The Weirdest Thing I Never Finished

I came across this intro spot I made for a weird podcast idea. It is so weird, but looking back its also hilarious. Give it a listen. 

This is from over a year ago when we first moved to Texas, were living with my wife's parents, and looking for a house. I was driving over 1.5 hours to work ONE WAY.

My idea: read through the entire catechism in 30 days and record my thoughts while driving to work each day. 30 days, 30 episodes. RocketCat Blastoff...(such a weird name).

But its good to make weird stuff. You learn a ton and it makes that moment more obvious when you make something that really knocks it out of the park. For instance, when we recorded this episode of The Frank Show, our parish-based podcast show, we'd come a long way, learned a lot, changed a lot, and I feel like we hit a home run. It felt good.

Moral of the Story: Don't be afraid to try, to make weird stuff, or to try to make weird stuff.

Working on some videos...

Look out for some fun videos I'm working on! Here's a teaser...

Story Matters

Would you buy a thrift store porcelain figurine for $17 if someone wrote a fictitious story to explain its origins? The existence of such a thing as Significant Objects is a testament to the goodness of the internet. Authors wrote little vingettes to go with the crap objects, and they were then sold on eBay. The fact that all of these yard sale insignificants sold for a total of $8,000 is a testament to the power of story.

Jesus told lots of stories. People connect with stories. In evangelization and catechesis, you can root an idea or doctrine firmly into reality and your audience's mind by telling a story.

Tell more stories. End your talk with a story. Write a story into your thing. Put a story on the website. Throw a story into the newsletter. After that conference send out the story of one of the teen's experience to the parents.

Tell more stories.

Free Webinar on the Catechism and Cocktails

Hey. Its been awhile since we've talked. This ^^ is my new office and my new standing desk. And this is my new hands position I make when I'm testing out a camera angle. I've been super busy lately resurrecting Reverb Culture from its dusty hibernation. We've made a lot of podcasts, and one of our articles made it onto Patheos (and the front page of New Advent). And I'm working on a few other super cool projects that fall under Reverb Culture's evolving banner: reaching young adults and creating a culture of wild living based in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Its weird. And amorphous. But I keep doing it for (hopefully) the best reason: because I love it. Its not a ministry or an apostolate or new evangelization. I just really like making stuff. And maybe, like hipsters, because its not claiming to be these things, it therefore is all these things.

Or maybe not.

But hey, I'm really excited for the next experiment straight out of Reverb Culture. Its a free live webinar! Coming to you live 7:00pm CST on Thursday May 21!

Over the past four years, I've

learned a heck of a lot about the catechism, both in theory and in practice. I've researched and read a whole shelf-full of books, homilies, and communio articles on the catechism. I've stalked the web for tools and resources. I've used the catechism every week in catechesis (I'm a youth minister, remember?), in young adult settings, at Diocesan Conferences, men's retreats, RCIA, Theology on Tap, and catechist trainings.

You might be thinking "Whoopty doo dee doo! You read the catechism and talk about the faith. Big deal."

Yeah, that's what I used to think too. But after four years of reading the catechism and reading holier people than me talk about the catechism (Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Ratzinger, Fr. John Hardon, Fr. Eugene Kevane, Barbara Morgan, Pope St. John Paul II, etc) I began to start praying the catechism. Then slowly the catechism became a framework, a way of life, and finally a style of being Christian that seemed to all originate back with Acts 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, to the breaking of the bread, to communal life, and to prayer."

I want to share this way of being a disciple of Jesus through devotion to the deposit of faith in a way that rouses the heart of modern man. It is in no way boring or stale or heady. Sure, the Four Pillar Life starts with reading what seems at first glance to be dry, inside baseball, theological language. But its when we start taking the Deposit of Faith and incarnating it in our lives that our Christianity can really become interesting, and deep, and invincible. It becomes unswayed by popular opinion or scandal or fear. I'm not championing an ignorant shutting out of the world and clinging to closed-minded dogmas. I'm talking about spending a little less time with the popular arguments and a little more time returning to the deep wells of the Deposit of Faith that seem untapped as sources to draw out and base the culture we build off of. If we meditated on the Trinity only half as much as we meditated on sex, I think we'd have better music, and art, and beer, and sex.

We have been summoned to return to a way of devotion to the Deposit. A return to allowing the echo of Faith to reverberate in our lives. To build a Culture of Reverb. (I'm sure you didn't see what I just did there...) In this way I hope Reverb Culture answers the challenge to engage the world and with the catechism to "retransform the letter into a living voice."

This webinar is a first step. Training wheels almost. I hope it represents this idea of an Acts 2:42/Catechism/Reverb Culture way of doing things. And I also hope that it makes the catechism seem less intimidating and honestly, more fun and raw and engaging.

The hour and a half webinar is really just an experiment, so I don't know if you'll ever be able to watch it again after we do it live. I'm really trying to make something I don't see out there. I'll give some pointers on the catechism, take audience questions from y'all, show you two of my favorite cocktail recipes, and send you some free pdf downloads to help you turn into an expert catechism wielder. It will be fun. Bring a beer.

So if you're interested, check out the webinar landing page and sign up to join and reserve your spot. When you sign up I'll send you details on how to join the webinar when we get closer to May 21. Be sure to tell your friends.

Click here to check out the nifty spiffy landing page for the webinar.

Update: The Saga of Wood Laminate

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I haven’t written much in a few weeks, for lots of good reasons I would like to catalogue here. Prepare yourself for the mega update post.

The biggest news is that, after 6+ months of looking and looking, and looking, and commuting an hour and a half to work one way each day, and looking more…. we finally bought a house!

We're first time home owners. Buying a home is a harrowing experience. Especially when that total price of the home shows up in your bank account as a big fat red number… So I guess we grew up a little more on Dec. 4th of last year.

So we were blessed to be able to afford a modest home, within 20 minutes of work, with over half an acre lot. We’re really pumped about the lot size for a few reasons:

1. We have crazy boys.
2. We want to have chickens.
3. My wife wants a goat. (I’m not down with this one yet…)

The small downside is that the house was built in the 60’s and has been rented out for the past 10+ years. We decided to replace carpet in the boy’s bedrooms and the office (YESSSS!!!! I GET A OFFICE!!!!!) with wood laminate.

And Thus Begins the Saga of the Wood Laminate

Act 1: The Naivete

So as the wife and I were looking at what needed to be fixed or replaced in the house and talking about wood laminate, an insidious idea crept into our heads:

Well, if we install the laminate ourselves (Me. Myself.) we could save like… $1,000 or more…

So the deal was, if I could buy a super nice dual bevel compound DeWalt mitre saw with some of the hypothetical future money we’d save, I’d do the job. We looked up some Youtube videos on installing wood laminate. Seemed easy enough. Tear up the carpet. Make sure everything’s level. Put down some padding. Install the laminate by tapping it together and interlocking it. Cut some pieces. Drink some beer. Finish in a day or two. Have friends over to marvel at your rich mahogany-looking floors and drink fine wine while listening to Christmas music and laughing.

Act 2: Preparing for Preparing

So on Dec. 4, after a hectic time closing on our house (my driver’s license was expired so we had to drive 1.5 hours back to the in-laws and look for my passport in a trailer we packed up with all our stuff 6 months ago) we closed and I got to pick up the key to our first house. It was pretty surreal.

I went to Lowes and got a load of supplies and headed to the house. Tearing up the old carpet was pretty easy. Nic helped me tear up carpet. (Nic from the increasingly popular website ngutierrez.com)

Now, the crucial step in laying wood laminate, or flooring of any type, is prepping the subfloor. That’s the stuff that is under everything. For us that means making sure the concrete slab of this house from 1960 with major foundation repairs is as level and flat as possible.

Hmm….

So I took a really really long time figuring out ways to survey the three rooms, finding low and high spots, checking the levelness of every 6 inches or so. I finally gave up on trying to get our bedrooms level. The whole house slants and slopes so that would be pretty near impossible. All the walls and doors and everything is crooked and there are very few right angles.

Ok.

So it turns out, through some internet research, that what is actually more important than levelness is flatness. Which makes sense. The thing we want to avoid is low or high spots and bumps because these will be felt as you’re walking across the floor and the laminate is buckling and bending.

So we need things to be flat.

Ok.

So after a few more trips to Lowes I buy a bag of this patching material for concrete subfloors to use in small areas where you find a low spot. I was pretty intimidated by the idea of pouring self leveling crap all over the entire room, so I thought I’d pick the easy way out with this stuff. I started with a low spot in the office. I prepped and planned for way too long and one night after work while by myself I went for it, which is where things began to get real interesting…

Act 3: The First Foibles

I’ve been staying by myself at the house working at Church in the day and going home to the house in the evenings and working on the floors. Working a lot.

The first incidence happened one of these nights. It could have been a Saturday night. Late at night. I’m by myself. I may or may not have by now responsibly consumed an adult beverage or two. I’m ready to pour some concrete.

I’m nervous. And excited. I just made the biggest most intense purchase of my life and I’m about to pour a large bucket of liquid into one of the rooms of this huge debt-building and I can practically feel the testosterone increasing my total body hair count.

I mixed up some of the patch stuff with water outside in a huge bucket.

Now the important thing to note that explains what follows is that the bag clearly states that you have like 10 minutes to use this stuff before it starts hardening. I now have a huge bucket full of cement that is starting a 10 minute clock ticking in my head.

I rush into the office and pour a tiny bit way in the back near the wall on the low spot. It doesn’t look like that much so I pour a bit more. I stare blankly at this glob of liquid I guess expecting it to do something. Then I get a trowel and start spreading it.

CRAP.

CRAAAAAAAAAP.

Its spreading a lot further then I thought I would be able to spread it. And its THICK. Panic suddenly hits me. I have a 4 inch thick glob of cement in my office that is quickly drying and when I try to spread it out….there is A LOT of it. I’m about to have a concrete bowling ball permanently attached to the back of this office floor.

I frantically get on my knees and start pulling as much of the glob back towards the rest of the room. With the trowel I’m scraping this stuff around me on both sides trying to spread as much of it out as possible.

“aaaahhhhhh……”

I’m literally groaning out loud in frustration and anxiety. I keep saying things out loud like: “$#@! #%$@! @#####$$%%$#@JFDSAF” and “WHAT WAS I THINKINGGGGGGGGG…….” and “ITS TOOOOOOO MUUUUCCCCCHHHHH…..”

I’m spreading. And spreading. My knee goes into some of the concrete mud. The first casualty. Then my shoe gets in some. Great. I’m on my knees trying to get as much of the concrete away from the back of the room as possible. Pulling it towards me and spreading it all around. Its flinging onto the walls. I don’t care if its level at this point, I just care that its not a huge dried glob of permanent cement on the floor. I get a lot of cement on my arm. I scream like a girl and run to the bathroom because I don’t want my arm to be a statue for the rest of my life. I remember I have cement on my shoe and scream again. I remove that dirty shoe and go to the bathroom. I run back into the room and continue with concrete triage.

Then I realize there is now so much concrete on the floor that I can’t reach the back of the room with my trowel anymore. And there are still big lumps.

You devil cement.

Caught in an impossible situation and feeling like I can relate to being slowly crushed by a stupid glacier or something I do some weird combonation of falling and leaning against one of the walls with my arm and reaching down with the other arm to trowel and spread.

I’m out of time. And I can’t reach this big spot right near the back wall. And I NEED to get to that spot. Its so super thick.

I still can’t reach the back of the room.

Desperate times require sacrafices. I decide to step into the concrete mud, getting me closer to the back of the room where I need to spread.

Now a quick lesson about concrete cement stuff. Essentially its very fine powdery sand suspended in liquid. Now right before I stepped in this devil liquid I thought I would gush and stick a bit. Not so. Imagine stepping onto a thin sheet of ice laying on top of a floor of ice. It felt something like that.

So my one foot goes down and I just begin slowly sliding, on one foot, towards the back of the room. Off balance and surprised by the liquid sand demon’s tormentings, I flail my arms and spaz out, which then forces my other foot to have to go down into the mud. I’m now sliding on two feet and taking a few more steps to try to slow my approach to the back of the stupid wall.

I get the back spread out thin and get to some other problem areas and then start fearing that my poor toes have seconds to live before they are forever Han Solo-ed into mishaped blocks of cement. The familiar stomach-dropping and fear coupled with anxiety and defeat washes over me. I run to the bathroom - oh crap I can’t because my feet are covered in cement mud - I crawl to the bathroom and start washing off my feet, hoping that two days from now we aren’t having a conversation with a plumber that sounds like: “Yeah your bathtub pipe is packed solid with cement. Did someone fill your bathtub with cement? It’d be pretty stupid to put lots of cement in your bathtub and down your drains…or to put cement in your bathtub at all…”

Somewhere in North Texas that night a nice woman from our bank who handled our martgage crapped her pants. She did not know why.

These were the amazing results of my FIUY project.

But wait, there’s more!

The next morning or so my wife drove down to the house, the kids were with a babysitter, and we were going to work all day on the house. We are looking at a windowsill and there is a soft spot. I poke it. Hmm… looks like termite damage. I poke around more and find a lot more soft spots. Hmm… I poke into a pretty big spot AND SEE LOTS OF LIVING TERMITES SCRAMBLE.

“F$#@!!#%^&”

I was not aware that my stomach could travel all the way down to my cemented feet.

We were destroyed. I was convinced that the entire house was filled with termites and at any moment the roof could collapse in on us and that our house just depreciated $100,000. I started wondering how long all five of us could survive on a jar of peanut butter. Maybe the crunchy kind would provide more nutritional value. Plus it would boost morale during the winter months.

My wife and I went out into the living room to wallow in self-pity for a few silent moments. I tried to flip on a light in the hallway, but it didn’t work. “Great, something else broken.” I tried another light in the house. Nothing.

Our house suddenly had no electricity. Danielle calls the electric company and they thought we wanted the electricty to start on the 11th of December, not the 4th. It was the 6th. I needed electricity to run the shop vac and other power tools. Looks like we aren’t working on the house for a few days…

Act 4: The Kübler-Ross Period

To make this long story less long, the termite damage isn’t as bad as we thought. There was a lot of cosmetic termite damage in the past, but it had been treated. We got the whole house treated and will keep an eye out. Not that big of a problem. The electricty got turned back on and it was nice to have a break away from the house and it also made us realize that this wasn’t just a weekend job, this was going to take some time and love and care.

So the following week I buy more supplies, the people at Lowes are suspicious that I’m sleeping in the kitchen department at night, and other supplies ahem (beer), and get back to work. To make a long story short, the rest of this Saga, and just moving into and fixing up the house in general, is summed up in the Kübler-Ross’ description of the stages of grief.

Lots of denial coupled with ignorance.

“It couldn’t be that hard. Just pour self levling stuff in the entire room and watch it become perfectly level!” “We can fix this!”

Anger.

“WHY IS EVERYTHING COVERED IN CAULK??????????” “MOLD IS GROWING THERE AND I FREAKING HATE NATURE.” “Termites are the spawn of Satan.” “A BLIND MAN ON FIRE COULD PLASTER BETTER THAN THIS”

Lots of bargaining.

“If we put down trim maybe we won’t notice the huge hole.” “It only caves in a little when you walk on it.” “We’ll just put a rug over that.”

Depression.

“We’ll never get this done.” “We’re going to go broke and starve and they’ll find our bodies covered in plaster and termites. I hate termites.”

And lastly, acceptance.

But we’ve finally made a lot of progress. We painted three rooms, put wood flooring and trim in two of them, unpacked the majority of our stuff, and fixed a lot of broken things.

Lots of friends came and helped at different points throughout the whole process, and we couldn’t have gotten this far without them. (Thanks Jon, Kathleen, Nic, Ryan, Cindy, Jim, Randy, Toni, James, Andy, Josh, that guy at Lowes, and everyone else!)

I even built a standing desk in the office out of some scrap wood. The office is really coming along nicely…

What this all really means

For the last 6 months, our lives have felt pretty transitory. Living with the in-laws, commuting constantly, not having all our stuff, new job, looking for a new house, and everything else that came with this huge transition.

We’re really starting to settle in. It feels great.

So…with all that being said. I’m excited to have a few small slivers of extra time to work on some projects that I’ve been neglecting. The biggest being…

REVERB CULTURE!

If this is the first time you’ve heard about Reverb Culture, get your butt over to ReverbCulture.com right now.

My commitment to Reverb Culture isn’t waning anytime soon, and even with 6 months of nothing happening on the site, there has been a small and steady stream of activity behind the scenes. People kept buying catechisms, the Facebook page hit 939 likes as of this post, I still get lots of positive emails and comments from people, and a few other behind the scenes things I can’t really mention now.

Anyways, I’m pumped to get back into the swing of things and get Reverb Culture back up and running. God hasn’t stopped tugging my heart toward it and its going to be a wild ride seeing what God does with it.

This site

I’m going to start back up my weekly Tuesday posts on all sorts of random strange topics. I haven’t yet been able to nail down a specific topic or niche or even a set of topics for this site, but I think that’s just fine. The catechism, coffee, and hipsters. And some occasional youth ministry posts.

In Conclusion

If you read this far, I caught my hair on fire once when I was a kid (accident). Stay tuned for more excitement. Whew.

That’ll do pig. That’ll do.

Merry Thanks-Giving from Your Over-Caffeinated-Catechist

http://youtu.be/TQnXuc-TbeU

"What have you that you did not receive?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Firstly thank you, dear reader, for reading and hanging out here with me on this thing. Its been fun, and I think if you and me stick together, we'll really go somewhere. So in honor of this glorious holiday that is frequently under appreciated and ruined by preemptive commercial Christmas decorations, I thought I should take a minute to send you a personal and intimate video exhorting you to think about the issues this Thanksgiving.

For all Thanksgiving-relevant Catechism passages check out this link.

Eat some turkey for me.

You're welcome.

Hippest Stuff Roundup

Trying something a little different, this week's post is a roundup of a bunch of super hip awesome stuff I've found around the world wide wild web in the past couple weeks. Broad range of things made this list, and I think you should know about them.

Grid-it

This is the coolest freaking thing ever. You have all those loose bits of wire and pens and usb drives and paintbrushes and batarangs in your work bag or laptop bag or whatever. The Grid-it helps you organize all that onto one pad of grippies and helps your OCD tendencies. I would love to have one for my work bag. My advice is to send this link to someone who will buy you a Christmas present.

You can buy them at Cocoon Innovations. (This is not an affiliate link. I'm not getting paid to say this is awesome. But it is.)

Rome From Above

Spirit Juice Studios. If you don't know about them, you should. They flew a quad-copter above Rome and got some epic shots. Such cool. Such hipster.

http://vimeo.com/110809710

Drunk Ex-Pastors

Hat-tip to good friend Sean for sending this podcast my way. Its not as bad as it sounds, but bad enough to be amazing. Two ex-protestant pastors (one now agnostic, one now a Catholic) drink modestly and talk about a broad range of topics. You might recognize the Catholic as Jason Stellman from the blog Creed Code Cult.

I really enjoy this podcast because they are smart and the conversations between a Catholic convert and an agnostic are super interesting. They both know Scripture super well, and the fundamentalist jokes abound. I really enjoy Jason's anecdotes about the life of a used-car salesman. If you share an episode on social media, they'll drink a shot in your honor and give you a shoutout at the beginning of the next episode!

I recommend starting with episode 11. It has a lot of the back story behind the podcast and Jason Stellman's super interesting story about leaving his protestant roots and damning himself to hell.

Listen to Drunk Ex-Pastors. You can find it on iTunes or on your podcast app.

The Frank Show

Speaking of podcasts, my fellow coworkers/friends started a podcast for our parish called The Frank Show. (Frank as in open and honest. Also as in short for Francis...'cause we're St. Francis of Assisi Parish...yeah...). For the first bunch of episodes we are reading through Sherry Weddell's book "Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus".

Each week myself, Jared Zimmerer, and Nic Gutierrez will read a chapter and discuss. Where we will go from there? Who knows. But it will be frankly, captivating.

Buy the book or steal it from a friend and read along with us! We are currently only on Soundcloud, but we'll be getting the podcast up on iTunes soon. Let us know what you think!

https://soundcloud.com/sfafrankshow

T-shirt Mock Up

This is a quick little design I'm thinking about making a t-shirt. What do you think? Do you want a t-shirt like this? It seems like parishes everywhere are struggling to find enough catechist volunteers for the number of kids they have. Being a catechist is an important calling in the Church. Hopefully this t-shirt will wake some people up!

It probably wouldn't have the Reverb Culture logo on it. It would also be a t-shirt.

Let me know if you'd buy one. If enough people respond, I'll make them!

Save a Soul. Be a Catechist.

Great band named Joseph

Hat tip to good friend Jon. I'm really diggin' this female trio with lots of harmony and folk. Sweet band website too. If you're looking for them on Spotify, type "Joseph" and then one of their song titles like "Lifted Away" (one of my fav's).

Dribbble

Hat tip to Inspired Angela for showing me Dribbble. In a recent Coffee Interview I picked Angela's brain about design and inspiration. Dribbble is a place where graphics designers showcase their work. You can search things like "newsletter" or "logo" or "christmas" and get some inspiration for the project you're working on. All art is stolen. Recently I had to design a 5 foot banner with all Christmas/Advent schedule of all events going on at our Church. Dribbble gave me some color palette ideas and helped get me past the blank page of death.

Jim Lepage's Designs

Speaking of graphic design, I found this guy Jim somehow and he has an amazing collection of designs made for every book of the Bible. I really dig his style. Some of the designs are scandalous, so you've been warned. He's real good.

Sophia Sketchpad

These are some cool videos to help with catechesis. I really love those drawing-while-explaining videos, and these will be a bunch that cover the faith. They are just starting out, so send them some love and some money. It looks like they are gearing this towards classroom use, and they have some supplemental teacher resources to go with the videos.

Firepole Fail

And last but certainly the most important: this video sent to me by my good friend Chris.

There is so much in this. So many life lessons. Such depth. Such metaphor. Life.

---

Did you like this post? Is there anything you would add?

If you liked this post, you might enjoy Tools, Tech, and Gear for Parish Design and More Tech for Parish Ministry

Augustinian Soul Music: Sam Rocha "Late to Love" Release

If St. Augustian owned an electric guitar instead of a pen and hung out with Ray Charles, then his Confessions might have sounded something like this.

Sam Rocha is a philosopher, author, and musician who released his Kickstarter funded album Late to Love (Wiseblood Records) yesterday.

"Late to Love is an original concept album that performs a reading of Augustine’s Confessions through soul music. It is not a generic ode to a saint or holy person, nor it is a neutral and uncontroversial celebration of an important ancient book. From beginning to end Rocha offers a bold and fresh reading of Augustine’s Confessions where the form is the content, where melody and verse take the place of assertions and argument." (from latetolove.bandcamp.com)

He calls it Augustinian Soul. And I believe him.

This description, obviously written by Sam, I found on the Wiseblood website:

"Soul music is not so much a genre as it is a sentiment, a quality. When a musician “has soul” it is not something that is stylistic or technical. No. To have soul is to have a certain conviction, grit, and sincerity. Soulful music is music that has the capacity to show and offer love. Augustinian soul music, then, verges on redundant since, for Augustine, it is the heart that moves the soul. Two traditions, philosophy and music, have for centuries reflected and practiced the art of soul craft. In Late to Love, Sam Rocha, a philosopher and musician, combines those traditions in pursuit of the sound and song that can be recognized as soulful, that moves the body, heart, and mind, reaching out to the intimate place where the ego is absent and where God abides in its place. This place is what has been called the soul; its song endures in and out of religious or devotional settings – and for good reason. The world today is filled with stylists and technicians of all sorts, bureaucrats and managers and experts, but, in the midst of so much knowledge and sophistication, the simple human touch, the touch that reaches the heart and moves the soul without insulting the intellect, is all too rare. Late to Love is soul music, inspired by the soul craft of music and philosophy, without comprising the integrity of either."

This album is raw and doesn't give a what. (Listen to it here on band camp.)   You'll find some disturbing lines that reveal a lover who is lacking any filter of self-consciousness. Some of the most disturbingly sincere lines:

"My watch hands don't glow my heart ain't got no usb" "Pinocchio is fake, but that nose seems so real" "If the water ain't hot, then them dishes ain't clean. Make your eggs with love."

My favorite line by far is from the track Alien House:

"While the alien wishes for, just awhile longer, washed like soiled dishes, before the funk grows any stronger."

There is depth I'm missing to some of these lines and songs as a whole that edge this album close to esoteric, and maybe that's just the soul of song. Some people smarter and more philosophical than myself have already caught on to what Sam is grooving.

Sam excels at that grooving and whining electric guitar fingerpicking style that often makes me think I'm hearing bow ties and black dresses clinging glasses and silverware in a late night jazz club. This is a diverse album though with a wide range of sound across the tracks.

I threw down $50 for the Late to Love cause with two others who challenged Sam on Facebook to do a ridiculously sincere cover of a Veggie Tales song. Here is the glorious rendition:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/l374EZU7G7o?list=UUgUqMckwi8jhFXSfjuJqPhg]

Buy Sam Rocha's Album Late to Love because its a good album with roots in truth and funk. Its hard to come across a marriage of the two as sincere as this.

And make sure you have a copy of The Confessions of Saint Augustine to read along late tonight while listening to this album with a glass of whiskey.

Some Notes to the Director of My Personal Video Trailer

Hey guys! Real excited about this upcoming project. Thought I'd let you take a quick sneak peak at the email I just sent: Hey Rob,

Thanks a lot for agreeing to work on this project with me. Glad to be working with Spirit Juice Studios, you guys are the best.

The purpose of this video trailer is to get people to see how awesome I am so they invite me to come speak at some big conference or something.

Contained herein are some Director’s Notes to help us during the filming process.

Scene 1

A wide-angle shot of Times Square at street level. The sun is beginning to set on the Big City. Tiny people in the distance walk to and from pagan destinations unknown. Cars are passing. Wait, who’s that left of center strutting toward the camera? A handsome man, 5’11”, brown hair, athletic build. Catholic.

Ok I’ll just say it - Me.

He/me is wearing a shirt that says “Ask me why I’m Catholic” but it doesn’t look lame it looks hipster. I’m carrying a RSV Bible and my pants are too tight in a way that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable but also slightly comfortable in my ability to relate. The Bible is the big leather kind with the icon of Jesus on the front because I’m serious and I’m here to freaking change lives. He/I stare into the camera walking confidently with a glimmer in my eye that says “Hey there. I know you know Jesus knows what we’re doing here.”

Crowds start to gather around me. I extend my arms towards them. Bystanders start weeping uncontrollably. I kiss a baby. I make a man blind just to restore his sight again. Some epic Gregorian chant mixed with dubstep starts playing and now you’re thinking “Holy cats, am I going to crap my pants?”

I walk under a marquee that reads “TONIGHT: Edmund Mitchell and Jesus Christ.” and walk into Madison Square Garden Arena.

Black screen with white text: You aren’t going to crap your pants.

Yet.

Scene 2

Cut to the dark arena bursting at the seams. People are sitting two to a seat and gaze at the empty stage. The anticipation is so thick you can cut it with a thurible. Its the first International Steubenville Conference held in Madison Square Garden.

Camera zooms and floodlights direct to the rafters. Pope Francis drops in from the ceiling on a zip line and fireworks shoot out of his shoes as he flies around the arena with a megaphone chanting “EDMUND EDMUND EDMUND”, hyping the sea of people into a chaotic frenzy.

Matt Maher is off stage playing stuff he didn’t know he could play that’s coming from deep within his Canadian soul and he’s killing it. King David is playing a flaming harp that sounds like Jimmy Hendrix was a Catholic while the bass just keeps dropping and there aren't speakers anywhere because the music is coming from creation itself and even the rocks are crying out: EDMUND! EDMUND! EDMUND!

I enter stage left carried on Jim Gaffigan’s shoulders. The audience craps their pants and the shockwave of decibels created from the eruptive cheers/pantcrapping causes a small tidal wave in Michael Vorris’ hair felt halfway around the world.

No one dares ask me why I’m Catholic because my holiness is electric. I open my mouth to speak as Jesus looks down from heaven and nods approvingly. My tongue becomes incorruptible even though I’m not dead yet.

I’m just warming up.

I speak for 40 days and 40 nights and people are living on my words alone because they’re coming forth from the mouth of God using my mouth to let the words come forth but not in a prideful way. More like in a humble and instrumentally causal kinda way.

Chris Stephanik is speechless.

He’s not there, but he heard from someone who was there that Mark Hart said something funny and no one noticed because I’m speaking and you have to PIPE DOWN Mark because I’m KILLING IT. Ennie Hickman falls out of his chair somewhere in the middle of the woods. Bob Rice gives me a standing ovation and lets me wear his beard. Scott Hahn comes on stage for a few minutes but all anyone remembers is he said “What Edmund said.” Fr. Mike Schmitz gives me permission to start all my talks with the word “So,” and the camera keeps panning as the bass keeps dropping.

The crowd encores me three times and Moses has to get involved holding my arms up while I tell another story that’s hilarious and cuts you to the heart and makes you want to become a Priest and call your mom and apologize.

People go straight to heaven. Everyone. Just lifted up.

Scene 3

Quick montage of clips as Matt Maher continues to play in the background singing a rock ballad to me and Jesus and the bass continues to drop. Just some ideas.

Cut to: I’m in Honduras hiking up a mountain carrying a Priest carrying the Monstrance as thousands of Hondurans chase us.

Cut to: I’m standing on top of St. Peter’s shaking my groove thing.

Cut to: I’m in Africa playing soccer with kids in a sandy field while holding a child all inside a Facebook profile picture.

Cut to: I’m at the UN saying challenging things about Jesus and forgiveness and the true meaning of tolerance. I make Vladimir Putin shoot milk out his nose I’m so funny.

Cut to: I’m hanging out with Zac Effron on MTV and kids think I’m totally relevant and look up to me like that cool older brother they want to be.

Cut to: I’m in Mass levitating as I pray and Cardinal Dolan and Stephen Colbert take me out to breakfast afterwards and ask me to tell them that one story again and pray over them.

————————————————————————————————-

You get the gist. Just throwing out some ideas. I’ll call you in the morning so we can go over this in more detail.

+JMJ Edmund

A Few Things Before We Hold Hands At Mass

Hi. My name is Keith. You haven’t noticed, but I’ve been watching you ever since I squeezed past your knees to get to the middle of this pew about 9 minutes ago. I want to let you know that today God has preordained you to be blessed in a very special way. As of now, you have passed my peripheral inspection and I will actually hold your hand during the Our Father. Before God formed you in the womb he knew you, and before you chose this prime pew real estate on what seemed like a normal Sunday 11:30 Mass, the angels have been leading you ever closer to this hand communion. During the Our Father here at St. Dude the Nice we normally all hold hands lovingly, as you probably know because you look like you come here often. Not like, in a bad way though.

Now I want to let you know, I don’t just let anyone hold my hand. Have you heard of MRSA? It’s scary stuff. And its an evil in our Church that is literally leading people to Satan.

But you… You look clean.

But not too clean. I sat next to a guy once who looked too clean.  I didn’t trust him. Feast of St. Stephen, day after Christmas. He had a Michael Vorris look to him. Didn’t hold his hand. Nope.

But you. You have all your teeth and a holiness that really shines in a totally humble and profoundly charitable way. Well, actually I really just noticed that you are wearing a scapular.

Oh hey, First Reading… It always creeps up on me.

Okay let’s talk general guidelines real quick.

First. We will by no means be interlocking fingers. Interdigitation is for hippies. If you try something like that I will end our mildly-intimate physical prayer contact so fast you’ll think I was Pope Urban the VII.

Second. I’m not a fan of hand-raising at the words “For the kingdom and the power…”. If you are, well good luck there buddy. I know two things for sure.

1: The small old women at this parish are conspiring to kill the prime minister of Malaysia.

2: My hand will stay firmly at upper-mid waist level.

If you got some beef with that, you can take your liturgical non-sense down the street where they sing Lord of the Dance, says me. I’m going to stay at waist level because I love Jesus. Plus I work out and can think heavy. You really want to attempt to hold this beast of a forearm up that high for that long? I pray a lot of rosaries. And Father could be feeling particularly saucy today, audible, and then sing the Our Father. What then?

Thirdly. My hands get real sweaty. Don’t clasp my prayer digits too firmly. We aren’t going to prom. I’m not going to buy you dinner.

As long as we are good on this 3-Point System, we won’t have problems. Who knows, maybe next week I’ll sit near you again. Maybe a pew in front of you. And when you see me not holding hands with Karen, that Mom with lots of kids and who knows how much bacteria on her grimy grubbies, we’ll make that knowing eye contact during the sign of peace and you’ll feel the warm embrace of sweet divine affirmation. And we’ll give each other a quick nod and hand shake and you’ll remember this day as the day Keith allowed you to hold his hand during the Our Father. It’s a big day for you. Are you ready for it? Do you feel the consolation?

I’m definitely staying as far away as possible from Felipe the Usher, who’s partially deaf and would hold my hand through the dismissal if I let him. Gross.

Alright here we go. Show time. Oh, one last thing.

Don’t. Even. Think. About. Hugging. Me.

Your Temporarily More-Than-A-Stranger,

Keith