Breadbox Media

The Counter Position Episode 57: Blessings, Accents, and the Power of Personal Narrative

In this episode a hyper, blessed, and over-caffeinated Andrew gets giddy over having been offered a trip to the Holy Land this Christmas break, goes on a tangent about accents and having a Southern accent in CA, and finally settles into an exploration of living as an invitation to narrative, the nature of personal narrative, and the role of narrative and compelling reality in Christian witness.

The Counter Position Episode 56: To be or not to be/ Gratitude for Green

In this episode Andrew explores the power of seeing the world and your own existence as not inevitable, but as gift, as a powerful aid to happiness and gratitude, using Rich Mullins, Fr. Brian Larkin, his back injury, morning rituals, and many other random things as insights, in one of his more random late night episodes.

The Counter Position Episode 55: Friday Real Time Roundup for October 9, 2015

In this episode Andrew inaugurates a new tradition of Friday being Real Time Roundup in which he records at the last possible minute, hits current topics, and wraps up the week’s loose ends. In this episode- 

+ A mea culpa for calling The Monastic Option the The Monastic Position

+ A triumphant update on the stove saga

+ A panic over a Google Drive outage and a questioning of whether we should should put so many eggs in the Google basket. 

+ Cardinals vs. Cubs, an exploration of what it means to be a sports fan, and some musing on the nature of tribes. 

+ The Martian, The Sparrow, The Children of God, and the new Michael O’Brian book, along with Nicolosi on Catholic narrative vs. narrative by Catholics, along with some soul searching over his own book The Broken Boy

+ Modbar, Apple TV, and Innovation as opportunity for Catholics seeking to engage the world.

The Counter Position Episode 54: Phones, Screens, and Automobiles

In this episode Andrew continues his general old man mode since turning 45, decides he doesn’t want to live with a phone in his hand, spend half his life looking at reality through a screen, and definitely does not want to strap himself half asleep into a machine and drive somewhere in a video game level amount of traffic several mornings a week. He then follows this general theme into musing about some goals for this next year. Basically, more uphill both ways.

The Counter Position Episode 53- Uphill Both Ways/The Dream of the 90s

In this episode Andrew recaps his birthday weekend, is shocked by the weekends level of hijinks, with was in fact a lack of hijinks, uses Santa Maria tri-tip and The Millingtons to travel to his favorite place in the universe, then goes into full on “old man mode” remembering life without internet, mobile phones,  and MTV without gameshows or reality shows. Finally, he explores the culture of the early 90s as a community of revealed weakness attempting to express the inexpressible by means of lyric, music, and fashion.

The Counter Position Episode 52- The Birthday Episode/What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been

In this episode Andrew resists doing four solid segments of weeping and drinking scotch on his 45th birthday and instead uses Giussani, the OT reading for the day from Exodus, guardian angels, John and Andrew at the Jordan, the Beatific Vision, Kallistos Ware, and Thomas Merton to talk about what the big meaning behind our journey through life is, finds that it is in the movement from concept to encounter, and finally extolls us all to kill the idols of our false selves, past and future, and to put down everything that is not our cross to carry.

The Counter Position Episode 51- Long Roads, Old Wounds, and the Nature of Witness and Catharsis

In this episode Andrew wraps up his trip and says good-bye to Lander, WY, drives the long rode home, gets hit with the firehose of reality, finds his shop burglarized, has old wounds opened up, explores the nature of what he is trying to do as a witness to reality, muses on the nature of catharsis, then with the help of an Austrian man and Syrian refugee woman, he digs into what feeling afraid, unsafe, and immersed in unpredictability can mean to the spiritual life and the need to be vulnerable toward God as Father and Physician.

The Counter Position Episode 50- The Lander-sode Part 2: You Bring the World With You

In this episode, still in Lander, WY, Andrew gets out in the wild, sees a disappearing river and huge trout, drives a very long rode past some really beautiful stuff, gets shocked and awed by his lack of shock and awe, muses on beauty, numbness, and internal static, is assaulted by text messages and tailgaters the minute he leaves the woods, and explores JPII and the charismatic dimensions of the Church.

The Counter Position Episode 49- The Lander-sode Part 1: Big Spaces and Small Places

In this episode you go on the rode with Andrew, out of the beautiful belly of the Denver beastie, across the the desert of Wyoming, and into a small town with a small college- Lander, WY. Along the way he explores why we trust Google, tempts intestinal fate with truck stop Indian food, ponders what in the world those weird fences with no ends could be, muses on wide open spaces and what they might mean for Americans' view of freedom, tries to understand the tiny towns in the middle of the desert, gushes about his love of old downtowns, and gives a quick thumbnail sketch of Wyoming Catholic.

The Counter Position Episode 48- One of Us: On Seeing Yourself in the Broken

In this episode Andrew reflects on the key insight of Pope Francis via an extended reflection on a Heather King blog, mostly by talking about what an absolute ungrateful and judgmental jerk he is. But, he also talks about transvestites, homeless alcoholics, the OCD lady at mass, his back injury, Vineyard pastor’s wives reading him Augustine, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Aunt Rabbit, Kevin Clay’s annoying text judgements on my TV habits, and how an old celibate nun can teach us how to love properly.

The Counter Position Episode 47- Francis, Francis, and more Francis!

In this episode Andrew talks about the Pope, his journey to America, the American political dichotomy and it’s problem for understanding the Pope, or for being Catholic for that matter, and then goes on to highlight and comment on see some key passages of the Pope Francis’ speech to the U.S. bishops. It is more Pope Francis than you can shake a papal crozier at.

The Counter Position Episode 46: New Travel, TV Temptation, Changing Your Name to Your Favorite Superhero, and How To Read A Pope

In this episode, after giving the knee update and the lack of stove news update, Andrew talks about his love of new connections in the cafe, the joy of being observed as meaningful, the power of new terrain to open you up, taking his mom to see Sonvolt, changing his name to Peter Parker and the related overreach of government, then explores the history of his love of the last 3 popes, sings the praises of his magister Dr. Richard Ferrier, and makes some predictions about Pope Francis’ visit to the US.

The Counter Position Episode 45: No Filter!

In this episode Andrew gives an update on the stove, handy tutorial on how to buy a dutch oven without spending an arm and leg, and a quick review of Bar Fausto, then gets down to the serious business of using recovery theory, Msgr. Giusanni, C.S. Lewis, and examples from his own life to talk about all the things that get in our way when we try to experience reality in it’s raw unphotoshopped form.

The Counter Position Episode 44: Trick Knees, Pumpkin Soup, Embryology, and Recapturing the Local via the Digital

In this episode Andrew confirms he is old by talking about his bad knee which left him in pain and crippled last night, gives you a killer plan for Pumpkin Curry Chicken Soup, gives you his best argument regarding embryology and abortion in a nutshell, and then muses on the themes of decentralization and recentralization in light of the new digital media.

The Counter Position Episode 43: The Power of Witness vs. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In this episode Andrew explores the nature of mediated knowledge via Msgr. Luigi Giussani, the reticence of Catholics to speak of their spiritual and prayer life with help from Sherry Weddell’s book Forming Intentional Disciples, looks over his history from cultural Catholic to Protestant Charismatic to Thomist intellectual to wonder/encounter junkie, all in light of this issue, and finally gets worked up and calls people to do the hard original research of prayer and share their results.

The Counter Position Episode 42: Stop me if you’ve heard this one. So, 200 young Catholics walk into a bar and…

In this episode Andrew explores his, like Michael Stipe, having been “blessed with bad sinuses”, then, after griping about Theology on Tap as a community form and begging the Church to do something ergonomic to the unchurched if we are going to take over someone’s neighborhood watering hole, and many mea culpas (culpae?) for criticizing something his friends are involved in and begging for feedback on hour ToT is in other places, goes on to highlight a couple of ideas from Scott Powell’s talk at the latest ToT on Laudato Si, especially that for Catholics matter matters. (Yes, that is all one sentence and, I think, grammatically correct, if not grammatically advisable.)

The Counter Position Episode 41- Friends Don’t Let Friends Not Have Friends

In this episode Andrew explores a reconnecting of an old deep friendship, as a new one departs, and muses on the nature and value of deep intimate friendship over time. Then, the documentary Human and a story of a homeless Brazilian poet form a means to talk about a deeper a connection between human beings, thought separated by distance and culture.

The Counter Position Episode 40: The Midlife Crisis Episode/Most Random Episode Yet

What do Laudato Si, a cache of paleolithic hominid bones, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Pope Francis, the gas stove going in, the refugee crisis, the question of global warming, an island made of plastic bottles, Bruce Jenner, and gay marriage all have in common? Not much, but that doesn’t stop Andrew from trying to find a theme for a seemingly unrelated bunch of ideas. This is Andrew at his ADOS (Attention Deficit…..OOOH Squirrel) best. There are most likely a ton of nuggets in this, but just know what you are getting yourself into.

The Counter Position Episode 39: Fanboy Musings on the Apple Event & The Opportunities of Digital Culture

In this episode Andrew, an admitted Apple fanboy, muses his way through the latest Apple event revealing the new iPhone, the iPadPro, and the opening of Apple TV to apps. He explores what digital culture can teach us and puts on his futurist hat regarding the changing landscape of the biggest screen in your house.

The Counter Position Episode 38: Mad Virtues, Moral Apocalypse, Sola Scriptura, a Rant About the Media and Pope Francis and more

Episode 38: Chesterton on Mad Virtues, MacIntyre on the Moral Apocalypse, Sola Scriptura as Shattered Context, Being Correct/Right vs. Encounter, Liberal/Conservative vs. Love as Hermeneutic, and a Rant About the Media and Pope Francis.

In this episode Andrew praises his friend Andrew Seeley, explores a Chesterton quote in light of Alistair MacIntyre, gets distracted by Sola Scriptura, rejects Orthodoxy/Orthopraxy as the answer, lifts up Encounter as the goal and real apologetic, rejects the American political dichotomy of liberal vs. conservative as useful, then sets for the Love as the key to understanding everything and excoriates the liberal media and the Catholic far right for their reading of Pope Francis. This is what happens when an exhausted Andrew attempts something ambitious.