The Arrow's Path

Last year for New Year's Eve, I presented my top ten pictures of the year. Having spent 3 months galavanting around Europe, I had over a thousand pictures to choose from. This year's pictures where not as spectacular, but I still managed to dig around and find a few that I thought captured my year pretty well. I thought since this year was a year of action and changes in my life, I thought my End of the Year top ten pictures should be candid action shots. I start off with a few pictures from Opening Day at the White Sox baseball stadium. The two dots in the distance are the F-16s in a fly over. This is a picture of Chicago: the city with the big shoulders. I started the year there and moved away. I miss the people, but I am not really missing the city all that much. This is a candid shot from the Horn "play church" wedding. I found it amusing and reminded me of all the laughs I had with my Seabury classmates. Speaking of my Seabury classmates, this is from the Seni...

I survived Christmas Eve services, but only by the grace of God. In all my years in the church, I never thought about the clergy who have to hang around the church until everyone leaves. I walked out the door at 2AM Christmas morning. Good services, and the chapel looked nice, too...

The Archer would like to wish all his readers a very Blessed Christmas!

And all through the house, not a creature was stirring...except the clergy who have been at church all day and night. ;) But seriously, I love Christmas Eve, sometimes I think more so than actual Christmas. Charlie Brown Christmas specials, Midnight Mass, choirs singing. It's almost here, folks!

I have to preach tomorrow, and I have to admit this is one of those weeks where one has to make the time to sit down and think up a sermon. Time to study and prepare on the week before Christmas, ironically, is very hard. In fact, I did something I very rarely do. I went into the office on Saturday morning to finish up on the sermon. I am something of a workaholic when it comes to sermons and various office paperwork. I like to take my time and mull things over because I have never been able to enjoy my goof off time if I have something hanging over my head like a sermon. Let's just face it: I stink at being a procrastinator. Some people are masters at putting stuff off until the last possible moment. In fact, they often say it focuses the mind to have a fast approaching deadline. I marvel at that, and believe me I have tried to do that several times. I just can never pull that off. I hate feeling rushed because when I feel rushed, I never put forth top quality work. School papers ...

I am truly amazed at how busy the week before Christmas is. I thought it was busy before becoming ordained. It is even busier in ordained life with the usual stuff as well as sermon writing and meetings. I thought Advent was about patiently waiting. Heh...whatever.

I got to church yesterday at 7:30 in the morning to open up for Sunday services. I got there about the same time as the rector. We walked into the main chapel, and...whoa! The heat was not on. Since it was like 7 degrees outside, that was a major problem. It was literally freezing in the church. The furnace was acting up again. It blew out a thermastat about 2 weeks ago and the heating guy came out and fixed it. It apparently went out again, which means there will probably have to be some rewiring or something because the fan blows and the pilot light is lit, but the thermostat doesn't do anything. By the 8:30 mass, we had coaxed the temperature up to about 45, or so the thermostat said. It was chilly to say the least. We got vested (and I now understand why Anglo-catholic priests insist on wearing a cassock under the white alb and vestments) and processed in. As we were bowing to the altar, I leaned over to the rector and said, "Is that ice floating in the water cruet?"...

As I stated yesterday, the Mitchell report on steroid usage in Major League baseball came out. I read or skimmed the entire thing yesterday, and it was pretty much what I expected. Names were named; recommendations were made; hand wringing from sports commentators followed. And this news just in: the sky did not fall. Here are a few of my initial reactions. I found this oddly similar to reading the Windsor Report of Anglican fame, but I won't chase that white rabbit (as fun a similarity as that might be). While documented and fairly even handed in writing style, I found the section which included the naming of names to be reminiscent of old fashioned "shock value" yellow journalism. I found myself wondering why Jose Canseco's expose book met with such "He's a stool pigeon" scorn and this report was met with such fan fare. Granted, Canseco was out to make money and a splash, while this report had the veil of Congressional justice-seeking objectivity. My ...

Today is the day of reckoning in Major League Baseball and the steroids issue. The Mitchell Report (a report by the Congressional investigation into the matter) is being released. I;ve skimmed about 10 pages, and it doesn't look good for some big name players or MLB. After I digest it, I imagine I will be posting one of my sports writing editorials.

I have finally gotten around to watching the new Sci Fi channel show Battlestar Galactica . It has been on my queue of things to do for about 3 years. I finally got Netflix to carry the DVD set, so I have been watching the show from the beginning one disc at a time. A friend of mine who is now a Catholic priest in Knoxville, with whom I did Clinical Pastoral Education with, was gahgah about the show. I was at his diaconal ordination in the bustling metropolis that is Morristown, Tennessee. Oddly enough, his sponsoring priest there was the principal at my high school when I was there. Yes, I survived Catholic schooling, which is probably why I am now a transitional deacon and an Anglo-catholic. He was the only other person I have met that has likewise read the entirety of the Frank Herbert Dune novels as well as his son's prequel Dune novels. We had extensive conversations about the Dune universe when we should have been working, but given the complete dysfunction of our CPE site...

St Mark's is in the downtown area right off the Nebraska campus. We get odd people walking in from time to time, especially with the cold winter weather. Today we had a particularly special person who wanted to sit in the lounge. That was fine. I assumed he meant sitting for a little while, or as one says in the South, "sittin' for a spell." I did not think he meant sitting for 5 hours in a chair while staring off into space in what appeared to be a coma. I guess he needed to defrag his hard drive. Weird.

So, yesterday the bossman called about 7 in the morning to tell me not to bother to come into work because of the ice/snow storm. It was not really all that bad, but I had offered to take my fiancee to work because my automobile has 4-wheel drive. At first I was excited. Snow day! And then it was pretty much down hill from there. I got out to my truck to find it encased in ice, that I had to try and chisel off. The door was iced shut, and in my attempts to open the door, the latching mechanism broke. I jury rigged a bungy cord to keep the door closed, as I slide over the ice to my fiancee's house. After fussing for another hour on the car door, I finally gave up because I was tired of having ice pelt me in the face. I proceed to go inside. I accidentally break a lamp that had been placed precariously on the end table. To console myself with a bag of chex mix, I manage to pour it all over the floor. As I was sweeping up that mess, a mouse ran across my foot. Sigh...I think I hate sn...

Paddington Bear turns 50 (and gets busted by Immigration)

The following announcement is being sent to the entire Ministry Memo list, understanding that many who live outside of the metro area will not be able to attend. I wanted my readers to know that such a service was being conducted. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral will offer a Liturgy of Lament and Hope in response to the Omaha shootings at Westroads Mall. The service will be held at Noon on Friday, December 7th. The public is invited and all are encouraged to attend. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is located in the heart of downtown, across from the Civic Auditorium, at 113 North 18th Street, Omaha. For more information, please email Dean Medina at ermedina60@cox.net

Having been working in a parish now for about a half a year, one of the things I have instituted as curate was offering Evening Prayer on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays each week at 4:30. Sometimes I have as many as 5 people, sometimes its just me. I have discovered that Evening Prayer truly is a beautiful thing if for no other reason than to provide an excuse for priests and deacons to get out of long running afternoon meetings. "Oop...I'd love to stay and chat longer with you about your chronic nose hair, Mr. Bumbleradish, but I have to go get ready for evening prayer." Brilliant.

I just learned from my friend, Brother Kevin Hackett SSJE, that the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston is pleased to announce that Br. Curtis Almquist's book, The Twelve Days of Christmas: Unwrapping the Gifts is now available in free audio format, available exclusively through our website for a limited time only. Click here to go directly to listen to Br. Curtis reading each of the twelve chapters. Check it out. Its a good Advent devotional on the 12 Days of Christmas.

As I posted previously, the Bull Crap System Bowl Championship Series released its list of end of the season major bowl matchups. I suppose it could have been worse, all things considered, but not by much. I personally think the BCS is inherently flawed, but let's just look at the disappointing matchups: THE ROSE BOWL Pasadena, Calif. Jan. 1, 4:30 p.m. (ABC) USC (10-2) vs. Illinois (9-3) Last season: No. 8 USC 32, No. 3 Michigan 18 Next year, this might have been an interesting bowl, but Ron Zook hasn't had enough time to recruit the level of talent needed to stop the USC late season juggernaut. I think USC has as much claim to the title game as any. Granted, Illinois did beat Ohio State, but they also lost 2 other games in an incredibly mediocre Big Ten this year. What could have been: The Traditional Big Ten/Pac-10 champs Rose Bowl matchup pitting Ohio State and USC. So much more interesting. SUGAR BOWL New Orleans Jan. 1, 8:30 p.m. (FOX) Hawaii (12-0) vs. Georgia (10-2) Las...

Here is my final regular season Top Ten college football rankings. Due to the fact that no one seems to want to be No. 1, I am awarded co-no. 2 rankings to LSU and Ohio State No. 2 LSU No. 2 Ohio State No. 3 Oklahoma No. 4 USC No. 5 Missouri No. 6 Virginia Tech No. 7 Oklahoma No. 8 West Virginia No. 9 Kansas No.10 Georgia

POINSETTIA BOWL San DiegoDec. 20, 9 p.m. (ESPN) Utah (8-4) vs. Navy (8-4)Last season: No. 25 TCU 37, Northern Illinois 7 NEW ORLEANS BOWL New OrleansDec. 21, 8 p.m. (ESPN2) Florida Atlantic (7-5) vs. Memphis (7-5)Last season: Troy 41, Rice 17 PAPAJOHNS.COM BOWL Birmingham, Ala.Dec. 22, 1 p.m. (ESPN2) Cincinnati (9-3) vs. Southern Miss (7-5)Last season: South Florida 24, East Carolina 7 NEW MEXICO BOWL Albuquerque, N.M.Dec. 22, 4:30 p.m. (ESPN) New Mexico (8-4) vs. Nevada (6-6)Last season: San Jose State 20, New Mexico 12 LAS VEGAS BOWL Las VegasDec. 22, 8 p.m. (ESPN) BYU (10-2) vs. UCLA (6-6)Last season: No. 19 BYU 38, Oregon 8 HAWAII BOWL Honolulu, HawaiiDec. 23, 8 p.m. (ESPN) East Carolina (7-5) vs. Boise State (10-2)Last season: Hawaii 41, Arizona State 24 MOTOR CITY DetroitDec. 26, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) Central Michigan (8-5) vs. Purdue (7-5)Last season: Central Michigan 31, Middle Tennessee 14 HOLIDAY BOWL San DiegoDec. 27, 8 p.m. (ESPN) Arizona State (10-2) vs. Texas (9-3)Last season:...