Image by turtlemom4bacon via Flickr

My wife, Vanessa, is great. Our household attempts to, for lack of better word, go to the basics. Granted, I say that in a blog on a custom-hosted website with a domain name from the Isle of Man, but I digress.

One of the many things that she do to keep our household not taking anything for granted is she started baking bread tonight. From scratch. No bread machine.

Some flour, some yeast, some sugar, some salt, some time, some kneading, maybe some honey, some rising, some baking and presto, a loaf of bread appeared from our oven tonight. It’s not the perfect-shaped loaf of bread that Mrs. Bard’s can make in her sleep, but there’s something about the taste.

Some people believe that if you consume anything processed or commercially-made, you’re allowing the equivalent of demons hellbent on your destruction into your body. I’m nowhere close to this camp. I love fast food probably more than the next guy (although, I’m slowly realizing that I regret eating it whenever I do), so I say this with no disrespect to anyone: It’s truly amazing and a gift from God to be so connected to your food.

For the vast majority of human existence, we had an intimate connection with our food. The meat we ate, we hunted, skinned, prepared and cooked. The jams we used were from berries we picked. The milk came from our cow, or at least came straight from the neighbor’s cow that day. Our eggs were all free-range and our vegetables were all organic. Only recently did those things change.

Of course, fewer people die of hunger because of our abilities. Famines, outside of extremely poor areas, do not happen anymore. But, along with that, our connection to our food was severed. Some of the things I eat, I honestly I have no idea anything about what it is, from it came from, or no idea how it was made. I know more about the food by way of all of the nutritional facts, but that also tells me that whatever I’m eating has had the prepartion process so well standardized that every 14 chips I eat, will equal these exact measurements.

Something to be said to the way things have been done for the ages. With that, time to grab another slice.

Image via Wikipedia

Today, the Diocesan torch has been passed. Bishop Joe Vasquez sat in the Cathedra of Austin (temporary moved to St. William’s in Round Rock for today’s svent) and with that, is now my bishop.

I watched the first segment of the Mass at home via the webcast, until the conclusion of the homily. Kudos to the committee who organized the liturgy.

There’s really not much more to say from my chair. I wasn’t there and I haven’t met Bishop Vasquez (beyond shaking hands after a couple of Masses at a small parish in Houston). Of course, keep him and all church leaders in our prayers.

If you missed the Mass, CatholicTV will keep it online in their cathedral events section after a couple of replays.

Image by wallyg via Flickr

Editor’s Note: I wrote this post while in NYC a couple of weeks ago, but wasn’t able to post it and then, well, forgot about it.

I’ve spent the last
three days at the Bishop Molloy Passionist Retreat House in Jamiaca, NY (which
is actually Queens, but as far as “city” names go, everything in
Queens is connected to a local neighborhood “city”). While i wish I
could be taking an actual retreat here in the midst of everything, I’ve been
taking part in a Pre-Assembly Regional Meeting for the Paulist Fathers
religious order.

I’ll break this all
down.

The Paulist Fathers
is the religious order that has probably done things you’ve heard about,
without realizing it. They staff St. Austin’s and the University Catholic
Center in Austin. They are the guys behind the Busted Halo website and SiriusXM
Satilitte Show. The movie Entertaining Angels about Dorothy Day and Romero
about slained Archbishop Oscar Romero were produced by Paulist Productions. If
you’re ever heard of Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership, the Paulist Press
publishes that book as well as countless others. They were the first religious
order founded in the United States by a citizen of the United States. Their
mission is to serve as Missionaries to North America, giving the Gospel a
voice.

Every four years, the
Paulists elect fellow Paulist priests to serve on their Assembly. This is the
highest-authority body within the Order and they set the agenda for the next
four years for the newly elected or re-elected president to enflesh. Prior to
the Assembly meeting, which will take place in May 2010, they invite all
Paulists as well as lay associates and collaborators to gather to discuss the
current situation of the Order and to get an idea of the rumblings from the
ground for the Assembly.

I can’t say too much about it. No, there’s not some super secret church rule. Since there is no ordination this year, they aren’t asking everyone to travel to one place at one time for the pre-assembly, but rather to one of three regional meetings across the country. The final regional meeting is yet to occur and to respect the process, they asked that we not comment on the listening session to those who are yet to attend. While I don’t know if any Paulists or Paulist collaborators read this, I’d rather not chance it.

I will say that I was very impressed with how open, honest and candid the Paulist family can be when looking at major issues. Please keep the Paulist Fathers and their new leadership in your prayers

I’m taking a quick break from the other work I’m doing at the moment to comment on working.

I’ve held three paying jobs in my life: Pizza Hut, UTeach Student Associate, and the University Catholic Center.

Pizza Hut’s working conditions are easy to assume. As a cook, my role was to make the pizza or pasta dish to the exact specification passed down from on high. Variation or invention was not allowed. I earned minimum wage ($5.15 at that time). I didn’t really need the job as a high school student, but I wanted save some for college and have some financial options. I didn’t last very long.

At The University of Texas at Austin‘s UTeach Natural Science program had a Student Associate position which, basically, paid you $10 an hour to “volunteer” somewhere within the local area that would benefit you as a future educator. I volunteered at Anderson High School to organize their chemistry storage area. No structure or supervision. I think I worked there for about six months.
Next, I went across the street and started at the University Catholic Center. For five years, I did a little bit of everything being paid various wages and salaries. Structure, but variation and invention was useful. I had supervision and oversight, but nothing oppressive. As a young man finishing college, starting out in the world and eventually, starting a family, it was a great setup.

As of March 1, I’m now a field agent for the Knights of Columbus. Basically, I’m self-driven completely now. The major difference with this new role and my previous jobs is location. We converted a second bedroom into a home office that is my primary work location. My contact with my boss will be mostly by telephone and once I have my bearings set, I may hardly talk to him if everything is going well.

What’s the work/home balance? How do you make that happen when the physical boundary between work and home no longer exists? At the UCC, I worked when I was at the UCC. When I was at home, I was off the clock (excluding some
e-mail processing).

I’ve followed Lifehacker and various other blogs for sometime now that include a good amount of content aimed toward freelancers and other folks who work from home, so I have some ideas. They’re all untested by me though. This is an interesting experiment (with live ammo) .

I’m trusting that the Holy Spirit will lead me toward the balance and I’m hoping I’m paying enough attention to realize it when I see it.

I read the so-called manifesto written by the gentleman, Joe Stack, who is assumed to be the pilot of the Austin plane crash into IRS offices. In short, what a troubled soul. Nothing, nothing can justify, on any level, such criminal and inhumane actions.

Reading his nearly final words and to hear how he understood his life to unfold is simply sad. Sounds like he contributed as much to his problems as anyone else, but nevertheless sad to know that people exist under such troubled states.

He made plenty of stabs at the Catholic Church and the tax-exempt status exercised by religious institutions, which frankly, aren’t worth defending. Beyond simply that the tax code allows it, the charitable work done by most mainline religious organizations, which, in many cases, saves the government from increased spending on social services, justifies the exemption.

That being said, I do have some issue with churches being exempt from state unemployment insurance, but I digress.

In short, in addition to praying for all those innocent folks who were killed (if any, the latest news hasn’t indicated any deaths), injured or otherwise impacted, let’s pray for him and all others under such stress. May no one else see this as an example of how to handle this type of stress and may they find enough help to keep them going.

Picture by Alberto Martinez AMERICAN-STATESMAN