So, I’ll leave this site up and running, but all new posts will be found at amycavender.org.

Sigh. For a few weeks now, I’ve been trying to get a photo of the red-bellied woodpecker that hangs around my birdfeeder a lot during the winter months. The problem is that, unlike the chickadees (who I’m told will eat right out of your hand if you’re patient enough), this fellow is really skittish. He flies off at the slightest sign of any movement. So, until I succeed in sneaking up on him to get that picture, I’ll have to settle for linking to this one.

As it seems she does so often, the Velveteen Rabbi has once again posted something that really resonates with me:

My yetzer ha-ra doesn’t want me to daven shacharit.

Okay, I don’t really imagine that I have a personified evil (or chaotic) impulse, perched on my shoulder and whispering bitchy nothings in my ear. But there is definitely something in me that resists doing the things I know will make me more grounded.

Like regular prayer. I set my alarm. I wake up on time. I putter around and make myself a cup of tea. And as the appointed hour for davenen draws near, my yetzer ha-ra starts throwing excuses at me, reasons why I can’t possibly daven this morning.

I have too much to do. There are things I haven’t taken care of. Bills and dishes. Plus there’s that paper that’s going to be due next week, right after I get back from the Rabbis for Human Rights conference, which I should really be working on now! Besides, I’m distracted. I won’t have good focus. (See above, re: bills and dishes and paper deadlines. ) I can pray tomorrow when I’m more in the mood. God won’t really mind if I miss a day; God knows where I’m at, God understands.

Well, of course God understands. But that’s not remotely the point, is it? Prayer primes the pump of gratitude, and awareness, and praise. Prayer keeps my spiritual muscles stretched and ready. And, like writing, prayer shouldn’t be a luxury to be engaged in when I happen to feel so moved; it’s a practice which sustains itself and sustains me. But I have to overcome inertia and do it.

You can read the rest of Rachel’s post here .

I can certainly relate. It’s entirely too easy to blow off prayer in the mornings, especially if I’ve been up too late the night before reading or grading (or, let’s face it, watching too much TV).

Fortunately, there are some helps to prayer in my life. The Church gives us the Liturgy of the Hours, and at my house we pray at least one of the offices in common each day, so there’s some built-in accountability for me. Not that that removes the temptation entirely….

I’ve figured it out, and it works pretty well. I’d like it a little better if I could figure out how to make the blog link from the site open in a new tab, but I guess I can’t have everything.

(Oops..should I have spelled the word in the title “recolonised”?)

Most of the mobile solutions I’ve tried have too many limitations (such as the inability to assign a category to a post).

So, I’m trying iBlogger, which just became available at the App Store today. If it works as well as I hope it will, I’ll be able to post from the Touch anywhere there’s a wi-fi connection.

One of the classifications in the survey is Gen X, which the survey defines as those aged 18-40 at the time of the survey. I don’t think I buy that classification; most definitions I’ve seen use 1980 or 1981 as the cut-off birth year for the younger end of Gen X. Someone who was 18 in 2005 wouldn’t fit that definition.

Besides, the survey’s classification would put a few of my upper-level students in Gen X, but I don’t think they could identify with very many of these cultural markers of the generation.*

*Remembering Battlestar Galactica, in this case, means remembering Lorne Greene in the role of Commander Adama.

• Made my annual retreat
• Made the Holy Cross History and Spirituality session in Le Mans, France
• Participated in the annual meeting of my congregation’s justice committee
• Spent time with my family, which included getting acquainted with its newest member, my niece, Samantha

I’m hoping to be a bit more regular about posting once the new semester is underway.

If you look to the right, you’ll notice several changes to the sidebar. I’ve removed outdated links, and added several new ones, including links to the various congregations and offices within the Family of Holy Cross.

Yesterday, I learned that two of my brothers in Holy Cross–Fr. Michael Wurtz, CSC and Fr. Stephen Koeth, CSC–have blogs. I’ve created a category for Holy Cross bloggers and added them to the sidebar. If anyone reading this is aware of any other CSC/MSC bloggers out there, please let me know so I can add them.

You just might be a graduate student if…

• you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.
• you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.
• you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
• everything reminds you of something in your discipline.
• you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.
• you look forward to summers because you’re more productive without the distraction of classes.
• you consider all papers to be works in progress.
• professors don’t really care when you turn in work anymore.
• you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.
• you have given up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
• you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.
• you find yourself explaining to children that you are in “20th grade.”
• you start refering to stories like “Snow White et al.”
• you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.

So, while out for a run today, I tuned in to a (relatively) recent episode of American Public Media’s Speaking of Faith (yes, it’s available as a podcast). My intent was to get a sense of the program (which I’d never listened to before) to see whether it would be worth my while to use it with my students.

I’ll have to check out a few more episodes before I make that call. But the episode I listened to today, The Beauty and Challenge of Being Catholic: Hearing the Faithful, is definitely worth listening to.

That’s why I recently deleted a comment that was awaiting moderation. It had nothing to do with the post it was attached to.

Nonetheless, it pointed to a YouTube clip (in Spanish, with English subtitles) that I enjoyed, so I’ll provide the link myself:

Of course, he doesn’t particularly care that I don’t want him at the feeder, as you can see. He’s looking directly at me in this photo, and about to head straight for the feeder anyway. These days, he usually only leaves if I get the spray bottle out.

For those of us who spend a lot of time online, anger’s often a temptation. Rachel has some great thoughts on how it can affect us and how to respond, as well as an interesting note about things we often gloss over in liturgy suddenly attracting our attention when we most need to hear them.

Check it out!

And yes, information found on the web can be woefully inaccurate. As an example of such potential inaccuracies, I sometimes point my students to the story of Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Captured Koala.

But traditional print resources can be inaccurate, too. What’s important, in my view, is to teach students how to evaluate their sources, whether those sources are in electronic or dead tree format.

Rather than adopt policies that discourage students from using the web for research, I try to teach them digital literacy skills. Students need to know not only how to use technology to find and manage information, but also how to evaluate the information they find. What students need to know is how knowledge is created and shared, and
what published information they have reason to trust–regardless of
where or how it’s published. (For web-based resources, one of the tools I use is Internet Detective.)

Those interested in digital literacy might find David Parry’s recent editorial at Science Progress of interest. I also highly recommend his blog, academhack.

Blogged with Flock

All I’ll add is that I find it strange that, in some states, people who aren’t even registered as party members can help select the party’s nominee.

Blogged with Flock

There’s a great deal of wisdom in humor. To see what I mean, watch the three installments below. It’s worth your while.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Blogged with Flock

1. the start of the new semester, which has kept me pretty busy, and
2. research and writing.

So far, the semester is off to a good start. I like the subject material I’m teaching, and I’m pleased with my students. What more could I want?

The research and writing is for a paper I’ll be giving in April. As a political theorist, I’m particularly interested in political dialogue across religious and philosophical boundaries in a pluralist democratic society.

What I’m trying to do right now is explore (relatively) recent developments in the ecumenical movement, in an effort to determine whether the lessons learned there might have any relevance in the political sphere. To that end, I’m currently reading Justification and the Future of the Ecumenical Movement: The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, edited by William G. Rusch. Good stuff.

My interest in the project is personal as well as professional. Given that (a) I’m Catholic, (b) I was raised Protestant, and (c) I’d like to see more constructive political conversations than we currently tend to have here in the U.S., I’ve got a personal stake in dialogues both political and religious.

Blogged with Flock

I was lucky; all was well with my account, and Google has apparently fixed the vulnerability. The fix doesn’t take care of any evil filters that are already in place, though, so if you’ve been hit you’ll have some deleting to do.

Christoper Hitchens, on the other hand, went on a rant about Chanukah on Monday. Mind you, it’s a rant that gets quite a bit wrong. The Maccabean revolt wasn’t a revolt against philosophy or beauty; it was a fight against a severe religious persecution that sought to wipe out a faith. Or has Mr. Hitchens forgotten just what Antiochus Epiphanes did in Judea?

From left to right: cardinal, black-capped chicakdee, red-breasted nuthatch, white-breasted nuthatch, blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, mourning dove.

I often see tufted titmice, too, but they weren’t around this morning.

For now, I’ll just note that, after several email exchanges over the last year or so, I had the privilege of meeting Paul and Karen Camarata this morning. What a pleasure!

If you’d like to learn something about the saints, and have some fun doing it, you should check out Paul’s SaintCast. If you like it well enough to listen to it regularly (and trust me, that’s likely!) you can subscribe to it through iTunes.

That networking site’s a baddie, folks–stay away.

Readings:

• from the Buddhist tradition: verses 7 and 8 from the Metta Sutra
• from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures:
  • Isaiah 61:1-3
  • Colossians 3:12-17

We’re gathered this afternoon to commemorate the events that occurred on this day six years ago. All of us have been affected in one way or another by the events of that day. Most of us can recall where we were when we first heard the news. We remember the shock; some of us remember the sense of unreality we felt as we watched events unfold. “This can’t really be happening,” we may have thought—while we remained glued to the television set or the radio, listening to commentators insist that it was indeed happening. We remember the fear we felt—and that some still feel. We remember the pride we took in the firefighters who rushed into burning buildings to save as many as they could, and in the passengers who tried to retake control of their plane.

Most importantly, we remember those who died that day, and we pray with and for their families and friends.

It is good that we remember. But how do we remember? That, I think, is the question—or, better yet, the choice—before us today. How do we choose to remember the events of September 11?

We could choose to dredge up the memories and feelings of that day for the purpose of feeding our anger and desire for revenge. That’s a natural enough choice—at least in the sense of being an easy choice. Besides, there’s no denying that we have every right to be angry; attacks on civilians warrant anger, and a thirst for revenge is an almost instinctual response to such hurt.

But I think the readings we’ve heard this afternoon call us to a different way of remembering. Several words and phrases stood out for me:

• Binding up the brokenhearted and providing comfort to mourners
• Compassion
• Forgiveness
• Peace
• Lovingkindness
• “…without hate or enmity”

When we remember the events of September 11, will we reach out to those who lost loved ones that day, offering them what comfort we can? Will our memories drive us to seek peace in whatever ways we can?

Dare we remember, and choose to forgive? Dare we remember in order to forgive? That may sound crazy. But listening to the readings, it seems to me that forgiveness, healing, and peace go together. Dare we remember with the purpose of recalling the damage that was done that day, and doing what we can to heal that damage and seek peace?

If our memories serve only to fuel our anger and our desire for revenge, peace isn’t something we’ll be well acquainted with. Instead, we’re likely to find ourselves all knotted up inside, ready to lash out at anyone who steps on our wounded hearts. Moreover, we’ll find it difficult to reach out to those around us with compassion and kindness. It’s hard to reach out when we’re all knotted up in our own anger.

If, however, we remember in order to forgive, we open up new possibilities. Forgiving wrongs done to us is a gift we give to ourselves as much as to those who’ve harmed us. In choosing to set aside our anger and let go of our need for revenge, we remove the blinders that keep us focused on our own hurts. We can more readily see the hurts of others, and begin to reach out to them. In so doing, we help to heal those hurts and to promote peace in our own small way, and find greater peace within ourselves in the process.

Let us not forget the terrible events of six years ago. It is important that we remember—but let us choose carefully how and why we remember.

I got an invite myself the other day, and signed on to check it out. Curious to see who else that I know might be on the service, I let it have a look at my contacts list.

Come to find out, as soon as you do that, Quechup takes it upon itself to send invites to everyone on your list, without asking permission. You can get the details here.

Talk about spam! It might as well be a virus.

I’ll leave the commentary at that, and let Mark’s post speak for itself.

In the column, she points out the importance of having excellent role models–people whom we admire and wish to emulate, in order to grow ourselves.

Of course, we needn’t become little clones. As she notes:

The Talmud is replete with anecdotes from the lives of the sages so that later generations could model their behavior after them. The idea is not to mimic holy people, since God is not into carbon copies, but rather to recognize a clear ideal and to strive for it. Following in the footsteps of the great does not require wearing the same size shoe but only walking in the same direction.

Nor should we think we have to become perfect immediately. If I had to pick out the single best line from the column, it would be:

An acorn is not an oak tree, but it’s not a stone, either.

What we need is to be moving in the right direction. Keeping good role models in front of us helps us know what direction to go.

In the Catholic tradition we also make it a point to emulate those who are close to God and whose lives inspire us. They need not be formally recognized as saints, but some of them are (to learn about some of them, you might check out Dr. Paul Camarata’s SaintCast).

The list for the class of 2011 can be found here.

No one imagines they can run easily and far if they don’t work out with some regularity. Just so, we can’t run spiritually if we don’t stretch and work out spiritually. The practice of daily prayer is a chance to stretch spiritual muscles. It allows us to domesticate the peak experience.

But it’s worth your while to read the whole thing.

I was thinking about that season finale the other day, and I was struck by a scene that occurs toward the end of the episode.

Tigh, Anders, Tori, and Tyrol have all just come to a stunning–and most unwelcome–realization: they’re all Cylons. After all they’ve sacrificed fighting the Cylons, they’re not initially sure how to cope with discovering that they’re Cylons themselves. What does it all mean? And what are they going to do about it?

As the fleet comes under Cylon attack, Tigh, at least, is very clear:

“My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that’s the man I want to be. And if I die today, that’s the man I’ll be.”–Crossroads, Pt. 2

Yes, Tigh’s a Cylon. That’s the hand he’s been dealt, and he can’t change it; it’s something that he has to deal with. But the fact that he’s now aware that he’s a Cylon doesn’t determine what he does; he need not throw his lot in with the Cylons he’s been fighting since the attack on the Colonies. He has a choice to make, and he chooses to continue being the man he’s been for the last forty years.

How does each of us choose to play the hand we’ve been dealt?