What do those old scriptures have to say about our new snark?

Why do people feel as if they can say derogatory, cruel, and often very personal things about people whose only offense has been to say  something with which they disagree?

What happens to our communities, particularly our faith communities, when we attack and bite and wound each other?

Why do so many "people of faith" jump in there up to their knees in the mud?

And I wonder...would God approve?

I do believe that God is also One of ordinary things. Do you ?

http://lancasteronline.com/lifestyle/faith_and_values/column-does-god-care-about-our-petty-little-squabbles/article_38079af6-8aba-11e3-ae7e-0017a43b2370.html

With a heavy heart...

Have you been to a Zumiez?

We have one locally, at the Exton Mall.  About 20 minutes from where we live, it's cleverly constructed to appeal to hipsters and rebels (or those who like to think of themselves as rebels).  Zumiez advertises itself as offering clothing for those part of the snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfer "lifestyle."

Nice stuff.  And expensive.

My daughter used to hang out at Zumiez.  She had a friend who worked in the Mall store.  Remarkable to me chiefly because of the gauges that had pulled his earlobes down so far that they would require surgery to repair, he was also a sweet young man.

So I can imagine the Zumiez at the Columbia Mall before the shooting.  I have a lot of trouble imagining it afterwards.

Brianna Beniolo and Tyler Johnson died in the Zumiez today.  They were both on their twenties. I know lots of parents with kids around that age.  Sometimes you are an adult at that age -- sometimes you aspire.

But most times, you still have optimism, and dreams.  Today a gunman took away Brianna and Tyler's dreams. 

This is a country in which those who favor an unfettered access to guns control the shots, as it were, though, as this Pew survey shows, when it comes to gun control, we are a divided country. 

(A majority still favor more restrictions).

There will be inevitably, conversation about how strict Maryland gun laws didn't prevent gun violence. But that's kind of a bogus argument. Who knows where the guns came from? Who knows how safely they were kept? Who knows the mental status of the gunman (though I think we'll find out)?

The alleged shooter, who killed himself after he killed Brianna and Tyler, was 19.  Old enough to buy a gun, but not yet old enough to legally buy beer.

What troubles me more, this evening, as I grieve from a distance for Brianna and Tyler, is how much violence we are willing to tolerate in our culture.

How many other nations not engaged in war with other hostile nations or in civil war with each other have kids shot on college campuses (at least two this week) and at shopping malls?  How many have the rates of homicide and suicide we do?

Look in the freaking mirror, America. 

How many are as complacent as we seem about the terrible toll of this violence?

There is evidence that "gun safe" zones are actually safer (I know the gun lobby will busy themselves with that argument, too, saying one more gun would have saved them).

When "your" right to own a gun, under almost any and all conditions impinges on our sons and daughter's right to feel safe on a college campus (or a kindergarten or a middle school), then I have to wonder a whether many Americans have made an idol out of "freedom." What about life and the pursuit of happiness? Brianna and Tyler won't get to do that, either.

Tonight that idol has a face.  Or several faces.  You'll be seeing them in your newspaper tomorrow. 

It's all about the punishing the cover-up bishops, say Catholic child-abuse activists

Will Pope Francis be as tough on erring bishops as Benedict was on predator priests?

Will brother bishops disciple their colleagues?

Catholic activists say it needs to happen for the church to heal.

http://lancasteronline.com/lifestyle/faith_and_values/column-pope-prelates-must-punish-sex-offenders/article_23d19142-84aa-11e3-8f5d-001a4bcf6878.html

Lies, damned lies, and....

The older I get, the more I realize that I need to question my assumptions.

I'm not talking about the fundamentals of  faith (though I have learned to live with, and to accept doubt as my shadowy companion).

Rather, I often question the nature of knowing itself.

Fear not, I'm not going all epistemological on you.

Instead, I am learning to question what is proffered, 24/7, as knowledge, via scientific certainties,  statistics, studies, and surveys.

A few weeks ago, the Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life came out with the results of a poll it had done last spring, revealing an apparent growing discrepancy between what Republicans and Democrats think about the scientific theory of evolution (Darwin and all that).

The media,  including me, leapt all over it. I solicited comments on my FB page to explain the results. Some saw them as predictable. Others questioned the results.  Still others queried the way the poll was done.

Fortunately for me, I got sidetracked, and didn't end up writing about the Pew poll until this past week.  By then, experts on statistics had time to take apart the results, and to argue that much of the media frenzy was a tempest in a teapot.

What do you think? Feel free to comment, either here or at wwwlnpnews.com.

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/945349_Column--Our-evolving-provisional-knowledge.html

Defrocked pastor Frank Schaefer: a lighting rod and a storyteller

Because I didn't attend the denominational trial and hear his testimony, I haven't spent a lot of time sorting out my impressions of Frank Schaefer, defrocked by United Methodist Church leaders for officiating at his son's same-sex wedding (and then refusing to promise he would abide by denominational proscriptions) .

But after speaking with him, I had one clear impression -- this is a man without guile.

That's a pretty remarkable trait in any professional environment.  Yes, even in the church.  Perhaps especially in the church.

He's preaching at three services this Sunday in Lancaster's First United Methodist Church.
Go listen, and judge for yourself. Whatever you think of Schaefer's choices, his story is still compelling. And whether the context is a lecture, a book or a sermon, the story is often what we remember, isn't it?



http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/944167_Defrocked-Lebanon-pastor-to-speak-at-Lancaster-church.html

The real world, and those who live in it

It would be too easy to dismiss the two writers here as self-satisfied polemicists. But, as exasperated as I am by their rhetoric, I can't quite do so. Sadly, I think their "top-down," often patronizing tone is typical of the kind of spiritual leadership we often see in public life (the fact that the two concerned are men doesn't make this easier to swallow).

Don't you think we need sages who will talk WITH us...not AT each other?

Who will treat us as adults trying to make difficult decisions, not think of us as pawns on a chessboard?

Where are the leaders who have inhabited the difficult places in which we often find ourselves?

Where are the women and men who help find solutions...instead of signing on with the problem?

Feel free to comment, please.

 http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/942614_Column--Views-from-the-murky-middle.html

Kindness (and manners) matter

Last week my son invited a few school friends over to his dad's home for movie night.

He had the menu all planned out.  He was pumped, looking forward to an enjoyable evening with his pals.

A few hours before I was to drive him down to his dad's house, one of the students canceled.

Then, in quite succession, so did the other.

Looking at his dejected face, my heart ached for him.

It's one of those parenting moments when you want so much to comfort your child, but the words just don't come.

Instead, thinking it might make him stronger, I told him that many adults were just as commitment-phobic.

But it doesn't mean, I said, that you should respond in kind. Courtesy in small things makes a big difference.

I still believe, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary around me, that the small courtesies matter.

A few years ago I started having a small open house to mark the new year.

It's relaxed, not at all fancy, and, I hope, enjoyable.

Yesterday's event was lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed my guests. It was a really nice afternoon, at least for this hostess.

But getting to the afternoon was aggravating, to say the least.

A few people say "yes" and "no" to my invite, almost as soon as I created and posted the Evite. Gold stars for being so conscientious.

A few said "maybe" (I couldn't figure out how to eliminate this term from the invitation).

From the rest? Crickets.

Descending to passive-aggressive plaintiveness, I posted a carefully worded reminder on Facebook for those on the site.  In addition, I sent the invitation again to those who hadn't yet replied.

That elicited a few more responses, which was very helpful.

I never heard from roughly half of those invited.

And some of those who responded with a "yes' never showed up, the majority without any explanation (though Facebook is useful in this regard).

As Emily Yoffe points out in this post from Slate,  people generally know whether or not they can make an event when they get the invitation. A minority may actually have a conflict (a friend of mine was recovering from major surgery).  But the rest? It does, as the columnist suggests, make the host or hostess wonder whether they are social pariahs.

I found Yoffe's reflections both helpful and straightforward.

Yet I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Am I too uptight? Should I just feel positive about having had such a lovely time with those who did show up?

I don't know. As usual, I live in the grey zone.  Some of these folks are friends of long standing, and I'd like to remain friends with them. Others? Well, probably, it's better to just strike them from next year's invitation list.

I just wish that some of the people who never bothered to answer from the git-go would ask themselves how they would want to be treated in such a situation -- and then act accordingly.