I’ve been dreading the end-of-spring-semester packing and cleaning since I moved here in August, but suddenly sorting my clothes and dishes into boxes and mopping up the floor seems exceedingly appealing. Lately it’s been hot and humid and North Carolina pollen is not a force to be reckoned with, but I’ve been putting in extra runs and laying out during the day, because who wants to be “that girl” who came back from college in the South out of shape and pale? Also, has anyone noticed the news has been especially interesting lately, specifically the Miley Cyrus/ Annie Leibovitz photo scandal? Just riveting. Oh, and I’ve been spending a lot of time deleting e-mail. There’s a pastime that never gets old.

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Jayne works in DC as a program coordinator for an international nonprofit. A recent college graduate, she is the jack of all trades to her supervisors: she organizes, she researches, she saves the world one photocopy at a time. Every morning, she shows up at her place of work and every morning, she wonders why.

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It’s Tuesday and I’m still recovering from the weekend. It’s not what you think – it wasn’t a typical college kid’s weekend of partying. I was protesting. Late Saturday night, I drove home to CT and woke up early the following morning to go into New York City, to the gold-domed St. Vartan Cathedral, headquarters of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church. Following Divine Liturgy, I boarded a bus taking people to Times Square to a protest. What were we protesting? April 24, 1915 – it is a day immortalized in Armenian history. On this day, several hundred leading Armenian intellectuals were gathered in the former Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and massacred.

Thus, every April 24th is the international day of remembrance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, an event which is still unrecognized by the United States, and of course, the perpetrators, the Ottoman Turks. Sunday was not April 24th, but it was the closest Sunday to this date, so the protest was organized for this day. I joined other Armenians, who congregated at this literal cross-road of the world, Times Square. It was a protest, and it did fulfill expectations, but was it any different than what Armenians have accomplished in the past 92 years since the Genocide?

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Whenever I become disillusioned with God, it's only a matter of time before I discover the inconvenient reality; that I'm actually disillusioned with myself. Which leads, of course, to the inevitable question: How can I possibly manage to confuse the two? Lately, I've come to the end of me. I can't write, my impossible homework load piles up as I procrastinate, and sleep deprivation and stress begin to take their toll on my physical health. This is life, but not the life infused with joy and freedom that I ought to be living.

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Judaism is hard. As I begin the eight days of breadlessness that is Passover, I am reminded of this. Ours is not a religion of beliefs and faith alone – we are supposed to do and not do things, and it is often quite inconvenient.

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I wish I knew Greek and not just to keep the fraternities straight. My debate for Intro to New Testament class was entitled “Resolved: The New Testament Condemns Modern Practices of Homosexuality,” and I was assigned to the negative side with two other students. We hinged most of our argument on the fact that Paul and other New Testament writers did not know modern homosexuality as we know it.

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I was racing up the stairs to the second floor of our library this morning to make copies of some forms I needed to deliver when a painting of the crucifix caught my eye. It was an elaborate and colorful painting, and I wanted to pause and take a closer look at it, but I was aware the clock was ticking and my legs kept moving underneath me, taking me farther from it. I made a mental note to come back and take a look when I have more time. But then I thought, when will that be?

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When I met Doug, he was talking about being interviewed on Lebanese TV. Yeah, his Arabic is that good.

So when a friend of mine passed along a piece of poetry (and even that title really doesn’t describe Doug’s master work) that Doug performed at a the “Harakat” Cultural Festival at Georgetown University, I was ready to see this lively, welcoming man do something incredible.

To say I was blown away by Doug’s performance would be to put it mildly. (Warning: Tactically placed F-bombs within). For any of us who have gone through the brutal process of Arabic education, the central theme of "bab" (*and it's plural, Abwaab) in Doug's work is simultaneously hilarious and uncanny.

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There is so much to say, I imagine. Today is about remembrance, recognition, and community. It is about pain and grief, joy and love, anger and forgiveness. And yet today is as inscrutable as the last April 16, a moment in time defying our ability to give it voice.

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My fellow Faithbook blogger Liz, a.k.a. Campus Catholic, emailed me the other day asking me to compile a list of other blogs I read by young LDS members. Frankly, I was stumped. Most of the blogs I come across are targeted for the entire LDS adult community, or are targeted to the high school audience or the “youth” audience as the church calls it.

In LDS culture, I tend to notice a lack of young adults. I define young adult as an individual who is over 18, perhaps in school, or working, making the transition into full adulthood, which is easily attained by marriage. The conception that LDS youth get married extremely fast and early is obviously a stereotype, but to an extent, a true one.

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My generation was raised on Cocoa Puffs cereal and Nickelodeon cartoons, but all that saccharine dissolved for me one day in September 2001.

We had witnessed the demise of communism and lived through the awkward impeachment of our president, but by the end of the 90s, we were accustomed to excess. As a country, we were invincible; as a generation, we were privileged. The terrorist attacks of 2001 shocked us out of our stupor.

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I hope God appreciates the fact I have to ascend a mountain to get to church every Sunday. All right, it may not be a mountain but on a cozy weekend afternoon in bed with my English book and my laptop, Chapel of the Cross starts to seem pretty far away and the slight incline between my dorm room and the church building seems to slope several more degrees than usual.

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Starting this fall for the next two years, I will be a high school social studies teacher in New York City. I signed with Teach for America a couple weeks ago and am confident once my two-year commitment is over that it will be one of the best decisions I've ever made. When I found out I was offered the position, I knew I wanted to accept, but I took my sweet time accepting the offer.

But as I was contemplating my decision, a friend’s away message sent chills up my spine. It said, “It's in your moments of decision-making that your destiny is shaped.” Such a statement is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being free to make my own decisions is thoroughly empowering, something I thank God for a thousand times over. On the other hand, it can also be thoroughly terrifying. Finding the gray area is difficult, but I think I recently may have found an approach that makes decision making easier.

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So we lost to Kansas. And it wasn’t even really close. We’d made plans for replaying our NCAA tourney victory over and over at a party next Saturday. Teachers had already canceled early Tuesday classes in expectations of all-night celebrating. Instead Sunday morning brought a wave of depressed baby-blue clad zombies casting knowing empathetic looks at each other through bloodshot eyes. What the heck happened? We were supposed to win that game!

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When I was home over winter break, I rented the movie "Knocked Up" to watch with my mom. It's the story of a schlubby Jewish guy (Seth Rogan) who impregnates and then charms a hottie entertainment reporter (Katherine Heigl). My mom loved the movie. She was doubled over in laughter at times, tears coming out of her eyes. When the movie was over, I asked her how she liked it. "I don't like it when movies have Jewish guys ending up with non-Jewish girls" was her response. Intermarriage, the constant source of fear and anxiety for committed American Jews, has the ability to rear its ugly head even during a seemingly innocent movie night. Indeed, intermarriage is a huge concern as rates of Jews marrying non-Jews go up and the Jewish population decreases.

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From my crow's-nest view in the café within the Borders overlooking Madison Square Garden, I sometimes watch the giant screen billboard flash upcoming events and attractions at the Garden. It’s a mind-boggling list: everything from The Cure to My Little Pony Live: World’s Biggest Tea Party. And…a church? World Changers International, pastored by Creflo A. Dollar, one of the faces of the "Prosperity Gospel."

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Easter has come and passed. Now what?

Well, for us Armenian Orthodox Christians, the Monday after any major feast day – Easter, being the most significant of them all – is a kind of ‘Day of the Dead’ as celebrated in some Latin American cultures, though without the painted skulls and all-night camping out, etc. The term we use for it is “Merelotz.”

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John 20:18: Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mark 16:8: Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

When I listened to John’s resurrection story on Easter and all I could think of was how it didn’t pass the “criterion of independent attestation,” I knew something was up.

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What is it about Texas that can make an East Coast girl feel like such an outlaw? I’ve barely been here 24 hours and I already feel like chirping “Ya’ll” to everyone I see and am fixin’ to fit myself with a pair of cowboy boots. And one short day after flying in, I have already caved into the sins of the flesh: This evening I -- a dedicated vegetarian -- moseyed on over to a food festival where I found myself inspired (more likely by my inner carnivore than the Holy Spirit) to eat a dead animal. And it was delicious.

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Last week I spent three days traveling with my parents. We went to Bloomington, Indiana to check out the graduate program for Indiana University. My relationship with them has been somewhat strained since coming out and I had hoped that this trip would allow us to reconnect, as well as answer the question as to where I would continue my education. Although, the trip showed no progress for my parent's attitude towards my revelation, I found myself turning to the lessons of faith and hope that they taught me as a child to help me through this hectic time.

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“Do you want fries with that?”

More than once, I’ve gotten this interrogative statement in response to my declaration that yes, I am an English major. This is my least favorite reaction. My second least favorite is “Oh, you are going to be a teacher?” (There are other things to do with the degree!) Then there are the understanding folks who perhaps understand a little too much and ask me what I plan to do with my schooling. My usual answer: I don’t really know.

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I’m home this Holy Week –and by home I mean the Long Island house in which I grew up. Although I’ve only spent a few months at this house in the past five years, I don’t know where else to call home.

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My heart is full; it is Holy Week, and alas I have felt the heaviness of this sacred time for us Christians. Perhaps, of all the nights of the year, tonight is when I am most certain of God and of eternal life. I have just returned from Maundy Thursday services, and in the Armenian Orthodox Church, these services constitute such a beautiful flow of prayers, hymns, and acts, that it is impossible for one not to be moved.

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I have been a campus tour guide at Boston University for four-and-a-half semesters and one full summer. That adds up to hundreds of campus tours given. And on every tour that I have ever given, there is a time when it becomes apparent who the Jews in the crowd are. Sometimes it's as easy as a yarmulke or an Israeli army T-shirt on a prospective student. When I pick up on this, I’ll add some Jewish tidbits into the tour to make my Jewishness known: I’ll point out the kosher dining hall in the Hillel house, or mention the Hebrew classes I’ve taken.

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Here in the Yale bubble, two hours on a train and a world away from the real world concerns of New York, students are outraged. The Yankee Doodle — a dozen stools and one grill that served up pigs in a blanket — has been closed. Students mourned the closing. Some raised money to bail out the shop. Rick Beckwith, Doodle owner, campaigned against his former landlord — the copy shop next door — and asked the university for new digs. The old landlords reconsidered then re-reconsidered. The Yale equivalent of pundocracy weighed in on the weighty issue.

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Live-blogging my flight: An anxious flyer takes to the skies.

2:00: I’m standing in line to board at Midway airport and the Southwest airline attendant announces that they have overbooked the flight and wouldn’t one generous volunteer just love to receive a $200 voucher to give up his seat and take a later flight? At first, I’m steadfast: I’m getting on this plane. As the attendant becomes desperate, the offer goes up. I become weak. I sell out. $420 Southwest voucher, here I come!

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In the myriad comments on my last post, many points were made about God’s role, or lack thereof, in Eve Carson’s death, and God’s role in tragedy on earth in general. But oddly even a tragedy as momentously sad as this does little to change people’s opinions. Religious folks pray to God for solace. Non-religious folks take solace in knowing no benevolent God could allow something like this to happen. I was reminded of a childhood telephone game: less listening to what is really said, and more hearing of what you want to hear, and passing it along in the place of truth.

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It's 1a.m. in the narrow booth of a chilly diner. Reruns of That ‘70s Show are playing muted in the background. Textbooks are sprawled open-face across the table in front of me; a mug of coffee, cold and forgotten, has been shoved off to the side. I am frustrated because I’d rather be finished with my assignments and in my bed at home, but I still savor the serenity of solitude and quiet.

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Recently in the news attention has turned to Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern. She was being recorded while she went on what at best is a rant and at worst a “speech” that could end her political career. I suppose she thought she was in the company of people who shared her views, and decided she would let her hair down about the state of the nation and how homosexuals are a danger to America. The following are a few of her enlightened views:

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I follow politics quite religiously. Despite this, reports that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s having paid thousands of dollars for illicit sex surprises me. There has been no shortage of sex scandals in politics, no shortage of wives standing beside their husbands as they confess to disgusting crimes of infidelity. But Spitzer was supposed to be one of the good ones; in fact, TIME magazine named him 2002’s Crusader of the Year.

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I got an email Thursday afternoon that I thought was a terrible joke. Since then I’ve been trying to process the reality of that email and circuitous attempts at logic lead back to the same conclusion: Why? Our student body president, Eve Carson, was shot and killed early one morning last week.

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With next week’s sober Easter Tridduum just around the corner, I paid a final Lenten visit to my spiritual director.

In the five months that we have been meeting, Sister B has helped me to laugh at myself, to learn from myself and to seek wisdom within Catholicism’s spiritual depths.

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I'm bothered and can't put myself at ease. Saturday, as I made my weekly scavenge of the (still closing ) 6th Ave. Barnes & Noble, a guy approached me looking to find a kindred spirit (or one-night stand). Early on, he told me, "I can tell you're a very good, kind person."

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Spring Break: The pinnacle week of every college student’s academic year. It’s what is most looked forward to next to the end of finals and the beginning of the careless, free summer months of beaches and outdoor concerts, traveling and unwinding at home.

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I was excited to show off my new Episcopal home church, and he never missed Catholic mass and wasn’t about to start now, so one thing led to another and there I was, going for an Erin Becker record: two church services in three hours.

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Even on Spring Break in a commonwealth that is not my own, I couldn’t keep away: a whole crew of student organizations got together last night here at the University of Kentucky for a juicily titled “dialogue” on the question “Does God exist?”

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The race for the Democratic presidential nomination has seemingly gripped the nation. We have heard over and over again how important certain primaries were, and yet, despite many proclaimed do-or-die scenarios, each campaign rages on.

Last night, both Senators Clinton and Obama looked tired in their speeches capping Super Tuesday Deux (Senator McCain always looks tired). While this race is rightfully captivating, I find myself also needing a breather from the rhetoric every few weeks to regain perspective.

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One finding of the recent Pew study on the American religious landscape that did not surprise me was that the largest Jewish populations are in New York and New Jersey, with Jews comprising 6% of each state’s population.

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In my Religion and Society class, we have been discussing this phenomena of young adults who classify themselves as spiritual but not religious. At first this was a curious thing for me, because I guess I always thought of them as being one and the same.

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For all but the first ten months of my life, I have lived in the same house. For the greater part of growing up, I had my own room while my two older sisters shared a slightly bigger bedroom adjacent to my room. They always yelled at me for having my own room, even though it could hardly have been my decision when we moved into the house.

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“Okay, God, here’s the deal. I know we were going to talk last night, but I got tied up with some homework and then some friends invited me over to watch 'Planet Earth'—which is really just a celebration of your creation, right? Sort of like praying? And I was really tired when I got back to the dorms...

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There are some very promising signs flooding into Chicago’s department stores: There may come a day –and it may be soon –when wearing shorts and a T-shirt will not be considered an activity in recklessness. Spring just might find its way to the shores of Lake Michigan. And retailers everywhere know what a change in season means. Warm up your credit cards, it’s time to go shopping!

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This week the Pew Forum came out with a study of the American religious landscape. As soon as I saw an article about the study, I eagerly read it and then went to check it out first hand. While there were many interesting findings in the study (35 percent of Jews have graduate degrees! Jews make up less than half of a percent of my home state of Wisconsin!) ...

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As Sen. Obama taught us last week --by way of Sen. Clinton’s rebuke --one man’s plagiarism is another man’s allusion.

The Catholic Church recently found itself in a similar predicament, with this report out of Poland:

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Holy Cross is a Catholic institution. Even more specifically, it is a Jesuit institution. While we’re not teeming with “Catholic this, or Catholic that,” there are distinct reminders of the school’s religious identity that we students receive, and they show up in our email inboxes.

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Spring semester is special because it signals the return of campus classics like food court pigeons, student organization tabling, and my personal favorite, the street preacher. That's right folks, step right up and witness the marvel that is the disheveled zealot in khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirt come to save your soul!

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When you go to a seedling Christian liberal arts college planted in the basement of the Empire State Building and attempting to change the world, you come to expect incredulous media coverage. All the set-up lacks, after all, is a good punchline.

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Today was my favorite day so far in Living Religions of the East. Dr. Smith (Fred) and I have been lecturing for the last week on Chinese religions and today he had us sit with our eyes closed for two minutes. I'm not sure what the other students thought of this but I fully appreciated it.

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I entered the chapel five minutes late and scuffled to the back pew. My squeaky tennis shoes made way too much noise on the wood floor and my first prayer was that God would forgive me for interrupting the prayers of others.

Now what?

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“I had not thought about it like that before.”

I have learned to love those words.

This past weekend I took a trip to San Diego, where I was talked my favorite duo --religion and politics --with an acquaintance who is currently training with Navy special forces teams. We agreed on the threat posed to democracy by religionists of all stripes who want to forcibly impose their religious world view.

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In case you haven’t heard, Senator Barack Obama is not Muslim.

As if this wasn’t already clear to me before trekking down to South Carolina to do what 13,000 other Obama supporters were doing, the Senator has gone out of his way to make sure this point was hammered home.

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Howdy all. From my brief bio, I guess you know that I'm a native Texan currently residing in Austin. Let me start by saying that I "heart" this city because it's not what you would consider a "traditional" Texas town. It's a land of vegans, hippie hollows, dot coms and unfettered coffee shops. In a lot of ways Austin is like me because it is full of counterintuitive devices that come together and somehow work.

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Done with class for the day and stuck with an hour to kill until lunch, I headed out for a run. There's a loop we call Mason Farm that goes past the lacrosse fields and golf course and into a wooded prairie about a mile and a half from campus. I recommend this route to anyone in the Triangle area, if you don't mind getting your feet wet in a little creek that separates the road from the main trail.

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By way of introduction, my name is Hope and I live in midtown Manhattan--at least during the school year. I am a non-denominational Christian, but prefer to characterize my faith as a relationship with Jesus Christ, cultivated by time spent in prayer and in reading of Scripture, as well, I suppose, as a sort of constant communion throughout every day.

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In the religious studies department of the University of Iowa, the graduate students are required to take a series of four foundational courses regardless of their area of specialization. During my first semester at UIowa I took Teaching Religious Studies; the next semester it was Western Religious Traditions; then Methods and Theories; and finally, this semester I am finishing up with Asian Religious Traditions.

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Allow me to introduce myself. While I have curly black hair, like to sing, and have a name that looks almost like Annie (it’s Ani), my life has quite little in common with the freckled, redhead, “Little Orphan Annie.” For one thing, I am Armenian, and this makes all the difference - ask those who know me, and without a doubt you’ll find out how true this is!

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