Celebrity Blogger Week winds up with the Rev. Chris Yaw. Actually that's not entirely true since we're sticking in Bracket Czar Adam Thomas tomorrow -- we need to keep him happy. But Chris is our eighth and final Celebrity Blogger this year. He's so busy that he kept his answers brief; however we have read through the lines to determine that he won't be giving up chocolate for Lent.

The Rev. Chris Yaw lives in Detroit, where the weak are killed and eaten. He serves the good people of St. David's in Southfield, Michigan who have yet to figure out his three-year-old actually writes his homilies. Chris is thrilled to be entering his second year of celebrity blogging (sure, he writes those too...) and is actually quite enthralled with online Christian learning. Visit the experiment at churchnext.tv

(Editor's note: Chris is too humble to mention that he won an Emmy Award in a previous life as a TV journalist, writer, and producer. We translate this to mean that Lent Madness has won an Emmy. Take that, Susan Lucci!).

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
I love this job! And since I'm in my second year, Tim has doubled my pay. The best part of this job is being around some of the most gifted and energetic voices in the church who have a deep love for God despite her obvious bias for female saints.

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with our penultimate CB, Neil Alan Willard. Besides being the only Celebrity Blogger with four (count 'em!) "L"s in his name, Neil is related to most of the clergy in the Episcopal Church. Also, we like to use the word "penultimate" whenever the opportunity arises.

The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, one of the original Celebrity Bloggers and an early adopter of Lent Madness, is Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Edina, Minnesota, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. His study there overlooks beautiful Minnehaha Creek on its way to the Mississippi River. He’s married to Carrie, also beautiful, and they have two sons and a Labrador Retriever in the household. Outside the house are chipmunks, raccoons, and coyotes. No kidding. Last bit of trivia: his father-in-law and his sister-in-law’s husband are both Episcopal priests at different congregations in Aiken, South Carolina, and his brother-in-law is also an Episcopal priest, previously in Wasilla, Alaska, and now in Kapolei, Hawaii. No kidding. Follow him on Twitter @neilwillard and be sure to check out his blog Laughing Water.

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As someone who was raised on “Tobacco Road” and attended Wake Forest University, I know a little about ACC basketball and religious devotion to a favorite team. I’m not only a Demon Deacon but also the Rector of a church named for St. Stephen, and a member of the Martyrs, our men’s group. I really got into the first tournament of Lent Madness as soon as I realized that our patron saint, the first martyr and one of the first deacons, needed a boost in the second round. While that was a tough loss for us, we had made a strong, last-minute effort. So the next year I gladly accepted an invitation to become one of the original Celebrity Bloggers. I took C.S. Lewis all the way to the Golden Halo in 2011 and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the Faithful Four in 2012. I’m proud of that record (but not too proud, of course, since that would be unsaintly). What I’ve learned is that birds of a feather do indeed flock together. Last October, for example, I had the opportunity to meet Garrison Keillor backstage at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul after a live radio broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. It may take a moment for you to connect the dots, but it seems obvious to me that this gathering of celebrities in the Land of Lake Wobegon was a direct result of the blessings of Lent Madness.

What should the Lent Madness faithful know about you?
My congregation is located in Edina, which is the childhood home of Ric Flair (a.k.a. “The Nature Boy”). Fake-sports-oriented Episcopalians will surely remember him as the most stylish “pro wrestler” of the 70s and 80s. My family, however, lives in neighboring St. Louis Park, hometown of the Coen Brothers, Senator Al Franken, and Nordic Ware, which produced the original Bundt Pan in 1950. So when members of the House of Bishops choose the Nordic Ware Cathedral Bundt Pan as a gift for their clergy, they are indirectly helping to ensure that snow-covered streets are plowed between my house and my church throughout Minnesota’s harsh winters. I would tweet my thanks to them, but the mitred ones tend to react to that sort of thing like Mr. Carson did when he first saw an electric toaster at Downton Abbey: “Is it not enough that we are sheltering a dangerous revolutionary, Mrs. Hughes? Could you not have spared me that?” *sigh*

Due to celebrations of the triumph of purple, the Supreme Executive Committee will not be releasing an episode of Monday Madness this week. Tim was busy writing an article for the Huffington Post about Ray Lewis and his brilliant theology.

Tim has also issued a video statement which may be found on Maple Anglican's excellent video for the week. In this video, you will find reporting on the recent play-in between John Donne and T. S. Eliot, as well as a particular football game. The SEC is grateful to our neighbor to the north for this and for all his good work. We view this as evidence of the worldwide buzz around Lent Madness.

Tune in next week for a new episode of Monday Madness. If you're not sure what to do with yourself, why not spend some time in the Lentorium buying mugs, bracket posters, or ebooks for your Kindle or Nook? And of course it's still Celebrity Blogger Week, so there's that.

After a brief hiatus for the Donne vs. Eliot Play-In round (Donne moves on) and the Super Bowl (Ravens!), Celebrity Blogger Week continues with the Rev. Laura Toepfer. If you think of Lent Madness from an Electoral College point of view, Laura is critical as she hails from California. She claims to be "boring" but her unofficial photo proves otherwise.

Oh, and Maple Anglican has just released a new video recapping the final Play-In -- don't want to miss this one!

The Rev. Laura Toepfer, entering her second year as a Celebrity Blogger, is the Managing Director of Confirm not Conform, an organization devoted to creating confirmation programs that celebrate questions and authentic faith. After seven years in college, youth, and parish ministry, in 2008 Laura became a Kiva Fellow and worked with microfinance agencies in Uganda before returning to her native California. She is the author of the curriculum Eat, Pray, Grow, produced by Every Voice Network—a program that is remarkably well-suited to a church Lenten series. She preaches regularly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and often has snarky things to say about church on her blog The Infusion. She also has a thing about obituaries.

Welcome to the fourth and final Play-In match of Lent Madness 2013. In the previous Play-Ins, Gregory the Great defeated Gregory of Nyssa; Thomas Tallis beat John Merbecke; and Samuel Seabury sent George Berkeley to the showers.

Today we have the Great Poetry Slam between John Donne and T.S. Eliot with the winner heading to the official bracket to face Agnes of Rome in the First Round. The loser will, presumably, sit in solitude and write self-loathing verses of poetry.

With the conclusion of today's match-up, the 32-saint 2013 Lent Madness bracket will be complete. On Monday morning, we'll return to Celebrity Blogger Week (which is rapidly turning into Celebrity Blogger Week-and-a-Half).

Don't forget Lent Madness 2013 officially kicks off on "Ash Thursday," February 14th, with a First Round match-up between Jonathan Daniels and Macrina the Younger. If you're looking to organize Lent Madness at your parish, click here for tips on how to do so. If you'd like to know when your favorite saint is set to do battle make sure to check out the Calendar of Match-Ups. And, finally, don't forget to "like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See you in Lent!

John Donne

10. Was the first Anglican hipster. He attended both Oxford and Cambridge and the Lincoln Inn (where lawyers trained in Elizabethan England), and managed not to get any academic degrees. He traveled to Europe, especially Spain, and partied and wrote poetry.  He womanized, danced with ladies in courts all over Europe, lived off the wealth of patrons, and wrote poetry. He became spiritual but not religious...and wrote poetry. His poetry was ground-breaking to literature of the day with its twisted and distorted images and ideas that connected seemingly unrelated things together like a flea and sex. Without Donne, T.S. Eliot would have had no foundation to begin writing his poetry.

9. He eventually fell backwards into a real job by landing a gig as the private secretary to one of the highest officials in the queen’s court. His intelligence and charm opened doors, and he even scored a seat in Elizabeth’s last Parliament. Then he ruined it all for love. Yes, ladies, swoon-like-a-Jane-Austen-novel love. He secretly married Ann More, and her father and John’s employer totally opposed the match (I mean, Donne wasn’t exactly Mr. Elizabethan England Bachelor of the Year). Yet they married. Donne got sacked and landed in prison...along with the priest who married them (for LOVE - remember this!). He was eventually released from prison, and he and Ann had twelve children and were by all accounts happily married until her death.

8. He wrote - let’s just say it - sleazy, erotic, classy poetry that we read in English classed to this day. His poems covered topics like trying to have sex with every girl in sight to exploring his lover’s body as an explorer discovers part of America. And don’t forget The Flea, where he tries to convince his girlfriend to have sex with him. He rarely had these poems published, but allowed them to be widely circulated among his friends and patrons of his poetry. And, we assume, some of his lady friends.

7. And he wrote poems that spoke to the complexities of human nature and faith...that we read in English classes and hear in church sermons to this day. He gave English language the phrase, “No man is an island,”  Hemingway is eternally grateful for Donne’s, “For whom the bell tolls” line, and “Death be not proud,” with its in-your-face elegance, gives fullness to the lines of the Burial Rite: "And even at the grave, we make our song. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!"

6. He was a satirist, which means he was really snarky, but had huge audiences. In his satirical essays, he called out corrupt government and church practices, absurdities in certain faith beliefs (he was one of the early people to argue suicide was not a mortal sin), bad poets, and pompous courtiers. He blasted those who blindly followed established religious tradition without carefully examining one’s beliefs and questioning. He writes (translated into modern English), “You won’t be saved on the Day of Judgement by saying Harry or Martin told  you to believe this. God wants to know what YOU thought and believed.”

5. King James wanted him to become a priest so badly that he declared to all of England that Donne could not be hired except in the church. Seriously. So he was ordained in 1615 and soon became known as a great preacher in an age of great preachers, in an era of the Anglican church when preaching was a form of spiritual devotion, an intellectual exercise, and dramatic entertainment. I bet no one looked at his iPhone to check the time when Donne was throwing down the Gospel at St. Paul’s Cross.

4. He was eventually named Dean of St. Paul’s, the big time of the big time. He preached his own funeral sermon right before he died. Funeral. Preaching. Owned.

3. Just in case anyone had any ideas about how he should be remembered, he arranged a final portrait of himself not in pompous glory, but in his burial shroud.  Yes, a bit creepy, but he walked the walk and saw the beauty in death. Because guess what? Donne believed with every bit of his soul that the Resurrection wasn’t just a story, but it was Truth. His statue survived the 1666 fire at St. Paul’s and still watches over the place. Just in case any subsequent Deans think they are all that.

2. He wrote this:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’s thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

1. And this

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
And in this fela our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which is sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
‘Tis true; then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

John Donne was the first Rev. Dirty Sexy Ministry, and Dean of St. Paul’s. And he lived it loud and proud.

-- Laurie Brock

T. S. Eliot

10. T.S. Eliot (9/26/1888 - 1/4/1965) was a poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor. Like many of his generation, he was profoundly affected by World War I but he also became a convert to Anglicanism, to the surprise of literary friends and colleagues, resulting in his writing poetry and plays featuring distinctly Christian ideas set alongside themes of desolation and disconnection. He sought to explore traditional Christian themes while using modern forms and rhythms, speaking to and for a generation that had seen devastation like no other before it. The traditional meets the modern in Eliot’s works in which he models the maxim that the church must reinterpret scripture and doctrine for every generation.

9.  Among his poems are "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock," "The Waste Land," "The Hollow Men," "Ash Wednesday," "Four Quartets," and "The Journey of the Magi;" most famous among his plays is "Murder in the Cathedral" (the story of the martyrdom of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury written entirely in verse).

8.  He won the Nobel Price in Literature in 1948 for his “outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.” Prior to Eliot’s acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, Gustaf Hellstrom of the Swedish Academy said of him, “As a poet you have, Mr. Eliot, for decades, exercised a greater influence on your contemporaries and younger fellow writers than perhaps anyone else of our time.”

7.  Eliot’s collection of poems about the psychology and social habits of kitties - Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats -  was the basis for the long running Broadway musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber featuring Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat, Mr. Mistoffelees, Old Deuteronomy, and (Aspara)Gus the Theater Cat, et al. Sadly, the SEC says there are no cat videos at Lent Madness, or I’d link to one.

6. For all you coffee lovers out there, he included this famous line in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons....” No doubt into his Lent Madness coffee mug, had he owned one.

5. More seriously, Eliot is considered a “supreme interpreter of mediated experience.” He himself said, “A poet must take as his material his own language as it is actually spoken around him.” A fine example comes from The Wasteland (Part I. Burial of the Dead): “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

4. And who among us does not love the ending of the The Journey of the Magi:

3.  Eliot considered The Four Quartets to be his best work, and each of the quartets to be better than the one before. Ponder these lines from Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding 

2.  Read again Eliot’s brilliant, sexy, and oft-quoted ending from The Hollow Men:

“Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

1.  And finally, heed Eliot’s words from his play Murder in the Cathedral that explain why Sir Anthony Strallan should not marry Lady Edith - I mean, that explain why you should vote for Eliot to join the 2013 Lent Madness bracket of saints:

Vote!

[poll id="42"]

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with our third and final Lent Madness newbie. We've enjoyed hazing David the past few months and look forward to surprising him with the official Lent Madness ankle tattoo.

The Rev. David Sibley, while living in Brooklyn, does not craft artisanal cheeses. Instead, he serves as Priest-in-Charge of Saint John’s Church, Fort Hamilton, where six of the saints featured in this year’s bracket stare back at him every time he celebrates the Eucharist. Raised right in the middle of South Carolina, David studied and did research as a chemist before being whisked away to seminary in New York City. When he’s not in church, David enjoys travel, hiking and camping, all things food and music related, and praying for the yearly resurrection of the Chicago Cubs’ World Series hopes. When the ideas are forthcoming, he’s been known to blog at Feeding on Manna, and holds forth much more often with his partners in crime on Twitter at @davidsibley.

What are you most looking forward to about Lent Madness 2013?
I'm looking forward to getting to know a few saints better than I knew them before. One of my favorite authors, the Jesuit priest James Martin, notes in his book My Life with the Saints that "It's funny -- the way you discover a new saint is often similar to the way in which you meet a new friend. Maybe you hear an admiring comment about someone and think, I'd like to get to know that person… perhaps you're introduced to a person by someone else who knows you'll enjoy that person's company, or perhaps you run across someone, totally by accident, during your day-to-day life." The saints have been great companions in my spiritual life, and I'm looking forward to making a few more friends.

I'm also looking forward to see what dark-horse candidates will emerge on the strength of good grass-roots campaigns this year. I think many of us were quite surprised by the upstart campaign that Philander Chase made through last year's competition. Are we going to see a relative unknown make a no-holds barred run for the Golden Halo? The only way to find out is, as they say, to "stay tuned…"<

What should the the Lent Madness faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
While in most things I'm the epitome of a church nerd, I do manage to have a few other interests…

Before I was ordained, I did undergraduate and graduate studies in chemistry, and still can't quite understand why everyone seems to have hated that subject during high school and college. In many ways, I still consider myself a scientist at heart. Like most of the Episcopal Church, I managed to get hooked on watching Downton Abbey; I also remain a huge fan of Mad Men, Arrested Development, and The West Wing. I'm a huge sports fan -- my passion for college football (South Carolina Gamecocks) and professional baseball (Chicago Cubs) could be charitably described as "addictions." With fellow Celebrity Blogger Laurie Brock, I experience a bit of a twinge in my gut when Scott and Tim refer to "the other SEC" when referring to my college football conference of choice. I'm also pretty sure that being a Cubs fan makes me a better Christian, because you have to believe in resurrection when your team hasn't won a World Series since 1908. So don't be surprised if a few sports references make their way into any hagiographies I write.

In their never-ending dedication to you, the fans of Lent Madness, the Supreme Executive Committee searched across the globe for the perfect theme music for Monday Madness. Here is the result of that worldwide search:

Tune in every Monday (in season) for a new episode of Monday Madness. You can watch the complete oeuvre on the Lent Madness video channel. When you settle in to watch this excellent material, make sure you sip a warm beverage from the right kind of mug.

(more…)

Celebrity Blogger Week continues with the irrepressible Heidi Shott. Most closely identified with Queen Emma, last year's Cinderella saint, Heidi has turned down numerous offers of free trips to the Aloha State. Something about being impartial. Plus she's nervous about the chances of Damien of Molokai this Lent.

Heidi Shott, entering her second year as a Celebrity Blogger, is Canon for Communications and Social Justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. She is a member (and past Vice Chair) of the Standing Commission on Communications and Information Technology and served as Chair of the Episcopal Life Board of Governors. She worked on the Office of Communication’s video news team at two General Conventions, hosting “The Daily Wrap” in Anaheim in 2009. In Indianapolis she hosted an interview blog at www.indy300.net. Praised widely for her writing about faith in daily life, Heidi writes for a variety of publications and blogs. She keeps the blog Heidoville. With the departure of their twin sons for college, she and her husband Scott are milling aimlessly around their home in mid-coast Maine where they root for the Red Sox even when they lose. Follow her on Twitter @heidomaine. 

How long have you been a CB? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As the token non-seminary-trained member of the Lent Madness team, I am honored to represent the underrepresented lay order for a second year. No. I really am. It’s not like we should pretend that Lent Madness is a proportional democracy or something. While coping with last year’s copy deadlines and the demands of scrounging up kitsch and amusing saintly anecdotes about people who weren’t always amusing -- think St. Augustine -- was stressful, it was a pleasure to be involved. I learned an enormous amount about these faithful followers of Jesus, with the bonus of discovering a kindred spirit in Enmegabowh’s wife, Iron Sky Woman. Also, I learned how to spell his name without looking it up. That Queen Emma of Hawaii made it all the way to the Golden Halo round was the icing on the cake.

What should the LM faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
Well, I have a pretty awesome corner office at the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, one floor above the Bishop’s. Since I’m pretty fidgety and my desk is directly over his, I suspect he finds my toe tapping pretty annoying but is too kind to say anything. It’s something we don’t discuss. I’m very fond of my aged mini-rex house rabbit, Hester. I fear he -- Hester’s a he, long story -- will die soon and have contemplated having him stuffed. Members of my immediate family find this prospect disturbing and have taken to buying fake rabbits to offer me comfort in advance of his demise. Recently I’ve been looking at photos of taxidermied rabbits online and confess that, on the whole, they don’t look so good or very comforting at all. In other animal news, I’m an avid scuba diver and take great pleasure in identifying many species of tropical fish and critters whenever I get the chance. Here in Maine I live on a millpond where, hypocritically, I don’t appreciate close encounters with fish or critters while swimming in the pond.

Lent Madness isn't just about saints, discipleship, voting, formation, and chuckles. Like the rest of our culture, it's about commerce. So here's your chance to stock up on Lent Madness goodies.

First of all, you can't tell the players without a program. Get thee to the Kindle or Nook stores and buy a copy of Calendar of Saints: Lent Madness 2013 Ultra-Revised Edition. This venerable title began life as book of devotional essays on the saints by Canon David Veal. Last year, we revised and updated it to include all the official saints of the Episcopal Church calendar (none of the trial use clutter) PLUS all the saints in Lent Madness. This year, it has been Ultra Revised to include all the saints in Lent Madness 2013. Besides author David Veal and editor Scott Gunn, this year's contributors include several celebrity bloggers and Lent Madness luminaries: Laurie Brock, Megan Castellan, Penny Nash, Tim Schenck, Heidi Shott, and David Sibley. Janet Buening on the Forward Movement staff added an essay and pulled the whole thing together. So, anyway, there's lots of great stuff here -- it's a devotionally oriented look at the saints.

For this year, we slashed the price to just $4.99. You can buy it on Kindle or Nook. If you want a paper copy, just place your Kindle on a photocopier and make your own. We promise not to sue you for copyright infringement if you do this, as long as you use a photo of yourself at the copier as your Facebook profile pic and tag "Lent Madness."

Second of all, since you are probably a bit sleepy after thinking about books, you are going to want a shiny new coffee mug. If you insist, it can hold other beverages too, up to eleven ounces. This year's mug features the Lent Madness 2013 logo, as well as the reigning Golden Halo title holder, Mary Magdalene, with a word to this year's bracket of saints: "Good luck filling my shoes!" Buy your mug for the low bargain price of $10 from Forward Movement. Get another one (or ten more) and the price plunges to nine bucks.

Third of all, and finally, you are going to want to track the results of Lent Madness in real time on your living room wall, right? For this you'll need a giant, poster-sized bracket. We have just the thing. New this year, you can buy yourself a 36" by 24" full-color bracket to record the winners of each match. Brackets are just ten bucks, or two for $18. Buy one for your parish hall bulletin board, another for home, and perhaps a third for work. It would not be completely out of line to get one for the car and several for your neighbors.

Keep an eye on the Store page. If we think up more stuff, we'll put it there. Got an idea for something you want to own? Let the Supreme Executive Committee know your ideas.

Buying all this stuff supports the work of Forward Movement, and here's a promise: If we sell at least $10 million of merchandise this year, we'll seriously consider getting a purple Lent Madness blimp for next year. Whoever buys the most stuff (minimum purchase, $1 million) can have a free ride on the official blimp with the SEC. Hey, it could happen. Or not.

How long have you been a Celebrity Blogger? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As one of the original Celebrity Bloggers, this is my third year here at Lent Madness. I'm a big fan of church social media, and I get all geeked out about the community that has been built and is growing around Lent Madness. Plus, it gives me more people to play with, both IRL (in real life) and online. It was because of our work together at Lent Madness that now-retired Celebrity Blogger Meredith Gould asked me to be in her wedding in 2011.

What should the the LM faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
I am an avid beachologist. I like to walk for many miles along ocean beaches, particularly national wildlife refuges or national seashores, to watch and photographwildlife and collect shells. The advanced practice of beachology also includes snorkeling, kayaking in tidal marshes (only in a double boat with someone else paddling, so perhaps that's called "being kayaked"), bike-riding on islands with flat beachside roads, having a relative with a beach house, traveling to other states and even other countries to check out their beaches, and eating seafood.