Echo Man gets a tan

Livin' on a High School

It’s almost 10, and I woke up naturally (or so I thought) like an hour ago, even though I have Fridays off and have nothing to do today until 11:30.

I got up to go make coffee and saw Jonathan sitting in his desk chair, miserable.

It was then that I heard it: loud, terrible, marching band Bon Jovi.

I laughed for like five minutes straight. Seriously. Flags and drums and whatever else are parading around the parking lot in front of our house.


The joys of living ON a high school.

EchoPoloFriday!

Just thought you might like to know that I'm wearing my Echo polo today... keeping the tradition alive!

Happy Friday!! Enjoy the long weekend!

I love moments like these

Today we had our staff meeting followed by a staff lunch (bring your own lunch). It was the first time since I've been at St. James that we've had lunch together.
Just a little background before I go forward. We've been buying 10 yogurts at the local grocery store Pick N Save. It's like a 10 for $5 deal. Apparently, they always have these deals, or at least they've been having them the entire month. We've been buying Yoplait yogurts thus far. But this past weekend, they had a different type of yogurt for the 10/5 deal: Weight Watchers.
I show up to the staff meeting with a Weight Watcher yogurt. I try to hide it by ripping off the lid as fast as I can when I take it out of my lunch bag, because there's a giant "Weight Watcher" logo at the top. I feel like I'm in the clear, but the I notice that there's also a logo on the side. And that side with the logo is facing outward, away from me, facing the person sitting across from me, my pastor.
I didn't laugh right then, but right after lunch I went upstairs and had a laugh before anyone else got back to the office. You can laugh too, I give you permission.
PS: I'm going to start labeling my posts "Isaac". If you want, you can do the same. Well, label them your name, not mine.

You can take ALL of it...

That's all... I just knew you miss hearing that.

Miss your faces! Post some pictures!!

Slow days...

are kind of fun. That means I get to read ministry articles and blog about St. Andrew Parish. The magazine "Today's Parish Minister" isn't that good, just to let y'all know. My mentor is lending it to me to read and so far I have not been impressed with the articles. But maybe those who are older parish ministers do need articles about Facebook and the benefits it can have for young adult ministry...

So anyway, the ministries that I will be involved with are:
-RCIA (mostly sitting in on the sessions to see how it is ran)
-RCIA Adapted for Children - teaching those in it a few lessons here and there
-Youth Ministry - G.O.D. (Gathering of Disciples, a night with a dinner, fun, and then some catechesis), Jr. High fun night (with catechesis involved in that too), plus future events, such as retreats
-Young Adult Ministry - I'm on the leadership team for St. Andrew/Holy Family young adult group and I'll be participating in Small Church Community (dinner at someone's house then reflecting on the upcoming Sunday readings), and whatever else the monthly calendar holds. The Echo house is hosting the Halloween party!
-Confirmation - I'll be teaching two classes each semester
-Social Ministry - There is a community center the parish has, but I won't be doing too much with it at first, maybe the Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets
-TLC - The Learning Center - I will be taking 18 month - 4 year olds into the chapel once a month and also teach them music and plan the Thanksgiving program.
-Retreat and Renewal Team - The parish has two parish retreats a year, Advent and Lent, and this team helps out with those retreats. I don't know my exact roles, but music will be one of them.

I know this seems like a lot when it's typed out, but a lot of it is "here and there" things. I'm really excited for the young adult ministry and also the youth. It should be interesting!

While at the office I've been meeting with other staff members to talk about the ministries they help out with and what might interest me to be involved with. That is mostly done with, so now it is a lot of e-mail checking and reading, plus working on the little kid stuff. I can probably lesson plan for Confirmation soon as well. Today I enjoyed some wonderful coffee. We have volunteer receptionists and this one, Laura, makes some amazing coffee; it is always something flavored. Today I remembered to bring my mug!

besides checking facebook and g-chatting...

...what do you all actually do?

I am interested to hear about what specific ministries everyone is doing. I am especially interested to see if any of us are doing the same things and could share any initial experience.

I am going to primarily be doing 3 things:

1. starting a HS youth ministry program
2. starting a post-baptismal catechesis/family ministry program
3. leading a monthly bible study for all 6-8th graders in religious education

how about you?

Red Swim Caps Anyone?

So after spending an hour reading the entire blog, I finally finally am going to post! Typical me...I do things in my own time what can I say? So I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the posts and links and comments. So here's the deal...my goal for the year is to learn how to swim! As many of you know my nightmare swim experiences of the past, I have decided that it is time to conquer this problem. Good news...I am well on my way! I have been using the kick board and swim up and down the pool practicing my kicking each day, as instructed by my wonderful swimming teachers, Katie and Anthony. It took me forever to learn to point my toes and keep my legs somewhat straight has opposed to flailing all over the place which was what I had been doing. So anyway...next will be the arms, and then both together i guess...and who knows, maybe just maybe, two years from now I will be the next Michael Phelps....hahaha riiiight....

Work is going well so far I think especially because I have done pretty much nothing. So actually it is not going well in that sense because when I go to work I actually would like to work. But I think that things will start to pick up here and I will begin to find my place at Blessed Trinity.

Florida is amazing.
I love cookie dough.
I too talk on the phone a lot...actually I might even have the record...I talked to Joel for 6 straight hours today...yes pathetic I know... =)
I love you all and miss you!

And the first house to the beach was...

The Wilmington House!

Jonathan, his friend Joel and I spent yesterday afternoon on the beautiful Rehoboth Beach on the Delaware coast. It was a perfect day - warm with a nice breeze. We had a slight scare in while swimming in the Ocean when we saw a fin and an animal jump out of the water...I am very afraid of sharks so I was greatly relieved when it just ended up being a dolphin who entertained us for a while. After swimming, spending time in the sun, and throwing around the football we headed back home, all of us tired but very glad we decided to go.

So, since all of you were going to travel to St. Pete's to go to the beach, I think you should come here instead. We have more rooms and we actually get to the beach!

Week two, here we come!

3,600,000,000,000,000 miles away

The P-Town community went on a little field trip to Tower Park in Peoria Heights. Basically, it is this giant, red, metal lookout tower, complete with a giant woodpecker on the side, and a reeeeally slow elevator. You can see for miles around, and there is an especially nice view of the river. The tower also has little arrows inscribed with with various locations around the world and their distance from the tower. Lo and behold. . .





One small Echo world. Check this out.

Crazy night in Fort Worth

Downtown Fort Worth is amazing. The three of us went down there on Thursday night to check out the "night life" and have a drink, since Thur. nights are sort of like Fri. nights for us. Tonight I was told that it is a very safe place because there are cops everywhere. It is just a cute area with shrubs shaped into longhorn cattle and cowboys on horses. Tonight Angela and I got free tickets to see the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. The Young adult group of St. Andrew's was given these tickets and there were extras, so we were able to go! Paola had a function at her parish: fish and spaghetti night, with a lot of beer and wine she told us! Anyway, the symphony was amazing! It was so easy to get lost in the music, but to also get lost in your thoughts. The orchestra was huge. The composer (original conductor) of the music they played tonight was Gustav Mahler, born in Bohemia in 1860. They played Symphony No. 6, "Tragic."

After the performance we met the young adults who were there. Most were in their upper 20's, so a little bit older, but they were so kind and excited to meet us. And I certainly learned a lot about Fort Worth from this one guy. He just kept going on! It was nice to hear about different aspects of the city that I hadn't heard about before. Well, that lasted an hour out in front of the performance hall. Then Angela and I went to the Flying Saucer with Ann, the Youth and Young Adult Ministry Coordinator at St. Andrews, and her friend Andrew, who just moved to north of Dallas. Ann is only 23, so it is cool that she is young. The Flying Saucer has over 100 beers, and at least 20-30 on tap, it is amazing. We were there until 12/12:30, then Angela and I went back to the performance hall parking garage.

So here is where the real fun begins. We went to the doors that led to the elevators and.. they were locked! So we walked around and walked up the parking garage! Only to the second level where we found an elevator. I knew they weren't the ones that we took down, but hey, it was an elevator. So then, we have no idea where my car is and walk around just a bit and finally see it, but we can't get to it! the ramp goes either up or down, not to the level where my car is! But then we spot another elevator which took us to the level, since we somehow walked up to level 5. As we got to my car some other guy was looking for his car too and we think he saw it on the other side and had no idea how to get to it. Seriously, this parking garage is messed up! We proceed to the exit and as we approach it this car is reversing! We thought maybe he couldn't get it, that the gate wouldn't go up, and it is true, the gate wouldn't go up for us either. So I reversed and pulled up a bit as if going to park. The car came back and we saw him looking at the gate and lifting it up, but he still looked like he didn't know what to do. I drove around just once to get back to the exit (just to see if there was another way out) and when I came back, the gate was somehow lifted and stuck, open. Praise God! That man saved our lives! We were able to get out of the parking garage! Moral of the story: avoid parking garages in Fort Worth if you can; you could get stuck inside of one.

I ran today...

no pain...

it felt awesome...

no more words needed!

You Know You're an ACL When...

...your local Theology on Tap chapter has "Catholic Trivia Night" and you stack a team and totally dominate the competition.

Last night, Indy Theology on Tap did, in fact, have Catholic Trivia Night, and Josh, Josh, John Paul, and I were on the same team (with eight other people too), and it was awesome. At the end of Double Jeopardy, we were up 13,100 to 7,200, 7,200, and 5,900. If Meli had been there, we'd have broken 20k easily. But with categories like "Catechism", "Saints", and "The Bible", we'd have had to be ashamed of ourselves if we'd lost.

Indy House has been great. It's a lot of people under one roof (the twelve of us, not the Echo five), but at the same time, since eight have been here for a year, it's really cool to be able to get plugged into their networks and meet their friends. I think it's made the transition a lot easier.

At work, it seems my mentor still has not actually been able to meet with the folks at ND about what it means to be a mentor, but I'm really excited because his biggest goals for me to grow this year are the very areas I've been realizing I need the most growth. It's going to be really, really, really challenging, but it's going to be amazing, and I'm so glad I'm here!

This would also make Jerry proud

Today at work I received a key to my office; this is not just any key, however. Rather then give me a key just to my office, or even just to the faith formation wing as I expected, my mentor gave me a master key to all of St. Barnabas.

This means I can now open any door in either the school or the church. I feel really powerful.

My office is nice- it's not terribly large, but it's wholly mine. The first day my mentor had decorated it before I arrive; a "Welcome to St. Barnabas" poster hung on the wall and she had taped shamrocks on the door and the filing cabinets. Even the screen saver on my computer read "Welcome, Meli!"

I was pretty excited about it.

As far as making Jerry proud: on Saturday we are having a training session for new and returning catechists. My mentor asked me if I could give some brief remarks about the history of our catechetical tradition. Yep; Jerry would definitely be proud.

Office Supplies

Though it is no Dunder-Mifflin office supply, my desk definitely had some left over Lisa Frank pencils in it. Amazing, huh!?! One was already in the cute pen holder they bought me and the other was in a bag of pens and pencils. They will never go short on pens here...

Today is much slower than it has been, but I've been working on my first trip to the chapel with little kids! In 38 minutes we have a staff lunch meeting. Exciting! But good news... it stopped raining today. Praise the Lord!

Sometimes there are some good sports stories

I ran across the story of John Challis today and thought I'd share it with y'all. I liked what he had to say about living with the condition he had. Hopefully we can all belief with faith like a child.

The Weakest Weaksauce

SPFL has decided that we will swim every when we get home from work, weather permitting.

I got home from some youth ministry meetings tonight at 8:30 and found Ellen and Katie (names obscured to protect identity) curled up on the couch eating cookie dough straight from the bowl and watching Olympic diving. Naturally, I had no choice but to join them.

This house still doesn't have a mail box.

Well, that's not entirely true; I took an empty cardboard box, wrote MAIL on it with a sharpie and set it near the door. So far, nothing's been left in it.

Tropical Storm Fay was the weakest weaksauce imaginable. It didn't even rain here. But, we didn't have to start work yesterday anyhow (okay, Ellen did).

I like reading about everyone else's stuff. Keep it up.

(Ed. note: All posts must have titles, dammit.)

Wook Wook!!

Tae and Sarah got lost getting here. (Tae cursed an Indian gas station clerk...Sarah cried...Tae almost did).

Our apartment looks like an assisted living center.

Sarah got hit on at work (Day 2).

Gen had a rough first day.

Jonathan and Tae bought enough food for the year at Costco (it'll be gone in a week).

Gen and Sarah are baking food for the boys...not the ones living in DE. :(

Jonathan and Gen decorated their room...Sarah and Tae didn't.

Tae has been compared to Eric (surprise, surpirise!).

All the roads go diagonal. And street signs BLOW...if they exist.

Sarah thinks Wilmington is a big city (more than 10,000 ppl).

Our closets are stuffed with the fake flowers and wicker baskets that Sarah's mentor put everywhere.

Tae asked if we can play MASH.

If we dump all the tea we have into the river it'd be The Delaware Tea Party. (Think nearly a thousand. really.)

Jonathan is constantly rearranging things (high maintainence...surprise, surprise!!).

Gen and Jonathan get Fridays off. Sarah is always home by 2:00pm. Tae works all the time (so he says).

Tae's mentor calls him Scooby Doo.

Tae brought his batman blanket. Gen hid it when we had company. Tae was very mad.

Gas price at the moment: $3.42!

Gen and Sarah also seem to be on the phone an exorbitant amount of time...curious...



Tae and Jonathan are single and looking.

Day 1

Arrive at work: 7:45 AM
Arrive at home: 9:30 PM

I would make Jerry proud...

So today at work I had the privilege of scrounging through boxes of books and taking whatever I wanted; I came home with a whole box full of books! And I would definitely have made Jerry proud by some of the books I found to add to my library such as the Catechism of the Council of Trent! How cool is that!
I hope everyone had a good first day today...except for St. Pete's who got a day off before it even began!
D-house will blog soon...

Milwaukee Bypasses the 20th Century

Century-old farmhouse? Check.

"Air Conditioning" provided by windows and Mother Nature? Check.

Audible train travel down the block, once an hour, like clockwork? Check.

Lack of overhead lighting in the master bedroom? Check.

Random small room attached to one bedroom, with no conceivable modern purpose? Check.

One bathroom for three (gentle)men? Check.

Franklin Stove (kind of like this) for heating purposes? Check.

Creepy, crawling, buzzing, six-legged housemates? Check.

Strange creeks in the night? Check.

Blazing fast DSL WiFi? Checkmate.

Seriously, who needs the 20th century when you can have the 19th and 21st?

18665 Pleasant Street is located in the heart of the historic Town of Brookfield, which, in the 1950s, was incorporated into the City of Brookfield. Basically, we live in a 19th-century used-to-be-farming neighborhood surrounded by extremely modern development. It's a really great situation, with a rural feel at home with suburbia nearby and a city a quick drive away on the expressway.

Fun Brookfield trivia: Past residents include Al Capone (the site of his former house now sits on Capone Court) and Caroline Ingalls, the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Legend has it that Caroline was the first person to be born in Brookfield, pre-Wisconsin statehood, in 1839.

Enjoy your second day on the job; Tom and I will be spending it at the beautiful Miller Park to watch the National League Wild Card-leading Brewers take Houston House's pitiful Astros. Bwahahaha. Not a bad spot for a "staff retreat," and Tom's lucky my staff is extra nice and invited him along. Too bad Isaac's mentor has the rest of his life booked already. Isaac insisted he wanted to be married in the Basilica, but Sue has already reserved St. James for the summer of 2010.

The Brookfield 3 wish you all the best.

R.I.P. Mr. Lizard

Angela, Paola, and I have been busy moving some of our rooms around; it is what we did for the entire afternoon today and our house looks great! We had quite an adventure in one room though. We moved around our living room first and now it makes us all smile. Next we worked on the guest bedroom, and finally we moved around our prayer room/other guest bedroom.

We moved the furniture around so the whole floor could be vacuumed. Angela was doing just that when all of a sudden this thing was moving across the ground! We thought it was a large bug at first. Angela started shrieking, and then Paola and I started freaking out and got our legs off the ground. Angela attempted to suck it up with this small vacuum cleaner, but that wasn't working and it ended up underneath the bookcase. It took us a little while to devise a plan of how to capture this thing and Paola also said it was probably a lizard because it was the color of the carpet (kind of speckled gray).

The plan: To get the little creature to come out of hiding and trap it under a plastic container, slip some cardboard/paper underneath it and then release it outside. Well, this little guy was scared for his life so he attached himself to a corner of the bookcase and hitting the wood didn't make him want to move. We got a broom so we could poke at it to encourage it to leave the bookcase. Angela attempted first, armed with a broom, flashlight, and plastic container while I was on the other side in a ready stance with my weapon of choice: a garbage can. She was not having success of moving him, so I took over. And by the way, after seeing the tiny reptile and how cute he was made it a little less frightening. He was perhaps an inch and a half long.

I got him to move and he escaped the way he thought he would, on the opposite side where Angela and Paola were. There was a lot of excitement and shrieking and then some moaning and wailing when Paola realized she had accidentally killed it. The garbage can squished his head and his tail definitely came off as well. Angela courageously scooped up our short-term friend and we laid him to rest in the front "garden." Talk about community bonding time! Hopefully he will be the last little creature inside this house. We've found one dead cockroach and Paola found one in the upstairs bathtub today, but as long as they plug the drain when it is not in use there should be no more problems.

Hope y'all are having adventures at your new houses as well!

Welcome to Sunny St. Pete!

I wrote you a little poem:

We're here in St. Pete

Waiting for Fay.

And thanks to her

We'll miss our first day!

Yep. That's right. No first day of work for us! Work has been cancelled. So sad for us. :)

Have any of you ever been through a hurricane before? We went grocery shopping today for gallons of water & canned foods... we've been told where to go if we need to evacuate... we bought a battery-operated radio... and we have 6 lbs of peanut butter. (Ok... we didn't buy the peanut butter. Someone donated it to our house, but we can live off of peanut butter sandwiches for a few weeks or until we run out of bread I guess.)

Anyways... I hope you all enjoy your first days of work! Think of us while we're sitting at home with Fay. Miss you all mucho! I would love to hear about everyone's houses/parishes!

Parish Picnic

My parish had a picnic on Sunday; since I was in Indy, with little better to do, I decided to go. I met my mentor at St. Barnabas and rode with her to the park. It wasn't terribly far from the Church, but she thought it would be easier if I came with her rather than trying to give me directions. We had an outdoor liturgy followed by a huge picnic; I think Theresa introduced me to close to a hundred people... I've already forgotten most of their names.

While I was at Barnabas, she also showed me my office. It's small and, I suppose, not much to speak of, but it's mine.

I have an 8 AM meeting on my first day. Wow. I'm trying to remember that I was in class at that point most of the summer. Its not *that* early, right?

the journey

After busy yet boring couple of weeks off, I am finally in P-Town, woohoo! Here's the story of my many stops. From ND to Columbus to see my sisters: check. From Columbus to Jackson to see the parents: check. From Jackson to Kentucky to see friends: uh oh. There I was, cruising down the road on my way to Kentucky and all of the sudden, my car just quits. No sputtering, no wrenching noises, my car simply turns off, quits working. I guess it had to happen sometime. The bad news, no car of course! The good news, bye-bye oil-burning smoke machine! The even better news, my friend Theresa had a car she didn't need; she got it for free and she passed it on to me for free, oh yes. And this is how much of a close call it was--I bought car insurance as I was leaving town. Seriously, my car was packed, I stopped by the insurance agency, then skipped town. Yikes! But all is well and good now and my new old car brought me safely to Peoria, which is lovely. Hope everyone is having a good transition. Miss you all!

Be it ever so humble

Katie and I are here in wet and wild St. Petersburg! I got in last night around dinner time and Katie came this afternoon. We've had many visitors and we have a lo of furniture fresh from the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store, not to mention a ton of random food items donated by various Catholics from around the diocese.

I went to church today at the Cathedral and there was a fierce thunderstorm during Mass. Actually, there's been little sun in this Sunshine State. But I hear that's due to the tropical depression blowing through.

Finally and in conclusion I would like to say that the frogs here are very, very small.

Indy

Tuesday morning I tetrised my life into my car and drove to Indy. I'm charmed by the simplest things in this house:

Closets! four years of college makes you forget what it's like to have a closet and dresser
Shower! There is no shower in my house in Columbus. It's a long story.
Oven! Ditto.
I'm also thrilled that there are no mice (which we do have in Columbus) (though apparently there's a wasps nest in our backyard)

Best of luck with your packing, everyone!

Packing my life...

So I'm working on packing right now... and it's SOOO stressful! Ok. Bit of an exaggeration. But still. I feel like I'm packing way too much, and at the same time I'm afraid I'm going to forget important things. Basically, I'm choosing to play around on the internet instead of actually packing. No one knows how everything is going to fit into my car. And since when do I have so many clothes?! Ridiculous.

How's your packing going? :)

Awesome little Clip

Y'all will just have to check this out for yourself!

Awesome Video

Woof Woof

Greetings from Milwaukee. Or, as the locals spell it, MKE.

A good sign:

My family and I stumbled upon a random pub with an outdoor dining area for lunch today, right on the scenic Milwaukee River. One of the other 15 or so patrons? Echo's own Katie Muller.

Over 600,000 residents in the city alone, plus a bunch of tourists and suburbanites. Seventeen of us. No problem.

semper ubi sub ubi

So this is hot off the presses (Roman presses I suppose) and it is worth reading.

Basically there is a new translation of the mass which is more accurate to the original Latin but is kind of awkward. I think in the next few years (if they keep a good pace about implementing it) we may be called upon to help explain the new translation. I think it will be a good catachetical moment, though potentially divisive for some who don't like change or who don't understand/care about the differences. So pull out your favorite latin book and get excited!

Read about the change...

in perichoresis...

Memories from Song

Today I heard the song "Keep Bleeding" by Leona Lewis and I was reminded of meals at South Dining hall and when that song would get stuck in our heads, or the many other wonderful songs heard while deciding what to eat from the abundance of choices. :)

The inside is bigger than the outside

That's essentially the summer summed up in the words of C.S. Lewis. The inside, the meaning, is much bigger than the outside. The external signs of the summer have passed, 7+ weeks, a couple retreats, orientation, classes, sand volleyball, hellos and goodbyes, open bars, Backer visits, weekly Mass, adoration, morning and night prayer, The Office, "calm down", "you can take ALL of it", the hip walk, community nights, carpet golfing, the many Milwaukee slogans and sayings, Steak N Shake visits, making wraps in the dining hall, 3AM conversations, random songs, reconciliation, conversion and communion. But through all this--the stuff of living in community--I have come to further realize that the inside really is bigger than the outside.

This summer was especially meaningful to me as a Notre Dame graduate because it afforded me the opportunity to return to the heart of why I choose Notre Dame in the first place. You see, when you fill out the ND application, they have this section that says that if you have any last comments that you want the reviewers to read, send them in. So I did. I remember writing something like "I want to go to Notre Dame to discern my vocation." This summer has truly connected me to this on a personal level. I've realized the many ways that I fail at preparing for my vocation of marriage with the love of my life. They are numerous and I won't bore you with the details. But it was within this community that I found a rekindling of my marriage vocation. Perhaps rekindling isn't the best word. I'll say intensifying instead. Your love and concern for each other, for me, intensifies my call to marriage. It was a blessing as well to see the start of a couple of relationships, which re-presented to me my calling and reminded me of my own story with Dezzie.

I've mentioned this to several of you, but it's worth repeating. What I find amazing is how the universal call to holiness can be lived out in so many different ways among our group, but yet, so similar. But it's this diverse response to the same call which exemplifies the whole cloud of witness thing.

The meaning of the summer is much bigger than the events added together. The inside of time is bigger than the outside, the moment was pregnant. A teacher of mine would say that there are some moments that mean more than others. Example: Getting engaged vs. brushing your teeth. The inside of that moment for me is much bigger than the outside, but the inside of brushing my teeth is sadly the same as the outside. Then there's the whole Jesus in the tabernacle thing, or in Mary's womb. That's pretty huge too.

So thank you folks for bringing me further up and further in. I hope to continue to seek out these joyful moments of interior largness and invite you to do the same.

Finally some pics

The headless clown road tripping after a long summer in O'Neill

Life-size Echo Man

And How Can We Be Mermaids If We Can't Have Fins??

My apologies for the video quality. Google Video really pixelated it on me. I'll see if I can't fix it later.



Bonus points to anyone who can tell me when the word "It" is used in one of these songs (or what the fifth word actually was if I misheard it...).