[Beliefnet, March 27, 2001]
“God isn’t dead‚ I talked with Him this morning.”
There’s a sweet naivete in this bumper sticker from a few decades ago, as it blithely eludes the complexities of the old “God is Dead” debate. Though philosophers wrestle with Resurrection texts and idiosyncrasies, these believers find such angst irrelevant. They know God personally, and hand-wringing about whether he’s there or not is a waste of time.
[Beliefnet, March 19, 2001]
I’ve got an idea for a movie script guaranteed to win an Oscar. We’ll call it “Sizzle.” See, there’s a village in India where all the people think there’s something bad about eating beef. It’s part of their religion, which says they should repress their desires and hate pleasure.
Then this sexy young cowboy comes to town and opens up a grill. All day long it’s thick steaks frying, or maybe some tender filets, and sometimes he dishes up a few racks of barbecued ribs.
[Dallas Morning News, March 10, 2001]
Listen. Do you hear the turmoil simmering over the nations’ most painfully divisive issue? Do you hear protesters and counter-protesters clashing in the streets? Do you hear opposing sides contending in a battle of rhetoric and passionate will?
Me neither. Pretty quiet out there. Once there were magazine covers devoted to the abortion debate, panels earnestly arguing on TV, politicians sweating out meticulously vacant sound bites.
[Beliefnet, March 4, 2001]
A person can only hope to accomplish so much in a lifetime, and of course many of the better discoveries (fire, the wheel, the home Jeopardy game) have already been taken. But I can rest easier now that my own contribution to mankind has been perfected. I have discovered the moral equivalent of oatmeal.
It goes like this. You know that eating oatmeal is the most noble act a human can perform in the course of food consumption. It’s the right thing to do, as some wise man (Copernicus?) once said. This is because, face it, oatmeal is not very appealing. Once in a bowl, it transitions quickly from homey to homely, and in bright morning light is a soggy, depressing mess. What better sight to thrill our sense of duty?
[Beliefnet, February 14, 2001] It took me about 200 miles to admit that I was wrong. A few hours back up the road I had been slamming around the house, irritated that I was late leaving on a solo car trip, disorganized, frustrated, and my complaints were gradually enlarging to…
[Beliefnet, February 2, 2001]
At dawn on the last day of the year, my husband and I were walking along a rural highway in South Carolina, following a trail of broken things. I had left my pocketbook on top of the car at a gas station late the previous night, something we didn’t realize till we got to my mother-in-law’s house about 45 minutes later.
It was too dark to search then, but all night I fretted. Had it fallen off right in the gas station lot, and was someone even now using my Visa card to order a vintage Corvette? Was some fan using the cell phone to leave long messages on Ricky Martin’s answering machine? How would I ever replace all those little plastic cards, when I couldn’t even remember what half of them were for? I pictured myself spending all afternoon at the DMV, glumly waiting to pose for a new license.
[Beliefnet, December 15, 2000]
The Legion of Decency pledge. That was what the priest called it, and then he asked us to stand up and recite it all together. It didn't seem like the kind of thing we usually did in church; it seemed more like school assembly, when we said the Pledge of Allegiance. But I stood between my dad and my younger sisters,
[Christianity Today, October 23, 2000]
Around the big table were ringed representatives of many faiths and many causes, and directly across from me was a man who burned with zeal for his. He held forth confidently on the urgency of his organization's mission, and concluded by repeating the charge he gives his leaders. “I tell them to stay angry,” he said.
[Citizen, October 2000]
Coming soon to a podium near you: local politician Bluster K. Fluster, running for re-election, asserting his deeply held personal belief that abortion is wrong. There's an exception, of course: cases where the woman conceived due to rape or incest.
[Beliefnet, September 28, 2000]
Observers of the abortion debate disagree about nearly every topic, but for the last decade, one prediction has won pretty near consensus: when RU 486 arrives, it will change everything. Now that the FDA has approved the “abortion pill,” we'll get our first experience of an all-chemical abortion--what some pro-lifers call a “human pesticide.” Previous methods involved a direct surgical removal of the child, but RU 486 will be an inside job.
