IrvingD

Ever since my parents used to drive up to Bear Mountain for one of our Saturday outings, I wanted to get off the road and explore the woods and rugged terrain beyond old Route 17. The Ramapo Hills looked high to me. I called them mountains and I wasn't incorrect since they form one of the lower ranges of the Appalachian chain that passes through downstate New York. Nevertheless, they filled my ten-year-old imagination with wonder and a desire to climb them. That time finally arrived when I joined my high school's hiking club six years later. An avid outdoors man, Brother Keane organized a group of boys on a trip to Harriman-Bear Mountain State Park where we climbed Bear Mountain from whose summit you can see the Manhattan sky line rising like spikes at the end of a long winding tail that is the Hudson River. Brother Keane also taught eleventh grade English and Freshman Religion at Power memorial Academy, my all boys Catholic high school on Amsterdam Avenue and 61st Street in ...

At 1,284 ft. above sea level, some would say that Bear Mountain hardly qualifies as a true mountain. That's if you compare it to one of the looming ranges of the Rockies, or even the modest, yet formidable, peaks of New York's Adirondacks. But to me and to many, Bear Mountain is a mountain and it can proudly take its place in the Appalachian chain to which it belongs. For one thing, Bear Mountain hosts the oldest portion of the Appalachian Trail which is the way to hike up it from behind the Bear Mountain Inn. You can drive your car up the mountain on the winding Perkins Memorial Drive. June 30th was a hot, sunny day when Janet and I decided to meet some friends and, with Cinnamon our dog, climb Bear Mountain. The hike is light to moderately strenuous. The ascent is 1,000 vertical feet at a distance of eight tenths of a mile. An easy Saturday outing? Not. With the temperatures in the nineties and a sun staring down hard, the light to moderate hike went up a notch or two on th...

On February 2, 2012, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, California purchased the iconic Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Robert Schuller, who successfully built this megachurch and its magnetic structure, appears to also have superintended its demise and impending dissolution. The platform of his "Possibility Thinking" for a half century, the Protestant Crystal Cathedral ran out of financial possibilities and sold its assets to the Catholics who will make it the seat of the Bishop of Orange and, hence, a true cathedral. It's worship services which are part variety show, part feature celebrity interview will give way to the ancient liturgy of the Eucharist. Where Schuller pranced and preened across his marble stage will stand a high altar where priests will offer Mass with bread and wine and incense. No doubt a crucifix will occupy a significant visual space somewhere near the altar where the huge organ pipes now dominate. I am really curious how the diocesan archit...

In spite of what other experts might say, I say that there is no style of music that is the exclusive vehicle of worship. Some would have the music of worship limited to a particular tradition or supposed non-tradition. Whether it is some form of ancient chant, Bach chorales, traditional hymns, Gospel, revival, or contemporary "praise music," we must avoid proclaiming any of these as the only proper way to render God's praises. Any one of them or a combination will work. My problem comes with those who would say otherwise. Popular megachurch pastor Rick Warren dismisses traditional hymnody as outdated and, hence, irrelevant or even prohibitive to church growth. In one seminar I attended, Warren had the audience in stitches when he parodied a chorus from Handel's Messiah. "We praise thee, we praise thee, we praise thee, we praise. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Aaaaaaaaa--men," he repeated oblivious to the artistry in the Baroque oratorio. A military chaplain I...

The blogosphere and FaceBook are replete with flame throwers. It seems that people are not content to express their opinions and leave things at that. This is the age of ad hominem attacks. What used to play on air as slander is now the stuff of daily discourse. People have become "haters" on both sides of the political divide. No individual is immune from motive baiting, and no action from and ulterior-and sinister-motives when analyzed from the other side of the political spectrum. That anyone could hold an idea from inner convictions or altruistic motives is categorically denied. I am not promoting a kind of bland "let's-just-all-get-along" dialogue. Convictions matter. World views are real entities to those who hold them. But there are ways to talk about these things without tearing at each other. Without ripping apart the personal character of the President. My friends who call him a "crypto-Islamist" or question his citizenship have already ...

I'm eventually coming to face a disconcerting fact about FaceBook. The status bar simply cannot sustain subtleties of thought or the nuances of emotion. Recently, I posted a comment about my frustrations with politics-or at least the way people post political opinions. I am not a little amused and outraged by those status bar items which rail against other groups as being "hateful, vicious, narrow-minded, idiots," while claiming all along the moral high ground of moderation and sweet reasonableness. They will post links to other pieces that decry the ignorance and stupidity of their political opponents all the while holding to the semblance of sophistication and sanity. My status bar recently announced that for these and other reasons I hate politics. Next thing you know, a couple of old seminary buddies chimed in with dead serious mini-lectures on the significance of politics in the course of human events. Good points were made about the place of influence on the lives o...