Tuesday, December 30, 2008

How Did Rico Not Post This Weeks Ago?



My colleague may be bashful, but I share none of his modesty. Rico, under a pseudonym, is playing the titular character. I enter the trailer at 1:30.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The obligatory life update

First, of course, is the big news. For those of you who don't know, my lovely wife is pregnant. She is due in late July. She's feeling pretty good thus far, and she'll soon be out of the window where she had morning sickness the last time around. She's interested in the possibility of having a girl, so she won't listen when I tell her that I'm simply too manly to produce a girl.

Beyond that, everything else pales in comparison. As mentioned earlier, I just finished the busiest semester of my life. In addition to a full class load, I worked part time and interned for credit with a federal judge. Individually, they were all wonderful experiences, but collectively, it was quite a strain. I estimate that I wrote nearly 110 pages worth of papers and drafts of opinions. My wife is an angel for putting up with my grumpy self the past four months.

In "I'm not going to be poor forever" news, I will be working as an associate this summer at the largest law firm in Milwaukee. Among all the other benefits of working at a large firm (cough *paycheck* cough), they have a really diverse practice. I'm really looking forward to trying a few different areas of the law to see what I enjoy. I'm currently leaning toward litigation, but I want to try tax and a few other areas as well.

Jake is also growing and learning faster than I thought possible. He's quite literally learning something new every day, and it's constantly blowing my mind. I'm really looking forward to this time off because I don't spend as much time with him as I would like. If you thought I had a high opinion of myself, just wait til you hear me talk about him.

Wisconsin weather is truly awful. On Friday, we got 13 inches of snow. Today, the wind chill has been hovering between -20 and -30. It's really putting a cramp on my Christmas shopping.

I think that's about it. I hope to keep a semi-regular bogging schedule in the coming weeks. Over the next few days, I hope to discuss Notre Dame football and provide an open letter to the President-elect.

Friday, December 19, 2008

At 11:12 PM Central time on 12/18/2008, I turned in my final assignment for longest semester of my life

In other words, to paraphrase Jimmy Chitwood, "I don't know if it'll make a difference, but I figured it's time for me to start blogging.

"But, there's just one thing... I play, Big Jim stays. He goes, I go."

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Newsflash!

Also via Amy:



Thirty-six Jesuit ordinations. Yowza. A different era. The country has changed in other ways too. Dulles' conversion from mainline Protestant to Catholic wouldn't cause much of stir now. How big a deal would even W converting be for the majority of the country?

A Christmas Message

From that Pope guy (via Amy Welborn):
That which John calls in Greek "ho logos," translated in Latin "Verbum" and in Italian, "il Verbo" (the Word), also means "the Meaning." Therefore, we can understand John's expression in this way: the "eternal Meaning" of the world has made himself tangible to our senses and our intelligence. Now we can touch him and contemplate him (cf. 1 John 1:1). The "Meaning" that has become flesh is not simply a general idea inscribed in the world; it is a "word" directed to us. The Logos knows us, calls us, guides us. It is not a universal law, in which we fulfill some role, but rather it is a Person who is interested in each individual person: It is the living Son of God, who has become man in Bethlehem.

To many people, and in some way to all of us, this seems too beautiful to be true. In effect, here it is reaffirmed for us: Yes, there is meaning, and this meaning is not an impotent protest against the absurd. The Meaning is powerful: It is God. A good God, who is not to be confused with some lofty and distant power, to which it is impossible to ever arrive, but rather a God who has made himself close to us and to our neighbor, who has time for each one of us and who has come to stay with us.

Thus the question spontaneously arises: How is such a thing possible? Is it worthy of God to become a child? To try to open one's heart to this truth that enlightens all of human existence, it is necessary to yield the mind and recognize the limits of our intelligence. In the cave at Bethlehem, God shows himself to us as a humble "infant" to overcome our pride. Perhaps we would have submitted more easily before power, before pride; but he does not want our submission. He appeals, rather, to our heart and to our free decision to accept his love. He has made himself little to free us from this human pretension of greatness that arises from pride; he has incarnated himself freely to make us truly free, free to love him.

Dear brothers and sisters, Christmas is a privileged opportunity to meditate on the meaning and value of our existence. Approaching this solemnity helps us to reflect, on one hand, about the drama of history in which men, wounded by sin, are permanently seeking happiness and a satisfactory meaning to life and death; on the other hand, it exhorts us to meditate on the merciful goodness of God, who has gone out to meet man to communicate to him directly the Truth that saves, and make him participate in his friendship and his life.

Let us prepare for Christmas, therefore, with humility and simplicity, readying ourselves to receive the gift of light, joy and peace that irradiates from this mystery. Let us welcome the nativity of Christ as an event capable of today renewing our existence. May the encounter with the Child Jesus make us people who do not think only of ourselves, but rather open to the expectations and necessities of our brothers. In this way we too become testimonies of the light that Christmas radiates over the humanity of the third millennium. Let us ask most holy Mary, the tabernacle of the incarnate Word, and St. Joseph, silent witness of the events of salvation, to communicate to us the sentiments they had while they awaited the birth of Jesus, so that we can prepare ourselves to celebrate in a holy way the coming Christmas, in the joy of faith and enlivened by the determination of a sincere conversion.

Merry Christmas!