Author: John Schultz

We had an interesting music directors meeting at my parish where we discussed the use of the sound system for amplifying cantors and instruments. I tend to think that sound systems are necessary evils and that are often badly configured.
Some people seem to think that microphones and speakers exist so that everything can be loud. It’s the idea that a speaker or singer should “fill the church.” That way, you can be sure people hear everything, every word, syllable, breath and inflection. If a guitar or (heaven forbid) gaggle of guitars are all amplified, along with the singers, then this attitude tends to translate into BIG LOUD CAMPFIRE SING-A-LONG, where the roof in nearly blown off the church. The same thing can happen when the organist pull out all the stops (no pun intended.) I remember seeing a scrawled letter next to a fund-raising notice on a choir room bulletin board. The notice was for new pipes for the organ. The letter was from a very sensitive person who wrote “Don’t you think the organ is loud enough? And you want more pipes? Not a dime from me!!!!”
I like my amplification to bring the sound to a level where an attentive person can hear what’s going on. Just loud enough that the person still needs to concentrate and focus on what is being said or sung. Any louder and bad sounds become horrendous, and normal sounds are screams. It becomes very easy to tune out such an assault on the ears, and literally stop listening. Or course, there’s still some additional help for people with hearing problems. But overall – sound systems should encourage active listening.

General Magic calls its quits
The formerly hot Silicon Valley company once enjoyed investments from Apple and Microsoft and let rabbits wander free around its offices to inspire creativity.
I think that any company that lets rabbits wander free around their offices deserves to be out of business. The big question is: which creditor gets the rabbits at liquidation? What is the fair market value of said rabbits? What account do you close the Office Rabbit Assets to?

Work is crazy this week – we have several big projects going on and lots of business development activity. So I am blogging a bit less.
Teresa, Steve and I had dinner with a priest on Sunday night and I realized something I hadn’t before: many priests are anxious about the current happens enough to be changing how the minister. This priest told us he was no longer hearing confessions face to face. “It’s the priests perogative to determine the manner the confession is heard.” His concern is that any accusation would come down to his word vs. another word so he needs to have guidelines to try to minimize any problems.
It’s not an easy decision to make, I’m sure – but certainly indicative of the climate. I’m sure there’s men who walk around in their clerical garb wondering if the look they’re getting means that someone’s wondering if he is a child molester, an embezzler or has a large stock-pile of porn back at the rectory. It’s a tough time to be a priest, and a tough time to be a Catholic.
Point is, priests need our prayers very much.

Rod Dreher on bloggers and libel, along with some characters we’re all familiar with.

They’re delicious!