Your idea makes good sense. Some of your interviews could also engage someone with a complementary expertise to your own. Glad you are not thinking of folding up the tent. Jim
Thanks for your response to the comments that I sent to Matthew. Even though I did not ask for replies to those columns I wrote, I often got responses (remember, that was before emails). Most of them were complimentary, and two led me to revisit the topic in a future column.
I must admit that podcast and substacks and such are things that your generation (I know that I am making an assumption here) is more at home with than mine.
While I think that some Catholics still believe that to have faith means that you believe that God intervenes directly. However, I think that the bigger problem today is that so many Catholics don't think that God intervenes at all. We live, as Charles Taylor reminds us, within and under the "immanent frame." I think that synodality, which too many people dismiss as amounting to not much, is based on the belief that the Holy Spirit remains active and is especially active when two or three are gathered and wrestle with where the community of faith needs to go and what it needs most to reconsider and learn again or anew.
So, I will continue to write as best as I can what I think people without a theological background would appreciate. I will do the same in the years I have left when I might be able to teach. Last fall, I created a new course, "What Kind of Life is Worth Living?" A pretentious title for an undergraduate course and a question which only Jesus would dare to answer. But in your 80s, you sometimes think you can get away with things that someone less subject to illusion would put to the side. I will leave podcasting to others more adept at the world of computing and communicating in that way.
Jim, I just turned 90 with no degrees in theology but a believer's interest in it. You are the perfect person to discuss fundamental questions with people like me on younger people's podcasts! Will you consider it as a sideline? You pose the question of the "bigger" problem today: the immanent frame. We so much needed the correction Taylor points to over the last 524 years. But we are full ready for the move to integration now. I think people like Roger Haight, S.J., integrate immanence and transcendence in panentheism. He explains in Faith and Evolution: A Grace-Filled Naturalism. He discusses that book with Robert Wright on Wright's podcast, Nonzero. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hImiKbr3fSI
If Matthew will welcome it, will you continue to discuss this question here? I think you and I are saying the same thing with different language about God communicating through humans talking with one another, i.e. synodality. Do you think so?
On the audio thing - a fairly straightforward approach is for all parties to record their audio locally using dedicated recording software, eg audacity (free and fairly easy to use). Then you can mash the various files together (again audacity will allow you to do this) and the result will usually be better because nothing in the final file had to be broadcast over the internet in real time.
You may also find that using some common audio engineering techniques like compression, equalisation and normalisation will improve basic zoom recordings. A little knowledge about this will go a long way, and there's a lot of material out there about it on the web (albeit usually targeted at musicians rather than podcasters/broadcasters, the principles are the same however). I'll try to put together some links later, I'm on my phone right now.
In any case, I've heard much worse recordings over the years. Keep up the good work!
Regarding your last point, yes, I still hear podcast interviews with worse audio than what I'm dealing with, so nothing to feel bad about on my part!
But thanks for the suggestions. When you are using the audio engineering techniques for Zoom, is that something you would do while recording, or something you do afterward when you have the recording?
The idea of recording separately also sounds interesting because like you said it cuts out having to send the audio over the internet. I would be worried about lining up the different audio files correctly so that they fit together seamlessly, but it's probably not that hard.
I just read your reflections on avoiding not just the sprint but also not the marathon. A great admirer of C. S. Lewis once asked him, "What is the secret of writing so well." He answered, "Have something to say and then say it." Sounds simple, doesn't it? We both know that it is hardly simply.
I have enjoyed your pieces and believe that you do have something to say and say it. But I know now more than I have recognized earlier in my life, when I really don't have something to say, or that I just need to back off for a while. For three years in the 1980s (yes, I am that old!) I wrote a monthly column for a Catholic magazine that went out to about 175,000 Catholic religion teachers in the US. I decided it was time to stop, not just because I was appointed the Provost of he University, but I felt as though I had said what I needed to say.
For four years, I have also been writing a monthly reflection for over a thousand members of the Western Association of the Order of Malta. I have served as a chaplain there for over a decade, accompanying many very ill people to Lourdes France for a week-long pilgrimage. It was a great grace for me in many ways. But I have decided it was time to pass this privilege and responsibility of monthly reflections on to someone else. I have a lot of other writing projects that I think I need to do. Will they bear fruit. Who knows. The sower of seeds went out to sow.
In any event, I want to thank you for what you have been writing. I hope you don't stop for you have a good intuition for how to interpret complex theological and cultural issues--since they are almost always deeply intertwined. Bless you, stay healthy, and know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, but not prematurely! Jim Heft, SM
Hi Jim! I have no intention of stopping writing for the newsletter any time soon. I was thinking more in terms of just knowing when I needed to take a week off or something like that.
But your point about passing on the responsibility of writing to someone else reminded me of something else I want to try that I had intended to put in the article: guest writers. There are things going on in the world of theology that need to be written about but that I don't know enough about to cover competently. Or maybe I could ask someone to summarize their impressions of a conference I'm not able to attend. Something like that. I need to think about how best to do it, but the idea is simple enough.
Jim, did you welcome discussion on your reflections when you were a columnist? Do you think it would be a good idea? I do not mean Q&A with the columnist, but a process of reasoning about an open question of a needed reform. For example, I think the idea of God as directly intervening in human events is so deeply ingrained in Catholic culture it will take generations of discussion to dislodge it in favor of the idea of God as present in an evolving universe working through the consciousness of humans. I take that to be what synodality is all about. I think Matthew's podcast gives great information for people to use in moving forward toward the reign of the ever-present supporting God. What do you think about the question of promoting discussion of reform questions on this podcast?
Thank you, thank you, Matthew, for encouraging discussion. How can we be synodal if we don't talk together, especially in print and online? Do you attribute any of the reticence to fear of retribution? People on the Church's payroll do not want to speak out? I have had sympathy for that position for many years; we called it people's staying under the radar. I hear Pope Francis encouraging people to speak now, however. Is there still fear of retribution in the US?
Paula, I do think for some that could be an issue, although like I mentioned in the article, I think it's probably even more common that people just want to avoid engaging in online forums because of some of the negative characteristics that can arise in that format. But the two overlap. For example, I'm sure many readers are conscientious of how their comments on an article might show up in a Google search.
But I do think you're right that we need to be encouraging more conversation within the Church, even conversations where we are not afraid to disagree with each other.
Thanks, Matthew. In designing some way to include discussion on your posts, will you take this observation of mine into consideration: I have observed that lecturers tend to turn proposed conversation topics into Q&A. Have you noticed that? If I pose a question, I get a lecture with THE answer. There has to be a way to avoid that but I haven't figured it out. The question about synodality is based on a belief that God is present in the world, don't you think? So much depends on that belief. Do U.S. Catholics actually believe it? James Heft, S.M. mentioned it in his reply to my comment below. Good luck with this very important work.
Your idea makes good sense. Some of your interviews could also engage someone with a complementary expertise to your own. Glad you are not thinking of folding up the tent. Jim
Dear Paula,
Thanks for your response to the comments that I sent to Matthew. Even though I did not ask for replies to those columns I wrote, I often got responses (remember, that was before emails). Most of them were complimentary, and two led me to revisit the topic in a future column.
I must admit that podcast and substacks and such are things that your generation (I know that I am making an assumption here) is more at home with than mine.
While I think that some Catholics still believe that to have faith means that you believe that God intervenes directly. However, I think that the bigger problem today is that so many Catholics don't think that God intervenes at all. We live, as Charles Taylor reminds us, within and under the "immanent frame." I think that synodality, which too many people dismiss as amounting to not much, is based on the belief that the Holy Spirit remains active and is especially active when two or three are gathered and wrestle with where the community of faith needs to go and what it needs most to reconsider and learn again or anew.
So, I will continue to write as best as I can what I think people without a theological background would appreciate. I will do the same in the years I have left when I might be able to teach. Last fall, I created a new course, "What Kind of Life is Worth Living?" A pretentious title for an undergraduate course and a question which only Jesus would dare to answer. But in your 80s, you sometimes think you can get away with things that someone less subject to illusion would put to the side. I will leave podcasting to others more adept at the world of computing and communicating in that way.
Blessings and keep at it! Jim
Jim, I just turned 90 with no degrees in theology but a believer's interest in it. You are the perfect person to discuss fundamental questions with people like me on younger people's podcasts! Will you consider it as a sideline? You pose the question of the "bigger" problem today: the immanent frame. We so much needed the correction Taylor points to over the last 524 years. But we are full ready for the move to integration now. I think people like Roger Haight, S.J., integrate immanence and transcendence in panentheism. He explains in Faith and Evolution: A Grace-Filled Naturalism. He discusses that book with Robert Wright on Wright's podcast, Nonzero. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hImiKbr3fSI
If Matthew will welcome it, will you continue to discuss this question here? I think you and I are saying the same thing with different language about God communicating through humans talking with one another, i.e. synodality. Do you think so?
On the audio thing - a fairly straightforward approach is for all parties to record their audio locally using dedicated recording software, eg audacity (free and fairly easy to use). Then you can mash the various files together (again audacity will allow you to do this) and the result will usually be better because nothing in the final file had to be broadcast over the internet in real time.
You may also find that using some common audio engineering techniques like compression, equalisation and normalisation will improve basic zoom recordings. A little knowledge about this will go a long way, and there's a lot of material out there about it on the web (albeit usually targeted at musicians rather than podcasters/broadcasters, the principles are the same however). I'll try to put together some links later, I'm on my phone right now.
In any case, I've heard much worse recordings over the years. Keep up the good work!
Regarding your last point, yes, I still hear podcast interviews with worse audio than what I'm dealing with, so nothing to feel bad about on my part!
But thanks for the suggestions. When you are using the audio engineering techniques for Zoom, is that something you would do while recording, or something you do afterward when you have the recording?
The idea of recording separately also sounds interesting because like you said it cuts out having to send the audio over the internet. I would be worried about lining up the different audio files correctly so that they fit together seamlessly, but it's probably not that hard.
Thanks again!
Hi Matt, blessed feast of the Epiphany!
I just read your reflections on avoiding not just the sprint but also not the marathon. A great admirer of C. S. Lewis once asked him, "What is the secret of writing so well." He answered, "Have something to say and then say it." Sounds simple, doesn't it? We both know that it is hardly simply.
I have enjoyed your pieces and believe that you do have something to say and say it. But I know now more than I have recognized earlier in my life, when I really don't have something to say, or that I just need to back off for a while. For three years in the 1980s (yes, I am that old!) I wrote a monthly column for a Catholic magazine that went out to about 175,000 Catholic religion teachers in the US. I decided it was time to stop, not just because I was appointed the Provost of he University, but I felt as though I had said what I needed to say.
For four years, I have also been writing a monthly reflection for over a thousand members of the Western Association of the Order of Malta. I have served as a chaplain there for over a decade, accompanying many very ill people to Lourdes France for a week-long pilgrimage. It was a great grace for me in many ways. But I have decided it was time to pass this privilege and responsibility of monthly reflections on to someone else. I have a lot of other writing projects that I think I need to do. Will they bear fruit. Who knows. The sower of seeds went out to sow.
In any event, I want to thank you for what you have been writing. I hope you don't stop for you have a good intuition for how to interpret complex theological and cultural issues--since they are almost always deeply intertwined. Bless you, stay healthy, and know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, but not prematurely! Jim Heft, SM
Hi Jim! I have no intention of stopping writing for the newsletter any time soon. I was thinking more in terms of just knowing when I needed to take a week off or something like that.
But your point about passing on the responsibility of writing to someone else reminded me of something else I want to try that I had intended to put in the article: guest writers. There are things going on in the world of theology that need to be written about but that I don't know enough about to cover competently. Or maybe I could ask someone to summarize their impressions of a conference I'm not able to attend. Something like that. I need to think about how best to do it, but the idea is simple enough.
Thanks for the comment!
Jim, did you welcome discussion on your reflections when you were a columnist? Do you think it would be a good idea? I do not mean Q&A with the columnist, but a process of reasoning about an open question of a needed reform. For example, I think the idea of God as directly intervening in human events is so deeply ingrained in Catholic culture it will take generations of discussion to dislodge it in favor of the idea of God as present in an evolving universe working through the consciousness of humans. I take that to be what synodality is all about. I think Matthew's podcast gives great information for people to use in moving forward toward the reign of the ever-present supporting God. What do you think about the question of promoting discussion of reform questions on this podcast?
Thank you, thank you, Matthew, for encouraging discussion. How can we be synodal if we don't talk together, especially in print and online? Do you attribute any of the reticence to fear of retribution? People on the Church's payroll do not want to speak out? I have had sympathy for that position for many years; we called it people's staying under the radar. I hear Pope Francis encouraging people to speak now, however. Is there still fear of retribution in the US?
Paula, I do think for some that could be an issue, although like I mentioned in the article, I think it's probably even more common that people just want to avoid engaging in online forums because of some of the negative characteristics that can arise in that format. But the two overlap. For example, I'm sure many readers are conscientious of how their comments on an article might show up in a Google search.
But I do think you're right that we need to be encouraging more conversation within the Church, even conversations where we are not afraid to disagree with each other.
Thanks, Matthew. In designing some way to include discussion on your posts, will you take this observation of mine into consideration: I have observed that lecturers tend to turn proposed conversation topics into Q&A. Have you noticed that? If I pose a question, I get a lecture with THE answer. There has to be a way to avoid that but I haven't figured it out. The question about synodality is based on a belief that God is present in the world, don't you think? So much depends on that belief. Do U.S. Catholics actually believe it? James Heft, S.M. mentioned it in his reply to my comment below. Good luck with this very important work.