Oddwalk Ministries

Category: Jesus

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Beauty, Truth, and Justice

One of my (Orin’s) other hats in life is as an assistant director for (and singer in) the St. Louis Chamber Chorus. Our artistic director, Philip Barnes, is celebrating his 30th season with the group this year, and Aquinas Institute of Theology (where I graduated from in 2008) awarded him an honorary doctorate this past…

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Are You Listening?

This year, I (Orin) have been posting on Facebook the little doodles that my parish Children’s Choir creates in their music while we are rehearsing.

As I’ve looked through the music which is turned in, in addition to unicorns, flowers, and other odd scribbles, I also look for signs that they are paying attention during rehearsal – they’ve marked a dynamic for a phrase, or where or where not to breathe, or how long to hold a note, etc.

In addition to speaking of the musical elements of a piece, we do spend a little time speaking about the text of a piece, what it means, why we are singing it, and other facets.  So, I was heartened a few days ago that one singer chose to doodle on this text we had spoken about briefly, on this piece the choir sang on Holy Thursday night a couple weeks ago. They were not only paying attention to me and how we worked on the music of the piece, but on the text too, putting these core words of our faith, taught to us by Jesus Christ himself, in their hearts and souls as well.

When Christ – or his ministers in the here and now – teach us, are we listening with only our ears, or our brains, or are we listening to Christ with our hearts and souls as well?

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Rising from the Ashes

Yesterday, I (Orin) and Shannon had the privilege once again of leading music ministry at the Diocese of Belleville Illinois Chrism Mass.  Here are a couple photos of the Cathedral of St. Peter we took yesterday.

 

 

It was impossible to be there without superimposing the images which all over the media on Monday of Notre Dame in Paris.

We have found out since Monday that much of the structure as well as precious pieces of art, relics, the organ, the windows, and so much more survived, after the worst was rightly feared.  There is much to clean up of course, and much to rebuild — years and years worth of effort will be needed to restore the magnificent building.

The thought of “restoring a church from its ashes” causes me to ponder other churches in similar contexts.  Several historically black churches in Louisiana have been recently set ablaze and need to be rebuilt for instance.  And the Church which is the body of Christ, the people gathered by Christ himself, whether the Church of Notre Dame, or at these Louisiana congregations, or the Church Universal, needs to be restored and rebuilt as well.

It is of course the time of year when we journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter and, hopefully, have considered prayerfully what it is about our own spiritual lives that needs to be, with Christ’s salvific power, raised from the ashes and created anew.  The best time to begin that process was Ash Wednesday itself, of course.  The second best time is right now.

Blessings to all of you on this most holy time of our year.

Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, ministry, reflection, retreat, video

Seeing the World as God Sees

Hello from Orin… Shannon and I had the privilege of presenting a couple days of retreats for the sophomores of St. Dominic High School in O’Fallon, MO (“Mofallon,” as there’s also an O’Fallon relatively nearby in Illinois), yesterday and earlier today. We were challenged to create a whole new retreat for the days, as some of the students there have also been on other retreats we’ve given (parish confirmation retreats for instance). I’m grateful to Shannon who took on nearly 100% of the work in crafting our new content, tracing a path of “how we see ourselves” to “how others see us” to “how God sees us” to “trying to see others as God might.” Then of course, a final piece on how to live that in day to day life. The days seemed to be successful, and we look forward to presenting this retreat again on other occasions.

It’s a bit corny, and we’re open to other suggestions if anyone knows of a similar-but-better-produced video, but part of the day was spent watching and discussing this brief clip. Perhaps you’ll be able to glean some with of spiritual growth from it too. Enjoy!