They Said It Couldn't Be Done, But They Didn't Know Hannah, Super Arborist!

In fact, here she looks as if she may be leafing out. Or is that moss?

Wait, that's from a 5K race where you get pelted with colored powder.

This is better.

See how happy it makes her just to be next to one of her leafy, bark-covered friends?

Hannah was told that no one passes the arborist test the first time around. But she pulled it off yesterday.

Congratulations, Hannah! We knew you could do it!

Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk

Captain James T. Kirk is one of the most famous Captains in the history of Starfleet. There’s a good reason for that. He saved the planet Earth several times, stopped the Doomsday Machine, helped negotiate peace with the Klingon Empire, kept the balance of power between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, and even managed to fight Nazis. On his five-year mission commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise, as well as subsequent commands, James T. Kirk was a quintessential leader, who led his crew into the unknown and continued to succeed time and time again.

Kirk’s success was no fluke, either. His style of command demonstrates a keen understanding of leadership and how to maintain a team that succeeds time and time again, regardless of the dangers faced. Here are five of the key leadership lessons that you can take away from Captain Kirk as you pilot your own organization into unknown futures.

Read it all at Forbes. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but most of all you'll see the truth of the arguments.

Thanks to Tamahome for this, which I'd never have seen if he, Scott, and I weren't discussing Jane Eyre.

What? From Jane Eyre to Captain Kirk? I'm telling you, Goodreads should never be underestimated for prompting imaginative reading discussions.

The WSJ and the HHS Mandate: They Aren't Going Quietly into the Good Night

It is now common to hear me beginning the morning with the paper, a cup of coffee and a "God bless the Wall Street Journal" as I look at the opinion page.

That's because is a rare day when I don't see at least one mention of yet another reason why the White House's attack on religious liberty (via the HHS mandate). They have examined why it is wrong via the usual logic. They have also taken a look at it from insurance,  economics, and other business viewpoints ... none of which have added up to a good reason to implement the White House's program. In short, the WSJ is relentless in keeping this issue in front of readers.

If only other main stream media had such a talent for using their own brains and not just mouthing the pablum fed them by the White House. (Follow the fact trail for that claim at GetReligion.)

This morning brought two good pieces in the WSJ.

Limbaugh and Our Phony Contraception Debate

At the hearing of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee chaired by Nancy Pelosi, Sandra Fluke testified as a victim. Having to buy your own contraception is a burden, she said. She testified that all around her at Georgetown she could see the faces of students who were suffering because of Georgetown's refusal to abandon its Catholic principles.

Exactly what does the face of a law student who must buy her own birth-control pills look like? Did I see them all around me and just not know it? Do male law students who must buy their own condoms have the same look? Perhaps Ms. Fluke should have brought photos to Congress to illustrate her point.

Bishop Dolan's Liberty Letter
The Catholic Cardinal describes a chilling visit to the White House.

The debate over the Obama Administration's birth control mandate has been ingloriously fact-free, even more than usual. So amid demonstrably false claims about a plot to relegate women to the era of "Mad Men," if not Salem, Massachusetts circa 1692, Cardinal Timothy Dolan's letter on religious freedom deserves more readers.

Unfortunately, this is a paid-access only piece. However, I found it at Freedom Eden so go read it there.

God and the Machine: In which Thomas L. McDonald joins the Patheos Catholic bloggers

Technology, like fire, can create or destroy, and so we need to consider the vast technological landscape from a uniquely Catholic angle. This is what I hope to accomplish with God and the Machine. I want to look at the intersection of technology and faith: not just the way new tech is being used to evangelize and examine the faith, but the way people of faith encounter their world through technology. In short, I’ll examine technology, in all its wonderful, horrible power and potential, and try to answer the singular question: How do we walk with Christ in the digital age?

I've enjoyed Tom's other blog, State of Play, for some time. Tom's also uniquely suited to look at technology and the Catholic faith at his new Patheos blog, God and the Machine. His credentials are as long as your arm. But I'll just quote The Anchoress on them for you.

Tom’s CV is exhausting and impressive. Aside from authoring three books, and overseeing Games, he’s been a columnist for Computer Gaming World, T3: Tomorrow’s Technology Today, Game Players PC Entertainment, Cemetery Dance Magazine, PC Ace, and Computer Life . . . the techno list goes on and on, and he also blogs at State of Play. On the faith side of things, Tom is a certified catechist who teaches church history and prepares candidates for the sacrament of Confirmation; a few years ago he started writing about religion as well (you’ve read him in the Register, here at Patheos and elsewhere) and — particularly as he works his way through a masters in Theology — a blog called God and the Machine seems a logical means by which to cull together these intersecting interests and ponder where the lines might be drawn within our longings. I have a feeling we’re going to get some very interesting reads out of this extremely energetic writer! 

Also, I'm not gonna lie. Tom is a funny guy and you know how I love funny. For example, his brief illustrated introduction made me crack up. Not that it is all funny. Some of it is just right.

I am not a liberal Catholic, orthodox Catholic, conservative Catholic, cafeteria Catholic, or traditionalist Catholic: I am, simply, a Catholic (Roman Rite). That should be enough for you to know where I stand and what I believe about most issues. At least, it used to be.

And I like that even more than funny. (Plus, you know, I think that is going to have to go into my quote journal. Quotable. I like that too.)

L.A. Diary: Seeing Stars

Part 1: We Begin
Part 2: On the Road
Part 3: We Arrive
Part 4: The Strange Encounter
Part 5: The Best Deal (or Two) in L.A.Part 6: Land of Dreams
Part 7: Meeting New Old Friends
Part 8: Lettuce Love

=============================

I'm not talking about the kinds of stars that you naturally think of when L.A. and Hollywood come to mind.

I'm talking about driving to the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park. Griffith Park is the largest city park in the U.S. Really.

With over 4,210 acres of both natural chapparal-covered terrain and landscaped parkland and picnic areas, Griffith Park is the largest municipal park with urban wilderness area in the United States. ...

Originally a part of the Spanish land grant, Rancho Los Feliz, the park was named for its former owner, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith.

That would be enough to thank Col. Griffith for but he also was very interested in astronomy and soon Los Angeles had a state-of-the art observatory, built in a charming art deco style (which, now that I come to think of it, was state-of-the-art for ... art!).

Today, the insides have been turned into one of those education places that are au courant. We'd have preferred to see it turned more into a museum of what was "state of the art" at the time, however, we were still able to imagine what it was like when astronomers from around the country and the world worked there.

My favorite part was walking around the outside of the building and up to the top. It features a magnificent view of the park and across Los Angeles where you can see the ocean glinting in the distance. It also has what may be the best view of the Hollywood sign around.

We actually do have pictures of a lot of these things, including us in front of this sign (du rigeur for a L.A. visit, isn't it?), but I've got to get them from Tom.

Next, I'll be talking about our other "must see" tourist destination ... the Los Angeles Cathedral. Is it the monstrosity of architecture that I've heard it is? Well, yes. And no.

TAN Books Encourages Prayer for Religious Freedom — Makes St. Michael Prayer Cards FREE to Parishes while Supplies Last

TAN Books, an imprint of Saint Benedict Press, announced today plans to make St. Michael the Archangel prayer cards FREE to parishes willing to include the prayer in Sunday Masses for the intention of religious freedom.

The offer is a response to the call of Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Ill to petition St. Michael the Archangel "for the freedom of the Catholic Church in America."

Bishop Jenky's request comes on the heels of a new federal ruling that will force many Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and "morning-after" pills.

Chairman and CEO of Saint Benedict Press, Robert Gallagher, fully supports the call from Bishop Jenky and plans to encourage the effort by offering St. Michael prayer cards for free to parishes nationwide.

"The Obama mandate creates a crisis of conscience for thousands of our nation's employers, especially Catholics and other men and women of faith," said Gallagher. "It is a radical infringement upon the free exercise of religion, a persecution of religious belief in the marketplace, and an attempt by a thoroughly secular Administration to remove the expression of one's religious tenets from the public square."

"The power of prayer cannot be overestimated as a means to combat this blatant attack on Catholic moral convictions," said Gallagher. "Calling on the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel to be our defender in this critical battle is something that everyone can do. At Saint Benedict Press we want to make it easy for parishes to implement this initiative by offering resources that will help them do so."

For further information and to request free copies of the St. Michael the Archangel prayer cards call (704) 831-3468 or email katiem@saintbenedictpress.com.

Contact: Katie Moore - Publicist
Saint Benedict Press, LLC/TAN Books NC, 28273 US
704.831.3468
katiem@saintbenedictpress.com

5 Amazing Performances From Actors Who Weren't Acting

Here's my favorite, #2. Casablanca: The Marseillaise Scene:

... Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is upstairs chatting with Laszlo, notorious resistance leader and husband to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). Some German patrons begin to annoy the other customers by rudely singing "Die Wacht am Rhein"...To this point, Rick had stayed pretty neutral on the whole "Nazi" issue. But in this pivotal scene, Rick lends a single nod of support Laszlo's way. Laszlo and the other bar patrons find the courage to drown out the Nazis with their own patriotic verse of "La Marseillaise" (loose translation: "The Marseillaise"), and the Nazis, thoroughly out-Glee-ed, leave in a huff.

The patrons celebrate their small victory, some clearly moved to tears. The thing is, nothing in the script actually called for crying. Unlike most of the entries on this list, this one has less to do with a sociopathic director and more to do with the time and place the film was made.

See, this was a World War II movie ... that was being filmed in the middle of World War goddamned II.

It's easy to forget that part, now that hundreds of movies (and seemingly thousands of video games) have been based on the war in the decades since it ended. Casablanca was shot in 1941 during the German occupation of France, at a point where many questioned whether or not the United States would ever step in to help, and when nobody knew how the whole thing was going to turn out.

And the scene included actors who, in real life, had a lot at stake. To shoot Casablanca as a believable port town, producers brought together one of the most ethnically diverse casts in film history, and a lot of these extras turned out to be Europeans who had fled to America to escape the Nazis -- that is, they were basically real-life refugees. They had left homes, friends and families behind, and at this point really didn't know if things could ever return to normal. Which makes us wonder if the director didn't stage the whole war just to get that scene.

Go read it all at Cracked (keeping in mind, of course, that this is Cracked and there is bound to be language that may raise eyebrows).

Pork & Sausage Jambalaya

Fresh from John Besh's cookbook, My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking. Get it while it's hot at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

News You Need to Know: Sherlock returns to U.S. TV

On the upcoming CBS series Elementary, Holmes is a respected criminologist, formerly a consultant for the Yard but now a recovering addict fresh out of rehab. The NYPD hires him as a consultant, but makes him take on a “sober companion” to keep him on the straight and narrow. The one he gets is Dr. Joan Watson, a gifted surgeon who lost an influential patient on the table and her license, in quick succession. So she has to ride herd on him during cases, whether either of them like it or not.

Holmes is played by English actor Jonny Lee Miller, the grandson of actor Bernard Lee (the original M).

Dr. Joan Watson is Lucy Liu.

This is going to be awesome.

No kidding.

Maureen has more at Aliens in This World.

What Do Doctors Do When It Is The End For Them?

It's not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too. What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care that they could want. But they tend to go serenely and gently.

[...]

Unlike previous eras, when doctors simply did what they thought was best, our system is now based on what patients choose. Physicians really try to honor their patients' wishes, but when patients ask "What would you do?," we often avoid answering. We don't want to impose our views on the vulnerable.

The result is that more people receive futile "lifesaving" care, and fewer people die at home than did, say, 60 years ago. ...

This story from the Wall Street Journal was an eye opener.

It made me grateful that my father didn't try to fight his way back with therapy, an option that seemed unrealistic when it was proffered. It also made us realize that the surgeon who early on advised Tom and his brothers about what he'd do "if it were my mother" was being honest in a way that is rarely seen. (Now, months later, we realize he probably was right. Tom says that in letting themselves be guided against that advice without getting an outside second opinion they should have given his words more weight. However, what's done is done.)

Read the whole thing. This is going to guide me in the future. When I ask "what would you do?" I'm going to insist on a real answer.

(I meant to look for the original article ... here it is at Zocalo Public Square.)

News You Need to Know: Community Returns March 15

Happiness abounds. Thanks to Scott for the tip!

Abed: Jeff, you’ll have to play the part of my dad.
Jeff: I don’t wanna be your father.
Abed: See? You already know your lines.

And You Thought Government Interference Was Bad Now. Reviewing: "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I always knew that eventually I'd have to read this book. For one thing, I figured that Scott would choose it for the A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast, because I know he's a fan. Then, of course there is the upcoming movie which looks darned good in the trailer. And the myriad book buddies who are incredulous that I haven't read it.

Who knew that it would be fellow small group facilitators at RCIA who would make the final push? We were whispering together in the back of the church while the catechumens (nonbaptized who are converting) and their sponsors were practicing for last weekend's Rite of Call (or something like that) where they are presented to our church at Mass this week. (Let's not get into the fact that I am now going to have to add Les Miserables to my "to read" list and my movie list. Yes, these guys are into great stories.)

Anyway, that made me wonder if it were available to borrow for my Kindle since I'm a Prime Member. Sure enough, I was able to begin reading after the click of a button.

We all know what this is about, right? In a dystopian future, Panem is the Capitol of the land, surrounded by 12 outlying districts. Life is severe and difficult in the districts and, making matters worse, a harsh tribute is exacted as punishment for a failed rebellion. A boy and a girl from each district must travel to the Capitol and participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. This is rightly regarded as a death sentence, so when her little sister is chosen, 16-year-old Katniss steps forward in her place.

I was surprised at how interesting I found this book, to the point of staying up much too late to finish it at break-neck speed. It is a formula with the usual elements of a girlie adventure book adhered to with somewhat depressing predictability (she's prettier than she knows, just saying what she thinks and being her own awkward self engages the crowd, etc.). However, the competition and her relationship with Peeta raises this above the usual fare, especially since we know she will survive the games. Heck, she's telling the story for one thing.

Although I've heard the other two books of the trilogy are less solid I know that eventually Katniss is gonna have to take out those bahstids at Capitol (foreshadowing was heavy on that) and I am curious to see what happens. I'll have to wait a bit though since I can't check out another Amazon book until March 1 and the library has 117 people waiting in line before me for an available copy. So I will rejoin the tale in a couple of weeks.

Get Religion: Media shirk debate on religious liberty

... you wouldn’t know it from media coverage but the Obama Administration has issued a strict mandate that deeply concerns many religious liberty observers. Because that mandate requires everyone to pay for abortifacients, sterilization and contraception for their employees — even if they have religious objections to it — the media have decided to adopt the framework that this is a battle over “women” and a battle over “belief” in “birth control.” That’s not even close to an accurate description of what concerns the religious liberty activists, but it doesn’t matter. And it’s a sexist dismissal of all the women, such as myself, who care deeply and passionately about religious liberty. But it doesn’t matter. It’s the way many in the media have decided to frame the issue and they don’t care how many Jews, Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics and Zoroastrians (female or male!) say otherwise, it’s going to be about birth control. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

GetReligion, how I love it. They never let the media off the hook on how they cover religion. Go. Read. And enjoy.

in which Scott finally admits to Julie that he's a digient. Julie knew it all along.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang - at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

“Religious liberty does not depend on the benevolence of who is regulating us.”

Much remains to be done. We cannot rest when faced with so grave a threat to the religious liberty for which our parents and grandparents fought. In this moment in history we must work diligently to preserve religious liberty and to remove all threats to the practice of our faith in the public square. This is our heritage as Americans. President Obama should rescind the mandate, or at the very least, provide full and effective measures to protect religious liberty and conscience.

The broad reaching implications of this impasse finally struck home to me (closing hospitals, schools and the like if the administration doesn't back down) ... and so I've been praying a lot for our bishops to have the courage of their convictions. It's no wonder I am pleased to see this recent statement from Cardinal Timothy Dolan to his fellow bishops.

Via The Curt Jester, whose comments are spot on. He also has some good news from the courts about conscience protection, so go read about it.

Cooking the Books: Weber's Big Book of Grilling

I've been meaning for some time to tell y'all about my personal 2012 Cooking Challenge. I have quite a few cookbooks and yet I cook from them so rarely. Many of them I have read numerous times but still have never been impelled to do more than cook the same two or three recipes that interested me originally.

This year I thought I'd make two-three dishes from a particular cookbook each week. If all goes well, I'll have provided much more variety to my usual round of "go to" default meals.

Find out more at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

About that which is none of your business, shut up.

(Language alert for those who care.)

The herd will not have it. The herd hates outliers. It’s nothing personal; it’s just for protection. If you stray from the herd, you get eaten. It’s as simple as that. It’s natural selection. So stick together.

But nobody’s trying to eat us, so why can’t we get over our herd mentality? Why can’t we relax and let people be? Why do we even care?

You would think there would be strength—and comfort—in numbers. You would think that if 95% of the women you know are wearing Fashion X this year, they wouldn’t need to tease or sneer at the 5% who wear something different. You would think that if 95% of the men you know prefer drinking beer and watching football to drinking wine and watching opera, they wouldn’t feel the need to call the 5% fags. Who cares what the other 5% do, or like, or wear, or think?

But we do care. We’re a herd. And we care a lot. We can’t be “us” unless we’re all us. One weirdo makes us question our us-ness, our whole group. And we don’t like that. So we’d better bring the outliers back into line. It doesn’t have to be through violence or coercion—it can just be gentle mockery. We’re teasing. Don’t take everything so seriously. Don’t take it all to heart. Just take it.

If you’re lucky, as an adult, you find a place or make a place where this kind of nonsense doesn’t occur, where people are genuinely tolerant of difference—or, better, indifferent about it. Indifferent about difference. I don’t want you to tolerate what I am; I want you to not give a shit, one way or the other. I want you to accept the fact that who I am is none of your goddamned business, and live accordingly.

Ah, how much of American political discourse would vanish overnight if we could just apply this one, simple rule: About that which is none of your business, shut up.

Of course, in far too many places, people think that everything is their business. In far too many places, the message is clear: it’s not that we want you to be exactly like us; we need you to be exactly like us. We can have no bell curve here; the outliers must be brought into the fold. We must be one flat line, stretching across the horizon forever. It is an absolutist, totalitarian impulse buried deep in our heart of darkness, and the insecurity and fear it reveals is troubling.

And surprising. I mean, who knew a head cheerleader’s sense of self could be so precarious?

The way I feel right now, this resonates. Andrew Ordover goes on to look at the specific example that spurred him to write, that of his son. Which also resonates. We've all either been there or seen that done.

I still remember the Japanese intern for our Catholic school's third grade class, Maya. She stayed with us for a year and it was a lot of fun. But one of the things that she thought was most wonderful about America was how we were free to be ourselves, to be different.

She told me, "We have a saying, 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.' To see how the children treat each other in school, how they pick on each other. It can be terrible. Here in America it is so much better."

Maybe it is wishful thinking to say that it used to be so much better. There has always been a "herd" to bully those who aren't just the same, especially among children. Adults aren't always better.

It is what makes it so important to stand up for the little guy when he's being hammered down. Kudos to Andrew Ordover for articulating it so well.

Lenten Reading Ideas - Updated

WHAT I'M READING
I am already reading two books that are really hitting me where I live. How handy! I can just keep going with them through Lent.

Night of the Confessor by Tomas Halik
Night of the Confessor is rich and deep, with somehow simple ideas. Just when the author says something that I have a knee-jerk reaction of "that's not how faith works" he goes further and deeper so that I understand the reasons behind the surface statement ... and usually agree. This is thoughtful and thought provoking writing which I am letting sink in. And it is enriching my internal life. A fuller review is here with a lengthy excerpt.

Gospel of Mark, The (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) by Mary Healy
This is a really great commentary. Healy combines a lot of the information that I have in a variety of other commentaries (both Catholic and Protestant), but then pulls it all together with additional observations that make it very accessible while still being scholarly. She follows up many sections with items for reflection.

Sometimes I am enlightened by the factual information which gives me new insights into the text. Sometimes it is from the material for reflection. However, it is a rare day that I fail coming away with an insight that I ponder the rest of the day. Highest recommendation and I will be getting another in the series after I am done with this book.

OTHER GREAT BOOKS
Here are some other books that I either have read for Lent or would gladly read. Some may be familiar because I just can't stop pushing them (or rereading them).

To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed
Sheed looks at Jesus' life by weaving together all four Gospels. He also takes into consideration the times in which Jesus lived, how the people then would have interpreted Christ's teachings and witness, links to the Old Testament, teachings of the Chruch Fathers, archaeology, and more. The goal of all this is to give us a richer, deeper understanding of Jesus since to know the Father you must know the Son ... and there is nowhere better to meet him than through the Gospels.

The School of Prayer: An Introduction to the Divine Office for All Christians by John Brook
Interestingly Brook partially presents this introduction to promote ecumenism for he points out that praying from the Psalms makes Protestants feel right at home in the practice. This book not only tells about the divine office, but has an explication of the psalms commonly prayed so that we more easily find Christ in them.

Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom
This book is written with complete simplicity but yet somehow contains depths that one thinks of for some time afterward. Let's just begin with this ... "If you look at the relationship (us and God) in terms of mutual relationship, you would see that God could complain about us a great deal more than we about Him. We complain that He does make Himself present to us for a few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three and half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer 'I am busy..."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry is an incredible Christ-figure as I discovered when I reread the series recently. Of course, this only works for those who have read the series before. For more depth and as accompanying materials, readers may want to listen to Episode 26 of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast where Scott Danielson and I discuss the book and the entire series from a Catholic point of view.

Contemplating the Trinity: The Path to Abundant Christian Life by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa
He was the preacher to the papal household for Pope John Paul II and continued in that capacity for Pope Benedict XVI, at least for a while. I always have found his writing and homilies to be both easy to understand and inspirational. This book to be the same sort as The Interior Castle in that reading a few paragraphs a day lets the message sink in each day. I read this during Lent a few years ago and it was wonderful.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden
This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. That's the official description but it doesn't begin to cover the richly woven tapestry Godden weaves with nuanced personalities, mysteries to solve so that the order may continue, Philippa's internal struggles, and much more.

Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden
Another Godden book about a completely different order of nuns. This is an inspiring tale of conversion and redemption told in flashback sequence. We meet Lise when she is being released from prison where she has served her term for murder. She is going to join an order that ministers to those on the fringes of society. Through Lise's thoughts, we watch her go from being a young WWII staffer in Paris, become seduced by a man who has a brothel and eventually turns her into a prostitute where later on she becomes the manager. The reasons behind the murder become clear as the threads come together again in the people around Lise in current time. My full review is here.

Paul Among the People by Sarah Ruden
Sarah Ruden goes to great pains to put St. Paul's writings in the context of Paul's "modern times" of Greek and Roman culture so we can see just what cultural forces he was referring to when he wrote his letters. By juxtaposing her knowledge of those cultures (which were considerably cruder and more hostile to Christian religious concepts than we would think) and writings of the people (not high-brow philosophers) with Paul's writings and concepts, a new picture emerges of just what was being battled and why Christian concepts would be so welcome and revolutionary. My full review is here.

The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell
Of course, I'm still pushing this book. It is rare, to find a book about the zombie apocalypse that addresses the larger themes that one finds in science fiction apocalyptic literature. The Reapers Are the Angels is just such a rarity. Author Alden Bell looks beyond the popular appeal of zombies to the depths of the human soul. The column I wrote for last Lent about this book is at Patheos.

IF THOSE DON'T HIT THE SPOT
Here are last year's recommendations, both nonfiction and fiction.

UPDATE
I have been reminded that there are two other books that make excellent Lenten reading:

Happy Catholic - my book! In either softcover or Kindle / Nook format.

Lord, Open My Heart (this is properly a booklet, but is I wrote it specifically for Lenten meditation)

2011 Nebula Nominees Audio

The 2011 Nebula Nominees have been announced. Tamahome at SFFaudio gives us links to all the available free audio versions. He also gives us the SFsignal link to available online written versions available.

Lest the White House Think Prohibiting the Free Exercise of Religion is Going Unnoticed ...

In one of the boldest, most audacious moves ever made by a President of the United States, President Barack Obama is on the brink of successfully rendering moot the very first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (emphasis added). If he forces the Catholic Church to comply with the Health and Human Services ruling to provide its employees with insurance that covers activities the Church has long held sinful — abortion via the morning after pill, sterilization and contraceptives — then the precedent is clear: when religious beliefs conflict with government decrees, religion must yield.

A very clear article from Forbes magazine shows exactly how the White House is trampling religious freedom and why they picked the Catholic Church to be the first victim. Go read it all.

This is not just a cause for Catholics or even those who agree that the HHS's chosen issue for forcing the fight (contraception) is wrong. It is for all Americans.

I am not a Catholic, nor do I believe in the Church’s opposition to contraception. But I pray that the leadership of the Catholic Church will have the faith and courage to stand for its core beliefs and use all of its moral power and political influence to defeat the President’s edict. I pray they will reach out across the political spectrum to people of all faiths, agnostics and atheists in the name of religious freedom and individual liberty. By so doing, they, and the institution of the Catholic Church, will have my love and respect for the rest of my life.

I urge you to contact your legislators again on this issue, beginning with President Obama. Here is the USCCB's page with links and more information.