07.23.06
Two Opportunities
| Event Title: | Franciscan’s International lecture, John Quigley, O.F.M., Richard Rohr, O.F.M. |
| Time: | 7:00 PM (through 9:00 PM) |
| Date: | Saturday, August 19 |
| Location: | Schiff Family Conference Center at Cintas (Xavier Campus) |
| Contact: | franciscansnetwork@cinci.rr.com or call 513 541-7740 |
| Description: | John Quigley, co-founder and executive director of Franciscans International in New York and Geneva, and Richard Rohr, internationally known preacher, author and founder of New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M. are the guest speaker for this event. The lecture’s title will be, “Our Future in a Globalizing World: Franciscans International’s work at the United Nations and at the grassroots level on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable”. Seating is limited. Suggested $20 donation. All proceeds to benefit Franciscans International. |
Seventh Annual Conference
October 6-7, 2006
MSU Kellogg Center
Lansing, MI
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Miroslav Volf, Director of Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale University Divinity School.
Dr. Volf will be giving a lecture and a panel discussion on “Remembering Passion: Mistreatment, Memory, and Reconciliation.”
Miroslav Volf was educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany. He earned doctoral and post-doctoral degrees (with highest honors) from the University of Tuebingen, Germany. He has published and edited nine books and over 60 scholarly articles. His most significant books include Exclusion and Embrace, in which he reflects on conflicts that are raging around the question of identity, and After Our Likeness, in which he explores the Trinitarian nature of ecclesial community.
I met Richard Rohr at a conference earlier this year. He is both an excellent speaker and an excellent teacher. I’m looking forward to seeing him again.
Miroslav Volf has written one of my favorite books and is intimately connected to Croatia and the Balkans, where I am traveling next year for research. I have contacted him and will be meeting with him for an interview at this conference in October. If anyone is up for the drive, it will be worth it.
Both of these are free and if anyone needs housing, I can set it up for both conferences.
07.13.06
Amazing!
For the first time in my life, I got my haircut at a non-chain, salon place. I’ve decided it’s probably worth it for a few reasons. I could continue to get bad haircuts that look worse as my hair gets long, necessitating a haircut every 3 to 4 weeks, or I could get a good cut two months apart.
I’d be spending about 6 dollars more over those two months, but it’s going to a local place instead of a chain…so thats good.
And besides, look at these before and after photos:
Before:
And After:
07.11.06
Shattered Glass
I have loved the movie Shattered Glass for quite some time, even though I have never seen the first 45 minutes or so.
It tells the story of Stephen Glass, a journalist for the New Republic in the 1990’s. Out of the 41 stories he wrote for the New Republic, only 14 of them were true. The rest were either partially or completely fabricated.
I suppose the plot of the movie is decently interesting, but it’s the acting that makes the movie fantastic. I don’t think Hayden Christiansen has been better and the film also stars Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn. Sarsgaard always does a superb job and picks excellent roles. See Dead Man Walking, Garden State, and Jarhead.
I’d get this film from wherever you typically get films when you get a chance. If you’re interested in reading any of the articles he fabricated, you can visit the Wiki article about him linked above, or go to this site to see an index of his articles and articles written about him.
07.10.06
Law of Retribution
When will we learn this is not the way? When will we realize that kids learn violence is appropriate from those they see in power using violence?
I’d be willing to bet a few things about this kid’s life…that he was most likely poor, most likely neglected, most likely had terrible relationships with his family. Then again, I could be wrong, and the pervasiveness of violence in our culture – from playground fights to domestic abuse to national violence and systemic economic violence — had simply taken over in this case.
Several months ago, I saw an “On this Day in History” news link that led me to find out about Mary Bell. There is an excellent book, which I now own, called “Cries Unheard – Why Children Kill”. Very tragic.
But it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know before. That we shouldn’t be sending 12 year olds to prison for 26 years. That we should be teaching reconciliation rather than war. That we can’t possibly hope to see an end to violence if we keep using it ineffectively to end violence. That retributive justice does not work…
07.09.06
Could we just listen to the man?
“The days go on and on… they don’t end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.”
07.07.06
The Hard Rain
I’ve alluded to this before, but I can’t help but keep thinking about how Kyle said this year was going to be heavy…
I’ve been spending a good deal of time with a friend who is suffering intensely right now. The past couple weeks have been shattering for him and it’s difficult for me to even understand fully how to be with him. I don’t want to offer him answers or advice…I just want to suffer with him. Missy and I have been affected by this situation as well and we’re desperately trying to be friends who listen, quiet ourselves, and suffer with. There is nothing else to do.
Our prayer, as always, is for the reconciliation of all things. There is a theologian, whom I passed onto Kyle, that talks about the idea of original sin and actual sin as brokenness in relationships. And that our redemption comes through the restoration and reconciliation of that brokenness. We participate in our redemption as far as we create wholeness and intimacy between ourselves, others and God.
Please pray for our friends.
In addition, I feel I would need to say here how much my wife means to me. In creating this new page, I’ve realized how little I’ve talked about her on here and what a misrepresentation that is as to how much a part of me she really is. I used to describe to people how lucky I was to have her…and I certainly still feel that way. But now it’s more important for me to express what our relationship is becoming.
I wrote to Rick Ryding a month or so ago and described how she has affected me, is affecting me. She smooths out my rough places, provides a cooling touch to my often heated exchanges, gives wisdom to fervency and comforts troubled thoughts. I wrote a similar letter to my dad to express what these last five years have meant.
In August, we’re traveling to Toronto to spend a week there celebrating these five years. I hope that I can be as good a husband as she has been a wife. And things look good for us I think. Most people say the first few years are the hardest (they’ve been mostly a breeze) and that at 4 years (when the 7 year itch really occurs) there will be some trouble. We’ve had none of it…and I’m very thankful.
May you all be so blessed.
07.02.06
Happy 4th
What do you want to bet they won’t play this song in the WNCI Red, White and Boom Mix?
Well it’s 3 a.m., I’m driving in my car
Under neon signs I can’t see the stars
Out in nowhere land where everything looks the same
Fenced in dumps and fire lanes
It’s another in-depth report on the president’s underwear
While some little girl gets raped out in the Bronx somewhere
But thank god out in the suburbs we know where to go to buy a toaster
The woman that I met returns to me in a flash
Last night there was a party that I think I was at
“Why don’t you pour yourself a drink, have a seat here on our couch of mink”
He says, “May I introduce, this is America”
And she says, “You can be king in the land of milk and trash
Render your opinion, but first let’s see the cash
You can buy a defense that’s sure to save your ass
You can take a walk, there are people living underground
It’s raining cats and dogs, but it won’t trickle down
So we’ll have another drink, well, we will have another round Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”
So I sat down on the couch next to America
There were holes in her veins but she was pretty just the same
And she laughed in a strange, innocent way
And said, “Let the soundbites rush over you, you won’t feel the pain
See that man by the door, his name is Sam
I am only his whore is what I am
And he will dive for my pearls till I am dry
See, the American mind needs its antidepressants
And it’s evil villains and heroes and wars
But I am just a simple girl
But I once had a garden, I once was wild
But he poisoned it, bit by bit
Left me to fend like a motherless child
Oh, and you can be king in the land of milk and trash
Render your opinion, but first let’s see the cash
You can buy a defense that’s sure to save your ass
You can take a walk, there are people living underground
It’s raining cats and dogs, but it won’t trickle down
So we’ll have another drink, well, we will have another round Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Antje Duvekot
9:30pm, October 13th
Canal Street tavern
Dayton OH
(opening for Ellis Paul)
