Take old gal for granted and one day she’ll be gone It’s too easy to take things for granted, to not be fully present in each moment of life. This week as the Chicago Sun-Times gets ready to move a few blocks west up the river to our new home on Orleans, I’ve been thinking about all that floats by in my world without notice. It’s how I found myself at the noon prayer service Wednesday at the Seventeenth Church... Read more

Ex-reporter asking tough questions on ‘Faith Under Fire’ BURBANK, Calif. — Back in the late 1970s, when he was an investigative newspaper reporter covering legal affairs in Chicago, if someone had tried to tell Lee Strobel that one day he would be the slick host of a television talkfest about religion, he would have laughed. Hard. When he was a reporter, Strobel, now 52, would have described himself as just about anything besides a Christian. Journalist, yes. Yale Law School... Read more

HERE’S A BRAND OF EVIL WE CAN STOP (September 24, 2004) Like a recurring nightmare, reports of the beheading of civilians kidnapped by Iraqi terrorists flashed across our newspapers and television screens this week in macabre, horrifying succession. For any civilized human being, it’s impossible to fathom such merciless violence, such cruelty. And it’s harder still to reason out a way to stop it from happening. Such is the nature of evil. When you stamp it out in one place,... Read more

Here’s a brand of evil we can stop . . . maybe Like a recurring nightmare, reports of the beheading of civilians kidnapped by Iraqi terrorists flashed across our newspapers and television screens this week in macabre, horrifying succession. For any civilized human being, it’s impossible to fathom such merciless violence, such cruelty. And it’s harder still to reason out a way to stop it from happening. Such is the nature of evil. When you stamp it out in one... Read more

Nothing phony about Madonna’s spiritual journey Leave Madonna alone. You didn’t like her when she was emphasizing materialism. You called her a hedonist. You didn’t like her when she was flaunting her sexuality. You called her a slut. You didn’t like it when she became a disciplined practitioner of yoga. You called her a poseur. And now that she’s found what, to me at least, appears to be a serious spiritual discipline that seems to have transformed her into a... Read more

How would Jesus vote? Keyes can’t presume to know “Shut up, Donny! . . . You’re outta your element!” –Walter Sobchak in “The Big Lebowski,” 1998 ———————————————- He didn’t just say that, did he? It was a joke, right? The audio wizards on the late-night talk show were just having a little fun patching sound bites together to make wacky quotes, yes? No. He said it. And apparently, he meant it, too. “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because... Read more

‘Jesus Christ’ takes your calls on L.A. radio LOS ANGELES — Inside the dark, fourth-floor radio station studio on a recent Sunday morning, two television sets hang from the ceiling glowing with the images from CNN and Headline News. Directly across from his desk, on the other side of the studio, a large flat-screen TV broadcasts a polished television preacher, with the volume muted. At the studio host’s fingertips is a computer screen with the names of callers queued up... Read more

What the bleep is this all about? Define quantum physics. Go ahead. Take your time. No? Me neither. How about spirituality? In 25 words or less. While you’re thinking about that, let me tell you about the most bizarrely intriguing movie I’ve seen in a long while: “What the #$*! Do We Know?” Seriously, that’s the name of the film. Part documentary, part melodrama, part animated feature a la “Osmosis Jones,” it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. And I... Read more

Online venture gets you a front-row seat to spiritual films Oat straw tea and ginger pie. Sunflowers and Odorifics. “Harold and Maude.” The 1971 Ruth Gordon-Bud Cort flick jockeys for position with “Annie Hall” as my favorite film, the one I want to curl up on the couch and watch on a rainy day when I’ve got a full-blown case of the blue-mood boabies. “Harold and Maude” always, without fail, makes me feel better. Not necessarily happy. Just, better. Glad-to-be-alive... Read more

Sudan genocide demands action (Small gestures count, too) In Sudan, armed rebels are chaining families together and burning them alive. They’ve surrounded whole farming villages, blocking shipments of food, poisoning water supplies and destroying crops, effectively starving their captives to death. And the desperate few who try to make a run for it are brutally raped or killed, or both. United Nations officials estimate that in the last 18 months in the region around Darfur in western Sudan, armed Arab... Read more