These days I'm posting from the Homeland. I didn't know it before I arrived, but found out that 'What's Your Name' was scheduled to appear at St. Mary's Slovak RC Church yesterday afternoon. I was curious about this man so I went to hear him:

All that was missing at McAdoo yesterday was Coal Miner's Son's hawk and hound. The gray, howling wind was there, and the start of the blizzard that we now find ourselves in. There were about thirty members in the group that braved the blizzard and came to hear the Holy Man, among them the pastor of the church, the Reverend Father Joseph Martinkovic. Father Martinkovic, originally from Bratislava, Slovakia, is an 'old-school' pastor who even now includes some Slovak language in his services. The basement of the church was warm and familiar, remembered of days forty years past.

What's Your Name began his talk (I won't call it a sermon), in a familiar manner, something like the Catechism that many of us remember. It became more than that, seeming almost like a conversation among old friends. There was no blatant evangelizing, tub-thumping or hosannas. Just a quiet talk.

The main items he emphasized are: That there is Good everywhere, far more good than we think as we experience and observe the world around us. It far offsets the evil that also exists in all of us because we are human and imperfect ..... And, not to try to experience the Extraordinary in faith, ie, not to seek after signs, wonders and the speculations of would-be mystics and soothsayers. But just to try to find the way of God in the Ordinary.

I asked him his opinion of the great Evil in the present Iraq/War situation and he said not to count out the fact that Good will likely come of it in ways that we cannot know. He also cautioned us to realize that it is not only Iraq where Evil manifests itself. But to look for the Evil also in ourselves and in the agendas of our Government.

He is quite modern, up-to-date, and he has a website, one put up by a friend. Being a web site designer myself, I asked if he supports it and whether he minds me putting a link to his on my own site. He is quite happy with his site, although he does not participate in the technical side of it. Rather likes the idea that it is a good way to find him if he is needed somewhere.

Then I asked of his feelings about our Coal Region. He thinks that it is a very special place, an oddly cosmopolitan area because of the multinational composition of its builders, yet is possessed of more the old-time simple faith that many are too rapidly losing. When asked if he 'specializes' in the Coal Region, he laughed and said (paraphrased) ... "Well, not specialize, but after all, that is where his message ... "exploded" on the World".

The man IS special. I noticed no halos or auras but there is something very ... nice ... about him. The local Priest agrees. This meeting could not have taken place in the Region forty years ago when I left. I think he boarded at the rectory that night. He takes NO money, and when asked how he 'gets by', smiled and recommended that we should try it (his way of poverty) some time and be surprised at the results.

Impressive!