Clergy Family Confidential

I spent the morning beating my head against a wall. In other words I was trying to teach myself how to use some new technology. And by “new” I mean something your average 10-year-old could do with his eyes tied behind his back. This particular head bashing revolved around podcasting.

At the Episcopal Communicators conference in Seattle last month I heard about a great new product for recording sermons. The Zoom H2 is a handy little recording device which I ordered and used for the first time on Sunday. The sound was great but unfortunately it doesn’t enhance the sermon’s content. The idea is to start podcasting my sermons. That way parishioners who can’t be in church on Sunday morning (because they’re out of town or ill – not because they’re sleeping in or going to soccer, of course) will be able to hear the sermon at their convenience. It’s also intended as a resource for our Sunday School teachers who bring the kids in for communion but miss the Liturgy of the Word.

Putting sermons on the web also means that anyone in the world can be inspired and enlightened by my preaching. I’m sure I’ll be overwhelmed with visits to my website and I’ll become the Joel Osteen of the Episcopal Church. The only thing stopping me? I still haven’t figured out how to make them available!

But I’m getting closer. I exported the file into an MP3 format and put it on my iTunes. So I can now listen to it on my iPod. The next time I go out for an 11 minute and 30 second run I’ll be able to listen to the sound of my own voice. Talk about hitting “The Wall.” Ugh.

Eventually I’ll figure out how to make the sermon accessible for download. It may take grabbing a teenager off the street and kidnapping him for the two minutes it would take for him to do it for me. Until then I’ll keep beating my head against the wall.

Ben recently received an assignment to do a presentation on a famous person using Power Point. He’s in third grade. I don’t know how to use Power Point. And I still associate it with middle management sales staff that travels around the country with their laptops giving presentations on the merits of corrugated plastic products.

I guess this is Exhibit A in the generation gap. The first computer I encountered was in middle school – it was named Huey and it was a giant contraption that used those manila punch cards. I’m not sure what it could do besides addition and subtraction and it seemed to me like the world’s largest calculator. I wasn’t impressed.

But, to be honest, this is why I decided to have kids in the first place: for at-home tech support. In a few years I won’t need to talk to someone in India. I’ll just need to roust a sleeping teenager (and, yes, I understand this is hard to do).

I’m always going to be behind the technology curve. Sure, I’m blogging now but this isn’t exactly a high tech site – no videos or a streaming “priest cam,” as compelling as that might be. And while I’ve never sent a text message, I am proud of the fact that I have never, ever used an emoticon in an email. If you ever see a smiley face in a message from me you’ll know the Kremlin has hacked into my email system.

Ben’s decided to do his presentation on George Lucas. Perhaps in a “galaxy far, far away” there’s a place where I’d be on the cutting edge of technology. I’m not holding my breath.

We had a great weekend visiting family in Baltimore. It’s rare these days that we can get all six cousins together. Part of it is geography — New York, Virginia, Michigan. And part of it is the pesky fact that I have to work on weekends — I couldn’t seem to negotiate this out of my contract. We met our newest niece, Rowan (no relationship to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams), for the first time this weekend and she’s already eight months old!  

One of the highlights was to “Ride The Duck.” Oh, alright, I’ll explain. The Duck is a sightseeing operation that tours around Baltimore. When you buy the tickets they give everybody bright yellow quackers so you can quack at people as you pass by. Whoever dreamed this up obviously never had kids. Or maybe they had a bitter childhood and determined to torture other parents for a living. Needless to say my ears are still ringing. Or quacking to be precise.

The amazing thing about The Duck is that it is both a bus and a boat. So after pointing out a few highlights, like Edgar Allen Poe’s grave, it suddenly went down a ramp and motored around the Inner Harbor. Pretty nifty. I’m looking into converting my Honda CRV into an SUV/boat. That way I could offer someone a ride, pretend to lose control, and drive into the Hudson River. Oh, the hilarity!

Finally, a few Highlights and Lowlights of our weekend in Baltimore:

Highlight: 3 and a 1/2 hour trip down on Friday morning was the first long car ride without needing to stop.

Lowlight: Trip back took 5 hours thanks to construction in Delaware and the George Washington Bridge.

Highlight: Great Sunday brunch at the Renaissance Hotel with a view overlooking the Inner Harbor.

Lowlight: Missed getting to church.

Highlight: Could see Ravens Stadium from the hotel room.

Lowlight:  The Orioles were out of town, losing in Anaheim.

Highlight: All the cousins got along famously.

Lowlight: Having to pull them apart made our boys cranky for the ride home.

Highlight: Crab and bacon omelet for brunch on Sunday.

Lowlight: Cheddar cheese Combos and water for lunch on the long drive home.

Highlight: A great weekend away.

Lowlight: Next weekend off isn’t until August.

Big night at Law Park last week. The boys’ baseball team had their first game of the season. Squire’s (their team named for a popular burger joint in town) beat Briarcliff Seafood 15-3. They were thrilled. I was just thrilled that neither one struck out in their first at bat of the season. Zack was particularly nervous about this and it might have set the tone for the rest of the season. It certainly would have had a negative effect on bedtime. I can’t say I “prayed” for a base hit but this is the first year they record strike outs which adds a new element of danger to the whole affair. It is coach pitch so there’s no real chance of getting beaned with some high heat.

But they both played well and connected on each of their five at bats. I considered it a success from my end since at no point during the game did I run out onto the field to add my coaching two cents. It was very tempting — “Square up, choke up, back off the plate, step into the pitch.” But I don’t want to get a reputation around town so I let the coaches coach. We’ll continue to work on some things in the backyard and I’ll try not to live out my failed professional athletic dreams vicariously through my children. There’s enough of that in this town.

The best part of the whole affair was the opposing team’s hats. The aqua-colored lids were emblazoned with a big “BS” (for Briarcliff Seafood). I need one of those.