Standing Thunder

A new blog

2008-06-16T17:10:00.003-05:00

It's a kind of "What does the Latin hymn really say?"-type blog. I call it Hymnos Debitos Canamus. Please visit and look at the first post to find out what that means.

For a long time I have tried to pray the Latin psalms with the eventual goal of being able to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin--with understanding.

I moved toward my goal in stages.

Of course the psalms I know well enough in English to be able to figure out three-fourths of the Latin, even having studied much vocab.

Next came the antiphons, but most of those come from Scripture, many of them from the text of the Psalm itself. But I was still stumped by some antiphons, so I took the time to copy them from the English version and place them under the Latin.

The prayers I was able to handle the same way, since the Latin is more or less translated in the English version. Fr. Z's work on the collects really helped me raise the standard for understanding. His meditations on the prayers are outstanding, uplifting and a great work of scholarship, in my layman's amateur opinion.

The prayers of the faithful were a low priority, since I skipped them a lot, due to time and interest. Fr. Z says they are a recent innovation in the Breviary, which has led me to take them less seriously. The content of the these Preces is sometimes profound, sometimes laughably 60's in orientation, but usually general enough that if I just substitute my own spontaneous prayers for people in my life who need prayer, I get the same effect.

This leaves the Hymni. Until the Mundelein Psalter came out last year, good translations of the Latin hymns found in the LotH (and the Liber Hymnarius) were hard for me to find. Purchasing that wonderful resource will eventually happen (it is down the priority list). But until then, I hope taking on the labor of this blog will force me to learn more Latin.

The idea is that I will feature a hymn every few days on the blog. I will provide, not a smooth or even literal translation, but rather an attempt to capture the flavor of the poetry by looking up the words in the few lexical instruments I possess (unforntunately not the great Lewis & Short dictionary Fr. Z is constantly effusing about) and writing a very rough indication of what we are singing when we sing the Latin hymn.

One question I immediately had was what tune to use to sing the hymns. Finally buying a copy of the Liber Hymnarius was essential for this. But I have since learned that other tunes for these Hymni exist. A Dominican priest who will soon be stationed at the school where I teach assured me that the Dominican melodies he knows of are even better than the Benedictine ones they sing at Solemnes. I am anxious to learn these hymn tunes.

But others have blogged about the melodies, like this girl. If I figure out how to post mp3's or sound files, I will record myself singing so we can sing hymnos debitos together.

St. Barnabas

2008-06-11T22:05:00.002-05:00

Today is the feast of a saint I have liked ever since I was an evangelical. I love to encourage people, and I love to be encouraged. The book of Acts talks about St. Barnabas (his name was actually Joseph, but the Apostles gave him the name which means "Son of Encouragement") having sold a field and laying the money at the Apostles' feet. Then Barnabas is the one who has the guts to accept Paul at his word when he tries to come to Jerusalem and join the Christian community there. He brought Paul to the Apostles in Jerusalem, telling them the story of his conversion.

Then later, when the Jerusalem community is scattered after the stoning of Stephen, Barnabas is sent to Antioch to shepherd the Greeks who have accepted the gospel of Christ. He exhorts them the best he can but ultimately decides he needs more help, so he goes to Tarsus and brings Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, back to Antioch. That is where believers were first called Christians.

Apparently somewhere in there, Barnabas was anointed and proclaimed an apostle, because the Church now celebrates him as such. Paul and Barnabas seem inseperable, risking their lives to preach the gospel all over Asia Minor. But then they have a disagreement over a fellow apostle called John Mark who apparently deserted the crew earlier and Paul and Barnabas end up parting ways over it. Barnabas goes off to the island of Cyprus where he was apparently born and we don't hear of him in the book of Acts. The Catholic Encyclopedia has more about him here.

I always think about how important it is to encourage one another, as we so easily lose hope in this life. I can't fathom where I would be without the encouragement of my wife, my family and my co-workers who share my faith.

Corpus Christi & Memorial Day

2008-05-26T18:37:00.002-05:00

"Vengeance on the nations" related to the Corpus Christi procession I participated in yesterday.

I had the privelege of leading the Divine Mercy chaplet while we were walking up the hill from the Science Museum to the St. Paul Cathedral. The annual Archdiocesan procession is a beautiful public testament to the faith. Archbishop Nienstedt gave a wonderful talk and said twice that Corpus Christi should not be celebrated without a procession. (Hats off to Fr. Z for this photo I stole from his blog.)

I said yesterday that actions we perform individually and together that are prayerful works of mercy and charity constitute "vengeance on the nations." This is because we are proclaiming a higher authority than mere civil or national power. We are proclaiming Christ as King of the Universe! Despite all appearances to the contrary, we have the best handle on the actual reality of the situation. The powers that seem in charge right now are only temporary. Christ will reign for all eternity. Any unjust governments who rule us now will blow away like dust in the wind.

Even the just governments will fade away. Is the USA just or unjust? In spite of a lot of mistakes the US government has made over the years(many of them acknowledged), I think the freedom we experience here makes justice possible for the greatest number most of the time. That's why I celebrate Memorial Day as well as Corpus Christi.

For Memorial Day today, I took my family over to Glenhaven here in Crystal, where the McReavy family has organized a fabulous tribute to our war vets, living and dead. Last year I attended the dedication of the largest privately funded War memorial in the state of Minnesota--right here at Glenhaven. Both last year and this year the program included:

Dorothy Benham (Former Miss America) singing patriotic songs
Minnesota Brassworks
current and past military heroes speaking and being honored
21-gun salute
dove release
crowd reciting Pledge of allegiance to the flag and singing patriotic songs
Christian prayers for justice in our country and for all warriors living and dead

Before last year I have rarely done anything with my family to recognize Memorial Day. Last year I put my foot down and insisted that we all go and honor the warriors. In spite of much resistance, I think everyone was glad that we went, especially since we went to Coldstone for ice cream afterwards. But my reasons for insisting my family do something to honor our war dead were based on this excellent article by Jody Bottum in First Things. He says that "we create true communities only when we have shared dead."

Some may wonder at my good will toward the US given the injustice they have perpetrated on my ancestors the Ho-Chunks (or Winnebagos as most non-Indians call us). Well, my people have a long history of honoring our warriors. In the last one hundred years all of those warriors have fought for your freedom and mine in wars involving the US against foreign powers. We have been on the same side for some time now. It just feels natural and right for me to honor all of my people comrades in those wars.

Vengeance on the nations

2008-05-25T09:37:00.004-05:00

Here is a passage from Psalm 149, the third psalm in Morning Prayer for Sunday Week 1, which Holy Mother Church prays today on the Feast of Corpus Christi:

Exultabunt sancti in gloria laetabuntur in cubilibus suis
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory, shout for joy and take their rest.
Exaltationes Dei in gutture eorum et gladii ancipites in manibus eorum
Let the praise of God be on their lips, and a two-edged sword in their hand.
Ad faciendam vindictam in nationibus increpationes in populis
to deal out vengeance to the nations, and punishment on all the peoples;
Ad alligandos reges eorum in conpedibus et nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis
to bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron;
Ut faciant in eis iudicium conscriptum gloria haec est omnibus sanctis eius
to carry out the sentence pre-ordained; this honor is for all his faithful.

Why does our Mother the Church place this passage before us on such a joyful feast? Even in the Grail translation given here, it is a pretty violent and forceful passage. This "vengeance" is not just a police action here, to be carried out by priests or civil authorities, but "this honor is for all his faithful," which sounds like it means us ordinary 'citizens' of Israel.

I don't pretend to know the complete mind of the Church, which is the mind of Christ, but this is what I thought of this morning when I read this: The "two-edged sword" is the Word of God, as Paul says in Ephesians 6:17: "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." We "wield" that sword whenever we perform some act of charity or mercy, whether corporal or spiritual, especially acts of penance or reparation.

So how are such meek and mild acts to be seen as "vengeange...punishment...bind(ing)...in chains...and...in fetters?" These acts, individually and in concert with others, have an real effect in the world. God answers prayer. When people perform these actions, it brings healing, order, and peace to their own lives and the lives of those around them. This is a rebuke to "kings and nobles" who supposedly rule the nations and make us all miserable because it restores the Kingship of Christ to the disordered rule of corrupt human governments.

One might even argue that these prayers and works are the ordinary ways for peaceful change to happen when injustice reigns. I recall peaceful change during the Marcos regime in the Phillipines brought about dramatically by prayer and action of ordinary Philipinos.

This does not mean I oppose legitimate military actions by duly constituted governments if they are just and defensive. Those are not addressed here by this psalm.

Catholic, Native and Proud

2008-05-24T11:55:00.005-05:00

I just posted a (probably too long) response to a post on a great Catholic Blog OrbisCatholicus written by John Sonnen of St. Paul. Like many others, I was led to the blog by Fr. Z at What Does the Prayer Really Say?

He was lauding the many great Catholic bona fides of the Twin Cities and Minnesota. I just felt really left out when, by omission (but probably not by intention) he made it seem like American Indians never existed or were never here. It implies that we have disappeared or have been absorbed into the vast melting pot of the Americas and don't exist as a people anymore.

I'm not bitter about this, I just want people to know that we can talk about the painful history in ways that promote understanding and harmony. It doesn't have to be an occasion for leftist diatribes against the Church or against "white" European culture in general.

First read his post here, then read my response, which is below.
---------------------------

Please allow me to gently take you to task for studiously avoiding mention of the aboriginal inhabitants of this wonderful “Northwest Territory (a region which once belonged to Catholic France)” in this post. I happen to have significant heritage in a tribe who has lived in and around Minnesota since before 1680.

Acting as if we never existed is not only contrary to dignity and charity, it is historically lazy and inaccurate. Perhaps you are not aware of the roots of the many place names you grew up with if you lived in the Twin Cities in your youth. The “most unique name” Minneapolis is not unique by accident, but because it borrows the Lakota word for water “mni” and combines it with the Greek. Minneapolis was not “discovered” in 1680 by Fr. Hennepin, because it did not exist as a city with that name until centuries later. If you want to say that the place around St. Anthony Falls was discovered by Fr. Hennepin, that would only be from the perspective of Europeans. We knew it was there all along.

Now I suspect that your heritage is European in origin and in your defense, you would be expected to speak from that perspective. But as someone who sees the many races of the world on pilgrimage in Rome, the headquarters of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, you probably are aware of the error of being too Euro-centric, especially these days when the official government of Europe is so stridently anti-Catholic or at least agnostic towards religion and morality in general.

Let me tell you something else about that “old American military outpost established at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.” That place was as sacred as a place can be for the Lakota, something akin to St. Peter’s in Rome for Catholics. They called “Makoche Chokaya Kin” or “the center of the universe.” Building a military establishment there was, while probably good military strategy, was an abomination to the indigenous people who worshiped there. It would have been something similar to Muslims, having taken over Rome, making St. Peter’s not a mosque, but a warehouse to store armaments.Now please be aware that I don’t mean clobber you over the head with this information. If I sound harsh, please know that I bring you this information in the hopes that your impulse to be a more holy Catholic may also include care and concern for the least of God’s people, the American Indians, and respect for their history as well as your own. Perhaps you were just not aware of this history which was understandably “subliminated” until recently, in order that the progeny of the conquerors would not see themselves in the light of these monstrous and unjust deeds.

I don’t see the Church as complicit in these injustices for the most part, as most of the priests and missionaries, Father Hennepin foremost among them, came here not to build a great civilization, but to bring the love of Jesus Christ and his Church to the likes of lil’ ol’ me and my bro’s. For the large part they opposed unjust treatment of Natives, but the overwhelming culture of death (“manifest destiny”) which pervaded early America usually drowned out the truly Catholic voice in the public square.

Please receive my words in the fraternal charity with which I mean them.

Touched by a tragedy

2007-08-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

The horrific bridge collapse here in Minneapolis has touched my family in many ways.

First, Julia Blackhawk is my cousin's daughter. You can find a lot in the media about her, but not as much as some of the other victims. This is because Julia's mother is trying to protect her family from the jackals in the media. Can you believe that reporters started calling her at her house at 6am? I know they have a job to do and news gathering is a dog-eat-dog world, etc., but can't they save that treatment for the the politicians and celebrities? Why can't they be more sensitive with the ones who are in the spotlight by happenstance, not to mention tragedy? My poor cousin had finally gotten a few hours of exhausted, greiving sleep when the phone started ringing non-stop.

I would appreciate your prayers for Julia, who died a sudden, unprepared death. Ray Marshall over at Stella Borealis sent me an email from an acquaintance on a listserve to which he belongs who happens to be a Dominican priest in San Francisco. His community is saying a mass for Julia! Fr. Francis Goode, O.P. from St. Dominics said that an older priest in the community has been praying everyday for the victims and the rescuers. I love the Dominicans.

Then Monday they buried Pat Holmes, who coached little kids' sports teams. My brother Brad coached with him and his daughter Summer was on the soccer and baseball teams with Pat's kid.

Sherry Engebretsen worked in the Thrivent building where my other brother Bryan's wife LouAnn runs LouAnn's Coffee Shop. Sherry often stopped in and my sister-in-law knew her.

Lord have mercy on all the souls of the faithful departed.

Monday morning

2007-05-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

It's the 8th Monday in Ordinary Time. We have just come off of 50 days of wonderful celebration in the Easter Season, culminating in the fiery feast of Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit.

When I was younger, I participated in Charismatic Renewal gatherings, and this was our big feast to get together at the Basilica or Cathedral here in the Twin Cities and really whoop it up. I spoke in tongues, raised my hands, sang and sang and sang at a 2- or 3-hour mass, I listened to amatuer prophets trying their hand at spontaneous prophecies after communion, I even tried a little spontaneous dancing in the aisles. I used to love it, and I wished everyone could experience the heady joy and excitement of participating in mass this way - at every mass.

Now...no thanks. Not for me anymore. Too much us, not enough God. It's not just that I'm older (although I am) but that I always had the true voice of the Holy Spirit nagging me during these things, saying, "Quiet, listen." Some of those things simply did not belong at mass (like the dancing). It's not that it was never quiet at the Charismatic masses. Actually, because of the all the hubbub, the silences seemed all the more profound and reverent when they occured. But the more of them I attended, the more I sought that profound and reverent silence all the time, without the need to "express myself" bodily through all that activity.

Thank God for growth and change. I am thankful for those experiences, because I think they taught me a lot. But my kids are truly not interested in having similar experiences. They crave the profound silence without first experiencing the hubbub. They see Charismatic behavior as embarrassing and unneccesary. They actually dig a Mozart mass at St. Agnes more than a "Stuebenville Conference" mass.

Back to Ordinary Time

I work at a wonderful Catholic school which teaches the faith in all its fulness. But one beef I have is that the Board (who decides the calendar) feels the need to drag us back to school on Easter Monday. After the intense experience of Lent and then the even more intense Triduum, we finally break through to Easter. Easter is all alleluias and trumpets and lillies and candy and new hats and family all day long, and I love every minute of it. Well, maybe it's just because I am a church musician, but I feel the need to breathe a bit after all this intensity. I should probably just take Easter Monday off for myself, but as you teachers know, it feels like more work to be gone than just to show up and teach.

I feel a similar way about the return of Ordinary Time after the great feast of Pentecost. I know we get to celebrate Trinity Sunday, followed by the glorious feast of Corpus Christi with its beautiful processions and all. But I would love to stretch out the actual celebration of Pentecost for just a few more days! The Pre-Vatican II calendar had an octave of Pentecost. I don't attend an indult mass (mostly because they are only held on the other side of town) but I would love to go this week because they celebrate the Octave of Pentecost.

We don't give the great feast of Pentecost its due by celebrating it for only one glorious day. The next day it feels like we are pretending it never happened. We just pick up Ordinary time where we left off in February.

I have heard the line that we are supposed to look at all of Ordinary Time as a "celebration" of Pentecost. I understand that Pentecost is the birthday of the Church and celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit, which in turn sends us out to work in the harvest of souls. It just feels a little abrpt, that's all.

Memorial Day

Well, at least I have a day off school to ponder this, as it happens also to be Memorial Day. I am looking forward to showing my kids how we honor the dead and how we honor our military men and women this afternoon. Maybe we'll visit Grampa Leo's grave at Fort Snelling (my wife's dear father who left us last November.

I am also listening to Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on EWTN celebrating a mass honoring military chaplains past and present. He says that the chaplains, and all of us believers are part of a "conflicted sovereignty." We believe in the sovereignty of Christ over all of us, but the principalities and powers of the age are in rebellion, they attempt to contradict his sovereignty over all of us.

Time to start posting again...

2007-04-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

Looks like I kinda gave it up for Lent...and the first two weeks of Easter!

Been too busy, and it would have been hard to justify blogging when so many other things were not done in my life. It's been a little slower now, so back to it.

I've really been enjoying Fr. Z's podcazts this weekend. Check them out at http://www.wdtprs.com/blog/
If Fr. Z had regular radio show on Catholic Radio, I would listen! I have been a huge Fr. Z fan from the time he spent at my parish as an associate pastor back in the 90's. After mass sometimes I would ask him to comment on the ICEL translation of the collect, and he would help me out with the Latin, occasionally suprised that I actully knew an ablative absolute when I saw it. But I was a stumbler at best, and he was really pretty kind in helping me out.

Imagine my joy when he starts posting What Does the Prayer Really Say on catholic.org on the Forum, and then begins his column in the Wanderer! I was tempted to take credit for encouraging him, but I know he has been hot about this topic since way before he met me.

I still had a long ponytail when I met him, and he was puzzled about it until I told him it was a disguise in order to move into liberal territory without anyone suspecting I was really a conservative. I told him I was a "sheep in wolf's clothing" and he laughed pretty good at that. (There is much more to the ponytail story, involving moving in the world of Native America culture and back again, but that's another post.)

I've since cut off the ponytail and now work at a much more conservative school. But I've kept track of Fr. Z through the years and enjoy hearing his voice once again in the Podcazts. Check them out if you haven't yet!

Rome

2007-03-02T09:56:00.001-06:00

Sorrento
Originally uploaded by Wozhinazhinga.

Two years ago at this time, I was preparing for a trip to Rome. The Latin class trip from my school needed another male chaperone and I joyfully agreed to go along. (The picture is actually Sorrento, but it's my favorite shot from the trip.)

That trip changed my life in several ways.

From the moment we began walking around Rome, I felt tangibly, palpaply connected with my Catholic faith in a way that seems to grow stronger with each passing month. I feel like a part of me now lives there permanently, in its old churches, in St. Peter's, in the Vatican museum. I feel sure that I'll go back someday, drawn by the saints and angels who watch over us all from that golden city.

I also grew in a important personal way in being one of the leaders of the group of fourteen students. I had been teaching for 20 years, but something clicked on that trip that I can't quite explain. Maybe it was the unique blend of just the right group of people and experiences, but I finally liked who I was on that trip. I saw myself differently and was able to break out of some kind of personal rut I found myself in back then.

Finally, the trip renewed my marriage, even though my wife did not go along. I can't get into all the details of how that happened, but it probably had a lot to do with how I saw myself differently. I treated her differently when I got back, something she noticed right away and very much appreciated. I decided the next time I go back, she is coming with me.

Why am I doing this?

2007-02-20T05:16:00.000-06:00

A question my wife has asked me...I'm not sure of the answer exactly. Why blog?

Is it just a diary that others can read? I never really had a diary. Somehow a log of events in my life that no one would read except me seemed like wasted effort. I'm a person who loathes a treadmill-type exercise because it seems so useless and turned-in on the self. I realize it may be necessary at times, but I always wanted my "exercise" to accomplish something beyond just keeping me fit. I wanted to create beautiful art with my exercise, and so I did ballet for a while, until it became too expensive and I got too old and fat. But even if I did it on my own without taking a class, I felt part of a community somehow, participating in an ancient discipline, something larger than myself. At the very least, I wanted my exercise to accomplish some task, like cleaning the yard or chopping wood.

So also I could never justify the time to write down my thoughts just to keep them locked away in a drawer. At least here someone has the possibility of reading my random thoughts. And I couldn't believe the charge I got out of people responding to my ramblings.

My 16-year-old son asked me something the other day and to save time I told him to read my blog on the subject. He declined, saying only 3 or 4 people read my blog and he didn't want to be the fifth. Ha Ha.

Help! Rice Krispies Everywhere!

2007-02-13T14:41:00.000-06:00

My wife just e-mailed me from home: the 4-year-old and 6-year-old (both boys) have sprinkled Rice Krispies around the house. We have one of those floorplans where the kids can run around and around in a circle, track-style. Except they lined the track with cereal.

So my long-suffering wife (Geometrica?) assigned them the task of cleaning it up, hoping to teach them responsibility and the virtues of diligence and cleanliness.

They took the vacuum cleaner in the bathroom and sucked up the toilet paper. Now the vacuum is clogged.

They got sent to their room with no cookies, and the Rice Krispies are still there! Please pray for patience for Mrs. Geometricus and for true contrition for the two little Trapezoids.

She learned her lessons well

2007-02-06T22:38:00.000-06:00

Tonight I stayed late at school and made calls for the annual fund. The school provided pizza and $25 per hour to call parents of students at the school and ask for money for our wonderful Catholic school which teaches the faith in all its fulness. It's amazing how generous people can be toward a school where they pay upwards of ten thousand dollars a year tuition already.

But one call (not made by me) brought up generosity of another kind. One of the other teachers who had signed up to make calls tonight rang a parent who was pregnant again, the 2nd time in two years. I think this would be their fourth child. Anyway, the teacher who made the call told me this parent kept her on the phone for 25 minutes talking everything in her life. She mentioned that she felt she didn't have the energy to keep having all these babies (at around 40) and that she may have to have her "tubes tied." Her 5th-grade daughter, who has learned the faith well for several years at our school, overheard this and asked what "tubes tied" meant. When her mother told her, the youngster exclaimed, "But Mommy, you can't stop God's plan!"

There was no mistaking the child meant by the remark: generosity in the service of life, the Church lovingly teaches, forbids a woman to mutilate her body, even if more children seem to be a hardship. This family is one of our faith-filled non-Catholic families who apparently doesn't mind their children being taught real Catholic doctrine. The child learned her Catholic lessons well, and in a truly age-appropriate way from our wonderfully wise and faithful lower school teachers who are living it themselves, for the most part, however imperfectly.

This is why I trust my own children to this school. Praise God: may their be many more Catholic schools like it.

Argument and discourse

2007-02-01T21:37:00.000-06:00

The Recovering Dissident Catholic has an intense post on discourse. It was originally inspired by the folks at My Word and Welcome to it. She has a funny classification of the stupid ways people attempt to debate about ideas these days.

While teaching lessons on indirect (Reductio ad absurdum) proof in Geometry class this week, I often think of how difficult it can be to teach the average learner about good argumentation. After hearing some of the feeble attempts of high school sophomores at putting together their first attempts at academic-type proof, I get the sense that logic does not play a huge role in their lives.

OK, my sophomore son just peeked over my shoulder and reminded me that comment wasn't exactly fair. People tend to argue most passionately about things they really care about, so my little lessons about proving angles congruent or lines parallel might not be the most riveting topics teenagers may care about. On the other hand, my son claims that logic actually does play a huge role in his life. And he even claims that his logic is much better after he took my Geometry class last year. Comments like this give me hope.

But when people are more concerned with entertainment, ratings, advertising revenue, or political votes than they are about truth, should we be so suprised when civil discourse, not to mention good logic, goes out the window?

Appreciation

2007-01-31T15:02:00.000-06:00

For Catholic Schools week, the student council put together a little powerpoint presentation about what they like about each of the high school teachers here. Each page had a picture of the teacher and 3-5 qualities they appreciate about you, along with other related illustrations to emphasize your qualities.

It's funny to see what they think about when they think of you. For me they wrote:
Fastest Teacher
Energetic
Enthusiastic
Loves to Laugh
Coolest Incoming Beard
Palm Pilot!

#5 is there because I have never let my beard grow out until this month. It started to come out different colors (salt 'n' peppa!) so I decided to see what it looked like. The worst comments I've gotten involve the "S" word (scruffy) and the best comments involve words like "distinguished" and "professorial."

#6 refers to my grade book. I keep my grades on a Zire 72, which is also my camera and video camera, my MP3 player, my calendar, memo pad, rolodex, and breviary (Liturgy of the Hours in Latin!)

OK, enough bragging about myself. But in my humble profession you get rewards like this that money can't buy.

Catholic Schools Week

2007-01-30T08:36:00.000-06:00

My personal way of celebrating Catholic schools weeks is to open Math class with a simple Hail Mary prayer, and afterwards shout, "I love teaching in a Catholic School!" I love the bewildered faces of the students (and the few knowing smiles among them).

My reason for doing this: my two former positions were a public school and a non-Catholic private school. To finally be at a school where I can not only freely express my faith in and through my work was as much a relief as it was a great joy.

You may not think that the Faith has any bearing whatsoever upon teaching mathematics, but you would be wrong. The question, "How do we know what is true?" is a crucial philosophical question that I pose and try to get students to think about. I clearly state when the answer to the question leaves the "math" territory and enters philosophy, and then theology. How succesful I am at getting teenagers to understand is debatable, but at least at my Catholic school, I can approach the question without fear of getting in trouble. I have a friend in public school who has been disciplined and may eventually be forced out for talking about his beliefs in the science classroom.

Incidentally, the US House of Representatives is honoring Catholic schools, as they usually do. We'll leave the state of U.S. Catholic schools today for another post.

Third post, 2nd try

2007-01-29T08:40:00.000-06:00

So my first attempt at a blog was marred too many perfectionistic expectations of myself.

It was my third post that killed me.

What third post, you ask? The one I never posted because it got so convoluted and arcane that I could never finish it. I think it was about an article in First Things I had read. It was how the Fathers of the Church are making a comeback. I guess I should just have said something simple like, "I like reading the Fathers of the Church, too, especially St. John Chrysostom" and leave it at that. Instead I tried to be too scholarly and too high-falootin'. Anyway the article is here.

The thing I liked best was his point identifying the Fathers as men steeped in Scripture, and how we needed to be steeped in Scripture too in order to renew our culture and save it from the modern Barbarians (or even from the post-Modern Barbarians).

I was also trying to use that post as a way to introduce myself a bit more to my readers. I was born into a Lutheran family in the early 1960's. After my parents divorced during the cultural hurricanes of the 70's (we were the first family of all 4 on my block to implode that decade) I lost the faith, only to regain it through reading Scripture with Evangelicals at my public high school. They loved Scripture and they helped me steep myself in it. (Later I converted to the Church with the help of a beautiful Catholic girl I met my junior year in high school. That's another story.)

If you ask me, good, solid, directed Scripture study is what Catholics need more that anything right now, from praying the Psalms to memorizing chapters of Paul's epistles (like I used to do in high school, influenced by the Bill Gothard seminars.) Putting that Scripture into practice creating new traditions or restoring ancient ones, more than anything will help us to renew our little parts of the world which we inhabit.

Using a 2300 year old textbook

2006-10-11T14:31:00.000-05:00

Today I am starting to look at the results of the first test I give each year on Euclid's Book I in Honors Geometry, covering Theorems 1-29. I am always surprised at how foreign the worldview of Euclid is to the average teenager. When I first encounted Euclid, I found a world that made sense, a world where someone had taken care of most of the details, a world where someone remembered what he had JUST SAID and didn't have to repeat himself. I made myself at home and tried to make my teaching like his.

When students find Euclid confusing I have to remind myself that to them, looking at things logically may look like just one more "alternative lifestyle," albeit one that most of them would prefer to leave unexplored and unpondered. When I push them headlong over the "Asses Bridge" (Thm 5, or the Isoceles triangle theorem, the first one proven using congruent triangles) most of them have only a vague idea where the road will lead them. By the time we get to theorem 24 or 25, I have kids start to say "I'm getting this!" in a cautiously optimistic way.

It is awesome to use a textbook that has rarely been out of use somewhere in the world for the last 2300 years. Apparently preserved by Muslims during the middle ages, it was the staple of architect, lawyer, doctor and carpenter alike throughout history, teaching them not only the properties of parallelograms but how to reason clearly and how to argue a case and how to solve problems no one had ever thought of.

I always tell kids we have the Muslims to thank for preserving the text of Euclid and even for adding valuable commentary. But I also make sure to tell them that Muslim contributions to science pretty much ended before the European Rennaisance. And though the Muslims preserved the ancient Greek and Latin classics, the development of modern scientific thinking was not intitiated or brought to fruition by Muslims, but by Christians and Jews generally. So much for the false dichotomy between religion and science. But all alike were inspired by the work of the Master Euclid.

First Post

2006-10-09T20:34:00.000-05:00

Feeling kind of behind the eight ball today. Got up too early and wasn't ambitious enough. Ended up reading too many blogs and not getting enough work done.

My wife is very good at encouraging me lately. That hasn't always been the case, but she seems to have the grace for it at the present, thank God. I am still standing at 8:30 thanks to her picking up the sophmore doing the Monday library run.

Slowly getting through Lewis Carrol's Euclid and His Modern Rivals. After a few years of beginning my Honors Geometry class with Book I of the Elements (yes, raw Euclid) I am interested to see how other teachers have taught this stuff down through the ages. I am especially interested in source of problems to be given students between the theorems. Would they increase student understanding and confidence, or merely bog down the relentless push to I.47 and I.48?

Yes I am a math teacher at a private school in Western Twin Cities of Minnesota. I am in my 21st year of teaching and ready to "give back to the community" so to speak. I think my next post might be about the new NCTM Curriculum Focal Points just released. But first I have to read them.