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Concern for their students and adapting to remote teaching are only a few of the stressors that teachers are facing during the coronavirus pandemic. In response, the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) has partnered with Sebrina Doyle, a graduate fellow in the College of Education, to offer mindfulness-based stress reduction training via Zoom to their members – to help alleviate feelings of helplessness, fear and anxiety. Doyle offered the hour-long webinar two days this month to approximately 700 PSEA members.

Name: Laura Bray Title: Assistant Professor of Education Department: Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education Phone: 814-863-2422 Email: lbh17@psu.edu Office address: 211 CEDAR Building Directory entry: https://ed.psu.edu/directory/lbh17

An education professor at Penn State is investigating how educators can adopt mindfulness practices to keep stress and anxiety at bay.

More people are buying smart speakers—and one of the reasons the numbers have risen so high recently is that many owners have purchased more than one device.

The massive Ultimate Ears Hyperboom Bluetooth speaker is a portable sonic powerhouse with a water-resistant build and a useful companion app.

The price is right and the feature set is enticing, but the Anker Nebula Soundbar Fire TV Edition provides only modest sonic returns.

California's budget reductions will result in some state curricular materials not reaching the state's schools until 2017 or later, Jack O'Connell says.

Open resources, old textbooks, content controversies: How much do you know about what's happening in the world of curriculum and instruction?

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In the wake of falling reading scores on the test known as the Nation's Report Card, 12 major education groups are calling on schools to adopt evidence-based reading instruction.

Mathematics Vision Project has dismissed the lawsuit after the surprising move the company made this summer to take legal action against one of its most vocal parent critics.

California's proposed curriculum guide in ethnic studies is being sent back for substantial revision after a pileup of criticism that it's anti-Semitic.

In this blended, mix-and-match, do-it-yourself world of education, what is curriculum, and who develops it? How do we know if it works?

Nebraska's education department released an interactive instructional materials map last week, showing what curricula districts have adopted for English-language arts, math, and K-8 science.

Too many districts that use a lot of credit recovery to enable students to finish high school don't have sufficient policy safeguards to ensure that those catch-up courses are high quality, according to a new report.

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A new survey of school districts and CMOs will provide new insights into trends, and complement other data on teachers and principals.

The Netherlands won the title after a thrilling tournament in England: see all the results.

The Netherlands came out on top after a busy fortnight of action in the Republic of Ireland.

Source: www.youtube.com - Monday, April 20, 2020

Source: www.worldfootynews.com - Monday, May 04, 2020
The Leeside Lions, one of the AFL Ireland clubs in hiatus due to COVID-19, have shown the world a way out by adroitly combining social-distancing with football skills. The following clip from the Cork-based club showcases a range of talents and proves footy can still move forward despite current challenges to the game. Our thanks to the Leeside Lions for sharing. All clubs are welcome to share their clips and can send to the World Footy Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/5197533739/ or send to me via email at: wesleyhull22@gmail.com

A new Penn State study found that life may be more stressful now than it was in the 1990s, especially for people between the ages of 45 and 64.

The bill would mandate local bullying policies and require data collection and reporting at the local, state, and federal level.

The forthcoming bullying debate will prompt the first votes on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the right to same-sex marriage.

House leaders may hold off on a final vote on a Republican-backed bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, amid pushback from powerful GOP lobbying groups

Bouillabaisse, cassoulet, truffle omelette: the names of the French dishes alone make your mouth water. What sounds wonderful, also tastes delicious. The best way to see for yourself is to be there yourself – a culinary voyage of discovery through south...

All the results and highights from Switzerland as Spain won the Women's U19 title for the second year in a row.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate wired gaming headset brings powerful bass, programmable lighting, and an excellent microphone to your PC.

France beat Germany 2-1 in Paisley to win the trophy: see all the results from Scotland.

The provisional schedule has England kicking off the tournament on 7 July 2021, with the final at Wembley on 1 August.

CNA Staff, Mar 30, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed last week and has no definite timeline for reopening. This is the first time in nearly 700 years the holy site has closed for an extended period due to disease. 

The church building, which houses the tomb of Christ and the site of the crucifixion, was first closed to pilgrims and other visitors on Wednesday, March 25. Initially, the closure was only expected to last for one week, but religious and Israeli government officials agreed that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the global pilgrimage destination should not reopen. 

"The initial understanding is that this order is valid for one week, although nobody knows how long this crisis will take," Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesperson for the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land, told Reuters. 

Nassar said that if the church is still closed to the public at Easter, some sort of celebration will be arranged in line with the governmental guidelines and restrictions. Easter is celebrated on April 12 for Latin Rite Catholics and April 19 for Eastern Churches using the Julian calendar-- both dates are observed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

If this were to happen, said Nassar, pilgrims would still not be allowed inside, and the denominations that share custody of the church would coordinate to ensure that there are no more than 10 clerics and other leaders gathered inside at any time.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is unique among religious sites as it is partially controlled by several different Christian Churches. The Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church, and Armenian Apostolic Church each share control of the building, and other Orthodox Churches also celebrate divine liturgy at the site. 

The last time the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed for an extended period was 1349, during an outbreak of the Black Death in Jerusalem. 

The church, which was first consecrated in the year 335, has been closed for short periods of time in the subsequent millennia due to war or other disputes. In 2018, to protest a proposed tax increase on churches, the site was closed to the public for about three days before reopening. 

Other religious sites, including the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, have also closed due to the Israeli government’s new restrictions aimed at preventing people from catching COVID-19. 

Authorities in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, closed the Church of the Nativity in early March after four cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in the town. The Church of the Nativity was built over the birthplace of Jesus Christ. All tourists were subsequently banned from entering Bethlehem.

Israel has taken a proactive approach in its attempts to contain the spread of COVID-19. On March 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that anyone entering the country would be forced to quarantine for a 14-day period. That announcement resulted in the cancelation or abrupt end to many pilgrimages, as travelers scrambled to secure flights back to the United States. 

Israel has recorded more than 4,000 cases of COVID-19, with 15 deaths.

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

Search the Internet, and you’ll find literature in abundance regarding the hackneyed phrase, dark night of the soul. Last week, the phrase surfaced again with the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity.

The Dark Night of the Soul and The Dark Night: Some Distinctions

In the lexicon of popular phrases, the dark night of the soul should be distinguished from the dark night as developed by St. John of the Cross in his treatise, The Dark Night.  

Worries and annoyances that weigh us down each day are part of the human condition. No more, no less. Rarely are they considered the dark night of the soul. To accept and face hardship as part of the human condition is a sign of maturity.

It may surprise even spiritual directors to read that John does not use the phrase, the dark night of the soul, nor does it appear in his poem or treatise.

The Dark Night has a precise and rich context. Its focus lies on God’s innovating activity upon the soul destined for transformation.  The soul remains in spiritual darkness, passive yet docile and responsive to the divine touch.  

By contrast, the dark night of the soul focuses on the individual self and one’s particular trial—any trial—that causes sadness, agitation, turmoil, or distress in one’s life. It has a one-dimensional perspective—the self.

Moses and the Divine Darkness     

In the Book of Exodus 20, Moses approaches the dark cloud where God dwells. This is a metaphor for his journey into the dark of night where it is impossible to see. Darkness is a symbol for the encounter with God who is incomprehensible. Here Moses encounters God in the darkness only to be enlightened by that very same darkness.

Put another way: Moses’ eternal progress is the movement from human light to divine darkness.  The vision of Moses begins in the light.  But as he becomes more perfect, he is led by God into the darkness where he is enlightened.  

Thus the life of prayer and contemplation is represented paradoxically as a journey from light to darkness.  It is only through this maze of darkness that the soul can reach God who is beyond all intellectual comprehension.   To remain in one’s own light is to die.  To walk through the darkness where God dwells is to live in the light.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (d 394), one of the Eastern Church Fathers, used Moses to exemplify and develop a symbolism of darkness. His 1Life of Moses is considered the crowning work of his mysticism.  Gregory was followed by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagate (d 5th-6th c) who became the major resource for the study of the divine darkness.
    
The Dark Night Proper
 
The Dark Night, the title of a poem and treatise on prayer, was written between 1578-85 by St. John of the Cross, the great Spanish Carmelite saint, mystic and poet (d 1591).  It complements his treatise, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, in which the soul learns to love God by pulling up and rooting out his or her vices.  Whereas vices puff up the ego, the love of God scours the ego clean.

The Dark Night is a metaphor describing the mystical union between the soul and God in prayer.  In this dark night, the soul is detached from all that is not God, undergoes privation of light but remains on the road to darkness because it will lead to the light.  Thus John builds his systematic exposition of the spiritual life upon this metaphor.  

The dark night comes not at the beginning of one’s journey to God.  It usually happens when souls have entered the unitive way, that is, when their wills and hearts are united in perfect harmony with God’s.

History has proved that God consistently sends trial to the souls who seek perfection, but lay persons and consecrated men and women experience different dark nights suited to their different vocations. The biographies of saints as well as the masters of the spiritual life are in agreement.  

In The Graces of Interior Prayer, Fr. A. Poulain, S.J. tells us who he likely ones are to receive these trials.  “And as persons who are leading a purely contemplative life are not obliged to undergo the arduous labors the active life entails, God sends them interior crosses by way of compensation.  And then they feel these crosses more keenly, being more thrown back upon themselves” (400).  

It appears that Mother Teresa is an exception to this rule.  Her life serving the poorest of the poor was not just active.  It was arduous.  The work day of the sisters is usually between ten and twelve hours of manual labor.  Yet the Rule of the Missionaries of Charity requires them to spend at least two hours in prayer and contemplation every day in addition to other exercises—the Office, Examen, and spiritual reading.  Formed and guided by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, these sisters are true active contemplatives.

The Dark Night and Passive Purification

The Dark Night is essentially an experience of infused contemplation.  One cannot ask for it; one ought not ask for it.  In The Dark Night, the purification is accomplished by God and not by the will of the individual who could never accomplish this task.  John describes this metaphor: A mother weans her child away from the sweetness and consolation of being nourished at the breast, and of having her child experience its own independence away from the mother.  This purification is accomplished by the mother and not by the child.  Passive purification.

The dark night first affects and purifies the individual’s spiritual senses.  These are:  spiritual pride and avarice, spiritual lust and anger, spiritual gluttony, envy, and sloth.  Persons succumb to spiritual gluttony, for example, when they seek sweetness, delight, and satisfaction in prayer, striving more to savor the sweet experiences rather than the desire to please God. Spiritual sloth delights in spiritual gratification, but when the soul is told to do something unpleasant, it remains lax.  

The first and chief benefit of this dark night of contemplation is the knowledge of self and of one’s misery and lowliness but also of God’s grandeur and majesty. The second is the purification of the spiritual faculties:  the intellect, the will, and the memory. John compares this experience to a fire consuming a log.  In both books, the soul does little more than dispose itself for the divine action.  

Here are the first two stanzas of the poem anticipating the explanation of Books One and Two:

One dark night,
Fired with love’s urgent longings
--ah, the sheer grace!—
I  went out unseen,
My house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
--ah, the sheer grace!—
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now all stilled.

Mother Teresa’s Dark Night

We can never know what activity takes place inside another person.  Yet, we know that dryness, aridity, and restlessness in prayer afflicted Mother Teresa as well as doubt in the existence of God.  She remained a woman of joy, faithful to her religious vocation as a missionary. Read some of her reflections, marked by darkness:

“In my soul, I feel just that terrible pain of loss of God not wanting me—of God not being God—of God not existing.”  

“I find no words to express the depths of the darkness.  If you only knew what  darkness I am plunged into.”

 “In the darkness . . . . Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me?  The child of your love—and now become as the most hated one.  The one—you have thrown away as unwanted—unloved.  I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer . . . Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.  Love—the word—it brings nothing.  I am told God lives in me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”  The self-offering of St. Ignatius sums up Book Two and the total offering of Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta:  

“Take, Lord,
into your possession
my complete freedom of action:
my memory, my understanding, my entire will;
all that I have, all that I own.  
It is your gift to me.  
I now return it to you to be used simply as you wish.  
Give me your love and your grace.  
It is all I need.” 

By Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J.

He’s been dubbed: “The Poet-Philosopher of Baseball,” “A Voice for the Ages,” “The Velvet Voice.” He’s been compared to Walter Cronkite, Mark Twain, and Garrison Keilor.  

In 1982, the Hollywood Walk of Fame honored him with a star among the Greats of stardom in the same year the National Baseball Hall of Fame enshrined his name among the Greats of baseball.

Vin Scully may be the very model of sartorial perfection, but it’s not the wardrobe that has endeared him to baseball for sixty-seven years. It’s his deep baritone voice and the power of his words.

A Catholic Education

There’s much to be said for childhood dreams.  At eight, when he wrote an assignment about his future, Vin imagined himself as a sports commentator. That dream has come true.

Vin Scully was born in the Bronx, N.Y. and received his elementary school education from the Sisters of Charity.  At Fordham Prep and Fordham University, both conducted by the Jesuits, his eager mind opened itself wide to the liberal arts, to Latin and Greek, science, literary and refining arts. He acted in plays, engaged in debate, learned to read and write well, and above all, to speak well; this is eloquentia perfecta, the hallmark of Jesuit education. When his head was not in books, he took up menial jobs to make ends meet delivering beer, pushing garment racks, and cleaning silver in the basement of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. Vin Scully, the Renaissance man graduated from Fordham in 1949 with a major in communications.

With the Brooklyn Dodgers

In 1947, baseball executive Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play infield on the Brooklyn Dodgers team.  Against a tide of opposition, Rickey was determined to integrate the ball club.  Against a tide of opposition, the all-round athlete broke the color barrier in major league baseball at a great personal cost to him and his wife Rachel.  If you wanted to see electricity personified, you went to Ebbets Field where you could fix your eyes on Jackie at home plate and on the base pads tantalizing the opposing team.  There was nothing like it.  Said Rickey, “There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker than Jackie Robinson.”

Three years later, a twenty-two year old Vin Scully joined veteran Dodgers announcers, Red Barber and Connie Desmond to complete the broadcasting team.  As the rookie, Scully was assigned to announce only two innings.  Before long, he was announcing World Series games. He was not yet thirty.

Scully called Jackie Robinson “perhaps the most exciting, most driven player I’ve ever seen.” He spoke fondly of two other players:  “Gil Hodges was probably my all-time favorite.  He was as straight an arrow as they come.”  Duke Snider was “a true star. Subject to teasing from teammates. Great talent.”

When, in 1955, the Brooklyn ‘Bums’ won their only World Series, Scully stood and proclaimed: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.”

Heartbreak in Brooklyn

In 1957, the Dodgers relocated from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.  For years, Walter O’Malley, the team’s major co-owner, had been searching for a more suitable land on which to build a new ballpark. When he and Robert Moses, the controversial construction coordinator of New York City, could not agree on a real estate price for a new Brooklyn location, O’Malley lost no time in accepting the offer of Los Angeles officials to purchase land suitable for building the ballpark he had wanted to build in Brooklyn.  Their departure triggered a virtual depression in Brooklyn.  The fans lost not only their team but also their beloved announcer.  Scully had pledged his loyalty to the team and followed them to Los Angeles.  

When, in 1959, the Los Angeles Dodgers honored Roy Campanella, one of the stars on the Brooklyn team, he was wheeled onto the field for a ceremony of lighting candles in his honor.  (He had been injured in a car accident leaving him paralyzed.) Vin Scully stood, and in tribute, spoke these memorable words:

“The lights are now starting to come out, like thousands and thousands of fireflies, starting deep in center field, glittering to left, and slowly, the entire ballpark. A sea of lights at the Coliseum. Let there be a prayer for every light, and wherever you are, maybe you, in silent tribute to Roy Campanella, can also say a prayer for his well-being. Campanella, for thousands of times, made the trip to the mound to help somebody out: a tired pitcher, a disgusted youngster, a boy perhaps who had his heart broken in the game of baseball. And tonight, on his last trip to the mound, the city of Los Angeles says hello.”

Honorary Doctorate from Alma Mater

In May, 2000, Vin Scully received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Fordham University. In his address to the graduates, he shared some memories of his years at Fordham.  . . . “I was once you.  I walked the halls you walked.  I sat in the same classrooms.  I took the same notes and sweated out the final exams.  I played sports on your grassy fields. I hit a home run here—in Jack Coffey Field against CCNY—the only one I ever hit.”

Fordham, he said, evoked three words for him: home, love and hope. Home, because he spent eight years at Fordham both in the preparatory school and as an undergraduate. Love, because he made lifelong friends, and hope because Fordham is where his dreams thrived.

He urged all present “to take some time away from the craziness around you to foster the things that are important. Don’t let the winds blow away your dreams or your faith in God. And remember, sometimes your wildest dreams come true.”

In presenting the award, Michael T. Gillan, dean of Fordham College of Liberal Studies, noted that “when Jesuit schoolmasters developed their plan of studies in the 16th and 17th centuries, they defined “the goal of Jesuit education as eloquentia perfecta … which connotes a mastery of expression that is informed by good judgment and consistent principles. Those Jesuit schoolmasters of another age, if they had known anything about baseball, would certainly have approved the rhetorical gifts of the man who has been the voice of the Dodgers for the past fifty-one years, Vincent E. Scully.”

The Scully Anaphora

For years, every Scully broadcast has repeated the same avuncular opening:  “It’s time for Dodger baseball! Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant afternoon/evening to you, wherever you may be. Pull up a chair and relax;” The poet-philosopher announced the games painting vivid word pictures with his musical voice, tinged with Irish inflection.

Scully held himself to three rules:  Avoid criticizing managers and umpires; keep your personal opinions to yourself; avoid using clichés to describe a play. The Scully trademark, he insists, is silence—silence to allow the roar of the crowd to touch the listening audience.

Scully in His Own Words     

There are numerous quotes attributed to Mr. Scully. In describing Tom Glavine as a strike-out pitcher, he mused: “He’s like a tailor, a little off here, a little off there, and you’re done, take a seat.” The talent of Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals amazed Scully:  “How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.”

Vin was known to spin some philosophy out of the play at the moment.  In 1991, he remarked: “Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day (Pause).  Aren’t we all?”  

Then there were his philosophical quips: “Good is not good enough when better is expected.” “Statistics are used much like a drunk who uses a lamp post—for support, not illumination.” “Losing feels worse than winning feels good.”     

One day, when Vin joked that Joe Torre might be apprehensive about returning from third base to catcher after getting hit by a foul tip.  “If he were apprehensive, Torre would forever be known as “Chicken Catcher Torre.”  At this, the crowd groaned.

Awards

Listed among Vin Scully’s many awards are:
1976 Most Memorable Personality in L.A. Dodger history by Dodger fans
1982 Induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the Ford C. Frick Award recipient.
Four times, voted as the country’s Outstanding Sportscaster.  
Twenty-two times voted, as California Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
2009  NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame
2009  Ambassador Award of Excellence by the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission
2014 The Gabriel Personal Achievement Award from the Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals.

Personal Life

Vin Scully has not been one to wear his feelings in the open.  Yet, he has experienced two family tragedies.  In 1972, after fifteen years of married life, his wife died from an accidental medical overdose.  The next year, his thirty-three old son Michael was killed in a helicopter crash while working for the ARCO Transportation Company.  A chemist, he was inspecting oil pipelines for leaks near Fort Tejon.

Vin credits his strong Roman  Catholic  faith for helping him cope with family grief and then to resume his work as an announcer. “As long as you live,” he reflects, “keep smiling because it brightens everybody’s day.”

The Final Inning

The longevity of Vin Scully’s baseball life has drawn to a conclusion.  As part of a conference call before the Dodgers played the Giants on Sept 19th, Scully he spoke about all the attention he had received in the closing days of his long career: “First of all, I attribute it to one thing and one thing only,” Scully reflected, “God’s Grace to allow me to do what I’ve been doing for 67 years. To me, that’s really the story. Not really me, I’m just a vessel that was passed hand-to-hand, down through all those years. So I don’t take it to heart as some great compliment. I just realize that because I’ve been doing this for 67 years, that’s why everybody wants to talk about it. So I think I’ve kept it in proper perspective” (Courtesy of MLB Network).

Finally, a favorite Irish prayer and blessing from Mr. Scully:

May God give you for every storm, a rainbow,
For every tear, a smile,
For every care, a promise,
And a blessing in each trial.
For every problem life send,]
A faithful friend to share,
For every sigh, a sweet song
And an answer for each prayer.

Dear Mr. Scully, ad multos annos.

 

In the new A500 CPU cooler, two 2,400rpm fans can move up and down on the heatsink for greater flexibility, accommodating large RAM modules. Plus, an old-favorite Corsair keyboard gets leveled up.

A new study finds that extracurricular activities have differing positive effects for rural boys compared to girls.

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Holders Barcelona, fellow two-time winners Chelsea, Porto and debutants Hoffenheim won their quarter-finals to reach Nyon.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

Raenette Taljaard, the Executive Director of Economic Research Southern, talks to Fin24 about the implications of S&P Global's downgrade of SA debt.

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