You know how, in the competitions during the summer Olympics, the divers’ scores are often calculated on the basis of the difficult of the dives that they are attempting?
Ultra-tasty story; tiny hint of ghost
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The rising web ordinations
After our engagement, my husband suggested we put on a Google wedding: send out Google invitations through Gmail connected through Google Calendar, plan the wedding through Google Documents and then post wedding photos on Google’s Picasa and video on Google’s YouTube. I quickly nixed the idea, but I briefly wondered if we could’ve hired a Google pastor to perform the ceremony.
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The dead beat
The other day my three-year-old daughter told me she missed her cemetery. (Until a few weeks ago, we lived near a beautiful, historic cemetery in Washington, D.C. We’d take walks in it most days and read tombstones as we played and ran around.) I loved hearing her say that because I always loved the cemeteries I grew up around, too. As a pastor’s kid, I wasn’t shielded from death and dying. I love Lutheran funerals so much that I’ve been known to attend ones for members of my congregation I wasn’t close to. And while I never planned out my wedding, I have written down what hymns I want sung at my funeral. And I’ve told my husband I want as simple a box as possible and no embalming. I do want a nice tombstone and I want my family to come visit me often.
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Fine line between shallow, spiritual
The word through the grapevine is that tmatt is wrapping up end-of-the-semester grading this afternoon.
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Explaining Festivus to the rest of us
I’m surprised we haven’t seen more coverage of Festivus, which is something of a countercultural tradition in more ironic circles. It was the holiday that became famous after it was written into a Seinfeld episode. Thirteen years ago, believe it or not.
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When local Lutherans split
This week the Colorado Springs Gazette had a report about a trio of churches that have left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over their departure from traditional Lutheran teaching. Here’s the lede:
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As usual, RNS gets religion
After writing thousands of news stories, features and personal columns in my 20-year reporting career, I see myself as a veteran journalist and a competent one at that.
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What did they know?
Here’s the New York Times‘ latest piece about sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Europe. It’s brief but unbelievably sad. Here’s the lede:
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Why Muslims don't adopt?
Late last month, the Associated Press‘ Rachel Zoll had a really interesting and important story about Muslim adoption. Or, rather, a story about how Islam, while encouraging care for orphans, forbids adoption. Almost immediately we heard from readers — some of them adoptive parents, some of them Muslim or having Muslim family members. They said that they enjoyed what the story said but were very surprised about something very important that was missing from the story.
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