GODSTUFF

HAPPY DOWHATEVERYOUWANNUKAH?:
I WON'T BE FA-LA-LA-LA-LA-ING INTO THE GAP THIS HOLIDAY SEASON



There are only 35 shopping days left until Christmas.

I'm keenly aware of this primarily because of those overcaffeinated Glee-show-choir-in-red-white-and-blue-alpine-sweaters-and-ear-flaps-making-high school-cheerleading-pyramids Gap ads that started running about a week ago.

You know, the ones where they chant a little ditty titled, annoyingly, "Happy Dowhateveryouwannukah."

"Go Christmas! Go Hannukah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice!" the exceptionally good-looking, multicultural, skinny-jeans-clad cheerbots shout.

"You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right," they cheer, before entreating us to "do whatever [we] wannukkah" this ambiguous winter holiday season.

Their jangly dance number ends by wishing us "a cheery night."

How festive, you say?

Meh. Notsomuch.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those paranoid religious folks who believes that there is an organized effort to take the Christ out of Christmas orchestrated by a clandestine cabal of secular humanist movie moguls, feminists and vegetarians who plot their nefarious attack on family values (and the Baby Jesus) in triannual meetings at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows, to paraphrase a brilliant line from the movie "So I Married an Axe Murderer."

I am no proponent of the alleged "War on Christmas."

And I'm all for inclusiveness and multiculturalism, as much as I am for inexpensive cotton T-shirts and reindeer-themed boxer shorts.

But this year's Gap "holiday" ad campaign just rubs me the wrong way.

In its effort, I would surmise, to be inclusive and inoffensive, the Gap has made the mortal advertising (and cultural) error of being twee. Not to mention spiritually facile.

While they all occur around the same time of the year, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and Winter Solstice hardly carry the same spiritual weight.

Christmas celebrates the miraculous birth of a savior come to redeem the world. Hannukah, while also commemorating a miracle (a one-day supply of oil for a lamp in the temple lasted eight days) and the victory of the Jewish rebellion over the Hellenistic rulers of Jerusalem, it is a minor holiday, not to be compared to the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur or the major festivals, Sukkot and Passover.

Kwanzaa is a nonreligious festival, begun in 1966 and celebrated nearly exclusively in the United States, which celebrates African-American culture and values. Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year and is for many pagans and neo-pagans the symbolic and spiritual rebirth of the year.

While each of these holidays, for lack of a more universally applicable term, is significant to different groups of believers (and nonbelievers, for that matter) they are not spiritual equivalents.

Still, I have no problem with all four being mentioned in the same context when we're talking about the things people celebrate this time of year. That's valid and correct.

What isn't, however, is the notion that any of these holidays espouse the idea, explicitly or implicitly, of doing "what just feels right" or "whatever we want"-ukah.

Unless we're meant to be concelebrating Bacchanalia or -- and this is even a stretch -- Mardi Gras, nothing in the Christian, Jewish and pagan traditions or the African-American cultural ideals that Kwanzaa celebrates would encourage the faithful to throw all rules out the window and do whatever feels good, man.

If that were true, the Gap ad would have done well to end with an Ayn Rand look-alike in a Santa hat and white beard driving a sled pulled by 12 tiny flying armadillos.

Christmas is about selflessness and transformative love, the improbable gift of a divine baby born into straw poverty in order to reconcile the world back to God. We do celebrate Christ's birth by giving something to each other to commemorate that epic, divine gift. But it's not supposed to pivot around the exchange of material goods, and it's definitely not about sweaters and turtlenecks.

Hannukah is about power of perseverance, faith and righteousness to overcome tyranny. It's about a small miracle that changes everything. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Those principles are pretty much the direct opposite of the idea of "do whatever you want." And Solstice is, first and foremost, a natural, communal, Earth-centered event. Nothing about ushering in the death of the old year and the birth of the new says "fleece hoodies" to me.

The "Dowhateveryouwannukah" spots have made me think twice about where I'll purchase any last-minute stocking stuffers this year. But not for the same reason as that of the perennial saber-rattling "pro-family" organization the American Family Association, which, it brags, has been for 32 years "on the frontlines of the American culture war."

Earlier this month the association called for a two-month boycott of the Gap because of its "censorship of the word 'Christmas' " in its ads.

Oops!

The Gap ad campaign (which began running a few days after the association's clarion call for a boycott) says "Christmas" repeatedly, and that's precisely my problem with it. The use of the word "Christmas" -- and "Hannukah," "Kwanzaa" and "Solstice" for that matter -- is so flippant and false that the cheerbots might as well be shouting "Go Hippopotamus!" instead of "Go Christmas!"

I'd much prefer a heartfelt "Happy Holidays" to this faux-inclusive, hodgepodge of treacly meaninglessness.

Rather than an inviting cup of steaming Wassail to which everyone is welcome, the Gap's "Dowhateveryouwannukah" is little more than a strangely saccharin fruitcake that appeals to no one.

He's the Maude to my Harold:
Conversations with the Rabbi about Faith, Film and the Coen Bros



A few weeks ago, I trekked to Idaho with Rabbi Allen "the Dude" Secher (aka The Lone Rabbi of Montana for you longtime readers) to shoot some videos about our unique and unlikely friendship as well as our love for film and all things Coen Brothers.

Here are a few of the clips. More to come throughout the day.

P.S. Rabbi Secher wrote the foreword to The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers and is featured in the chapter "Passing Over" in my second book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace. Check it out if you haven't already.

GODSTUFF

WE HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE: BE RIGHT OR BE COMPASSIONATE?



Compassion is, by one definition, "a deep awareness and sympathy for another's suffering."

Karen Armstrong, the former Roman Catholic nun and one of the foremost writers on religion of our generation, and the renowned African spiritual leader and peacemaker Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in launching what they have called the "Charter for Compassion," are not saying anything new.

The basis for their call to action -- for a worldwide and individual movement of simple and radical compassion -- is based in what we collectively know as the Golden Rule.

Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Confucius said: "Do not do unto others what you would not like them to do to you."

Jesus himself, scripture tells us, said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "Love your enemies."

The great Jewish scholar Rabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, when summing up the whole of Judaism's teaching, put it this way: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor -- that is the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and study it."

St. Augustine echoed Hillel's sentiments, saying that scripture "teaches nothing but charity, and we must not leave an interpretation of scripture until we have found a compassionate interpretation of it."

Religion need not be the force for division that it unfortunately often is. The three sister Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- share the Golden Rule as a central teaching. In fact, every religion at its core demands compassion not only for our own family, co-religionists and community but more importantly for those we consider "other" or "enemy."

On Thursday, Armstrong, Tutu and a host of other religious leaders from around the world launched the Charter for Compassion, charterforcompassion.org, to try to turn the tide of religious division toward its true center of compassion.

THE CHARTER FOR COMPASSION SAYS:

A call to bring the world together…

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

To some, it may seem a facile idea. But to me, it is perhaps the only thing that can conquer suffering, disease, unthinkable poverty and unending cycles of war, discrimination, hatred and oppression.

Those of us who consider ourselves spiritual, if not "religious," have a choice to make. And it's an individual choice.

In her speech last year accepting the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Development) award, which is given annually "to three exceptional individuals who each receive $100,000" (as well as the opportunity to voice their one wish for the world), Armstrong challenged us by saying that "a lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate.

"People want to be religious, and religion should be made to be a force for harmony in the world, which it can and should be -- because of the Golden Rule ... an ethos that should now be applied globally," Armstrong continued. "We should not treat other nations as we would not wish to be treated ourselves. And this -- whatever our wretched beliefs -- is a religious matter, is a spiritual matter. It's a profound moral matter that engages and should engage us all."

Think about that.



What would our world look like if we made deliberate choices, large and small, to be compassionate and kind rather than, simply, right?

It is possible to reclaim religion and, more importantly, belief as a force of good, harmony and unity.

The word "belief," Armstrong reminded us in her TED speech, originally meant "to love, to prize, to hold dear."

In that light, religion, the institutions of belief, should be built around charity, not supremacy.

Put someone else in front of yourself.

Choose kindness.

Be compassionate.

GODSTUFF

'WITHOUT FORGIVENESS, THERE IS NO FUTURE.'

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; Therefore, we are saved by hope.

Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; Therefore, we are saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we are saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

— the late American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony of American History, 1952

In chess, before one competitor bests the other, they must navigate the endgame — a particularly challenging stage in which only a few pieces are left on the board and, therefore, only a few strategic moves remain.

In the endgame, every move is a life-or-death decision. Therefore, every choice is epic and not to be made hastily or passionately.

Lately, it feels as though we as a people are in an endgame — whether in international relations, domestic economics or homegrown political divides. Few moves remain and each of them feels perilous and nearly final.

I want to bring two new films to your attention that help shed light on the precariousness of our age, of this endgame and how we might navigate our way through it — even, perhaps, to a new game on the other side.

Both films are set in Africa — one a 53-minute documentary and the other a feature-length dramatic film. “As We Forgive,” the documentary, winner of a 2008 Student Academy Award, has just been released on DVD. (See www.asweforgivemovie.com for more information.)

The feature film called “Endgame,” aired on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater late last month and is now available for viewing — free of charge — on the PBS web site.

“As We Forgive” is set in Rwanda where, in 2004, more than 50,000 convicted murderers who were responsible for many of the more than 1 million deaths during a 100-day genocide in 1994, were released back into their communities due to overcrowding in Rwandan prisons.

The prisoners, most of the ethnic Hutus who had turned on their Tutsi neighbors and co-worshippers in Christian churches, often hacking them to death with machetes and clubs studded with nails, had confessed their crimes and assumed responsibility for their actions.

Their reintroduction to the very communities where they had brutally murdered mothers, fathers and entire families caused tremendous anxiety both for their surviving victims and for the former prisoners themselves.

In a bold move, politically and spiritually, the Rwandan government, taking a page from post-Apartheid South Africa’s “truth and reconciliation” movement, urged the ex-prisoners to seek out their victims and ask forgiveness. “As We Forgive” follows the stories of several of these would-be reconciliations.

Masterpiece Theater’s “Endgame,” tells the true-life story of the behind-the-scenes negotiations at a manor house in the English countryside between leaders of the African National Congress and prominent Afrikaners in the 1980s that led to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison after 27 years and the eventual end of South African apartheid.

It was a story about which I knew very little before watching the magnificent PBS film earlier this fall. Essentially, Michael Young (Jonny Lee Miller), head of communications for Consolidated Gold Fields, a British mining company with significant assets in South Africa, realized that continued race tensions in the country were bad for business (not to mention morally reprehensible).

At the behest of Oliver Tambo (John Kani), head of the African National Congress, Young set about organizing clandestine and risky meetings between Thabo Mbeki (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Tambos’ right-hand man and the public information officer for the ANC, and influential Afrikaners, including Willem Petrus "Willie" Esterhuyse (William Hurt) a prominent university professor. The hope was that these face-to-face meetings by sworn enemies might lead to some sort of a break in the racial impasse.

The film follows the struggles of Esterhuyse and Mbeki — each with their own personal woundedness and baggage from the decades-long racial warring in South Africa — to overcome their own pain to build a bridge that would rescue their society entire.

It’s one of the more powerful films I’ve ever seen. At one point, a member of South African President P.W. Botha’s administration (Botha was adamantly against the end of apartheid) confronts Esterhuyse and mocks the negotiations to find common ground. Talk is cheap, the pro-apartheid wonk tells the professor. “Talk is all we have,” Esterhuyse counters.

In the end, the talking changes everything. In what was for me the most moving part of the film, just before the credits roll, text appears on the screen updating the viewer about the fate of Young, Mbeki, Esterhuyse and other key players.

One of the last updates explains that during negotiations in Northern Ireland to bring about a lasting peace and an end to the sectarian “Troubles,” negotiators reached out to the members of the “Endgame” negotiations in South Africa for advice on how to proceed. And then, most recently, negotiators in Israel and Palestine, working to bring a lasting peace to the holy lands, have sought advice from their Northern Irish counterparts.

The kind of peace bridges that talk created in South Africa are now being replicated in other war-torn parts of the world.

Forgiveness is the most radical of activities.

Whether we’re forgiving or accepting forgiveness, confessing or hearing the confession, allowing forgiveness to walk through the door and take a seat can change everything — even when it seems there are no viable options left.

Because, as South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us,“Without forgiveness, there is no future.”

GODSTUFF

PUTTING THE 'WE' BACK IN HALLOWEEN WITH WEE MAN



Saturday will be my 10-year-old son Vasco’s first Halloween. He arrived in the U.S. from Africa just a few months ago, and as far as we can discern there is no Oct. 31 holiday in his native Malawi.

But as a fourth grader here in southern California, Vasco is all about Halloween. He’s been drawing skeletons and jack-o’-lanterns in art class, and his classmates are abuzz talking about what costumes they’ll be wearing when they go trick-or-treating this weekend.

Spiderman is among Vasco’s front-runners in the costume department, but then so is Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and Ace Ventura — the Jim Carrey character that can talk out of his bum and has a distinct swagger of which my son does a spot-on imitation. (The prospect of coaxing Vasco’s curly hair into a Ventura pompadour makes me almost giddy.) We’re heading to the local Costume Castle after school today to settle on his Halloween kit.

My most vivid childhood memory of Halloween is from 1977, the year we moved to a new neighborhood in Connecticut right after the school year had begun. I don’t recall what my costume was, but I do remember going door-to-door with my father, meeting new neighbors and collecting a heavy bag of candy, as the suburban warren of Cape Cods and manicured lawns morphed into an other-worldly fairyland.

I was 7 years old and the new kid on the block, so when the cover of darkness fell at sunset, I hadn’t a clue where I was. When my father navigated our way home in the crisp autumn night, it felt like he had done a magic trick. When the morning came, I couldn’t believe that our adventure the night before had been on these same streets. To my young imagination (and heart) it felt as if we had been walking through Narnia or Rivendell rather than a sleepy New England suburb.

A few years after that, my family stopped celebrating Halloween. We had become born-again Christians and our Southern Baptist church frowned on the practice. Halloween, I was taught, was an occult holiday (or maybe even Satanic!) and good Christians should have nothing to do with it.

So while other kids in the neighborhood continued their annual nightly pilgrimage, we would stay in or go to a church youth group function. My mother, God bless her, even tried handing out religious tracts to the trick-or-treaters. (Not a popular choice, if memory serves.)

I’m a new mother and I’m still a Christian (and so is my son), so when the Halloween candy aisle appeared at the local grocery store, I wondered for a moment what to do. But then, recalling that magical night 32 years ago, I decided that if he chose to, Vasco could celebrate Halloween with all the trimmings — costumes, jack-o’-lanterns, plastic spiders and spray-on webs, spooky music, face paint, and trick-or-treating.

In the seaside village to which we recently relocated, Halloween is a big deal. Everyone dresses up — moms and dads and grandparents and kids alike. And the trick-or-treating ritual is just as I remember it as that 7-year-old girl, when nearly every house opened its front door and had buckets of candy to share; the night I met many of my neighbors for the first time and when the darkness that I was normally so afraid of became a miraculous, transformative veil.

Vasco is a little afraid of the dark. Over the last few months we’ve been weaning him off of having every light in the room on when he goes to sleep. He’s down to a single (if fairly powerful) night-light now, and, more importantly, his fear of the dark (and all that he can’t see) is waning.

One of the best descriptions of Halloween’s transcendent and experiential meaning comes from a book called Seeking Enlightenment … Hat by Hat: A Skeptic’s Path to Religion by Nevada Barr. In it the author says:

“Halloween traditionally was the night we were given the freedom to explore the dark — not to find and be the evil but to see that the night was as beautiful as the day, that we were powerful, others were kind, that there was candy behind those closed doors and strangers who gave us treats. Being trusted to walk by ourselves in the world at night is an important ritual. That it comes but one day a year when we are small lets us discover this place, said to be inhabited by sinister forces, slowly and safely and by ourselves.”

Halloween’s roots are in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (“sow-ain”), which marked the end of the harvest and the coming of winter — a transition from the lightest days of the year to the darkest.

The Celts taught that the physical world and the spiritual world existed side-by-side, separated by a thin veil and during Samhain, that veil was so thin it was nearly transparent.

Thin moments are, to me, those times when we can see most clearly God reaching God’s hands into the world, whether it’s in the sacred space of a church sanctuary or the beckoning welcome of a neighbor’s open front door on an autumn night.

GODSTUFF

350: MORE THAN JUST A NUMBER



This weekend, at synagogues around the globe, Jewish congregations will read from the Torah the story of Noah, his ark and the big flood that nearly brought about the end of the physical world.

It's a fitting scripture passage for this weekend when people of all faith traditions --and none -- will join their voices to try to jolt world leaders into action to rein in climate change before another catastrophe ushers in the very real demise of planet Earth.

Shepherded by the organization 350.org and its founder, Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author of the groundbreaking book The End of Nature, thousands of people in 170 countries and counting are mobilizing in protests, fairs and community cleanups to draw attention to the growing threat of climate change.

McKibben's organization takes its name from 350 parts-per-million -- the highest concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that most scientists consider safe. At the moment, we're living and breathing in a 390-ppm atmosphere. Not good.

The organization's Web site says "350 represents more than just a scientific benchmark for a safe climate -- there are also deeply moral and spiritual reasons for getting the world back below 350 ppm. Social justice, creation care, stewardship, earth community, beloved community -- there are many ways we can name and express our moral and spiritual perspectives on this issue. We invite people off all faiths and all traditions to join us in prayer, meditation, action and celebration for 350."

It's a call that has been answered by religious folks worldwide, from mainline Protestants and rabbis to the Dalai Lama and Muslim organizations in the Middle East.

And it's a rallying cry that has resonated deeply at my alma mater, Wheaton College, that bastion of evangelical Christianity that some call the Harvard of Christian schools, where McKibben spoke earlier this year.

"Wheaton College and evangelicals in general have been mixed, at best, on the environment," said Greg Halvorsen Schreck, a photography professor at Wheaton who was instrumental in bringing the 350.org event to the school.

Traditionally (or at least historically), old-guard evangelicals took more of an "evacuation plan for planet Earth" than a "save the trees" approach to environmentalism. But earlier this year, an epic change came to Wheaton: It went green.

Wheaton's president, Duane Litfin, was among a group of evangelical Christian leaders who signed the "Evangelical Climate Initiative," a document calling for the evangelical community to become more engaged in combatting global warming.

"President Litfin not only signed the evangelical agreement on climate change, he ordered the entire college to be made sustainable and green, even to the point that the dining hall supports local sustainable farming and is semi-organic," Halvorsen Schreck said. "The campus workers drive around in alternative fuel vehicles, and the new science building will be certified as a [green] building. That all was just unthinkable to me. . . . It's nothing short of miraculous."

On Saturday, Wheaton will host one of several 350.org-related events, including ringing the bells of its historic Blanchard Hall 350 times -- a symbolic gesture in which many houses of worship around the world will be joining them. (Blanchard was once a stop on the Underground Railroad.)

"God has always called us as Christians to be good stewards of his creation and we have the privilege of joining with him in his plan for complete reconciliation and redemption of creation," said Rachel Lamb, a sophomore environmental studies and international relations major at Wheaton who helped organize Saturday's events, which include a concert on the campus quadrangle, a haiku-writing contest, letter-writing booths and a huge painting made by Schreck and his students using gas-powered leaf blowers.

"We are part of an international movement and it is important to recognize this problem as global, but we cannot forget about personal responsibility," Lamb said. Students will participate in an audit of waste on campus, and the dining hall will serve only low-carbon-impact foods for lunch.

The timing of this weekend's 350.org events is crucial (some might even say providential). Today, President Obama is expected to deliver a landmark speech on clean energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And next week the U.S. Senate is set to begin hearings on a climate bill in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where a global treaty on cutting emissions will be crafted.

"This is a way of expressing in very simple terms, understandable in any language, that 350 needs to be the goal for Copenhagen," said May Boeve, the U.S. coordinator for 350.org. "There have been plenty of white papers and policy analysis but not enough sense of political will. That's what's really needed."

In order to reverse the trend and bring carbon dioxide emissions under 350 ppm, we must "stop burning coal and other fossil fuel and . . . start rolling out clean energy and other sustainable development strategies around the world," the 350.org site says.

So it's no surprise that coal manufacturers are among the targets for 350.org demonstrations this weekend, including Chicago's Fisk coal-fired plant, where Greenpeace supporters and others plan to rally.

Another group plans to gather at noon in Daley Plaza on their bicycles and ride through the city (arriving at the Fisk plant rally around 12:40), covering as much ground as possible to encourage people to ride their bikes -- perhaps the most carbon-neutral mode of transportation.

To find out more about 350.org events in the Chicago area and elsewhere this weekend, go to 350.org/map.

GODSTUFF

PRESSING THE PAUSE BUTTON: THE POWER OF A PERSONAL SABBATH




Do you find yourself adding more to your to-do list, even though you already feel overwhelmed?

Are your weekends just as jam-packed as your workdays?

When you try to pray, do you find your mind swimming with yesterday's worries?

If, like me, you answered yes to all of the above, you might be in need of a pause.

A spiritual timeout.

Last week, I took an online quiz called "The Power of Pause Online Assessment." I scored a 38 out of 50. And that's nothing to brag about.

"Push Pause Now!" was the cautionary message I received with my assessment score. "You are constantly overtired and overcommitted. You rarely take time to pause and recharge -- which makes you feel even more overwhelmed. You need to learn to pause on a regular basis -- not only will this help you to work more effectively, it will also ensure that you are not losing sight of what is truly important to you."

It's a great idea, this pausing.

Most of the time -- well, all of the time lately -- I'm trying to do too much and too many things at once. I end up feeling exhausted, sick and frayed.

In fact, when I sat down to write this column a week ago, I was on a 20-minute lunch break at a film set in Boise, Idaho, where I was shooting promotional videos for my new book. I thought I could squeeze the writing in between bites of a chicken quesadilla, reapplication of lippy and powder, a call from home to tell me my son came home sick from school, making dinner reservations for four and answering about 50 e-mails.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't find the time to even write about taking the time to pause, tune out, slow down, just be.

"We are wired to be present. We are built to honor the senses. We are created to be attentive, or literally just to be. But somewhere along the way, life chokes the music and poetry out of us," author Terry Hershey writes in his new book, The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less, a sort of how-to book for taking a spiritual recess. "I pause to be surprised, to let the cares of the day be carried away and to let my soul catch up with my body."

Ya know, there's probably a good reason why the Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- believe in a Sabbath. A day of rest. A day to recharge, to worship the Creator, to stop and . . . just . . . be.

In Hebrew, shabbat -- the word for Sabbath -- means to cease.

Observing the Sabbath, keeping it holy by slowing down and resting, is one of the Ten Commandments. Right up there with "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

"Cool it," God says. "I did."

Slowing down for a few minutes a day, and, more important, for one day a week, is a healthy idea physically, emotionally and spiritually. It's also a radical counter-cultural idea in a society that moves at warp speed and where self-worth is measured by how little white space we have on our calendars.

But adding to the list sometimes becomes untenable. One more task, one more demand, one more hurried moment of multitasking and superwoman-ing, and this ship is going to become unmoored and drift into whatever comes next. A storm. A sandbar. Hostile waters. Who knows?

"Too easily and too quickly we dismiss our creases and shadows -- places of reluctance, uncertainty, ambiguity, confusion, angst, grief, loss, fear, shame, or passion," Hershey writes. "We see them only as darkness. And hope becomes a sort of lottery ticket, something that might just click this time and make everything change.

"But what if hope is really about the Incarnation -- God (literally) with us? In the midst? In the middle of? In -- as in, this life and these shadows? What if this shadow -- the long night with no destination in sight, and with only a stone for a pillow -- is where we encounter the truth?"

Hmmm.

I want to think about that, ponder it, turn it over in my psychic hands. But to do that, I have to do nothing. I have to stop.

"What if it isn't about what you chase, but resting in God's grace?" Hershey asks.

He's right. At least, I think he is.

I'm going to find out by pushing pause more often.

Hershey suggests buying an old bench or chair and setting it aside in your home (or, better yet, outside) just for sitting. I have a chair I call the grace chair. It's an old, caned, straight-back seat that someone painted red and recovered with faux zebra pelt.

It's on my patio.

As soon as I hit send on this, I'm going to go sit in it.

And, for a few minutes, just . . . be.

Announcing GodGrrl.com!!!




Visit the official website of Cathleen Falsani at GodGrrl.com!

Welp, we've done it. Leapt into Web 2.0 world with our very own Web site.

The Dude Abides will still be here at Blogspot but it will also be found at GodGrrl.com

Please saunter on over to our new pad and tell us what you think.

And don't forget to listen to the tasty tunes I've got for you at the "on my iPod" page....

GG's new HQ is fully functional, up and ready, but we'll also be rolling out some new and groovy features later in the week. Contests! The Dude Abides graft!! New photos and .... new VIDEO!

Thanks for visiting our new joint. You are most welcome.

XOXO
God Girl

GODSTUFF

VASCO'S NEXT CHAPTER: GOD MAKES A FAMILY

The Wee Man isn't so wee any more.

Vasco Sylvester, the 10-year-old boy from Malawi who Sun-Times readers helped bring to Chicago for lifesaving heart surgery this spring has grown three inches -- and three shoe sizes -- since he left Hope Children's Hospital in June.

His heart is working perfectly. His strength, vocabulary, confidence and muscles grow every day. He can run and jump and swim and play soccer (he's a striker) for the first time in his young life.

Many of you have written to me over the last three months asking about Vasco -- how he is and where he is.

My family has some happy news we want to share with you.

With the cooperation of the Malawian and U.S. governments, we are in the process of adopting Vasco.

He lives with us in California, started fourth grade last month at the local grammar school, and his soccer team, the Fat Pandas, are 2-1.

Vasco is happy, healthy, flourishing and has a family who will love and care for him for the rest of his life. Looking at him slide-tackle a player twice his size or belly-ride a big wave on his surfboard, it's hard to believe this is the same sick little boy, who lived on the streets alone after his parents died of AIDS, whom we met on the side of the road in Malawi two years ago next week.




The joy and blessing this child is in my life and the life of my family and extended circle of friends is something I don't think I could ever adequately articulate.

Your contributions helped clothe and feed him in Malawi, and since his arrival here, have helped with doctor bills and to pay for the expensive heart medication he needs to take daily for at least another few months.

If Vasco could thank you all personally, he would. So I'll do it for him.

My thanks to you, dear readers, in helping give Vasco -- and his mom -- a new life, is as deep as my heart is capable of feeling.



This mitzvah was the work of many, many hands.

And it started with a raffle ticket.

On April 29, 2006, I got a call from Tom Derdak, the director of Chicago's Global Alliance for Africa, telling me that I'd won a two-week all-expenses-paid trip for two to East Africa. A month earlier, I had bought a handful of tickets from my former colleague Debra Pickett and forgotten about them. I'd never won anything. Not even a door prize.

So the news about the trip to Africa was a thunderbolt of good luck. Eighteen months later, while I was working on a book about the subject of grace, my husband and I decided to take that trip and added on another two weeks to see more of the African continent.

We decided to travel to Malawi to visit a charity that worked with street kids which we had been supporting for a few years. We were in Blantyre, Malawi, for less than 72 hours and met dozens of street children. The last one we met, after a long day of visiting with kids at a drop-in center, was Vasco.

I can still hear his squeaky little voice yell, "I'm coming," in Chichewa, his native language, when we walked into the dirt compound where he lived with some extended family. I can still feel the violent pounding of his heart shaking his fragile little body -- and mine -- as he sat on my lap.

Before anyone told us what was wrong with him, my husband and I knew that he was gravely ill. He had a hole in his heart. He was dying.



When I wrote about him for the first time in the Sun-Times almost two years ago, three hospitals in Chicago came forward and offered to treat him pro bono if we could just get him to the States.

It took 18 months to get him here, but on April 29, 2009, Vasco arrived at O'Hare -- less than 4 feet tall and 42 pounds. He had malaria, was carrying tuberculosis (though, thankfully, he is not infected himself), and had three parasites. After his doctors at Hope got rid of all his extra "baggage," he underwent successful open-heart surgery to repair the large ventricular septal defect in his little lion's heart on June 10.

It was the night of the surgery, while Vasco was still unconscious and on a ventilator, that my husband and I looked across his frail body and just knew.

This boy was our son.

At that moment, we decided we'd do whatever we needed to do to make sure he would always be taken care of, always have a family, always have a home and the chance to become everything that he can be.

But the choice was Vasco's. With the help of our Malawian friend and native Chichewa speaker in Oak Park, Dr. Kamana Mbekeani, we asked him if we could have the honor of being his parents.

He said yes.



We weren't sure if it would even be possible to adopt from Malawi. Anyone familiar with Madonna's story of getting her son, David, and daughter, Mercy, out of Malawi knows a bit about how difficult it can be.

But doors opened. Bridges appeared. Angels came to guide us on both sides of the Atlantic.

Vasco's surviving aunt and uncle gave their blessings for Vasco to join our family, and, as is the custom, so did the headman of his ancestral village. The U.S. government extended his visa until next August. We're in the process of scheduling a home visit by a U.S. welfare agency, and then the three of us will travel back to Malawi for a court hearing on our adoption petition.

We're not sure how all of that will come to pass, but we trust that God will make a way, just as we believe God brought this child into our lives.

A winning ticket. A surprise. Divine intervention. Staggering grace.

I'm a mother for the first time.

My heart is fuller than I could ever have imagined.

And Vasco's is whole again, at last.

For those about to Tweet, I salute you ...




For up-to-the-minute updates on what God Girl is up to and for her occasional braindroppings (in 140 characters or less) make sure to follow GG on Twitter:

@godgrrl

And stay tuned for the launch of GG's fancy new website next week!

GODSTUFF

"APOLOGY PORN" AND A SPIRITUAL BUBBLE BATH





















If there had been a way to power-wash my brain, I would have done it.

The words, images and emotions left with me after I watched a half-dozen video clips of actress Mackenzie Phillips' interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this week are something I wish I'd never had in my imagination. I regretted watching. I regretted knowing.

I wanted to take a spiritual bubble bath.

One blogger I read regularly suggested that Ms. Winfrey would have done a public service to follow the interview with a short montage of kittens and baby bunnies playing in a field of daisies just to help clear the horror out of our minds.

If you don't know the Phillips' story, please, I beg you, don't go Google it. You don't want to know.

If you, like me, were foolish enough to be a voyeur in the Phillips' family's nightmare, well, we deserve what we got. We shouldn't have been able to know something that deeply personal and broken and awful.

So, now that some of us do know, where do we put it? What do we do in the future when a trainwreck of human suffering presents itself for our entertainment?

And for those of us who fancy ourselves people of faith, what do we do with what The Rabbi (you remember him -- Irwin Kula, the wise and kindly soul who makes frequent appearances in this column) calls "apology porn"?

I talked to The Rabbi on Thursday about this cultural problem and, it being the time in the Jewish calendar for repentance and soul searching in the days leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, he had some timely and practical advice.

Our attraction to "apology porn," these big, public mea culpas and confessions of sins that are so very none of our business, are an indication of our collective need both to be forgiven and to offer forgiveness for wrongs in our own lives that we'd rather not think about, The Rabbi says.

"If we took a spiritual MRI of the American soul, we'd probably see an incredible yearning for being forgiven and granting forgiveness," he said. "That's expressing itself in this incredibly voyeuristic and confessional culture of ours."

"What we have to do is keep ratcheting it up so that we actually are titillated otherwise we become bored," The Rabbi says. "And the tragedy of that is, of course, that it doesn't do anything for us. Actually what it means is that there are more and more places in our lives where we're not having the genuine experience. So, we're externalizing.

"The higher the extreme apology is necessary, the more it's an indication that the culture itself is losing a genuine forgiveness. It's that kind of karmic imbalance."

Like any kind of pornography, apology, porn only increases our appetite for more dramatic and, frankly, icky public confessions.

After learning the Phillips family's terrible secret, what's next? The mind reels.

What should we do now?

The Rabbi had some instruction, both kind and deeply practical.

"Look, there's a natural predisposition to be attracted to this. It's no different than the car accident on the road. We all have that inside of us. The real question is, what are we going to do about it since we feel dirty about it."

The Rabbi suggests the following:

"We really can turn it off and make a decision not to look. And if we really didn't look, the traffic would flow better. And if we really didn't look, it wouldn't be reported the same way because that's the way the market works. That's what real freedom is. And with real freedom comes real responsibility."

"So, let's say we can't help ourselves and we are gonna look, OK, because that's the way we are as human beings. So, then we can make a decision not to talk about it the next day and make it the major topic of conversation our friends or with our colleagues at the water cooler or at the Starbucks, because that creates a toxicity in the culture. That creates a kind of bad karma itself. It's not simply your having the experience but it becomes the cultural conversation as opposed to all the really important things going on in our lives."

"Finally, let's say we have to talk about it. At the very least we should recognize that even in something toxic, what a deeply spiritual person does is try to redeem it. What we could do is make the decision to watch it and realize we can't help talking about it, but we're also going to look in our own lives for where there is someone I need to ask forgiveness from or where there is someone I need to forgive."

Unfortunately, I've already done the first two, and so now, as Yom Kippur approaches, I'm trying to implement the third.

The Rabbi said something else that rang powerfully true. While most of us have not and will not ever cross the kind of lines that were crossed in Mackenzie Phillips' family, but part of what we find compelling about such a horror story is that we have -- all of us -- crossed some line that we shouldn't have.

In this season of repentance, atoning and, hopefully, forgiveness, taking that kind of stock of our own stories may be the first step in creating a culture where real forgiveness scan happen. Individually and as a people.

It's time to tune out and turn inward.

GODSTUFF

THE COEN BROS GET SERIOUS:
THEIR LATEST FILM IS A COMIC MASTERPIECE ON FAITH, DOUBT AND SUFFERING






Earlier this week, I had a bad day. Epically bad.

I ran out of cash.

I lost my credit card.

I missed my flight.

And then, standing outside the United Airlines terminal at O'Hare, I dropped my cell phone, and as if in slow motion, watched in horror as it bounced and dropped over the barrier and onto the roof of the baggage claim area 10 feet below into an inch-deep layer of pigeon guano and dead cigarettes.

First I cried, and then I laughed as several chivalrous gentlemen from TSA, the Chicago Police Department and the city's Department of Engineering came to my rescue, eventually retrieving my (mercifully) still-working phone.

In those tense moments at the airport, beset by one minor calamity after another, I began to feel a bit like that poor fellow Job from Hebrew scripture. Job lost all his money, his wife, his children and his health, but he refused to curse God. He was a good man, a serious man.

My having-a-bad-day woes reminded me of Larry Gopnik, the protagonist of the spiritually powerful (and powerfully funny) new film "A Serious Man," that I saw last weekend at the Toronto Film Festival.

"A Serious Man" is the 14th film from the brotherly writing/directing/producing team of Joel and Ethan Coen. Set in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967, the dark comedy follows the trials and tribulations of Gopnik (played by newcomer Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor and all-around decent fellow whose life falls apart in the course of a few weeks before and after his son's bar mitzvah.

The Coens, the Oscar-winning duo who brought you "No Country for Old Men," "Fargo," "Raising Arizona" and "The Big Lebowski," among others, are natives of St. Louis Park and were reared in an academic Jewish community much like that of "A Serious Man." In fact, the Coens' parents were both university professors, and 1967 would have been the year Joel made his bar mitzvah.

Gopnik's suburban serenity begins to unravel when his wife announces she's leaving him for Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed), a bloviating, faux-pious fellow professor. A litany of seemingly minor, but life-altering calumny leads Gopnik (who sees himself as a modern-day Job) to question the existence of God and the meaning of life -- and of suffering.

He turns to three rabbis for answers to his questions, all of which are, the filmmakers seem to be saying, essentially, unanswerable.



Since their directorial debut in 1984 with the neo-noir thriller "Blood Simple," the Coens have created some of the most enigmatic and enduring films of my generation. The average moviegoer may not realize the duo who gave us whimsical comedies such as "The Hudsucker Proxy," "The Ladykillers" and "Burn After Reading," are the same guys who made the bleakly post-modern "The Man Who Wasn't There" and the gangland period piece "Miller's Crossing."

The cinematic styles, periods and themes of their films are so varied, some critics have wondered whether there is an overarching vision to the Coens' work. I would argue that it is the spirituality -- the theological notions, the existential questions, and the religious ideas -- of their films that, to paraphrase one of the oft-quoted lines from "Lebowski," really ties the room together.

Beginning with "Blood Simple," the story of a man who has serious doubts about his wife's fidelity and what happens when he attempts to uncover the "truth," the Coens have boldly engaged serious existential questions with darkly intelligent humor.

Each Coen brothers' films is marked by theological, philosophical and mythological touchstones that enrich even the slapstickiest moments. Each film probes confounding ethical and spiritual quandaries, giving us a tour of nuanced moral universes that may be individual (in the case of "Barton Fink"), geographic (as in "Fargo"), or historic (such as the Depression Era of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?")

Biblical truths run rampant throughout the Coens' 25-year cinematic oeuvre. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. The love of money is the root of all evil. Love conquers all -- even death.

And that's just in "Fargo" alone.

The Coens have created moral universes in which some of life's essential questions are asked -- if not always answered. These queries run the gamut from the meaning of life and enlightenment, to the fundamental nature of grace, truth and love. There is seemingly no question the brothers are afraid to tackle, either with a wink and a smile or brutal honesty (and sometimes both).

There is a moral order to the worlds the Coens create. Whether it's a farcical crime caper or an American Gothic tale of betrayal, there always are consequences to the characters' actions, for better or for worse.

Bad guys are punished and the decent are rewarded for their innate goodness, though beware the viewer who assumes it will be easy to discern which is which.

Sins come to light; lies and deception are revealed. Occasionally, the hand of God intervenes to restore order from chaos.

"A Serious Man," which hits theaters nationwide Oct. 2, encapsulates all of the spiritual themes the Coens have examined in their past films and introduces audiences to one of the more intriguing (if little-known) theological notions from Judaism -- that of the Lamed Vavnik, the 36 righteous souls in every generation upon whom the fate of the rest of the world rests.

The film continues the Coens' work as secular theologians whose body of work one astute critic described as "the most sneakily moralistic in recent American cinema."

Cathleen Falsani is the religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and author of the new book THE DUDE ABIDES: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE COEN BROTHERS.

The Dude is IN!



Much to our happy surprise, the nice folks at Amazon.com moved up the release date and The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers is ON SALE NOW!!!

Click here to get your very own copy.

We can't afford to wait.

The Dude cometh: Let the festivities begin!

While the official release date (a la Amazon.com) still says "October 1, 2009" we're here to tell you that The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers will, in fact, roll out next week, beginning with some nifty local coverage in Minneapolis later this week (coinciding with Lebowski Fest and the annual Religion Newswriters Convention), then on to the Toronto Film Festival (for the premiere of the Brothers' Coen's "A Serious Man" - woot!), and finally to our old crib, Sweet Home Chicago for some tv and radio appearances, a guest appearance at Lebowski Fest Speed of Sound Tour's stop at Chicago's Portage Theater (and a personal time-out for the U2 gig at Soldier Field) and then the official hooplah of The Dude Abides Launch Party at Chicago's Smart Bar the evening of Monday 9/14 before heading back home to the beach on the left coast.

Deets on all the above to follow ...

GODSTUFF

FOR LABOR SUNDAY: TO WORK IS TO PRAY

Laborare est orare.
To work is to pray.

It's a Latin phrase that the Order of St. Benedict adopted as its motto.

St. Benedict, the founder of the order, recognized the sacred value of hard work, the notion that through the sweat of our brows and the strength of our arms and backs, we can worship the Creator.

Each of us works, whether with our hands or with our minds. Whether we are builders and teachers, executives or students, all of us spend a good portion of our lives at work. How we do that work and how we treat those who labor to make our world what it is says a lot about how we see the world spiritually.

This Sunday is, in some Christian traditions, Labor Sunday -- the day before the national holiday that was created more than 100 years ago to honor workers. It has come to mean an end to the lazier days of summer and -- for many of us -- a day off to relax.

The American Federation of Labor established the first Labor Sunday in 1909, 15 years after Congress made Labor Day a national holiday. It was meant to be a day for churches to pray for workers and to raise congregations' awareness of issues of injustice surrounding workers' rights and wages.

For several years, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (the forerunner of the National Council of Churches) issued an annual sermon for Labor Sunday, in the hope that it would be incorporated into worship services across the nation. The annual Labor Sunday sermons are no more, but one crafted in 1931, two years after the Black Friday stock market crash, rings strikingly true.

It said, in part: "Our generation ... has insisted on the rights of property to dividends but has concerned itself too little with the rights of workers. ... Our economic life now seems to be without a chart."

These days, with far too many of us out of work or scraping by (or not) making minimum wage that isn't a living wage, we all should be thankful for having a job. Any job. And spiritually speaking, the value of work should feel more sacred than ever.

As I'm typing this, I can hear three men on the second floor of my house hammering as they install new carpet. It's a hot, breezeless day -- sunny and well into the 80s. The men are working feverishly and without complaint.

I am grateful for my work here, labor of the mind and a few keystrokes, writing for you.

They are grateful for theirs -- albeit backbreaking, sweaty, bone-jangling labor.

And I am grateful for them.

So many of the stories in the Bible revolve around labor and laborers. Field workers. Shepherds. Fishermen. Builders. Weavers. Farmers. Servants. As one Labor Sunday sermon on the United Church of Christ Web site reminded me, Jesus (as a carpenter) was himself a "low-wage worker." In our society, workers such as child-care providers, custodians, farm workers, day laborers, sales clerks and housekeepers typically make the lowest wages for the longest hours.

"One-quarter of all jobs in the U.S. pay poverty-level wages," the UCC sermon says. "In addition, these jobs are more likely to require evening, night, weekend or rotating shifts. They are less likely to provide health insurance, a pension, or even paid sick leave. They are more likely to be filled by women and people of color -- marginal jobs for the already marginalized. Just like Jesus."

What can we do to honor workers?

Certainly we can and must urge lawmakers to raise the minimum wage, further improve workplace safety, and provide more equitable health care.

But there are more individual things we can all do -- small gestures that may have enormous impact on the life of a worker.

••Be polite.

When the construction crew has the highway blocked to repair potholes (standing in the hot sun all day, inhaling exhaust fumes), obey the speed limit and heed the signs. Wait patiently in line at the fast-food joint. Say hello to the store greeter when he welcomes you to the Gap or Blockbuster video store.

••Be generous.

Tip well. Waiting tables is hard, often thankless work. Ten percent is not sufficient. Fifteen percent is fine, but 20 percent can be the difference between a good night and a lousy one for your server. (I'm speaking from experience here.) Never snap to get their attention. Say thank you when they put the water down. Don't be cheap. When the baby-sitter wants a raise, give it to her.

••Be mindful.

Notice the workers around you who make life what it is. Bring the lawn guys or the carpet installers iced tea. When you say grace before a meal, don't just give thanks for the food. Think of how it got to you. Who grew it? Who raised it? Who transported it or sold it to you? Give thanks for them, too.

The National Farm Worker Ministry offers the following prayer, a perfect benediction for this Labor Sunday:

Bless the hands of the people of the earth,

The hands that plant the seed,

The hands that bind the harvest,

The hands that carry the burden of life.

Soften the hands of the oppressor and

Strengthen the hands of the oppressed.

Bless the hands of the workers,

Bless the hands of those in power above them

That the measure they deal will be tempered

With justice and compassion. Amen.

Godspeed, Ted.



"... a single, enduring image – the image of a man on a boat; white mane tousled; smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for what storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon. May God Bless Ted Kennedy, and may he rest in eternal peace."

Amen. May he rest in peace and may God's grace comfort the hearts of those he's left behind.

GODSTUFF

TED KENNEDY: SO MUCH MORE THAN HIS MISTAKES



"I recognize my own shortcomings -- the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them. I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too."

-- Sen. Edward Kennedy, in a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Oct. 25, 1991



Ted Kennedy was a complicated man with a complicated life. Deeply faithful and deeply faulted, Kennedy was a lion of a man full of contradictions. Fierce and loyal. Dangerous and wise. Strong and yet felled by all-too-human weaknesses.

It is the complexity of his story and his character that made him such a compelling person, a heroic figure in an arena where they are few and far between.

I grew up in an Irish-American family in New England where the Kennedy clan was like royalty. They were icons -- culturally, politically and in some ways spiritually.

My parents were married the year John F. Kennedy was assassinated. As a child, I was aware of the depths of tragedy the Kennedy family endured time and time again, and I was taught to admire the family's resilience in the face of despair. The way they kept picking themselves up and soldiering on. Their commitment to public service. Their devotion to caring for the poor, the weak and those on the fringes of our society.

For all of my life, Sen. Kennedy was the patriarch of the Kennedy clan -- an avuncular, kind and fun-loving Irishman who forged into political issues with dead seriousness, but never took himself too seriously.

Ted Kennedy made many mistakes. The most infamous occurred 40 years ago when he drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass. He was able to swim safely to shore, while his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. He neglected to report the accident until the next morning. A reckless and selfish act of cowardice to be sure.

"I think he was chastened by it," Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College in New York and author of God in the White House: A History, said, referring to Chappaquiddick. "He did have his period later in life -- this kind of wild period -- but he repented of that as well and then settled down.

"He was a human being," Balmer said. "He had faults. But he was big enough to acknowledge them, and that's fairly uncommon for a politician."

Kennedy's life was marked by tragedy and loss. Two of his siblings -- Joseph Jr. and Kathleen -- died in plane crashes. Two more brothers -- Jack and Bobby -- were cut down in the prime of life by assassins' bullets. Three of his nephews died tragically and too young -- Bobby's sons David and Michael of, respectively, a drug overdose and in a skiing accident, while John Kennedy Jr. perished in a plane crash in 1999. Ted Kennedy himself survived a plane crash the year after Jack was assassinated.

He weathered scandal and the divorce from his first wife, Joan, in 1984 after 24 years of marriage, substance abuse (a burden shared by several of the Kennedy clan offspring), chronic back pain (from the plane crash in 1964), a crushing political defeat to Jimmy Carter in 1980, and, finally, brain cancer.

It's a litany of despair that would crush a lesser man. But Kennedy kept going with a stubborn faith -- in God and in the common good -- while carrying the burden of grief and the mantle of responsibility for a family and, in many ways, a nation.

Sen. Kennedy was Roman Catholic. Whether he was a "good" Catholic is, of course, a matter of opinion. Unquestionably pro-choice and pro-contraception, a supporter of stem cell research and same-sex marriage (all big no-no's in orthodox Catholicism), he also was undeniably a champion of social justice, leading the fight for universal health care, workers rights, arms control and peacemaking -- most notably in Northern Ireland where he was instrumental in crafting a lasting peace.

He opposed the war in Iraq and fought for the rights of people institutionalized -- the disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill and prison inmates -- to practice their religion with access to pastoral care. He helped craft the Aviation Disaster Family Act of 1996, which ensured that victims' families (including the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks) received the emotional and spiritual support they needed.

"Catholic hierarchy always wanted to hammer him about his stand on abortion, but he embodied Catholic social teaching much more fully than any other politician I can think of in the national arena," Balmer said. "He was much more in keeping with Vatican principles on the invasion of Iraq than the Catholics who were anti-abortion. He was one of the few senators who voted against it. .. . I think that, in some ways, balances out."

When I think of Sen. Kennedy, I remember Chappaquiddick, but I recall something else. Something more powerful and, hopefully, more indelible.

Ted Kennedy refused to be defined by his worst moments.

None of us wants to be reduced to the sum total of our mistakes, deadly or otherwise. Yet, it's uncommon to be able to rise above them, without becoming paralyzed by guilt or regret, and devote your life to making the world a more just place.

In an Associated Press report from Dublin earlier this week, an Irish everyman -- Joe Drennan, a 68-year-old contractor from County Cork who was among those waiting in a line outside the U.S. Embassy to leave his condolences for the Kennedy family -- summed up Sen. Kennedy's legacy beautifully.

"He had his peccadilloes, like all of us . . . but boy, did he overcome them," Drennan said. "He overcame the biggest obstacle in his life -- and that was himself."

Yep.

“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.”

— Frederick Buechner

In a recent episode of the superb TNT series "Saving Grace," the character Father Johnny Hanadarko (played by Steppenwolf Theatre's Tom Irwin), the brother of anti-heroine Grace Hanadarko (Oscar-winner Holly Hunter), makes a revealing confession about his faith:

"When I was a kid, I tried to figure out how God could be everywhere at once. I'd think of the most unlikely places -- in my father's Scotch, in my sister's bra. God was this fun, fun mystery. I think I've lost that. These days, I spend my time worried if the air conditioner is going to work on Sunday so that Mrs. Bernardi doesn't hunt me down for the 89th time."

I am a longtime and rabid fan of "Saving Grace," which concludes its third season at 9 p.m. Tuesday, and much about the series' edgy exploration of faith, doubt, God, religion and relationships often gives me spiritual meat to gnaw on.

Father Johnny's monologue was a full meal.

How true? When you grow up with religion and faith, as Father Johnny has, sometimes the mysteries of God lose their, well, mystery. The wonder leaves the room, replaced by intellectualism and the temporal distractions of adult life.

Rather than some kind of indictment of Catholicism, the priesthood or organized religion in general, Father Johnny's admission was a clarion call to seek the mystery, the face of God; to enliven faith by living it.

On the eve of this season's finale -- fans will have to wait until next summer for the fourth season -- I had a chat with "Saving Grace" creator Nancy Miller, herself a woman of deep and complex faith, a self-proclaimed "practicing Catholic" whom her publicist describes (quite accurately) as "a gutsy, take-no prisoners broad."

In three seasons, Grace, a rowdy Oklahoma City homicide detective, has slogged through her own childhood abuse at the hands of a pedophile priest, alcohol abuse, torrid (and often graphically depicted) love affairs and all manner of life- (and faith-) shaking chaos and destruction.

Still, Grace's biggest struggle has been with God, or, more precisely, with a last-chance angel named Earl (Leon Rippy) sent by God to help Grace -- and those she loves -- find healing. Grace and Earl wrestle weekly over God's will for both of them.

Faith can be terribly complicated, and it is a topic that Miller handles with equal parts tenderness and humor.

"I had a great conversation with a friend of mine who is a priest, about difficult people in the parish and how he deals with them and how hard it is for him," Miller said. "A priest has to be a social worker, a psychiatrist, a theologian -- they're like cops, they wear so many different hats. And I think Johnny has forgotten the fun of God, forgotten the joy, the childlike joy of this wonder that God has placed before us, not only in other people but in a tree, in coffee grounds on the floor. If he would only look at things differently, he might see something different.

"So that's sort of how we're thinking of Johnny these days, and he has dedicated his life to God, and yet his messed-up sister gets the angel? It's got to be so confusing to him."

This season, Miller introduced a new character named Neely, a young African-American woman addicted to methamphetamines to whom Earl also has been assigned as a last-chance angel. After meeting her first in a dream and then at a crime scene (where Neely is shot in the head and winds up in a coma), Grace has spent much of this season trying to find out who Neely is and what she means to her life.

"Grace kept going, kept taking steps, back to Neely, which is huge. . . . She's going toward this girl, with no explanation of why, but she keeps doing it. And that's, I think, faith, especially in those times where it's like: What the hell is going on?"

Even Earl has shown his more human(ish) side this season, questioning God (in the form of a silent dog with an extra-long tongue) and God's plan for Grace.



"We wanted to make it clear that Earl is not God. He is an angel, and he is the messenger. And there are some messages that God does not give him, so he is in the dark," Miller said.

When Grace went missing (held captive by a deranged childhood friend who tattoos angels wings on her back) in an episode earlier this season, Earl enlisted the help of an angel army to find Grace when God wouldn't tell him where she was.

"God didn't reveal that to him and there's a reason," she said. "You'll find out in next week's episode ... I don't want to give it away. ... You'll be surprised that the lesson in this episode has to be learned by Earl."

Tuesday's season finale -- titled "Am I going to die today?" -- has me on pins and needles. If you've never watched "Saving Grace," you should. The first three seasons are available on iTunes and Amazon.com.

So what happens next?

"God is a mystery. What He wants sometimes for us is a mystery, and all we have to go on is faith," Miller said. "If you don't have faith, you're gonna get off path, and even with faith, you still might get off path. ... Just because you believe in God all your problems aren't solved, all the pain isn't taken away, and He never promised us that.

"I like to keep the show messy because I just think we're messy -- life is messy and human beings are just messy."

"Saving Grace" airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the TNT cable channel.

The first and perhaps most influential review of The Dude is out from Publisher's Weekly. They had t

his to say:

The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers
Cathleen Falsani. Zondervan, $14.99 paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-310-29246-3

It must be true that God can be found even in the quirkiest of places. Chicago Sun-Times religion journalist Falsani mined the 14 films (since 1984) of Joel and Ethan Coen to find God and to articulate their spiritual and religious questions and challenges. The Coen brothers have a reputation for injecting a lot of dark humor into their movies, but as the author illustrates, the comedy is an avenue to deeper issues. Death, betrayal, greed, the seeming absence of God and the dire consequences of one's choices are the complex themes expertly handled by the filmmakers. Falsani does not posit that these films are overtly religious, but she does successfully convey their spiritual insights about the human condition. Each chapter provides a movie plot summary and concludes with an insightful segment dubbed “The Moral of the Story.” Falsani is an expert at pop culture analysis and her love for the celluloid arts shines forth brightly—her interpretations are nuanced and sophisticated without being pretentious. Film lovers, whether religious or not, will be pleased. (Oct.)

Yup. That's a keeper.

GODSTUFF

SOUL SURFING IN CHICAGO (THANKS TO THE FOLKS IN LAGUNA BEACH)

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- When Chicago lifted its decades-old ban on surfing the city's beaches late last month, a cyber-roar went up throughout the surfing world, no more loudly than in Laguna Beach, Calif., my new hometown.

We moved to this seaside artist's enclave that Timothy Leary once called home last month after living for more than a decade in Oak Park, the artsy village where Frank Lloyd Wright used to live and Ernest Hemingway was born.

A number of Laguna's surfers, including professional surfer James Pribram, helped lead the charge to open Chicago's beaches to surfing. The sport had been banned in the City of Big Shoulders, along with all flotation devices, in the wake of a deadly accident involving several young children and an inflatable raft years ago.

Now Chicago's surfers legally can hit Lake Michigan at two beaches -- Montrose and 57th Street -- during the summer months (when, frankly, the waves are what one might expect in a lake, even one as large as Michigan) and from Labor Day to Memorial Day at two more -- Osterman and Rainbow.

It's an opportunity to expand the sport of surfing and Chicago's love of outdoor activities and nature, as well as perhaps a chance for Chicagoans to learn something new about our spiritual lives.

Even though I grew up along the Atlantic on the East Coast, my introduction to surfing happened as a student at Wheaton College in landlocked DuPage County, where a couple of my friends -- one a native of Grand Haven, Mich., and the other a California dude raised near Laguna Beach -- used to throw on their wet suits and head to the North Shore to surf. The first time I heard about their adventures, I thought it was a joke.

But it wasn't, and their love of the sport was contagious, even if it never got me out on a board in frigid Lake Michigan. When they talked about surfing, they often spoke about God and faith and how riding the waves was an awe-inspiring and humbling experience of the grace-filled hand of the divine.

Out here in southern California, surfing is no eccentric pastime for a few (fool) hardy souls (and their wet suits). Along the Pacific coast, surfing is a way of life.

Some say it's a kind of religion.

Heck, even my pastors at the congregation we attend here in town, Little Church by the Sea (yes, really), surf and host regular Bible studies for surfers. There's a "Christian" surf school in town, and many of the local surfers are people of faith (of various flavors) who find inspiration and communion with God among the waves.

Having spent more than 20 years in Chicago, a city as obsessed with and enlivened by religion as it is by sports, I find legalizing surfing is a welcome and historic development in the city's spiritual-cultural evolution.

For early Hawaiians, surfing was both physical and spiritual training. They prayed for the waves and the water and performed rituals of thanksgiving for the trees that made their surfboards. Surfing, sometimes called the "sport of kings," was a way in which Hawaii's leaders kept their bodies, minds and spirits strong, flexible and focused.

Surfing's religious connections were first examined in earnest (and in print) by a fellow named Tom Blake, a native of northern Wisconsin who fell in love with surfing through the early surfing movie reels, met the legendary Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku at a movie theater in Michigan, and later moved to California to pursue the sport. He believed (a lesson he gleaned through surfing) that "nature=God" and that surfers innately grasp the sacredness of surfing and the Creator by riding the waves.

Surfing as a religion is even a serious academic pursuit. In a recent article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, "Surfing into Spirituality and a New, Aquatic Nature Religion," University of Florida professor Bron Taylor described surfing as "an evocative, ocean-baptized spirituality, capable of moving surfing enthusiasts who otherwise would have little to do with that which scholars construe as religion."

Last week, I saw a sneak preview of a gnarly (to use the local parlance) new surf documentary, "Lost Prophets: Search for the Collective," that follows several surfers from around the world -- including a devout Indonesian Muslim. "These vagabonds are living their lives as examples that surfing is a spiritual reflection of yourself," asserts the film, which should hit theaters this fall.

In a column titled "Is God a goofyfoot?" Surf Magazine writer Brad Melekian tried to answer whether surfing itself might be a religion by posing the question to a Christian minister, a surfing Orthodox rabbi, and a Buddhist nun.

Melekian's conclusion? Maybe.

Even if it's not going to give Catholicism a run for its money, surfing still has positive spiritual lessons to offer folks of all faiths and none.

Melekian says: "To be a surfer in the full sense . . . means being aware of your surroundings, and respectful of the people and places that you interact with. It means being patient, mindful, kind, compassionate, understanding, active, thoughtful, faithful, hopeful, gracious, disciplined and . . . good. It means thinking about things while you're doing them, and trying to embody the universal truths that all of us -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever -- know that we're supposed to live. Maybe you give up a wave here or there. You let someone go. You show a kid how to paddle through the whitewater and into the channel. You help people. . . . You try to make yourself the best surfer you can be, regardless of how much spray you're throwing on your turns. And then, maybe, it becomes something closer to a religion."

So hang loose, Chicago, and keep your eyes and hearts open to the God who brings the waves -- even the small ones.

Lost Prophets-trailer 01 from Nathan Apffel on Vimeo.

The Dude cometh!




While we're still a month or so away from the official book release, you can now check out a sneak preview of The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers (including the foreword by Rabbi Allen Secher, the introduction and the "Blood Simple" chapter) by clicking HERE

And you can pre-order your very own copy of The Dude HERE

Also, word is out that the Coens will debut their latest, A Serious Man, at the Toronto Film Festival next month.

AT LAST, "A SERIOUS MAN" TRAILER!!!



Joel and Ethan Coen's 14th film, "A Serious Man," opens October 2. It's brilliant (well, at least the screenplay is brilliant and our hopes for the film are epic, as always.)

Mark your calendars!

GODSTUFF

BEER DIPLOMACY: WHAT WOULD JESUS BREW?

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
— Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew

"From man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the world.”
— St. Arnold of Metz, patron saint of brewers

When President Obama popped the top on three cold beers with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police sergeant James Crowley at the White House Thursday night, his efforts toward brokering peace between the two men were laden with spiritual meaning.

And I’m not just talking about Obama’s attempts at peacemaking. The president’s choice of beverage for the sit-down has deep spiritual implications as well.

Beer is, of course, an ancient beverage, made from the fruits of creation. It is also a populist drink — an inexpensive oat soda, if you will, equally accessible to rich and poor, male and female, white and black and brown. And it’s a great equalizer and unifier, much like baseball, hotdogs and apple pie.

Let’s put aside for a moment aspersions cast about Obama’s act of beer diplomacy being little more than a political photo opportunity and criticisms of the quality of the oat sodas he plans to serve. (Bud Light? Red Stripe? Why not a few nice craft beers brewed locally? Capitol Brewery, located not far from the White House, offers one called Equality Ale, for instance.)

Instead, let’s look at the spiritual lessons we might learn about community, constancy and hope.

While there are certainly a number of religious traditions that look at imbibing beer with an evil eye — Islam, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to name a few — there also is another, storied spiritual view that sees beer as a blessing from the Almighty.

“Moralists work hard to maintain the wedge between spirituality and alcohol — it's what keeps them in power,” said Sean Lilly Wilson, a friend and classmate of mine from Wheaton College and founder of the craft brewery Fullsteam in Durham, N.C. “But there's no evidence that Jesus wanted this separation. Quite the contrary! Alcohol and community are central themes in Jesus' first miracle (the wedding at Cana) and his final act (the Eucharist).”

Within Christendom, there are no fewer than a dozen patron saints — including three different St. Arnolds — of brewers, hop pickers and tavern keepers, each accompanied by wonderfully folksy tales of miracles and wonders performed with (and sometimes through) vats of divinely inspired lager.

According to the folks at www.beerhistory.com, St. Wenceslas, who helped spread Christianity to Czechoslovakia and is the patron saint of Bohemia, valued the precious Bohemian hops so dearly that he ordered anyone caught exporting them put to death. That’s pretty extreme, of course, but it did endear him to local brewers. Another Wenceslas, the 13th-century King, convinced the pope at the time to lift the ban on the brewing of beer.

In 6th-century Brussels, St. Arnold of Metz cautioned the faithful, “Don’t drink the water, drink beer,” because he believed the local water supply caused illness. (The water used in the production of beer was boiled, killing off water-born diseases.) Legend has it that St. Arnold also ended a plague by dipping a crucifix into a vat of beer and distributing the blessed elixir to the masses.

St. Brigid, the patroness of Ireland, is said to have miraculously turned her bath water into beer to sustain the lepers she nursed in a colony near the monastery she founded at Kildare. A poem attributed to Brigid that the beerhistory.com guys located in a library in Brussels says, “I should like a great lake of ale, for the King of the Kings. I should like the family of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.”

Then there is St. Benedict, the father of western monasticism, whose famous rule required his monks to open their monasteries to weary travelers, turning no one away, and sharing their meals — including their fine monk-made beer — with their guests.

“Beer is the beverage of community and celebration,” said Lilly Wilson, a faithful Episcopalian who also happens to be one of the most godly people I know. “It's the beverage of letting down your guard, showing your true colors, and building consensus. I like wine as much as the next brewer, but I can't imagine President Obama inviting the gentlemen over for a bottle of Cabernet.”

Charlie Papazian, president of the Brewers Association and author of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, recently explained via the beer-enthusiast Web site TheFullPint.com that for early brewers (who didn’t know that yeast was the magic ingredient that turned beer into beer), God was literally in the pint glass. These ancient beer-makers had a name for the yeasty scud left at the bottom of a shiny beer stein: Godisgood.

“I’m thrilled that beer is back in the White House,” Lilly Wilson said. “The Roosevelts served beer at the White House after Prohibition was lifted. Lyndon Johnson used beer to ease tense situations. Our president embraces beer as natural and normal. Life is good.”

Here’s to peacemaking, chilling out, and finding consensus.

May the God of peace — and Godisgood — be with Obama, Gates, Crowley and all who choose to share a beer as they try to mend fences.

Cheers!

GODSTUFF

TWEETS OF THE PEOPLE: ONLINE PRAYER



God has heard it all before.

You can't afford to take a pilgrimage to one of the world's sacred spots.

It's too hard to find a church, mosque or temple while you're on vacation.

You just can't find the time to pray.

Thanks to new technological advances, you really have no excuses left for avoiding communing with the divine, even during the dog days of summer.

Earlier this month, a clever fellow in Israel made it possible for anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time, to tuck a scrap of paper with their prayer on it into the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem -- via Twitter.

If you "tweet" your prayers to the Twitter account @thekotel, Alon Nil, the service's 25-year-old founder in Tel Aviv, will print them out on paper and have a group of kind souls in Jerusalem take them by hand and tuck them into the wall for you.

You don't have to be Jewish to place a prayer in the Wall -- also known as the Kotel -- the most holy site in Judaism, believed to be last remnant of the Second Temple, and the place closest to the ancient Holy of Holies (and therefore, closest to the Almighty). But you do have to be brief. Even prayers on Twitter are limited to 140 characters (unless you send Nil a private message on Twitter, that is).

Nil's not the only one in Israel to see the social utility of using Twitter for prayer. You can send prayer requests to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem via the Twitter account PrayForGod or through the Web site www.holylandprayer.com.

The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., has set up six separate "prayer feeds" on Twitter. (You can find them all listed at www.prayerontwitter.net.) Ancient practice meets new technology in the form of tweets with bite-size invocations ranging from hourly prayers from the biblical book of Psalms and hourly "Prayers of the People," to literally "Praying the hours" with 24 ancient prayers attributed to St. John Chrysostom for each hour of the day.

For Buddhists on the go, there are several inexpensive applications available for the iPhone (including Mani Wheel, OmWheel and iPrayerwheel) that allow you to pray by twirling your phone and spinning the digital prayer wheel inscribed with the Sanskrit mantra "Om mani padme hum" on the screen. Tibetan Buddhists believe that spinning a prayer wheel inscribed with the mantra is as good as reciting the prayer yourself.

If you want to give the prayer wheel a whirl but don't have an iPhone, you can visit the Prayer Wheel Project at www.manikorlo.org and click a button to "spin" the prayer wheel in Budapest, Hungary.

Muslims are required to pray five times daily at precise times while facing in the direction of Mecca. Several free applications now available for iPhone and BlackBerry devices as well as home computers do the math and the logistics for you. Salaat Time 2.0, Prayer Times for Mobiles and iPray tell you where, when and how to pray and even announce the time for prayer with an electronic adhan, or call to prayer.

Through its Web site www.shivshakti peeth.org, the Shiv Shakti Peeth center in New York offers online temple worship of several Hindu deities, including Ganesha, Hanumana, Krishna, Shiva and Rama. Devotees can listen to recorded bhajans (or devotional songs), mantras or recitations of sacred scripture, and they can even request a special puja (ritual), sacred ashes or a blessing from the temple priest.

No time to jet over to the sacred sites of Fatima, Medjugorje or Lourdes, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared? From your laptop, on www.fatima.org and www.medjugorje.org, you can pray the Rosary with other cyberpilgrims, and at www.lourdes-france.org, you also can send an online prayer request that will be placed in the healing grotto at Lourdes.

There are thousands of online prayer rooms from seemingly every religious tradition -- Beliefnet.com hosts perhaps the widest and largest array -- and if you don't know what to pray for or whom to pray to, you can always light a candle and take a moment to quiet your spirit.

Nearly 8 million people -- including 13,000 in the last two days -- from 242 countries have done just that at www.gratefulness.org. It's free, comes with a short guided meditation, and your candle (which you can mark with your initials so you can find it again) stays lit for 48 hours.

You can always find a sacred place in cyberspace -- no matter where you are.

Oprah, moving and the radio silence...
first sunset in laguna beach, from our living room patio


Hi gang.
Sorry for the radio silence. I've been without my laptop and access to the Interweb for more than two weeks. In fact, I'm writing this from a coffee house in downtown Laguna Beach, California - where we moved last week and where our house is (still) a mountain of boxes.

Anyhoodle, wanted to say hey and to catch up on a few things. First of all, yesterday the episode of Oprah's Soul Series I taped earlier this summer with the (fabulous and lovely) Rev. Ed Bacon aired on XM and Sirius radio yesterday. You can listen to a 10-minute clip of the hourlong episode HERE. The whole episode was filmed as well and that video should be available online soon. Stay tuned ...


Also, here is my column from last week. I'll be back this Friday with an new one.

Cheers from the happiest place on Earth,
GG


GODSTUFF

MOVING IS ABOUT MORE THAN PACKING BOXES

Joining about 20 million other Americans who will move into a new home this summer, my family has just moved.

I've heard it said that moving is one of life's most emotionally stressful events, right behind marriage and divorce. Moving can be spiritually stressful, as well.

Along with figuring out where to hang the artwork, power-washing the decks and deciding whether to go with blinds or drapes (or both) in the sun-soaked living room, I've been thinking about what I want our new home to look like spiritually.

A haven. A sanctuary. A place of love with an open-door (and open-heart) policy.

Warm. Welcoming. Safe.

Some time over the next weeks and months, we'll have our pastor and our rabbi come in and formally bless the house, with all the liturgical bells and whistles. But as we unloaded the moving truck and started to set up a new household these last few days, I wanted to be spiritually, as well as aesthetically, intentional about how thing should be.

In most spiritual traditions, there are prayers, rituals and even liturgies for blessing a new home. There also are plenty of superstitions about what to do when moving to a new home.

According to British folklore, the first visitor to the new home (or on the new year) is an important harbinger of things to come. That visitor, known as the quaaltagh, or "first foot," should be a tall, dark-haired man who brings gifts, such as a coin, bread, salt, coal or whisky, thereby ensuring prosperity, sustenance, flavor, warmth and mirth.

While we didn't plan it, the first visitor at the new house was our old friend David, who, luckily, is tall with a shock of black, curly hair. When David turned up to say welcome, he didn't bring anything, but he was wearing flip-flops with sand in the treads. I figure that counts as salt, so at the very least our new place should be flavorful (and, given the flip-flops, laid-back, too.)

In some parts of India, the traditional Hindu ritual for blessing a new house involves reciting mantras while a cow is led through all the rooms of the house, followed by boiling some of the cow's milk in the new kitchen.

We don't have a cow, but our cat Cleo is pretty hefty. She was the first one to trot through all the rooms in the house and the first "meal" prepared in our new kitchen was a bowl of kitty kibble. So . . .

In all seriousness, though, in spiritually preparing our new home, I knew that prayer would be the most important part of the process. What should we pray? How could we best articulate our spiritual hopes for this new, hopefully sacred, space?

I did some research and found a number of beautiful prayers, some ancient, others newfangled but no less powerful, that will be on our minds as we unpack our boxes -- all 237 of them.

The traditional Jewish prayer for a new home -- Baruch ata A-do-nai Elo-heinu melech haolam she-hech-e-ya-nu v'ki-ma-nu v'hi-gi-ya-nu lazman hazeh -- begins by thanking the Almighty for sustaining us and bringing us to this (new) place.

In Catholicism, one of the prayers in the house-blessing ritual recalls Jesus' birth to the Virgin Mary. Through her, Christian tradition teaches, Jesus made his new home amidst the human race. I thought about that for a long time -- the idea that Jesus' incarnation was perhaps the biggest and most emotionally stressful relocation ever. The Christian faith tells us that Jesus experienced all that the rest of us do, including, it would seem, the drama involved with moving into a house.

The Irish have a wonderfully eloquent gift for crafting blessings. One Irish house-blessing in particular struck a chord with me. It prays for, in part, walls to shelter us from the wind, a roof to keep the rain from our heads, tea by the fire to comfort us, and laughter and the company of friends to cheer us. "May you have warm words on a cold evening," it says, "a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door."

The prayer I chose to pray as we crossed the threshold of our new home was one I discovered on the Web site of St. Mary's Hospital and Medical Center in Evansville, Ind., called "Prayer for New Beginnings."

It is beautiful and simple and clear, touching on the anxieties and hopes that come with a new home. If you're one of the millions of stressed-out, sweaty folks packing up and starting afresh in a new place, perhaps it will be a comfort to you, too.

God of new beginnings, we are walking into mystery.

We face the future, not knowing what the days and months will bring us or how we will respond.

Be love in us as we journey.

May we welcome all who come our way.

Deepen our faith to see all life through your eyes.

Fill us with hope and an abiding trust that you dwell in us amidst all our joys and sorrows.

Thank you for the treasure of our faith life.

Thank you for the gift of being able to rise each day with the assurance of your walking through the day with us.

God of our past and future, we praise you.

Amen.

Chisomo.



We're busy packing for our move to California this week.
Pardon the radio silence for the next several days.
Grace and all good things.
GG

p.s. Merci mille fois to Chuck Osgood for the beautiful picture.

Farewell, Chicago: A Playlist

This is our last weekend in Chicago before we pack up the wagons and head west for the promised land of Laguna Beach, California.

We're having folks over for a Fourth of July cook out tonite (please, please don't rain!), and we made a goodbye mix for the occasion. It's been 21 years (GG) and 40 years (Crime Boy) in the City of Big Shoulders (and environs), so you'll forgive us if the playlist is 162 tracks long.

We'll miss you, Chicago.

And So It Goes Billy Joel
Brokedown Palace (Remastered LP Version) Grateful Dead
Bad Moon Rising Creedence Clearwater Revival
Glory Hallelujah The Swan Silvertones
Over the Hills and Far Away Led Zeppelin
We Will Rock You KRS-One
Every Day I Have the Blues Buddy Guy & Junior Wells
Darkness On the Edge of Town Bruce Springsteen
Something Lehbanchleh
Fix You Coldplay
California Joni Mitchell
Save a Seat for Me B.B. King
Shower The People James Taylor
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) Bob Dylan
Don't Give Up (Africa) Alicia Keys & Bono
Essence Lucinda Williams
Re: Stacks Bon Iver
Vienna Billy Joel
Will the Circle Be Unbroken The Staple Singers
Rebel Rebel Seu Jorge
With a Little Help from My Friends Ellis Island
Come Together Edi Fitzroy Featuring Bigga Star
Norwegian Wood Wayne Armond
Her New Church Paul Cebar
Not While I'm Around Kurt Elling
Fisherman's Blues The Waterboys
A Place Like That The Caravans
My Favourite Thing Ambre McLean
One U2
Please Be Patient With Me Wilco
A Little Less Conversation Elvis vs. JXL
If God Will Send His Angels (Single) U2
Lady (You Bring Me Up) The Commodores
Sugar Magnolia (Remastered Version) Grateful Dead
Soul Rebel Bob Marley
Give a Man a Fish Arrested Development
Lift Me Up Moby
Wake Up Everybody Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Proud Mary Creedence Clearwater Revival
Anticipation Carly Simon
Soul Man Sam & Dave
Precious Lord B.B. King
Proud Mary Ike & Tina Turner
Crazy Love, Vol. II (Remastered Version) Paul Simon
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Marvin Gaye
Feeling That Way Journey
Golden Blunders The Posies
Nick of Time Bonnie Raitt
Love Will Keep Us Together Bridgette Romanek
Lion's Mane Iron & Wine
Talk About the Passion R.E.M.
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
You Can Get It If You Really Want Jimmy Cliff
We Can Work It Out Steel Pulse
When Love Comes to Town U2 & B.B. King
Junebug The B-52's
You’ll Never Walk Alone The Five Blind Boys Of Alabama
Kneel and Pray The Cross Jordan Singers
Is This Love (Album Version) Bob Marley
Get Up On the Good Foot James Brown
The Song Remains the Same Led Zeppelin
Sweet Thing The Waterboys
By Your Side Sade
I Left My Wallet In El Segundo (Vampire Mix) Fatboy Slim
Chicago Sufjan Stevens
When It Sings Elvis Costello
Good Night Sunshine Jason Harrod
A Thousand Beautiful Things Annie Lennox
Hard Headed Woman Cat Stevens
I'd Run Away The Jayhawks
In the Sky The Pilgrim Travelers
That Unhinged Thing Paul Cebar And The Milwaukeeans
I Saw A Stranger With Your Hair John Gorka
Box of Rain Grateful Dead
The Past And Pending The Shins
Imagine Chalice
Absinthe Beth Orton
Goin' to Chicago Count Basie and His Orchestra
What's Going On Marvin Gaye
The Long Way Around Dixie Chicks
Overjoyed Stevie Wonder
Here Comes Your Man Pixies
Love That Boy The Innocence Mission
Trouble Ray LaMontagne
Katmandu Cat Stevens
Just a Closer Walk With Thee Little Richard
I’ve Been Saved The Argo Singers
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) Beyoncé
Stand By Me Ben E. King
You're So Vain Carly Simon
God’s Wonderful Love The Staple Singers
Silver Springs Fleetwood Mac
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters Elton John
Coming Up Close 'Til Tuesday
Wondering Where The Lions Are Bruce Cockburn
Ice Cream Sarah McLachlan
The Boy In the Bubble (Remastered Version)Paul Simon
The Things I've Gone and Done Carrie Newcomer
Graceland (Remastered Version) Paul Simon
Yesterday Mankind
Turn Me On Norah Jones
Something In the Night Bruce Springsteen
The Promised Land Bruce Springsteen
Pilgrimage R.E.M.
Didn't Leave Me No Ladder Paul Cebar
Hang on St. Christopher Tom Waits
Real Love David Gray
I'm Still in Love With You Al Green
Blame It On My Youth Kurt Elling
Here Comes the Sun The Burning Souls
Mojo Hand Lightnin' Hopkins
Juliet of the Spirits The B-52's
Holding Back The Years Simply Red
One Johnny Cash
I Heard It Through the Grapevine Creedence Clearwater Revival
People Make the World Go Round The Stylistics
Frank's Song Tom Waits
Highway to Heaven Mahalia Jackson
The Ghost of Tom Joad Bruce Springsteen
Paper Bag Fiona Apple
Leave Me (Like You Found Me) Wilco
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien Edith Piaf
Chicago Rufus Wainwright
Maybe Alison Krauss & Union Station
In My Life Mello
Hey Tonight Creedence Clearwater Revival
One Love / People Get Ready (Album Version) Bob Marley
Life On Mars? David Bowie
In A Lifetime Clannad
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough Michael Jackson
Not Ready to Make Nice Dixie Chicks
Love Shack The B-52's
Change Is Hard She & Him
Shanti / Ashtangi Madonna
Fergalicious Fergie
D'yer Mak'er Led Zeppelin
Across The Universe Rufus Wainwright
One of These Things First Nick Drake
Racing In the Street Bruce Springsteen
Somebody Bigger Than You & I Mahalia Jackson
Trench Town Rock Bob Marley & The Wailers
Lord Don’t Move the Mountain Mahalia Jackson
She Loves You Hugh J.
Hey Jude Toots & The Maytals
Natural Mystic Bob Marley & The Wailers
Love Is Teasin' The Chieftains & Marianne Faithful
Prove It All Night Bruce Springsteen
One of These Days The Caravans
Thank You World World Party
Little Earthquakes Carrie Newcomer
She's the One World Party
I Get A Kick Out Of You Ethel Merman
Messed Up Everywhere Blues Jason Harrod
My Sweet Lord George Harrison
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Live) U2
Give More Power to the People (For Gods' Sake) The Chi-Lites
United We Stand Sunny (from Brotherhood Of Man) & Tony Burrows
Blackbird Sarah McLachlan
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right Bob Dylan
Stir It Up Bob Marley & The Wailers
Someday Soon David Wilcox
Something to Talk About Bonnie Raitt

GODSTUFF

IN THE BEGINNING:
HAROLD RAMIS TAKES ON GENESIS IN 'YEAR ONE'



Last month, Harold Ramis, the writer, director and actor of comedy classics such as "Caddyshack," and "Groundhog Day," released "Year One," a raucous comedy starring Jack Black as Z, a caveman who gets thrown out of his tribe and village for breaking its one rule, only to stumble upon a civilization populated by characters from the Bible, beginning with Adam and Eve.

"Year One," which Ramis describes as a "high-minded, low comedy," has received a decidedly mixed reception, both commercially and critically. But I think it's one of those slow burners -- a film so silly on the surface that the big ideas lying underneath take time to take hold.

Ramis' latest film reminds me a lot of Kevin Smith's "Dogma," a sometimes gross, ribald, obscene comedy that has some of the most articulate and powerful things to say about faith, religion and the grace of God in film.

At a special screening of the film for Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living, the Highland Park, IL synagogue that he joined with his family not long after 9/11, Ramis talked about the spiritual ideas behind "Year One."

On Sept. 11, 2001, Ramis was in New York City. "We were on our way to LaGuardia when the first plane hit," he recalled. "I started thinking a lot about the fundamentalisms and orthodoxies that have driven world conflict for a very long time and drive a deep-seated internal conflict we all have. Is life meaningful? Is it purposeful? Is there a creator and a God who watches over us and actually cares about what we do. Or have we generated all of that as a response to uncertainty in the world."

Not long after the terrorist attacks, Ramis, who has described himself spiritually as "Buddhish" -- culturally Jewish but more Buddhist in practice and beliefs -- attended Rosh Hashana services at Aitz Hayim.

The rabbi "told stories of people who either were at the World Trade Center or might have been but chose not to be for whatever reason. I think he said . . . 'uncertainty is the condition of life and randomness is its expression.' I kind of believe that orthodoxy and fundamentalism is an effort to blot out that uncertainty. It's just too painful for a lot of people and too frightening to live in a world where they are responsible. But I think that's the essence of being Jewish, to take personal responsibility."

Ramis, who was raised in a Jewish home in Chicago and even attended an Orthodox yeshiva for six months, turned to the Torah.



"I thought I would track through Genesis and see how we got where we are . . . When the studio said, 'What's the movie about?' I said I want to track the psychosocial development of civilization through the Old Testament,' and they said, 'We can't really put that on a poster,' " Ramis said. "Who are Adam and Eve, really, in the Bible? Obviously they are primitive man. They live in a garden. They are hunter-gatherers. Everything is given to them. There's no moral authority because they don't even have any concept of ethics yet because it's not required. So they live in a state of innocence, and then they're driven from the garden because they broke the one rule.

"Our main characters, of course, eat the fruit. The consequence is an awakening into the existential dilemma, because that's what God lays out. 'Now you're going to be mortal.' That's the first premise in existentialism. Life is finite. We're all going to die. . . . They venture out into the world, a world of moral chaos. The first person they meet is Cain [David Cross] who is already in this deep sibling rivalry with Abel [Paul Rudd]. So I wanted to look at that. We kind of play Cain as the first sociopath. He's a narcissist [who] sees the world entirely from his point of view."

It would be easy to dismiss "Year One" for its fart, poop and pee jokes (it has all three). But there is a soul beneath the sight gags.

"Jack Black's character believes that he's been chosen, that he has a special destiny," Ramis said. "It's the only way to explain how he screws up so often. It's not his fault. Something is guiding him. He won't take personal responsibility for what's happening. It's externally derived. God wants him to do it. 'Why did I eat that fruit? Maybe God wanted me to eat the fruit.' He thinks he's chosen. His young partner, Michael Cera [as the character Oh], believes that life is totally random and accidental, and therefore terrifying to him. When they encounter Abraham [Hank Azaria], who also believes he's chosen, we begin to see what the effects of an external God who speaks to you is, who tells Abraham to sacrifice his son."

One of the main characters from the Book of Genesis is missing from "Year One": The Almighty.

"Our characters keep debating, God/no God. Philosophically what it says is, whether you believe in God or not makes no difference. You still have the obligation to act responsibly in the world," Ramis said.

"God does not make an appearance in the film. That's up to you," he said, chuckling. "But I do play Adam."

GODSTUFF

2009 SPIRITUAL SUMMER READING LIST

For many of us, summer sets a more leisurely pace when we can get around to the things we love to do but often don’t have time for the rest of the year.
Like reading. And reflection.
My summer will be a busy one as I’m moving house and settling into a new community while finishing a new book manuscript on deadline. Still, I have a stack of books I hope to make room for while the nights are long and the living is easier.
For those of you inclined toward contemplating the Spirit (or your navel), here is my Top 10 Spiritual Summer Reading List for 2009.


Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir
By Susan Isaacs
This is one of the funniest, most inspiring books I’ve read in many a summer. Call it a middle-class-white-girl’s Dark Night of the Soul. Isaacs — an actor, writer and comedian — takes God to couples counseling and finds out that her troubled “marriage” is mostly her own, hilarious fault. Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, put it this way: “If King David were a woman, and were funny, he'd be Susan Isaacs.”

The Help
By Kathryn Stockett
A friend who lives in rural Mississippi recommended this debut novel to me. “The Help,” she said, “go get it right now!” Set in 1960s Jackson, Miss., during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, Stockett tells the story of an unlikely counter-cultural heroine and young would-be writer named Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who takes on the racist mores of the “cake-eating, Tab-swilling, cigarette-smoking” white women of Jackson society who enlist the help of black women to raise their children, but don’t trust them to polish the silver. It’s a heavy subject, but Stockett tells the story with wit and compassion.

God Says No
By James Hannaham
Like The Help, Hannaham’s novel navigates the dangerous world where faith and culture clash. In this case, it’s the intersection of religion and sexuality that provides the drama as Gary Gray, a young black man, struggles to reconcile his homosexuality and his Christian faith. Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) calls God Says No, “A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. A revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world.”

Jesus Was a Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All
By Scotty McLennan
The author, McLennan, is dean of religious life at Stanford University and the real-life inspiration for the Rev. Scott Sloan of the comic strip Doonesbury fame. His book is a manifesto of sorts for those who are both unapologetically Christian and liberal. He takes readers through the major concerns of liberal Christianity, both theological and social, and draws conclusions that are sure to both enrage and amuse those who don’t share them.

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
By Janet Soskice
Set for release on Aug. 20, this book tells the little-known, fascinating story of Agnes and Margaret Smith, identical twins from Scotland who, in the late 19th century, travel to the Holy Lands and discover what were at the time the earliest known copies of the Gospels.

Between Wyomings: My God and an iPod on the Open Road
By Ken Mansfield
Grammy award-winning country music producer Mansfield takes readers on a trip through his own soul via stories from his heady days in the music biz, from the Hollywood Hills to London’s Saville Row to Nashville Honky Tonks. His own journey might inspire you to take your own.

Home Tonight: Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son
By Henri Nouwen
This slim paperback by the late theologian and author Nouwen is a gem. Long a favorite of mine, Nouwen tells the story of his own spiritual homecoming in this book that expands on his original classic The Return of the Prodigal Son. This volume is taken from a series of workshops Nouwen led about his encounter with Rembrandt’s 17th-century painting also called The Return of the Prodigal son. If you’re about to take a summer road trip, you might consider snapping up the audio version of this book, due to be released later this month.

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma
By Brad Warner
Warner, author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up, is a Zen monk and a punk rock musician who spent years working for a Japanese monster-movie company. His short bio alone makes this memoir intriguing. Add the story line of losing his mother, his grandmother, his job and his wife; with equal parts Zen-infused spiritual insight and bold truth-telling and you’ve got a page-turner.

The New Jew: An Unexpected Conversion
By Sally Srok Friedes
This breezy memoir recounts how Friedes, a nice Catholic girl from Milwaukee, became a nice New York City Jewish wife, in a decade-long adventure that takes her through marriage, motherhood, and spiritual transformation.

Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine
By Huston Smith with Jeffrey Payne
At age 90, Smith, the spiritual adventurer and author of the religious classic The World’s Religions, tells tales from a lifetime on the front lines of religious exploration in search of God and authentic spiritual experience. From spinning with Sufi dervishes to dropping acid with Timothy Leary, Smith’s stories of, as he calls it, “whoring after the Infinite” are infinitely fascinating.