It definitely helps to be part of a tradition which presumes daily prayer. (In Jewish tradition, we’re meant to pray three times daily.) Sometimes I feel like the challenge is to rise to the tradition’s expectations, instead of letting myself become so overwhelmed with work and with my to-do lists that prayer slides off of my plate again. In this, as in so many things, I think intention matters — and I think the practice can build up its own continued motion, in a certain way. When I’m praying, I want to keep praying. When I’ve fallen off the wagon, it takes effort to get back on.

Something that scared me away from Christianity for so many years were the anti-intellectuals. It was the few Catholics and theologically-liberal Protestants that I knew that kept me from sprinting away from the faith.

On a side note. I have a friend at work who is Catholic and very, very Republican. He was talking about a fellow coworker of ours who is Catholic, but very Democratic. My friend simply could not understand how someone could be Catholic and a Democratic. I tried to explain that while most Catholics were opposed to abortion, it wasn’t the only issue. Some Catholics also weighed social justice issues and believed overall the Democrat was perhaps the better choice. He didn’t agree with me. Or rather felt social justice issues always should take a back seat to abortion.

I’m just counting down the days until the election is over. I have fairly equal disdain for both major party tickets right now.

Thanks for that quick reply…

Unfortunately, yes, that is snow. Happily, it’s supposed to be above freezing the next several days, so it should disappear. And it could always be worse: I could be in NH with sbilik and friends….

Is that snow? I’m outside in shorts.

I suddenly feel much more at ease being a protestant!

Actually, I like the idea of Linux, especially free, open-source distros like Ubuntu. I even experimented with Ubuntu (in virtualization) for a while.

The problem I had was that installing anything in Linux was a major pain in the neck and pretty arcane, even for those who are comfortable with the command line.

I finally quit experimenting and went back to using Windows at home and OSX Tiger at work. (Mmm…maybe my use of dual operating systems reflects my odd religious history….)

For a good article on Chanukah this starts to put it back into perspective. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1207/tobin120607.php3

I see all three of us are part of the Velveteen Rabbi fan club.

“It is important that we remember–but let us chose carefully HOW and WHY we remember.”

Actually, you’re correct since *some* are calling Quechup a “trust virus.”

More here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ldcpl

Peace to your day!

-BarbaraKB

But for ordinary, day-to-day kinds of things, I don’t worry too much about it. An awful lot of information is out there already. Any email can be broken into–not just GMail. And then there are credit reports, spending habits that could be gathered from our credit card issuers, banks that have all kinds of information on us, hospitals that have our medical records, insurance companies…it’s not only Google that has lots of information. Actually, I figure most of what I store with Google is a lot less sensitive than what’s already out there.

So, while I’m not going to store highly personal information anyplace I can’t protect it myself, I’m not going to lose much sleep over the rest.

If you consider scientific predictions of markets to be cooky, maybe you should check out MIT’s and others economic engineering (social engineering) projects that go by a multitude of others names.

thanks for the comment.

I think Prothero’s main point, though, is not that we should be teaching Christianity or Judaism in public schools, but that we should be teaching the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

And that’s a key difference, as I see it. The Bible is key for understanding Western history and culture in a way that the scriptures of other faiths aren’t, at least not at this point in history. I can understand Atwood, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante, for instance, while being totally unfamiliar with the Quran, the Vedas, and the Upanishads. I can’t understand them–at least not fully–if I’m biblically illiterate.

That’s not to say, of course, that it isn’t worthwhile to teach about other faiths as well–only that it isn’t as important for Western Culture and Civilization sorts of purposes. I was the lucky beneficiary of an excellent World Religions course in my public high school.

In Christ

Niamh Moloney

But I take heart knowing that great people such as Winston Churchill were not morning people.

I have finally resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a morning person. I’m a “student” of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done meaning I have a “Next Actions” list close by. Between 7:30 and 9 AM I just muddle through the easy eay things that take no brain power knowing it’s pointless for me to attempt anything hard before 9 AM. Once I get moving I’m fine.

Congrats on joining the CSC’s! What do you teach at SMC? I forget your dept. at ND.

I too have followed my longstanding religious vocation in a rather unusual way: by becoming an independent Catholic priest. Makes the academic career tricky, with an ND degree in medieval theology, but God is working it out. I am presently teaching World Civilization in the history dept. at California State Univ., Fullerton. Gotta go make up a study sheet for the quiz on Monday.

Many blessings, and best to Mary Ellen Vaughan and other CSCs who remember me.

Laura Grimes

With Qumana I had to set up each blog individually (it would recognize all five each time I gave it a new feed, but I had to tell it to add only the one I’d given it the address for). That was kind of a pain, but at least it’s now very easy to sort things out.

Between the blog issues with Flock and the fact that Zotero (my reference manager) requires FireFox 2.0, I’ve gone back to FF. I like Flock, though–if they ever resolve the blogging issues and upgrade to the 2.0 engine, I’d consider switching back.

BTW, I found the Q emulator. It’s a universal binary meaning it’ll run on my iBook. I had never heard of that! Can’t wait to try it out.

Is that running on an Intel or PPC Mac?

John

Just came across your blog tonight. Just started one myself recently…check it out.