[World, November 4, 1995]
The message on my answering machine begins with the loud exhalation of a child holding the phone too close. Then, apparently, she pressed her hand over the mouthpiece because this is muffled: “Mom, it's a answering machine.”
The voice of a middle-aged woman comes on the line. It is kindly and somehow lush; I picture a full-bodied woman with big eyes. “Hi, Daisy? This is Cammie. Would you like to go on a cruise?” She speaks clearly and precisely; maybe Daisy is hard of hearing. “In August. If so, give me a call.” Cammie gives her number, then adds in a sweet voice, “Thank you. Have a pleasant evening.”
[World, January 22, 1994]
As Christians today push for the renewal of moral values in our nation, they have a tendency to idealize the Fifties. Wouldn't it be great if families were like the Ozzie-and-Harriet households prevalent then? Strong two-parent families, where the dads worked and the moms stayed home with the kids. Where kids were cherished and not hurried through childhood. Where “family values” were celebrated by schools, the media, and entertainment. If only things were like that again...
...we could raise a new generation of Americans who would take drugs, burn flags, have indiscriminate sex, champion abortion, mock the faith, and complain continuously about what a lousy deal we handed them.
[Unpublished; written Summer 1986]
My grandfather lived to be ninety-four, and in many ways he was like a birch tree: small but springy and bright, with light filling his blue eyes. For over 60 years he signed his name George Frederick Oetjen, M.D. and (although he told his daughters that “M.D.” really stood for “My Daddy”) being a doctor was the joy of his life.
[World, April 15, 1995]
I had a narrow brush with the Peter Principle the other day. You may remember the book that appeared awhile back under that title; Laurence J. Peter's principle was that people tend to get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Do a good job and you get boosted up the ladder--until you reach the point that you can't do such a good job anymore. There you sit, gumming things up for the whole organization.
The phone call I received asked if I would consider being (don't laugh) press secretary for a national political campaign. This was flattering, but akin to putting the Flying Nun in charge of the Air Force.
[World, January 15, 1994]
One of the most hard-nosed and incisive debaters of the pro-life cause is Gregg Cunningham, whose exchange of letters with C. Everett Koop appeared in a recent issue.
Gregg's Center for Bio-Ethical Reform handles a busy calendar of speaking engagements and produces “Hard Truth,” a devastating video showing aborted babies. Every cause needs articulate, aggressive champions like Gregg.
But Gregg's latest newsletter set me to thinking about what else a cause needs.
[World, February 4, 1995]
The handwritten letter was three pages long and dated “Savannah 24th May 1848.” It was signed by my husband's great-great-great grandmother, Antoinette Girard.
It began dramatically. “Prompted by the desire to leave to my children some record of their ancestors, I try to write down as much as I can remember, but must request that no use whatever should be made of this paper as long as their father lives. He bound himself by a solemn promise never to reveal it.”
[World, October 7, 1995]
I got a “what’s wrong with this picture” feeling from reading the news clip: Sens. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kansas) and Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey) were introducing a bill to require health insurers to provide a minimum 48 hour stay after childbirth. Over the last twenty years, the length of postpartum stays has shortened from four days to two or less.
Health insurers, not surprisingly, love the shorter stays.
[Religion News Service, December 24, 1996]
This season of togetherness pushes people together, and in the process they find sometimes that the fit isn't so easy. Family members who see each other once a year do so now, over the turkey or New Year's Day ham; co‑workers from other departments share cookies and a paper cup of soda (or something stronger) and try to make conversation. In this season more than ever we are being appraised and often find ourselves fretting about how to dress or behave to suit different occasions. It's a tense and giddy time, so full of fun that we're quite relieved when it's over.
[Religion News Service, November 12, 1996]
Well, here we are. Or are we?
It's an open question among some academic sophisticates. Does anything exist? If it did, how would you know? Is there any feasible way to prove it? Or is everything we perceive (if indeed there's anything there at all) so colored by preconceptions that nothing can be definitively stated?
Is what we call “reality” merely constructed of our prejudices and whims ‑‑ or worse, constructed of our desire to gather power and subjugate others? Can one really state that “physical reality ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct”?
That's what Alan Sokal, a physicist at New York University, asserted not long ago in the pages of the journal, Social Text. Unfortunately for the editors of Social Text, Sokal was only kidding.
[Religion News Service, April 25, 1995}Smile and the world doesn't always smile with you. When Verlyn Klinkenborg reports on a pro-life protest outside a Milwaukee abortion clinic (Harper's, January 1995), the first thing he tells us about the participants is: “They were smiling. 'They smile all the time,' said a woman named Catey Doyle...in the room with me.” Likewise, when Julie A. Wortman writes in The Witness about her reluctance to attend a meeting on evangelism, her first complaint is, “Most of the people I've encountered who enjoy talking about and doing evangelism have seemed unnaturally smiley and friendly.” When liberals peer across the barricades, they don't only see their opponents thinking wrong thoughts. They see them smiling about it, which is even more unsettling.
