GODSTUFF

A YEAR IN SPIRITUALISMS …

Conversations about God, religion, spirituality, faith, ethics and all things transcendent continued to fascinate, provoke and inspire us in 2007.

Here’s my list (in no particular order) of some of the most intriguing spiritual thoughts I heard — and in some cases, heard again with fresh ears — this year.

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“God brings night and God brings day. God brings light and God brings
darkness. Victory and defeat are in God’s hands. In our hands is the
decision to live a life that can give us the satisfaction to say, when
dying, that we lived a full file, a life devoted to serving humanity
and its highest ideals.”

— Benazir Bhutto in a speech to the International Kashmir Alliance in
London, May 2004

“The book keeps warning readers, ‘Don’t be so confident in your ability to determine where we are in terms of God’s great plans for the world.’ “

— Craig Koester, a New Testament professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., on what the biblical book of Revelation has to say about trying to predict the end of the world

“Celebrity is the religion of the 21st century.”

— from the very real Church of Celebrity Web site

“There are aspects of Christian tradition that I’m comfortable with and aspects that I’m not. There are passages of the Bible that make perfect sense to me and others that I go, ‘Ya know, I’m not sure about that.’ “

— Sen. Barack Obama answering a question about his Christian faith posed by yours truly during a Chicago Sun-Times editorial board meeting

“The Talmud is very clear about this: Better a person do the right thing for the wrong reasons than to not do the right thing.”

— Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a philosophy professor at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, on the question of whether taking a tax deduction for a charitable donation is moral or ethical

“Because the paths of the Lord are inscrutable, because the essence of his forgiveness lies in his world and his mystery, because although God sends us the message, it is our task to decipher it, . . . when we open our arms, the Earth takes in only a hollow and senseless shell. Far away now is the world in its eternal glory. Because it is in pain that we find the meaning of life and the state of grace that we lose when we are born. Because God, in his infinite wisdom, puts the solution in our hands. And because it is only in his physical absence that the place he occupies in our souls is reaffirmed.”

— From the film “Pan’s Labyrinth”

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“An unfinished task is best forgotten.”

— Mother Marie to Sister Blanche in the Lyric Opera’s production of “Dialogues of the Carmelites”

“For their scenario to be true, you’ve got to believe that pilgrims went down to Jerusalem for Passover, where their leader, Jesus, was crucified — by surprise — and his followers secretly buy this tomb space . . . steal the body, bury the body, and then a year later, for someone that they revered, put his bones in an ossuary with the name written in graffiti-type script. And then they go out and preach that the tomb was empty and everything they present as true is false.”

— Darrell Bock, New Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, responding to a Discovery Channel documentary that claimed to have found the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family

“If there’s hope for the world it lies in a fresh vision of things.”

— Singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn

“The biggest barriers for people to come to church is actually walking through the front door.”

— Darren Sloniger, co-pastor of West Ridge Community Church in Elgin, which is designed to look like a House of Blues nightclub

“You know, Jesus doesn’t have a word to say about sex. Not a word. . . . I know that Jesus doesn’t have a position on who we love. Just that we should. I think if we could just get the Golden Rule down Jesus would be thrilled. I feel like it would be Mardi Gras day in heaven if we could just, like, nail this one concept.”

— Anne Lamott, author of the book Grace (Eventually)

“It’s everybody’s job to heal the world.”

— Jill Gregory, co-author of The Book of Names, a fictional thriller based in part on the Jewish mystical Kabbalah tradition

“Much of Jesus’ preaching involves inviting his listeners to consider something new. . . . Jesus was always suggesting, in order that the decision to follow or not to follow was that person’s own decision.”

— the Rev. James Martin in his book A Jesuit Off-Broadway

“It’s hard to get those hate mails, especially from those who profess to follow this person, Jesus, who, from my limited knowledge, is very much about love and unconditional forgiveness and turn-the-other-cheek.”

— Nica Lalli, an atheist and author of the book <a href="“>Nothing: Something to Believe In, on the angry letters she gets from self-proclaimed Christians

“Just take it easy, man. Stop worrying so much whether you’ll make it into the finals. Kick back with some friends and some oat soda and whether you roll strikes or gutters, do your best to be true to yourself and others — that is to say, abide.”

— An explanation of “Dudeist” theology from Dudeism.com, a Web site dedicated to the spiritual wit and wisdom of “the Dude” from the film “The Big Lebowski”