Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Never Again

"Almost as if on cue, as Benedict's voyage to Auschwitz drew toward its close early Sunday evening, the wind picked up and a cool rain began to fall. The final ceremony began with the Pope pausing to pray at memorials in the different languages of the 1.5 million killed. But by the time he reached the final plaque, the rain had stopped, the umbrellas were tucked away, and the pack of reporters noticed that across the broad field of half-standing brick barracks of Birkenau, a vivid rainbow had appeared. The editors of TIME, like those who A. M. Rosenthal worked for back in the 1950s, would surely not normally consider this news. But on a day that the German Pope came to Auschwitz to ponder God’s silence, that surprising explosion of colors seemed well worth reporting."
[Time Magazine]
"See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth." God added: "This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you: I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings. As the bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and recall the everlasting covenant that I have established between God and all living beings--all mortal creatures that are on earth." God told Noah: "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all mortal creatures that are on earth."
[Genesis 9:9-17]
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

Monday, May 29, 2006

Ascension and Memorial Day

Hey all -

Fr. Raul at the Shrine yesterday gave a powerful homily connecting these two sacared and secular feasts.

The jist of it was that while Jesus ascended in glory, at some point the apostles were... redirected. "Why are you looking up there?" the angels asked. "He's gone. He'll come back someday, but until then you've got work to do. Remember what he taught you?"

Memorial Day too is of course about remembering. Take a few moments to recall those special people in you life who have passed on. Remember the laughter and tears, the good times and bad... In particular, remember what they taught you, especially about how to live.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

DVC tee-hee's



And this line, from an hilarious review at jimmyakin.org:
I mean, these two characters are so emotionally inert that from now on the nuclear waste management agency will be using their relationship to insulate spent uranium rods.
Read his whole review here.

3 Years!


Three years ago today, my wife Erin and I were married at St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury in Fulton, MO. What an awesome day. Erin looked beautiful, our friends and family were there, the music was great, it didn't rain, the congregation only laughed once at my expense, and God showed up to bless our marriage. Not bad for a day's work.

Since then we've bought a house, had a daughter, and are expecting a boy in August. We are truly blessed such a great life. Thanks to all of our friends and family who have been such a support to us as a couple. Please continue to keep our marriage, and all marriages, in your prayers.

-Shannon

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

10 puns

1. Two vultures board an airplane; each is carrying two dead raccoons.
The stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen,
only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two boll weevils grew up in the deep South. One went to Hollywood
and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields
and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally,
became known as the lesser of two weevils.

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a
fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have
your kayak and heat it, too.

4. A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides
up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot
my paw."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root
canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were
standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories.
After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them
to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off."Because," he said,
"I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them
goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to
a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a
picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture,
she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan,
you've seen Ahmal."

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened
up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to
buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the
competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close
down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close.
They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart,
the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close.
Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be
back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving
that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time,
which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also
ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he
suffered from bad breath. This made him ...
A super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. The folks at the San Diego zoo heard about some immortal dolphins
down in the Amazon, so they sent a guy down to bring some back for the zoo.
After a difficult trip, he was able to find them, and brought them back.
But soon after they got back to San Diego, they started to die. The zoo
sent a team down to the Amazon, and determined that some enzymes in the
feces of Mynah birds, which dropped into the water, was what kept the
porpoises alive. So the team went hunting for some of the Mynah birds
to bring back to the zoo.

Meanwhile, up in San Diego, a lion had escaped from the state-run zoo,
and was having a grand old time gallivanting around town, terrorizing
everyone. He eventually got tired, and lay down to take a nap - right in front of
the San Diego zoo entrance.

The team lead got back from the Amazon with the Mynah birds, and had to
step over the lion in order to get into the zoo. He was immediately
arrested for transporting mynahs over state lions for immortal
porpoises.

We have (at least) three readers!

Anne Marie at Over the Top also claims to stop by regularly:
Here are some sites that I visit daily…
...
Oddwalk - Shannon and Orin at Oddwalk Ministries make me laugh. A lot. Always something, um, odd at Oddwalk.

If only she knew just how true that was...

Monday, May 22, 2006

Fun at the Hampton Inn

Yesterday, I traveled down to St. Robert (Ft. Leonard Wood), MO to provide entertainment for the Sacred Heart Parish Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. The event was held at the Hampton Inn and catered by a local company. What a great afternoon. When I arrived at around 12:30pm, the honorees were already eating and there was a slide presentation showing scenes of ministry from the past year. At 1:30pm, the honoring began. Following a short video presentation, each parish ministry coordinator stood up and personally thanked each person who had helped in that particular ministry over the past year. This exercise really showed the vast amounts of people involved in ministry at Sacred Heart. There is no doubt that the church is alive and well at Ft. Leonard Wood.

At 2:30pm, I took the "stage". Scheduled to play for an hour and a half, I decided to focus my presentation on "lifting up" the ministry folks in attendance. I played a lot of the usual stuff, but added in some funny tunes and some songs I've barely played before. One of the songs I played is called Show Us The Way, which can be found on my 2nd CD, For All Time. the song focuses on the difficult task of doing ministry in the world, and calls on the Holy Spirit to come and give us what we need. It seemed to work well for the moment.

Thanks to Celia Guieb and all of the wonderful people at Sacred Heart for inviting me to be a part of your celebration. It was a great time.

-Shannon

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Two Internet Geniuses

End of the Internet
origamiboulder.com
[Why didn't we think of that second one?]

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Nuns Illusion

I hope nobody is scandalized! It's just a trick. Don't get it?

Take a closer look at the bar stools! As mentioned at portraitofapriest (see our links page!), this was found at a cool optical illusions site, here.

For another powerful one that shows how the mind and eyes can play tricks on us, check out these disappearing dots!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Mario Bros. - Live!

No, not some Nintendo-on-ice escapade - a Google video of a college talent show: a live rendition of Mario Bros. level 1. Pretty slick.
Thanks to Gene's blog!

Monday, May 15, 2006

Pope Wars

A cool game from the folks at PhatMass. I (Orin) play a similar game on my Treo, but under a slightly different and more immoral name. Have fun!

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Happy Mothers Day!

this is an audio post - click to play


... and don't forget to keep playing our haiku challenge, just below!

Monday, May 8, 2006

Haiku Challenge II

Hey ev'rybody,
Recall our Haiku Challenge?
Let's do it again!

We have (at least) two readers!

Gene of APeX stops here most everyday, so he says:

Everyday
By gene May 08, 2006
@ 10:04 AM in Fun Stuff
Everyday I am on line I read...

[second on the list, we see:]

Oddwalk Oddblog
Shannon and Orin's take on the world (when Shannon hasn't deleted the whole blog)


Seriously, that's what it says. Make sure you check his out too.

Sorry for the brief technical difficulties...

... We're Back!

(I know you were all concerned.)

(By "you" I mean, of course, Marianne.)

-Orin

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Are You Listening?

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to lead music for the opening of the Jefferson City Diocesan 6th Grade Vocation Day. As usual, the kids were loud and energetic. Due to some miscommunication, the typical forty-five minute-long set turned into an hour and fifteen minute-long set. It went great though. The kids were frequently reminded that the day was going to be about listening for God.

It made me wonder how many of us really do listen for the voice of God. I don't want to suggest that we're not spiritual people, but there are times in my own life that I'm only listening for what I think I should be hearing. In other words, if I think I'm called in a certain direction, I tend to listen for things that might lead me there, rather than what God might actually be saying to me. Just a thought.

-Shannon

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

More Earth Day Photos

Oddwalk's impression of the World Bird Sanctuary, complete with "Other Guy Hawk" -




Thanks to Donna E. at the Shrine for her assistance with the presentation, and Erin S. for the pics!

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Stepping out of the shadow...


...of Earth Man!

Last Thursday and Friday, Oddwalk had the privilege of serving as emcees for the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows' Earth Day celebrations with area school kids. About 900 each day came to give praise to God and marvel at God's creation.

Shannon, in the past had been Earth Man when he was emcee, so it was only natural when Orin was dubbed "The Other Guy" -- it's a bit of a long story related to the Shrine's "World Youth Day" and you should ask us sometime. So there we were, complete with t-shirts, capes, and funny hats.

Anyway.

It turns out that it wasn't so much "Earth Man and his faithful sidekick The Other Guy" but exactly the opposite way around. The Other Guy was extremely popular both days. Earth Man even got booed on one occasion.

The keytar made an appearance (if you look closely above you can see it next to the monitor on the left), as did Matilda: Here, Fr. Raul helps lead the motions:


You can just make out a bit of Earth Man on the edge of that pic.


On Thursday, the World Bird Sanctuary showed several impressive creatures.


Oddwalk felt bad for the Friday kids who didn't get to see them, so we re-enacted part of the show, with "The Other Guy Hawk" flying around the amphitheater and eating donuts. I'm sure we'll have more pictures soon...

Praise God's creation, and may we always work to keep it clean and healthy!