Thirsty

Just returned from the Charis retreat titled " Choosing to be Catholic ". It was structured around a book by Avery Cardinal Dulles titled "Models of the Church". I may post my talk on here at some point. I felt pretty cool because I have a couple other connections to Dulles already. We had to read some of his book in college, so I still had the book, and he was also the speaker & honorary degree recipient from my alma mater the year that I graduated, detailed here . My Dad went on retreat with 19 other men pretty early after he'd finished college and was beginning the Muncie People of Praise branch. The retreat master? Fr. Avery Dulles, before he had been upgraded directly to Cardinal by John Paul II.

New Monastics continually ponder the question of "what Jesus would look for if he came back," he said. "We cultivate a habit of expecting Jesus, of believing he is among us. Every time there's a knock at the door, he is there, because we are all part of the body of Christ." - New Monastics: Being the church A small community in Minneapolis that bears some resemblance to the People of Praise.

Last night I got to talk to my brother in Thailand on the phone for a half an hour at 3 cents per minute. He had internet access and was using a headset connected to his computer, dialing through Skype , and rang the house phone where I'm staying with the Havard's here in Mishawaka. The audio quality was no worse than any landline call you would make across the street, not choppy, no lag, no echo. Wow! He has also been using his account on Flickr to post a ton of awesome pictures from the trip. Check out the nice feature of how Flickr organizes by date the picture was taken. If you click on a particular month you even get a thumbnail for each day.

A week in the life of a PoP Community [cult] member: Sunday: The Havards were going to a later Mass but I decided to join Peter at the 9am, which meant that the homily was given by Deacon Kevin Ranaghan at St. Bavo's. Among other things, he got to share about his recent trip to Rome from an ecumenical perspective. Monday: Stayed late at work. Each day is fractionally more recognizable as a normal job concerning material that I have a slightly remote clue about. That evening I did some reading from a chapter in "Models of the Church" in preparation for a retreat in a couple weeks. Tuesday: Caught a 5:30pm Mass at a small church kinda near work, unfortunately they only have it twice a week. Home in time for a casual dinner with a couple of the kids... dinners have been very sporadic lately, arriving at the end of the baseball and softball seasons for Mark-Allen and Christine. Drove to the community men's meeting with Peter, which was half praise & worship,