NCCE 2015
I’ll be leaving for Portland, Oregon in a few days to attend NCCE 2015, “the largest ed-tech conference in the Northwest.” As I travel I’ll be posting about the trip here.
One Catholic Life Blog
On Lent and Avoiding the Star Wars Effect – Homily for the First Sunday of Lent 2015
Every year on the First Sunday of Lent, the gospel takes us into the desert where Jesus was tested for forty days. And we follow Jesus into the desert for these forty days of Lent so that our hearts can be transformed, so that we can be ready to enter fully into the Mystery of Easter. This means being careful of the Star Wars Effect. When the original Star Wars movie came out in 1977, every kid my age wanted to see it. It was the first movie...
Eli, John and Andrew – Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B
In the first reading we hear that “Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD.” Now that doesn’t mean you get to sleep here in church during the homily! But we do have something in common with Samuel: at one point, we, too, were not familiar with the Lord. Samuel is called three times, but he does not recognize who is it is. It is the priest Eli who helps him understand that it is the Lord who is calling. In the gospel, too, Andrew and an...
Prayer for Teachers and Students Returning to School After Christmas Break
Heavenly Father, Thank you for the blessings of this Christmas Break. Since last we gathered in this classroom, we celebrated the birth of your Son, we rang in a brand new year, and we watched the magi give their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. As we meet in school again, help us celebrate your Son’s presence in every moment of every day; inspire us to use this new year to draw closer to you; and grant us the desire to give our most precious gifts to those...
Poetry Video Project Using Chromebooks, Librivox, and WeVideo
When school starts up again this week, one of my Tech classes is going to begin learning about video editing with a free online tool called WeVideo. Students will browse through public domain poetry at Librivox.org and find a narrated poem they like. They’ll download the mp3 narration of the poem to their Google Drives and then search for accompanying images. I’ll be showing them how to use Google’s image search to find images that have been labeled for “reuse with modification,” so that they use the images...
Discovering Yourself by Getting to Know Jesus Better
The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner was one of my favorite books from last year. and I’ve been slowly rereading it, trying to taking in all he has to say and put it into practice. One of the best chapters explains how to get to know Jesus better. He strongly encourages daily meditation on the gospel and on life experiences in the Ignatian style: “First, take a moment to quiet yourself in God’s presence. Close your eyes and ask God to take the words of Scripture...
A Prayer for False Starts
God, I meant to start over yesterday. It was a new year and everything. I even made a list. What happened? Old habits die hard, I guess. Thank you for another day and another chance to start over. You are the giver of second chances, and third, and fourth, and fifth. That’s a very good thing, because I have a feeling I’m going to need them. Help me to be a giver of second chances, and third, and fourth, and fifth, to those who need them. Amen.
Soundtrack of My Life: The Long Run by the Eagles
What was your first record or cassette? How about the first time you heard a song that hadn’t been played on the radio? For me it was The Long Run by the Eagles. It was Christmas of 1979, and deep inside me a lifelong love for music was lying dormant under a denim jacket, a pair of brown corduroys, and a t-shirt with the Fonz on the front. (Aaaay!) I was in eighth grade. I owned a little one-speaker cassette/radio player and made my own mix tapes by recording my...
My Favorite Books of 2014
2014 was a very productive and satisfying year for me in reading. I read 44 books, surpassing my goal of 40, and many of them were some of the best books I’ve ever read. One of the things I love about using Goodreads to keep track of my reading is how easy it is to see the patterns and trends of my reading habits. Here’s a breakdown of some aspects of my reading for 2014: 80% of the books I read were ebooks (35 out of 44), my...
Good News for Old and Young Alike – Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family
On this first Sunday after Christmas, the Liturgy invites us to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. And today the gospel presents the Holy Family’s encounter with two elderly people of faith, Simeon and Anna. In the first and second readings, too, we hear about two more elderly people of faith, Abraham and Sarah. Today there is Good News for both the old and the young. Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord, and one at a time, Simeon and Anna...
Making Gifts for Jesus – Homily for Christmas Eve Mass with Children
Here is the audio of my homily from the Christmas Eve children’s Mass. http://traffic.libsyn.com/stpeter/SP-2014-12-24a-461.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS
Can You Solve this 30 Year Old Mystery?
About thirty years ago my mom brought home a puzzle that someone had given her at work. She worked for Montgomery Ward, the now defunct department store chain, and on her lunch hour she and her colleagues would work on these little brain twisters that people would bring in from time to time. She would then bring them home for us kids. Little did my mom know that I would keep all of those puzzles and use them with my junior high students over the years. I’m not...
