Noah is two!!

August 29, 2006: On that night, the St. Louis Cardinals were trounced by the Florida Marlins, 9-1. They went on to win the next two games against the Marlins and, eventually, the World Series. The secret to their success that year. Like you even have to ask.

While there is convincing behavioral evidence that Noah's 2nd birthday happened months ago, "the boy" is officially two years-old today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!

Here now is a blog-riffic tribute to our little rock star:

"Say it ain't so!" "Okay, it ain't."

Orin, as a big fan of all things Apple, was bemused that Bloomberg accidentally sent Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs's obituary over the wire.  Read it and about it here.

"The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process."

Today's random place to find "Walk Away Different" online

puretracks.com

Perhaps one of the cutest things ever

I don't think this would work with Penny or Gracie:

Orin and Erin and Penny's first video chat with Orin's Dad

Orin's Dad got wifi high speed internet this morning!

yearbookyourself.com

This is, supposedly, what Orin might have looked like had he graduated in 1976, courtesy of yearbookyourself.com.

Feel free to email us any of your own attempts...

Miss Sister 2008

'Miss Sister 2008': Priest organizes beauty contest for nuns
The Associated Press

ROME - An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.

The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

"Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life," Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. "This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible."

More here...

"My Name is I AM" Video

So, Oddwalk has this youth minister friend in Sydney, Australia we've never met - Paul Skippen is his name.  He bought our CD "Walk Away Different" when he saw it online at GIA's site (not having heard of us nor a note of our music before then).  He's been using some of the music, and recently (like, yesterday) used "My Name is I AM" at mass.  He prepared a PowerPoint slideshow to go with it - not just the lyrics, but some evocative, prayerful images.  He emailed that to us, and we promptly turned it into a YouTube video.  You can watch it below, but it might also be worth clicking through to the main YouTube site and watching it in "High Quality" - there'll be a link right below the video over there.  Enjoy - we certainly did!  And, thanks Paul!

The drunk driving the drunk

A blind journalist was given a month's suspended jail sentence and fined 500 euros (750 dollars) by a French court Friday for driving while drunk and without a license.

The owner of the car, who was also drunk as he sat next to the blind man when he drove the vehicle, was given the same sentence and had his license suspended for five months by the court in the northeastern town of Nancy.

Read more here.

McKendree Campus Ministries Video

Orin's wife is the Catholic campus minister at McKendree University in Lebanon, IL.  She works in the Methodist campus ministry office (MU is a Methodist School) with Tim Harrison.  Here's a youtube video they put together highlighting how the office serves the student community.

They use a "WePhone" (I assume it's not a WiiPhone) as their image, with various buttons which guide the video and their ministries.  I wonder if I can get those buttons on my iPhone too?

Emphasis

For those of you coming here to find a strange joke or a curious bit of news, I (Orin) apologize, but I couldn't think of where else to share these liturgical thoughts and questions.

You may know the Vatican recently gave its approval to a revised English translation of the mass, though we likely won't be using it for at least two or three years.  Find more info on the new translation - and the translation itself - at the USCCB website.  Find more info on the struggles (theological, political and otherwise) to get it completed here.

Anyway, I was thinking about one of the more obvious changes this morning - responding to the presider's "The Lord be with you," we are used to saying "And also with you."  This will be changed to a more literal translation from the Latin, and will be "And with your spirit."

There are, more or less, two methods of translations: a literal approach, where one tries to get a word-for-word equivalency, and even word order, punctuation, and capitalization can be important.  A more dynamic approach tries to preserve meaning while making the language more accessible and understandable.  The first english translations (in the 1970's) took a more dynamic approach, where lately the mandate has been that translations be as literal as possible.

Here (finally) is the point I was pondering this morning - translation methods aside for the moment, translation words on a page from Latin to other words on a page in English can't really account too well for spoken emphasis.  Music has all sorts of symbols, dots, and other markings to help establish emphasis - languages have punctuation, but it only helps a bit.

For instance - "And with your spirit."  In this case, which word is emphasized changes drastically the meaning of what is said, and in fact changes what the presider meant by "The Lord be with you."

If the congregation were to emphasize AND - this seems to say that we the congregation are reminding the presider that that the Lord is with him too, as if he had forgotten.

If WITH is emphasized, well, I'm not entirely sure what that might mean, compared to other prepositions, like "by, near, in," etc.).  Let's move on.

If YOUR is emphasized, a stronger emphasis is placed on reminding - or even commissioning - the Lord to be with the presider's spirit.  Or it may sound as if we're alerting the presider that he misspoke - you said "The Lord be with you" when you meant something a little different, including our spirit out here.

If SPIRIT is emphasized, that seems to imply the Lord has been with the presider in some other way, and now we, the congregation wish the Lord to be with his spirit.  It also implies that the presider's wish specifically neglected our spirit, and wished the Lord to be with us in some other way.

And, in any case, does the response imply we the congregation (or as individuals) don't have this "spirit" at all, or don't need the Lord to be with it, or what exactly?  Is there any way to determine from the original Latin - by word order, or anything - if any stress was implied in the original?

Was the original English translation "And also with you" trying to avoid these problems, or was it just as faulty?

Granted, I'm a little prone to over-analysis of such things, but this seems important, especially considering that period of teaching and catechesis we're all supposed to embark on before jumping in with the new phrases.  Musically too - for instance, musical stresses should line up with spoken stresses - but what if we can't tell where they fall?

I tried to keep this brief, I hope you all caught my gist here.  What about emphasis?  What say you?

"A Brushfire Movement"

The National Catholic Reporter has an interesting article out right now about contemporary Catholic music, where it comes from, how it's used, false dichotomies in liturgical music, etc.  While largely about Matt Maher (pictured), it briefly mentions several other artists, including Oddwalk friend and fellow GIA artist Paul Melley.

Check it out!

A couple more projects

Hey all,

Just to let you know, keeping looking back here or our main page over the next few months for a couple other new, exciting announcements about Oddwalk and GIA.  We won't spill the beans just yet, but the graphic below is a hint on one of the bits of news.  In fact, we haven't been keeping it real secretive, but you won't find anything about it online yet either.  So, happy guessing:

"Walk Away Different" Updates

"Walk Away Different" now available at the LimeWire Store.

Also, the 2009 GIA catalog is out, find us on page 64.

Better Than A Gold Medal

The Oddwalk family would like to congratulate our friends Ricky and Tania Willmann on the newest addition to their family, Jeremy Ryan. Jeremy was born on Thursday night and both Mom and son are doing well.

If you're interested in more information there are a couple of places you could look. Ricky keeps a couple of blogs. One of them, Those Wacky Willmanns, is more of a family-focused blog. You can find it here. The other is one, Richard the Deuce Tells it All, is a blog that Ricky keeps just for fun. You can find that one here.

Congratulations again to the ever-growing Willmann family. You are in our prayers.

Institute in Adolescent Catechesis

This week we have been attending and helping out at the Institute in Adolescent Catechesis, put on by the Center for Ministry Development and held this year at the Shrine.

Oddwalk friend D. Scott Miller has been blogging about the week as an attendee, and took a few minutes to record a podcast with Shannon (As another attendee) about the future of youth ministry.  When he posts it, we'll be sure to let you know!

Not saying they are real, not saying they aren't...

Recent news about Chupacabras (police video even! [thanks Erin B]) and Bigfoot (the proof supposedly to be revealed tomorrow).

Next, they'll try to tell us the Teletubbies aren't real...

Just like Santa Claus

Look what mysteriously appeared in Orin's office at the Shrine yesterday - I mean, just look, Erin B:

New Puppies

For Erin H's mom that is -- meet Reese and Rory:

A Mysterious Land

This week, now that the Novena has finished, Orin and Erin are heading up to that magical place called Minnesota to visit family. Oddwalk has a few days off and then come back together for a week long conference at the Shrine starting on Monday. The event we're doing next week is called the Institute in Adolescent Catechesis which is being sponsored by the Center for Ministry Development. We will be providing music and prayer support. Keep us in your prayers!

Happy Feast of Our Lady of the Snows

Hello all - we write to all of you on this August 5th, 2008, the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows, known today as the Dedication of the Mary Major Basilica in Rome.

The early Church was often struggling in its theology, and one of the first debates was on the very nature of Jesus: was he a man, was he God, or was he somehow both earthly and spiritual? Jesus, uniquely, is fully God (part of the Holy Trinity) but yet Son of both God and of Adam and Eve, through Mary – fully human.And so, today, we celebrate Mary as Mother of God. The Mary Major Basilica was built to honor this very fact, and was the first church built in honor of and thusly named for Our Lady. We thank Mary for being the first "sacred vessel" to contain the body and blood of Christ, and for her giving spirit in presenting him to us. We see this too in the representation of Our Lady of the Snows, presenting to us both Christ and his message of Healing and Hope.

May we all take a moment today, those whose lives are connected through employment, vows, or some other way to Our Lady of the Snows (her Shrine is where Orin is music and liturgy coordinator) or any other title of Mary, and in that moment, rejoice and be thankful for all that is good in our lives.

Happy Feast Day!

Pilgrims pay homage to a cross constructed of prayers for healing and hope.

Pilgrims receive the sacrament of the anointing of the sick while Karl Z and the band lead the sung prayer.  Oddwalk also played last night at the novena.

One More Beaker Video

From our friend Ricky.  That's a hint there, our friend "Ricky."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hczaiM3LH0M

Dancing Cernekas

Recorded by Erin C at "Power Up" -- July 19, 2008 at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows:

Come Pray With Us

This coming Monday, as part of the ongoing Healing and Hope Novena at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL, Oddwalk will lead the music for Mass, beginning at 7:30pm.

The Mass, being held in the Church of Our Lady of the Snows, will feature Fr. Jeff Vomund as the main celebrant and homilist. Some of you may know Fr. Vomund as the producer and host of Faith Matters, a bi-monthly television program for KMOV in St. Louis as well as regular guest on the Dave Glover Show in the “Priest and the Rabbi” segment for 97.1 FM Talk, also in St. Louis.

Following Mass, there will be a candlelight rosary procession.

Hope you can join us!