How could the death of a canine possibly hurt as much as that of a family member? As the sadness lingers, part of my grieving process has been to try to understand the differences.

Researchers have long known that the animal-human bond is strong: A 1988 study in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling asked a group of dog owners to place symbols for their family members and pets in a circle representing each dog owner’s life. (The distance between the subject and the other symbols corresponds to the relative, real-life closeness of those relationships.) The subjects tended to put the dog closer than the average family member, and about as close as the closest family member; in 38 percent of the cases, the dog was closest of all.

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A Christian doctor who claims he was sacked for emailing a prayer to colleagues in a bid to raise their spirits is suing a hospital for unfair dismissal.

Dr David Drew, 64, told an employment tribunal that he was made to feel like a “religious maniac” after sending out the prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to motivate his department.

He said he was subsequently disciplined and ordered to refrain from using religious references in professional communication. When he sought clarification from executives, he was told to accept the recommendation without questioning or to resign, he claimed.

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Nineteen years after Anne Lamott gave birth to the child she wanted desperately enough to become a single mother, her son, Sam, called with the news that he and his 20-year-old on-again-off-again girlfriend were expecting. “They’re both a little young, but who asked me?” Lamott writes, setting the self-deprecating tone for Some Assembly Required.

A sequel to Operating Instructions, Lamott’s best-selling 1993 chronicle of the struggles and epiphanies of her first year of motherhood, Some Assembly Required addresses the exhaustion, exhilaration and stresses of her grandson Jax Jesse Lamott’s first 12 months ”” from amusement at his “copious Newfoundland drool” to profound worries over his parents’ rocky relationship. Her interest is in how this birth affects her ”” and Sam ”” to their very core. To get at this, she intersperses her journal entries with comments she elicits from her son in interviews and email exchanges.

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Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned that arming either side in Syria will lead to a “proxy war”.

He was speaking at the opening of an Arab League summit which is discussing a joint plan with the UN to end a year of violence in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to the plan and will spare no effort to make it succeed, Syrian state news agency Sana reported.

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For decades, Tenzin Gyatso, 76, the 14th Dalai Lama – a lineage believed by followers to be the reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist leader who epitomized compassion ”“ has vigorously focused on the connections between the investigative traditions of science and Buddhism as a way to better understand and advance what both disciplines might offer the world.

Specifically, he encourages serious scientific investigative reviews of the power of compassion and its broad potential to address the world’s fundamental problems – a theme at the core of his teachings and a cornerstone of his immense popularity.

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An urbanization drive perhaps unparalleled in human history has turned China into a continent-sized construction site. Some of the new buildings have won international acclaim, such as Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium built for the 2008 Olympics. But far too many are eyesores, complain architects and online critics.

When the architecture website www.archcy.com asked readers to vote for China’s top 10 ugliest buildings, Li Hu, a Beijing-based partner at U.S. Steven Holl Architects, said, “Choosing 10 is very hard, choosing a million is perfectly possible.

“Development is too quick. Architects don’t have time to reflect,” says Li, who blames the ugly edifices in part on interference by government officials, a lack of imagination by architects and corruption.

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With the highest unemployment rate in the European Union at 23 per cent and 50 per cent of young people out of work, Spain this week veered back to recession for the second time in two years.

The strike comes amid mounting international concern that Spain might become the next casualty of the eurozone debt crisis after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which were all forced to accept financial rescue packages.

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In my remarks today I’ll be suggesting four particular areas in which, I believe, community is most evident; four particular kinds of priority for those who want to turn society into community. And all of them depend on one foundational assumption; that community occurs when people take responsibility for one another.

When we’re occasionally told ‘We’re all in this together’ (with varying degree of plausibility), that appeals to the sense that a solidarity experience, a community experience, means that what happens to me and what happens to you are not separate issues. My fate and my wellbeing is bound up with yours, and if it is bound up with yours then I have some responsibility for understanding and managing and nurturing that reality.

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In 1962, the prestigious American Law Institute issued the Model Penal Code, resulting in the confused state of theft law we’re still dealing with today.

In a radical departure from prior law, the code defined “property” to refer to “anything of value.” Henceforth, it would no longer matter whether the property misappropriated was tangible or intangible, real or personal, a good or a service. All of these things were now to be treated uniformly.

Before long, the code would inform the criminal law that virtually every law student in the country was learning. And when these new lawyers went to work on Capitol Hill, at the Justice Department and elsewhere, they had that approach to theft in mind.

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Be careful about the personal information and opinions you broadcast online, we are wisely and repeatedly told. Anyone from a prospective employer to an insurance company might be interested in details that you’ll regret divulging someday.

But employers cross a bright, hard line when they demand, as some do, that job applicants divulge their passwords to Facebook and other social media sites, or have them log on so the interviewer can scrutinize their likes and dislikes, their relationships, their photos, their friends’ personal information.

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From the religious perspective there can be little doubt that the bargain our founders struck with history paid off. Religion has flourished in America as it has in few other places in the western world.

However, there can also be little doubt that the number of Americans for whom religion is an important element in their lives is decreasing; ours is an increasingly secular society.

Many of us are saddened by this slow drift. I, for one, believe that it does not portend well for our nation. We as a people need the insights and sensitivities that religion, at its best, can provide. However, I fear that the religious community has squandered a good portion of our credibility by becoming allied with one or another particular political position.

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I have been a priest for 40 years and I am now witnessing something I have not seen before. There is no longer in English society that easy juxtaposition of the old and the new. Rather, there is a strident emphasis on doctrinal purity met by an equally intransigent and aggressive secularism.

The ongoing “debate” between Christians and secularists resembles an attritional slanging match, with not much give and take on either side. It is to Rowan’s credit that he conducted his recent public conversation with Richard Dawkins with such courtesy and lack of rancour. But there is an aggressive secularism abroad, and there are powerful voices in public life who wish to see Christianity expelled from the res publica.
The question, therefore, is what can the poor fellow who accepts the throne of Canterbury do about this? Almost certainly, the answer is very little. I am afraid that we are at one of those, thankfully rare, crisis moments in our history. The benign combination of ancient and modern will no longer suffice. The next leader of the Church of England must come down from that most uncomfortable fence and declare whether the institution is to be ruled according to the diversified mods or the old and traditionalist rockers.

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Mark Saturday, March 31, 2012, as a “purple letter” day in all the colourful, and at times stormy, 224-year presence of the Anglican Church in Australia.

For this is the day when the Church’s NSW province finally sees a woman consecrated as a bishop, and thus wear the distinctive purple of episcopal office.

But, all too true to Anglican form in NSW, when a newly-consecrated Assistant Bishop Genieve Blackwell walks from Goulburn’s St. Saviour’s Cathedral accompanied by upwards of 20 other bishops ”“ all men ”“ her elevation will not be without controversy.

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Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Keble, we may accomplish with integrity and courage that which thou givest us to do, and endure that which thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

We offer to thee, O Lord our God, the work which thou hast appointed for us. Help us to do it heartily and faithfully, as in thy sight and for thy glory, that so we may be drawn nearer to thee and confirmed in thy service, which alone is true freedom; in the name of our Master and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

–William Bright

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

If the mandate falls, the rest of the law stands.

The mandate takes down the Affordable Care Act’s insurance reforms.

If the individual mandate falls, so does the entire Affordable Care Act

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Beneath looming images of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Virgin Mary, Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday stood in Revolution Square here, the heart of the Castro government, and issued a ringing call for “authentic freedom” in what is consistently ranked as one of the most repressive nations on earth.

“The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom,” Benedict said in his homily at an outdoor Mass here, a line greeted by smiles from some in the crowd. “Many, however, prefer shortcuts, trying to avoid this task.”

The Mass was the culmination of a three-day visit to Cuba meant to shore up support for the Roman Catholic Church here. With President Raúl Castro sitting in the front row ”” and a day after a top Cuban official said that Cuba would not pursue political change any time soon ”” Benedict also decried “those who wrongly interpret this search for the truth, leading them to irrationality and fanaticism; they close themselves up in ”˜their truth,’ and try to impose it on others.”

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On same-sex marriage and other gay rights issues, Jefferts Schori said she has been “stunned at how quickly public opinion has changed in the U.S.” though she cautioned that she doesn’t expect controversy over gay clergy in the Episcopal Church to fade. As more states legalize same-sex marriage, she said, conflicts in the church could become more frequent.

“We muddle through [controversial issues] in a very public way,” she said of the church that has just under two million members in the United States.

“I would guess that at [General] Convention, we would adopt a trial rite for blessing same-sex unions,” she said, referring to the annual meeting of the church’s governing body, which meets every three years. It will next meet in July in Indianapolis. Jefferts Schori said that no priest is required to bless any marriage, but that formal same-sex blessings could become optional.

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Shortly after she enrolled her 3-year-old son in a prestigious, $21,000-a-year Upper East Side preschool, Rachael Combe, an editor at Elle, received an invitation from the head of the school to come by for a visit. She assumed the meeting was to discuss how her son was adapting to the school’s curriculum.

Instead, the head of school explained that he was laying the groundwork for a new capital campaign, and that he had already received commitments from various families ”” some up to $1 million. Would Ms. Combe and her husband consider a gift of “even $25,000 to $50,000?”

Relentless fund-raising, be it for the annual fund, the spring benefit or the latest capital campaign, is as much a feature of private schools as small classes and diverse offerings. But with schools hitting the upper limits of what they can charge for tuition, consultants, parents and school heads say the race for donations has become notably more intense and aggressive.

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In 2010, AMiA’s leadership chose to distance themselves from the newly started ACNA. Where AMiA was once an organization with “dual citizenship” within the ACNA as well as Rwanda, it pulled out of the ACNA, changing its status to “mission partner.” Some inside the AMiA were disappointed by this distancing and wanted the opportunity to officially reconnect with the ACNA; now the establishment of PEARUSA by the Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesphore Rwaje, has rekindled hopes for those who want to be structurally within the ACNA.

The Rev. Clark Lowenfield, Rector of Hope Pointe Anglican Church near Houston, Texas is among those formerly in AMiA who are now in PEARUSA and would like to join the ACNA. Lowenfield says there are a number of parishes in his region alone that desire as much, however “there is a very high value on doing things decently and in order” within the group. That’s good news for a mission organization that has been through such turmoil in recent months and is made up of churches that may be headed in different directions.

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In interviews at three churches in the capital, parishioners complained ”” openly, and a lot ”” about the economy and voiced a desire to see change come to the island. But regarding the treatment of Catholics, they were content.

“We’re in a state of respect now. We are a normal part of life. It no longer matters if you are Catholic,” said Susana Sanchez, 46, who recalled that “in the first years of the revolution, my generation, the young moved away from the church, but they have been coming back. It’s a space to grow spiritually, to fill a need.”

Santiago Martinez, one of three priests serving the San Juan Bosco church nearby, said that even members of the all-powerful Communist Party attend Mass, and so do government bureaucrats, who in a previous generation would have been branded counterrevolutionaries for bowing their heads at the altar.

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The Covenant had been billed as a way to heal the growing splits within Anglican churches over a range of issues that centered on same-sex unions and homosexual bishops.

One of its biggest supporters was Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who backed the covenant’s call to member churches not to take steps or adopt policies that could antagonize Anglicans in other countries.

Failure to abide by the Covenant would result in a kind of second-tier membership for independent-minded member churches.

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From here:

As bishops in the Australian Church we accept the weight of 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 and the 2004 General Synod resolutions 33, 59 and 61-64 as expressing the mind of this church on issues of human sexuality.

We undertake to uphold the position of our Church in regard to human sexuality as we ordain, license, authorise or appoint to ministries within our dioceses.

We understand that issues of sexuality are subject to ongoing conversation within our Church and we undertake to support these conversations, while seeking to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Episcopal Bishop Terry White of Louisville and his colleague Bishop Chilton Knudsen of Lexington have set a wager on Saturday’s Cardinals – Wildcats game. The amount of the wager is shrouded in sacred mystery. If the Cats win Bishop White makes a donation to the Cathedral Domain Camp and Conference Center for the Diocese of Lexington. If the Cardinals win, Bishop Knudsen makes a donation to All Saints Camp and Conference Center for the Diocese of Kentucky.

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Debt can limit a person’s generosity — and a church’s.

Travis Smalley arrived at the Cincinnati-area Lakota Hills Baptist Church six years ago with a vision to plant churches locally, nationally and internationally. But just in Ohio, with just one Southern Baptist church for every 17,868 people, Smalley knew Lakota Hills couldn’t reach everyone.

Yet Smalley’s passion to start churches ran up against a major roadblock — lack of funds.

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Harry Boer, a chaplain during World War II, spent the final days of that war among marines in the Pacific Theater. “The Second Division saw much action, with great losses,” he writes. “Yet I never met an enlisted man or an officer who doubted for a moment the outcome of the war. Nor did I ever meet a marine who asked why, if victory was so sure, we couldn’t have it immediately. It was just a question of slogging through till the enemy gave up.”

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