Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,200 times in 2010. That’s about 17 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 41 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1296 posts. There were 4 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 2mb.

The busiest day of the year was January 11th with 1,707 views. The most popular post that day was Ubuntu v. Macintosh and Windows.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were linuxtoday.com, tuxmachines.org, friarminor.blogspot.com, en.wordpress.com, and en.search.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for holy is his name, the lord hears the cry of the poor, saint drogo, country contemplative, and st drogo.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Ubuntu v. Macintosh and Windows January 2010
16 comments

2

St. Drogo February 2008
2 comments

3

St. Irenaeus Prayer June 2006

4

The Lord hears the cry of the poor.. August 2007
1 comment

5

Holy is His Name September 2009
1 comment

Posted on

Mountain Madonna

image

After midnight Mass we joined the friars for juice, coffee and freshly made Christmas cookies. I love this picture of Mary and Jesus and I often imagine her holding me or any of us. Protecting us from harm. “Come down we beseech you O Lord and protect us. Let your holy angels guard us and keep us in peace.”  Merry Christmas everyone. 

Posted on

A long time

It has been a very long time since I have written anything and that is because I have had an incredibly busy fall. I’m back in school at St. Bonaventure University and taking 9 graduate hours this semester. I also finished up an internship and submitted my portfolio which represented 641.5 hours of administrative experiences. In the past two months I have applied for a couple of administrative positions too. I’m not sure of my future direction but it safe to say that I have found new life in the past 15 months since I nearly retired.

I’m teaching students again this fall too and that’s been great too. My 8th grade class is reading and studying and applying Daniel Pink’s, “A Whole New Mind.” The 7th grade class has been studying digital citizenship and both groups of students have been enjoying Google Sketchup.

I’ve seen some incredible progress in the life of a young person for whom I asked prayer for last year. Those of you who prayed and remembered this young person have had a tremendous impact on his life. I covet your prayers too as I have several research papers due in the next few weeks.

Just yesterday I reconnected through Facebook with a Navy shipmate I had no contact with since 1973. Social networking can be such a great resource.

Posted on

Care for Kids

I’m finally getting a chance to write. Wow! What a summer it’s been. I have been a busy boy, but it’s been a good kind of busy and it’s not over either. A year ago I enrolled at St. Bonaventure University in their Educational Leadership program and as part of that program I have been working in two different internships. One as a curriculum director and the other as an assistant principal. Four days a week this summer I rolled out of bed at 6AM, showered, dressed and climbed in my Rav4 and drove over to summer school at the Ellicottville BOCES Center. Students from four area school districts came everyday too for summer school. I got to work with a great staff of teachers and I had a great mentor who supervised me and gave me lots of keen insights and practical experience of what it’s like to be a principal at the middle and high school level.

I have lots of thoughts about where I’m going from here and it may be that I’ll just keep being the technology director that I am but maybe someone will give me a chance to lead or maybe I’ll get to do both. I really enjoyed working with the students and some of them challenged my ideas while others seemed to respond to my empathic outreach. I told many of them that one summer I had to attend summer school too, because I wasn’t the world’s best geometry student. I tried to help the students to see that failure is a part of life and that all lives include failure at some level and that being perfect isn’t the object, but that acceptance is what is most important. Some of the students responded to that and maybe the others did too. One of the hard to reach students nicknamed me “big bird.” No doubt someone my size and deportment looks a bit like Big Bird. I think I surprised this young man when I failed to take issue with his nickname. He was startled when I responded one morning with, “is that your nickname for me.” From the look on his face I could tell that he was shocked and a little embarrassed that I had heard him, but he was more shocked when I failed to respond negatively.

Many of the students who came to our school had lots of trouble in their lives and I tried to accommodate them while at the same time provide a positive direction for them. In addition to my co-principal duties this summer I worked with our curriculum director who is also in charge of writing grants and one of those grants centered around researching the demographics of our community and in the process becoming acutely aware of the demographic of those students I was working with. Cattaraugus County is home to some of the most beautiful flora and fauna in New York State. This summer has been an exceptionally beautiful summer. However it is home to increasingly disenfranchised rural poor and a middle class that is teetering. This fractured social fabric cries out for attention. The safety net here has gaping holes in it and generations are at risk. My heart ached for many of our students this summer and for the students during the regular school year. I often thought how can we reach these children? How do we impact them and their families. It’s easy to point fingers and assign blame but far more difficult to provide answers and change the culture. There are many desperate situations that cry out for attention.

Yesterday, in my reading I came across a program which I recommended to all the school administrators I worked with this summer. It’s called “Care for Kids” and it’s been successfully implemented in Louisville, Kentucky. I’d like to try it here and though I’m not in a leadership position currently I’m going to lead from where I am and as much as possible use the principles of this unique program to care for kids in my own sphere of influence.

Care for Kids Video


[brightcove vid=207598747001&exp3=85476225001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=69222501001&lbu=http://www.edutopia.org/louisville-sel-video&w=300&h=225]

Posted on

Saturday

I think Saturday is my favorite day of the week. It’s always fun to get up a bit later, make a cup of coffee or tea and then have some cereal with honey. It’s really the only day I eat breakfast. I’m not sure how I got in that habit, but I’ve been living this way for most of my adult life. Just a cup of coffee or tea most mornings and then out the door to work. Saturday is different. I love a nice bowl of cereal with honey. When I was a young boy I didn’t care for honey. I started liking honey in the mid-twenties and it’s been that way ever since. Honey goes well with tea, makes a great sandwich with peanut butter and is my preferred sweetener for cereal. This Saturday is particularly nice. Our daughter is home for an overnight and it’s such a lovely day. A lovely blue sky, full sun and family. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Posted on

Being fed

This has been one heckuva’ year. In the last year I’ve been through the entire gamut of emotion. From dejection, and despair to times of great elation and satisfaction, but central to this is the sense that all of this has been from a power beyond my reckoning and even in spite of me. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to write any of my thoughts as I had been in the habit of here on this blog. Tonight I’m taking the time to record them and also to attach a picture of a sumptuous feast from today’s brunch following Mass at Mt. Irenaeus. The beauty of the food and its bounty really caught my eye today and I had to share them.

Following brunch I spent sometime walking up the Mountain Road all the way to one of my favorite haunts, La Posada. I spent sometime just sitting quietly in the middle of the woods in my favorite hermitage.  This year has been hectic but fun and the weeks ahead seem to be more of the same.  I’m still reminded of Thomas Merton’s prayer about the road ahead.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. — Thomas Merton

Posted on

Anniversary

Yesterday marked the 27th anniversary of our wedding. Like most couple who mark such milestones we remember what we once looked like and the people who were at our wedding. Some of that number is gone from us now and so we remember them perhaps more vividly. Others like our own children, the very fruit, of our union and who have been and continue to be the focus of our lives seem to have with us since the beginning. That cannot be but it seems that way.

We spent an overnight in Buffalo, New York. Traveling a short 50 miles from our home doesn’t seem like much of a trip yet it provided us with a memorable overnight in the Queen City. We had great accommodations at the Embassy Suites there. A short trip to Niagara Falls last night after a great dinner at our hotel.

This morning we rose early to watch our daughter, Dara compete in the  Buffalo Marathon. She actually competed in the half-marathon. A thirteen mile run in no mean accomplishment and she did it in two hours and two minutes. We were very happy for her. Following the race and checking out of our hotel we traveled across the border to Ft. Erie and then up the Niagara Parkway past the Falls and on to Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON.   Niagara-on-the-Lake was mobbed today and so we only tarried long enough for a couple of tarts and juice. On our return trip on the Parkway we decided to pull off and enjoy the peaceful backdrop of the Niagara River.

There is something about the peaceful and contemplative setting of still waters. Whether I find myself along the Cooper River in South Carolina or the still waters of the Niagara along the Canadian border I return renewed and refreshed.

“he leads me beside the still waters.”

Posted on

Every wall is a door

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here, but its not been a long time since I wrote anything. As most college students will attest writing is not a lost art in college and this year in my graduate studies at St. Bonaventure University, I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing and enjoying it too. Next week I start another course and then this summer I’ll be working in an internship. My life has been very busy and I’ve really been too tired to write.

I think often of writing here, but most days I’ve been very tired so my Facebook and Twitter friends have seen much more of me than this blog has. A great deal has changed in a year. I’ve gone from nearly retiring to being fully engaged in teaching and learning and in the process I’ve earned 13 graduate credits at St. Bonaventure with another course to begin next week. Retirement holds no fascination now. I’m fully engaged and eager to keep plugging along.

There is an old expression from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “every wall is a door,” and those words could not have been more prescient in my case.  I have found that what lies beyond the door is not to be feared but to be embraced and while I continue to fear because it seems to be my nature I continue to embrace too.

Posted on

Laudate Dominum

Today was the gathering of our Secular Franciscan fraternity of St. Irenaeus. Our meeting began with nearly thirty minutes of Eucharistic adoration. I love adoration and it’s very simple at the Mountain. Just three small candles, some incense in small vessel and silence. We had skipped this activity for a couple of months and I was glad to see that we had it today. Laudate Dominum, Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes, Alleluia!

Posted on

My soul proclaims

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. That short sentence is the beginning of the Magnificat and it’s what I was listening to this morning as I drove along the country roads leading from my home in Franklinville, New York to the Franciscan Moutain Retreat in West Clarksville. I’ve written often of Mt. Irenaeus and its my home on Sunday morning. I enjoyed the ride and on the way I prayed the Franciscan Crown Rosary and listened later to John Michael Talbot sing the Magnificat.

I was feeling very grateful this morning as I reflected on the goodness of God and his expression in my life. When I came to live in the Southern Tier a bit over thirty years ago, I was a bit down on my luck and for many years I struggled to move elsewhere. There was a restlessness that brought me some emotional discomfort from time to time. In the past ten years and especially since I’ve been a Franciscan coming to weekly to the Mountain as it’s called,  that drive has been eliminated. Today I was reflecting on the goodness of my creator and the beauty of my surroundings. Even though it was raining this morning I felt the presence of the Lord and thought of his many blessings.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
My spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness;
behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things;
the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy,
According to his promise to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.