Archival photo of traditional Crow sweat lodge.

September. The first hints of fall color touched the trees. Pale golden cornstalks stood ready for harvest in the rolling fields as I drove through Southern Illinois towards the gathering place. About a dozen of us would gather in the sweat lodge our Medicine Woman had built for us.

Her son had spent the day heating large stones-The Grandfathers-in a fire. Tending the stones for the lodge is a holy thing. We thanked him for his work.

Some of us were there to start a moon-long cycle of inner and outer healing. One man was seeking Divine help with a cancer his doctors told him was hopeless. Another was a young man seeking blessings for his tour of duty in Iraq.

We left our offerings of food for the communal meal on the table. Out of deference for the water pourer’s tradition, we…

The Supreme Court case about the cross in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve is itself a monument–a monument to changing times.

The cross placed in the Mojave National Monument in 1934. Photo by the Associated Press.

The simple white cross was erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Death Valley Post 2884. A plaque accompanying the cross dedicates it to the memory of the dead of all wars. It is similar in design to the crosses we’ve all seen in photographs of the cemetery fields in France.

Fellow blogger Leigh Hunt Greenhaw has said she’ll approach the legal issues inherent in whether the cross’s placement violates the First Amendment’s requirements for the separation of church and state. (the “establishment clause”). There are other issues as well, which are covered in the story published in the Post-Dispatch last week. My own opinions are based not on the fine points…

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on regulatory reform, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Hey Mom.  Sometimes there’s a reason for falling asleep with the television on.  This morning I was awakened by the voice of Congressman-turned-Talk Show host, Joe Scarborough, sharing the news that White House Press Secretary Joe Gibbs awakened President Obama this morning to inform him that he had won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace.  That’s worth a little extra electricity.

What followed was a little more challenging.  ”Morning Joe” then began to discuss with Mika Brzezinski, Lawrence O’Donnell and Savannah Guthrie his views that the President hadn’t earned the award.  The dialogue mentioned the possibility of the prize being given to put political pressure on the POTUS as he makes decisions about troop levels in Afghanistan.  And early Associated Press reporting suggests the award being given to Obama as a “slap at President George W. Bush…

www.thepeoplesvoice.org

War is always a source of misery for many that stand in its path but sometimes one cannot avoid a war.  After 9/11 it was clear we must address the source of this attack on US soil.  And the source of the attack on 9/11 and was in Afghanistan.  When the US launched its forces to attack positions of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11/2001, there was almost unanimous support worldwide. The Taliban had provided a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. And they were a danger not just to us.  Unfortunately from the beginning the war in Afghanistan was not done properly.  We never committed even 1/5th the number of troops to Afghanistan compared to those sent to Iraq. If we had put in place the resources that later were committed for Iraq we would have gotten rid of Al Qaeda and Osama…

www.pastemagazine.com

Everyday we are faced with decisions that require us to make ethical choices. And there are times when we as a community or as a nation make decisions that involve ethical choices. Going to war is certainly a very big moral/ethical choice and our faith is dictating our choice.  Now, we can make mistakes but to not learn from our mistakes only means we are likely to repeat the mistake.

War is very destructive and there is loss of life and memory of it haunts the soldiers who fight in it. This is especially true where the war is not between two armies but in a urban setting with potential of harm and casualties to civilians, something that is true of all modern wars. We asked hundreds of thousands of our men and women to go fight this war Iraq. Most of them are simple honest ordinary citizens who found themselves…

AP file photo A Christian boy looks on as he sits at the back of his family car after leaving Mosul, Iraq

Until our invasion of Iraq, the 1.4 million large Christian population in Iraq (7% of the population) was one of the oldest, large, healthy minority population anywhere in the world. It was/is one of the oldest Christian populations anywhere in the world. They enjoyed a above average economic life. Today they are seriously facing possible extinction, primarily through exodus. 

Many westerners believe that Muslims and Islam are an intolerant society. And some are quick to point to this sad situation of Iraqi Christians today as proof of their assertion. How little do we contemplate things right in front of our noses! If indeed Muslims are extremely intolerant, how is it that these Iraqi Christians lived for over 1000 years among them? One may also consider that we cannot point to a…

Abraham Lincoln media.photobucket.com

There is a saying attributed to Prophet Muhammad (I am paraphrasing a bit). Prophet Muhammad once said “Support your brother when he is right and support your brother when he is wrong”. His companions were puzzled (knowing that the Prophet always supported truth only) and one asked “what do you mean support your brother when he is wrong”.  Prophet Muhammad replied “Support your brother when he is wrong by correcting him”. Lets face it, hardly anybody likes being corrected. But to correct someone in a nice and gentle manner, where the person sees it as an act of a well-wisher, is a true act of friendship. To correct one’s nation (or work to correct it when needed) is also a true act of patriotism. Why should we support our nation right or wrong? Why not make sure our nation is always right? Which is a better act of patriotism,…

Utror Valley near Kalam http://laf.ee/wp

As a young child I remember going to Swat on summer vacation twice. It was an enchanting place with beautiful landscapes so unfamiliar to one who lived in the plains.

Swat Valley http://3.bp.blogspot.com

Saidu Sharif, Kalam, the names of the town’s were like from fairy tales. I still have those wonderful images of my childhood whenever I hear the name Swat.

Kalam www.swatvalley.com

Swat used to be different from the other regions in the north frontier of Pakistan. They used to not have the rigid view of life and religion.

Bahrain Swat racismandnationalconsciousnessnews

My wife tells me of her visit to Swat long ago (before we had met), with her family, and how they met the family of the Wali-e-Swat (the then ruler of Swat) and the love she saw among the people. She especially remembers at mealtime how all the women of the Wali’s household, servants and ladies, sat together to…

“Organized religion has been at the basis of too many wars. I see very little good in it. I’m raising my children without any talk of God, as I don’t think it’s fair to push God down their throats when they’re too young to think logically.”

I came across this comment in what is otherwise a very intriguing reflection on the Passover and religious identity by Judith Warner in her New York Times blog, “Domestic Disturbances.”

One can find comments like it all over the place: the lazy dismissals of religion as the root and cause of every single thing that has ever gone wrong in the world. And I’ll confess that they drive me up a wall because (1) they often come from people who are simply buying into other people’s thoughts without thinking for themselves, and (2) they’re often wrong.

If someone is looking for something to blame for all the worst things…

Anne Frank

If you would like to get beyond the  NPR headline “Anger & Dismay as Pope Reinstates Holocaust Denier” you may be interested in George Weigel’s recent articles, one published in Newsweek and another in our Catholic archdiocesan newspaper, the St. Louis Review.

Over at GetReligion, blogger E. E. Evans critiques various media coverage of this story, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and Catholic  News Service:

It’s always interesting when writers take a controversial story and approach it from very different angles.

Such was the case today in the continuing and complicated drama of the Pope’s move to lift the excommunications of the four traditionalist Society of St. Pius X bishops.

Warning for mature audiences-the two mainstream press stories contain the “r” word (rehabilitate), one deemed inaccurate by some folks in the comments pages. The Catholic News Service story does not.

Let’s start with the lede of today’s article from the Los Angeles Times:

The Vatican stood firm…

elusive-bird-of-peace http://farm1.static.flickr.com

It is difficult to have a reasonable discussion on the Palestine-Israel issue. Passions run very high.  I guess as a Muslim I am supposed to offer support for Palestinian suffering and condemnation of Israeli brutality. Whenever events flare up in Palestine (like they have right now), there is a knee jerk response here in USA by Jews and by Muslims in passionate support of their respective co-religionists (and opposing the other). This is not very healthy. Suffering of all civilians is important and this spiraling violence has been going on far too long with no end in sight. We need to step back and take a hard look. Here are a few thoughts.

After over 40 years of violence and turmoil very little seems to have changed. It seems each side only goads the other to ever more depraved acts of violence. Over the years, both sides have committed so…

An Afghan woman and her daughter wail after their relative was killed in an air strike in Azizabad village in the Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug 23. 2008. The U.S.-led coalition said Saturday that it would investigate allegations of civilian deaths during a battle in western Afghanistan. Afghanista

Wars are always undesirable but unfortunately sometimes unavoidable. But what is very saddening is the wanton disregard for innocent civilian casualties. This disregard is not necessarily new and was there to some extent during the Vietnam War and wars before that. But today it has become a total non-news.

When the Iraq war started, early estimates of insurgents in Iraq was 5000 - 10000. However, as the war continued even as thousands of insurgents were killed ( and tens of thousands of innocent civilians as well) the estimates of insurgents kept climbing to 25000 to 40000. At the beginning of the…

Fox News is devoting two hours tonight, 7:00PM,  Central Standard Time, Saturday, August 30, 2008 to an encore of the Saddleback Church Civic Forum which first aired earlier this month.

Why watch?

(1) Rick Warren’s questions are inspired and far-reaching;

(2) The answers from both candidates are quick and telling;

(3) There is no Nurse Ratched looking at a stop watch;

(4) “Above my pay grade” is a phrase that will go down in history.

(1)  CWNews: The new English Translation of the Order of Mass for the United States was approved by the Vatican July 28:

The United States Bishops Conference announced that it received the go ahead from the Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to the first section of the translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal.

It includes most of the texts used in every celebration of the Mass, and involves new translations of the penitential rite, Gloria, creed, Eucharistic prayers, Eucharistic acclamations and Our Father.

Amanda Shaw, blogging at FIRST THINGS, is enthusiastic about the changes, to put it mildly:

Some of the oddities and abominations of the English translation of the liturgy are about to go extinct, reported the Congregation for Divine Worship last week……

Go here to see  some of the changes.

(2) The Knights of Peter Claver, a black Catholic fraternal organization, held its 93rd convention in Florida,…

Earlier in June, two dozen Roman Catholic and Muslim scholars met in Rome to discuss the theme “Christians and Muslims as witnesses of the God of Justice, of Peace and of Compassion in a World suffering from Violence.” Pope Benedict XVI personally visited the meeting to highlight its significance. While such interreligious dialogues seem groundbreaking these days, this meeting was actually the 14th annual meeting between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the The Islamic-Catholic liaison Committee.

Rev. Dr. Frederic Ntedika Mvumbi, OP, one of my Dominican brothers from the Congo who teaches Islam in a Catholic seminary in Nairobi, Kenya, was fortunate enough to be one of the participants, and sent a personal report. In it he said that “a common understanding of these issues was found, though with difficulty, and an appeal was made to commit ourselves to it:”

1. The inherent dignity of each human being, from which stem…