Gratitude — a Risky Business

Last updated on: November 24, 2009 at 5:11 pm By K. Mulhern

November is the month of Thanksgiving. We’ve exorcised our Halloween personas and we’re suspended between round, orange jack o’ lanterns and round, red Santas. Halloween universally permeates the various religions, but then in December we splinter off into our assorted winter celebrations – Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Advent/Christmas, etc., and, trumping them all, the secular holiday of mall mania. But for just a brief breath of time – perhaps just for a moment as we sit suspended in time before a Thanksgiving... Read more

God Is Great

Last updated on: November 9, 2009 at 12:41 pm By K. Mulhern

Some witnesses to last week’s massacre at Fort Hood say that the shooter cried “Allahu Akbar” before he began shooting. These reports send shudders up the spines of Americans everywhere, both Muslim and non-Muslim. The cry has become inextricably linked to acts of horrible violence and is translated in our deep psyche as, “I’m an armed, out-of-control Islamic fundamentalist and you’re all going to die.” The fact that it means “God is great!” seems to have been lost on us... Read more

On Patios and Parenting

Last updated on: April 11, 2012 at 2:43 pm By K. Mulhern

One evening last week I went out to the patio to start the grill. It had been a dazzling day, hot and blue with a stormy interruption in the late afternoon. Now the evening lay quietly in my backyard, clear and hushed. In the distance, crickets chirruped and cicadas droned. A waning golden light brushed the trees against the fence. Green leaves ripped from their stems along with a few early fall browns mottled the patio table, were stuck in... Read more

On Alberta

Last updated on: April 11, 2012 at 4:19 pm By K. Mulhern

Perhaps you will roll your eyes at the rigidity of her moral boundaries. Perhaps you will sneer at her narrow-minded understanding of life and purpose. Yet from all accounts, Alberta was also a deeply spiritual and complex woman—prayerful, faithful, loving, and kind. Read more

Private Vice, Public Benefit? A Short and Selective History of Greed

Last updated on: April 11, 2012 at 4:19 pm By K. Mulhern

How serendipitous for the Democratic party that the economic collapse is happening so happily under its watch. As President Obama’s chief of staff pointed out, we “should never let a crisis go to waste.” In fact, nothing should go to waste. That’s the whole point. The economic disaster has now been inextricably linked (how did this happen?) to the ecological question. The problem is that fixing the economy and fixing the ecology are two different things, and blending the solutions... Read more

Tripping the Light Fantastic

Last updated on: April 11, 2012 at 4:20 pm By K. Mulhern

I ran across this phrase when it ended up being the answer to a crossword clue about dancing. I wasn’t familiar with it, but sometimes a combination of words strikes me as so serendipitous, so rich in possibilities, that I just savor it for a while, like a hard candy. Read more

Requiem for Truth?

Last updated on: April 11, 2012 at 4:20 pm By K. Mulhern

Truth, it seems, has fallen on hard times. I Googled “truth” and the first entry was an anti-smoking information website, and “truth” was trademarked. Truth, like so much else in our materialistic world, has become a commercial property. Within the context of a website like Patheos, the issue of truth is even more exigent. Here we offer a palette of religious beliefs, practices, expressions, and histories. A seeker can peruse a wild array of creation accounts, salvation stories, devotional practices,... Read more