2010 ColloquiumOne of my other roles at church is to help out with our parish’s RCIA program. Yesterday, despite a somewhat tenuous weather situation, we all traipsed down to the Cathedral in Denver for one of the Rite of Election services with the Archbishop. As always, he was a wonderful Shepherd for his flock, helping our [...]
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My colleague Tony made this observation in a discussion last week: “We can be powerful without being perfect.” It really struck me as an important concept, one that I need to constantly remember on my journey of life. I’ve observed a number of conversations recently where people are coming up against what appears to be a brick wall of tasks. There’s so much work to be done, an infinite number of problems to be fixed, a huge number of people to convince…. Daunting is a relatively weak word for what it feels like. A colleague today raised an interesting question which caused me to start thinking pretty deeply. Here’s the problem: How do we get someone to fix something that they’re satisfied with, but we’re not? If they have control of the situation, and they’re satisfied with it, it’ll take a lot of concerted effort to get them [...] “It is for us to make the effort. The result is always in God’s hands.” – Mahatma Gandhi In our culture, we are very focused on results. Goals, money, achievement – things that represent the crowning results from our work. But you might notice that this leaves little room for God to work in our lives. I had the opportunity to sing Compline with the schola from another parish last night – a wonderful and prayerful experience. But earlier in the week, the director tangentially referred to me as “the professional.” Say what? I mean, I’m a neophyte at this chant, and have only been working on it for a few years. [...] Here’s an interesting idea I get from Clay Shirky’s video above (if you can’t see it, try this link): Many useful things these days are being done purely by volunteers. That’s a huge change from the way we usually think. We tend to focus on what organizations do through their employees, and by money changing hands. [...] We now have less than two weeks to go until we have the scholas from 3 Fort Collins parishes join together to sing a single Mass on November 15th. Actually, I found out that we can claim four parishes, because a gentleman has joined us from Greeley who is the “one person schola” for his [...] I’ve felt quite guilty about my inexperience as regarding Sacred Music: I’m a convert to Catholicism, so I have no first-hand knowledge before about 1980. I love to hear supportive comments, and am challenged to accept criticism, but the hardest thing can sometimes be getting no feedback at all. If my priest, schola members, or director of music don’t say much, what does that mean? |
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