What we need right now is a hurricane - but one that leaves in it's wake love and grace and cleansing and hope.

Ever since Bush's speech in New Orleans vowing to rebuild the city, I've been annoyed. I've no doubt it will get back to generating profit for someone, but it will be done on the backs of the very people we've watched suffer. Though the shortcuts Bush wants to take to save the governement some money, he's going to not require fair wages or affirmative action on the part of government contractors doing the rebuilding. The lesson of New Orleans is that our social structure is broken. Bush's 'solution' is part of the problem.

With the Schiavo story in the news today, it's no surprise that John and I have been working on updating our living wills. We've discussed this many times, just never gotten the documents properly filed. Not only does the current news make me want to ensure that my wishes are followed, but should I ever be incapacitated I want to ensure that my wonderful husband will never be villified for trying to follow my wishes the way that Michael Shiavo has been.

Why does it seen like morality only has to do with sex and reproduction lately? I was taught that morality had to do with all aspects of one's life, and honestly there are a lot of things I'm observing in lately that concern me a lot more than sex.

"And yet, there is a solitude, which each and every one of us has always carried with him more inaccessible than the ice-cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea; the solitude of self. Our inner being, which we call ourself, no eye nor touch of man or angel has ever pierced. It is more hidden than the caves of the gnome; the sacred adytum of the oracle; the hidden chamber of eleusinian mystery, for to it only omniscience is permitted to enter.

Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?"

As a principle of faith, I consider myself a creationist. But now that I've admitted that, everything else I have to say on this topic might surprise you. I just don't see this as the simple and stubborn either-or decision I keep being told that it is.

I must be the last person to get around to reading this book. It certainly contained a lot of useful description about the lives of low income workers in the US (including a lot that we might not think are low income). But after all the rave reviews I've heard about the book, the thing that surprised me the most was how much I disliked it.

A co-worker who was agnostic was fuming one day because someone had told him he had a lot of faith. Since he didn't believe in God, he was offended. I told him I agreed with the other person. My co-worker had a personality full of faith, it just was not directed God's direction. I offered him this definition of faith which he liked enough to write down.

Faith is believing something you cannot prove because you choose not to accept the person you'd become otherwise.

The first step for many of us is understanding that we do have faith in something. Once we understand that it's part of our nature, perhaps it is not such a big scary step to accept the value of faith that another person places in something or someone else.

The topic of gay marriage seems to get emotions flying faster than any other with the possible exception of abortion. Problem is, once we start yelling, we don't stop to make sure we're all having the same conversation. In a debate, all sides have to agree on the definition of things or we're all just wasting breath. Ok, so now you think I'm nuts. We all know what it is to be gay, and we all know what marriage is, so what crazy point is she trying to make? Well, I'm not sure sure we all know what it means to be gay, but the note for today is even more of a shocker. I don't think most of us realize what it means to be married. Got your attention yet?

I thought I might as well start with a hard issue, though that might have been a mistake given how long it's taken me to finish this. The short version is that I agree with former President Clinton when he said that abortion shouls be "safe, legal, and rare" but I'll go further
than that on explaining what I think that means and why.