Sunday, July 29, 2012

Monday, July 23, 2012

Wonderful afternoon at Westben

I was thrilled to be invited to share in a bulk purchase of tickets to see Gerald Finley at the Westben Arts Festival yesterday. He's a high school classmate who has gone on to the highest levels in his art, one of the leading bass-baritones in the world.

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At just over two hours from Toronto, we left mid-morning and picnicked in the lovely gardens/meadow. A pre-show chat led by Iain Scott of U of Ts opera school introduced the sold-out house to both Gerry and the repertoire he'd be performing: mainly arias from operas through the ages.
He was joined on stage by his cousin Brian Finley who is the founder and artistic director at Westben, and a superb pianist.
I'll attach a copy of the program. A wonderful afternoon, Gerry sang from 2 to 4:45 with an intermission.

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Monday, July 9, 2012

Catholic Moral Theology

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My brother John Berkman is one of a group of Catholic moral theologians who have a blog. Their mission statement:

We are a group of North American Catholic moral theologians who come together in friendship to engage each other in theological discussion, to aid one another in our common search for wisdom, and to help one another live lives of discipleship, all in service to the reign of God.  We understand our role as scholars and teachers to be a vocation rooted in the Church and so we seek to place the fruits of our training at the service of the Church, as well as the academy and the world.  We recognize that we as a group will have disagreements, but want to avoid the standard “liberal /conservative” divide that often characterizes contemporary conversation, as well as the bitterly divisive tone of so much ethical discussion (particularly on the internet). We therefore endeavor to converse with each other and others in a spirit of respect, charity, and humility.

It is a refreshing change from some of the polarized (and polarizing) discussion that is out there in the Catholic blogosphere.

Check them out at CatholiMoralTheology.com.

Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy.

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#dailybookpic Day 9: Not a book - My ticket stub diary.

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Thursday, July 5, 2012

A July photo project: #DailyBookPic

Cassandra Neace who blogs at Indie Reader Houston and is a contributor to BookRiot, has initiated #DailyBookPic, a little book-related photo project that I've been participating in. For full details, you can check out her post here. Essentially, she's come up with a set of book-related topics and asks for a photo a day. You can tweet your pics with the hashtag #DailyBookPic.

Here are the topics:

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My contributions so far:

Day 1: Favorite Reading Spot

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Day 2: Current Read

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Day 3: Book Browsing

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Day 4: Book Shelf

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Day 5: Book Mark

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I'll send future pics directly here!