Audio Recordings
Functional Research
Listen to clips from McShane’s keynote address at the West Coast Methods Institute, Loyola Marymount University, April 30, 2011. He comments on a diagram that he created to help us “vibe with” 13.7 billion years, the approximate age of the universe. This Lonergan Symposium was in honor of McShane and his contributions to Lonergan studies.
Aquinas, the Trinity, and Life After Death
In this 9-minute clip, McShane responds to a student’s question, “where are the dead?” He refers to Aquinas’s category of “natural resultance,” the Trinity, the state of the separated soul, the transformed cosmos, and the shift out of space-time. He wrote about these and other topics in The Everlasting Joy of Being Human.
Older and Wiser
A clip from a talk at the University of British Columbia, July 2010. McShane speaks of the possibility of normative growth, the possibility of “becoming a stranger to yourself.” In his comments he refers the image of “a man on giant stilts” (recalling Proust’s conclusion to Remembrance of Times Past) and to Yo-Yo Mar embracing the cello.
In this clip from a talk in Seoul, Korea, March 2007, McShane speaks about a “new caring for yourself as a precious quest.” He mentions the mystery of Divine Understanding that reaches each of us. He adds that to ask oneself “What is understanding?” is a personal question, and that patiently asking the question can lead to a renewal of prayer. In his comments he refers to the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light.”
Thinking Is Hard Work
In this audio, which was recorded in Seoul, Korea in 2007, McShane provides a humorous commentary on the “Aha!” experience and the fact that thinking is hard work. He illustrates having and appreciating the “Aha!” experience with the discovery of the “rule” or “formula” for a sequence of letters he wrote on the blackboard.