No. 6 UVa and Penn Square Off in Showdown at the Mile High Classic ~ #UVa #Lacrosse #Lax #Penn #MileHighClassic

No. 6 UVa and Penn Square Off in Showdown at the Mile High Classic

Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com           Release: 04/24/2012

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The Virginia Cavaliers (10-3) are ranked No. 6 in this week's USILA coaches poll and Nike/Inside Lacrosse media poll after falling in the opening round of the ACC Championship. UVa travels to Denver, Colo., for the Whitman's Sampler Mile High Classic rendezvous with the Penn Quakers (3-9) on Friday evening, inside Sports Authority Field at Mile High.

There will be a live radio broadcast in the Charlottesville area on WINA 1070 AM, which will be simulcast as an audio webcast on VirginiaSports.com through Cavaliers Live. John Freeman will bring the play-by-play and Vincent Briedis will provide the analysis. ESPN3 will webcast the game live with Quint Kessenich bringing the play-by-play and Jamie Munro providing color analysis.

The trip to Colorado is the second in UVa program history and the first since the 2004 season. In 2004 the Cavaliers played a road game at Denver and a neutral site game against the Air Force Academy at Denver University, dropping both games by a combined three goals. It's a homecoming of sorts for two Cavaliers, first-years Rhody Heller (Denver) and Tanner Ottenbreit (Parker), who both hail from the state and were high school teammates at Regis Jesuit.

Friday marks the sixth all-time meeting between the Cavaliers and the Quakers, and the first neutral site meeting. UVa owns a narrow 3-2 advantage in a series that dates back to 1929, but has never been contested outside of Charlottesville until this season. UVa dropped the first two contests (1929 & 1931), before winning the past three (1997, 1998 and 2011) under Virginia head coach Dom Starsia.

Stanwick, named ACC Player of the Year for the second year in a row, leads UVa with 44 assists and 64 points. His ratio of 3.4 assists per game ranks No. 1 in the nation. Ranking No. 27 all-time at the NCAA Division I level with 253 career points, Stanwick passed former UVa All-American Doug Knight (249) for career points last time out. Knight will be on the field Friday in Denver as a volunteer assistant coach for the Penn Quakers. Chris Bocklet leads UVa with 30 goals, while six other Cavaliers are in double figures. Rob Emery and Stanwick are No. 2 and No. 3 on the team with 21 and 20 goals, respectively. Chris LaPierre leads UVa with 55 ground balls, which is the second-most by any player in the country who is not a faceoff specialist. Rob Fortunato is saving 58.5 percent of shots against him and posting a 8.54 goals against average in between the pipes.

Penn head coach Mike Murphy is in his third season as the head coach of the Quakers and he returns 16 letterwinners and 10 starters off a 2011 team that went 8-7 and made the NCAA Tournament. Murphy served as an assistant on Starsia's final Brown team in 1992 and his first five UVa teams from 1993-97. Penn boasts the No. 1 strength of schedule in the country according to LaxPower.com. John Conneely leads the way for the Quakers with 19 goals, 13 assists and 32 points, all team highs. Tim Schwalje has 17 goals and 11 assists, while Dan Savage, Ryan Parietti and Anthony Adler have tallied 15, 14 and 11 goals respectively. Brian Feeney is saving 48.6 percent of shots against him and posting a 9.39 goals against average.

Friday's game concludes the regular season for the Cavaliers. The NCAA Selection Show for the Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship is on May 6. The show will be televised live on ESPNU at 9 p.m.

We are not converted only once

"We are not converted only once in our lives but many times. 
And it is this endless series of upheavals, large and small, 
which leads to our transformation in Christ." - Thomas Merton

Sarah Coakley: Living prayer and leadership

A wonderful interview with theologian and priest Sarah Coakley posted at Duke's Faith and Leadership blog.  An excerpt is below.

Q: Most theologians think one must either choose to adhere to church tradition or choose Protestant liberalism. And you've said, “Why?” How have you developed this habit of thinking “opposably” rather than “oppositionally” (to borrow language from Roger Martin’s “The Opposable Mind”)?

By nature, I'm actually an oppositional thinker. It's not been without struggle that I have come to see that opposition is not really the best way to be in relationship with other people, except in conditions of severe danger of loss of integrity.

I found myself in a very oppositional place at Harvard Divinity School towards the end of my time there. I felt that what was happening at the school was utterly wrong and destructive. But the trouble is once you declare war there's actually not much more you can do with the people with whom you work. If there's ever a possibility for inducing the best from someone, that's always what you want.

As I get older, the theological virtue of hope seems more important to me. There are ways of winning trust so that the person you are dealing with will see that there may be a shared project on which you can work together.

At an ideological level I don’t assume we can always escape lining ourselves up in complete opposition against another position. But I certainly find it more intriguing theologically to reflect critically before I just jump in with a negative riposte to a kind of thinking that I'm not attracted to initially. I try to practice not so much a hermeneutics of suspicion, but a gentle hermeneutics of charity -- that which you are most likely to dismiss outright is something you ought to constantly reconsider.

Q: How does presiding at the Eucharist inform how you imagine leadership?

The passage into priesthood changed me. I now put a greater priority on the building of relationship in community than the asserting of polemical positions. As academics, we rightly train young scholars to show how their work adds something new and sexy to a discussion. That's the name of the game. But you cannot carry into the priesthood entrenched patterns of polemicism.

Even the bodily ritual actions of the Eucharist are those which necessarily draw others into communion. A wonderful old invitation in the “Book of Common Prayer” says, “Ye that do earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and do intend to lead a new life following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in His holy ways, draw near with faith.” You cannot celebrate the Eucharist unless you believe that such reconciliation is possible while you are celebrating it. People even in the church community who seem to have retreated into polemical positions are capable of being brought back from them. I've seen that happen.

Luther Ziegler

The Reverend Luther Zeigler has been the Minister of Emmanuel since Easter 2012.  Luther is an Episcopal priest who serves as the Episcopal Chaplain to Harvard University during the academic year, where he is affiliated with Christ Church Cambridge, the historic Episcopal church on Harvard Square.  He was educated at Oberlin College (B.A.), Stanford University (M.A., J.D.), and Virginia Theological Seminary (M. Div.).  Luther has published widely on topics of theology and education. His essays have appeared in the Anglican Theological Review, Oxford’s Oral History Review, and in the recent anthology, Reasons for Being: The Character and Culture of Episcopal Schools, published by the National Association of Episcopal Schools.

In 2014, Luther received the John Hines Preaching Award for excellence in preaching from his alma mater, the Virginia Theological Seminary. The award is given annually for the best sermon preached that year “where the prophetic voice is central to the sermon.”

For many years prior to his ordination, Luther practiced appellate law at a major Washington law firm, where he had an active public service practice, particularly in the areas of civil rights and advocating for the homeless. He served on the Board of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and represented a wide range of pro bono clients, including the Children’s Defense Fund, the Volunteers of America, the NAACP, the Georgetown University Sex Discrimination Clinic, as well as numerous other public interest groups and indigent individuals. Luther’s transition from the law to ministry was featured in the April 2013 issue of the American Lawyer.

Luther and his wife, Pat, have been married for over 36 years and have two adult daughters, Kate and Ann.  Kate and her husband, Hunter, live in Manchester.  Ann and her husband, Justin, live in Wellesley, with their son, Jack.  Luther and Pat live in the Parsonage during the summer months and on occasional weekends throughout the rest of the year.

My prayer