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Charles Wesley: "Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown"
2008-02-26 14:52:00
An ongoing paradox of my spiritual life is the interplay of willpower and surrender. I am flung back most heavily upon God when I reach the limits of my moral or intellectual abilities to solve some problem. At such times I must learn to quit thrashing around and trust that God will reveal the way forward in His own good time. I have an aversion to inactivity, which always feels to me like edging close to the precipice of depression. Yet, as anyone who's practiced meditation can testify, rest is not the same as passivity or inaction. Stillness is hard work! That's where the willpower comes in. Not to batter my way bull-headedly through my problems on my own, but to cling with all my might to the promises of God, and refuse to be distracted by subtle doubts and speculations. "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Cor 2:2) Richard F. Lovelace recently sent me a link to this classic hymn by Charles Wesley , a presentat...
More About: Bible , Unknown

Painted Prayerbook Sketches Journey of Faith
2008-02-23 18:39:00
Artist Jan Richardson, whom I discovered through the Image Journal e-newsletter, blogs about faith and the creative process at The Painted Prayerbook. Her meditations on Bible readings from the Episcopal lectionary are accompanied by simple yet rich abstract paintings and collages that express her intuitive response to the text. Recent posts that resonated with me include The Red Circle, about setting aside the ego in order to discern when your work is complete; and Transfiguration Sunday: Mum's the Word (Maybe), where Richardson asks how the artist knows when, and in what medium, to tell a story that is important to her:...In the absence of being able to build physical dwellings, the disciples would have wanted, I suspect, to construct a story about their mountaintop experience: a container of words, at least, that would help them hold and convey what had happened to Jesus and to themselves. Perhaps anticipating this, Jesus enjoins them not to tell what has transpir...
More About: Faith , Journey , Sketches

New Poems from "Conway": "City Limits" and "Streets"
2008-02-21 17:21:00
My prison pen pal "Conway" returns with new poems that move deeper into surreal territory. I like how he's moved away from his reliance on Gothic-horror imagery to more subtle and original metaphors. I sent him poems by John Milton, Carl Phillips and Ariana Reines this month, so look for even stranger poems in the weeks ahead. We're currently seeking a publisher for a chapbook of his work. If you have a lead, please comment below. Meanwhile, some selections: City Limits Exploring her every nook & cranny:This neon-lit City of Angelscarefully, I pried opena glass eyed time-piecesand slithering arteries of Gritbecame avenues of dead starsmixed among flotsam and jetsam once againA globe-lit recalcitrant flameLamp-light of our dark-voided spacesucked into a whirlpoolsiphoned througha pocket-knife sliced Garden hoseFuel, for a stolen car's joyrideSo lonely for comfort; Yet so alive... ******** Streets Delay this intrepid LIFE (left behind)hand-washed away, by years of ...
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Support Soulforce "Right to Marry" Campaign in New York
2008-02-14 20:06:00
Roses fade and chocolates disappear (especially around my house), but certain Valentine's Day gifts can make a lasting impact. This month, young adult volunteers from the progressive interfaith organization Soulforce will return to New York State to ask business and community leaders to support full marriage equality for same-sex couples. Last year, Gov. Eliot Spitzer introduced a gay-marriage bill that was passed by the state Assembly in June, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not let it come to a vote. To donate to the Soulforce Right to Marry Campaign , click here. Also, because we love Hugo and chinchillas are cute, click here.
More About: Site News , Support

Carl Phillips: "Parable"
2008-02-13 16:05:00
There was a saint once,he had but to ring acrosswater a small bell, allmanner of fishrose, as answer, he wasthat holy, persuasive,both, or the fishperhaps merelyhungry, their bodiesa-shimmer withthat hope especially thathunger brings, whateverthe reason, the fishcoming unassigned, inschools cominginto the saint's hand and,instead of getting,becoming food.I have thought, since, ofyour body ? as I first cameto know it, how it stillcan be, with mine,sometimes. I think onthat immediate and last gestureof the fish leaving waterfor flesh, for guaranteethey will die, and I cannotrest on what to call it.Not generosity, ora blindness, trust, brutestupidity. Not the souldistracted from its naturalprayer, which is attention,for in the story they arepaying attention. Theylose themselves eyes open.Read more poems from Phillips ' collection Pastoral (Graywolf Press, 2002) here.
More About: Carl , Parable

PEN Prison Writing Contest Winners Posted
2008-02-12 20:37:00
The PEN American Center, a writers' association that defends freedom of expression and other human rights, offers an extensive Prison Writing Program that mentors incarcerated writers and promotes their work through readings and publications. The winners of their 2007 writing contest are currently online. I was especially impressed with J.E. Wantz's first-prize essay "Feeling(s) Cheated". Part memoir, part political analysis, this piece describes the author's treatment with the antidepressant Paxil. Wantz asks tough questions about what the individual, and society, gains or loses by medicating the symptoms rather than addressing the causes of sorrow, anger, and shame. When does medication become a crutch, as well a cheaper alternative to rehabilitating the prisoner? What is the true self, and at what cost are we willing to experience its emotional highs and lows? Wantz recounts a traumatic encounter with a volunteer preacher who denounced antidepressants ...
More About: Contest , Winners

Jesus Won't Make Me a Supermodel
2008-02-10 18:46:00
As research for my novel (what a good excuse that is), I've begun watching the fashion-industry reality shows on Bravo. I'm sporadically following "Project Runway", since I haven't warmed up to this year's contestants, but my real addiction is the ultimate bitch-fest "Make Me a Supermodel ". I could do without the manufactured interpersonal drama, especially this week when they all ganged up on Katy because she was eating carbs. Honestly, I'm just interested in the clothes. (I was pulling for Holly a couple of weeks ago because her Christian principles made her uncomfortable doing a soft-core photo shoot, but since then, she's been just as catty as everyone else.) For maximum cognitive dissonance, I'm currently reading Gregory Boyd's Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God. Boyd argues that Christians should be characterized by nonjudgmental love, rather than by willingness to make moral pronouncements. Only an omniscient God c...
More About: Jesus , Book Reviews

Jill Alexander Essbaum: "Wednesday, Ash"
2008-02-06 19:37:00
Nothing of me will survive.This body that I wear will dieand my mouth--nevermind its loveliness--is set to shut itself into a sorrow the sizeof restlessness and lack.The lips go too. They slackat the corners crying no, no but still they go. They do not talk back.And then for every finger I have counted on--so many times--there is a going, and a gone.They leave to rest in pieces with once sad and    pretty hands of griefwaiting for an Easter dawn(which no one hears approaching when they're     buri ed underneath the ground).And my feet cannot quit thinking quickstep,    swing, the soundof toe taps or a waltz. Hush. No dancing for the dead. The ball is done. The slipper? Nowhere to be found. And my belly, full or no is quiet.Then it will feast as a ghost feasts--on nothing, a dietof sediment, sleep, a lily or two.I shall not fuss, I shall not make riotor rivalry any, any more. The eyes are vacant, tenantless,for they hav...
More About: Book Reviews , Jill , Alexander , Episcopal , Wednesday

Back from AWP: Preliminary Report
2008-02-04 22:23:00
My husband and I returned yesterday from three action-packed days at the AWP literary conference in New York City, the largest annual event for poetry publishers, literary journals and university presses. We handed out hundreds - maybe thousands! - of Winning Writers contest flyers, hung around with editors from our favorite magazines, and picked up numerous books that I'll be blogging about over the next few weeks. (Especially if I give up computer solitaire for Lent.) Some highlights: Rebecca Wolff from the experimental poetry publisher Fence Books plied us with fortune cookies containing fabulous prizes (I won a free subscription to their journal), but their handsomely designed books needed nothing to sweeten the deal.  After picking up Ariana Reines' The Cow, winner of their 2006 Alberta Prize, I went back to Rebecca the next day and said, "I just want to stand here and tell everyone to buy this book, it redefines what poetry should do!"...
More About: Site News , Book Reviews , Report , Back

Mark Doty: "At the Gym"
2008-01-28 14:06:00
This salt-stain spotmarks the place where menlay down their heads,back to the bench,and hoist nothingthat need be liftedbut some burden they've chosenthis time: more reps,more weight, the upward shoveof it leaving, collectively,this sign of where we've been:shroud-stain, negativeflashed onto the vinylwhere we push somethingunyielding skyward,gaining some powerat least over flesh,which goads with desire,and terrifies with frailty.Who could say who'sadded his heat to the nimbusof our intent, here wherewe make ourselves:something difficultlifted, pressed or curled,Power over beauty,power over power!Though there's something moretender, beneath our vanity,our will to become objectsof desire: we sweat the markof our presence onto the cloth.Here is some halothe living made together.Read more poems and essays by prizewinning author Mark Doty on the Academy of American Poets website.

Book Notes: Get the Rollax Replicas You Watned, Vermin
2008-01-24 17:42:00
The uniquely contemporary art form known as "spam poetry" -- amusing, occasionally creepy "found poems" assembled from phrases in junk emails -- has spawned numerous fan sites such as the Spam Poetry Institute, Spam-Poetry.com, and the Anthology of Spam Poetry (notable for the fake bios of the poems' "authors"). I find this art form so fascinating because it captures the absurdity of the competing messages hurled at us by mass communication, a random data stream of tragedies and trivia in which all information has equal (and therefore no) significance. As someone who has tried in vain to appreciate some of today's more experimental poets, I also appreciate the questions spam poetry raises about language and meaning. Can a poem be enjoyable even if it has no "meaning", no narrative thread or logical connection leading from one phrase to another? If so, what characteristics distinguish interesting nonsense from inanity? Good spam poetry, ...
More About: Book Reviews , Book , Notes , Vermin

Ding, Dong, [Your Name Here] Is Dead
2008-01-24 15:19:00
From the Springwise retail trends newsletter comes our latest Sign of the Apocalypse: Requiem for You, an Austrian company that will compose your personal requiem on demand, to the tune of 20,000 Euros and up: Just launched last year, Requiem for You offers services on three levels, the most basic of which is the composition of an individually tailored requiem. The firm represents a network of composers, librettists and musicians who will write an individual requiem in advance, capturing the client's unique personality and accommodating preferences for balance among vocal, instrumental and textual components. Styles available include baroque, classical, romantic, jazz or Broadway musical, with text in German, Latin or English. A personal laudatio is also available. In addition to composing the piece, Requiem for You can also produce an audio recording of it using a team of freelance artists, orchestras and recording studios, once again honouring the client's personal tastes i...
More About: Dead , Dong

MassEquality Unveils "Equality Agenda"
2008-01-23 17:03:00
If you've ever heard right-wing commentators denouncing the "gay agenda" and wondered "What's that? Why didn't I get the memo?", worry no more. MassEquality , the grass-roots activist group that helped secure equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians in Massachusetts, has just announced its "Equality Agenda ". These policy initiatives represent the next steps toward full equality for people of every sexual orientation and gender identity. Proposals include: Add gender identity and gender expression as protected categories under the state's nondiscrimination laws. Increase funding for "safe schools" (anti-bullying) programs. Pass the MassHealth Equality Bill, which would give married same-sex couples the same Medicaid benefits as straight married couples. Increase funding for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, and for domestic-violence prevention services that address the special needs of GLBT couples. In a separate initiative, MassEquality will...
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Kirk Lee Davis: "Jubilee at the Liberation of the Senses"
2008-01-23 16:37:00
Lookout Donkey?It?s a shining corporeal supernova!Mr. And Mrs. Political have got it together again!Je suis en retard, Mr. Circumflex?Let the poppy seeds eat their spongeycake!The Luftwaffe is happy to see me!Dance the whiteboy!Okay now, everybody: barrel-roll those hips?Simon says pin the quail on the pattycake man! And helloooooo, Misti Applepants!The Lord is willing and the flesh is Yahoo!All free! All free!What robot abdicator could forego?Get up, Chipdog! Lock the backdoor!The giant teeth! The torture wagons!The fun is here to stay. Reprinted by permission from DIAGRAM, Issue 7.6
More About: Davis , Kirk , Liberation

Open-Mindedness, Exclusion, and Religious Commitment
2008-01-22 20:19:00
Open-mindedness, like tolerance, is a paradoxical virtue for liberal-modernist thinkers. Using science as their ideal, they argue that the search for truth requires continual openness to revising your views, which is incompatible with a settled religious commitment to any particular doctrine. Of course, as Micah Tillman points out in a recent Relevant Magazine article, this way of thinking isn't really "open-minded" toward religion. He notes that our culture's main alternative is post-modernism, which touts dialogue among people with different belief systems, but doesn't see this dialogue ever resolving itself into a consensus on the truth. Tillman, who teaches philosophy at the Catholic University of America, suggests a third option: As a teacher of philosophy and a thinking Christian, I have struggled with the choice between modernism and post-modernism. Instead of finally choosing one or the other, however, I live with a philosophy in between. On ...
More About: Open , Commitment , Religious

Book Notes: Letters to a Skeptic
2008-01-21 19:44:00
Letters to a Skeptic : A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity is a solid little book of Christian apologetics by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd, an evangelical theologian, and his father, Edward K. Boyd. It reproduces their correspondence over a three-year period, during which the elder Boyd asked his son nearly all of the basic questions that potential believers face (e.g., why would a good God permit suffering? how do I know the Bible is true? how can Jesus' death atone for anyone's sins?). At the end of the process, his father became a Christian. Though lacking some of the personality of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, still the gold standard for popular apologetics in my opinion, Letters to a Skeptic covers an enormous amount of ground in less than 200 pages, and its conversational tone makes it a quick read. I would definitely give this book to anyone who is interested in following Christ but stymied by intellectual objections. The Boyds' dialogue starts wit...
More About: Book Reviews , Book , Notes

Southern Poverty Law Center Investigates "Ex-Gay" Movement
2008-01-20 22:30:00
The latest issue of Intelligence Report, the magazine of the Southern Poverty Law Center , includes an in-depth exposé of the "ex-gay" movement, a network of ministries that claim to cure homosexuality. These treatments, often performed by leaders who are not licensed therapists, range from the cultic (exorcisms and isolation from one's friends and family) to the merely absurd (beauty makeovers for lesbians). SPLC notes that these groups recently expanded their agenda to include political activism,&nbs p;opposing gay-rights initiatives on the grounds that sexual orientation is not an immutable trait like race and gender. The ministries' own statistics, however, tell a different story: To back up their claims that homosexuality is purely a deviant lifestyle choice, ex-gay leaders frequently cite the Thomas Project, a four-year study of ex-gay programs, paid for by Exodus, that recruited subjects exclusively from Exodus ministries. It was conduc...
More About: Ty Law

Satan Says "What's the Point?"
2008-01-14 20:27:00
I am afflicted with a sort of spiritual far-sightedness. I see the end of things more clearly than their present reality. My inner life is a constant battle between the hunger for joy and the awareness of its transience. This temperament kept me sober and chaste in adolescence, and probably will help me again during my midlife crisis, but it's not enough to build a life upon. Even asceticism, to avoid becoming a perverse form of self-gratification, has to treat renunciation as a means to an end, a clearing away of distractions in search of the greater pleasure of God's presence. The man in the parable sells the field in order to gain the pearl of great price, not because he's bored with the view.Kafka's story "A Hunger Artist" speaks to this dilemma. The title character made his living as a sideshow attraction, impressing and horrifying spectators with his willpower to abstain from food for weeks or months. Finally, fallen out of fashion, ...
More About: Satan , Book Reviews , Point , Episcopal

Prison Poems by "Conway": "Trapdoor" Revised and Others
2008-01-05 13:45:00
My pen pal "Conway", who is serving 25-to-life in California state prison for receiving stolen goods, returns this month with a revised version of "Trapdoor" and other new poems. I'm enjoying the surreal turn that his work has taken, as he feels a greater freedom to make associative leaps and use imagery rather than explanation to convey emotions.TrapdoorAll the eyes that have groped--    invoked, these melted sands,       ;  us trees in the snow, reaching outfor warm lights brightness    instead , suffocated by whiteness.The Sun only dissolved the black asphalt    melted its pain, in vain      & nbsp; reflecting on this concretecrumbling, like stale crackers.All these faces tied together on the same chain    vacantly staring out      &n bsp; of a teasing television's lensA world of opportunity...
More About: Poems , Prison

Poetry Roundup: Huntington, Luddy, Hecht
2007-12-31 19:13:00
Some poetry collections that have recently come across my desk:Cynthia Huntington 's The Radiant has been on my must-read list ever since a poem from this collection, "The Rapture", made the rounds on my poetry listserv. (It's reproduced on the website of Four Way Books, which awarded Huntington their Levis Poetry Prize in 2003.) The book is well-named because a sublime light pierces through her treatment of even the darkest subjects, as in "The Rapture", describing the seizure that heralded the onset of her multiple sclerosis: I remember standing in the kitchen, stirring bones for soup,and in that moment, I became another person.It was an early spring evening, the air California mild.Outside, the eucalyptus was bowing compulsivelyover the neighbor's motor home parked in the driveway.The street was quiet for once, and all the windows were open.Then my right arm tingled, a flutter started under the skin.Fire charged down the nerve of my leg; my scalp explodedin ...
More About: Book Reviews , Roundup

Bimbo No More
2007-12-28 17:04:00
This health story from specialty-foods purveyor Vital Choice is the best news I've heard in a while: Curvy Women and their Babies Test a Bit Smarter Women with heftier hips and thighs test smarter, as do their kids; Cognitive edge is attributed to the higher omega-3 levels in lower-body fat by Craig Weatherby People?s perceptions of female beauty range widely across the world, and Western cultures? standards for womanly allure changed dramatically in the decades following World War II.Nowadays, being thin is in, with the linear figures of top fashion models getting so slim as to incite official attempts to bar underweight models and their starvation-style diet regimens.There?s little doubt that women with smaller waists bigger hips and thighs ? proportions that researchers call a ?low waist-hip ratio? ? have long constituted the female ideal. From ancient India and Persia to classical-era Greece and Rome, up through the 19th century, portrayals of ideal women were curvaceous female...
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Christmas Carol: Sing a Different Song
2007-12-25 10:43:00
Sing a different song now Christmas is here,sing a song of people knowing God's near:The Messiah is born in the face of our scorn,sing a different song to welcome and warn.Shout a different shout now Christmas is here,shout a shout of joy and genuine cheer:Fill the earth and the sky with the news from on high,shout a different shout that all may come by.Love a different love now Christmas is here,love without condition, love without fear:With the humble and poor, with the shy and unsure,love a different love. Let Christ be the cure!Dance a different dance now Christmas is here,dance a dance of war on suffering and fear:Peace and justice are one, in the light of the sun,Dance a different dance, God's reign has begun!Music: Different Song John Bell (20th C)Words: The Iona Community (20th C)Hear the music here. Merry Christmas!
More About: Carol , Sing , Episcopal

Readings for Christmas Eve: Darkness and Light
2007-12-24 13:20:00
The Christmas season is a time of contrasts. In a dark cold night, the light of a star offers hope. The King of Kings is born in a humble manger. The church's Advent readings draw this contrast even sharper. When the society around us is celebrating with holly-jolly cartoon characters and piles of presents, we're asked to think about repentance, prophecy and the end times. Why dwell on sin and death as preparation for Christ's birth? Otherwise we would miss the true world-colliding awesomeness of the event. "Peace on earth, goodwill to humankind," we say, as if good intentions made it so. But peace and solidarity are fragile flames, always in danger of being blown out by the dark winds of violence, power struggles and prejudice. Forget this and we forget to shield them against the enemies that arise within and without. God as infant is not merely born into love and cuddles, but into all the vulnerability of being human in a sinful world. Like all of us, he is born to di...
More About: Bible , Readings , Light , Episcopal

Elisha Porat: "Metamorphosis"
2007-12-19 14:54:00
        ; To the memory of Arieh LaholaHe did not attempt to saw the barsbut carried his cage around on his back:days, nights, years, ages.And when the gleam of the water beckoned,the small pleasant ripples tempting him,its heavy weight pulled him to the depths.He did not kick and did not railjust sank, succumbing tothe river: resigned, passive, estranged,so far from the Land of Israel.He did not chant and did not speak,language deserted him in the bubblesempty, soft, dizzying.His throat was waterlogged and hechoked, stifled, was transformedand floated, voiceless and without language:A rhythmic hum emanated from him,his swollen legs twitchedand his arms beat like those of a drummer.     &nb sp;  Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy EisnerRead more work by Israeli poet Elisha Porat in the journal Deep South, from which this poem is reprinted by permission. Deep South is a publication of the University of Otago, Ne...
More About: Metamorphosis , Metamorpho

Remembering Dorothy L. Sayers
2007-12-17 18:07:00
Mystery writer and Christian apologist Dorothy L. Sayers died on this date in 1957, and is commemorated in a very informative thumbnail bio at The Daily Office. More reflections on her work can be found at the blog Dead Christians Society. Her 1940 lecture "Creed or Chaos?" is a bracing rebuke to "enlightened" Westerners who would like to have religious sentiment without doctrinal clarity. As later postmodern critics of liberalism were to point out, everyone has a creed, a set of core beliefs about the nature of humanity and the universe, on which we base our political, ethical and economic choices. The historical context of her speech -- Europe facing the rising Nazi threat -- reminds us how high the stakes can be. Sayers argues: While there is a superficial consensus about the ethics of behaviour, we can easily persuade ourselves that the underlying dogma is immaterial. We can, as we cheerfully say, "agree to differ." "Never mind about theology," we observe in ...
More About: Remembering , Erin

More Thoughts on the Prose-Poem
2007-12-17 17:29:00
In the latest issue of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry, my friend Ellen LaFleche reflects on how the prose-poem genre, occupying a space that is betwixt and between, can be especially fruitful for exploring the identity disruptions produced by illness: I experience diabetes as a disease that lives on and between boundaries. For example, the person newly diagnosed with diabetes is told that they have "control" over the disease process. Achieving this "control" involves a difficult regime of diet, exercise, self-education, glucose monitoring, frequent labwork, and numerous visits to specialists. But diabetes is also a progressive disease, a reality that even the most dedicated diabetic cannot change. And even someone with tight control over their blood glucose levels can experience complications. So the idea of "control" is both a reality and an illusion. Some experts claim that diabetes can even be "reversed" with various dietary supplements such as cinnamon capsul...
More About: Thoughts , Prose , Poem

Support Prisoner Re-entry Programs
2007-12-10 12:38:00
The Episcopal Public Policy Network is urging members to contact their U.S. senators in support of the Second Chance Act (Senate Bill 1060), which would give federal funding to state programs that rehabilitate prisoners and ease their re-entry into the community. These programs offer literacy and job training, drug treatment, and other mental and physical health services. The bill passed the House of Representatives this fall. Read more about it in Episcopal Life Online.In other prison-reform news, Thousand Kites, a dialogue project on the U.S. criminal justice system, tomorrow will host its "Calls From Home" national radio broadcast for prisoners. Call their toll-free line (888-396-1208) Dec. 11 from 3 PM to 11 PM Eastern time to record your message to an incarcerated friend or family member. Messages will be included in a broadcast to over 120 radio stations across the country. Find out more here.
More About: Programs , Support , Entry

Violence Erupts Over Gay Jesus Art
2007-12-09 17:56:00
  Kittredge Cherry reports on her Jesus In Love blog about violence that broke out at an exhibit of photos by Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin: A group of young people tried to set fire to a poster at the cultural center that was exhibiting her photos of a queer Christ. Staff intervened and as many as 30 people joined the fight, according to news reports.The recent melee broke out over her Ecce Homo series, which recreates scenes from Christ?s life in a contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) context. The conflict occurred in the Swedish city of Jonkoping, known as a center of evangelical Christianity.Wallin's "Sermon on the Mount" is one of my favorite images from Cherry's book Art That Dares, which I blogged about in August. Buy a copy and sign up for the Jesus In Love newsletter here.More provocative and enlightening images from Ohlson's Ecce Homo series can be viewed on her website. The AIDS-victim Pieta and the gay-bashing crucifi...
More About: Bible , Violence

Episcopal Diocese Secedes Over Gay Issue
2007-12-09 17:15:00
The Fresno, CA-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin yesterday became the first full diocese to split from the national church over disagreements about the Bible 's view of homosexuality. The diocese, which is also one of the three US Episcopal dioceses that rejects the ordination of women, voted to place itself under the authority of a conservative South American congregation. Over 50 Episcopal parishes have seceded from the national church in the past few years to protest the trend toward recognition of gay relationships. CNN.com has the full story here. I find it sad and ironic that in the name of upholding "tradition", certain Episcopal congregations are playing fast and loose with our entire system of church governance, as well as dishonoring their vows to respect the authority of their bishop. There are many Protestant denominations that operate on a more congregationalist model, where individual churches are free to reshuffle their allegian...
More About: Pisco , Issue

Signs of the Apocalypse: Holiday Edition
2007-12-08 19:17:00
Ship of Fools has posted its "Kitschmas Gifts" list, featuring 13 products to make your special someone say "WTF??" My favorite are the Thongs of Praise. Nothing says "Not tonight dear, I have a headache" like panties with the Virgin Mary on them.Not to be outdone, The Onion's holiday gift guide includes essentials like Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages. (Not recommended for people with dogs.)For the second year in a row, Going Jesus treats us to the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities. Paddleball Nativity, Leprechauns in the Manger, Sad Kittens Nativity and more!
More About: Holiday , Signs , Apocalypse , Edition