A Great Many Thanks

For the past twenty years I've always fancied myself a writer before most any other creative endeavor.

Just over five years ago I realized that my commitment to writing had waned and my output had slowed to a trickle... I was losing my edge. So, I decided to open up my creative faucet by starting this blog with a promise to write an entry everyday for a year. And I did.

And that's how this all started... as a way to get my artistic booty into gear.

Now, five years later, it's coming to an end. So many things have changed over that time.

My marriage moved from 12.5 to 17.5 years. I could not be more happy with my relationship with my wife. We are truly blessed.

My children moved from childhood into young adulthood. My daughter was 11 when we started and my son eight. They have grown into such fine, young, driven, faithful people. I am amazed by them, inspired by them and can't believe I have the honor of being their father.

My understanding of my Catholic faith has grown exponentially over the past five years. What was a small spark has grown to consume me more and more, enough that I put my faith and my passions together into one vocational endeavor called Sonlight Pictures.

Within the past five years I lost my father. His passing, though sad, was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life and which I chronicled on this website. I will never fear death again.

Over the past five years I shot a couple of award-winning projects. The micro-budget digital feature The Box, the first Sonlight Pictures project Club God and the web series Nikki & Babs (formerly Purgatory, USA).

I've watched my beautiful wife become involved with our Lifteen Mass band called Messenger. Her visible display of faith during Mass has inspired many... I know, I've heard it over and over again. They've released a CD and now I get to hear her sing whenever I want.

I've been blessed with good health and consistent employment during this last half-decade. Two things of which I NEVER take for granted.

I've coached my son's baseball teams saw a group of young, talented boys turn into young, talented men. I've seen my gifted son be a better person than a baseball player. He is known by coaches, players and umpires alike for both his competitiveness and his compassion on and off the field.

I've helped my daughter with her acting homework and saw her touch the lives of her friends by her faith and her example. I've grown to love many of her friends as if they were my own children and am awed at their passion for Jesus Christ.

I have been very, very blessed.

On this, the last entry of this five year blog experiment, I'd like to say a few thanks. Granted, over the 1800 or so days of its existence we've had many of visitors. However, there have been a few very consistent followers of this humble acre in cyberspace and I'd like to thank them for their kindness and support.

My Mother - My mom has been the most consistent visitor of this site and, by far, the greatest contributor to our comments section. So, thank you, Ma, for your wonderful love and support these past five years. Her weekly Carolina Chronicles that she sends out via email for the past decade has inspired us all.

Paul - having moved away from the family to Texas and taking our mother's lead, took the Bauer family's first foray into the blogosphere with his now defunct blog called the Houston Chronicles. He's also been a great supporter and consistent visitor to the site and a selfless enabler of my creative endeavors.

KT and Rett - Both my niece Katie and my sister Loretta are about tied with their visits to the website and their comments. They always filled their input with humor and heart-felt support.

Steve, Chuckles, Laura and the rest - For the other family members who made this place a part of their lives, I want to thank you as well! Your witty, wise and timely comments comforted me when I feared this blog was merely an unintentionally selfish exercise by which I would only hear my own voice.

THANK YOU... ALL OF YOU!

Over the past five years, I've shared an awful lot about myself here. Funny stuff, family challenges, growing pains and faith struggles. I've tried to be honest and humorous and I even attempted being insightful at times. Don't know how successful I've been, but I will say that it has been a pleasure to be part of your lives these past five years.

I hope the grace of the Almighty will inspire you, guide you and protect you, not only in 2010 or the next five years, but for the rest of your days.

God bless you all!

My Little Felicity

My daughter, Dorothea, has started her own blog, named after her Confirmation Saint, St. Felicity.

http://felicityinhappiness.blogspot.com/

Check it out. She's a talented writer :) Yeah, I'm a little biased.

Merry Christmas

To my family and friends that have been visiting this website for five years, I want to thank you for your support and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

I hope you all are blessed with an abundance of God's graces this holy holiday and throughout all of 2010.

God Only Wants 100%

This will appear over at our Sonlight Pictures blog next week, but since it applied to the family, I thought I'd post it here as well.

*****

The good news is that God does not want from us more than we can offer. He doesn't expect us to give 110%.

He does, however, expect us to give 100%... of us... to him.

God wants us entirely, mind, body and soul. He wants us to embrace him with our every goal, hope, aspiration, need, desire and challenge. He wants to lead us down the path we need to take to reach salvation and live eternally in his presence.

Like his chosen people in the Old Testament, that journey may not be an easy one, but a necessary one. When Moses led them out to the wilderness it would take 40 years of a level-setting spiritual boot camp for his people Israel to purge their 400 year connection to the gods of Egypt. God forced them to rely solely on his own mercy to provide food everyday. And when they lost faith, like building the golden calf, they had to pay the price for their spiritual weakness. Even Moses, who answered God's call time and time again, failed to do as God spoke and was punished by not being allowed to enter the land they were promised.

It was not until the Egyptian generation had died away, and their children only born in the wilderness with the strong reliance on God's mercy, did his chosen people finally make it into the land of milk and honey.

The funny thing about offering ourselves up to God is that, well, he will take it.

My daughter, for example, had been struggling with managing her stress level this year in school. We had prayed often and asked for God's guidance. As we neared her final exams and prayed we realized this final exam was not a test of math, but a test of faith. My daughter understood that and accepted God's guidance and went to bed, ready to trust God's will.

The next day, the day of the exam, she awoke with a high fever. She opened her eyes and said "Thanks, God. Still testing my faith, huh?" And he was.

After she took the final exam she waited for the teacher to let her know what was her final score. The teacher scored the test and told her she had failed.

My daughter left the classroom devastated. The result of the test would require her changing her entire college plans. She had prayed and put her faith in God and she failed anyway. She knew God must have had other plans for her. She wept to herself, but knew it was God's will and accepted it. She didn't like it, but she accepted it.

However, it was another test of faith.

As she walked outside of the classroom the teacher ran out after her and told her she had given her the wrong person's results. She had actually passed and received a B.

As her faith grew, God's test of that faith grew. The more she was tested, the more she had to offer more faith. The more she offered faith, the more she was tested. She started giving 10%, God wanted 11. When she gave 11, God wanted 12. Why?

Because God wants all of us. 100%. Nothing less. We are his creation, after all. Why would he want less?

The saints have often complained about God's continual and growing moral tests of faith. I can't remember the saint's name, but one of them said to God, after a very hard moral challenge, "if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so many enemies."

Think of Mother Theresa. After giving her life to Jesus, she did not feel his presence again, except one brief moment. For fifty years she felt nothing, but lived everyday for him.

Why?

Because God wants 100%. Any amount of ourselves we do not give to God is tainted by our own imperfection. When we offer ourselves up, God must purify us from our own sinfulness by testing us, forcing us to rely on him.

For my daughter, she did not have faith when it came to school work. Her fear was interfering with her faith. When she offered that up, God had to push her more and more until he had finally forced the fear from where she could replace that void with faith.

Our moral journey, our path toward heaven will not be easy because it can't be. We are holding on to too many percentages of our lives, not giving God all of us.

We are his children. He wants all of us. Not just once a week on Sundays. Not just when life treats us poorly. He wants us when we work, when we talk to our kids, when we mow our yards, when we wash the car, when we face illness, when we lose our jobs or lose a relative close to us.

God wants us all. Whatever you can give him, he will take... and wait for the rest.

Audio Bible

I don't remember when I first became a fan of old radio programs... sometime in college I think. Thanks to the internet, over the last few years I've been able to accumulate over 100 old radio shows, including shows such as Casey: Crime Photographer, Philip Marlowe and Barry Craig: Confidential Investigator.

What I love about old radio programs is that they take you beyond the simple written word and allow you to dive into a world made up of real life sounds with actors playing the characters in such a way that your mind fills in all the blanks and you can watch the show unfold before you in your mind.

It's that love of old time radio programs that makes me so excited about buying the audio bible called Word of Promise. It's a King James version of the bible done in audio theater format. There are sound effects and over 600 actors playing the numerous parts, including Jim Caviezel, Michael York, Richard Dreyfus, Max Von Sydow, Gary Sinise, Marcia Gay Harden, and on and on.

The bible comes alive when you listen to Adam take his first breath and hear Noah building the ark. The story moves at a very quick pace and it's entertaining and immersive in quality.

Over a year ago some of our fellow strong believing Catholics would get together every Sunday evening and watch Jeff Cavins' The Great Adventure bible study. It's a great, wonderful bible study that condenses the grand salvation story of the bible into 14 critical narrative books. It shows you where the other books in the bible compliment the main narratives while not losing sight of the primary story being told.

The problem I've had with the bible study is that it is 24 weeks long and I've never been able to finish it. Life would always get in the way. So, it occured to me that if I could record the audio from Cavins' DVD bible study as well as the appropriate audio bible sections required for the study using the awesome Word of Promise series, I could make an audio series that I could listen to in the car or at home, where ever it is convenient.

So, I've spent that last month putting this together. I hope to have it completed by Christmas. So far it is a wonderful experience. On the way to and from work I've already listened to Genesis while moving through three of Cavins insightful and inspiring bible studies.

The only downside is that, since the audio bible is a King James version, it does not include Maccabees, which is in Catholic bible and covered in the Cavins study. I guess reading one book out of the bible instead of listening to it won't hurt me too much. :)

As I told my wife the other day, I know I've changed as a person when one of the most exciting purchases I've ever made has been the Word of Promise bible study. It is an amazing tool that literally brings the bible to life.

Combine that with Cavins' deep and educational insights as to how each book ties to the next and, in the end, with Jesus Christ, will give me an understanding of the bible that I have never had before.

Tick... Tick... Tick...

Well, here we are... the last month of this blogs existence.

Since I've been turning these blogs into books, I've indulged myself a bit by posting some old, but entertaining articles about microcinema from a few years back... I wanted to have them documented somehow and this seemed like a practical way.

But, I will be adding some blog entries here before we close up shop.

I am very active on our Sonlight Pictures blog, so don't be a stranger over there. Would love to hear your comments about our thoughts and our projects.

So, enjoy the last 31 days of Surviving in Safety Harbor.

It's been a long five year run. Enjoyable, challenging and fun.

Happy Birthday Gabe!

My son turns thirteen today! He's officially a young man.

I am very proud of my son. He is compassionate and thoughtful and bright and athletic and caring. He's a better person than he is an athlete and he makes me laugh using his own unique sense of humor.


I am so blessed to have Gabriel Bauer as my son. Thank you Lord for such a wonderful gift. May you always guide him and give him strength, protect him and give him wisdom, inspire him and give him hope.

Happy birthday, my son! Welcome to adulthood.

Tourney Wins

Gabe has started to readily improve at his new level of baseball. He's been hitting the ball extremely well. This past weekend he only had one at bat where the ball was not struck with force. In one game he hit three line drives deep to the outfield, but two were caught for outs.

So, even though it doesn't look great on the stat sheet, it does show the improvement we were trying to achieve this year.

The nice thing about playing 13U baseball (meaning 13 and under) is that a combination of things levels the playing field.

• 13U means that no player on the field is older than 13 years old.
• 13U plays at major league distances (60 ft mound, 90 ft bases).

Unlike 12U where the fields are little league sized and some of the players have hit puberty early and can dominate on a smaller field, in 13U, no one is big enough or strong enough to dominate on this field.

Domination can reoccur in the upcoming years, since the field will remain the same size, but the players will get better and stronger. But, for right now, wins and losses come down to simply execution.

This past weekend we spent in Plant City where our team came in third place, going 3-1 in the tournament. Gabe and his teammates continue to grow and improve. It's exciting to see his passion for the game and his exceptional gifts for the game continue to flourish as his competition gets better. Even elite teams in the area have been asking about him.

It makes all of the hours at the ball field worth it.

Slow Updates Apology

Sorry for the snail's pace of updates here on the blog. Life has been very busy.

Recently our air-conditioner needed complete replacing. As mentioned earlier, our bathroom needed complete replacing. Dea then hurt her back (she's better now). Gabe has started travel ball again (that's 5 nights a week). DC has started college (loves it) and Gabe has started 7th grade home school (likes it).

I have been blogging a bit, over at the Sonlight Pictures Blog, where we've shared our first podcast of Basking in the Son as well as entries about faith struggles, script writing and capturing moments of inspiration.

We're finally near the very end of the negotiating process for distribution of Purgatory, USA. We hope to have the paperwork finalized in the next week or so.

This weekend some of us will be traveling down to Cocoa Beach for a baseball tournament. Being so busy has left little time for screenwriting, which is frustrating, but I hope to get back into the swing of things as soon as I hand off all of the deliverables to the distribution company.

So, I apologize for the slow blog entries.

And, finally, please pray for us for a special intention. There are some really strong, difficult moral challenges occurring in my extended family and it is taking its toll. Any divine assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Faith or Faith & Works

I was reading about the poor and tragic events that occurred in Pennsylvania where a deranged man shot and killed three women in a fitness class. One of the statements reported from his blog was the following:

"Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell."

That must be the most extreme understanding of the difference between Faith and Faith & Works I have ever seen. As most people know, the Catholic Church believes it is Faith & Works that are required for Christians to live their lives according to God's teachings and, after the split by Luther, the Protestants determined only Faith was required for salvation.

Almost all Protestants I know take their Faith and convert it into Works (missionary work, evangelical work, bible studies, prison ministries), they just don't call it that. However, this disturbed murdered took something so completely out of context, ignoring reliance on Jesus, on loving your enemies, on loving your neighbor, on offering your sacrifices to God, on carrying your own cross... it's sad that someone could have misinterpreted something so obvious to most Christians and used it to ease the weight of his own evil actions.

The older I get the more I realize that context is often more important than the content.

Listen to My Interview!

I've known Jon Ashby online for 10 years. He ran a website a long time ago called REwind Video. It was THE hub for the microcinema revolution in the late 90's. Over the years Jon has continued his altruistic support approach to the low budget filmmaker and now runs a website called CommonFilm.org.

He was kind enough to interview me about our recent Club God award, Sonlight Pictures and our future project Forgiven. So, check it out at the links below...

Main Page - http://www.commonfilm.org

Direct link to Interview - http://www.commonfilm.org/media/podcasts/CFInterview-PeteBauer.mp3

Funny thing... having known Jon online for 10 years, this was the first time we actually spoke to each other. Amazing how technology has changed relationships and communication.

In any event, it was very kind of Jon to take the time to allow me to talk up Sonlight Pictures. Please check it out.

Club God Wins Bronze Lighthouse Award at the Faith Film Festival

We're very excited to announce that our short film Club God won the Bronze Lighthouse Award at the Faith Film Festival!

It is such a wonderful blessing to have our first project garner such an acknowledgment from the Christian film community. We could not have done it without the support of many, including the prayers from our Sonlight Pictures Angels community!

God is good!

Vote for Club God Today!

You can now vote for Club God at the Faith Film Festival website.

Thank you for your support!

Club God Online at the Faith Film Festival!

You can check out Club God at the Faith Film Festival website.

When they make voting available, please make sure and give us a vote for us.

PUSA - Quick Take 3: Idol Dreams

Here's the last of the Quick Takes for PUSA...

PUSA - Quick Take 2: Vanity

Here’s the second of three PUSA Quick Take vids.

This one is titled Vanity…

The Human Experience

Grassroots Films, the same company that made the amazing Fishers of Men film about being a priest, has released a trailer for one of their other films called The Human Experience.

It's amazing. Check it out.

Ordination

We had the honor of being invited to a priest being ordained at St. Jude Cathedral in St. Petersburg last Saturday. One of our priests from Espiritu Santo was praying and asking who he should invite when our son's name and another altar server's name came into his mind.

So, he tracked us down and invited us to the special, holy event.

We were afforded special seating near the front and we were able to view one of the most holy sacraments the church offers. The event was lead by the Bishop and almost every priest in the diocese was in attendance.

You don't really appreciate just how many priests and holy people there are in our area until you see them all at once. To watch them, over a hundred in all, process together down the aisle of the church, along with seminarians and acolytes, was a special moment.

One of the things I adore about the Catholic Church is the rituals that add depth to our faith. The garments, the chalice, the candles, the incense, the music... all so wonderful.

We were very blessed to have the choir and music provided by the Florida Orchestra. They filled the rafters with angelic hymns that lifted your spirit.

When the new priest was being ordained the Bishop choked up, barely able to hold back his joy. And when all of the priests raised their hands and, in unison, participated in the consecration of the bread and wine, well, it was like experiencing a little piece of heaven.

When the Bishop completed the ordination, the new priest then kneels and promises obedience to the Bishop. At the end of the ceremony, the new priest lays hands on a bowed Bishop to offer his first official blessing. Wonderfully cyclical. Great, amazing stuff.

Many times I was brought to tears and such a holy event made me realize how temporary and completely unimportant our daily lives can be in comparison.

As the mass ended and our local priest processed down the aisle and passed the two young men he had invited, he gave them a joy-filled hand shake as we all sang the last hymn.

That ordination was one of the most special Catholic moments of my life. I cannot imagine a greater joy a parent could feel than to offer their child up to God in such a way.

For any Catholic reading this, I implore you to offer an extra hour of your life next year and attend the next ordination in your area. It is something that will touch your heart and infuse you with a renewed faith in Jesus, in your church and in your leaders.

The American Trinity

Thanks to Charles for bringing this excellent video to my attention. The American Trinity is not the Holy Trinity, but the three beliefs which make America different than any other nation on earth...

Check it out below...



Good stuff...

Anti-Catholicism in Hollywood

Angels & Demons is coming out soon. Of course, its full of misrepresentations of Catholicism (big surprise there). Where Hollywood goes out of its way to equalize Muslim characters (one bad is countered with one good), no such courtesy is given to the big bad Catholic Church.

There's a great article about this at Christianity Today located here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/news/2009/ishollywoodanticatholic.html?start=1

One of my favorite quotes from the article is as follows:

Rome's foes today "aren't debating transubstantiation, they're debating transgender," said Catholic film critic David DiCerto. "They aren't debating the real presence [of Christ] in the Eucharist, they're debating the real presence of humanity in the womb. It's much more the hot-button moral issues than the hot-button theological issues."

That's why we created Sonlight Pictures, to help bring a positive face to Catholics through positive portrayals of Catholic characters.