A little girl praying in 1949

At dinner each night, my family says a blessing. We recite a short prayer of thanks, then go around the table sharing things we’re grateful for.

We’re not praying to a god or higher power. We’re recognizing the sacred in the everyday, embracing the magic of sitting together in health and safety sharing good food. We don’t need a Heavenly Father to hear our prayers. In fact I rarely think of them as prayers at all. We call them blessings.

For us, god is in the food we eat, the air we breathe and the sunshine we play in. But I like to think we’d pray even if we knew no one was listening. It’s the act of gathering in prayer that is sacred.

Continue reading »

Tweet

17

Pin It

Baby Jesus's sonogram? Umm...

The war between religion and consumerism that is waged every Christmas season rages on in 2010, as evidenced by this bizarre “ad” created by ChurchAds.net, depicting the Christ-child as a sonogram image replete with in-utero halo.  Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today‘s Faith & Reason column astutely asks, “Is this a 21st century icon — or an ad with an abortion agenda tied to Christmas?”

Before we try to tackle the abortion issue, let’s talk about the difference between the religious and secular celebrations of the Christmas holiday.  ChurchAds.net, a British site, suggests that “85 per cent of people agree with the statement that ‘Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country’.  But it also shows that only 12 per cent of adults know the facts of the Christmas story in any detail.”  England is one of the few countries in the world where Christianity (the Church of England) is indeed the religion of the state.  But what is the “Christmas story,” exactly?  Is it the story of Jesus’s birth, or is it the story of Santa Claus, who himself was once a religious figure?

The word Christmas is derived from the phrase Christ’s Mass, the use of which was recorded as early as 1038.  In the 1700′s, scholars began to argue that the December 25th celebration of Christmas had more to do with pre-Christian, pagan celebrations than the date of Jesus’s birth.  It’s widely believed that the December 6th celebration of the feast day of Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicholas, as well as the English tradition of visits from Father Christmas, begat the idea of holiday gift-giving, and thus the commercialization of Christmas.  In 1800′s New York, Christmas was still a largely sacred holiday, but by the 1920′s, when advertisers had standardized the image of the American Santa Claus, the holiday had begun its turn toward a secular celebration. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

What happens when dress codes and religious freedom collide?

For Ariana Iacono, the jewelry she wears in her pierced nose is more than a fashion statement. It’s a symbol of her faith, a belief that modifying and manipulating one’s flesh strengthens the bond between mind, body and soul.  Her school, however, says the ring in her nose is nothing more than a violation of the dress code and grounds for suspension. Continue reading »

Tweet

27

Pin It

The 14th Dalai Lama

This morning’s New York Times has an op ed by the Dalai Lama: Many Faiths, One Truth. As a boy, he says, he felt his own religion was superior to all others. He goes on to track his realization that the importance of compassion is a is common ground among us all. His point is that harmony among the major faiths is an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence, but his recollection of his childhood belief that his own religion was the “right” one made me consider my own kids.

Granted, they’re being brought up in what’s probably best described as an incoherent spiritual mishmash (and one that bears little resemblance to the life of a man who was recognized as his religion’s spiritual leader at the age of two), but it’s worth asking the question: am I raising them to “respect, admire and appreciate other traditions?”

And how exactly do you do that? Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

According to a 2-1 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, God is not religious.  At least, not when teachers instruct children that ours is a nation “under God” on a daily basis.  All across the state of California, schoolchildren line up every morning to profess their allegiance to the flag and the country “for which it stands”.  In 1954, however, the official pledge was changed to include the phrase “under God.”  A belief in God was a “characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life,” claimed Reverend George Docherty in a sermon that spurred President Eisenhower to action to have the pledge modified.

Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

A Virginia legislator who called disabled children “God’s punishment” for their mothers who aborted a previous pregnancy just became reason number two for the month of February that I’m glad I no longer live in Virginia. (In case you’re wondering, here’s number one.)

State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas, one of the authors of Virginia’s anti-gay marriage amendment, held a press conference last week to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood. That’s where he dropped this humdinger Continue reading »

Tweet

23

Pin It

A teacher who complained about one of her students – without using the kid’s name – has been suspended from her job in North Carolina.

So forget what I said about teachers being real people with real lives, OK? TV station WRAL reports Melissa Hussain made the major mistake of teaching her kids about evolution – prompting a kid to drop a Bible on her desk, along with a Christmas card with the word “Christ” underlined.

So what else did Hussain do? Continue reading »

Tweet

10

Pin It