The Polish Nation Union of America (the best insurance policies and annuities you can get) has placed its current issue of Straż, and an archive of past issues back to 2007, online. The preview of the current issue is for a limited time only. Thereafter, current issues will only be available to members. Archived issues will always be available to all.
Felix Carroll, a former Albany Times Union writer recently published a wonderful reflection on his son’s introduction to church and why parents should take the time to bring their children to the Catholic faith. In Heigh-ho, it’s off to church we go he says:
For reasons that are equal parts practical, political, spiritual and personal, about three years ago, when “my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) turned 4-years old, I began dragging him to church on Sundays.
Yes, I had my doubts that first day. Particularly during the consecration, when the priest said the words “Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is My Body …” All the talk of body and blood, soul and divinity, I wondered if expecting my boy to comprehend all this was like expecting him to understand the movie “Blade Runner.”
Still, at the time, he knew more about Spider-Man than he did about God, and I felt guilty as a result. He could deliver a disturbingly detailed lecture on a fictional character like, say, Salacious Crumb, the Kowakian monkey-lizard in the motley court of Jabba the Hut, and yet he knew next to nothing about that nonfictional wild rebel from Nazareth who (word has it) changed the world.
…
Why church? Such a question would be unheard of a couple generations ago. And so maybe mutiny against the modern day is part of it. But it’s not just because my parents forced my siblings and me to attend, and that their parents forced them and onward down the family line, stretching in a buoyant backstroke through the centuries. There are other reasons.
When I was coming of age in the 1980s, the most well-known faces of Christianity in our nation were televangelists who often spoke with venom, whose suits were expensive, whose homes were huge, who made wild and unfulfilled apocalyptic predictions, and who struck me as absolute lunatics.
It was they, and not archetypal youthful rebellion, who prompted me to run in the opposite direction, back through my Catholic upbringing and out the other side to the lonely, spiritual bottomlands where absolute truth could be tossed in the air and riddled with buckshot.
At the time, I was a greenhorn when it came to demagoguery. As I got older, I wasn’t so easily discouraged. I became a father of a baby whom I’d rock to sleep. He became a growing boy whom I wished to rock awake. And what do I wish him to see?
I want him to see that the face of religion today isn’t the political-hacks who talk about the “real” America. It isn’t the Pharisees of cable news whose popularity and bank accounts are contingent upon stoking and exploiting political and religious polarity.
So, yeah, I drag my boy to church in an effort to inoculate him from the modern-day snake-oil salesmen, and for him to see the face of spirituality in the people who go about the world doing good for others, who do so quietly, who have one foot on Earth and one in eternity. People, in other words, who’ve got it together.
I take him to church because the following is indisputable: A spiritual life will protect him from the bad things that will surely happen in his life. The bad things won’t be as devastating.
There are other reasons. How about this: Science, medicine and politics offer, at best, huge answers to small questions. Today, the biggest question — why are we here? — is all but ignored outside of the specially built edifices designed for such rumination — our churches and synagogues (and a goodly number of Irish pubs).
In a passage from a book titled “Lectures in Orthodox Religious Education,” by Sophie S. Koulomzin, the author writes: “If the child’s environment is penetrated by a living spirit of faith and love, the child will discover it, just as it discovers parental love and security.”…
- Friday, February 12: Polish-American Buffet 4-8pm.
- Sunday, February 14: Tony’s Polka Band, Polish-American kitchen, cash bar 2:30-6:30pm.
- Sunday, February 21: Capital USA Dance, Ballroom; Ballroom; Ballroom! (and refreshments). Music by Dan DeBennetto. Lessons by Eric Singleman. Class 6:15-7pm; Dancing until 10pm. Members $9; Non $12; College $5; Free under 18. Contact James DeForge at 518-233-0957 or by E-mail.
- Sunday, February 28: Community Ballroom Dance, 6:30 – 10pm. Every fourth Sunday of the month and open to all Ballroom Dance enthusiasts. Enjoy a Cha Cha dance lesson at 6:30pm by Eileen Spadaro. General dancing begins at 7pm with music selections by Gary Burgess. At 8:30 pm, Thomas and Katherine Hourigan will dance a ‘Slow Waltz.’ Cost: $10 includes the lesson.
The Polish Community Center is located at 225 Washington Ave Ext, Albany NY 12205. Call 518-456-3995 for more information.
From Christian Newswire: Iran Sanctions Pass in Congress —“ Catholic Leaders Influential in Legislative Victory
These “Catholic” neo-con, more interested in politics than in Jesus, leaders seem to have forgotten how well sanctions and interventionist adventures worked against Iraq. Their warmongering, and the cheerleading they provided for the Bush regime, lead to the virtual destruction of Catholic and other Christian communities in Iraq as well as several thousands of American lives. Under Saddam, who was a secularist, Christian communities in Iraq were left in peace. Seems like these devils in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15) want to set up what are left of the Armenians, Assyrians and members of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iran for martyrdom. All for the greater glory of Go… oh yeah, interventionist U.S. government escapades.
These leaders are all for a nuclear free Iran. Perhaps they should focus on a nuclear free Middle East – thus the purge of Israel’s nuclear firepower. But of course, the United States has to sell its children to war just to prop up one country. Ezra Waldman, writing an opinion piece in the Albany Time Union asks:
Does [Ms. Hotaling] suggest that we cease supporting Israel? Whom would she support? Should we back Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and others?
How about this for the most simple, easy to understand answer… support no one, trade equally with all, and never ever intervene. If we were to do so, pulling completely out, the terrorism problem would disappear overnight.
From Christian Newswire: Lithuanian Priest and Free Market Advocate to Receive Acton Institute’s 2010 Novak Award
Lithuanian scholar and Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Kstutis Kevalas, is the winner of the Acton Institute’s 2010 Novak Award.
During the past nine years, Fr. Kstutis Kevalas has initiated a new debate in Lithuania, introducing the topic of free market economics to religious believers, and presenting a new set of hitherto unknown questions to economists. Fr. Kevalas is a respected figure and well known expert on Christian social ethics, the free market, and human dignity to the people of his home country. In addition to his active work as a speaker and pastor at national events, he serves as a lecturer on moral theology at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.
After studies at the Kaunas Priest Seminary and St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md., Fr. Kevalas was ordained to the priesthood in 2000. In 2001, he received his Licentiate Degree in Theology writing the thesis “Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Development: A Case Study of Lithuania.” He received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology with his thesis on “The Origins and Ends of the Free Economy as Portrayed in the Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus” in 2008.
Named after distinguished American theologian and social philosopher Michael Novak, the Novak Award rewards new outstanding research by scholars early in their academic careers who demonstrate outstanding intellectual merit in advancing the understanding of theology’s connection to human dignity, the importance of limited government, religious liberty, and economic freedom…
Forged Power is an ASU Art Museum Moving Targets Initiative featuring the work of Ferran Mendoza, Alvaro Sau and William Wylie. The exhibit will be at the Arizona State University Art Museum from February 20 —“ May 29, 2010.
Friday Conversations @11 series, Feb. 19
Spring Season Reception, Feb. 19 from 7-9pm
Ferran Mendoza & Alvaro Sau, Outdoors, High Definition Video, 2009
William Wylie, Carrara series, Cavatori, The Block, Dust, Friction, Digital Video, 2006
In the digital age, the way we engage with physical work has shifted drastically. Such shifts are not new and have occurred over the course of human history – from the invention of simple tools, to the industrial revolution, to our current digital society. But as technologies continue to advance, our control and power appear to diminish, not only in our work, but also of our bodies. The body’s relationship to work continues to be less physical. We use mechanical arms to lift both heavy and light objects into place, and vacuums now roam floors on their own. A document that once took the entire use of one’s arm to handwrite can now be created with light touches of computer keys. With voice activation and eye-tracking technologies entering the mainstream consumer market, the hand may soon be removed altogether from the process of work.
Spanish artists Ferran Mendoza and Alvaro Sau traveled the Basque-French border region. The artists refer to it as —this kind of frontier land which we call the outdoors,— a territory of Europe where the —most archaic ways of living coexist with the omnipresent industrial world.— Using their cameras, Mendoza and Sau captured, in high definition video, the residents of this seemingly isolated region in their daily routines and surroundings. The result of their journey is the video OUTDOORS (2008), a 56-minute work that delivers a composition of portraits. These portraits provide fleeting glimpses of individuals who take pride in their independence, work and knowhow. Their knowledge of their tools, their environment and how their bodies interact with each is clear and poetic; they perform their tasks as if every specific activity or action has been choreographed.
In the historic quarries of Carrara, Italy, the cavatori (stonecutters) have worked for centuries excavating large slabs of white marble from the earth. Through a fellowship exchange, artist William Wylie was provided the opportunity to spend time observing the everyday operations and interactions of the men who work in these famous quarries, the very quarries used by artists from Michelangelo to Louise Bourgeois. What at first appears to be a focus on machinery is soon realized to be a study of human activity and control. While trucks and machinery within these digital videos appear to struggle and battle to complete tasks, the cavatori work with their hands – making precision measurements and chiseling slight grooves. The artist captures in his Carrara series, Cavatori, The Block, Dust, and Friction (2006), the gestural engagements of the hand and body as the stonecutters work together, using signals and whistles, to coordinate their movements within the noise and chaos of the industrial site. Together these four videos demonstrate that the actions of work can be perceived as beautiful in and of themselves.
The individuals captured in these videos control their own actions by working with their hands and bodies. They do more than just push a button; they exert human energy and create an effect through the power of their own body. Retaining the capability of doing work or accomplishing tasks with the use of the physical body, their forged power is a reaffirmation of human capability.
William Wylie will be in attendance at ASU Art Museum to present a free lecture on a yet to be determined date. He will also meet with students and classes while in Tempe.
Curated by John D. Spiak, Curator, ASU Art Museum.
The exhibition and programs are generously supported by Helme Prinzen Endowment, ASU Art Museum Advisory Board, ASU School of Art and the Department of Photography, and Northlight Gallery at ASU.
Arizona State University Art Museum
Mill Avenue @ 10th Street
Tempe, AZ 85287-2911
2010 marks the 200th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin’s birth. In honor of the occasion iTunes is highlighting Alice Sara Ott’s album of Chopin waltzes. You can take a sample listen at the iTunes website.
Fryderyk Chopin was born March 1, 1810 at the village of Żelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw. He was regarded a child-prodigy pianist. He left Poland for good on November 2, 1830 for a trip to Italy. The outbreak of the Polish November Uprising seven days later, and its subsequent suppression by Russia, led to Chopin’s becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration.
Settling in Paris, Chopin worked as a composer and piano teacher, while giving few public performances. Chopin remained an ardent Polish patriot throughout his short life. For the greater part of his life Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris on October 17, 1849 of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Chopin’s compositions, of which there are over 230, were written primarily for the piano as solo instrument. Though technically demanding, they emphasize nuance and expressive depth rather than sheer virtuosity. Chopin invented musical forms such as the instrumental ballade and was responsible for major innovations in the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu and prélude.
Alice Sara Ott, a German-Japanese pianist, was born in Munich in 1988. Her second compilation, noted above, is a series of complete waltzes by Frederic Chopin.
The following is Piosenka litewska from Chopin’s Polish Songs, Op. 74
Two priests died at the same time and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter said, “I’d like to get you guys in now, but our computer is down. You’ll have to go back to Earth for about a week, but you can’t go back as priests. So what else would you like to be?”
The first priest says, “I’ve always wanted to be an eagle, soaring above the Rocky Mountains..”
“So be it,” says St. Peter, and off flies the first priest.
The second priest mulls this over for a moment and asks, “Will any of this week ‘count,’ St. Peter?”
“No, I told you the computer’s down. There’s no way we can keep track of what you’re doing.”
“In that case,” says the second priest, “I’ve always wanted to be a stud.”
“So be it,” says St. Peter, and the second priest disappears.
A week goes by, the computer is fixed, and the Lord tells St. Peter to recall the two priests. “Will you have any trouble locating them?” He asks.
“The first one should be easy,” says St. Peter. “He’s somewhere over the Rockies, flying with the eagles.
But the second one could prove to be more difficult.”
“Why?” asketh the Lord.
“He’s on a snow tire, somewhere in BUFFALO..
Dr. John Z. Guzlowski’s blog Lightning and Ashes will begin posting a series of audio and video interviews with people who were interviewed by Dr. Bogusia Wojciechowska for her book on the Polish Catholic experience in WWII, Waiting to Be Heard.
The first of these interviews is with Lilka Croydon-Trzcinska who, as a young girl, fought with the Polish resistance and was sentenced to Auschwitz.
New developments have recently taken place in the effort led by the Polish American Congress (PAC) to have a commemorative stamp issued for Lt. Colonel Matt Urban. Background information about the effort is available at the Congress website
In the recent exchange of correspondence between Anthony J. Bajdek, Polish American Congress’ Vice President for American Affairs and the United States Postal Service, Terrence W. McCaffrey, Manager, Stamp Development, United States Postal Service advised that the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee has recently reviewed the proposal for a commemorative stamp honoring Matt Urban. “I am pleased to inform you Lt. Colonel Matt Urban is now under consideration for possible future stamp issuance. (…) Currently, the 2010 and 2011 stamp programs are completed, and stamp subjects for the 2012 program and subsequent years are being selected” he wrote.
To date, the Polish American Congress has collected thousands of signatures in support of the issuance of this stamp. Per USPS request, all those petitions are going to be forwarded within the next month or so to the USPS for the Committee’s review. After that, the collection is going to return to the PAC.
Among the signatories are many veterans of World War II, one of whom, for example, is Walter Stanko of Swansea, MA who served in the U. S. 9th Infantry Division with Matt Urban. Walter has collected some 5,000 signatures of Americans living in the Naragansett Bay area of New
England. The Polish American Congress was also advised that additional petitions and letters might be sent at any time.
Before submitting its current collection, however, the Polish American Congress seeks to gather as many additional signatures as possible to “freshen up the bouquet” and show the community’s support for the effort.
Please help us to honor the memory of Matt Urban (1919-1995), who is tied with Audie Murphy for being the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II. Murphy was honored with a USPS commemorative stamp in 1999-2000.
To make that happen, please download the petition, collect as many signatures as possible and return the form(s) to the Polish American Congress.
Time is now of the essence, so please make sure to return the signatures by March 15, 2010 to:
Matt Urban Stamp Campaign
Polish American Congress
1612 K Street NW, Suite 410
Washington, DC 20006