Die Buchwalds

All the Time!

Yesterday, Matt & I spent the day at Hosanna 2007 with some of the teens from our parish. It was a really great way to kick off the holiest week of the year and also to start thinking ahead to World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia.

The day started off with music from Who Do You Say I Am. They rock out loud even though they’re from Cleveland ;) The band was there the whole day, helping the keynote speaker and providing music for Mass in the evening.

This year’s keynote speaker was Jesse Manibusan. He used humor and music to encourage the teens to be radically Catholic and remind them that God is good all the time.

Pittsburgh’s own Jamie Dillon did a few more songs and some games after the keynote and then things got really interesting.

Seneca Valley alum and Diocese of Pittsburgh seminarian Brian Wolford gave a presentation on his experiences with the Chimbote Foundation. Not only was it nice to learn more about our diocese’s mission in Peru, but it was encouraging to see somebody we “know” who is discerning a call to the priesthood.

Mass with Bishop Bradley was amazing. He seemed genuinely glad to be able to celebrate Mass with the teens and he shared portions of the Holy Father’s Palm Sunday message to the youth of the Church.

During Mass, I realized that when Jesse said, “Father Ed picked me up from the airport,” he was talking about “my” Father Ed. I knew Father Ed many years ago before he was Father Ed. He and my uncle had been friends in seminary (Uncle Bernie eventually decided that the priesthood wasn’t for him). We (at least Mom & I) had lost track of where he was sometime after my sister was confirmed so I was excited to see that he really was still around. A few minutes before we had to leave we finally caught up with him long enough to say hi and for him to meet Matt.

The only bad news from yesterday is that Mom called while we were gone to tell us that Dad dislocated AND broke his shoulder on Saturday. As I’m writing, Mom should be on her way to bring him home from the hospital. I only talked to Mom for a few minutes this morning so I don’t have much of the story of what happened other than that he fell off a ladder and Mom says mostly he’s just in a lot of pain and is going to need somebody to help him do stuff for a while (which sounds a lot like the last time he dislocated his shoulder).

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P. S. I’ve had the chorus of Trading My Sorrows stuck in my head all night. It’s hard to type while spontaneously breaking out into hand motions.

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Gerbils are like miniature pepperoni trees. They run round, and occasionally have some bite to them. Sometimes I like to look at gerbils with a magnifying glass, because they like to stare back at me. It makes their eyes look really big. Unfortunately, when a gerbil has icey eye rays they can severely hurt you because of the magnifying lens. Luckily, if you have a cup handy, you can taste the rays’ delicious cherry flavour.

Pumpkins are also a subject of much intrigue. One pumpkin I owned started a coup and soon the Squash Dictatorship was overthrown. It used a combination of propaganda and guerilla warfare, ending with a tactical strike against the heart of the empire. Emperor Gourd was last seen lying bloody in a ditch outside of San Juan.

I really wish I had an avacado with which to exchange political discourses.

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So, Amy sent me a link to Catholic Ragemonkey talking about a John Kerry speach. He mentioned a quote (possibly partly not exact words) that went like so: “…that Den Mother taught me to see trees as the cathedrals of nature…blah, blah…and so we can and must march to the day of full equality for all women.” And commented how equality is good nad such, but that it was like a political sleight of hand. He started talking about nature and then BAM! equality for women, hoo-boy, ya betcha!

This was what I was talking about in my post before. If he were a comedian and he said something like that, I’d laugh. It’s exactly what I meant, sorta. Start with one premise, and then smash a different one into one’s field of thought by using some little twist. It’s a great thing! If you’re trying to make someone laugh. Not if you’re trying to be president.

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