Category: Uncategorized

I’m about to run 100k

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Hi friends,

I’m going to be extremely direct.

I’m asking for some money.

It’s not for me and my pocket. It’s to help me build a sustainable revenue stream for Catholic Pakistan. Specifically, our first product will benefit the Dominicans in Karachi. They need some support for expenses for their house, where their brothers in formation live and study. I was there in January.

My friend is the superior there, and he will be accompanying me as I run 103km a week from today along the Via Emilia, from around the famous Rubicon River to the city of Bologna and the tomb of St. Dominic.

You can see a film about my visit to Pakistan below.

Please join the free WhatsApp group chat to follow along live with GPS tracking and updates. You will be able to watch me in real-time as I run 60+ miles in the blistering August heat!

The group chat link can be found on the dedicated company webpage.

To get a shout out from the course, you can pre-order a jar of bath salt here (USA only – for now) or you can donate at least $20 here.

Please let me know if you have any trouble with the group chat or anything else. You can find more information on the company website here.

I am looking forward to seeing you out there in a week… Thanks in advance for your support!

real talk…

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For a few years now, I have been trying to get “revenue generation” going in mission territories where I have friends. I have talked about it on these pages before…

It is NOT easy stuff.

I’m not sure what to say other than that if I don’t do it, who will?

This Friday will be the launch of the pre-orders for “Lepanto Bath Salt”… It will go to support Catholics in Pakistan, most likely through scholarships for school children who may not otherwise be able to afford an education. And this will be by many steps – it will take time to grow. But, as I confirmed in my epic 100-mile run exactly 2 years ago this Friday, which is “Rerum Novarum Day,” if you keep taking steps in the right direction you will eventually get there. Even if it hurts.

I don’t know what will happen. I do know that pushing back against Islamic oppression in Pakistan is a thing that is needed. I hope you will help me help our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan… They don’t have many friends. I’m privileged to be one of their few links to the world.

It has been hellish getting this set up. And I won’t lie, I probably wouldn’t have done it had I known how tough it would be. But now that we’re here on the threshold, it’s time to roll the dice and see what happens.

I’m hoping I can count on you to buy a jar of this stuff! It will be a little expensive ($32-ish or so for 16 oz.), but we are trying to build a social enterprise that will last a long time and redound to the good of the Church in a highly neglected community. We decided to name our products after Marian apparitions/themes. The first product is going to be for “post-workout” recovery. For muscle relaxation etc. You can buy it anywhere – but why not pretend you are Don Juan, splishing and splashing in your bath, just like you were in the waters at Lepanto, pushing back the Ottoman Empire, while actually helping put up a real fight against Islamic oppression in the world of today? Be part of TODAY’S Holy League!

I will send another post out on Friday. See you then!

Taking hits

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The Lord sustained hundreds of wounds in the course of His Passion. We can even count them with some accuracy, if one accepts the Shroud to be what it seems to be, as there is sufficient detail to discern distinct wounds from lashes and so on.

That Christ chose to be hit repeatedly in the process of our redemption is shocking enough.

That He chose the final instrument of our salvation to be a device which stretched His limbs out is also quite extraordinary, and ironically it is underappreciated in large part due to the ubiquitous presence of its image, both in churches and in homes. We have grown used to it. It would not have been this way to the ancient Christians, who did not use the crucifix as a devotional image, since its use was still ongoing (or recent enough) and therefore conjured unwanted memories and unpleasant thoughts of one’s own potential fate. As the horrors of Roman abuses faded, the popularity of the Good Shepherd image waned in favor of the Cross, both simpler and more powerful a symbol and reminder of what the faith is about.

And one of the lessons the Cross contains is vulnerability.

When we are hit hard, we recoil and curl up to defend ourselves. We fear another blow and seek to protect the more vulnerable parts of our bodies. It’s similar with our psyches. We will “shut down” and use defense mechanisms to avoid psychological pain.

The Cross teaches a different lesson. It teaches one that to become strong, one must become vulnerable. One must be stripped and stretched and displayed. One can be hit from anywhere, and one is defenseless, unable to stop the blows.

It is not a call to mere sentimentality, or to rash divulgence of personal information, or presumptuously entering into physical danger… it is ultimately the call to virtue, especially to the sort of fortitude which reveals an individual who is whole and integral, who has nothing to hide in his soul because his soul is beautiful – and if someone rejects it or wishes it harm, then they are the ones who ought to be ashamed.

The hits will keep coming. We must suffer. And we will keep trying to block the blows, as is natural. But to reach the heights of Calvary, to become the greatest that we can be, despite the pain and the fear, we must allow ourselves to be stretched out.

For His grace is sufficient, and His power is made perfect in weakness. It is when we are weak that we are strong. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

The best year of my life

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I’m very into endurance athletics, as avid readers know.

There is this guy, Ross Edgley, ultra-long-distance swimmer. He’s a total science experiment. After a few attempts at the “world’s longest swim” didn’t go right, he had an interesting insight into the difference between failures and lessons… failures are missed learning opportunities. If you fail then learn the lesson and apply it to success, it’s better to think of it as a lesson than as a failure. If you overcome the next challenge because of what you learned by failing before, that failure is transformed – it goes from being a defeat to a kind of victory, in the macro.

Wednesday I end my time as a 33-year-old. This is “the age of perfection” – the age at which Our Lord redeemed us. While I did not suffer the way He did, this has been an absolutely brutal year. Defeat after defeat. Humiliation, stress, disappointment, anxiety, despair. Relationships threatened. Money issues. A lot of dark moments and loneliness. A lot of rage.

A lot of pain.

I would say that this has been the worst year of my life. But that’s short-sighted. In the micro, yes, it was terrible. I would never want to live it again.

But in the macro it might end up being the best year of my life. The question now is how to learn and apply the lessons which the failures contain.

My weird little athletics vlog, which I post sporadically, is called “Suffer, Die, Rise” – that’s it. That’s the pattern. The transformation that can occur after putting in the painful and unglamorous work and putting up with many failures to get the one big win that recasts everything in a new light… that’s the sweet stuff.

There are more analogies with endurance sports, but that’s the core – because that’s the core of living a life modeled after Christ.

I don’t know what you’re going through, dear reader, but hang in there. What seems terrible now may indeed be painful. But it may eventually be so useful as a lesson that it ends up being some of the best stuff that ever happens to you.

See you next week…

Back to basics…

Christian Renaissance Movement

Good morning, readers!

Please become my viewers too! I have come to my senses and will be producing video content once again, on my “personal channel.” I’ve studied I don’t know how many hours on how to build channels, sell through content, etc. – and yet I just haven’t really pulled the trigger myself. I am sitting on a goldmine in Italy, and have an education that I know will be able to be put to good use in this way.

I hope you can subscribe and follow along. And I hope to get a much-needed haircut (and shave?) soon…

Have a great week!

NAC Week

Christian Renaissance Movement

After the “Sunday with a thousand names” (Divine Mercy Sunday, Low Sunday, Dominica in Albis, etc.) there begins another octave, local to Rome…

NAC Week. Also known as “America Week.”

The NAC (North American College) is the American seminary in Rome. The Rector’s Dinner is an annual event for friends and especially *very large* benefactors of the seminary. It started out years and years ago as a small and rather informal gathering. Now it is “the event” for American Catholics with money, sometimes having a 4,000+ person waitlist. It’s a “who’s who” of American Catholic life.

Obviously, if that sort of group is in town, they will make a week out of it, with their own events. Thus, NAC Week.

I used to be fascinated by the “Professional Catholics” and the big checkwriters. Well, I’ve seen inside a bit over the past few years, and I can’t say it’s all that interesting. There are good people in the mix (for real), and there is some good stuff going on, but there is just a certain vibe. A lot of performing and pettiness and puffery. A lot of manipulation. A lot of wasted time and energy.

So I am not exactly pining for the rooftop parties anymore. I would rather be in the field, getting real work done, with people who aren’t constantly sizing me up while trying to outdo each other.

If that resonates with you, then let’s get it done together… So much to share, right around the corner. Stay tuned…

Holy Week begins

Christian Renaissance Movement

Holy Week is a time to get clarity on the Faith. And on ourselves – our role in the world and the Church.

It’s not about the latest bishop-related drama. It’s not about abstract debates over 17th century opinions on sufficient grace. It’s not about how to own the libs and “save the West.” These are not irrelevant, but right now they are mostly distractions. They are not what the Faith is about.

The Faith is about a man, who is God, being nailed to a piece of wood, every hope being dashed, and then Him being seen alive again by His chosen friends, with the promise He will return to do the same for us if we follow the pattern of His life and death. It’s about what happened between a little hill and a cave on the edge of Jerusalem 2000 years ago, and what this does for the world and for your soul, whether or not you choose to advert to its significance and its truth. Other things only really matter because of these events.

We cannot hide from the choice to follow or not, to believe or not, to witness or not. And we cannot diffuse or deflect the responsibility for our soul and for our own testimony to Christ, neither by a cultural framework nor by simply living within a ministerial order. This is comfortable, but it is an illusion – you must choose for yourself – and the choice must be made again and again and again, in various ways.

We must choose, for ourselves, and ultimately by ourselves, even though it is done with others. You and I must stand at the hill and at the cave and render our own judgment, and we must be ready to conform the world and souls to our decision. It is our place in the universe to be “set over” the Gospel in this way, suspended in between the sight of eternal things and mere speculation. True, the Gospel will be carried on without your help – but you will be left behind unless you do your part. So then, choose, and move forward.

I will pray for my readers to have a fruitful Holy Week. Please do the same for me.

starting a non-profit

Christian Renaissance Movement

Well, it is time, isn’t it.

After countless ad hoc fundraising efforts – often to some success (thanks!) – I have decided to build a platform to facilitate donations to help BUILD WEALTH IN THE MISSIONS.

We KNOW that throwing money into the jungle doesn’t work. It gets squandered. It gets “misplaced.” It gets presumed upon, destroying motivation to work. Why would you try to run a farm, or make clothing, or repair houses, if some big NGO is showing up and doing all that stuff for free?

But it’s never free. There is a trade off. It means collective dependence. Long-term stagnation. Corruption. No bueno!

The idea of the non-profit is to be the first fully “lay-run” group dedicated to building revenue-generating projects in Catholic mission areas (and other underdeveloped regions) that simultaneously create jobs and give the local Church a source of revenue. There is a lot to figure out still, but that’s the core of it. (And yeah, I will still do athletics stuff for clinics – won’t be giving that up, it’s too much fun!)

It is the path forward for me. I hope you will join… More info coming soon. Next week I will tell you about one of our “starter projects” in the Pacific, on an island that is becoming a new country… Yours truly is one of the few white foreigners who is really trusted there in a “grass roots” way. Crazy but true.

In the meantime, would you consider a $100 donation to the Catholic pink salt project? We are making great progress but are hitting a plateau. You can donate here. THANK YOU!

So I went to Pakistan…

Christian Renaissance Movement

Hi readers!

It’s been a long time. But I’m back.

A few years ago I decided to do a daily post… well, I won’t be trying that again, but one post a week is what I can do. So, start your Monday off right with a dose of crazy content from yours truly.

Today’s post is a taste of what’s to come. I am envisioning a world where capitalism and philanthropy work together in the Catholic missions… And I have just been at work on that “in the field.”

This is the kind of economic activity that the popes have called for in decades past. I call it “missionary entrepreneurship” – the idea is that the most disadvantaged people on the planet need help getting into the global market so they can “play the game.” That requires some extra risk… and no, it’s not for everyone, but someone needs to do it. I think God has given this charge to me. And to my supporters.

These projects are not easy. And they are not free. We are putting together a plan to build this company step by step. If you want to help at this initial phase, you can donate here:

https://www.givesendgo.com/catholicsalt

But there is SO MUCH more to come. If you want to get involved in a more serious way, reach out anytime.

See you next Monday…