Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

I've been reading and thinking lately about eco -theology, a topic I've just become aware of, though it may have been around for years. J. and I consider ourselves environmentalists-in-the-making. We recycle everything. Last month I recycled the gas/electric bill before I paid it (this was the source of much hilarity when I had to call them up and ask for the amount due). Last year, when the plight of the honeybee was in the news, J. called our lawn-care company and had them eliminate anything non-organic from their applications to our lawn (so now we have weeds; oh well; I'm the one who wants to turn the front lawn into a meadow anyway!). But we have miles to go before we make any impact, if we ever do! So I've been reading Thomas Berry, who echoes my feeling that everything belongs, and that we and the earth and all its inhabitants are all interconnected. I could quote from every page of Evening Thoughts (but I won't, so I'll still have some friends left!). I...

Sigh. After almost 4 months on this diet, I have managed to lose ..... (Drum roll, please) .... 12 pounds. OK, it's 12 pounds I didn't need. And if I stopped having a couple of glasses of wine in the evening, it would be more. Maybe. What I really want is a HUGE BOWL OF PASTA! and a WHOLE BAG OF POTATO CHIPS! But that's not happening. I shall continue with Lean Cuisine frozen dinners. My husband is enormously proud of me. Because he doesn't see me sneaking peanut butter!

Cheering for anything a typical Supreme Court does is not a normal reaction of mine, but there you go! California rocks !

I will freely admit that taking the long view is not something I'm good at. When I see an injustice, I want it fixed --- right now . And since we know God's time is not necessarily our time, I am often left waiting, with empty hands. But after finishing Bishop Gene Robinson's new book, In the Eye of the Storm , I feel a deep sense of calm and peace about the turmoil we Anglicans find ourselves in, even if I think I know what to do to fix it -- right now . The exclusion of GLBT folks may not end right now, but it will surely end. After all, we have been through this before: Our Anglican difficulties today aren't really new. They're just a new chapter in a very old conflict that started a couple of thousand years ago, and the Holy spirit has been there in the midst of every battle, large and small. People often ask me when this infighting will end. My response is always a rather pessimistic "never." Because just as soon as we make some serious progress on...

As I write, our daughter, M., whose nose is not as tolerant as mine, is de-skunking Amber with some substance she purchased at Petsmart. This process will culminate in a shower for Amber (in my shower). I have to admit I'm smiling as I imagine my slender, petite daughter wrestling a 50 pound dog into the shower. I hope I still have an intact bathroom to come home to!

J. called me on his cell phone from the nearby woods, where he had taken the three dogs to run. "Amber got skunked!" 'OK, how is she?" I asked. "She wiped her face on my pants," he said. "Well, her eyes were burning," I suggested. "How is she now?" "She's rolling in the dirt," he replied. "What should we do?" "Not much, necessarily," I replied. "We'll leave her outside for awhile. Maybe bathe her in peroxide. Let's see how she is when you get home," Of course, he was unconvinced, not realizing that dogs have been skunked for thousands (if not millions) of years. When they got home, Amber was mostly herself (aside from smelling a little funky). Skunk smell has never bothered me much -- it's a sign that I'm (finally) in the country. I took J's jeans and proceeded to the basement, to put them in the wash. And all the time I was thinking, "You weenie! What's a little s...

I've just finished reading The End of Faith , by Sam Harris, which I picked up in a bookstore on Dupont Circle while traveling on business in DC last week. Sam Harris is apparently a philosophy grad who is getting a Ph .D. in neuroscience, "studying the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty," according to the back cover. He writes an impressive book, I must say. Since I am married to an agnostic who is the son of an agnostic, I figure it behooves me to pay attention to the opposition, even if I start off as a hard sell. The basic tenet of the book, as I surmise, is that religion -- any religion -- that cannot prove its claims scientifically has no claim to anyone's belief. Harris also claims (correctly) that religion has become an inappropriate subject for criticism in the modern world ... a taboo subject, particularly as far as Islam goes (he presents a rather devastating summary of Islamic beliefs, which I am not qualified to critique). And ...