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Month: January 2010

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Mac, Perspective,

Apple fan day

It was a great day for Apple fans. As my readers may know, I am a Mac/Apple fan and our household is all Apple (2 Mac minis, 2 iMacs – I have the new 27 inch, Apple TV, 2 iPhones, 6 iPods of various types).

The launch of the new iPad was hotly anticipated. I do see how it fills a niche and yes, I would get one (a version of two down the line).

The build up was a little too huge for my liking though because following such a build-up anything less than an absolute miracle was bound to be disappointing. I followed the Gizmodo live blog of the event (live blogging built on WordPress). I was sorry to see AppleInsider’s live feed go total fail as the event started. The last post I saw was – “We were told to turn off our cellphones.” I suppose the writer turned off his phone and was goodbye after that!?!

Art, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Poland’s Got Talent – and the most popular dance in Poland

Yes, he’s an accordionist, but neither the music nor dance are Polka. The winner of Poland’s Got Talent, Marcin Wyrostek and his group, Tango Corazon Quintet, have just released an album, “Magia del tango” (loosely: The Magic of Tango). Here’s a sample:

Poles have a great affinity for the Tango and it is hard to find a Pole who can’t bust a few great Tango moves.

The Polka, at least in the style found in Polish-American circles, is generally unheard of in Poland. Traditional Polka like dances such as the Mazur in addition to four other dances, the Polonez, Krakowiak, Kujawiak, and Oberek, are the five “National Dances” of Poland. Franz Xaver Scharwenka wrote 5 Polish Dances for piano, Op. 3 which walks through the five. Here is Op.3, No.2

Homilies

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – C

First reading: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10
Psalm: Ps 19:8-10, 15
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Gospel: Luke 1:1-4; Luke 4:14-21

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

The walls were still down

Our first reading was from Nehemiah. Nehemiah is an interesting book. It was written just after the Babylonian captivity; the Jews had returned to Israel. While they had returned they were acting a bit lost and were disorganized, wandering about, wondering what they should do. Jerusalem was there, but it was no capital. It was in shambles. The walls of the city were destroyed.

Nehemiah was working for the Babylonian king and asked for permission to go to Jerusalem. He wanted to rebuild it, to get things organized, to get people working together. While the king gave him permission, other political leaders fought against him, tried to distract him from his task, and even tried to kill him. All through, Nehemiah stayed true to his task, and never lost focus. Nehemiah not only stayed on task, but also organized the people diving them into groups and skills so that working together they would accomplish their task. While the task was immediate, Nehemiah knew that the reason for the task was more than rebuilding, it was recognition.

Acting in unison

Nehemiah is an example of what prayer, planning, hard work, and unity can accomplish. Acting together the walls were rebuilt. The walls were rebuilt in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15).

Toward what?

Now let’s suppose that you and your family, your tribe, gather together and decide to build a house. You plan, organize, pray, and set to work. You make record speed while your neighbors stand by and ridicule or attack you. Now you have a house, and you look at it and say, ‘what is this for?’ You’ve done it but have no explanation for the purpose of the house. What do you do with it? You look but lack the gift of recognition, the seeing that must accompany the doing.

In Nehemiah’s case he knew the purpose, and so he gathered the people, and with Ezra stood before them to explain it all. The Law was read. From the morn till noon the people stood and were instructed. The Law, the Old Testament expression of God’s love and care for His people was set before them.

Ezra and Nehemiah knew, God’s law was the foundation the real rebuilding, the rebirth of the spirit and the rebirth of the peoples unity with God and each other. So they taught the people so that the people would recognize the purpose of their work.

Recognition

The people were so moved by God’s message their eyes fill with tears. They were focusing on their mistakes, how they have fallen short. They still didn’t recognize. But Ezra and Nehemiah knew better. They urged the people to celebrate. The people heard God’s word which was the wellspring for their unity. Nehemiah wanted the people to see, to recognize One God, and themselves as one people of God.

—Do not be sad, and do not weep—”
Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks,
and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared;
for today is holy to our LORD.
Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!—

Jesus came to the Synagogue for the same reason. He came to instruct the people, to read for them and be for them what was greater than the Law. It was God who stood before them to show them, to proclaim for them, that He was the fulfillment, the new point of unity that surpasses the written Law. Not just God in words and commands, but God living among them, with them in every way. Jesus so badly wanted them to get it, to recognize them, to let the scales fall from their eyes so they could see clearly.

All of this, the big lead up to this moment in Nehemiah and in Luke, is the groundwork for recognition. The people in the rebuilt Jerusalem were told to recognize the God who loved them and cared for them, who changed them from a captive people to a free people, from many tribes and houses to one people. The people of Nazareth were invited to recognize God’s arrival. They weren’t at the manager a few short weeks ago, nor by the Jordan or at the wedding. Their revelation stood before them and declared its presence. Would they recognize Him?

Bound in Baptism

Likewise we are invited to recognize God and our place in the people of God — the unity that comes from our common baptism. Paul is telling the people of Corinth to recognize their unity as a new people, a unified body and to see God in the many ways He expresses Himself through the one Spirit.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

The people in Corinth were very much in touch with their uniqueness. They felt themselves so unique that they had divided and subdivided by the gifts each person had. They weren’t working together to build the symbolic walls which would unify their city of God, their community, because the bricklayers thought they were better than the haulers, and the haulers felt they were better than the miners, and the miners better than those who made the cement. Paul knew that the unity that would enclose them and make them one, their common baptism, wasn’t being recognized and in failing to recognize their common life in Christ they failed to recognize God.

Sameness

Paul points out that the desired unity is not sameness. While each member of the Church, indeed, each community in the Church is unique and special we are not to focus on being the same, but rather the community that comes from the myriad gifts and expressions we have.

For instance, our Holy Polish National Catholic Church is not Roman Catholic, it is not this, or that, or someone else’s definition of what the Holy Church is, but the full Catholic expression of the unique gifts of our community, given to us so that the world might recognize God through our work.

Paul cautioned against demanding sameness. Not one member in Corinth was better than the next based on a specific gift. In fact, their classification system was turned on its head by Paul’s message.

Gifts

Paul asked the faithful in Corinth to understand that each of them is bonded by baptism into the one body of Christ. Each of them had a contribution to make to the Church. So Paul asked that there be no rivalry between them. Instead Paul asked that they work together for the good of all. He asked that they express their gifts as part of something that is larger than the gift itself.

God has given His gifts to our Holy Church, and to each of us, not as a preference, but rather as a means to achieving what Nehemiah and Jesus call us to do —“ recognize God, living among us, as part of us, in a community that is more than momentary, but that will last forever.

Turn to the person next to you or behind you. Know their face. You will see them in the heavenly kingdom, where our perfected community and its gifts will join with every other community in one common recognition of Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Savior, and in one joyous Amen.

and all the people, their hands raised high, answered,
—Amen, amen!—

PNCC

Looking for a church in and around Rochester, NY?

From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: St. Casimir’s Polish National Church may close unless attendance improves: One hundred-year- old St. Casimir’s Church looking for new congregants

St. Casimir’s Polish National Catholic Church celebrated its centennial two years ago, but the church’s future is very much in doubt.

The congregation is now only about 20 families, down from a peak of about 600 from years ago. But those who are members are determined to do whatever they can to keep the church going.

John Weldy is among them. A retiree of Eastman Kodak Co., Weldy started attending the Simpson Road church about eight years ago, when his wife, Maria, a Polish native, stumbled upon St. Casimir’s on a cul-de-sac near their St. Paul Boulevard home.

They met in England when Weldy was there working for Kodak. They came to Rochester where Weldy had worked before going to England in 1999.

“She came all the way from Poland and found a Polish church just around the corner,” said Weldy. “For my wife, it was quite a pleasant surprise.”

Maria Weldy was visiting family members in Poland and not available for comment. John Weldy, who plays in various jazz ensembles, started playing the church organ on special occasions, but now plays every Sunday, during the church’s lone Mass at 10 a.m.

Weldy has taken popular songs by artists such as the Beatles, Lionel Ritchie and Phil Collins, and melded them into hymn-like tunes that he plays before Mass begins. His wife and their daughters have helped out in all aspects, including readings and altar service.

“What I like about the church is it has a free and open approach, it’s not strict or rigid,” Weldy said. “But we don’t have a success formula from a business standpoint. We just don’t know where (the church) is going.”

St. Casimir’s is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese, as is the nearby St. Stanislaus Church on Hudson Avenue, which also is rooted in Polish heritage. St. Casimir’s is part of the Polish National Catholic Church, which formed in 1897 and is based in Scranton, Pa. The church has more than 25,000 members nationally, according to its Web site.

Ilona Frederick of Rochester just started attending St. Casimir’s a few months ago.

“It’s a beautiful church,” she said. “What’s nice about it is that it’s so small.”

The pastor is the Rev. Marek Gnidzinski, a Polish native who served at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Batavia for nine years. He started at St. Casimir’s in June.

The small congregation is nothing new for Gnidzinski. He served as a missionary priest in Africa years ago and said he would travel 100 miles to meet up with 10 or so people and celebrate Mass.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s one person or 1,000, my approach is still the same,” Gnidzinski said.

But the struggle with St. Casimir’s is difficult, said Gnidzinski, who said he expects a decision on the church’s fate from his bishop very soon.

“I’ve got pretty good hopes about it,” he said. “I’ve done everything in my power. But without new members, it’s difficult to survive.”

Note that the article is incorrect in relation to the Bishop deciding the fate of the Parish. If a Parish were to close that must be the decision of the people who are members of that Parish. The Bishop only conducts the vote on a closure and such a vote is only made at the request of the Parish membership.

If you are looking for a Parish, St. Casimir’s is located in Irondequoit at 500 Simpson Street, Rochester, NY 14617. More information is available here. For a map see Google Maps.

Art, Current Events, ,

Webposium for Teaching Artists

The Dana Foundation is pleased to invite you to a free Webposium for Teaching Artists, Friday, January 29, 2010, 12:00-1:00PM (EST).

Join us online for a discussion about the challenges and successes of working with students with disabilities. The event will be streamed live and viewers will be able to join in the Q and A at the end of the session.

What do teaching artists need to know to be successful when working with students with disabilities?

What do teaching artists need to know, understand, and be able to do to achieve success in a self-contained or inclusion classroom? The panel consists of artists and educators dedicated to making the arts accessible to all students. The panelists will discuss practical classroom strategies, lesson plan modifications, as well as the necessary questions to ask in order for everyone (artists, students, teachers, para-professionals, and administrators) to be successful.

Panelists include:

  • Judith Jellison, Regents Professor of Music and Human Learning, Butler School of Music, University of Texas, Austin (expertise in music and disabilities)
  • Allison Orr, Artistic Director, Forklift Danceworks (expertise in dance and disabilities)
  • Sherry Snowden, Lecturer, Art Education, Texas State University (expertise in lesson plan design, visual arts, and disabilities)
  • Moderator: Russell Granet, Founder, Arts Education Resource (expertise in theatre and disabilities)

Register here. Registration ends January 28 at 5:00pm.

Art, Political, ,

The Art of Gaetano Porcasi

I received a comment on a post in relation to the art of Gaetano Porcasi. The comment really didn’t fit the post, and does not really appear to be a spam comment either. I checked out the artist’s website and enjoyed what I found there. You may as well – sort of a retrospective on Sicilian village life and the affect of corrupt power on the lives of common people.

Gaetano Porcasi is a Sicilian artist and school art teacher. His paintings are considered unique not only for their social and political commitment but also for the technique and choice of typical Mediterranean colours from which a strong and deep Sicilitudine (Sicilian mood) emerges.

The 2003 itinerant exhibition Portella della Ginestra Massacre is a good example: in 1947 a group of Sicilian farmers was shot and killed in Portella by the outlaw Salvatore Giuliano and his men under orders from the local Mafia mobsters and big landowners in order to stop the farmers’ attempts to occupy and plant uncultivated local land. His historical paintings which denounce the violence and oppression of the Mafia find their counterpart in his paintings which depict sunny Sicilian landscapes rich in lemon, orange and olive trees, in prickly pear, agave and broom plants. They show the wealth of a land that has been kissed by God but downtrodden by man.

In painting the sky of his native Sicily Gaetano uses several different hues of blue and it’s from this sky that his pictorial journey starts. In his paintings the history of Sicily, which has always been marked by its farmers’ sweat and blood and by their struggles for freedom and democracy, finds its pictorial expression in the fusion of the red flags of the workers with the Italian flag in a sort of Italian and Mediterranean epopea. The red flags and the Italian flag stand out against the blue sky that changes its hues according to the events, the seasons, the deeds and the moods that are painted on the canvas. The luxuriant nature of Sicily with its beautiful, sunny, Mediterranean landscapes seems to remain the silent, unchangeable and unchanged witness to events and the passing of time. Here people are only accidenti, they aren’t makers of their own life. Thus Gaetano makes a clear-cut metaphysical distinction between a benign, merciful nature and Man who breaks the natural harmony to satisfy his wild, unbridled ambition and selfishness and who becomes the perpetrator of violence and crime. Gaetano is also an active environmentalist and his fight against all forms of pollution has already cost him a lot.

Current Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia,

U.S. Embassy in Poland accepting applications

United States Institutes 2010 (program szkoleniowy w USA dla nauczycieli i wykładowców z całego świata)

USA Ambasada USA w Warszawie zaprasza do składania podań na program Study of the United States Institutes (SUSI), który odbędzie się w lecie 2010 roku.

Applications Accepted until January 25, 2010 (Podania można składać do 25 stycznia 2010).

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is pleased to invite candidate nominations for the Summer 2010 Study of the United States Institutes (SUSI) for University Faculty and Secondary School Educators. University-Level and Faculty members participate in intensive post-graduate level academic programs with integrated study tours. The programs provide foreign university faculty and other scholars the opportunity to deepen their understanding of American society, culture and institutions. The ultimate goal is to strengthen curricula and to improve the quality of teaching about the United States in academic institutions abroad. Secondary School Educators attend a six-week post-graduate seminar in the United States. All of the institute programs will be held this summer at different U.S. universities and colleges beginning in mid-June 2010. Space in the institutes is very limited. To be competitive, candidates must have excellent proficiency in English and outstanding qualifications. Application Deadline: January 25, 2010.

The SUSI programs in six institutes for University-Level and Faculty members:

  • Study of the U.S. Institute on U.S. Culture and Society
  • Study of the U.S. Institute on American Politics and Political Thought
  • Study of the U.S. Institute on Contemporary American Literature
  • Study of the U.S. Institute on Foreign Policy
  • Study of the U.S. Institute on Journalism and Media
  • Study of the U.S. Institute on Religious Pluralism

SUSI Programs for Secondary School Educators:

The institute programs are an opportunity for secondary school teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum developers, textbook writers, and other educational professionals to attend a six-week post-graduate seminar in the United States.

All of the institute programs will be held this summer at different U.S. universities and colleges over the course of six weeks beginning in mid June 2010.

Current Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia,

Yo! Polish dog

From the BBC: English lessons for ‘Polish’ dog

A dog caused confusion in an animal home when he failed to respond to basic commands – until staff realised he could only understand Polish.

Staff at the RSPCA centre in Oldham, Greater Manchester, originally thought Cent the collie was deaf.

But when they looked into his history they realised he came from a Polish family and so did not “speak” English.

So staff brushed up on Polish commands and, four months on, they say Cent is now bilingual and ready for a new home.

“When he came in he wasn’t responding to the basic commands,” said care assistant Karen Heath.

“We couldn’t understand why at first but when we’ve looked at his records and his history he has come from a Polish family.

“So obviously we’ve gathered from that he doesn’t understand the English language, so therefore he won’t understand our basic commands.”

Staff turned to the internet for phrases Cent could recognise – although they are unsure of the pronunciation…

A consequence of the massive Polish emigration to England which is now returning to Poland due to better economic conditions back home.

Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , ,

What is Eastern Europe

From The Economist: Wrongly labelled: The economic downturn has made it harder to speak sensibly of a region called —eastern Europe—

IT WAS never a very coherent idea and it is becoming a damaging one. —Eastern Europe— is a geographical oddity that includes the Czech Republic (in the middle of the continent) but not Greece or Cyprus (supposedly —western— Europe but in the far south-east). It makes little sense historically either: it includes countries (like Ukraine) that were under the heel of the Soviet empire for decades and those (Albania, say) that only brushed it. Some of those countries had harsh planned economies; others had their own version of —goulash communism— (Hungary) or —self-managed socialism— (Yugoslavia).

Already unreliable in 1989, the label has stretched to meaninglessness as those countries’ fortunes have diverged since the collapse of communism. The nearly 30 states that once, either under their own names or as part of somewhere else, bore the label —communist— now have more differences than similarities. Yet calling them —eastern Europe— suggests not only a common fate under totalitarian rule, but a host of ills that go with it: a troubled history then; bad government and economic misery now.

The economic downturn has shown how misleading this is. Worries about —contagion— from the banking crisis in Latvia raised risk premiums in otherwise solid economies such as Poland and the Czech Republic—”a nonsense based on outsiders’ perceptions of other outsiders’ fears. In fact, the continent’s biggest financial upheaval is in Iceland (see article, article), and the biggest forecast budget deficits in the European Union next year will not be in some basket-cases from the ex-communist —east— but in Britain and in Greece. The new government in Athens is grappling with a budget deficit of at least 12.7% of GDP and possibly as much as 14.5%. European Commission officials are discussing that in Greece this week…

Of course Eastern Europe was always a political construct arising from a natavist world view coupled with anti-communist politics of the Cold War. Geographically, the center of Europe is in Lithuania, and Poland is resolutely in the middle of Central Europe.

It is also interesting to note that several Cold War constructs still prevail. Poles are the last “Eastern Europeans” who need a visa to travel to the United States, and at a prohibitive cost at that. Also, there is still a lack of degree equivalency so that Poles coming to the U.S., as doctors, dentists, and in other professions, must finance a whole second education. All of this is what’s left of an unfortunate history, one, as the article suggests, that we must get beyond.

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