Helping Catholic Parish Ministers unlock their ministry and defeat burnout forever. ❤️🔥
5 Things to Say to Incoherent Crazy Commenters
- I really appreciate what you're saying but I can't see you clearly enough.
- I will only respond by referring you to my essay on this subject.
- Could I speak to the drug dealer of the house, please?
- I can smell your underwear through the phone. (ht Merlin Mann)
- That's interesting. Could you expound on that a little more? (Repeat ad infinitum)
Jerry Seinfeld: How to Write a Joke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWxXyCfW5s I love this clip of Jerry Seinfeld showing the New York Times his process behind writing a joke. A joke two years in the making...about a poptart. Its interesting how deeply he thinks about his process, in a career where you might be tempted to think comedians just stumble upon funny material, or are just naturally funny.
He talks about trying to find the perfect connection between two parts of the joke.
"I'm looking for the connective tissue that gives me that really tight smooth link, like a jigsaw puzzle link. And if its too long, like a split second too long, you will shave letters off of words. You count syllables, you know to get it just... its more like song writing."
He makes me want to work harder on talks and catechesis and writing. Maybe take one 20 minute talk and work on it for two years. Obsessing about the delivery and the connections. Shaving off words. And praying about it. Praying and shaving. Praying and shaving. (What a t-shirt...)
Also, take note of the fact that he's weird about always using yellow pads and a specific type of pen - Bic clear barrel blue. Which if you're a long-time fan of the blog, you know how weird I am about Pilot G-2 10's.
I'm developing a theory that being obsessive about the small things gives room for being creative in the big things.
Something like "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones." Luke 16:10.
So be trustworthy and use a Pilot G-2 10. Be faithful in the small matters my son.
And,
Work hard on your craft.
Pray.
And get back to work.
Tig Notaro has Cancer and You Can Too
"Hello."
[Applause]
"Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you?"
[Applause and some weird laughing from the audience.]
"Hi. How are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer. How are you?"
[Audience laughing.]
"Ah, its a good time. Diagnosed with cancer."
[Awkward audience but still laughing.]
sigh "Feels good. Just diagnosed with cancer." sigh
Tig Notaro walked on stage in Largo, Los Angeles in 2013 and opened her stand-up routine with this deadpan greeting.
Over the next thirty minutes Tig externally processes her very recent (days, if not hours prior) diagnosis of cancer, her mother abruptly passing away, and a horrible breakup.
"Its okay. Its gonna be okay. It might NOT be okay. But I'm just saying. Its okay. You're gonna be okay. I don't know what's going on with me."
I'm not a comedy expert, but when this album came up on Spotify the other day it caught me totally off guard and transported me immediately to a very strange space. An oddly humorous and wonderfully honest and special space.
The Human Experience
Someone once told me that as catechists and evangelists, we should pay attention to and learn from comedians' ability to observe present human experiences and explain it so completely to an audience. They have a finger on the pulse of contemporary culture. Comedians can take an experience so banal and familiar to us, dissect it, and present it in such an insightful way that we all are left saying "Yes! Yes. There is no way to argue with you. That is absurd and hilarious and I do it every day."
A large portion of popular stand-up comedy right now is observational humor. The surprise of something familiar suddenly exposed as completely absurd is what makes it so funny. Its a tangible kind of funny.
"Its so hard because right now in my life when I have a show I don't feel like 'Oh I want to go talk about how funny it is that a bee was taking the 401 freeway.' Like all the jokes I've written I just am like, I can't even bring myself to talk about it. Because, and just, everybody relax: my mother just died."
The audience reacts in a sad manner, with some awww's and gasps, and a few shocked chuckles. You can feel the tension between tragedy and comedy. Like Bruce Willis as a crazy and nervous cop with wild eyes cracking a joke to himself as he rolls out of a moving car.
"Should I leave?"
And the audience bursts into laughter.
"I can't believe you're taking this so hard. You didn't even know her."
More laughter. It dies down and one solitary man is heard chuckling in that silence.
"Sir, this should not tickle you that much."
And everyone loses it.
A Strange Thing
Thomas Nagel, in an essay on The Absurd, tried to pin down why a situation, or life in general, could be considered absurd.
“In ordinary life a situation is absurd when it includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality.”
This pretty much sums up Tig's whole stand-up set on coming to grips with her mother suddenly passing away and her battle with cancer.
"After we buried her we drove back to Texas... And I was checking the mail, and the hospital had sent my mother a questionnaire, to see how her stay at the hospital went. Mmmmm...not great."
Absurd.
And the way she explains it, its hilarious.
Tig bounces back to the topic of cancer.
"I had to get a mammogram done so I had to stand there with my shirt off and the technician said, 'Oh my gosh you have such a flat stomach. What is your secret?' And I said: 'Oh, I'm dying.'"
Absurd. And again, hilarious.
People are laughing, and crying, and laughing while crying, and are awkward, and silent, and can't seem to get enough of it. She went through treatment for her cancer, got out and a week later her mother died, then to top it all off she went through a rough breakup. And she's explaining all of these experiences just as you can imagine yourself experiencing them - laughingly realizing how absurd everything becomes when you are constantly thinking about very near impending death.
And during her set, I think the magic of it all is that for thirty minutes, we all have cancer. We all are able to put on the cancer goggles and view the world for a bit with the veil of time and the lie of immortality torn back to reveal the weak, frail, shallow experiences that take up most of our day.
"What if I just transitioned right now into silly jokes?"
"No!" the crowd screams.
"This is f***ing amazing." one guy yells.
That is exactly how you feel once you've put on the cancer goggles, listening to this set. You don't want it to end.
Tig transported all of us to a space where the veil is suddenly torn back and life is seen for what it really is: a letdown that doesn't ever really live up to our aspirations for it, and foolishness when seen in light of the assurance of death. Our death.
At the end she tries to tell one of her jokes from the material she actually wrote for the night. Every word is seen through the lens of the assurance of death and the horribleness of cancer. Every word is seen for the absurdity that it is.
She successfully brought the entire audience to a place where everything about life seems absurd and small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, especially with death looming over every daily boring situation.
"I was driving here. Ugh, lotta traffic."
The crowd is doing the crying/laughing thing.
"My car hadn't moved in several minutes."
I'm laughing at myself at this point. I think everyone is.
"And a bee, flew past me. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when a bee passes you in 5 o'clock traffic?"
Cancer looms over every word. The more Tig feigns frustration with traffic after just processing her cancer diagnosis, the more absurd rush hour traffic seems, and the funnier it is.
Life is absurd if it lacks any way to make sense of death. I think this common human suspicion that all of life is a little absurd is one of the most powerful starting points for the conversation with modern man about God.
There is a reason the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with man's desire for God before getting into the Creed. To talk to modern man about his need for God requires and implies that we start with common human experience - man's own language. This is God's method of revealing Himself. This was Pope St. John Paul II's method in his writings (I'm thinking right now most especially of Love and Responsibility).
This is what every good spouse knows, especially when you hear "You're not understanding what I'm saying! You're not listening to me!" If you want to have a better marriage, be sure your spouse feels like you understand their perspective completely before trying to explain your side of the story.
When you're in this space and can feel the absurdity of life, you can strip away things like school and careers and sports and "I'm too busy" and whatever is right in front of your eyes that stops you from considering the idea of God or purpose or meaning. You're forced to be honest about the insignificance of all of life's bells and whistles.
And in that space, there is room to talk candidly about the meaning of it all. And that is a special space to be able to bring people into that is not easy to accomplish.
We ought to think hard about ways we can be more honest and create spaces where people can see life for what it really is.
We should also work a lot harder at explaining the human condition to modern man better than he can explain it himself (like Jesus did) using our own words.
Tig did it by sharing her cancer with us.
And she invited us to realize for thirty minutes that, in a way, we all have cancer.
Memento Mori.
**Side note: You can listen to the whole 30 minutes here on iTunes or find it on Spotify but just be warned that the cover of this album is Tig shirtless holding her hands on her (double mastectomy-ed) chest . Its not extremely inappropriate but isn't the most modest cover either. Just wanted to give you fair warning so you don't write me email about modesty and the evils of "the culture" and etc.
**Also: Tig is brilliant and I never thought someone could make me and an entire audience laugh by pushing a stool around a stage for four minutes straight.
**And: Here's a great NPR's Fresh Air interview of Tig about this performance.
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.
do u wanna b happy?
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hh-gGb0Mvk[/embed] REVERB CULTURE IS BACK! Check out a ranty little article I wrote after listening to J. Cole's Intro to 2014 Forest Hills Drive album and reflecting on the section of the catechism dealing with our desire for God and happiness. Make sure you listen to the song. Let me know what you think and get pumped that Reverb Culture is back. Lots more to come.
Press play and stick it on repeat like a gentleman. Close the blinds, turn down the lights, and grab a seat. I'm drinking some coffee, want some? I know its late. But its a warm night and I'm feeling introspectively awake.
I think about death a lot since becoming a 26 year old home owner and father.
Heavy, I know. But bear with me.
You don't think about death? You don't visit your parents now and hug Dad just a little longer and realize he got another year older this year and that isn't something that can keep happening forever? You don't look at your wife, girlfriend, or loved one and wonder what they'll look like when and if they're 60, 70, - God willing - 80? Will they get those wrinkles in the corners of their eyes? Will their head shake ever so slightly like grandma's did? When your kids talk to them will they trail off mid sentence, smile, and turn around with no warning? What will the hospital be like the first time they stay longer than a day?
I just want to be happy. Some days I wonder what I really want though.
Read the rest at Reverb Culture
Better than Talking
Last week one of the teens from our high school youth ministry texted me this picture. Schools were closed due to ice and a bunch of them went to the movies. They decided to pray in front of a showing of 50 Shades of Grey. I've seen what seemed like hundreds of articles and videos on social media all condemning the movie. It started to become obnoxious as we all tried to move on and put the movie behind us, but it was hard to get away from a constant daily reminder in the form of graphics, videos, articles, tweets, and every other imaginable medium. It all ensured that even if you didn't know anything about the movie and didn't want to know anything about the movie, you would find out soon enough.
I wish I could take credit for this picture, but I didn't mention 50 Shades of Grey to any of my teens. I didn't come up with the idea of kneeling in a public movie theatre in front of a movie and praying for all those who would see the movie, or were involved in the movie, or who have been hurt by abuse, pornography, or sexual exploitation.
I like to talk. I talk a lot about Jesus and the Gospel and becoming a Saint. But on this day, these teens were doing something a lot more important.
They were actually doing something.
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A Place Prepared
A place prepared. A place prepared for me.
If I'm honest, it doesn't sound appealing.
Someone has prepared a room for me? I already prepared my own room. I like my room. My phone is prepared just how I like it. I eat food prepared how I like it. I listen to the music I like. I've spent months collecting all the right bands and albums.
I wear all the clothes I want to wear. I drove 5 miles in my car to a mall. I walked around the mall looking for a shoe store. I passed swaths of gaping store openings. I found a shoe store and stared under a wall of 50 options. I tried on three different shoes. I spent $50 on my shoes. The guy asked if I wanted to donate to charity. I said no.
They're grey because I think grey goes better with most of my wardrobe.
My house is prepared the way I want. I like the walls cluttered, the book shelves full, and the counters clean. My friends are who I want. I talk to them when I want. They read updates from me, sometimes when they don't want. My computer. My job. My aspirations. My three year plan and ten year dreams.
I'm still working on my kids. They're a work in progress. I want to see them grow and reach. I want to be with them through love and ache and graduation and grandchildren. I don't want my oldest son to be left-handed. He's determined to prove me wrong. I don't want my sons to ever work for a large corporation. I want one of my sons to be an artist. I want them to learn how to run and to use running as an outlet for their emotions. I want them to grow to have big heavy hands that work with wood under a square jaw. I want them to grow to drink beer and have compassionate, listening eyes. I want them to frustrate me with their well-read opinions and I want to argue about Steinbeck over dinner and laugh heartily.
Someone prepared a room for me?
If I'm honest, I don't think anyone could prepare a room as well as I could.
Heaven? Heaven is a room prepared?
Where is my control? Who knows what safety blankets to include in this eternal dorm? Who knows what moderate self-medicating vices to adorm MY room with?
A room prepared for me? Who knows what walls to build to keep secret fears out? Who knows what painful memories should be left off the wall? Who knows what memories are the most true I've ever had, and to freeze them in frame prominently, or near the door, or under a window? Who knows which faces I want eternally enshrined and which eternally vanquished?
Who has walked with me enough to know? Who has suffered with me?
Who has suffered me?
If I'm honest, my first reaction is disgust.
Jesus has prepared a room for me? What sort of room could fulfill me for eternity? Who does He think He is?
And after this pile of thought came a blushing awareness: the extent that Jesus' prepared room excites me is directly related to my honest closeness and trust in Him.
My satisfaction in those words betrays my level of trust and closeness.
If those words feel more condemning than liberating, am I just a foolish pilgrim who's fallen in love with the hotel?
Am I just a foolish man with my own room prepared? Do these words not make sense to me because the world soaks my ears and eyes with comfort and the intoxication and allure of false-freedoms anchored to vices? So much so that I can't see or hear what He really means? I can't see the world for what it is? I can't see that the room I have prepared here is smoke and mirrors?
If I were to only believe in Him, and know Him, and leave my own prepared and safe room behind, He would show me something more real.
"I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may also be. And you know where I am going."
But I'm afraid, if I'm honest, a big part of me would rather have $50 shoes.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
"Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may also be. And you know where I am going.
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would know my Father also, henceforth you know and have seen him."
John 14:1-7
Why You Get Less Done in More Time - Pope's Window Syndrome
Youth ministers seem to be particularly prone to what I will call “Pope’s Window Syndrome”. I stood in St. Peter’s Square a few years ago while a friend told me the Pope’s office window is the last light to turn off at the Vatican, communicating to everyone just how hard the Pope is working for our Church. PWS hits youth ministers hard, as they wake up early (or maybe not so early) and put in grueling 50-60 hour work weeks, leaving lights on in their office or the youth center long after everyone else has left the building.
And while putting in 60 hours a week may make you feel like you are working hard, not getting paid enough, and completely unappreciated, there is a lot of evidence that suggests the more hours you work, the less productive you could become. (See this, that, and here.) Not to mention the huge negative impact on your family life if you are married and your sanity if you are single.
Enter Sheryl Sandberg and Parkinson’s Law
Sheryl Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook and the first woman board member of Facebook’s board of directors. Before Facebook, she was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google. Before Google, she worked as chief of staff for the United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 2012 Sheryl made the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world. My girl Sheryl ain’t messing around.
And Sheryl leaves work everyday at 5:30 p.m.
How? My guess is that Sheryl is intentionally using something called “Parkinson’s Law” to her advantage. Parkinson’s Law originated as a simple and cheeky opening observation by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in The Economist published in 1955:
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
This one sentence kicked me in the pants and changed the way I do, well, everything. Now when I hear people moan about how late they stayed at the office, or how many hours they worked last week, I wonder if they are busy or if maybe they could do these two things better...READ MORE
[This is an excerpt of an article written for Projectym.com. You can read the rest of the article here.]
How to Read 75 Books a Year and Remember What You Read
Read More and Have Better Ideas
How different would 2015 be if by next January you had read 75 books? What if you read 75 books and also could remember what you read and talk coherently about 75 books? Enter Brandon Vogt.
Brandon is a monster. Not only is he a professional at getting stuff done (like launching websites, reading and writing books, and working as Father Barron's Media Ninja on Fire) but he's created a beast of an online course to show people how to read more and remember what they read. Brandon reads more than 75 books a year. And he will show you how to do it too.
I'm a huge advocate for reading wide and well. Its probably one of the biggest payoffs when you think about cost/benefit. Think about: you spend about $10 to read a few hundred pages synthesizing down the years and years of work, research, thinking, and expertise of a particular author. Plus your opinions are usually boring if you haven't seasoned them by engaging authors and ideas by way of books.
Brandon is offering well done video courses choke full of practical advice with no-fluff. Its filled with principles you can apply right now to start reading more books immediately. If you were to set a goal and increase your reading to at least one book per month, you'd be ahead of the average 18-29 year old Americans who actually do read. You'd also be reading 12x as many books as a quarter of all American adults.
I was fortunate to get a sneak peek at all the content and extras last week and after reviewing it I highly recommend it.
Some of the topics Brandon covers:
- How to build a library and why you should (with great resources for finding cheap books)
- Easy ways to creatively find more time to read (with some great tech tips)
- How to engage the author effectively
- How to remember what you read so you can use what you read (more great tech tips)
- How to X-ray a book and find out in 3 minutes if its worth reading (from the legendary Mortimer Adler book)
Currently this beastly course is free (only until Feb. 18). So be sure to take advantage of it while it lasts. And go read more books.
Check it out at readmorebooksnow.com
Don't be like this guy...
[embed]http://youtu.be/Ertz9lpV7sU[/embed]