Subject: A Bit Long But - well worth reading

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.
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My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.

He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull----!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'

'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that.

But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.' It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests Father Fast ' and 'Father Slow.'

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored. '

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'

'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

'No left turns,' he said.

'What?' I asked.

'No left turns,' he repeated. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'

'What?' I said again.

'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights.'

'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support 'No,' she said, 'your father is right. We make
three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

'Loses count?' I asked.

'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'

I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.

'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)


He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'

'You're probably right,' I said.

'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.

'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:

'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about those who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'

(And make no left turns.)
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Ads designed to draw younger churchgoers

Protestant churches are trying to bounce back from membership losses with creative campaigns.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Shrinking mainline Protestant denominations are turning to marketing to help stem decades of membership losses and stay afloat.

The United Methodist Church recently unveiled a $20 million rebranding effort aimed at attracting younger members to the large but diminishing Protestant group. The new ads will appear over the next four years as part of the denomination's "Rethink Church" campaign.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has invested nearly $1.2 million over the past two years launching a similar branding effort based on the theme, "God's Work, Our Hands."

The denominations are trying to bounce back from losses that began in the mid-1960s.

From 1990 to 2008 alone, mainline Protestants dropped from 18.7 percent to 12.9 percent of the population, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

The United Methodist Church now has just under 8 million members in the U.S., with about 3.5 million additional adherents overseas. The median age for a United Methodist is 57, according to the Rev. Larry Hollon, the denomination's chief communications executive.

The new ads highlight the opportunities for involvement within Methodist churches – from helping feed the poor to volunteering with youth basketball leagues in low-income neighborhoods, reflecting research that found young people are especially interested in service projects.

"We need to refocus on young people>>>

Faith-healing deaths: Previous stories

From The Oregonian of Sunday, Nov. 29, 1998 -- The battle over faith healing (1st of 3 parts): When prayer pre-empts medical care, prosecutors nationwide struggle to respect parents' freedoms while protecting children's lives
By Mark Larabee

Over the past four decades the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City amassed one of the largest concentrations of faith-healing child deaths in the United States while district attorneys and the Legislature looked the other way.

But the Clackamas County district attorney's controversial decision this year not to prosecute the parents of an 11-year-old boy who died of untreated diabetes that pulled Oregon into a long-simmering national debate: At what point does a parent's right to exercise free religion conflict with the state's duty to protect every child's basic right to life?

Oregon is among 43 states that grant faith-healing parents sweeping immunities from prosecution on child neglect and abuse charges. It is one of only six states that grant immunity on religious grounds for manslaughter, homicide or murder by abuse.

Child advocates think Oregon's religious shield laws are some of the nation's worst. But the state's top prosecutors disagree on whether a change in the law is necessary. Two months before the 1999 Legislature convenes, no lawmaker has stepped forward to lead a review of the state's laws.

The Oregonian examined some of the most prominent battles in the United States to end child deaths among faith healers.

The groups fighting for more restrictive laws vary from state to state: Sometimes lawmakers spearhead the effort, sometimes child-advocate groups and sometimes prosecuting attorneys. In every state, however, the Christian Science Church has led lobbying efforts for religious exemptions. As a result, prosecuting faith-healing parents who refuse medical care for their ill
children has more to do with the will of prosecutors and child advocates than it does the specifics of any state's laws.

* Michigan has successfully prosecuted faith-healing parents for years. Although some of the state's laws are similar to Oregon's, there is one major difference -- Michigan has no religious shield for homicide.

* Just across the state line in Indiana, where one of the nation's largest faith-healing churches was founded more than 30 years ago, district attorneys ignored dozens of child deaths for years before eventually bringing charges against two parents. But a strong lobbying effort by the Christian Science Church helped defeat efforts to eliminate Indiana laws that protect faith-healing practices.

* In Massachusetts, home of the Christian Science Church, legislators won what many thought to be a politically impossible battle to limit religious immunities after hearing gruesome tales of painful child deaths.

* In South Dakota, one woman led a grass-roots fight that resulted in the nation's first law eliminating religious immunity for faith-healing parents.

* In Pennsylvania, despite laws that offer some immunities to faith-healing believers, prosecutors have won case after case against parents whose children died after being denied medical care. Prosecutors there frequently intervene in an attempt to save lives, as they did in the disturbing case of Patrick Foster.

In the Lord's hands

Just before Christmas 1996, 1-year-old Patrick Foster caught a bad cold. As the sniffling persisted week after week, Daniel and Anne Marie Foster did what they had always done when one of their three children got sick, they prayed the devil would be driven away.

But Patrick was not healed. As winter turned to spring, he became more lethargic and gaunt. It was March when Daniel and Anne Marie noticed the growth bulging from their son's left side.

As the growth swelled, the Fosters increased their prayers. Four times each week they attended services at Faith Tabernacle Congregation Church in north Philadelphia, asking their pastor to pray aloud for Patrick.

Regardless of how sick Patrick got,>>>

Bishop ordains seven deacons

By Tanya Connor

An inspiration to return to the Catholic Church.

An opportunity to see Dad at his happiest – or have him home more often.

These were among blessings that Saturday’s ordination of permanent deacons bestowed on their family members, who came from as far away as Ghana and Los Angeles for the celebration.

At Mass at St. Paul Cathedral Bishop McManus ordained the seven husbands and fathers: John N. Barton, Michael T. Chase, William M. Griffin, Colin M. J. Novick, Paul F. Pizzarella, Court J. Shields and Anthony J. Xatse. The bishop offered special thanks to their wives and families.

“Without the love and support you have given these men, they would never have made it to the altar,” he said.

Permanent deacons are clergy who are ordained to the ministry of service, not the ministerial priesthood, the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults says. They may baptize, proclaim the Gospel, preach, preside at funerals, assist at and bless marriages and assist the bishop or priest in the celebration of the Eucharist.

“It was amazing; it was breathtaking; it was so emotional,” William M. Griffin Jr., 25, said of his father’s ordination. He mentioned the beautiful procession and people coming together and the deacons’ hard work, which he likened to his law school studies.

He also praised the support of about 200 people who attended his father’s Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Edward the Confessor Parish in Westminster Sunday, and beautiful notes even from those who don’t know him well.

“I really felt a sense of community over the weekend which I haven’t felt in a long time,” he said.

“It’s kind of a relief,” Tracy Novick said>>>

In Loving Memory Of...

I cry my tears for thee and me and for what might have been.

Faith sways both sides on gay marriage

I steer clear of "political" issues when writing a newspaper column about religious or spiritual issues. There's a reason for the old saw about never discussing politics and religion in polite conversation. Both can be hot topics, and the two so often grow together with their fates intertwined.

Two principles regarding religion were worked into the foundation of our American heritage: The state may not favor or make official any religion (that's the non-establishment clause), and the state may not impede the practice of any religion (that's the freedom clause).

How to maintain the balance is a constant exercise in judgment – why we need state and federal supreme courts.

We need wise and supposedly impartial heads to decide these issues so vital to our freedom – both the freedom from having someone else's religious beliefs imposed upon us, and the freedom to practice our own.

Nowhere is this balancing act clearer right now in Maine than in the same-sex marriage debate.

This issue can be seen as purely political, a matter of civil rights. For those who see it as a civil rights issue, it usually comes down to favoring same-sex marriage as a matter of equality. I could support same-sex marriage on that basis alone. But this is a column that has to do with religion.

Most opposition to same-sex marriage claims a religious basis. At the same time, many religious liberals support same-sex marriage – also on religious grounds. Let's face it, same-sex marriage, whether supported or opposed, has a religious aspect.

The religious views against same-sex marriage seem to focus on a few statements in the Jewish and Christian scriptures and the belief that God does not condone homosexuality. The religious views in favor of same-sex marriage are not often voiced. But they exist.

One of my tradition's fundamental principles is that every human being has inherent worth and dignity. When I was growing up in the '50s and '60s, homosexuality was something a lot of us giggled and made jokes about because – although we wouldn't admit it – it scared us. A lot of heterosexual youth didn't want to be gay, and we didn't know how to respond to people who were. It wasn't openly discussed without uneasiness.

As a young adult, it began to dawn on me that every person surely must have the right to love and be loved, and that whatever gender a person is drawn to surely couldn't have anything to do with the validity of that love.

Now a bit past middle age, I've performed marriage services for a number of same-sex couples. Most of these were "services of holy union," before same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, where I served congregations.

I couldn't sign a license for these couples,>>>

Pope ends pilgrimage with appeal for peace

He achieves some of his goals during a trip to the Holy Land dominated by Israeli-Palestinian issues.

By STEVEN GUTKIN and ARIEL DAVID, The Associated Press May 16, 2009

enlarge The Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI kisses the Anointing Stone before praying inside the structure that marks the site of Jesus’ tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Friday. Tradition says the body of Jesus was washed on the stone after his crucifixion.

JERUSALEM — Pope Benedict XVI ended his pilgrimage to the Holy Land on Friday with a stirring call for peace at the site of Jesus' crucifixion and an emotional appeal to Israel and the Palestinians: "No more bloodshed. No more fighting. No more terrorism. No more war."

After a weeklong struggle to get his message across through a din of Israeli criticism and Palestinian protest against Israel, Benedict delivered his strongest words yet on the Jewish state's right to exist and the Palestinians' right to a country of their own.

"Let it be universally recognized that the state of Israel has the right to exist, and to enjoy peace and security within internationally agreed borders," Benedict said on the airport tarmac before boarding a plane to Rome.

"Let it be likewise acknowledged that the Palestinian people have a right to a sovereign independent homeland," he said.

Dogged at every turn by controversy and politics, Benedict's message on the last day of his trip – delivered in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection – was that peace is possible.

"The Gospel reassures us that God can make all things new, that history need not be repeated, that memories can be healed, that the bitter fruits of recrimination and hostility can be overcome," the pope said after kneeling in prayer beside the tomb of Jesus.

Among other goals, Benedict's trip was meant to further the Roman Catholic Church's outreach to Jews and Muslims and to support the beleaguered Christian communities of the Holy Land. The pope appeared to make headway on those fronts, though his visit lacked the historic resonance of his predecessor Pope John Paul II's pilgrimage nine years earlier.

Benedict pleased Palestinians with his repeated calls>>>

Torture debate stirs evangelical soul-searching

The release of Bush-era memos justifying harsh tactics has leaders taking stock of adherents' views.

By ERIC GORSKI, The Associated Press May 16, 2009

enlarge 2005 Associated Press file photo

This photo shows ankle shackles locked to a chair and the floor in an interrogation room at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. A poll shows white evangelicals are more likely to find torture justifiable.

Among evangelical leaders, debate over the use of harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists has prompted introspection about faith, ethics, the Golden Rule, just wars and Jesus.

A number of evangelical leaders have made opposition to torture without exceptions a moral cause over the past three years, part of a broadening of the movement's agenda beyond culture war issues. Others in the movement, including many Christian right leaders, have largely resisted or stayed silent.

Now, President Obama's release of Bush administration memos justifying harsh interrogation techniques and a new poll showing white evangelicals more sympathetic to torture have leaders taking stock of whether evangelical opinion has shifted on the topic.

"I have said before that torture is like a bone caught in our throat – we can't swallow it, and we can't spit it out," said David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

The poll data from a survey of 742 U.S. adults>>>