TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________ Barack as Jesus? I think he’s pretty nifty, too, but this is a bit much. CHICAGO — He wears Jesus’s robes and a neon blue halo, looks like Senator Obama, and is causing a stir at a Chicago art school. An undergraduate student’s papier-mâché sculpture of Obama as a messianic figure — entitled “Blessing” — went on display Saturday at a downtown gallery run by the School of the Art... Read more

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE EVAH. AND A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT. GO FIGURE.This is the river running behind my writer’s hermitage (of a kind) in Big Sky, Montana. It is perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, no exaggeration meant or intended. Glorious is a word that comes to mind staring out the back door to the Gallatin River and its still snowy banks. I came here to write. If I can’t write here, I don’t think I can... Read more

HOLY WEEK: WHAT TO DO TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY? Came across this meditation on the passion. Something to ponder while you’re having your pedicures in preparation for Maundy Thursday. Read more

TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________ Uh … the Easter kiwi?WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND – A New Zealand environmental body is targeting the Easter bunny in a renewed war against one of the country’s worst natural pests. Environment Canterbury on the country’s South Island wants people to come up with an alternative Easter symbol as part of a campaign to highlight the damage caused by the non-native pest. “They’re like an environmental curse,” Mark Oldfield of Environment... Read more

HAPPY PESACH FROM MONTANA! We went to bed last night here in Bozeman and it was spring. Woke up and it was Christmas, er, Passover morning, snowing sideways and 20 degrees. I love Montana. May your Pesach be peaceful, grace-filled and blessed — snow or no. Your reporter in the field,God Girl UPDATE: It’s 10:18 a.m. and still snowing like a mofo. Check out the Bozeman Daily Chronicle’s Weather Web Cam to see for yourself HERE Read more

TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________A PALM SUNDAY ROUND-UP ECO-PALM SUNDAY:Bay Area congregations choose environmentally friendly frondsEach year on Palm Sunday, Christians jubilantly re-enact Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, waving a combined 300 million palm fronds in the United States. That makes for a green market in more ways than one. But environmentalists say the traditional method of harvesting palms wastes more than it nets, and damages valuable rain forest. And while sales may shoot through the... Read more

JEDI. KNIGHT. SAME DIFFERENCE. Realizing, of course, that this kind of news doesn’t technically fall within the “religion/and/or/spirituality” category, it was just too darn cute for this blogger (with a soft spot for this particular family) to resist. On Thursday at the British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland’s official residence in Dublin, yer man Bono became an honorary knight of the British Empire. (The intrepid AP scribe Shawn Pogatchnik’s report to follow below.) The cutest moment, reported by Shawn... Read more

GODSTUFF: ‘GOD, INC.’ PUTS ‘OFFICE’ HUMOR IN HEAVENLY SETTING Some of the funniest moments in “God, Inc.” are produced by the “Publicity” department, a k a world religions. For three years running, the Muslim publicist has had the best numbers (because, he says, “My marketing strategy is the one, true marketing strategy”), winning converts hand over fist, and annoying the pious (and obnoxious) Esther, who’s in charge of “Really Christians.” (Not to be confused with Andy, a slackery dude who... Read more

‘AND LO RICKY GERVAIS WAS NOT ONLY A HANDSOME MAN, BUT A FUNNY FAT MAN’ Read more

TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yeah, we know we’re a little behind in the posting this week. Sorry. It’s just that now that we’re semi-retred-ish-esque, things tend to get away from us. And plus, our shuffleboard team is going to the league finals and training’s been pretty hard-core. Forgive us our bloggy deliquency. Here ya go … Mystery nun ID’d in Pope John Paul II sainthood casePARIS – Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is the French nun whose... Read more