This week, On Faith asks its panelists: How do you keep your faith during times of war?

Fr. Reese insists that there are no atheists in foxholes, but Chaplain Major John Morris, on Krista Tippet’s Speaking of Faith, wholeheartedly disagreed.

Maj. Morris: There are atheists in foxholes. . . . What I saw in my combat experience — and I’ve seen through my 22 years — is on the battlefield, using crude numbers, a third of the soldiers were men and women of faith, growing in their faith or coming to a new understanding of their faith. A third of the soldiers were indifferent or fatalistic. And that's, that religion on the battlefield bears a lot of looking at. The other third were either indifferent or jettisoning their faith . . . So you meet a real mix, just like you do on any street in America. The American military's no different. Everything from the atheist to the devout Orthodox Jew to the Wiccan to the Pagan to everything in between. It's all there.

Except the Wiccans were not entitled to their First Amendment rights until four weeks ago.

Continue »

There’s something about the Great American Highway. About the hills of Wisconsin, the hills that Illinois land lacks. I love this land, because it teaches me something every time I see it.

My family and I sat in a crowded ’98 SUV. It was one of the few times that we acted just like we would have ten years ago in the same situation. We bickered and smiled, yelled and laughed. We slept and we stared out the window. We listened to music, and we had conversations.

And at those moments, I knew we were just like every other American family. Maybe the songs playing on our speakers weren’t in English, but that doesn’t make any difference.

I’ve spent my whole life getting used to the idea that I’m not white, not American. That I’m different, because I’m from somewhere. Somewhere other than here.

But I learned this weekend, truly learned, that I am just as American as everyone else. I think the same way, I read the same books, watch the same television shows. And that maybe just as much as America has changed me, I have changed America. My family has changed America. What it means when we say someone is “American.”

And our SUV from 1998 made tracks on a highway this weekend. Tracks have been driven on before us. Tracks that will be driven on after us.

From our old country, we have brought with us our language, our culture, and our faith. We have brought our knowledge, our ambition, and our ethic. Just like everyone before us. Just like everyone who is still coming, just like everyone who will continue to come.

Today I shall buy Tillich.

Last year, this penniless college student spent over $100 at Barnes and Noble one afternoon, scooping up Bonhoeffer, Newman and Augustine by the armful. It was Summer break, and I was hungry for God. The books I purchased filled a shopping bag, and weighed me down. When I went into the next store, which happened to be the going-out-of-business April Cornell on M Street, I lapped up floral skirts by the bushel. Then, when my bag of books became too heavy, I put it down by the cashier, and continued my shopping frenzy.

Four minutes later, the books were gone.

The clerks said that they saw a regular, a garrulous older woman who was busting out of her top, grab the bag of books and walk out the door. They assured me that the woman had simply made a mistake and taken it by accident. But I knew that you don’t just grab forty pounds of Christian doctrine and walk away. And if you take it by mistake, you return it to the place from which you took it. The books were never returned, and I was out $121 and centuries of Christian insight.

I hope that woman opened the bag and discovered the bitter irony of her theft. I like to imagine her perusing her plunder, only to discover that she STOLE THE BIBLE.

On her program, Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett asked my hero and On Faith panelist, Sr. Joan Chittister, about the explosion of interest in reading about religion. Here’s what was said:

Ms. Tippett: I want to ask you something about spirituality in our time. You used a phrase with me, which I've quoted many times, and you said, "A lot of people these days are getting their religion off the shelves, out of books." Now — and you're part of that. You are an incredibly prolific author, but it's just an explosive field of reading about religion and finding religion in many different ways. I'm just curious about your wisdom — people ask me often, "What's that about?" The fact that sort of, you know…

Sister Chittister: Oh, sure.

Ms. Tippett: …that The New York Times book list is not just The Da Vinci Code; it's five titles on the nonfiction list. Now, what's that about? What's your answer to that question?

Side story about religion and The Da Vinci Code:

Last year, I gave a tour of Georgetown’s campus to a friend of my father, his wife and their daughter. They asked me what I studied, and when I mentioned my Theology major, they shot me look that read, “Oh, isn’t that cute.” As we walked past the building that houses the Woodstock Theological Center, I pointed it out to them, noting how many brilliant scholars, Jesuits among them, do great work in the withdrawn rooms of that structure. With the reference to their offices, my tour group perked up, and the dad blurted out “Just like The Da Vinci Code!”
No.
Not just like The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code could not dream of the sublime genius within those walls, nor the walls of the historical homes of great spiritual insight. The Davici Code imagines it could be like Woodstock, but it is not.
Resume Chittister:

Sister Chittister: Oh, I think that's very simple. We're at a crossover moment in time, meaning we're at a point where the — we have so many new questions, but we don't have — the new answers have not emerged. They're only beginning to simmer in this stew that is humanity. The old answers don't suffice; and if they suffice, they don't satisfy. You know, since John Glenn took that first picture of that blue globe swirling in black space, we suddenly had all sorts of new questions about ourselves. You can go down every single question in the human agenda today: What is life? Do we know anymore? Once we got Dolly, once we cloned a sheep, was the definition of life so clear, so pat, so stable anymore? We are the people in the desert. We're the people between the questions and answers on one side and the questions without answers on the other side. People are not hearing those answers in their churches, and people know intuitively that sometimes the answers demand more than what church language can bring to them at that time. Can we get values from our churches? Of course we can, and we do. But what do I do — what is the ethics of what's going on in corporate America right now or political America right now? How do I know what ethics is? Do we really have a republic, let alone a democracy, or have we suddenly found ourselves the inheritors of a political oligarchy? What is oligarchy? What does it have to do with spirituality? Does anybody want to know? So where do I go if I can't get it in a pulpit? I go to a bookstore.

And today, I shall buy Tillich.

When my family and I heard this letter read on Ken Burns’ documentary, The Civil War, there was not a dry eye among us. The letter’s author, Sullivan Ballou, sounds like an 18th century author of the Song of Songs, or an American, Civil-War era Rumi. I cannot read through it without welling up with emotion. So on this war-time Memorial Day, from Annapolis, a town that trains men, and now women, for war, I post the words Ballou wrote to his wife just before his violent death:

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, “a feast of the universal Church which commemorates the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ.”

I am a fan of the Holy Spirit/Ghost. The more malleable of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to me, “fills in the gaps” where Jesus and God, the other two of the tri-, fall short.

Are you infused with the power of the Spirit?
Have you felt particularly effervescent? Thanks, Holy Spirit.
Have you defended your faith against challenges? Another one for the Spirit.
Have you spoke in nonsensical tongues sent down from Heaven? You’ve been Spirit-ized!

Continue »

I was just informed that Trader Joe's sells Kosher Steaks.

This is an amazing country.

Continue »

Question: How do you like your freedom?

Answer: Soaring overhead at 600 miles per hour.

I am recovering from the sensory overload that is the Blue Angels.

Today was a day straight out The Onion. The Boyfriend is to graduate from the Naval Academy on Friday, so this Commissioning Week is a patriotic bonanza. And with good reason.

Continue »

Yesterday, I attended a lecture given by Michael Chabon in the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago. The lecture was part of a series of events put on Nextbook, “public programs on Jewish literature, culture & ideas,” which derives its name from a Saul Bellow quote. Holding a copy of Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein in my hand (that’s a whole other entry) and in the beautiful winter gardens of this temple to books named after our late mayor, I was part of something: Chicagoan, Jewish, poetic.

Continue »

I walked from my apartment this morning to my final destination: graduation mass. The liturgy was the last celebration of a beautiful graduation weekend, and was the one event to which I was most looking forward. I am planning to blog about Jim Wallis’ stirring commencement address to our graduating class, and will post the transcript of his event as soon as it comes online.

As I walked alone on my way to mass, Hazelnut coffee in manicured hand, two words came to me. These two, I realized, are the only words that make sense of my four year spiritual-intellectual centrifuge of an education. They had never maintained particular resonance before, but this morning they suddenly appeared to me, consoled me, humbled me.

God is.

Continue »

It’s officially spring. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, it’s officially summer. Evidence: 1) I don’t go to school anymore. 2) The amount I can think about baseball has leaped up about 10000% in the last two days. I have a long relationship with baseball.

This all comes to mind because some fellow American Jews have started the Israel Baseball League. Now, I had this idea years ago, but nobody cares, since I am not a top baseball executive, nor the former American Ambassador to Egypt and Israel (who, by the way, is a very bright, nice man).

To us, baseball in Israel is perfectly logical. Israel is a functioning democracy, but it is missing several things. One of them is baseball. The Israeli game should provide some fun and maybe a different way of looking at the world, one that isn’t the fast-paced culture of soccer or basketball, right? No! Because in the Israel Baseball League, not only are there only 45 games, and each only of seven innings, but if the game ends in a tie, the winner is decided by home run derby.

I am outraged.

Continue »

Yesterday, while doing work for the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, where I am a student assistant, I came across an inspiring blog. Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Pulmonary/Critical Care physician currently practicing in the greater Chicago area and has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001. He also maintains his own blog.

On the arrest of the six men planning an attack at Fort Dix, Hassaballa wrote:

"'Doesn't the suffering of Muslims around the world also frustrate you?' I may be asked. Indeed it does. But, that frustration I feel does not give me the right to harm an innocent person, no matter who he is, no matter where she is. Not by a long shot. In addition, the pain I feel at the suffering of a fellow Muslim does not mean that I should not care about the suffering of non-Muslims."

Continue »

“His heart, whenever he knew the child had been beaten, felt as if it were slightly too large for the space that was supposed to hold it.”
–Flannery O’Connor, “A View of the Woods”

The pizzas were delivered. Hundreds were delivered. And they were vegetarian pizzas, per Workman’s request. That makes a girl who doesn’t eat meat very happy.

On May 9th I wrote about Phillip Workman’s last request: that a homeless person in Nashville be delivered a meatless pizza. While the prison denied that request, many who heard about his final wish enacted that dream for the man who was executed last Wednesday. He fed them in abundance.

Continue »

There is something about the voice of Ira Glass on This American Life that has this spark to it. It draws attention. My ears, which succumb so easily to the ticking sounds of the clock during lectures, have no problem at all finding interest in the stories broadcast on NPR.

24 Hours at the Golden Apple. Notes on Camp. 81 Words. All of these stories I remember fondly, reciting my favorite quotes to my friends after I’m done with each episode. Listening to them while I’m supposed to be studying.

Continue »

I was trying to figure out what about Liz’s http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/faithbook/2007/05/this_4286_catholic.htmlpost bothered me so, before I was subsumed by studying for finals.

With the macroeconomy safely behind me, at least for a little while, and a week of saying goodbye to friends before they leave the alternate universe known as college for a little while, I may be figuring it out what it is, even as I have totally forgotten, say, about counting the Omer, the Jewish tradition of marking the nights after Passover until the next major holiday. I’ve thought before that religion, or faith, or mine anyway, is about doing; it’s about repeating the same actions over and over the way they’ve been repeated over and over before. Or so I thought.

Continue »

Dear Paris Hilton,

You are one lucky woman.

I am glad you are alive today to complain about your jail sentence. Many others who drove under the influence perished or killed others by their one bad decision.

You are one lucky woman.

You are long legged and lovely, though not demure.

Your taste in handbags is impeccable.

Your skin is always perfectly toned, moisturized and powdered.

You did a bad thing.

Continue »

The headline reads: Death row killer orders pizza for homeless as final meal

“Riverbend Maximum Security Institution will not deliver the pizza," said Riverbend spokeswoman Dorinda Carter. ‘We can get some special things for the inmate but the taxpayers don't really give us permission to donate to charity.’”

But apparently, the taxpayers give Riverbend Maximum Security Institution the permission to kill in their name. Stunning. Taxpayers give permission for their money to be spent on the execution of a man, but not on the feeding of a homeless person.

Continue »

I love The Fresh Air Fund.

Since 1877, the non-profit has provided free summer vacations to New York City children who would otherwise spend their June through Septembers in a bustling, crowded city. The Fund matches these children with area camps or families that are eager to invite them to stay and indulge them in the simple pleasures of summertime in rural and suburban communities.

In my domestic fantasies --yes, Georgetown students have them --I see myself, fourteen years from now, opening the doors of my butter-colored Dutch Colonial to an armful of these children each summer. We will bake cookies together, run through the sprinkler and laugh at the dog as he chases squirrels out of the yard.

There will be no back-talk to Mama Liz.

Continue »

Running from a DePaul Democrats meeting to the Brown Line el train, I dropped my bright green binder for my Peer Theory and Education class on the sidewalk of Fullerton Avenue. Someone stepped on it accidentally. I frowned, wiping off the speckles of mud.

I walked in late to Lost and Found: My Journey To Islam, an event hosted by UMMA, DePaul’s Muslim Students Association. Sitting in the back row, I shoved my bright green binder and my bag under my chair, and listened to five stories full of struggle and hope. Five stories of an internal jihad, the struggle inside your own mind. Five stories of people who lost many things, but gained one common thing: Islam. One woman who spoke talked about losing her mother, her only parent growing up, and almost losing her husband.

And all I could think was what struggles I had been through, and sometimes how trivial they seem compared to this. That we have so much to learn, because our problems are going to be far worse than muddy green binders in the days to come.

I was driving on Rhode Island Avenue a few days ago, just as school was letting out in the area. Children and their parents filled the streets. While the light in from of me remained red, a plump crossing guard stepped out into the traffic, guiding children across the city street. She was smiling ear to ear, making small talk with the children as she hustled them to the other side. She seemed happy to do her job, even though her job description is to step in front of danger so that others don’t have to, just like Officer Pozell did. Although most days I don’t, on Tuesday I noticed her.

Continue »

There is a woman in Georgia named Laura Mallory, and she hates something she doesn’t understand. Something that I cannot get enough of. Something that has inspired me since I was eleven years old. Laura Mallory hates Harry Potter.

It is not that she hates the book series. She wants them out. Out of public libraries. Out of schools. She thinks they turn children in devil worshipers, and encourages lying, cheating, and disobeying rules. She hates these books enough to go to court, spending time and money on this.

Continue »

Earlier in the year, Georgetown’s campus ministry sent out an email inviting its Catholic students to take a survey called the “Catholic Faith Inventory,” a creation of Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association. (PNCEA) The email included a link to the online test, and a few weeks ago, I took it. The inventory included questions such as:

Have you ever prayed to the Holy Spirit, asking for guidance in making a decision?
My Response: Yes. Survey Says: Correct!

And:

Do you believe that the Church of Jesus Christ lives on in the Catholic Church?
My Response: Unsure. Survey Says: BAD LIZ.

Continue »