Project Management Monk(ie)

Position Opening:
Project Management Disciple/Intern
Applications accepted through December 22, 2007
Interviews of finalists to be done by video chat after Epiphany.

Update (12-23-07):

We have stopped receiving applications for this position. Thank you to all who have participated!

Position Description:
Perfect for an older high school student (homeschool, Catholic, or public) or university student, this is a wonderful opportunity to gain real world job experience by doing real work in this hands-on internship for a shoe-string Catholic Ministry startup. If the blending of ministry and business language seems odd, it is intentional. weCatholic is a start-up Catholic ministry based on the vision of Deacon Patrick Jones, to whom this position reports.

Responsibilities of this person are varied and flexable, but will include the coordination of hiring other interns and then coordinating a variety of business related projects that will include a blend of theology, marketing, product development, business strategy, and more.

Patrick has been working on the vision of weCatholic for over three years. Because Patrick is brain injured, he focuses on concepts but can not handle the details involved in implementing. To understand more about Patrick, please see Brain Injury Chaplain.

While nothing can be promised, there is a strong potential that the right person could become a paid employee, though currently no one receives salary (we weren't kidding about the start-up -- we are completely self funded at the moment.) As products are produced by weCatholic and begin to turn a profit and/or we receive investment donations, paid positions will be among our first priorities, and priority will be given to those who have provided sweat equity. Learn more about weCatholic.

Job requirements:
-- strong initiative, independent and self-sufficient drive with strong self-confidence
-- reliable and clear communicator (verbal and written)
-- Own computer (Mac strongly preferred), with video chat capability
-- Computer skills, to include word processing, emailing, and online
-- High moral standards
-- Able to laugh at themselves
-- Able to understand and interact with a vision
-- Able to do the detailed and concrete work necessary to implement that vision 
-- Able to manage and coordinate others
-- Minimum age of 16
-- Actively Catholic (this will be verified by a call to your parish priest or deacon)
-- homeschool, Catholic school or public school applicants will all be considered
-- able to understand disability limits and seek creative ways to work beyond them
-- Work from home

Interested applicants please provide (by 12-22-07:
-- Name and contact information, and name and contact information for your parents (if under 18)
-- Answer the following in written or video (DVD) form (No audio only submissions will be accepted as Patrick can't listen to audio only):
-- Who/where are you on the road to Emmaus? (Luke 24:13-35) Tell us about your journey that brought you to where you are now.

Email your submissions in PDF form to Deacon Patrick at lamontglen@mac.com. Or, if sending a DVD, mail to:
Deacon Patrick Jones
PO Box 39
Green Mountain Falls, CO 80819

Old Love and New Love?

Articles like this one illustrate perfectly just how important it is to choose the best good rather than settle for any ol' good.

Boiled down to it's essence, the article says this:

"Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's husband, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content."

Those are the "facts" of the article. From there the Ms. Zernike attempts to wax poetic about the nature of love, describing "young love" as seeking happiness and "old love" as seeking others' happiness. Ms. Zernike holds Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a quintessential example of this. I will assume the "facts" about Justice O'Connor's love triangle are accurate (I have no idea if they are or not).

My response to this article? Absurd, absurd, absurd! First, I need to situate my comments because my only knowledge of the specific situation comes from this article and I do not know the people involved, so I speak of the moral truths involved here rather than the specific situation. Second, the challenges which Justice O'Connor faces with her husband and his Alzheimer's are tremendious. I have no idea what her burden's are or her capacity to recognize the moral issues involved here. Only God knows the moral culpability involved for each person in this situation.

Allow me to dissect this. I'll start with the "good" that does exist in this situation. Love. The need to be loved and to give love is a core human need. When we find such love, it is good. But is it the best good? Far from it in this case, based on what is known.

Here's one of the major blindness in our culture today. We confuse doing what is convenient and feels good for what is right. We hold on to this lesser good as a self-serving excuse for all sorts of immoral choices that are far from the Best Good we could be choosing -- the Good which upholds right relationship and promotes God's Kingdom being revealed here and now.

The sins involved are adultery and worse. Judge O'Conner appears to have abdicated her marriage vows (and turned against the sacrament of marriage if a Catholic marriage). Yes life looks different when illness or disability hits. How well I know! But the beauty of "old love" (what Pope Benedict refers to as God's love, sacrificial love, mature love in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" is completely missed. I do not know the specific situation here, but from the outside it appears that Judge O'Conner is lazy and happy that someone else is loving her husband so she doesn't have to.

Far from an example of what love should look like as we age, it is a poor and twisted example of settling for far less than God calls us to.

True love is sacrificial. I see mainly selfishness here. I have seen couples age gracefully through amazingly debilitating diseases such as Parkinson's, cancer, stroke, and Alzheimer's, with one Lover serving their Beloved either at home or while they are in a nursing home. That is love and devotion. That is the best good. That is true love.