4,000. BAGDHAD, IRAQ — Four U.S. soldiers died in a roadside bombing in Iraq on Sunday, military officials reported, bringing the American toll in the 5-year-old war to the grim milestone of 4,000 deaths. Eight of those killed were civilians working for the Pentagon. The four were killed when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device while patrolling a neighborhood in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq reported Sunday night. A fifth soldier was wounded in... Read more

Christos Anesti! He is risen. Hallelujah! “The proclamation of Easter Day is that all is well. And as a Christian, I say this not with the easy optimism of one who has never known a time when all was not well but as one who has faced the Cross in all its obscenity as well as in all its glory, who has known one way or another what it is like to live separated from God. In the end, his... Read more

GODSTUFF THE TAP PROJECT: GIVE A GLASS OF LIVING WATER Normally the only time I give much thought to the glass of drinking water on the table at a restaurant is when it’s missing. How many times have I said, “Could I please have a glass of water when you have a minute?,” not giving a nanosecond’s consideration to where it’s coming from, how it got there and how lucky I am to have it? Tall or short, fancy or... Read more

Beannactaí na Féile Pádraig That’s Mary Black singing one of God Girl’s favorite Irish songs. Wishing you happy, safe and blessed St. Patrick’s DayFrom all of us here at GGHQ Read more

GODSTUFF THIS ST. PATRICK’S DAY: MORE BLESSING, LESS BEER To bless someone, in the most literal sense of the word, is to confer your hopes to them. That’s why so many traditional blessings begin with the word “may.” Take, for instance, what is perhaps the best-known Irish blessing (or toast, as the case may be this time of the year): May the road rise up to meet you.May the wind be always at your back.May the sun shine warm upon... Read more

GODSTUFF“AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR”: THE MOST SPIRITUALLY IMPORTANT FILM YOU’LL SEE THIS YEAR Some conversions take a lifetime. For the Rev. Carroll “Bud” Pickett, it took 95. Pickett, a Presbyterian minister, was the death house chaplain at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, where, from 1982 to 1995, he accompanied 95 inmates to their executions. “Even to this day, I don’t understand how I got where I am,” Pickett says in the first moments “At the Death House Door,”... Read more

A little something for Mom We’re just back from a fun-filled few days at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin. More on that tomorrow… But seeing as how we’re a week out from one of the holiest days of the year, we thought we’d say hi to Mrs. God Girl — HI MOM! — and post something seasonal that we’re sure will make her laugh. XOGG and GGHQ Read more

GODSTUFF LET YOUR LIFE SING: CARRIE NEWCOMER If I have a regular Lenten discipline, it is the kind of meditation that happens when I’m listening to music. For the last few Lents, there has been one album in particular that has accompanied me through the 40 days before Easter. Last year, it was Elvis Perkins’ appropriately named “Ash Wednesday” album. This year, it’s “The Geography of Light,” by Indiana singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, who, despite her surname, is hardly new on... Read more

GODSTUFF ENLIGHTENMENT 101 WITH PROFESSOR WINFREY Oprah Winfrey has been spiritually educating her viewers for years. On Monday, she began offering formal instruction to more than 700,000 students across the globe. Before the first session of “A New Earth” — a free, 10-week online class taught by Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle, the German-born spiritual teacher and author of the current Oprah’s Book Club pick A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purposes — according to Oprah.com, hundreds of thousands had... Read more

For the hecky naw of it:The Soggy Bottom Boys Read more