John Schultz: August 2004 Archives
Plus a great pic of my wife!
This article was written about me for one of UMUC's online publications.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the SEC and Washington Post need to warn us about this:
Voice-Mail Stock Tips Are Phony
Still, it's in the family of obvious headlines:
"Christmas to Fall on December 25th This Year"
"Scientists Determine Cats Ignore Owners Until Hungry"
"Heinz Ketchup too Bourgeois for Theresa Heinz Kerry"
US senator Kennedy complains of falling on anti-terror no-fly list
It wouldn't surprise me at all if a couple of watch-list people were just hanging around thinking, "You know what would be funny? If Ted Kennedy couldn't get on a plane because he was on the watch list. My dad always said he was a meanace to democracy...
What are typing over there? No way dude - we can't do this!
Ok... It's K-E-N-N-E-D-Y.
Dude. I hope you've got your resume on the street. We will go down for this. Laughing all the way of course..."
My brother Steve, who as you know is in the seminary for this Diocese, was quoted in the Diocesan newspaper in an article about the Diocesan Choir:
"It is important that in the liturgy, we give God the most beautiful things we can," Schultz said. "Music is part of the celebration, and it is an offering."
Right on, Steve!
Please pray for him and all seminarians! He requested specifically that since he is doing the Spiritual Year Program at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, that we pray that he grows interiorly and shrinks exteriorly.
For those of you first timers to CL or frequent visitors with short-term memory problems, my parish did a big ol' survey on our music program. I'll put up more complete results, but here's some nuggets for you.
We got 114 surveys back over two weeks. Our church building fits around 800 total. The good news is the average score for whether singing is latin "helps me pray" got a 3.5 out of a possible five. The distribution of answers is pretty telling: lots of 5's, lots of 1's. Still - 3.5 out of 5 is pretty significant.
We did have a section for narrative comments. Some are helpful, some are the rantings of people with... how do I put this diplomatically... significant psychological issues bordering on paranoia.
One gentlement said the music at our Mass was dreary, not good for his small children and why don't the choirs get switched around since there are so many children at our Mass. I guess hymns and chants are not suitable for a "family" liturgy - give them to the old geezers who are up for the early Mass or maybe for the midday hangover Mass. But right in the mid-morning: that's primetime for Barney, Haugen, Veggie Tales, Priestly puppet shows and kazoos. Ok, I was exaggerating about the puppet shows.
In any case, and this almost made me hurl, his last line included the words: "... and you should make these changes for the children."
Which reminds me of this post.
The respondent included his name and phone number. I will refrain from posting it here since our site is visited by the Society for the Harassment of People Who Think They Should Do It "For The Children."
I was parked in the People's Republic of Maryland yesterday for a three-hour meeting and came out to find my Bush/Cheney car magnet gone. I'll have about three meetings a week at that location until the end of October, so here's my options:
1) Replace it and watch it disappear
2) Replace it with something that will annoy the thief more like "Kerry is a War Criminal" or "I'm Chasing Edwards, He's Chasing an Ambulance" or "Theresa Heinz Kerry for Queen" or "Let Them Eat Ketchup!"
3) Just do without a car magnet
Anyone have any other ideas?
Remember a few months ago I mentioned my parish was going to conduct a survey about the music program? Well, it's happened. I haven't tallied the scores for our morning Mass yet, but the comments are telling.
Some folks are complimentary and appreciate what we do. Some folks just circled the numbers and dropped it in the basket.
Some folks decided it was time to express their frustrations with life via our music survey.
If that sounds harsh, try this:
"The music at this Mass is very dreary. It should be happier like the music at the later Mass."
"Dreary" is not a word I would use to classify any of our repertiore.
"Dreary" is a highly subjective term.
It was also raining that day.
Those things aside, what is "dreary" music? Is chant dreary? Anything in a minor key that doesn't end on a Picardy third? Anything that doesn't have sharps in the key?
Most of the music we do clearly isn't thrilling. It's not going to get your heart racing, make you want to eat red meat or invade a communist country.
But don't mistake prayerful for dreay. Chant is prayerful, not dreary. Some of the motets we do aren't exciting or moving. What they are is devoid of most emotional expression we associated with our 21st century lives. It lacks all the emotional baggage of our pop music. So for some, dreary is down-right delightful.
More on the survey as I have time...
This headline from CNN:
"Poll: No 'bounce' for Kerry so far"
"So Far" being the operative word. As though the convention bounce is going to happen in mid-August.
CNN new mission statement:
CNN is among the world's leaders in wishful thinking. Our reporters work 24/7 to bring you our latest hopes and dreams disguised as news.
