Kolbecast

AMDG. A harmony of voices joins together on today’s episode to discuss music. Bonnie, Steven, Dr. Jordan Almanzar, Dr. Carl Hasler, and Kolbe alumna-turned-teacher Olivia Knuffke share their musical backgrounds and memories, reflections and pedagogy. With topics such as the discipline and work ethic required of both music and a Kolbe education and the formative music of folks’ teenage years, the conversation ultimately centers on the lessons learned from music (whether listening to it or making it!) and the richness it imparts to life. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• Et Tu, Iordane? 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  This episode debuts in the dreary days of American wintertime, but our topic is far sunnier: summer camp.  Bonnie and Steven visit with Josh Wattenbarger and Alyssa Wollums of The Pines Catholic Camp about the highs, lows, benefits, and burdens of the camping experience both at The Pines itself and more generally.  The conversation ranges from fun and games to unhealthy socialization like cliques and bullying, family dynamics to handling homesickness, and overall, the developmentally appropriate independence that camp fosters.  

Check out The Pines Catholic Camp here. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 105 Not Just for Special Occasions 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Advent is a time of active waiting, preparation, and reflection.  In this episode, guests Katie Bogner and Shari Van Vranken share their educational and artistic perspectives on Advent drawn from their professional backgrounds and their recent authorial collaboration in All About Advent and Christmas: Sharing the Seasons of Hope and Wonder with Children.  The group discusses how experiences across public, parochial, and homeschool settings; how saints and symbolism factor into Advent; and the value of stepping back from daily routines into yearly traditions. 

Links to check out:  

• Katie & Shari’s book All about Advent & Christmas: Sharing the Seasons of Hope and Wonder with Children 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Think about the idea of being the answer to someone else’s prayers.  Does that seem humbling or overwhelming, frightening or appealing...or maybe a mix of all of those?  In this episode, Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute visits with Bonnie and Steven about the idea of charisms.  These gifts are different from sanctifying graces in that they are given to us for us to give away.  Sherry explains how every baptized person receives at least one charism, how all the charisms are evangelizing and healing, and how charisms spring to fruitfulness from a lived relationship with God. 

Links mentioned: 

• Catherine of Siena Institute 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes 

• 176 The Agenda Is to Grow with Art & Laraine Bennett 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Last week, you heard from a few Kolbe-connected dads about their kitchen adventures.  The theme continues this week as Kolbe instructor moms Laura Roselli Insall and Christina Davin join us to talk about cooking, upcoming holidays, and kids in the kitchen.  The conversation covers vegetarian and food allergy accommodations, the utilitarian and joyful aspects of cooking, make-ahead meal strategies, and repeating traditions for holidays versus trying new things each year. 

• The Little Christmas Angel by Peggy Barron 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 181 Chef Dad 

AMDG.  Gather in our metaphorical kitchen with Bonnie, Steven, Tony Guzzaldo, Everett Buyarski, and Craig Lengyel as the men don their oven mitts and talk food and cooking.  From stories of learning to cook early in marriage to discovering the chemistry of cooking, the group muses on how the kitchen can be a place of socializing or of solitude, the importance of feasting as a foil to fasting, and the connection between an abundant table and the goodness of creation.  They also share a few favorite memories and current go-to recipes. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 78 The Kolbe Man Show 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

 AMDG.  Family dynamics understandably influence the day to day of homeschooling.  When crisis comes—be it separation or divorce, job loss, health emergencies, anxiety and depression, relationship issues, or other trauma—feelings of isolation and stigma can cause ripple effects in a family. In this episode, Bonnie and Steven visit with homeschool alumni mother Anne DeSantis of the St. Raymond Nonnatus Foundation, which offers prayer, priestly consultation, podcasts & videos, and programs & events for families in crisis.  They touch on a variety of topics, such as the benefits of seeking help from someone outside of a normal social sphere for greater confidentiality and specialization, how people can become marginalized by family crisis issues, the importance of both boundaries and being perceptive to where other people are, and how healing is never once and done. 

Links mentioned & relevant 

• The St. Raymond Nonnatus Foundation for Freedom, Family, and Faith 

• The Nonnatus Foundation’s YouTube channel 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 167 Sanity & Sanctity with Johanna Seagren of Interior Kingdom 

• 45 Grace Perfects Nature 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Professor and translator Dr. Matthew Minerd joins Bonnie, Steven, Jordan, and Everett in this episode about making connections across rites, languages, and disciplines.  Starting with a discussion of various Eastern rites of Catholicism, the group explores the blend of traditions throughout the Church, the art of finessing words from one language to another in translation, and the endeavor of teachers to stir up a love of learning in their students. 

Dr. Minerd’s works available from Ascension Press 

• Made by God, Made for God: Catholic Morality Explained  

Other relevant links:  

• Dr. Minerd’s wife Dr. Courtney Minerd was a key contributor to a Facebook Friday event focused on mental health hosted by Kolbe Academy’s Elizabeth Hoxie.  

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG.  Kids in the kitchen can be enriching or unnerving for all involved. In this episode, Katie Kimball of Kitchen Stewardship and the creator of the Kids Cook Real Food course shares her passion and expertise for collaboration among family members in feeding and nourishing a household.  Building from her four pillars of health and nutrition, time, budget, and environment, Katie highlights some of her best tips for meal planning, budgeting, and preparation.  She also talks about good times to teach children new cooking skills, how to accommodate and incorporate food sensitivities in a menu, and how anxious parents can encourage their children’s autonomy. 

 Kolbecast listeners are invited to subscribe to Katie’s free Monday Missions e-course. 

Relevant Kolbecast episodes: 

• 47 Among the Pots & Pans 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey. 

AMDG. Writer, theater maker, game designer, and alumnus of Kolbe and Yale University Alexi Sargeant joins the Kolbecast in this episode to discuss community and storytelling in the past, present, and future.  He speaks with experience as both a student and a teacher about encountering Shakespeare and other dramatic works meant to be spoken, highlights the intersection of theology and culture, and nerds out with Steven and Everett Buyarski about the role of the fantastical in a life of formation. 

Alexi’s wife Leah Libresco Sargeant spoke at Kolbe Academy’s 2023 Call to Holiness Retreat. Leah’s presentation is available here.  

Saintly Creatures: 14 Tales of Animals and Their Holy Companions, Alexi’s new book, is available now! 

Links mentioned and relevant: 

• Doxacon, the convention bringing together faith, truth, fantasy, and science fiction, happening November 3 & 4, 2023, in Arlington, VA 

A sampling of Alexi’s writing: 

• Winter’s Tale: The Icy Pang of Contrition and the Gift of Thawing Grace 

The Kolbecast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most podcast apps. By leaving a rating and review in your podcast app of choice, you can help the Kolbecast reach more listeners. The Kolbecast is also on Kolbe's YouTube channel (audio only with subtitles).  Using the filters on our website, you can sort through the episodes to find just what you're looking for. However you listen, spread the word about the Kolbecast! 

Have questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected] and be a part of the Kolbecast odyssey.