TOUCHING BASE

I began this blog over two years ago with the intention of “waking up” – myself first, then, I hoped, any cyber-passers-by; to create a blog not just for sharing news or commenting on it, but for serious (and sometimes silly) reflection. I know, I know…. it’s a rare, old fashioned word and who’s got time for THAT these days 😉

Well, I don’t get enough of it and I thought if I just gave it a crack, others might also step into this Doorway to the Deep. To plunge into the real questions of life, to get past the shallows and out into the open water. I wanted to do all this with an honest, objective, and wonder-filled vision. Because, at the end of the day, Life is Beautiful. Amen?

So the invitation stands to take a few minutes each day to look deep within at the well waters of the soul and, well…. reflect!

SO WHAT’S GOIN’ ON?

There are now over 560 articles on this blog. Yippee! You can access any one of them by scrolling down on the starboard side and finding “THE ARCHIVE – My Past Blog Posts.” Click on a month or day and there you have it, more words (that hopefully lead you to the Word). There are a few new features as well that I want to point out in case you missed ’em.

SHARE THIS!
Now at the bottom of each post there is a little icon called “share this” – if you enjoy a certain article, after reading it, just click “share this” and a pop up window appears that allows you to e-mail it to a friend, add the post to your Facebook profile, your blog, Digg it, and a bunch of other nifty little options.

PHOTO FEED
Scrolling down on the right side of the blog, you’ll find a pretty cool pic of two floating youth on a mountain in North Carolina. Clicking this image will bring you to my new photo feed… woohoo!! Just as a blog has a feed (a feed is a web format used for providing readers with frequently updated content. You click the little orange button in your address bar, then click subscribe, and have easy access to the latest posts) so now you can subscribe to the latest pictures I snap from the Adventures of Bill! I know, it’s random, often ridiculous, but sometimes beautiful….. hey, it’s a life. And if it gets you thinking or starts a conversation about the deeper stuff, mission accomplished!

TAGS
I continue to tag my posts, which means each article has been given labels as far as the content in them. If you liked yesterday’s post “The Good Stuff” which had the tag “nature” at the bottom, just click it and it will bring up all the other posts in the last two years with that tag and similar content regarding “nature” – et cetera, et cetera! All of the topic tags are listed on the right side of the blog in alphabetical order.

BLOGS ‘R’ US!
I have a couple other blogs now, discoverable if you click my profile info on the bottom right side of the blog (there’s lots of fun to be had on the right side of this blog, huh?); “The Love Worth Waiting For” is for youth and young adults on the Theology of the Body. I don’t post to it much, but there are some reflections and good resources. And “Bill and Sean’s Excellent Adventure” will be the platform I’ll be mobile blogging to this summer with my nephew as we embark on a Vision Quest for his Confirmation. He doesn’t know where the heck we’re going yet…

PODCAST(S)
And of course the Heart of Things podcast is updated almost weekly (it houses the interviews done on the radio show each week, downloadable through iTunes for your iPod). A new podcast is still under construction called The Good Stuff which I’m EXTREMELY excited about. “Dedicated to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in music, movies, books and beyond. Sometimes silly, always random, it’s shafts of Light from Another Country shining out from the most unlikely of places… coming this summer!

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
A growing batch of quotes from the saints, poets, and mystics can be found at my main website, the Mission Moment, as well as links for speaking engagements and presentations that are up and coming.

So there it is, the June update. Thanks for being a reader, and please feel free to drop a comment anytime and let me know how this blog can be a better service to you!

Peace and Prayers,
Bill

______________________________________

Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Wisconsin or Bust!

I am presently extremely excited, and 32,000 feet off of the ground. I’m heading for this amazing place called “Holy Hill.” It’s a Carmelite Monastery situated on over 400 acres of rural countryside in the southeastern part of Wisconsin. Woohoo!

Tomorrow I’ll be giving two talks at a conference they are running for young adults. My topic is “Rekindling Our Eucharistic Amazement, Rediscovering Our Mission.”

Woohoo yet again!

I really believe there is never a shortage of things to be amazed by. Especially in these days of the incredible blossoming of technology – case in point, I’m typing on a touch keypad on an iPhone while listening to the soundtrack of Dances with Wolves, soaring above billowing shapes of clouds and sipping Sierra Mist. What the heck America!

I know, I know…. I didn’t tell you guys about the iPhone yet. I’m so ashamed, and simultaneously elated. I made the fatal mistake of saying it’s the “most visually stunning thing I’ve ever seen”… to my wife Rebecca. She just made that face, that cute face that is actually the most visually stunning thing I’ve ever seen.

Ahem…so… Where were we? WONDER! Now the irony is, I’ll be poking fun at technology in this talk. My point being that we can spend so much time these days staring at screens that we can miss the wonder of the face before us. The sacramental signs that God tosses our way like so many kisses: other people, rain storms, spring flowers, good wine, songs, smells, sights that make the heart weep and we know not why. Can I get an amen? Clearly God calls me to speak about these topics because He really wants me to get the message myself. I find it funny that I have such a fiendish proclivity to technology. I guess you have to know what you’re talking about, right? Yessss, precioussss, yessss.

Anyhoo, I hope to post some pictures and ponderings from the shrine. This service made available by technology by the way. Haha! Now let me turn this dang thing off. We just landed in Chicago for a connecting flight, and airports are awesome places to encounter the many-splendoured face of humanity.

______________________________________

Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Drinking Deeply

On this past Divine Mercy Sunday, sitting in the little church of the Assumption in Maybrook, New York with my wife Rebecca and her parents, two of the eight brothers and sisters, and a mob of nieces and nephews all around us, I got zapped. It was right at the line in the reading from 1 Corinthians 2….

“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

I looked around at the little munchkins that call me Uncle Bill. I thought of my morning talks with my father-in-law on everything from philosophy to movies to the Faith. I thought of the tremendous love that flows from the Tabernacle, streams down from the Altar and breathes out from from the woman whose hand I held even tighter as this awareness and this awakening came toppling over me like a waterfall.

“Do you want a tissue?” Rebecca asked as the Gospel reading began.
“Heck no,” I smiled.

I wanted to feel this a bit longer. It’s not every day God gives you the salty taste of joy. In charismatic circles it’s called the “gift of tears.” I remember an old Irish Christian Brother who once told me, “Let the tears speak, Willy, let the tears speak.”

I squeezed Rebecca’s hand even tighter. How did I get here? What led me to become a part of this new family? Where was this torrent of love and emotion coming from? I just showed up at Church, part of the ritual of a Sunday. Who knew I’d get zapped?

“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

In this Cosmic Dance, I find my steps directed here, now. What lies ahead lies in His Heart, what lies behind (and what a long and winding road it seems to me now) lies in His Mercy… His Divine Mercy. So why fear? Why complain? Why do anything but drink deeply from the font of grace in the sacrament of this present moment? God will provide, prepare, and put in our path the things we need, just as we need them.

As I sat there after Communion, in that Divine Bear Hug of He and I in the Eucharist, I thought of that Divine Mercy that has always been so near, ever since the heartaches and the sadness and the longings of my youth. He it was Who moved behind the curtain of my days, shone behind the star I watched outside my window, whispered behind the curtain of great paintings and great writings, from Van Morrison to Vermeer, cathedrals and the cornfields of Northampton. The Divine Mercy is God’s own Heart, glowing, breathing, beating with Warm Love behind this earthly veil of flesh and bone, earth and sky, houses, hills, and the people I have come to know in this walk.

In all of this that lies behind and before me I pray…. Jesus, I trust in You.

______________________________________

Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Thanks a Million (I mean…. 20,000)!

It was on December 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that I put a hit counter on my blog. I’m pleased to say that in the year that has passed since then, (and we’ll round off the hits in that first half a year without a counter) there have been over 20,000 visitors to The Heart of Things Blog!! Woohoo! So thanks for stopping by, for passing stuff on, and for the sporadic comments. They are always welcome!

‘DA PLANS…

Teaching keeps me pretty busy, but I am hoping to publish a book soon (soon meaning “before death”) encapsulating the most reflective of these reflections… skipping the random allusions to YouTube videos, cheese, and HomeStarRunner… well, maybe we’ll keep the silly stuff in there for good measure.

Would you read a book like this? With a few hundred one to two page reflections on God, Life, and Everything in Between? I hope so. I figure that’s what I like; short and sweet, but meaty enough to get me through the day. The podcast is coming along, with a few bugs to work out still. It’s basically a kicked up version of the Radio Show I do each week at In His Sign Network. Maybe when there’s time, I can get the new idea for a podcast out there. It’s gonna be called “The Good Stuff” – movies, music, poems, books, the stuff that just drips of Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Action, Adventure, the whole dang drama of being human!

There have been a few additions to the blog: I have a couple web albums if you scroll down and look on the right column. One is pics from the trips I used to make to the missions, the other is a collection of masterpieces of sacred art. And at the podcast site, I’ve just uploaded a page called “Theophanies” – a collection of close ups of creation. I hope to keep adding to it! And maybe pick up a better camera with more megapixels. Those pics were taken with a Canon A510 – 3.5 megapixel camera.

Here’s a little video I took at Malvern yesterday; as the ice covered trees started to melt, the water sounded like music.

______________________________________

Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org