Christian Unity

The Internet Monk has a great interview with Catholic Philosopher and bloger Brian Cross. In this first segment Brian shares his conversion to the Catholic Church and his desire for Christian Unity.

Brian & Katie’s Evolution of Wedding Dance

YouTube’s Dude Perfect

The Road to Emaús is the road to the Hispanic Community

Leigh Anne Playing Quads

What kind of world would it be…

if we would truly listen to one another…

Pope: Christ wants a humanity of dialogue

Which one are you?

It was the Christmas of 1980. Teague and I had been dating for about three months, and I was missing her dreadfully over the Christmas break. I invited her to come to Gruver and see me, but she said her dad thought that I should come visit her family first. So…I flew to Dallas.

The Johnston house was fun and full of life. With six children around there was never a dull moment. One afternoon Teague’s dad asked me what my major was. I answered that it was Ag Economics. He then asked, “How are your grades?”

I answered, “Oh, I’ve got a 2 point something…” He then wanted to know if that was any good. (Little did I know at the time that he had two masters’ degrees and knew all about grade point averages.) I then proceeded to explain that a 2 point something was about “average”.

Now he had me… I was in his sights. He had rehearsed it many times.

“Average, that’s the best of the worst, or the worst of the best. Which one are you?”

North to Alaska

The month of July has been almost like one long vacation. During the July 4^th weekend we went to Dallas for a Johnston visit and enjoyed watching a Ranger baseball game in 105 degree heat.

That next Thursday we flew to Seattle for our long anticipated Alaskan Cruise. My Mom and Dad took the entire Winger Clan on a cruise for their 50^th wedding anniversary. There were 19 of us who were able to go, and it was amazing! You can see a compilation of many of our pictures here at my flickr account.

We saw awesome sights, ate fantastic food, and were entertained to the max, but I believe the family would agree with me in that the best part of the trip was the dinner time we shared each evening. There is no better way to enjoy someone’s company than over a good meal. I was extremely blessed to get to know nieces and nephews in a way that I never had before. The seven days aboard the ship seemed long at times, but it takes a little time to build relationships. It was a joy to watch my children become closer friends to some of their cousins, some of them they only get to see a couple of days each year.

I was disappointed when I found out that there was no way we could attend Sunday Mass in Juno, Alaska while we were in port. I had already booked a whale watching trip for my Mom and Dad and our family. As we watched the first whale we saw rolling in kelp, I thought to myself, “Is this it?” A little while later we came upon a gam or gathering of whales. This in itself was unusual because the humpback whale is a solitary creature.

We were watching this gam and all of a sudden one of the whales jumped out of the water or breached! I just barely caught it out of the corner of my eye and then shortly later she did it again! Chills went down my spine. The group of whales then began “bubble net feeding” which our guide told us was a truly rare sight to see. The eleven whales in the gam would circle a school of fish and force them to the top of the water and then all of a sudden all eleven whales would surface with their mouths wide open eating the fish. The boat engines were shut off and an aqua microphone was lowered. We could hear the leader of the gam “singing” orders to the others as they circled the fish forcing them to the surface and synchronized their burst to the top. Again I could feel the chills.

Later our guide explained how rare it was for us to see all of the sights we had seen. In fact, she put the odds of us seeing all the things we saw at a 0.016% chance. Some might call it luck, others chance or maybe even destiny. I believe that it was the Divine Providence of God that put us in this position. He was always there, but from the first moment the whale breached I felt His mighty Presence.

May Feelings II

Oremus

Let us pray.

I was given a copy of Christian Prayer or The Liturgy of the Hours back in 2001.  After a priest showed me how to use the book, I tried to pray the different offices of the day. I am really only successful in praying Morning Prayer, and I miss that more than I should.

Today, I came across a post on Alan Creech’s Blog about a new podcast which he is beginning on the Liturgy of the Hours called Oremus which is Latin for let us pray.

I downloaded both and listend on my bike ride today.

I always need help in the area of prayer.