Religion Dispatches
…ote The Passion of The Christ 4. Drink 5. Drive 6. Repeat Pope Benedict 1. Order unkosher communion wafers 2. Get a little behind in work 3. Party like it’s 1483 4. Two-four-six-eight, who should I excommunicate? 5. Order Mother Teresa sticky buns 6. Fine vendors selling Pope on a rope Bristol Palin 1. Pray for mom’s soul 2. Buy Revolve 2010 (Biblezine) 3. Get Promise Keepers application for Levi 4. Become a True Woman 5. Baby Making Time! 6. Refi…
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…xious and afraid, might gather for help. The subways were closed, and cell phone service had gone out. I had no other idea how to find my friends, no idea where else to go. At the very least, I thought I had a responsibility to the Muslim students on campus. (Then again, I really had no idea what to do. I just thought I had to do something, anything, to help.) Walking into our prayer space, which was located inside a Catholic church, I saw a frien…
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…shukr then with a new resound. I think about those gifts from Allah that we do not reflect upon. Think about it, how many of you gave thanks for the rising of the sun today? Yet, if the sun had not risen, we would all have taken note. Shukr then is ALSO to take note when the everyday ordinary goes according to plan. Don’t wait for the bridge to collapse, and don’t wait for some one to die, give thanks now and give it often. Thank you Allah for all…
Read More…at cross purposes. My first thought was to kick myself for leaving my cell phone behind. This would have made a terrific picture. My second thought was to find a less obtrusive spot where I could watch to see how this excruciatingly slow drama would play out. But before I could move, my husband drifted up behind me in his kayak, took one look at the frog and snake and muttered, “I can’t take this.” Over my objections (“But it’s nature!”) Jeff stre…
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…eir microwave, not to bring their toaster oven and not to bring their cell phone. It was almost funny. Following that announcement from the now infamous loud “speaker,” he said that fajr prayer would be at 5:40. I should have thought more clearly about this, but as it stands, I have three different prayer time schedules: my iphone has one from the Ipray app; and I printed one off line from Islamicity; then collected one from my favorite mosque, wh…
Read More…tch ride outside the gates of the estate where I can have bars for my cell phone and get in touch with them later today. Before the shaykh arrives, I continue with my Qur’an reading. I don’t use the tiny mp3 player anymore because this last juz’ includes most of the Qur’an that I have memorized myself, and this is more a review than a simple reflective read. Coming to the end of the Qur’an reading is also melancholy, and I forget why I felt I shou…
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…ones blocked by Murguia, on a schedule that would make them permanent. In order to be permanent, the regulations would have to take effect only after a period of public comment. By contrast, the regulations sent out in late June could be applied so quickly only because the agency described them as temporary. Correction: This story originally stated that all three Kansas abortion clinics, including Aid For Women, were licensed as ambulatory surgic…
Read More…entified himself as a Christian of a distinct stripe by advocating burning phone books that advertise abortion and then said he doesn’t have a Qur’an but if he did he would “feed it page by page to (his) goat who would be impervious to its lies.” He then admitted he’d not read the Qur’an because he “doesn’t read fiction.” Another who insisted he didn’t “hate other religions or cultures” then argued that the “so-called Christians” (referring to the…
Read More…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…
Read More…odern marketplace of religious ideas, choosing my “beliefs” from a smorgasbord of options. But then in the last sentence she seems to suggest that there might be a “marketplace” motive to my actions—that I might stand to benefit in the marketplace from my yearlong experience of atheism. First of all, I’m not sure what the marketplace of religious beliefs and practices has to do with my possible success. It also seems to assume that I crassly set o…
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