Merry Thanks-Giving from Your Over-Caffeinated-Catechist

http://youtu.be/TQnXuc-TbeU

"What have you that you did not receive?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Firstly thank you, dear reader, for reading and hanging out here with me on this thing. Its been fun, and I think if you and me stick together, we'll really go somewhere. So in honor of this glorious holiday that is frequently under appreciated and ruined by preemptive commercial Christmas decorations, I thought I should take a minute to send you a personal and intimate video exhorting you to think about the issues this Thanksgiving.

For all Thanksgiving-relevant Catechism passages check out this link.

Eat some turkey for me.

You're welcome.

Hippest Stuff Roundup

Trying something a little different, this week's post is a roundup of a bunch of super hip awesome stuff I've found around the world wide wild web in the past couple weeks. Broad range of things made this list, and I think you should know about them.

Grid-it

This is the coolest freaking thing ever. You have all those loose bits of wire and pens and usb drives and paintbrushes and batarangs in your work bag or laptop bag or whatever. The Grid-it helps you organize all that onto one pad of grippies and helps your OCD tendencies. I would love to have one for my work bag. My advice is to send this link to someone who will buy you a Christmas present.

You can buy them at Cocoon Innovations. (This is not an affiliate link. I'm not getting paid to say this is awesome. But it is.)

Rome From Above

Spirit Juice Studios. If you don't know about them, you should. They flew a quad-copter above Rome and got some epic shots. Such cool. Such hipster.

http://vimeo.com/110809710

Drunk Ex-Pastors

Hat-tip to good friend Sean for sending this podcast my way. Its not as bad as it sounds, but bad enough to be amazing. Two ex-protestant pastors (one now agnostic, one now a Catholic) drink modestly and talk about a broad range of topics. You might recognize the Catholic as Jason Stellman from the blog Creed Code Cult.

I really enjoy this podcast because they are smart and the conversations between a Catholic convert and an agnostic are super interesting. They both know Scripture super well, and the fundamentalist jokes abound. I really enjoy Jason's anecdotes about the life of a used-car salesman. If you share an episode on social media, they'll drink a shot in your honor and give you a shoutout at the beginning of the next episode!

I recommend starting with episode 11. It has a lot of the back story behind the podcast and Jason Stellman's super interesting story about leaving his protestant roots and damning himself to hell.

Listen to Drunk Ex-Pastors. You can find it on iTunes or on your podcast app.

The Frank Show

Speaking of podcasts, my fellow coworkers/friends started a podcast for our parish called The Frank Show. (Frank as in open and honest. Also as in short for Francis...'cause we're St. Francis of Assisi Parish...yeah...). For the first bunch of episodes we are reading through Sherry Weddell's book "Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus".

Each week myself, Jared Zimmerer, and Nic Gutierrez will read a chapter and discuss. Where we will go from there? Who knows. But it will be frankly, captivating.

Buy the book or steal it from a friend and read along with us! We are currently only on Soundcloud, but we'll be getting the podcast up on iTunes soon. Let us know what you think!

https://soundcloud.com/sfafrankshow

T-shirt Mock Up

This is a quick little design I'm thinking about making a t-shirt. What do you think? Do you want a t-shirt like this? It seems like parishes everywhere are struggling to find enough catechist volunteers for the number of kids they have. Being a catechist is an important calling in the Church. Hopefully this t-shirt will wake some people up!

It probably wouldn't have the Reverb Culture logo on it. It would also be a t-shirt.

Let me know if you'd buy one. If enough people respond, I'll make them!

Save a Soul. Be a Catechist.

Great band named Joseph

Hat tip to good friend Jon. I'm really diggin' this female trio with lots of harmony and folk. Sweet band website too. If you're looking for them on Spotify, type "Joseph" and then one of their song titles like "Lifted Away" (one of my fav's).

Dribbble

Hat tip to Inspired Angela for showing me Dribbble. In a recent Coffee Interview I picked Angela's brain about design and inspiration. Dribbble is a place where graphics designers showcase their work. You can search things like "newsletter" or "logo" or "christmas" and get some inspiration for the project you're working on. All art is stolen. Recently I had to design a 5 foot banner with all Christmas/Advent schedule of all events going on at our Church. Dribbble gave me some color palette ideas and helped get me past the blank page of death.

Jim Lepage's Designs

Speaking of graphic design, I found this guy Jim somehow and he has an amazing collection of designs made for every book of the Bible. I really dig his style. Some of the designs are scandalous, so you've been warned. He's real good.

Sophia Sketchpad

These are some cool videos to help with catechesis. I really love those drawing-while-explaining videos, and these will be a bunch that cover the faith. They are just starting out, so send them some love and some money. It looks like they are gearing this towards classroom use, and they have some supplemental teacher resources to go with the videos.

Firepole Fail

And last but certainly the most important: this video sent to me by my good friend Chris.

There is so much in this. So many life lessons. Such depth. Such metaphor. Life.

---

Did you like this post? Is there anything you would add?

If you liked this post, you might enjoy Tools, Tech, and Gear for Parish Design and More Tech for Parish Ministry

Augustinian Soul Music: Sam Rocha "Late to Love" Release

If St. Augustian owned an electric guitar instead of a pen and hung out with Ray Charles, then his Confessions might have sounded something like this.

Sam Rocha is a philosopher, author, and musician who released his Kickstarter funded album Late to Love (Wiseblood Records) yesterday.

"Late to Love is an original concept album that performs a reading of Augustine’s Confessions through soul music. It is not a generic ode to a saint or holy person, nor it is a neutral and uncontroversial celebration of an important ancient book. From beginning to end Rocha offers a bold and fresh reading of Augustine’s Confessions where the form is the content, where melody and verse take the place of assertions and argument." (from latetolove.bandcamp.com)

He calls it Augustinian Soul. And I believe him.

This description, obviously written by Sam, I found on the Wiseblood website:

"Soul music is not so much a genre as it is a sentiment, a quality. When a musician “has soul” it is not something that is stylistic or technical. No. To have soul is to have a certain conviction, grit, and sincerity. Soulful music is music that has the capacity to show and offer love. Augustinian soul music, then, verges on redundant since, for Augustine, it is the heart that moves the soul. Two traditions, philosophy and music, have for centuries reflected and practiced the art of soul craft. In Late to Love, Sam Rocha, a philosopher and musician, combines those traditions in pursuit of the sound and song that can be recognized as soulful, that moves the body, heart, and mind, reaching out to the intimate place where the ego is absent and where God abides in its place. This place is what has been called the soul; its song endures in and out of religious or devotional settings – and for good reason. The world today is filled with stylists and technicians of all sorts, bureaucrats and managers and experts, but, in the midst of so much knowledge and sophistication, the simple human touch, the touch that reaches the heart and moves the soul without insulting the intellect, is all too rare. Late to Love is soul music, inspired by the soul craft of music and philosophy, without comprising the integrity of either."

This album is raw and doesn't give a what. (Listen to it here on band camp.)   You'll find some disturbing lines that reveal a lover who is lacking any filter of self-consciousness. Some of the most disturbingly sincere lines:

"My watch hands don't glow my heart ain't got no usb" "Pinocchio is fake, but that nose seems so real" "If the water ain't hot, then them dishes ain't clean. Make your eggs with love."

My favorite line by far is from the track Alien House:

"While the alien wishes for, just awhile longer, washed like soiled dishes, before the funk grows any stronger."

There is depth I'm missing to some of these lines and songs as a whole that edge this album close to esoteric, and maybe that's just the soul of song. Some people smarter and more philosophical than myself have already caught on to what Sam is grooving.

Sam excels at that grooving and whining electric guitar fingerpicking style that often makes me think I'm hearing bow ties and black dresses clinging glasses and silverware in a late night jazz club. This is a diverse album though with a wide range of sound across the tracks.

I threw down $50 for the Late to Love cause with two others who challenged Sam on Facebook to do a ridiculously sincere cover of a Veggie Tales song. Here is the glorious rendition:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/l374EZU7G7o?list=UUgUqMckwi8jhFXSfjuJqPhg]

Buy Sam Rocha's Album Late to Love because its a good album with roots in truth and funk. Its hard to come across a marriage of the two as sincere as this.

And make sure you have a copy of The Confessions of Saint Augustine to read along late tonight while listening to this album with a glass of whiskey.

Some Notes to the Director of My Personal Video Trailer

Hey guys! Real excited about this upcoming project. Thought I'd let you take a quick sneak peak at the email I just sent: Hey Rob,

Thanks a lot for agreeing to work on this project with me. Glad to be working with Spirit Juice Studios, you guys are the best.

The purpose of this video trailer is to get people to see how awesome I am so they invite me to come speak at some big conference or something.

Contained herein are some Director’s Notes to help us during the filming process.

Scene 1

A wide-angle shot of Times Square at street level. The sun is beginning to set on the Big City. Tiny people in the distance walk to and from pagan destinations unknown. Cars are passing. Wait, who’s that left of center strutting toward the camera? A handsome man, 5’11”, brown hair, athletic build. Catholic.

Ok I’ll just say it - Me.

He/me is wearing a shirt that says “Ask me why I’m Catholic” but it doesn’t look lame it looks hipster. I’m carrying a RSV Bible and my pants are too tight in a way that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable but also slightly comfortable in my ability to relate. The Bible is the big leather kind with the icon of Jesus on the front because I’m serious and I’m here to freaking change lives. He/I stare into the camera walking confidently with a glimmer in my eye that says “Hey there. I know you know Jesus knows what we’re doing here.”

Crowds start to gather around me. I extend my arms towards them. Bystanders start weeping uncontrollably. I kiss a baby. I make a man blind just to restore his sight again. Some epic Gregorian chant mixed with dubstep starts playing and now you’re thinking “Holy cats, am I going to crap my pants?”

I walk under a marquee that reads “TONIGHT: Edmund Mitchell and Jesus Christ.” and walk into Madison Square Garden Arena.

Black screen with white text: You aren’t going to crap your pants.

Yet.

Scene 2

Cut to the dark arena bursting at the seams. People are sitting two to a seat and gaze at the empty stage. The anticipation is so thick you can cut it with a thurible. Its the first International Steubenville Conference held in Madison Square Garden.

Camera zooms and floodlights direct to the rafters. Pope Francis drops in from the ceiling on a zip line and fireworks shoot out of his shoes as he flies around the arena with a megaphone chanting “EDMUND EDMUND EDMUND”, hyping the sea of people into a chaotic frenzy.

Matt Maher is off stage playing stuff he didn’t know he could play that’s coming from deep within his Canadian soul and he’s killing it. King David is playing a flaming harp that sounds like Jimmy Hendrix was a Catholic while the bass just keeps dropping and there aren't speakers anywhere because the music is coming from creation itself and even the rocks are crying out: EDMUND! EDMUND! EDMUND!

I enter stage left carried on Jim Gaffigan’s shoulders. The audience craps their pants and the shockwave of decibels created from the eruptive cheers/pantcrapping causes a small tidal wave in Michael Vorris’ hair felt halfway around the world.

No one dares ask me why I’m Catholic because my holiness is electric. I open my mouth to speak as Jesus looks down from heaven and nods approvingly. My tongue becomes incorruptible even though I’m not dead yet.

I’m just warming up.

I speak for 40 days and 40 nights and people are living on my words alone because they’re coming forth from the mouth of God using my mouth to let the words come forth but not in a prideful way. More like in a humble and instrumentally causal kinda way.

Chris Stephanik is speechless.

He’s not there, but he heard from someone who was there that Mark Hart said something funny and no one noticed because I’m speaking and you have to PIPE DOWN Mark because I’m KILLING IT. Ennie Hickman falls out of his chair somewhere in the middle of the woods. Bob Rice gives me a standing ovation and lets me wear his beard. Scott Hahn comes on stage for a few minutes but all anyone remembers is he said “What Edmund said.” Fr. Mike Schmitz gives me permission to start all my talks with the word “So,” and the camera keeps panning as the bass keeps dropping.

The crowd encores me three times and Moses has to get involved holding my arms up while I tell another story that’s hilarious and cuts you to the heart and makes you want to become a Priest and call your mom and apologize.

People go straight to heaven. Everyone. Just lifted up.

Scene 3

Quick montage of clips as Matt Maher continues to play in the background singing a rock ballad to me and Jesus and the bass continues to drop. Just some ideas.

Cut to: I’m in Honduras hiking up a mountain carrying a Priest carrying the Monstrance as thousands of Hondurans chase us.

Cut to: I’m standing on top of St. Peter’s shaking my groove thing.

Cut to: I’m in Africa playing soccer with kids in a sandy field while holding a child all inside a Facebook profile picture.

Cut to: I’m at the UN saying challenging things about Jesus and forgiveness and the true meaning of tolerance. I make Vladimir Putin shoot milk out his nose I’m so funny.

Cut to: I’m hanging out with Zac Effron on MTV and kids think I’m totally relevant and look up to me like that cool older brother they want to be.

Cut to: I’m in Mass levitating as I pray and Cardinal Dolan and Stephen Colbert take me out to breakfast afterwards and ask me to tell them that one story again and pray over them.

————————————————————————————————-

You get the gist. Just throwing out some ideas. I’ll call you in the morning so we can go over this in more detail.

+JMJ Edmund

A Few Things Before We Hold Hands At Mass

Hi. My name is Keith. You haven’t noticed, but I’ve been watching you ever since I squeezed past your knees to get to the middle of this pew about 9 minutes ago. I want to let you know that today God has preordained you to be blessed in a very special way. As of now, you have passed my peripheral inspection and I will actually hold your hand during the Our Father. Before God formed you in the womb he knew you, and before you chose this prime pew real estate on what seemed like a normal Sunday 11:30 Mass, the angels have been leading you ever closer to this hand communion. During the Our Father here at St. Dude the Nice we normally all hold hands lovingly, as you probably know because you look like you come here often. Not like, in a bad way though.

Now I want to let you know, I don’t just let anyone hold my hand. Have you heard of MRSA? It’s scary stuff. And its an evil in our Church that is literally leading people to Satan.

But you… You look clean.

But not too clean. I sat next to a guy once who looked too clean.  I didn’t trust him. Feast of St. Stephen, day after Christmas. He had a Michael Vorris look to him. Didn’t hold his hand. Nope.

But you. You have all your teeth and a holiness that really shines in a totally humble and profoundly charitable way. Well, actually I really just noticed that you are wearing a scapular.

Oh hey, First Reading… It always creeps up on me.

Okay let’s talk general guidelines real quick.

First. We will by no means be interlocking fingers. Interdigitation is for hippies. If you try something like that I will end our mildly-intimate physical prayer contact so fast you’ll think I was Pope Urban the VII.

Second. I’m not a fan of hand-raising at the words “For the kingdom and the power…”. If you are, well good luck there buddy. I know two things for sure.

1: The small old women at this parish are conspiring to kill the prime minister of Malaysia.

2: My hand will stay firmly at upper-mid waist level.

If you got some beef with that, you can take your liturgical non-sense down the street where they sing Lord of the Dance, says me. I’m going to stay at waist level because I love Jesus. Plus I work out and can think heavy. You really want to attempt to hold this beast of a forearm up that high for that long? I pray a lot of rosaries. And Father could be feeling particularly saucy today, audible, and then sing the Our Father. What then?

Thirdly. My hands get real sweaty. Don’t clasp my prayer digits too firmly. We aren’t going to prom. I’m not going to buy you dinner.

As long as we are good on this 3-Point System, we won’t have problems. Who knows, maybe next week I’ll sit near you again. Maybe a pew in front of you. And when you see me not holding hands with Karen, that Mom with lots of kids and who knows how much bacteria on her grimy grubbies, we’ll make that knowing eye contact during the sign of peace and you’ll feel the warm embrace of sweet divine affirmation. And we’ll give each other a quick nod and hand shake and you’ll remember this day as the day Keith allowed you to hold his hand during the Our Father. It’s a big day for you. Are you ready for it? Do you feel the consolation?

I’m definitely staying as far away as possible from Felipe the Usher, who’s partially deaf and would hold my hand through the dismissal if I let him. Gross.

Alright here we go. Show time. Oh, one last thing.

Don’t. Even. Think. About. Hugging. Me.

Your Temporarily More-Than-A-Stranger,

Keith

Reverb Culture Launched!!!

It's been awhile since I've written here, and for good reason. One of the most exhausting and stress inducing things I've ever done is finally out in the public. And I couldn't have done it on my own.Over the past several months, myself and an awesome team of Catholics have been talking, praying, working, and arguing about a project that is the result of a simple idea: What if we created a community of young adults striving to live out the Catechism in a wild and real way?

I've been blown away by the support, positive reactions, emails, tweets, and encouragement this project has received. Its been a huge undertaking, one that I have been nervously hiding from people for too long. The fear of rejection or the weight of self criticism can be stifling.

We launched ReverbCulture.com this past Saturday, after already gaining a small but punchy email list following (thanks all you early adopters!). The day before and day of the launch, I probably put in around 20+ hours total into the design/content of the site, with the help of a bunch of great people. I was worn out. Just a few hours after we launched, we threw an online party, the Epic Launch Party on google+ hangouts. It was live and recorded (you can watch the hour of epic awesome here) and a bunch of people showed up. It was such a blast and such a joy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX9r_XyeGO4&feature=share]

We gave away a catechism and a book, had tons of laughs, people from Puerto Rico, Hungry, a postulant from a religious order, and all over the US showed up. I can't say enough how much fun it was!

You can learn more about Reverb Culture on the website, I just wanted to throw it out here ad let you know what's been going on recently. I would love to hear your feedback and would be overjoyed to have you become part of this strange thing called Reverb Culture.

We have some blogs coming out, podcasts, interviews, videos, and tons more in store. We are in this for the long haul. Praise God for the opportunity to share our love of the Faith in this fun way.

I'm tired. Talk to you later. ;)

+JMJ Edmund

The Catechism Movement* Secret Sign Up List

So a quick update.

I have gathered together a dream team of Catholics to help me with this super sweet project that has been weighing on my heart for the past two years.

The super good news is we are skipping the kickstarter campaign and getting right to the creating. Basically I realized that trying to raise money to fund this project is just another way of me putting it off. I don't want to tell you too much just yet about it, but I do want to let those of you that have been following me here join ahead of time.

Okay fine, I'll tell you a little more about it. Think of it as a most epic Catholic movement. Not just a website, but a community. A community of people doing epic things with the catechism. Culture, community, and credo collide to bring you a melting pot of awesomeness. The expression of a bunch of young adults giving their all to the Catechism, Jesus, and the Church, and figuring out how to do it better by living a life that is beautiful, compelling, and authentic to the entire faith.

Okay okay. I gotta stop. I don't want to ruin the surprise!

But surrrriously. If you are interested in hearing more and getting involved, we'll be sending out a few updates here and there so sign up to the mailing list and I'll keep you in the loop. You'll hear the details about the website and the launch before anyone else.

Keep us in your prayers. We'll talk to you soon! AMDG

Click here to check out the coming soon page and sign up to the email list.

Exciting Announcement!

In order to keep myself accountable, ensuring that every Saturday morning I am actually working on this, I want to tell you about a HUGE project I am working on with a few other holy souls.

Right now it is just called the catechism movement, but it is an idea I have been praying about, studying, reading, writing, and talking about for almost two years.

Part sexy website, part community for the counter-cultural, part dream team of Catholic evangelists, right now I am finally putting it all on paper (virtually) in a pdf manifesto that will hopefully be complete for limited viewing in the next two weeks. I'm also in touch with the USCCB (no one wants a copyright lawsuit...) and beginning to ask a few people to roll up their sleeves and joing me in creating this beast.

Once the manifesto is finished I'll be sending it out for review and asking more people to get involved. So pray for us and help me stay on top of this! Here is a rough timeline:

• Dec. 9, 2013 - the catechism movement Manifesto Finished and Select Viewing
• Late February 2014 - Kickstarter Campaign Launch
• October 2014 - the catechism movement Big Launch

If you don't hear anything by Dec. 9, you have permission to fill my driveway with cool whip.

+JMJ November 24, 2013 Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Pope Francis Approves of Rugby

Pope Francis met with the head of FIFA and the managers and players of rugby teams from Italy and Argentina today. Pope Francis took the opportunity to talk about the superiority and spiritual benefits of rugby (and not soccer for obvious reasons), because well, its the best game ever. I played rugby in college for a few years and agree whole heartedly with the Pope's reflections. I approve.

Here is a link to the article I found with the most quotes from Francis' private audience. If anyone can find the complete text or more quotes from the audience, let me know.

This Story about Pope John Paul II is Changing My Life

I recently heard a remarkable and supposedly true story involving Blessed Pope John Paul II and his driver, and this story has been haunting me for the past few weeks.

The story goes that Pope John Paul II was getting out of a car and his driver accidentally slammed the Pope's fingers in the car door. What a great opportunity to see what someone is really made of. My Dad slammed my fingers in the trunk of a car one time, that was the first and last time I ever swore in front of my Dad. I'm still afraid of trunk space.

Legend has it that the first whispered words out of Pope John Paul II's mouth were: "Thank you, Lord, for loving me this way."

I don't know about you, but this story rocked my face off. In a situation where you are suddenly slammed into abrupt pain - stub your toe on a chair, poke yourself in the eye with your toothbrush, or reach down to pick up your shoe and slam your eyebrow on the kitchen counter - what comes out of your mouth comes straight from your heart. It is more a knee-jerk reaction than well thought out intellectual response. A lot of my reactions to situations like these seem to be four letter words...

This story reminds me of Jesus' words:

"The good man out of the treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." Luke 6:45

Situations like these are opportunities to see what you are really made of, and to see what is really in your heart. If you live a life like Pope John Paul II, you are constantly aware that every moment of your life is a gift from God. Your heart is overflowing with love for God, and a constant awareness of His love for you. Everything God allows to happen to you is for your good.

Suffering, pain, disappointment; these things are given to us to bear because these things will make us Saints. Becoming who we are created to be hurts, because we are weak and would rather seek pleasure than love. Even the small moments of life give us opportunity to grow closer to Christ, to love God more, and to overcome our little sufferings and crosses with the grace and love of Jesus Christ working in us.

The past few weeks I have been trying to respond to the little difficulties and sufferings in my life by quietly saying "Thank you, Lord, for loving me this way."

"The way of perfection passes by way of the cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes." Catechism of the Catholic Church 2015