As part of the site migration, we’re also taking some time to update bits of the site as fill in a few gaps. One bit of info that has been noticeably absent from the site is how we came up with the name Oddwalk. So, we created a page to tell people the story, and it’s reproduced here for all of you:
As Shannon and Orin were reflecting on creating a name for their ministry (being introduced as “Shannon-slash-Orin” was getting a little tiresome), one thing became perfectly clear: Orin walks funny.
While that is true, other more important things became even more clear: that we felt called to speak and make music around themes of community, participation, and mission; that we wanted to share a Christian faith that continually calls us to change and conversion; and that we wanted to instill in those who saw and heard us a desire to actively live their faith outside of their time with us or outside of Mass and other spiritual moments.
We began thinking about this in terms of the well-known Emmaus story in the Gospel of Luke:
“As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
When Clopas and his friend realized they had just experienced the divine, they had only one option: to literally turn their path around 180 degrees and share the Good News.
When we experience God – at prayer, Mass, rallies, concerts, anywhere – we too must continually be changed, transformed, and set upon a new path. We usually (never?) know where it will take us, who we will see when we arrive, or what we will be doing, but we must trust that God is in control of all that stuff, and simply continue on that strange journey through life we know as Christianity.
Strange Journey. Curious travels. Weird Path.
Oddwalk.
