Scientia et ecclesiae

A black hole… I feel like if I fell in, I’d find God. (courtesy of APOD. )

On Thursday I posted about going to see Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ at SUNY Albany, where he was giving a talk about Galileo. There was a little Twitter-versy (you know, a Twitter controversy!) because I called Brother Guy the “mayor of nerd and geek.” I’ll have everyone know that such things are said with the greatest respect. I see myself as church nerd meets science geek – even if I was never a great science student.

In any event, all of this was precipitated by my annoyance with something that I read in the Albany Times Union a couple of weeks ago – read that Thursday post for context. In my annoyance, I wrote a letter to the editor and dashed it off to the paper via email. A P.S. was included, saying that I would be happy to write a column for the paper’s Saturday belief page on the topic. Well, I went ahead and wrote the column and I am pleased to say that it is running today.  That Brother Guy showed up days before was a real gift, and I thank City Page editor extraordinaire Rob Brill for letting me know about the talk!

The Albany Times Union has a free and open website; I know some of you do not like to follow links, but it is safe, no registration required, no “you have 9 more articles to enjoy so please subscribe messages.” Have a look and let me know what you think! The column, entitled Church, science, in synch, can be found by clicking here.

And if you want to explore further, may I suggest, as I do in the column, to use the internet. Also consider getting daily emails from APOD via Greg Tracy, which is like a prayer for me.  (Not to mention you can offer him a little support in this great work that he does…) And don’t forget to follow Brother Guy on Twitter, where he is found @Specolations.

Let me know what you think of the column, commenting here if you will.  And please feel free to share it if you wish.

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There will still be bread, just from a new oven.

I don’t know about you, but I loathe moving. As it happens, I am moving today… This place is actually great, and I did spend so much time trying to get it going in WordPress, but now the blog will be published at the Times Union website. I guess it is a good thing that I did learn WordPress after all!

In any case, if you are here, chances are that you know me, so this post will be redundant to you in some ways. Feel free to keep on reading if you wish.

There is an element of bittersweet going on here, but I am very pleased to have the larger platform to blog from. When Mike Huber, the interactive audience manager and overall boss o’ the bloggers there contacted me, I was a bit shocked! It took me a day to sort out the pros and cons, and I feel great that about making the move.  I do hope that if you are reading this, you will come over and read at the Times Union blog pages as well.

The comments are all moderated; it is a newspaper blog, so that has to be the policy. Please be patient as I moderate them.  And the aforementioned Mike won’t like it if things get ugly… and neither will I, so let’s keep that in mind.

In any case, here we go…. 3…2…1…

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Hello Times Union blog readers! I’d like to introduce myself to you today. My name is Fran Rossi Szpylczyn, I’m a long-time blogger who is new to the TU blogs, and looking forward to connecting with you via these pages. I am so pleased to be here; what a privilege it is to be part of the expansive company of Times Union bloggers.

So, who am I?

I live in Clifton Park with my husband Mark Szpylczyn and my stepdaughter Erica. We have a dog and a cat who like to ignore each other, which is a good thing! Born in the Bronx, I grew up in White Plains, NY and spent most of my life in the New York City area. The bulk of my work life was spent working