Archive for April, 2006
Posted by Eric (April 29, 2006 at 1:24 pm)
No, this isn’t a post on cycling. But further reflection on the Torode Affair and the real difficulties of practicing NFP put me in mind of a particularly challenging climb I managed this week on my mountainbike despite feeling weak and wobbly that day.
Not only is this particular hill steep and long, but it’s rooty and rocky. The only way to manage it—and I’ve failed to reach the top as often as I’ve made it—is to focus on the trail right under the front wheel. This helps you navigate around the ruts and rocks and keeps you from being discouraged at the sight of how very, very far you have left to go.
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Posted by Eric (April 28, 2006 at 4:49 pm)
Today I was told that Sam and Bethany Torode have issed an “Open Letter about Open Embrace,” more or less recanting the opposition to contraception that they articulated in their influential 2002 book, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception. My first reaction on hearing this report was incredulity; I didn’t believe it until I had verified it. Turns out it’s true.
This is disappointing news on many levels. The Torodes write:
[O]ur personal experience in the past five years has shown that we had a lot to learn about NFP, and that there is a dark side we weren’t aware of. . . . [S]trict NFP reaches a point where it is more harmful for a marriage than good.
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Posted by Eric (April 25, 2006 at 2:29 pm)
Today, the Feast of St. Mark, I cantored solo for only the second time at St. George Church in Aurora. The first time was last week, when the regular cantor called me while I was driving to the Church to say he wouldn’t be there.
I tripped up fewer times today than last week. My biggest speedbump today was that I went astray in the middle of the Exaltation (“The angel declared unto her . . .”), having hit the wrong interval somewhere. I don’t think it sounded bad—I didn’t slip into another key or really depart from the character of the piece, but it took me a while to find my place again.
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Posted by Eric (April 17, 2006 at 2:24 pm)
I tuned into Scrappleface this morning, right after Bright Monday Matins and Divine Liturgy, to discover a lamentable (and somewhat ambiguous) satire of Pope Benedict XVI. Scrappleface author Scott Ott described a scene in which Benedict XVI took off his golden vestments and, in the style of a Protestant pastor, offered a sort of “heart felt” sermon in which he called himself a sinner and “regular Joe,” while the crowds in St. Peter’s Square rapidly dispersed, apparently interested only in “pomp and circumstance,” not the person of Christ.
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Posted by Eric (April 11, 2006 at 12:06 pm)
“. . . because without beer, things do not seem to go as well.”
—Brother Epp, Kansas, 1902
This morning I kegged the second of two batches of beer I brewed a couple weeks ago. I had hoped at that time to do some “brew blogging,” but a series of brew-day crises made that impossible. (The beer pictured here is from my last beer, brewed for Thanksgiving 2004. I seem to have lost my notes for that beer; apparently it was an American ale—look at that thick, rich head!)
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