Wrapping Upchuck: Sunday 4/11/10

So, in this inaugural "Wrapping Upchuck" posting, what do I say? Where do I start?

Well, I guess a basic description of my day will do.

Today began like any Sunday does in the Huck household. We all slept in a bit (and by sleeping in, I mean until about 8:00am). Or rather, I should say that I slept in a bit. I woke up to the sound of my youngest daughter involved in some loud conversation with my B-2/3.

Of course, as is usual for Sunday, the first thing I do is head for the Times-Picayune. Really enjoyed the spread in the Living section on the new TV series Treme. My youngest, as part of a little game she has had going on since yesterday, brought me a cup of coffee as part of her "doing something nice" for me. She organized a name-picking process yesterday, sort of like a Secret Santa kind of thing, and we all as a family picked a couple of names from a hat with the promise to do a couple of nice things for the people whose names we picked. So, I got a nice big cup of hot coffee from my youngest, who obviously picked my name. Her big sister, milking the game for all it was worth, managed to squeeze breakfast in bed from her younger sister, who did it gladly. My youngest really is a very sweet, overly sensitive little human being. She wants to be an opera singer when she "grows up."

So, I sipped coffee, read the paper, and then putzed around doing much of nothing until it was time to bring my oldest up to Church for 11:00am. After dropping her off at Church, I stopped off at my office to print out a couple of essays I needed to read and grade, and then headed back home. I had just enough time, before all my squirrelly girlies returned from church, to freshen up and put on some semi-nice duds in order to participate in an admissions luncheon up at the university where I work. It was one of those major admissions events where hundreds of prospective, already-admitted students and their parents descend upon the University for a visit as part of their last efforts to wrap up their college decision-making process. We faculty get to join this group for lunch where we host a table and represent our departments/majors. I had a couple of families at my table and we had a very nice conversation and visit. Each of the young prospectives I spoke with was very impressive and would be a great fit for my university; but it sounds like they both have some pretty competitive alternatives, too. We'll see what they decide. I did my part and got a nice lunch out of it.

Afterwards, I went back home to join my family and I putzed around some more, listened to some music (Mozart's "The Magic Flute" opera, which I think may be my favorite opera of all), did some reading (I'm currently into a couple of books -- one is Christopher Moore's Fool, which is a bawdy retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear from the point of view of the court jester, and Jean-Robert Cadet's autobiography called Restavek: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American), played a couple of games on the computer, and did a bit of house cleaing in what we call our "craft room."

When the early evening rolled around, I attended a Maryknoll Affiliates meeting. The Maryknoll Affiliates are a group of Catholics who share the Maryknoll religious order's concept of "mission," which is heavily grounded in the Social Justice teachings of the Catholic Church. We meet on Sunday evenings once a month, and tonight was our monthly meeting night. We spend most of our time discussing a summary of the Latin American Bishops' 5th General Latin American Episcopal Conference that took place in Aparecida, Brazil, where they reaffirmed the "see-judge-act" method of social analysis that originally out of the famous 1968 Medellin Conference, and which produced what is now known as liberation theology. We had a great discussion about this, and we even had some time to address the big elephant in the room, which is the ongoing (and worsening) sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. I tell you, if it weren't for the people I know through the Maryknoll Affiliates, I don't believe I could continue to be part of the Catholic community; but knowing that there are good Catholic folks who find themselves keeping faith in the midst of their own doubts and struggles that parallel mine is a faith and church lifeline for me. Anyway, I came back refreshed from my meeting and with another book in tow on loan from my good friend, Mateo: Philip S. Kaufman's Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic. And now I'm back home writing up this my first "Wrapping Upchuck." After which, I will be easing into my nighttime routine, reading and grading some more papers, and perhaps getting into a movie before drifting off to sleep in preparation for a new (and quite busy) week.

Buenas noches y que Dios te bendiga!