I’m sure my dear AP Lit teacher looking down on me from Heaven and laughing his rear off!  I’ll never forget sitting in his class one day and I’d finally had enough of all the hidden political meanings and other agendas in the pieces we were studying and I asked “Didn’t anyone ever just write a story to write a story?!”  He looked at me, shook his head and I’m sure, went home and cried.  But later, he retold a story about William Faulkner’s The Bear about how Faulkner answered some scholar’s question about meaning in a particular passage with “I don’t know, I was drunk when I wrote it.” So, maybe I didn’t dissapoint him as much as I’d thought.

During my time working with high school students two things happened…  I tried to come up with music to add to our lessons.  Something that helped reinforce the lesson but also bring in a little praise & worship.  I didn’t however, care much for the Christian music I was hearing and it seemed like the best ones were being so overused that I went to my own CD collection and pulled out those that I thought could work for various situations and started there.  Around the same time, I noticed that the students needed to be more aware of what they were reading, watching and listening to.  So, I asked them to be conscious of what they listened to for a couple of weeks, and bring in a song that could in all or part be talking about God, our search for Him, or something along those lines.  I was amazed at what all they brought in.

Then I got to meet Sr. Rose Pacette – whom really took what I thought was unique inspiration to a whole new level.  Now, by “met” I mean, met her at a conference and loved what she was doing.  Check out her reviews here. She gets to go to more current movies than my budget allows, but I always appreciate her point of view.

Not long after that, I was asked to do a talk at our Diocesan Catechetical Study Day which I did on using Music in Catechesis and got to meet another great (to me) figure in Movie Ministry, Sr. Gretchen Hailer.  Sr. Gretchen works to make people conscious of being manipulated by the media as a whole.  That means, commercials, news, movies, music, print, the whole bit.

I’ve been gearing up for a “Movie Ministry” group at my parish.  As excited as I am about it, I just don’t see people wanting to spend time doing it with me…  but, if I ever do get it accomplished, you’ll be the first to know!