Hello Everyone! We had a marvelous time at NCYC, both making music and hanging out at the booth. Here are a few NCYC-related videos for you to enjoy.
First, an “at home” video of a new song we premiered at the NCYC comedy club, “Helping Verbs.”
Next, our super-cut video of all the “Oddwalk This Way” vine videos from the booth!
And last, a video of a song we prayed with at the Friday daily mass, “Have Faith.”
In addition to having a great time at the NCCYM Extravaganza, Oddwalk was also invited to present a netsourcing session on Thursday afternoon at NCCYM, on the topic of music and liturgy. These sessions are a bit different than other workshops: our role was to throw a few relevant details to the conversation out to the attendees, and then spend about half our time letting them engage in conversations with each other and with us. The session seemed well received, and several people were heard saying things – to each other – like “that’s a great idea” and “I had never thought of that,” so we must have done something right.
Click the picture of the title slide or the link below if you’d like a pdf of the slides we used that afternoon.
Hello NPM 2021! Thanks for visiting. We had a great time at this year’s convention, and hope you did too, whether in person or virtually. Below is the webpage we set up when we debuted “Songs We Should Never Record” at NCCYM in 2014. Enjoy watching the video of that below!
You can also check out older videos of The Liturginerd Olympics and “May God Bless and Keep You” as well as the rest of our site of course. Thanks again for dropping in!
Hello everybody! Boy, did we have a blast at NCCYM in San Antonio this past weekend – we hope you did too. We’re happy to make available to our visitors, absolutely free, our small piece of the Friday Night Youth Ministry Extravaganza, “Songs We Should Never Record.”
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We also want to add a special word of thanks to our friend Mike Kivett, who penned the words to “There They Go, Lord.” Mike is a great live audio technician, he helped us with our first couple self-produced CDs, and most importantly is an all around good egg. When he heard some our silly stuff we were asking him to record, he shared with us his little creation, and we’re certainly glad he did. Thanks, Mike!
And thanks as well to the NFCYM for a great conference as always, and great NCYCs the other years. See you next fall in Indy!
PS – A couple people have asked us about the lyrics to the “Stand By Your Man” parody we sang as part of the finale of the night. Those words were written by Bob Rice, here they are:
Sometimes its hard to be a pastor,
Caring for all those ministries.
Absolving all those sins, the roof is caving in,
And the youth room needs a 55 inch flat screen high definition TV.
Stand by your man,
Give him an ear to listen.
It’s hard, he’s always giving,
And you are kind of needy.
Stand by your man,
And even if he’s awkward,
Make him look as cool as you can,
Baby! Stand by your man.
Exciting news! A piece written by Orin for the Good Friday adoration of the cross has been published by World Library Publications! It’s titled “Gather at the Cross” and has been sung for the last few years at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, and now at Sts. Joachim and Ann, where Orin is Director of Music Ministries. It’s also been featured in a pOddcast here before.
At WLP’s site, you can view sample pages and here a sample of Audio recorded by their in-house folks.
Here’s the page for the piece at WLP: Gather at the Cross
And here’s a direct link to the audio sample: audio
Or, just click the play button below to listen to the audio streaming from WLP’s site right here!
I (Orin) am grateful to begin this relationship with WLP, just as Oddwalk continues in relationship with GIA and the music and recordings we have through them. Stay tuned – a few more pieces of Orin’s are coming through the pipeline at both GIA and WLP, and we’ll let you know here when they are released.
PS – As part of the piece being published, we’ve had to remove the older audio from our pOddcast – so listen all you want at the link above!
We’re a little late this time, but it was Shannon’s turn again! Click here to read his reflection for this past Sunday.
Shannon’s turn again at Any Given Sunday – take a read!
First, check out the Sunday readings here!
“The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want…” This line, from Psalm 23, is one of the most recognizable lines in all of scripture. I know I’ve heard it most often when someone is worried or afraid and is in need of a few words of comfort. What does it mean, though? What does it mean for us? For you?
Let’s break down the line, “The Lord is my shepherd”, word by word. If you were to say, “The LORD is my shepherd”, you would be making a pretty definitive (and very powerful) statement about how your life is ordered. Letting ANYONE else tell you what to do is hard. Giving your life over to a God you believe in through faith, but cannot always see in a conventional way, can be very difficult. It might even make you look a bit crazy to those who do not know the Lord. That is, however, what our Lord requires. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me…” Jesus said that right after calling Peter ‘Satan’ for questioning that Jesus’ life would end by being killed at the hands of the chief priests and elders. Peter, no doubt, feared that his own life could end the same way. This is the same Peter, though, who in our first reading today was able to stand up and publicly say: “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” No longer was Peter afraid of where discipleship with Jesus might lead him. Through faith, and filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter could confidently state who Jesus was and is. Jesus is Lord. The LORD is my shepherd. Can you say the same thing?
Next, if you were to say, “The Lord is MY shepherd”, you are making this faith VERY personal. In the Gospel today, Jesus says things like: “…and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…” and “…the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice…” This suggests a shepherd (God) who is interested in being very close to His sheep (us). That is very Good News. And God has done God’s part in all of this, affording us all the opportunity to be extremely close to Him through the sacraments, through prayer, doing service in God’s name, and even through devotionals like adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Are you doing your part to grow closer to God? Are you taking advantage of these opportunities, or are you making God do all the work?
Finally, if you were to say, “The Lord is my SHEPHERD”, you are stating without a doubt that you recognize God as your leader/guide and know that your role is to be part of the flock. It can be very difficult to see ourselves this way. After all, God created us unique and special, right? Right, but all of us have in common the urge to sin, the need for God and others, a shared mortality, etc. Recognizing that we are part of a community with God at the head, a community that leans on one another in good times and bad, can help us to be free of this need to live our lives on our own and for ourselves. Let God be your shepherd and be free! As Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “…I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Let God tell you what that ‘life’ is supposed to be about. Then you can say with confidence, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want”.
Here’s Orin’s most recent contribution to the great resource Any Given Sunday:
Click here to view the readings from the USCCB
Perfection – raise your hand if you’ve ever gotten a 100 on a quiz. I have; but I also recall a time when I saw that grade on the top of a test or a paper, and knew, really, that I could have done better. I didn’t answer a question fully, I misspelled something, the teacher overlooked an obvious error, rushing to get everything graded. Raise your hand if you’ve ever planned a party to perfection – right down to the last detail, only to have the guest of honor arrive early, or the cake fall to the floor, or some other disaster occur. Truth be told, we often strive for perfection but rarely ever achieve it.
Yet that is what Jesus asks of His disciples in this Sunday’s Gospel: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Whoa. Be perfect like God the Father is perfect? Talk about an unattainable goal. It’s nearly unreasonable, this challenge placed before us. For mere earthlings, humans with the stain of sin, it sounds impossible, at least while we are still living on Earth. We know though, that Jesus never calls us to things we can’t attain somehow, someday. You’ve heard maybe that God doesn’t call the gifted, He gifts the called. In what ways can we work, with God’s help, toward this perfection God asks for?
Well, take a look at the first reading, where God asks the Israelites to “be holy” because God is holy. A definition I like for the word holy is to be “whole” – that is, to be complete. Especially within our faith lives and journeys, our goal is that wholeness, that unity and oneness with God. The Lord tells Moses how he should instruct the Israelites on that same journey: to not keep hatred for one another, to not pursue revenge, and to love all. The Psalm continues the teaching – the Lord is kind and merciful, and so should we be. The word mercy sums up this journey, doesn’t it? Be merciful to those around you in need. Be merciful to those around you who harm and persecute you. Be merciful to yourself when you fall short of the life God asks of each of us. In fact, when Luke writes this same teaching in his Gospel, he doesn’t use the word perfect, he uses – you guessed it – the word merciful instead. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians adds the layer of humility, and in fact reverence, for what God has created in you, the human being. No one belongs to Paul, or Apollos, or to Cephas: all belong to the Lord. And it is in belonging to the Lord, on a journey to holiness, with mercy toward one another and toward ourselves, and aware of the mercy the Lord has shown on each of us, that we ultimately can be perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect.
