoming in college - only better. It was 9am (the game starts at 1pm) and the store, the parking lot, the Dunkin Donuts across the street, and everywhere else the eye could see were filled with thousands of the faithful from all over New England preparing for tailgating and the joy of the journey through another season of the playoffs. May I just note here that I am less than thrilled that I have a meeting in Boston at 2pm today (when the Patriots run through the playoffs begins at 1pm and it will take an hour to get to the meeting.) Oh well, this meeting was scheduled months ago before we knew the playoffs schedule, and I must admit that this week my heart has been very much in Atlanta...

The extraordinary Passion Conference that I attended last January in Nashville TN this year moved to Atlanta. A small group of us tried to organize a return to Passion 07, but the transportation did not work out. So this week I have been watching the live streaming of the main sessions on the Passion Website http://www.268generation.com/passion07/live/index.htm

I can't believe it has been a year since Passion 06 in Nashville. So much has happened since then but the year passed exceptionally quickly. Watching the streaming from Atlanta has reminded me of how big an impact that the experience in Nashville had on me a year ago this week (and continues to have now.) I am glad that the 6 Steps Records team has chosen to start the year with this Conference on January 1st - 4th. It really is the perfect way to start the year.

This afternoon I am going to be reflecting on the difference between the glory that will be celebrated here in Foxboro (as the Patriots defeat their archrival the Jets) and the glory that was experienced and celebrated in Atlanta this week...

So I just realized it has been almost 2 months since I have last posted on this journal (which I think may be the longest I have gone between posts since I started blogging.) It has been a very busy couple of months, so busy in fact that although I do check in and read my friends posts a couple times each week, I just have not taken the time to post until now. So this weekend 9 of the seniors from the new TEEP program in Washington DC came up to visit colleges in Boston with some of my seniors. So yesterday we visited Boston College, BU, and Harvard. Today we visited Northeastern and then did some sightseeing and then they flew back to DC. It was a really wonderful weekend...

This afternoon as we were walking through Boston's North End I had a Goo Goo Dolls song from this summer stuck in my head, and that somehow reminded me about my Livejournal. It may be because the Dolls had opened up for Counting Crows on the Summer Nights tour and I have not updated since I got back from the final concerts of the tour in Texas. The 2 shows in Houston and San Antonio were 2 of the very best Crows concerts I have ever experienced - and that is really saying something because I have now seen them 15 times and there have been some truly extraordinary evenings over the years... They are delivering absolutely unbelievable performances that just kept getting better as the summer evolved...

So this leads me to my dilemma - The Crows have just returned from touring Europe and Asia and they have just announced a solo show in Veil Colorado on Saturday December 9th. I was planning to return to Nova Scotia later on in December (I was up there twice last Fall and fell in love with the place, but I have not been back since) but I have never been to Vail and this is going to be a solo show (which means they will play a MUCH longer set than they did this summer with the Dolls and Elliot Morris) and this is the only show they have scheduled in America this winter.
This is going to be a difficult decision...

I know I have not updated since I have returned from Texas (and it was a truly extraordinary trip that I will write about soon) but tonight there is something more important that I feel the need to write about.

I have posted on this journal in the past about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region and how our country has basically turned a blind eye to genocide on the level that the world has not experienced since World War II. Well we are approaching a critical turning point in Sudan and a major opportunity now exists to make history, either by acting on our national values (if we still recognize any) or by continuing to condone by our silence the murder of over 200,000 of our fellow humans.
I have often not agreed with John McCain, but he is dead right on Darfur and I am impressed that a Republican senator in Washington is actually taking a moral stand on a vitally important issue. Here is what he said in the Washington Post:
"Make no mistake: At some point we will step in to help victims in Darfur and police an eventual settlement. The question is whether the United States and other nations will act now to prevent a tragedy, or merely express sorrow and act later to deal with its aftermath. Urgent action is required in the coming hours and days."
- Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Bob Dole in a Washington Post op-ed, "Rescue Darfur Now."

The full piece he wrote with Bob Dole is available here. It clearly shows how we got to where we are today and what steps we as a nation can take now to insure that the over 2 million displaced refugees from this genocide do not have to be ultimately doomed by our apathy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801664.html

So a friend just reminded me that it has been 8 weeks since I last posted... I knew it had been a while, but when I went back and looked I realized that I had not posted since camp started. LOTS has happened since then... far to much to write about most of it now. It was quite the summer. A lot of really amazing memories...
One of my best summers in the past 10 years. Since this is sort of a Counting Crows themed journal I will share one such memory now. One of the highlights of my summer was seeing one of the very best Crows shows that I have ever experienced back on July 29 right here in Mansfield (just about 5 miles from where I live in Foxboro.) That was my 14th Crows show and I can only remember two that were better. They are playing the best music of their careers right now...
So this Wednesday I am flying out to Houston to finish the American tour with the Crows. My best friend from high school lives in Houston and we will see the Crows in Houston on Thursday night and then we will drive out to San Antonio for the final show on Saturday night. I am really excited about the trip to San Antonio. I have taken several road trips with him and they all have been awesome, but this one has the potential to be the best ever. My friends in Texas tell me that San Antonio is the best and most exciting town in Texas and I have reason to believe them...
And the last show of the American tour is often the best show of the entire tour (I know this from experience) and we have 12 row seats. Life is good...

Summer will celebrate her first birthday later this month, and in her first year of life she sure has covered a lot of territory. Since I adopted her in September she has come to the United States, traveled to 7 different states, made a trip back to Canada, and this weekend she added Cape Cod to her travelogue. She really enjoyed her time on the Cape with my parents and my sister. So did I. It was exactly what we needed. I had been working incredibly long hours last week getting ready for camp to start tomorrow. A few days on the Cape afforded me the rest and renewal that I so very much needed. Summer even let me sleep in past 5am (which is often when she wakes me up because she is hungry or wants to play) then again my sister kept her up late the night before - which I appreciated...
My parents had never seen the West Wing before (my sister is a fan but not to the level that I am) so we all watched a few episodes from season 5 and it was really cool to get to introduce them to TV's greatest show...
All in all it was the best family holiday we have had in a while and I now feel like I am ready for camp to start...

This is the week I have been waiting 2 and a half years for. This Tuesday (6/20) the new Counting Crows album comes out and the Summer Nights 2006 tour begins the following night in Portland OR. The new album is "New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall" recorded live in Holland at the end of 2003. It features an absolutely brilliant set list including many of my Crows favorites such as: Omaha, Perfect Blue Buildings, Miami, Four White Stallions, Good time, Holiday in Spain, Rain King, and a brand new song called Hazy. The only thing missing from this set list (that would make it the most perfect Crows set list ever) is my all time favorite Crows song Anna Begins...
Also on Tuesday the Everything Glorious Live DVD comes out (from the Passion event I went to in Nashville in January) and I am VERY excited to see the DVD from one of the most extraordinary events I have ever been a part of...
As if that were not enough, one of my 2 favorite films from last year (Syriana) also comes out on DVD on Tuesday...
Well I just drove back from Washington DC last night and I got home at 2am this morning, so I just woke up. I am leaving soon to go up to Quincy and get Summer who has been spending the past few days with my aunt and uncle's 2 cats, one of whom is almost the same age as she is (she turns 1 in July) while I have been in DC. I had a really extraordinary time in DC. I don't have time to write about all of that now, but maybe later...

http://one.viewpoint.com

I have followed the work of the ONE campaign for the last year and Bono has done some truly extraordinary and world changing work with this. He now has a really astonishing supporting cast... you will see in the video clip. I invite any of you who care about this issue to sign the Declaration...

Today was a most memorable and inspiring day of Pentecost. I slept in this morning and then I went in to Trinity around noon for my final day of admissions interviews. My first student's mother did not speak English so my marvelous program director came and translated for me and that was really cool. Bishop Shaw was still there so we got to talk to him and Patrick Ward and Dain Perry were there and Dana and Anna G... and it was very cool to get to see them. That sure brought back some great memories... Then we had a most wonderful afternoon of interviews (possibly the most inspiring day of interviews I have had all year - fitting that this would be the last day.)

This evening I went to the 6pm service (since I did not make the 11am with Bishop Shaw) and Mike preached an absolutely brilliant sermon (I think it was the first sermon I have ever heard anywhere with a Counting Crows referance in it, although I may well have been the only Crows fan in the church that caught this referance to their 3rd studio album.) This was definitely the most memorable Pentecost sermon I have heard in years...

I was also really struck in tonight's service by the epistle reading - Romans 8:22-27. Regular readers of this blog may remember that since our mission trip to Biloxi Mississippi a couple months ago I have been reflecting a lot on hope. This reading from Romans presents the function of hope differently than I have ever thought of hope before... Check out this excerpt from today's Romans 8 reading... "8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?
8:25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."

Here St. Paul suggests that we have been saved by hope, but not by the hope of what we have seen, but rather by the hope that we wait for in patience... This is very interesting to me, the idea that we have been saved by hope, but not the hope of what we have seen in the past (like Christ's resurrection for example, or the gift of the spirit on Pentecost that we celebrate today) but rather we are saved by the yet unrealized hope in the future that we are to wait for with expectation and with patience... Patience can be difficult for me at times, but I love this emerging and unrealized aspect of the hope that saves us...

There is a very significant film opening in Harvard Square (and Brookline) this Friday. It is already in New York, LA, and Paris and it has had quite an impact. Check it out here http://www.climatecrisis.net

For the past month since it's release I have been trying to decide whether I should go see the film United 93. Many have said that it is much too soon for such a film, and there certainly was a case to be made for that. After a few weeks of thinking about it this faded into the background of my mind and I sort of forgot about it. Today as I was reflecting on Memorial Day and on Memorial Days gone by, the film came back to my mind. So I went to the Globe's website and read Ty Burr's review of the film. I respect Ty Burr's writing and I often agree with his assessment (Ok...full disclosure moment - I had the good fortune to meet Ty Burr at the Globe last year, but I did read and respect his work before I met him.)
His review of the film is excellent and it convinced me to go see the film. So tonight I did. Burr wrote in his review that "As written and directed by Paul Greengrass, United 93 turns out to be a harrowing, honorable, even necessary memorial to the 40 passengers and crew members of the doomed flight -- and to a national innocence that, five years later, seems irretrievably in the past."
I totally agree that this is a necessary memorial to both those who lost their lives on that day and to our national innocence.
The film is incredibly well done. I think this is due in part to the actual people from that day in 2001 (like the airtraffic controllers from Boston, New York, and Cleveland who play themselves in the film) who helped Greengrass make this film which he wrote and directed. I won't write a review of the film here - Burr does a far better job than I could at this link http://www.boston.com/movies/display?display=movie&id=8807

For me I guess today was about reflecting on the legacy of those who gave their lives for the things we all too often take for granted. And today I have been reflecting a lot on hope... The meaning and function of hope. Its midnight now and I am too tired to write a cogent reflection on hope now, but maybe soon...

So this morning I went back to the local State Correctional Institution with my father and grandfather. It is always quite an experience to worship with my family and over 100 inmates. These guys know something about worship that most of us who have our freedom either don't know or have forgotten. Worship for these men is meaningful, relevent, and sustaining. Their worship empowers them to go out and live out their lives of faith in a place that most on the outside can not (and would not want to) imagine. We take so many things for granted in our lives (like the freedom to make basic choices like whether or not to go to breakfast) these guys don't. They are grateful for the little things. And the not so little things - like grace and hope. For some of these guys who are doing life sentences (the prison where my father is chaplain is a maximum security facility with a lot of lifers) grace and hope is about all they have. But they have life and they have it more abundently than many people on the outside who are "free." The thing that makes the difference for these guys is worship - their response to God's grace. It is a powerful thing to experience... Worship is 2 hours long and it would be much longer if the corrections officers would let them stay longer. The choirs come a half hour early (there is both a hispanic choir who sings in Spanish, and a black choir who sings in English) and they start with prayer and then they sing the other men in. This morning I got to pray for the choir. It was powerful. God was there... and he never left. He is still there now... and he is not going anywhere... although as I walked out through the yard and through the block it was blatantly obvious that the challenges that these men face from the majority of the men they live with (hardened criminals who have not yet experienced the glory of God's grace) make their faith cost them something. Maybe this is part of the reason why their grace and faith mean so much to them. It certainly does not come cheap in prison...

I drove home Thursday night and I am here in Pennsylvania until Tuesday. I will be driving back up to Foxboro on Tuesday night...

So we had a really intense weekend up at BCH this past weekend. The further away from it I get the more impressed I become with the work the design team did. They really pulled off a masterpiece - despite significant adversity. That was just about as good as it gets...

So I must admit that I am SOOOO ready for the Summer Nights Tour to begin. Counting Crows are kicking off the pre-tour (sans the Dolls) in Columbia Maryland (metro-DC) in 2 weeks and I seriously considered driving down there to experience their return, but I am driving down to Pennsylvania on Thursday for a few days of vacation, and then I will be in DC in June, so I decided that was just too much driving for one month (especially since I am going to Texas in September to finish the tour with the Crows...)

So today I got the Goo Goo Dolls new album "Let Love In" I figured I needed to get to know it if I am going to be spending a good piece of my summer with them... It is actually quite good... possibly their best since 1998's Dizzy - which will always be their best album. This new album is very much in that tradition and it really takes me back to those days... This is my early favorite song from the new album...

Better Days
(John Rzeznik)

And you asked me what I want this year
And I'll try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe
We'll find better days

'Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
Designer love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe
We'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
'Cause tonight's the night
The world begins again

I need someplace simple where we could live
And something only you could give
And that's faith and trust and peace while we're
Alive

And the one poor child who saved this world
There's 10 million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll
Find better days

This afternoon a story went up on our church's new website about the Diocesan youth mission trip to Biloxi. I was a bit surprised to see Catie's picture in this story (because she is not from Trinity) but that came from the Diocesan youth website, which this story links to. Check out the story here - if you look in the "News at Trinity" section of the homepage you will see this story http://trinityboston.org

p.s. this story will only be featured on the homepage for a limited time. If you are reading this after a few days from when it was posted you can find this story at its permanent home here http://trinityboston.org/news/story.php?aid=32

Yes I know it has been a couple weeks since I have been found here in LJ land. I actually have read what my friends have posted, and I have often thought of posts that I have wanted to write. These past few weeks since I have returned from Mississippi have been incredibly full however and I have been spending what little free time I have had these past few days reading so I have not made the time to actually write the posts. This evening however I read an article that has inspired me to write.

As some of you know, I am a huge fan of Brian McLaren (one of the founders of the Emergent Church movement, and one of my favorite authors.) I purchased the Da Vinci Code a long time ago, but until this week I never actually read it. With the movie about to open however I decided I needed to read the book first because the book is almost always better than the movie. There is a growing uproar in the Evangelical community (of which my parents and my grandfather are a part) against both the book and now especially the film. Conversations with my father and grandfather have recently caused me to start studying Christology (the theological study of who Christ was/is, and the wide range of answers that Christians come up with to Christ's own question in the Gospels "Who do you say that I am?") Today I got an incredible book that is an introduction to New Testament Christology that I like even more than the Da Vinci Code (which is itself a captivating read) but this is actually written by a Christian theologian.

Some of you also know that I am a big fan of Sojourners Magazine and today I got an email from them with a new article from Brian McLaren where he addresses the controversy (some would say fury) that is brewing in the Evangelical world, and he offers his own unique take on the Da Vinci Code. You can check out Brian's excellent article here if you are interested

http://go.sojo.net/nd.tcl?r=gdLsRr91mX4Q&n=3509554

There are several other matters that I want to write about soon, but I think this post is long enough for tonight...

It is hard to articulate what a profound joy and blessing it was to share this past week with the remarkable group of youth and mentors who comprised our mission trip to Biloxi Mississippi. It was an absolutely transformative week and I know that each of us who shared that journey together are different now as we return today to our regular New England lives.
The grace and the dignity and the hope that we experienced in the people of Biloxi who welcomed us so graciously was palpable and it was observationally apparent to all of us.

The devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, now 8 months after the fact, is still almost impossible to comprehend without experiencing it personally. We did experience that this past week, but what we also experienced at an even deeper level is the absolutely unbreakable hope that is rising out of the devastation of Katrina. I even heard one older gentleman who had lost his home to Katrina say that she (Katrina) may in the end be one of the best things to have ever happened to the Gulf Coast. That statement was incredibly difficult to comprehend at the time that he said it, but later in the week at a healing service that we had at the Church of the Redeemer (our host church) their priest Fr. Roberts talked with us about healing and about the hope that is rising out of the impact of Katrina, and I began to see what the man was trying to convey. We actually met in Redeemer's fellowship hall that had been significantly damaged by Katrina - their church building had been completely destroyed by the storm but this was a physical and profoundly powerful reminder that the church is not a building that can be washed away by the storm of the century. The Church is rather God's people who live out the grace and the hope of Christ wherever they may gather to worship.

I am particularly grateful for the absolutely amazing work group that I had the privilege to be a part of. Each day I was in Biloxi I was blessed by the love, the grace, the laughter, and the hope that I saw in their eyes and in their lives. They were authentic and honest manifestations of exactly how mission should be lived out with integrity in the post-modern context. As I reflect on our journey together I am deeply moved by how our group embraced this mission trip and all that it evolved in to being. God was real and evident in our midst and we were touched by God's transforming grace through his extraordinary people in Biloxi. I will never forget them and I will never cease to be grateful for them and for the incredible people of Biloxi (like Tammy and Nick and Geoff) who touched our lives in such a profound way.

In that healing service on Wednesday night Fr. Roberts challenged us to take the hope that we experienced rising in Biloxi and share it with our communities here in Massachusetts. We returned to that same place on Saturday night for our closing worship and small group session and I will never forget the moving tributes to grace and hope that were shared in that space on Saturday night. Now as we return and begin to share our stories from Biloxi, I pray that his hope for us will be realized...