Religion Dispatches
…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
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…eteronormative uncontracepted sex in monogamous marriage.” Sections 243 and 299 would also disappoint any divorced and remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion openly. Pope Francis says they should be treated with care and kindness and respect, but he stops short of giving them access to receiving Communion. He offers the same condescension to LGBT Catholics in Section 250 when he says should be treated with care, kindness and respect, bu…
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…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…
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…ces—is not your average daydreamer scribbling at the side of the road. The car he’s driving in the above scene is a squad car, and his thoughts on Whitman aren’t in the form of soliloquy, but an impassioned conversation with his partner, a fellow officer in the Chicago Police Department. Yet it is devotion to writing that has led to a career in law enforcement. After hitchhiking around the country, working as a doorman and a bouncer, illegally par…
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…t luxury, huh?” As this monologue proceeds, we realize this is no ordinary car ride, but one involving a shiny new Chrysler (the new Chrysler 200, as it turns out) driven by Eminem, a Detroit native. As the car moves deeper and deeper into the city, a hum that seems to emerge from the sounds of the city itself begins to cohere into a discernible soundtrack: first a pulsating rhythm, then a driving guitar riff, and ultimately a chorus of voices voc…
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…me for so long. I began my death vigil, knowing that very soon a speeding car would take my life. A selfish thing really—to ruin the life of whoever was unfortunate enough to be driving that car while taking my own. At fifteen, you don’t really think through the consequences of any of your actions. All you know is, you want the pain to stop. You want the burden to be lifted. At fifteen, all you want to do is fit in—desperately—to be part of the i…
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…IS fighters who captured him as a man in the village to whom he had sold a car. The car dealer was from the Kurdish ethnic community; the man who bought his car was an Arab. When the town was surrounded by ISIS, the militants forcibly divided the population into its Kurdish and Arab groups. One of the Arabs suggested that representatives from both groups wave a white flag and go to the ISIS leaders to negotiate their way out of the situation. That…
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…is victims committed suicide. He was in prison from 2001 to 2006. Douglas McArthur McCain At 33 years old, Douglas McArthur McCain became the first American killed while fighting for the jihadist group ISIS. McCain was raised in mainstream American culture, a fan of Michael Jordan, “The Simpsons”and Pizza Hut. He reverted to Islam, as he described it, in 2004. “I must say In sha Allah,”he wrote, using an Arabic phrase meaning “God willing,”“I will…
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…r, and we’d go down to Nordstrom’s. She loved Nordstrom’s, and DSW. So I’d carry her packages. And while we were out there shopping we would talk. And we would talk and we would talk. And we would start talking theological things. And she would tell me what she believed. And I would let her tell me. and I’d say: Let’s humanize it for a minute. I’m your daughter. And I’m a same-gender loving person. Do you really believe that I’m out of relationshi…
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